The Emperor Waltz - Philip Hensher

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always think the best food in Germany is in Bavaria,’ Neddermeyer said. ‘Those knuckles! Those white sausages! The fried veal slices!’

      ‘And the most beautiful towns,’ Frau Scherbatsky said. ‘And the country, of course. There can be no doubt about that. Surely you found time to raise your head and admire the beauty of a town in the course of your travels, Herr Wolff?’

      Maria came in with soup bowls on a small trolley with dragon’s head ornamentation, setting the soup down before the four of them. As she set one down before Frau Scherbatsky, she caught Christian’s eye. He did not lower his: he engaged her gaze as she murmured in her mistress’s ear. She made her way round the table, taking the bowls from the trolley, and he watched her, boldly. She reached him, placed a bowl in front of him, and lowered her face to murmur in his ear as she offered him a basket of bread. There was an attractive smell of sweat and of clean skin under soap, mixing with the soup’s sour odours. He had thought she was going to share a moment’s comment with him, but she said only, ‘Liver dumpling soup’, raised her head, gave the table a single, surveying glance, and removed herself with the empty trolley.

      ‘You get good numbers in Bavaria,’ Wolff said. ‘When we were just beginning, in the months after the war, we were sometimes only ten or a dozen, and greeted with savage violence. You recall, Frau Scherbatsky – ah, no, it was before I was living here, it was when I was at Fräulein Schlink’s, before she took exception to me—’

      ‘How could anyone take exception to our dear Herr Wolff!’ Frau Scherbatsky cried.

      ‘Dear lady,’ Wolff said absently. ‘They broke my finger then – it was in Jena. But in the last year, the numbers have grown so wonderfully! For me, the beauties of Bavaria are tied up with the support and understanding the movement is gaining there.’

      ‘What is your movement, Herr Wolff?’ Christian asked.

      Again, that creaking movement of the head; again, the inspection with quite closed eyes of the art student, the revolutionary, the boy of violence, anarchy and square glass-walled houses. ‘It is a small group of associates who stand for what is right,’ Wolff said, in a voice that seemed to have had its patience tried. ‘That is all.’

      ‘I see,’ Christian said.

      ‘There were secret forces that led us defeated out of the war, defeated and shamed, and sold us to people who have long planned for our downfall. Every week, more and more people understand what it is that lies behind. We work hard to help people to understand. In Erfurt, they lined the streets, cheering. The crowd was two deep in places. You can only rely on Germans, now. More and more people understand that, since the war. That was’ – and Wolff did not lower his voice, continued to shout as he moved into compliment and said – ‘a delicious soup, Frau Scherbatsky.’

      Maria took away the soup, and brought in a white fricassee of what must be the promised rabbit, with rice alongside.

      ‘And did you see your wizards today, Frau Scherbatsky?’ Christian said, with an attempt at lightness.

      ‘My wizards, Herr Vogt?’ She seemed genuinely puzzled.

      He immediately wished he had not started it, but persevered. ‘I think you said that the eccentric people we saw yesterday – the people in purple robes – I think you said that they pass every day.’

      ‘Oh,’ Frau Scherbatsky said. ‘I think I know what you mean. No, I do not think I have seen those people today.’ She made a minute gesture towards Wolff, as if to indicate that such talk was not for his dignity. But it was too late.

      ‘What eccentric people are these?’ Wolff said, mixing his rabbit fricassee with the rice in an uncommitted manner.

      ‘Oh, you know, Herr Wolff,’ Neddermeyer said. He was evidently enjoying his food. ‘You must have seen them – an invented religion, I believe, with disciples in purple robes and shaved heads, and a special diet. They seem to be growing in number, too.’

      ‘I should be most surprised,’ Frau Scherbatsky said. ‘Is the stew not to your taste, Herr Wolff?’

      ‘Oh, perfectly,’ Wolff said. ‘It may be a little dry for me, but I am an old soldier. I ask for nothing in the way of luxuries or especially delicious food, you know. And they come from? It seems a strange conception, to conceive of or invent a religion from the beginning.’

      ‘Well, it may be an Oriental religion, brought to Weimar, taking root here,’ Neddermeyer said. ‘I believe they are based at the new art school, under the direction of one of the masters – now, his name …’

      But then it was clear to Christian that all three had agreed, in the interests of peace and civility, that the Bauhaus and its madness were not to be mentioned before or raised by Wolff, since the conversation was now abruptly turned to a bridge at Erfurt, one filled with shops, one older and longer and more beautiful than the one in Florence that people talked of so. Christian had been trying, without success, to see what the object in Wolff’s lapel was. It was a silver insignia or motif of some sort. He could not quite make it out.

      Around Weimar, the Masters of the Bauhaus took their leisure.

      Kandinsky sat in a deep armchair, an ashtray precariously balanced on its arm, and sucked on a cigar. His dinner was finished, and a fug of smoke hung heavily over his head. His wife was opposite him, darning a pair of his socks and listening to him talk.

      ‘I saw Klee this afternoon,’ Kandinsky said. ‘He made such a fuss, oh, such a fuss, about the price of a cup of coffee. You would have thought it was the end of the world.’

      ‘How much was the sum, Vassily Vassilyevich?’ Nina said.

      ‘It was two thousand marks. Or three thousand. Yes, first it was two thousand and then it was three thousand. The price of the coffee went up between us ordering the first cup and us ordering the second cup. What would have happened if we had not had the extra thousand marks on us. But we did, so all was well. People fuss so about small things. No – what am I saying. I said two thousand marks, I meant two hundred thousand. You could not buy a cup of anything for a thousand marks.’

      ‘But a thousand marks is a thousand marks,’ Nina said sensibly. ‘Before the war, you could have bought a sofa, a table, one of my Vassily Vassilyevich’s paintings for a thousand marks. And now it is nothing times a hundredfold, the difference between a cup of coffee one moment and the next.’

      ‘That is so,’ Kandinsky said, ruminating over a puff of smoke. ‘Klee could not restrain himself. On the subject of money, he becomes a Swiss businessman – not a very good Swiss businessman. His one idea is not to spend any of it. He was telling me that his new idea is to paint his pictures on newspaper – he said the day was approaching when he could not afford to paint on paper or canvas. I told him that there was no need to make such savings – he should simply spend what he had on materials now, and in a year’s time he would be glad of it.’

      ‘And what did Klee respond?’ Nina asked.

      ‘Klee?’ Kandinsky said. ‘He cannot bear any outlay. Of course, he paints a painting every day, and none of them can be sold, so the blame lies with him, truly. Nina Nikolayevna, where is the bronze of the horse that used to stand there, on the table?’

      ‘And there I am – finished,’ Nina said, laying the socks and the needle and thread down with relief. ‘What did you say?’

      Kandinsky repeated himself.

      ‘It must be travelling slowly from Russia with the other things,’ Nina said. ‘If it has not been robbed and destroyed. One day they will all arrive, all your things, and we will be at home here.’

      ‘The Constructivists have taken it,’ Kandinsky said. ‘And melted it down for one of their towers. We will never see my little horse again.’

      ‘Soon there will be

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