Falke was right about the carp. They were rolled into the dining room on special serving tables. Silver lids were lifted to reveal enormous steaming fish that had been poached, I was assured, in beer. The tables were moved around the room, the butler dissected with the precision of a surgeon, an underbutler served hot Meissen plates with slices of carp, waitresses passed vegetables - but all that was later. First, the Bescherung.
A Christmas tree stood in the central hall. Marble stairs curved up behind it. The tree was lighted with a hundred candles, and their lights shimmered on the silver tinsel, on the colored glass balls and on an infinite variety of carved moons and stars and flying cherubim. The big gold angel at the top of the tree spread its arms only a few feet below the skylight. All around the bottom of the tree were piles of presents, beautifully wrapped and carefully labeled.
The hallway and the curving stairs were packed: Waldstein aunts and uncles and in-laws, children and grandchildren, friends and friends-of-friends, servants. As the heads of the house, Lili's father and her Uncle Fritz had moved to their places on the bottom step, near the entrance to the big salon, where a small ensemble had been placed around the grand piano. From our places in the middle of the hall we couldn't see the musicians, but it didn't matter, because we could see Baron Eduard turn to give them the signal. They began to play, and a hundred voices joined in:
0 Tannenbaum, 0 Tannenbaum,
Wie grün sind Deine Blätter....
"What happened to your nose?" was the first thing she said when we arrived. The hall was filling with people, and as our coats were taken I was separated from Christoph and pressed toward a corner with Lili.
"I slipped on the ice. Are we very late?"
"No, we just got back from church."
"From church?"
The black eyes flashed. "You think we should celebrate Christmas in a synagogue?"
"No, I mean - "
"It was my great-grandfather who was Jewish. Remember?"
"Yes, of course - "
"All the same to you, though, isn't it?"
"Lili, it doesn't matter -"
"Are you sure? Or do you think this much Christmas display is
in questionable taste?"
"Are you mad at me?"
She shook her head. "I just wonder what you think, sometimes."
"I think all this is ... splendid. My family makes very little out of Christmas -"
Lili interrupted, still compelled to explain. "My mother's family were Huguenots. From France. You have heard of the Huguenots?"
"Well, I guess I've heard something-"
"But not very much. They were French Protestants. They were persecuted there, by the Catholics, they were driven out of France by Louis XIV. A lot of them came here, the Electors of Brandenburg welcomed them. They did well for themselves, as artisans, in the civil service, in the law, in the army. My mother's father was a professor of law.... Well, in any event my mother and I attend the French Church you have seen in the Gendarmenmarkt, and my father - who frankly doesn't care what church he goes to - my father goes with us on Christmas and Easter." Lili looked down. "And on the anniversary of Max's death. He goes then too. Which is a little strange since Max and Alfred's mother came from a Jewish family. Are you sufficiently confused now?" She suddenly smiled.
"Alfred and Sigrid have been to Friends Meeting," I said, just to say something after all that.
"Alfred is always interested in new things, and Sigrid goes where Alfred goes. The good German wife. Her family have their own church, right in their castle."
The fall on the ice and the cold bath had neutralized the afternoon: the schnapps was gone, the smell of the goose was gone, the feeling that I should be down there instead of up here was gone. I looked at Lili. In Friends Meeting the bride and groom stand up and marry each other. They stand up and say something: "I take thee Elizabeth von Waldstein to be my wife before these our friends promising.. ." What? "To be unto thee a loving and faithful husband until ..." Something like that. Only of course it wouldn't be in Meeting, it would be here, presumably the French Church in the Gendarmenmarkt.... Until death shall separate us, that's what you have to say. Am I prepared to say that?
"Isn't that Miss Boatwright up there?"
"Yes, and she's brought a gentleman with her. An American banker" -The music began again, the voices rose:
O du fröhliche
O du seelige,
Gnadenbringende
Weihnachtszeit!
Four verses. Then Baron Eduard spoke: "This year I have asked Alfred to read the Christmas story."
Alfred stepped out of the crowd, turned to stand beside one of the candles of the tree, and began to read the chapter from St. Luke about how it came to pass that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed and how Jesus was born in Bethlehem, what the angels said to the shepherds, what the shepherds told the people, and how Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.
Alfred stopped there and closed the Bible. For a moment there was silence in the darkness, but you could see all the faces up the stairs reflected in the candlelight, and I was surprised how many of the faces I recognized now. Then the music began again, and everybody sang.
Stille Nacht
Heilige Nacht,
Alles schläft
Einsam wacht ...
They sang all of the verses. When the last note sounded, the electric lights were turned on and Baron Eduard began to reach for the presents, reading the labels through his pince-nez, calling out the names: the youngest servant girls first, the older servants, the children, the guests....
"Mr. Peter Ellis!"
Lili pushed me forward. Her father gave me a look over the tops of his glasses, and handed me a box. By its shape, I judged it to contain a bottle. I put it on a table.
Everybody came down the stairs and milled through the hall into the big salon.
Sigrid said: "Bobby and Alfred are having a small martini in the library. I have been sent to invite you and Miss Boatwright's friend to join them."
"Peter's been drinking all afternoon," said Lili. "He fell on his face, just look at him."
"How is General Keith?" asked Sigrid, ignoring Lili.
"They say he's about the same, but I think Christoph is worried. Frau Keith is out there at the hospital -"
"If the General dies, how long must Christoph remain in mourning? "
"Lili!"
"Well, it's a perfectly natural question."
I saw Miss Boatwright looking at me, so I moved in that direction.
Miss Boatwright's escort was called Whitney Wood, a benign portly red-faced gentleman, not much taller than I, with white hair that made him look older than he probably was. The first thing he told me was that my father had taken out his appendix twenty years ago, when Mr. Wood had visited Chestnut Hill to be an usher in a classmate's wedding. They took him straight from the reception to the operating room. My father made such an impression that they remained in touch over the years, and Mr. Wood became a trustee of my father's hospital even before he was made a partner in J. P. Morgan & Co.
It was not the first time I had heard a story like this, but I liked Mr. Wood (can a Morgan partner be benign?) and I liked the way he looked at Miss Boatwright, a radiant, glowing Miss Boatwright who was chattering like a debutante this evening: "Whitney, Peter is becoming an absolutely splendid painter, his work is being sold by Berlin galleries, I'll take you to see them. Peter, Whitney has come over to work with a government commission on German reparations, he's already been to lunch at the Gendarmenmarkt, he's extremely concerned about the situation here...."
"I had a good talk with the fellow who really runs the place. Dr....What's his name?"
"Dr. Strassburger." I looked around hoping nobody else heard that.
"Strassburger, right. He here? Don't see him here."
"Ah ... no, sir. I don't see him either, but this is more of a family party, I believe -" and then Helena appeared at my side, was introduced to a dazzled Mr. Wood, and told me that I was taking her in to dinner. Christoph was taking Lili. Miss Boatwright and Mr. Wood had been placed near the head of the table, with Lili's parents.
It isn't easy to study portraits by candlelight, but I tried to find some resemblance between the faces on the walls and the faces around the table. There wasn't much, but there was some: I knew that the gaunt unsmiling man in a black suit and a white stock of the 1790s was David Waldstein, and he had the same slightly skeptical look that Bobby had when Bobby wasn't smiling; I knew that the very young moustachioed hussar of 1813 was Jacob the poet, and something of the sadness in his eyes reminded me of Helena's father, who happened to be sitting directly in front of his ancestor.
Helena seemed unusually quiet.
"I've never eaten carp before," I told her.
"They have been cooked in beer," she told me. "Beer and all sorts of other things. It is a Christmas custom here." Her thoughts were elsewhere.
"Are you worried about the General?"
She sighed. "I am sorry about the General, but life cannot be much fun in that condition. I don't plan to become so old myself."
"Do you think all that about Kaspar -"
"Let us not talk about Kaspar, please! That subject is closed."
"Not for his mother, I think."
"No, you are right.... Not for his mother."
"Are you not feeling well, Helena?"
She turned to look at me. "I'm just a little nervous, Peter. Something like stage fright."
"But why?"
She inclined her head toward the top of the table, where the two Barons and their wives were sitting with Helena's father, Miss Boatwright and Whitney Wood. "I think you will find out right now." Baron Eduard was standing up.
"Well, here we are again, another Christmas, another Christmas toast- but this year, I am pleased - No, I am delighted to announce that we will first drink another toast, and to propose that toast I ask my cousin Paul to rise -"
Helena's father stood up, a glass in his hand. He stood there for a moment, bit his lips and looked around at the expectant faces. A man who expresses opinions, Christoph had said, and I had never seen this old man at a loss for words, but tonight he seemed to be having some trouble. Under the table, Helena suddenly gripped my hand. Hers was cold.
"My friends," began Paul Waldstein. "My cousins, our friends ... I had prepared some preliminary remarks. Our beloved nation stands in mortal danger. On the inside, our economic and financial system is approaching a state of chaos. On the outside, an enemy army stands poised to seize our most vital industrial territory. These thoughts oppress us, even at this Christmas feast, but life goes on, and for this reason I rise tonight to tell you that I am happy - yes, very happy, very proud and happy to announce to you the engagement of my beloved daughter - my only child" -"
"Hurrah!" shouted Lili on my other side and leaned across me to kiss Helena, who was still clutching my hand and trembling, and now everybody was standing up, glasses raised, as her father tried, with some difficulty, to finish the formal toast. Christoph and Helena remained in their seats, both trying to smile.
Bobby began the traditional song and the others joined in:
Hoch soll'n Sie leben
Kinder soll'n Sie kriegen
Drei-mal hoch!
We drank, the butlers refilled our glasses, and Christoph rose to make his response. It was short and somber. He did not need to tell this company how long he had loved this lady, but circumstances had been difficult: the War, the Revolution, the present crises - it is not easy to ask a princess to stop being one! And yet, as Herr Waldstein has reminded us, life goes on, and as we see no indications that the circumstances will get better very soon, Helena and I have decided no longer to postpone the inevitable, to share the bad times as well as the good. He raised his glass: to many Christmases, together! We drank.
Sotto voce, Helena said: "Took him eight years to get this far. Will he make it to the altar?" but there were tears in her eyes.
The coffee was served in the salon. Most people clustered around Helena and Christoph, asking about wedding plans, but I sat with Lili, off to one side.
"Have you opened your present?" she asked.
"Oh, my present!" I went out into the hall, came back with my box, and took the other package from my pocket. "This is from me to you. We got into so much religion that I forgot all about it."
We opened our presents. Mine turned out to be a bottle - a bottle containing an exact scale model of the Waldsteins' little racing sloop. I was almost speechless. "Oh, look at that, oh that's terrific. . ."
"You like it? One of the gardeners made it, it was his idea, they were all so happy to see the boat in the water again.... Oh my goodness!" She had unwrapped the little wristwatch. "Oh, Peter!" She blew out her breath, slipped the watch over her hand, held it away to admire how it looked, raised her eyebrows and pulled down the corners of her mouth in a very curious expression. Of what? Of doubt?
"Don't you like it?"
"Like it? I love it! I'm just not sure I'll be allowed to keep it." She glanced across the room.
"Not allowed to keep it? Why not, may I ask?"
"Rather expensive present, Peter."
"Expensive present!" I looked around the salon, the Persian carpets, the inlaid tables, the velvet furniture, the tapestries, the blazing chandeliers, the blazing jewels on the ladies -
Lili reached out and took my hand. "No, you don't understand. Yes, we have nice things, we live in a big house, we are fortunate, but that has nothing to do ... for a girl to accept such a present -"
"It doesn't commit you to anything! " I was beginning to get angry. "And it wasn't that expensive anyway."
"Not for you, the rich American stock market operator." But she smiled as she said it. "Peter, it's not me, it's my mother. If my mother thinks it does not look correct. But please let us not quarrel over this, I will handle my mother, but she does not need to see it tonight. Will you please stand up?"
She was taking the watch off her wrist.
"Stand up?"
"Yes, stand up a moment and stand in front of me, look over there at the others - " and I did stand up but I glanced into the huge gilt mirror over the mantel - to see Lili crouch forward on the sofa behind my back, quickly flip up her dress, spread her legs a little, and tuck the watch into the top of her left stocking, just beneath the inside garter. I couldn't believe my eyes.... My heart was pounding.... She stood up at my side, asking: "Have you any plans for Sylvesterabend, New Year's Eve?"
PROLOGUE - THURSDAY, JUNE 15, 1922
I. HOW I GOT THERE
1. PARIS 1922
2. VERDUN 1916
3. IT'S STEALING MONEY, ISN'T IT
4. WHERE WERE YOU IN 1919?
5. RELIABLE TROOPS
6. AN ISLAND
7. BISMARCK FOUND THEM USEFUL
8. INTRODUCTIONS
9. THE LITTLE HOUSE
10. INDIAN CROSSES
11. ANOTHER PART OF TOWN
12. A VIEW OF THE GENDARMENMARKT
13. TWO FOR TEA
14. ON THE TOWN
15. A VIEW OF THE HAVEL
16. REIGEN
II. WHAT HAPPENED
17. THURSDAY, JUNE 15, 1922
18. MONDAY, JUNE 19, 1922
19. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21, 1922
20. FRIDAY, JUNE 23, 1922
21. SATURDAY, JUNE 24, 1922
22. WHAT HAPPENED?
III. THE WITCHES' SABBATH
23. SILENCE WITH VOICES
24. THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS
>25. SAME SONGS, DIFFERENT SINGERS
26. THEY'RE ONLY GOING TO HIRE HIS VOICE
27. INFLATION WORKS IN DIFFERENT WAYS
28. SMALL CHANGE
29. WHY NOT PAINT LILI?
30. COLD WIND IN MAY
31. ROLLING THUNDER
32. WALDSTEIN'S VOICE
33. THE MATTER OF A DOWRY
34. A RUSSIAN WORD AND A GERMAN WORD
35. THE MARCH ON BERLIN
36. A PIG LOSES MONEY ALL THE TIME
37. THE ARTISTS' BALL
IV. STRIKE TWELVE ZEROs
38. AMYTAL DREAMS
39. LETTERS
40. PROFESSOR JAFFA'S PROGNOSIS
41. THE OTHER SUBJECT
42. ROLLING HOME