One morning in the early summer of 1915, Irene and Thomas sat on their garden bench. She took his hand.
‘I have something to tell you.’
‘What?’ he said, alarmed. She smiled, it was typical of him to react so strongly.
‘Good news.’
‘Irene, you’re not. . .?’
‘Yes. December.’
He embraced her, then hummed loudly. ‘A first grandchild for my parents, and Paul and Freddy said they would catch me up because I was so slow. . .’ He broke off. ‘I can’t wait to tell Frau Mamma.’
‘I have told her.’
‘You have told her?’
‘I love her, I wanted to tell her myself. And we told Mathilde and Bettina – we had a celebration.’
‘You told Mathilde and Bettina?’
‘Well, with women, you know, it is something special. . . I only told her on Wednesday, when I was sure. I wanted to tell you here, in our own house.’
‘Oh Irene, dearest Irene, here you will be like the Virgin Mary in her hortus conclusus.’
‘I don’t think I qualify as a virgin, do I?’ She took a deep breath. ‘It will be a German baby, through and through, and it will have a German name, which we must choose carefully. Not Wilhelm.’
‘No, definitely not Wilhelm.’
‘Nor Wolfgang.’
‘No, not Wolfgang.’
‘Nor Horst.’
‘Would I ever choose such a hideous name?’
‘Of course, if it is a girl,’ she said, ‘which I would like just as much, we must also find a fine name, perhaps a socialist one, to suit your politics. I thought perhaps Mariana?’
‘What about Dorothea, after my mother?’
‘Yes, yes, I should like that. But one day, my baby will meet his, or her, English family. We shall be friends with my English family then, we will see them often, won’t we, Thomas?’
He squeezed her hand. ‘When we were married, I made a speech, you may remember.’ She remembered, but she wanted to hear his words again. ‘I said that I hoped we would create a house that would unite the best of English and German traditions. That is still my ideal. One day this war will be over, and we will rebuild our old lives and friendships. Our child will be a German child, but he will become a little more English every time he visits his English family, and with his mother he will speak English. In all this madness, we must not forget what really matters. Love, not of one’s country but of individuals. Moral courage, the ability to escape from meaningless rules and to think for oneself. Such things as these.’
‘I’m afraid those aims are forgotten now. War and hatred, they’re so intoxicating.’
‘But I have one hope emerging out of all this, Irene, that when the war ends, this farce of an empire will disappear. Instead we shall be citizens of a healthy new society, where the needs of the workers will be expressed in a truly modern social system. That’s what I hope.’
She stroked his cheek.
‘I agree with your hopes,’ she said, ‘and we must bring up our child to believe in them, mustn’t we?