Irish Linen Page 9

  “Annalise,” I said in German, as I bowed to kiss her hand, “Claus says that it will be necessary for you and I to argue. I must say at the beginning of our arguments that I have never encountered such a radiant adversary, one with whom it will be a joy to argue and a pleasure to lose.”

  A wicked grin appeared on her face.

  “Blarney is an Irish word,” she said in perfect upperclass English, “isn’t it Herr Ridgewood?”

  The rest of the savages laughed and applauded. My face grew very warm.

  “Touché, ma’mselle,” I said with a bow. “As we say on the tennis courts, c’est à vous!”

  “We will see later about the tennis courts,” she replied aloofly. “I will, of course, win.”

  “As God wills …”

  The child, I told myself, is spoiled. She has been rude to a guest and gets away with it. They all adore her. Still, there is magic between us. Someday I will marry her.

  Over the huge Teutonic meal—seven courses and four kinds of wine in a room glowing with candlelight and candles—we talked about Ireland, not at my initiative, but at the choice of the guests. Germans, I had learned in Heidelberg, were always eager for learning.

  Grafin Karoline, Claus’s mother, wondered about the condition of the arts in Ireland.

  “Ireland became a nation once again only in 1921,” I said. “The arts have only begun to flourish. However, the Irish art has typically been verbal, stories, poetry, drama, not all of it the kind that the good Annalise dismisses as blarney. We did, after all, invent rhymed verse, a couple of centuries after we brought Christianity to the Swabians. We seemed to have succeeded fairly well in the latter task.”

  His father, Graf Alfred, asked about the economic conditions in Ireland. I told him that they were mixed, somewhat better in the North where the English permitted the development of manufacture. In the South there had at least been no return of the famines which wracked the country in the last century. Nonetheless, as a poor country, Ireland suffered especially from the worldwide Depression.

  I explained to Gräfin Nina, Claus’s love, that I hoped to join the Irish diplomatic service when I returned from my studies in Heidelberg and to Baron von Uxküll, Claus’s uncle, that though we were a poor country we would have a foreign service because all nations did and now we were a nation. That notion of a “nation once again,” was, I told him, very important to the New Ireland. Berthold, Claus’s brother, said that Ireland would certainly remain neutral if there were another war between England and Germany and that its status as a “Dominion” like Canada or South Africa, gave it the right to remain neutral.

  Annalise had patiently been waiting her turn, next to me at the table, a delicious presence at which I stole an occasional furtive glance.

  “I went to school in England for two years, Herr Ridgewood …”

  “And speak excellent English, if I may offer a compliment …”

  She waved it away.

  “They told us there that the Irish nobility live in caves and paint their bodies blue.”

  “That is true, Annalise, but only on the first Monday of every month and on the rogation days every leap year. However, we normally do not eat our own children, at least not anymore. Truth to tell, however, there really are no Irish nobility left. The English killed them or drove them away long ago. Most of those who remain are Protestants and their titles are English titles, which the new country recognizes. Our family Schloss is in Northern Ireland which the English still occupy, but we have citizenship in both Ireland and England.”

  “So you are not really an Irish noble?” she said, raising an eyebrow.

  “On the contrary, lovely one, I am both Irish and English. It is very convenient.”

  “But is that not a contradiction?”

  “We Irish don’t worry about such philosophical details.”

  The savages around the table were enjoying this contest between their lovely princess and the Auslander from the Celtic fringe.

  “In Ireland,” Annalise said crisply, “the principle of contradiction does not apply?”

  “It never has,” I replied with equal crispness.

  Laughter and applause from around the table, the latter from knives against goblets.

  “Your point, Herr Ridgewood. Match point tomorrow morning on the tennis court.”

  “By all means.”

  There was a chemistry between us which seemed to be noticed with approval among the guests. Were they hoping I would carry her off and free them of the responsibility of protecting her? Dizzy from the wine and the conversation and her beauty, I thought that might not be a bad idea.

  As Claus and I went to our rooms much later, he said, “I warned you about Annalise.”

  “Claus, old fellow,” I said, “I have the impression your family and Nina’s would be delighted if some appropriate man carried her off and freed you from the responsibility of protecting the little brat.”

  “So long as it is the right man and he waits a few more years. She is still too young.”

  “Do you think I could cope with her, say, in four or five years?”

  “You already are thinking of that? It didn’t take long.”

  “It’s the wine and the candlelight talking,” I said.

  “I hope not.” He opened the door to my room. “Sleep well.”

  I woke up the next morning, furious at my presumed friend Claus von Stauffenberg because he was attempting to trap me in a union with an obnoxious child. I told myself I was being enticed into the local fair to purchase a promising heifer who the owner admitted would be difficult to keep in line.

  Then I remembered that I must attend the Palm Sunday Mass down in the Schloss’s tiny chapel, also part of the old citadel enclosed in the manor house. I was the last one in and arrived just as the ancient priest tottered out on the altar, which is early for your Irish male. Morning light streamed in through the small stained-glass windows on one side of the chapel. Here the Stauffenberg men must have prayed before they went out to battle whatever invaders were washing up on the far end of the Empire in the region where both the Rhine and the Danube began and flowed in opposite directions. Here their women wept over the lifeless bodies brought home after the battles. I glanced around the chapel, searching for my beloved. She was up in front, head bent in fervent prayer.

  I was out of my mind crazy to think that she was the woman for me based on one evening’s confrontation. All right, she was the most beautiful woman I had ever known. Moreover she was an orphan who needed protection, parents and brothers dead in the war and of the flu. She was too smart for her own good and too grown-up physically for her age. So she seemed to find me attractive enough to banter with. As good as the von Uxkülls were to her, she must crave for her freedom to act like an adult. But she wasn’t an adult. Yet she was old as the Galway woman was when my Old Fella carried her off and himself a lot younger than I was. Why should I lack the wild courage that had driven the Old Fella’s whole life?

  If you fall in love, the Galway woman had said, and you’re sure that she’s the right one, what are you waiting for?

  But how could I be sure on the basis of a single evening?

  We sang Gregorian chant during the Mass, Claus conducting of course. After the Gospel, the old priest preached movingly, but in a Swabian dialect that was utterly unintelligible. I noted that many members of the congregation were nodding, perhaps with headaches much like mine.

  I admit that my imagination filled up with images of Annalise in various stages of undress. Shame on you, I told myself. Then I replied that if God had not wanted men to have such images of women, he wouldn’t have created us male and female.

  If I told Claus that I wanted to take Annalise back with me to Ireland, he would have tried to broker the deal. He would persuade first of all his parents, then Nina soon to be his betrothed and her parents. There would be little resistance from either party. Good riddance. Then he would talk to Annalise. She would tell him that if I were interest
ed, I should talk directly to her. That was as good as if she said yes. It would all be easy.

  What would my parents say when I brought her home? They would be astonished that I had found a wife, especially one so decorative. in all probability she would bond with the Galway woman and they would make common cause against me.

  Would my new wife like Ireland? How would she react to life in a foreign country? Especially with her own country caught up in the bloody war which seemed probable? Who could say?

  She also doubtless loved Claus, from as close a distance as he would permit, which was not likely to be very close. How would I stand up in comparison with un chevalier parfait?

  Not a chance.

  Not a good idea, I told myself as we left the chapel.

  I now tell myself that I caused sadness for many because of my Irish bachelor’s fears.

  I noted that she remained for more prayer. How would I fare with a pious wife? The Galway woman, God knew, was pious in her own half-mystical, half-superstitious style.

  I realized that this Easter week would be decisive for claiming Annalise as my wife. Claus might well join the family’s traditional regiment—the Seventeenth Cavalry—in the summer. I would be back in Ireland for Christmas, ready for my first assignment, doubtless in some dark hole in Africa. It was now or never.

  My last-ditch argument paraded as unselfish. Annalise had the right to grow up to be her own person, to continue her education, to make her own choices in life. If she married me, no matter how much she liked me, it would not be a free choice but one imposed by her well-meaning family and friends. It would be intolerable of me to take advantage of such a situation.

  Yet she would escape from Nazi Germany before the next and more terrible war began.

  Servants were distributing a monumental breakfast on the dinner table. I ate lightly. I had a serious tennis match to face. However, since I had won the Oxford tennis tournament during my last two years there, I didn’t feel in all that much jeopardy. I noticed a picture of Annalise on a shelf. She was standing with a very handsome man in an army officer’s uniform, complete with the spiked helmet, and three children, two strapping young men, also in uniform, and a little girl with a silly grin, just barely able to walk.

  “Was not my mother beautiful?” Annalise asked behind me.

  “No more beautiful than her daughter,” I replied, realizing for the first time that this was a picture of the family she had lost.

  “More blarney, Herr Ridgewood, but thank you.”

  She was wearing a black skirt and a white sweater which molded itself around her delicious breasts.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Why not?” she said unemotionally. “A month after that picture, my father’s regiment, under the command of the Crown Prince himself charged the village of Douaumont. It was almost completely destroyed. The men in my family were killed within a half hour by French artillery. Our custom was always to have all our men in the same regiment so they could take care of one another. At one time it seemed to make sense. Not anymore. A great tragedy for me and my mother perhaps, but also for a quarter million men on both sides. The strategy was to bleed the French white and end the war. It bled us too. The French army was close to mutiny afterwards, but the Americans entered the war and they had many more men to lose.”

  She shivered but she did not weep.

  “I am sorry, Annalise, very sorry.”

  “Thank you, Herr Ridgewood. Now I must eat breakfast because I have a difficult tennis challenge this morning.”

  “I assume you were praying this morning for victory.”

  She glanced at me and then looked away.

  “I was praying for many things, Herr Ridgewood.”

  The grass tennis court behind the Schloss was in good condition, the white lines fresh and the grass neatly cut. The custom was that those who did not play sat on a porch under big gold-and-red umbrellas, sipped coffee or tea or lemonade and cheered the contestants.

  Alexander von Stauffenberg provided white tennis togs, shoes, and a racquet for me, all of them better than my equipment at Oxford. The procedure was “winner continues to play”—thus the final winner, on the verge of exhaustion no doubt, had defeated all the others. We drew for position and the lucky mick would be the last one on the court. I would face an exhausted Annalise. That wasn’t fair either.

  Best out of three sets was a victory.

  Annalise disposed of Nina, Berthold and Alexander in three quick matches. I reveled in the twists and turns of her body as she served, raced across the court, and then, killed a return at the net.

  She would be a big success in Ireland.

  “She does that all the time.” Nina collapsed next to me on the verandah and sipped at a glass of lemonade. “The only one who gives her trouble is Claus.”

  The match with Claus went the full route. He lost in the third game of the third set when she broke his serve.

  “Claus says that you are not perhaps an effective player.”

  “Nina, I take it easy on the others up in Heidelberg. I won the Oxford All-University championship two years in a row.”

  “Poor Annalise.” Nina sighed, not exactly troubled at the prospect of her cousin’s losing.

  My foe kissed Claus briskly when the set was over, with a little more feeling than she had shown for her other victims. He walked off the court, clearly distressed.

  “She is much too good for a woman.” He sighed as he sat on the other side of Nina.

  “You should be proud of such a strong cousin, Claus.”

  “Herr Ridgewood, it would not be a humiliation if you withdrew,” she shouted at me.

  Arrogant little bitch.

  “Well, I’ll have a try at it anyway.”

  I walked out on the court, a little slippery under my feet compared to the indoor court at Heidelberg. For a moment I was tempted to let her win. If she ever found out, however, she would not forgive me.

  “Some practice volleys, Herr Ridgewood?”

  “That wouldn’t help me at all,” I said in the tone of one conceding victory.

  “Your serve.” She tossed the tennis ball to me.

  I felt very foolish. Claus would recognize that I had never really tried in Heidelberg. I hoped he would understand why. But in these circumstances, I really had no choice, did I? The honour of Ireland was at stake, was it not?

  So I used my strongest serve.

  It zoomed right by her.

  The crowd, such as it was, cheered.

  Annalise stood as if she were suddenly paralysed. She lifted her racket in salute and smiled. She hunkered down, determined to return my second serve.

  I aced the game.

  She should have been very angry, especially because her family was cheering enthusiastically against her. Instead she laughed.

  “You are a bad man, Herr Ridgewood,” she hollered at me. “Very bad!”

  Well, I lost one point to her in the sixth game.

  Everyone was laughing now, except me.

  Timmy Pat, you are one mean son of a bitch.

  After I volleyed a backhand right past her and put the match away, she strode to the net, embraced me and kissed me with disturbing vigor. Her clothes were soaked in perspiration. Her family cheered.

  “You were a champion at Oxford?” she demanded, still holding me as if a prisoner

  “Twice,” I admitted.

  “You did not tell me.”

  “You did not ask me.”

  There was general enthusiasm for my victory as we collapsed in chairs under the verandah.

  “Annalise would have done much better,” I said, “if she had not worn herself out in the early matches.”

  “Ja, ja.” Claus chuckled.

  “Claus, why did not you tell me that he won the championship at Oxford? Twice!”

  “He never told me. He was nice to the rest of us at Heidelberg. You made fun of him.”

  “I will never do that again.” She continued to la
ugh. “He is a bad, dangerous man … Come let us bathe in the lake.”

  “It will be too cold,” Nina warned.

  “It’s been a warm spring,” she replied. “Claus?”

  “Very well.”

  So the three brothers, Annalise, and I, robes over our swimsuits, walked fifty yards behind the house, through a thin line of trees, to the shore of a small, narrow lake, peaceful under the strong summerlike sun. I strode down to the small pier where a rowboat was tied, dipped my foot in the water, decided that it was no worse than Galway Bay, tossed aside my robe and dove in.

  “’Tis grand altogether!” I shouted, once I had regained my breath. “You’re not afraid of a little cold water, are you now?”

  Annalise discarded her robe and revealed a two-piece black swimming costume. I gulped for the second time. Mind you, the costume was as extensive as a corset and a bra … Still it revealed a lot of that wonderful body.

  She dove in, surfaced almost at once and swam towards me.

  “Herr Ridgewood tells the truth,” she sputtered. “It’s wunderbar!”

  The other males jumped and yelled in protest.

  Annalise caught me by surprise, grabbed my head, and shoved it under water.

  I came up sputtering.

  “That is because you beat me in tennis.”

  Then she dunked me again.

  “That is for staring at my bathing costume.”

  I grabbed her and restrained her arms.

  “The bathing costume is meant for staring.”

  She struggled to free herself from my grip which I was beginning to enjoy.

  “Beast, pig!” she protested.

  “You started it.”

  “All right! Dunk me twice and then let me go!”

  “Promise me you won’t dunk me again?”

  “Yes!”

  I let her go.

  She seemed surprised.

  The Stauffenberg brothers had already climbed on the pier. I helped Annalise up the ladder and then turned around and swam out into the lake. It was very cold, but not as cold as the Irish Sea or Galway Bay. Was I showing off to impress the young woman?