The Life of Objects (7 page)

I was seated next to Felix’s old tutor from Heidelberg, Herr Professor Sigmund Wasselmann, who shook with cold despite the heat from the enamel stove in the corner. He was so thin that his green jacket with horn buttons looked several sizes too large for him (unlike Caspar, whose chamois breeches were a size too small). Professor Wasselmann, who had stayed at Löwendorf that summer, glanced sternly around the room, his large hands folding and refolding a sheet of blue writing paper. He waited until all of the women were safely in their chairs, then sat down, tucking his large napkin into his collar. The
woman on his right, whose name was Mary Barnard according to her place card, and who was dressed in a man’s tweed suit and striped tie, spoke to the professor in Latin.

Don Jaime, a son of the king of Spain, was on my left (Roeder had hurriedly whispered to me that Don Jaime would one day, as Henri VI, be heir to the throne of France, even though he could neither speak nor hear). Across from me was a handsome young man in the uniform of an army staff officer. I saw instantly that he was glamorous. His elegance of form and his nonchalant yet haughty assumption of masculine power were pleasantly disturbing, and I steeled myself to resist him.

Inéz, who was next to the young officer, had spent the night in Berlin. She looked particularly beautiful in a cream wool suit weighted with two large emerald clips. She gleamed across the table at me and said, “My dear, the city is
overrun
with fortune-tellers. It always happens. I’ve seen it before.” Despite all that Inéz had done for me and, I was sure, for others, I’d begun to feel a bit weary of her. She spoke and moved as if she meant to be admired (she was rarely disappointed), and I’d found myself refusing to attend to her during her brief visits (more like incarnations). I’d begun to wonder if I were envious of her—like most people with charm, she required an atmosphere of adoration to stimulate and satisfy her, and it could be tiring. Before I could answer her, she turned to the officer, her hand resting lightly on his wrist.

On Don Jaime’s other side was Maria Milde, who had arrived with the officer. I’d seen Maria Milde’s movie
Winter Carousel
in Berlin the year before, and although the story, a musical comedy, was sentimental, I admired Maria Milde very
much. I knew that she lived at the Jagdschloss Glienicke near the bridge in Babelsberg because I’d read it in a film magazine (she was being groomed at Ufa Studios as the Reich’s answer to Greta Garbo), which, though censored, was still published for the good of our morale. There was something winning about her, in addition to her beauty—her pinched nostrils gave her a slight look of disgust—and I had to keep myself from staring (Caspar, who hovered behind us, not only did not look at Fräulein Milde, he did not, to my annoyance, look at me—I wasn’t seeking his admiration but his complicity). Her thin lips were the color of lavender—I’d learned from Inéz that lavender lips (she considered it her husband’s only physical flaw) were the sign of an opium addict. As I studied her hair, which was pulled into a silver snood at the nape of her neck, I heard her tell Don Jaime that she lived with ten other young actresses in the castle in Babelsberg. “I’ve decided to be a most unreasonable roommate,” she said with a sly smile, “so that when I am famous, they will already dislike me.” Undeterred by his silence, she said that her ermine stole had been a Christmas gift from the officer, turning to blow him a little kiss across the table, which he ignored. Don Jaime, increasingly agitated, seemed to be reaching a state of near exaltation, which confused me, given his condition.

On the other side of Fräulein Milde was Felix’s lawyer, Hans Koch, with whom Felix had been at school as a boy. I knew Herr Koch, as he came to the Yellow Palace every few weeks, when he and Felix would lock themselves in the library for the day. Herr Koch had difficulty getting Maria Milde’s attention, taken as she was with Don Jaime, and he soon turned to
the dark-haired woman on his other side, a journalist named Hilde Meisel. Fraülein Meisel was wearing the chicest hat I’d ever seen—I could tell that even Inéz envied it from her expression when they were introduced. The hat of black tulle, raven feathers, and velvet pompoms did not accentuate her plainness, as sometimes happens, but turned her into a creature of enchantment.

At the end of the table were a husband and wife, Herr and Frau Prazan, cousins of Felix, who had arrived unexpectedly, and sat on either side of him. They were traveling from Hamburg to their estate near Prague and carried letters to Felix from his sister, who had left the country for Argentina. Their arrival made my presence no longer necessary, but no one seemed to notice.

I recognized Count von Arnstadt, who’d come frequently to Löwendorf that autumn. He worked for the Ministry of Information as editor of the Reich’s magazine
Berlin-Rome-Tokio
. Herr Elias had translated one of the count’s controversial articles for me, entitled “The Third World War,” in which he claimed that should the United States ever enter the war, it would emerge the most powerful nation in the world. He believed that the fury with which Russia and America were bound to clash would be far more threatening to peace than any conceivable conflict among England, the Continent, and Russia.

“Every few days,” I heard Arnstadt say to Dorothea, his face twitching with mischief, “I find myself in the cramped office of the Head of Section, where I am left to study in solitude the Little Friend, which is my name for the log of telephone
conversations gathered each week by the Gestapo. Most of it I cannot repeat, as it consists of the highly indiscreet conversations of most of our friends and their lovers. Each Friday, after a most careful reading, I prepare a copy of the transcripts for the Führer—double spaced and in bold type—which is rushed by hand to the Chancellery. He can hardly wait to receive it.” The count seemed careful not to appear in earnest, causing me to wonder if that was why he was considered the most amusing man in Berlin. I thought that his mild mockery of the Gestapo and even the Führer was a sign that he trusted the Metzenburgs and their guests. I also wondered if it were a trap. It was exciting to think that anyone at the table (although perhaps not the professor) might be a spy.

Across from me, Inéz described the dinner that had been given in her honor the night before. Her friend Danielle Darrieux had been there, and they’d danced to Cuban music on the gramophone. Their host, the tireless Japanese ambassador Mr. Oshima, had arranged a shooting match with air guns, and Inéz had won second prize, which was a bottle of Chanel No. 5—Serge Lifar, another guest, had cheated, according to a still-angry Inéz, winning first prize of a bottle of perfume, a powder puff,
and
a pair of stockings. Later they’d gone to a nightclub in Kurfürstendamm. “A towering Negro woman, the last black left in Berlin, danced with a white horse,” said Inéz.

“I don’t think she means ‘danced,’ ” Herr Koch said mysteriously to Hilde Meisel.

As Inéz described the horse (she found the Negro woman a bit coarse), I felt something brush against my leg. I thought, given the circumstances, that someone might be trying to signal
me, and I sneaked a glance under the tablecloth. A slender foot—the toenails painted crimson and encased in a pale silk stocking—darted from between Don Jaime’s shaking knees and disappeared.

Don Jaime, who had been following Inéz’s every gesture with a concentration so intense that I feared he might explode, tried with no success to catch her eye. As she was careful to beguile everyone in sight, I wondered if Spain had offended her by behaving badly to Cuba, then quickly dismissed the idea. Inéz did not take sides. Suddenly, Don Jaime thrust a hand in her direction, interrupting her and compelling her at last to look at him. She waited—we all waited—but Don Jaime was silent.

I’d noticed Professor Wasselmann eyeing Maria Milde’s plate of uneaten food for some time (he was a little drunk), and without thinking, perhaps because Don Jaime was making me nervous, I reached across him to exchange Fräulein Milde’s plate for the professor’s empty plate. To my relief, Fräulein Milde behaved as if it had been her idea, beaming with condescension as the professor whisked the last of her potatoes into his mouth.

The officer (Maria Milde, perhaps in explanation of his rudeness, had announced that he was a Battenberg prince) lit a cigarette with a silver field lighter. Smoke streaming from his mouth, he leaned across the table. “Our Führer,” he said in English, “does not take kindly to princes of the blood like myself in the field, and he would deny us our ancient and honored privilege of dying in battle. Sons of noble families are forbidden to serve at the front, but I have thought of nothing
but war since I was a boy. I have been trained for nothing else. Dreamed of nothing else. The Führer has robbed my life of all meaning, while he talks aloud to the portrait of Frederick the Great he keeps at his side.” He pushed back his chair and strode from the table, Maria Milde following him anxiously with her eyes, as Caspar hurried to open the door for him. Don Jaime jumped to his feet and rushed around the table to take the officer’s empty chair, and Inéz, at last, turned to him with a smile, causing Don Jaime to fall back in his chair.

I knew that Felix did not like political talk at the table, but there was little he could do to prevent it. He looked ill at ease, which wasn’t like him. He was inclined to indulge the comfort of others, if only to alleviate his boredom. His politeness, I’d come to realize, served, among other things, to afford him the distance that he preferred and even required. As Kreck carried an apple tart to the table, a young, pleasant-looking couple who I assumed were newlyweds, so intent were they on each other, arrived with shy apologies and sat in two chairs alongside Dorothea. Kreck told me later that they were the children of Felix’s boyhood music teacher, who’d been arrested in Regensburg in November. Felix had arranged for them to travel to Algiers with the exit visas that his friend in the Foreign Office had obtained for him and Dorothea, should they ever need them.

Maria Milde leaned toward Don Jaime. “In my experience,” she said as if imparting a secret, “it is the Dutch and the Norwegians who hate us the most. The French, as I’m sure you know, like us the very best.”

To my relief, I heard Felix’s familiar cultivated voice. “In 1918, when I was twenty years old, I was so ashamed of our
country that my father’s death at the Somme was in some ways a relief. If he had survived, I would have held him, along with my uncles and the rest of his generation, responsible for the horror of the war. In those days, we schoolboys no longer trusted our elders who, in any talk of the reasons for our country’s shame, always avoided the truth by claiming that there was nothing they could have done to stop it.” He paused. “When I was older, I realized that schoolboys in England and France and Turkey must have felt just as I did. Some now say that our friends in France yearn for a quick German victory simply because they cannot bear the responsibility of another million killed in battle. We are in the same position as those men we once blamed, only it is we who are at fault, we who are making the same mistakes as our fathers so that our country can bring about another fatal catastrophe. And what is one to do? To leave Germany is inconceivable. All we can know for certain is that the abyss awaits us.”

Even Kreck had stopped moving. No one spoke for a moment, and then I heard Maria Milde ask Don Jaime, “Am I dreaming, or was that potato pie we had for lunch?”

As I looked around the table, I reminded myself that on a dark winter’s day in Ballycarra, just such an afternoon, with film stars, champagne, and handsome princes, had been all that I desired.

After the guests at last left (they stayed for hours, Caspar making several trips to the Pavilion for more wine), I helped Kreck and Caspar to clear the table. I needed Caspar’s help to carry
the turkey cock to the pantry where it was put away (Felix told Kreck that it would be the last lunch party at Löwendorf for some time), but I was able to do the rest myself. Under Professor Wasselmann’s immaculate plate, I found a small, folded sheet of blue writing paper. I opened it and read it. I could understand certain words—the words “tank,” “batallion,” and “munition” are the same in English—and I quickly put the note in my pocket. That there really had been a spy at Christmas lunch was exciting. That it was Professor Wasselmann was a shock.

Later that evening, I passed Felix on my way to the sewing room, having vowed at lunch to make a lace dinner dress for myself. When I stopped to thank him, he said, “You
see
what we do? We celebrate the low, and we long for the past. I’d hoped to be done with deception. My own as well as others.” He was very upset.

“Deception?” I asked.

“That everything will be well for us. That the old world will survive. That it deserves to survive.”

Before I could answer, not that I had an answer, he bid me good night and disappeared down the passage.

The next morning, Kreck brought me a long bundle wrapped in bleached muslin. There was a note tucked into the muslin. It was from Inéz, who had written under an engraved coronet,
My dear, as I will be taking my children with me when I leave Munich, I have no room for these—might you not wear them for me?
Inside the bundle were two blouses, one of natural raw silk
with capped sleeves, the other with tiny pleats of Moroccan crepe, long sleeves, and round pearl buttons. There was a pair of lilac suede gloves, a black suit with a hint of a peplum, a gray pongee suit with a chinchilla collar, a black wool afternoon dress with a wide belt and white faille collar and cuffs, two pairs of stockings (pale, sheer), and a pair of black alligator pumps with rounded toes. Labels were sewn into the seams of the clothes—
SCHIAPARELLI, DOUCET, LANVIN
—with Inéz’s initials and the date that they had been made for her (I was the same size as Inéz, although smaller in the bust). I fell back on the bed, my new clothes clasped in my arms.

As I slipped on the shoes—they were too big, and I would have to stuff the toes with cotton—I promised never again to criticize her. As I tried on the black suit in the mirror, I swore that I would never again think ill of her or, for that matter, anyone. It was the first time in my life that I’d been given anything so beautiful. I didn’t for an instant believe that she hadn’t room in her luggage.