The footman who opened the door said, "Good afternoon, Mr. Ellis "without expression, took my coat and hat, and led me through the great hall, past the enormous Christmas tree, through the salon and into the library. The house appeared to be empty. I knew that it wasn't; it was silently listening.
"A glass of sherry, sir?"
"No, thank you."
"Herr Baron has been advised of your arrival."
"Thank you."
He closed the door.
It was only a few blocks from my room in Miss Boatwright's apartment, but it was the longest walk I had attempted so far, and I felt shaky. There was a coal fire in the grate, and I warmed myself, watching the snow falling into the brick courtyard. I wondered again why this audience was being granted here instead of at the Gendarmenmarkt; perhaps they didn't want me seen at the Bank; perhaps this was just one of the days Baron von Waldstein went home for lunch and a nap.
Then he came in: polite smile, firm handshake, would I like a glass of sherry, please be seated - "Jaffa tells me you are still in bandages."
"Yes, but they're mostly to support the ribs, I'm pretty much healed."
"No trouble breathing?"
"Very little, sir. He took wonderful care of me.... Baron von Waldstein, I greatly appreciate this opportunity to see you in person."
"You wrote a good letter. Made me feel ... discourteous."
"Every word in that letter is true, sir. I'm not an intelligence agent, I am not involved in any political activity of any kind, the things that happened - all of them - happened because I tried to help Christoph keep his brother away from the Rathenau plot -"
The Baron raised his hand. "Mr. Ellis, you need not repeat it all, and I see no reason to debate the matter. You know that we all like you, I told you last summer that in principle my wife and I had no objection"- he paused to think of a neutral word - "no objection to an alliance between you and our daughter. But circumstances changed. In the first place, we now feel a sense of actual physical danger for her. You have been in Berlin - what, not yet two years? And have involved yourself in three political murders! "
"But they all arose out of the same -"
"Three political murders! And in the second place, the German government has apparently decided that your presence in the Reich is not desirable for reasons of security. Now what is my response to that, Mr. Ellis?" The Baron was glaring at me now. "I am to entrust my daughter, eighteen years old, to a man my government expels from my country?"
"Baron.. ." I shook my head. "I just can't understand why they did that. Reasons of security? With your connections ... It seems to me - and I say this with respect - that you must know more about that decision than I do."
"I know nothing about that decision. Nothing!"
"You could easily find out, sir."
No reply. He looked out of the window.
"You don't want to find out?"
"I must assume the authorities have their reasons. Matters of police administration and public security are not my business."
'Baron von Waldstein, you know I'm not a threat to public security."
"Three political murders! An avalanche of newspaper publicity! In politics, you know, appearances count as much as facts. Perhaps more."
Hopeless. I would have to raise the other subject, the subject I didn't even want to think about, the subject I had been brooding over, having nightmares about.
I haven't been afraid much. I was afraid at Verdun. I was afraid on the Chemin des Dames. I was not afraid those moments in Helena's apartment, because there wasn't time. Right now, sitting in a leather club chair in the library at No. 4, Pariser Platz, I was scared to death.
'Baron von Waldstein . . . I really don't know how to say this.... You tell me you have doubts about Lili's safety with me. I hope you will not consider it impertinent for me to say that I have doubts - terrible doubts- about Lili's safety with you - No, I don't mean with you, I mean here in Germany, I mean the safety of your whole family, your whole... people?... here in Germany. I don't want to say these things, I'm forcing myself to say them because I must say them, sir -" And suddenly I did have trouble breathing, it hurt, I had to stop while the Baron took off his pince-nez and frowned at me.
Where should I begin this? And how?
"Baron, last summer ... I don't know exactly when, not long before your birthday, Hermann Göring telephoned Christoph -"
"What? "
"Hermann Göring telephoned Christoph at your Bank and then they met in some bar somewhere for a drink... ."
I told Baron von Waldstein the whole story of Sigrid's warnings to Christoph.
Impassive, he listened until I finished. Then he said: "I suppose I am disappointed that Christoph Keith did not tell me this himself. Otherwise, what does it mean? Are you surprised that Hitler's men propose to take action against the Jews? They have been shouting it for years."
"Göring was right about the Putsch, and he was right about Kaspar."
"He was right about Kaspar. He was wrong about the Putsch. The Putsch failed because the police and the army stood fast. Hitler ran away. Göring ran away. Hitler is in jail. Göring is hiding in Austria. All of them are completely discredited. A joke."
"Sir, I was in your Bank the day of the Putsch, when nobody could tell who was winning down in Munich. I didn't hear anybody laugh."
"What do you mean by that remark?"
"Sir, you saw the photographs from Munich! Thousands of people singing and marching and cheering the Nazis on! Swastikas everywhere! The police put a handful of people in jail, another handful ran away, and the rest just went home. Where are they going to be the next time this happens?"
"I have every hope that there will be no next time. The situation has changed while you were in the hospital. Drastically. We have every indication that the mark is stabilized, that inflation is ending very quickly, that the Allies will finally listen to reason on the matter of reparations. The expenses of the government are substantially reduced. The Ruhr has gone back to work. We have at last a strong government, firmly supported by the army. I personally look forward to 1924 with optimism, for German industry and for the German people -"
"But what about the people who are wiped out? What about your kitchen maid from the Spreewald? What about Frau Keith?"
The Baron ran his hand across his eyes. "What are you trying to say to me, young man?"
What was I trying to say, really?
"I feel rising hostility against the Jews in Germany, I think the Nazis will continue to blame the Jews for the inflation -"
I agree with you," said the Baron. "There is rising hostility, and Nationalist extremists will do their best to make it worse. What is it you want from me?" He began to drum his fingers on the wooden arm of his chair.
"Well, to begin with, I most respectfully ask you to permit me to marry Lili and take her to the United States with me."
"Because there is no hostility toward Jews in the United States?"
"Sir?"
"I understand that your father served for a year under Professor Hofmeister in Munich. Well, I served for a year with Jacob Schiff, Kuhn, Loeb and Co., New York, the biggest competition for J. P. Morgan."
"I didn't know that, Baron."
"Yes. Most interesting experience. I learned a great deal. One of the things I learned is that in America, people with Jewish names are not allowed in the best hotels. Another thing I learned is that every town has a golf club, and they do not accept Jewish members. Not even Jacob Schiff. And the beach places on Long Island, they do not permit Jews to buy houses there. Not even Jacob Schiff."
"I think Mr. Otto Kahn, who is in that same firm, has a palatial establishment at Cold Spring Harbor -"
"I am not an admirer of Otto Kahn. He was born in Mannheim and he spent the war making propaganda against Germany!"
By now the Baron was on his feet and this discussion was out of control.
"Baron von Waldstein, the last thing I want to do is make you angry- "
"You have, however! You mean well, but you are a very naive young man and you don't know what you are talking about! Yes, there is anti-Semitism here in Germany, always has been, I assure you we are aware of it, but to a large extent we have ... dealt with it. Jewish people - religious Jews and Christians of Jewish descent - have achieved a position here --particularly in what used to be the Kingdom of Prussia -- that is unrivaled anywhere in the world! I include England in that statement, I include France, and I most certainly include your country, although it was organized, as I understand, on the theory that all men are created equal! "
'Baron, these things you mention - hotels and country clubs -"
"Not just hotels and country clubs. Banks! The National City Bank! Jacob Schiff was so proud when they made him a director, in 1899. I understand they still have not one Jewish officer!"
'Baron, these things are perfectly true, I can't deny them, but they wouldn't have anything to do with Lili, they wouldn't apply to my wife-"
"Wouldn't apply to your wife. That's very reassuring to hear!"
"It's a different thing, sir. It is - sort of a social thing-"
"Yes, that was my observation: the Jews are placed in a social layer that is above the Negroes but below ... what do you call them? The Whites?"
"Sir -"
"The House of Waldstein has been inextricably rooted in the culture and the commerce and the history of the Kingdom of Prussia and the German nation since the middle of the eighteenth century, and in recognition of that fact the first Kaiser Wilhelm raised my father to the nobility, and not just to the nobility but to the Freiherrscbaft. You expect me to send a girl who was born a Baroness, with a name that is in every school book, to a country where she may not be considered entirely white?" His voice was shaking.
"But you told me you had no objection, in principle -"
"That was here. Our assumption was that you could remain here, become a painter ... you seem to have talent, people here are buying your pictures .... I assure you I had no intention of sending my daughter permanently to America. None!" He paused to take a breath. His face told me that the subject was closed. Silence. I could hear my heart.
"For that matter, have you sold any pictures in your own country?" His voice was steadier.
"No, I haven't, Baron. I've been away for several years, I had really just begun ......"
"Then may one ask how you propose to live, not to mention support a wife?" On the five hundred dollars we let you keep? He didn't say the words, but they hung there just the same.
"I think my family would help me get started again."
"Do you? Have you heard from your family recently?"
"No, sir."
"Why not?"
"Because they want me to come home and go to work ... or to school ...I mean to the university."
"They want you at the university, but you come home with an eighteen-year-old wife, an eighteen-year-old schoolgirl who has never so much as made her own bed, who does not know how to boil an egg -- and you expect them to support you while you make a name as a painter?" He shook his head. "My dear young man, put yourself in my position. What would you do?"
I had nothing to say. I folded my hands and looked down at the carpet.
"Miss Boatwright reports you are sailing from Hamburg?"
"Yes, sir. New Year's Eve."
"What ship?"
"I think it's called Albert Berlin."
"You think it's called Albert Berlin, eh?" The Baron shook his head and sat down again, heavily, expelling his breath. "Sic transit gloria mundi. The name is Albert B-a-1-1-i-n, but you have never heard it?"
"No, sir."
"So!" The Baron turned to look out of the window. "He was a friend of mine. As a matter of fact he was an example of what we were discussing a moment ago. Came from nowhere. Father was a little Jewish business man in Hamburg. Went bankrupt - the father. Albert Ballin joined the Hamburg-Amerika Line - we call it the HAPAG - as a young man. They had a few little ships. Carried emigrants to America. That was in the 'eighties. By the time the War began he had built the HAPAG into one of the most powerful lines in the world, and himself into one of the most powerful men in Germany. First citizen of Hamburg. Personal friend of the Kaiser. Dozens of ships on every ocean. His triumph was the Imperator, 52,000 tons, 5,000 people, the biggest thing afloat.
"The Kaiser was there to launch it. Nineteen-twelve. Everybody was there. I was there; we helped to raise the money. Had a golden eagle on her bow, and Ballin's motto: 'Mein Feld ist die Welt."
The Baron looked at me again. "That motto isn't up there anymore, and neither is the name. Your British cousins took her as reparations. They call her Berengaria. People cried when they took her out of Hamburg for the last time. You have to get on in Southampton now, or Cherbourg. But Albert Ballin didn't live to see that."
"What happened to him?"
"Well, the war ruined the shipping business for Germany, he ruined his health worrying about it. Couldn't sleep at night. Terrible insomnia, sleeping pills ... Tried and tried to convince our generals and our admirals that the U-boats would bring your country into the war, and that we couldn't win if the United States came in against us. You know what happened. Then he saw the revolution coming, the people simply had enough. He begged the Kaiser to make peace while we still had some bargaining power, but the Kaiser was too stubborn and the war lords were too strong. When the revolution did come, it came in the ports: Wilhelmshaven, Kiel, Bremen, Hamburg....Ballin heard that the sailors were going to arrest him - the great shipowner, you see, the plutocrat, the friend of the Kaiser - He swallowed a bottle of Veronal."
Another long silence. I thought: General Ludendorff didn't commit suicide; Field Marshal von Hindenburg didn't commit suicide; Admiral von Tirpitz didn't commit suicide; the Kaiser didn't commit suicide....
"But we are rebuilding the HAPAG!" The Baron slammed his fist onto the arm of his chair. "They've taken our lmperator, they've taken our Bismarck,they've taken our Vaterland, they've taken all our giants, and so far we've only been able to build a couple of smaller ships like the Ballin- she's only twenty thousand tons - but we're going to concentrate on faster ships, faster than anybody else's - "
"Baron von Waldstein, may I see Lili alone for a few minutes?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, that will not be possible. Lili is in Austria."
"In Austria?"
"Yes, my brother has a place in Tyrol, they usually go there in the summer, but the skiing is becoming so popular with young people, they thought this year they would open it in the Christmas holidays, so Alfred and Sigrid went down with the baby and the old Ma, and they took Lili along too - just a minute young man, I understand how you feel, and I have something for you -"
"They didn't even say goodbye?"
I was on my feet, moving toward the door.
"Baron von Waldstein --"
He was up too, tugging the bell pull.
" -- I'd better go, sir."
"Yes, only not quite alone. One moment, please." He actually grabbed my elbow.
The same footman appeared at the door. His expression changed a little when he saw my face.
"Get the package for Mr. Ellis. I think they put it into the coatroom.... "
The footman disappeared again, and the Baron, his hand still on my elbow, guided me gently out of the library, through the salon and to the Christmas tree, to the exact spot where, a year before, he had given me the bottle containing the sailboat. Where bad I left that bottle?
"We have another Christmas present for you," he said as the footman appeared with a large flat package, wrapped in brown paper. The footman didn't know what to do with it.
"Stand it on that sofa and unwrap it very carefully," said the Baron.
The footman untied the twine and folded back the heavy wrapping paper, to reveal Bärbel, entirely naked except for one black stocking, busily engaged in putting on the other stocking.
"That picture's not finished," I gasped. "I never finished it, he took it away and sold it -"
"Apparently Max Liebermann thinks it's finished."
"Sir?"
"He saw it in a gallery and he bought it. For me. And let me assure you that he doesn't buy paintings very often, he sells them. To tell the truth, he sold me this one, too. He says it demonstrates a developing style of your own. He says this is more striking than the one you did of Lili. Of course you were able to show much more of this lady, and Liebermann still has an eye for that. And maybe your title amused him."
"It doesn't have a title -"
"Certainly it has a title." We moved closer. The footman pulled the brown paper away from the bottom of the plain dark frame, and I saw a small white tag with prewar Art Nouveau letters: Prinzessin in Berlin.
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