The Ambassador's Daughter

I watch, fascinated. It is unusual to see a female musician, or a woman doing anything other than accompanying a man on his arm at these affairs. Of course, there are the cooks and maids and such, but the woman’s high-collared silk blouse and straight posture does not bespeak the serving class. She plays with her whole body, shoulders swaying side to side as her hands traverse the keys, partners in a dance.

She finishes playing and the last note resonates throughout the salon, but the guests are too engrossed in their conversations to notice or applaud. “That was lovely,” I remark. The woman glances up and I wait for her to thank me, or at least smile. But a flicker of something close to annoyance crosses her face. “Mahler, wasn’t it?” I say.

She blinks. “Yes, from his Sixth Symphony.” Her voice is low and husky, just short of masculine, and her French is accented slightly, hailing from somewhere eastern I cannot place.

“One of my favorites, though I haven’t heard it since before the war. I didn’t think they would have you play it here.” My words come out more bluntly that I’d intended.

“Music is not political.”

I want to tell her that everything is political now, from the wine that is served (always the chardonnay, never the Riesling) to the color of the tablecloths (a patriotic French blue). But I do not know her well enough to get into a debate.

“I play what I want,” the woman adds. She adjusts the thick chignon of hair, the chestnut color broken by a few strands of gray. “It’s not as if they pay me.”

“Oh?”

The woman shakes her head. “My parents won’t allow it. They think it would be unseemly to take money.” It sounds odd, a woman who must be close to forty listening to her parents. But I will always care about Papa’s approval.

She points through the doorway toward a cluster of silver-haired men in the main ballroom. “My father. He’s a diplomat.”

“Mine, as well.” I leap too eagerly at the commonality, ignoring the fact that Papa’s title is in fact only a formality, conferred to credential him to the conference.

“Mine is with the Polish delegation.” My excitement fades. The Germans and Poles had been on opposite sides of the war, enemies. We could not, in fact, have less in common. “I’m Polish, or will be if they ever get around to making us a country again,” she adds. I nod. Poland had been partitioned among Germany, Austria and Russia for the better part of a half century. “Hard to see how they’ll have the time with all of this socializing.” She gestures toward the larger gathering. “You’re German, aren’t you?”

I flush. I had worked so hard to remove any trace of an accent from both my French and English. But a musician with a trained ear, the woman can hear the slight flaws in my speech and discern their origin. “Yes.” I hold my breath, waiting some sign of disapproval.

Her expression remains neutral. “Or at least you are until they get around to making Germany no longer a country,” she says wryly.

I cringe at this. It is the great unanswered question of the peace conference, whispered about in the salons, debated openly in the bars and parties: What will happen to Germany? “Back home they believe that it will be a fair peace.”

“Yes, they have to, don’t they? I’m Krysia Smok,” she says, extending a hand.

“Margot Rosenthal. A pleasure.” I want to mention the fact that I have seen her before but that would beg the question of what she was doing in the park, too intrusive of someone I’ve just met.

“I didn’t think the German delegation was coming until late spring,” she remarks.

“They aren’t. That is, we aren’t part of the delegation. My father is a professor, he teaches at Oxford at the moment….” I can hear myself babbling now. “And he’s detailed to the conference, not the delegation.” I study her face, wondering if she is impressed by the distinction.

From behind the column comes tittering laughter. “Really, even the kitchen staff have political aims,” a woman comments in English. “Are we to have soufflé tonight or a political rally?”

“They say the Japanese will demand a statement of racial equality, too,” her companion replies in a hushed tone, as though saying it aloud might make it real.

“Americans,” Krysia scoffs as they walk away. “They think they’re so progressive. And yet women in the States still do not have the right to vote.” I consider her point. Women were only given the vote in Germany a year ago and I haven’t been back to have the chance.

Papa is at my side then. “Darling, I’m sorry to have left you. I was waylaid by a Dutchman.”

“It’s quite fine. Did you hear about the kitchen boy?”

“Yes, Indochinese, by the sound of things, and seeking Wilson’s support for some sort of autonomy.”

“Do you think he lost his job?”

“I think,” Papa replies gently, “that he did what he set out to do at the conference and …” He stops midsentence and turns to Krysia. “Forgive my manners.” Papa is not like some of the men at the conference, seeing through the staff as though they are not here. “I’m Margot’s father, Friedrich Rosenthal.”

“Papa, this is Krysia Smok.”

She tilts her head. “Rosenthal, the writer?”

He shifts, uncomfortable with the attention. “I’ve written a few academic books, yes.”

“I’m more acquainted with your articles.” How is Krysia, a pianist from Poland, familiar with my father? “I particularly enjoy your work on the interplay between the suffragist cause and socialism,” she adds, animated now.

Papa bows slightly. “I’m humbled. And I’d be delighted to discuss the subject with you further if you’d like to come around for tea tomorrow. For now, I must excuse myself. Margot, I’m afraid I need to stay to speak with one of the British representatives after this.” He pats my cheek. “The car will be out front for you. Don’t wait up for me. I shall see you in the morning.”

When he has gone, I turn back to Krysia. “How do you know my father’s work?”

“His writings on the advancement of women in the communist system have been very helpful to the suffragist cause.”

“Papa isn’t a communist,” I reply quickly, though I’ve never read Papa’s work myself.

She doesn’t hear me, or pretends not to. “I detest pure academics. But your father, well, he was quite active in the protests in his day.” Papa out of his study is an animal removed from natural habitat; it is difficult to fathom him on the streets, chanting angrily like the Serb nationalists in front of the foreign ministry on the Quai d’Orsay. There is much about him, I realize, that I do not know.

Her gaze travels the room and stops on the catering manager who has entered the salon and is staring at us. The reception is winding down and Krysia is meant to be playing as the guests leave, not talking. “It was a pleasure meeting you,” she says, shuffling through her sheet music.

“Come to tea tomorrow,” I press. I’m lonely for company beyond the superficial chatter of the parties and I’ve enjoyed these few brief moments of conversation more than any since our arrival.

She shakes her head, demurring. “Is it because we are German?”

“Of course not.” Her tone is sincere. “I have a prior obligation. Another time.”

“Here.” I reach into my pocket and pull out one of the calling cards that Tante Celia had insisted I need. They seemed so frivolous at the time, but I’m glad to have them now. “In case you change your mind.”

“Thank you.” Krysia puts the card in her pocket in a way that tells me she will never use it.

She resumes playing and I walk from the salon, deflated. In the main ballroom, the gathering has begun to dissipate. I make my way to the cloakroom and when I return, the piano bench is empty.

Outside, I scan the line of cars and find ours. There is a dampness to the frosty night air that I can almost taste. As I get in, I see Krysia walking from the hotel with her parents. She kisses them each on the cheek and starts in the other direction, her blue cape radiant in the sea of black. I watch as she slips away, quiet as a cat, then ducks into the alleyway before reaching the boulevard.

Where is she going alone at night? It is after ten and there is still a curfew. I climb from the car once more. “I’ll make my own way,” I say to the driver, shutting the door before he can protest.

I weave my way through the departing crowd, breaking free and turning down the alleyway where I last saw Krysia. The street is dark and I fear that I have lost her, but I hear footsteps ahead and quicken my pace. A moment later the passageway opens onto a wide avenue and Krysia appears in a yellow pool of streetlight. She moves swiftly, almost seeming to fly beneath the billowing cape. I struggle to stay back far enough so as not to be noticed.

Krysia reaches the corner and stops. Then she turns, facing me before I have time to hide. “You again!” I freeze, an animal trapped. “Are you following me?”

“No—” I protest too quickly.

“I was joking, of course. You’re staying in the area?”

“My hotel is nearby, but I am going to visit some friends.” I regret the lie as soon as I have spoken, the notion that I would be calling on anyone at this hour of the night hardly plausible.

She does not respond but continues walking, shrugging her shoulders in a way that suggests I am welcome to join her. We travel wordlessly along the rue Royale, the swish of her cape giving off a faint hint of lilac perfume.

“Did you come to Paris before the war?” I ask, hoping she will not mind conversation. My breath rises in tiny puffs of frost.

“Yes. There was not so much work for pianists in southern Poland.” She unfurls detail a bit at a time, like a kite string, or thread off a spool. “When the war broke out I found myself stranded here.” There is something deeper beneath the surface, a longing in her voice that belies a part of the story she is not willing to share with me. “But I miss home terribly. Do you?”

“I suppose.” I have not until just this moment thought about it. Our town house in Berlin’s Jewish quarter is not large—even as a child, I could touch both walls of my bedroom at the same time if I stretched my arms out sideways. But it is cozy and made beautiful by all of my mother’s decorations, the floral trim and slipcovers that Papa never would have thought to do himself and that he has left untouched since she died. There’s a tiny garden with a fountain in the back, a park down the road for strolling. It’s been years since we’ve actually lived there for any period of time, though. “We’ve been abroad for so long. Now home is wherever Papa and I land with a place to lay our heads and books to read.”

She smiles. “The vagabond lifestyle.” We reach the steps of the metro, a dark cavernous hole I’ve passed before but never entered. Krysia stops. “Your friends,” she says suddenly. For a moment I am confused. She is referring to my alibi for being out walking, the fact that we’ve long since left the neighborhood I purported to be visiting. “You really were following me.” It is not a question.

“I just …” I falter.

“What is it that you want from me?”

I try to come up with another excuse and then decide to be honest. “Company. I’m bored,” I say, my voice dangerously close to a whine.

Krysia arches an eyebrow. “Bored, in Paris?”

My statement must sound ludicrous. “Not with the city, exactly. It’s all of the parties and silly gossip.”

“So don’t go. Play your own game. No good can come from idleness. Come.”

The metro steps are damp and slick and I take care not to fall as I follow her down. Below, my senses are assaulted by the dank odor of garbage and waste. I avert my eyes from a pair of rats scurrying along the tracks, fighting the urge to yelp. The ground rumbles beneath our feet and a long wooden train rolls into the station, looking not unlike the trolley cars that travel the streets above. The car we board is empty but for an old man sleeping at the other end. It begins to move swiftly through the darkness. I try to act normal, as though accustomed to this strange mode of travel.

“I saw you at the arrival parade for Wilson,” I say, unable to hold back. Krysia stares vaguely over my shoulder and for a minute I doubt my memory, wondering if the woman at the parade had been someone else. “You left in the middle,” I press. The statement comes out abrupt and intrusive.

“I had somewhere to be.” She does not elaborate.

Two stops later the doors open and I follow Krysia back up onto the street, breathing in the fresh air deeply to clear the dankness from my lungs. We are on the Left Bank now, with its narrow, winding streets. This is Paris as I knew it as a girl, buildings leaning close, whispering secrets to one another. Parisians, still in the habit of conserving from the war, have shuttered and darkened their houses and only every other streetlight splutters in an attempt to save electricity. A low fog has rolled in from the river now, swirling eerily around us.

A few minutes later, we reach the boulevard du Montparnasse. The wide avenue is as bright as midday, light spilling forth from beneath the café awnings. A door to a café opens and a woman’s high tinkling laugh cascades over the music. La Closerie des Lilas reads the painted sign on the glass window of the café, smaller print advertising the billiards and rooms available on the floors above.

I follow Krysia inside, where she weaves through a maze of tables without waiting to be seated, steering toward the high mahogany bar with red leather stools. Shelves filled with bottles climb to the ceiling of the mirrored wall behind it. The room is warm and close, plumed with clouds of cigarette smoke. Ragtime music from an unseen gramophone plays lively in the background, mixing with boisterous conversation in French, German and a handful of other languages.

Behind the bar, a skinny brown-haired boy, eighteen or nineteen maybe, with coal-black eyes, stacks beer steins. Feeling his gaze follow me, I flush. I’m still not used to the kind of attention young women receive in Paris, so much more admiring and less veiled than in London or Berlin.

We reach an alcove behind the bar, not quite set off enough from the main part of the café to be its own room, a few tables with an odd assortment of chairs thrown haphazardly around them. A half-decorated Christmas tree lists in the corner.

Krysia pulls up two chairs to one of the tables, where a handful of men are gathered. I await the introductions that do not come, then sit down beside her. The marble table is littered with overflowing ashtrays and empty wine bottles and an untouched carafe of still water. Two candles in a brass dish burn at the center, melting together in a molten pool. The only woman, Krysia looks out of place in this group of rough men. But she chats easily, as if among family. The gathering crackles with conversation. Across from me two men are debating how the war will be remembered in the literature, while to my left there is a lively discussion about the future of Palestine. Ideas rise like champagne bubbles around me and I struggle to keep up, to grasp one before it is displaced by the next

“Is Marcin coming?” one of the men asks in accented French. His sideburns, wide and deep, lash onto his cheeks like daggers. He wears a red silk scarf around his neck, knotted jauntily.

Krysia shakes her head. “He’s playing a wedding at Chartres.”

The man snorts. “That’s a disgrace.”

“One has to eat,” Krysia replies vaguely, then turns to me. “Marcin is my husband.”

“Oh.” Krysia seems so solitary and stoic, an island unto herself. It is hard to imagine her needing or living with anyone.

“He plays cello.”

An older man, fiftyish and portly with a shock of white hair, pads over to the table and places fresh, foaming mugs of beer in front of us. “She’s too modest.” His vowels are rounded, as though his cheeks were full, a Russian accent unmuted by his time in France. “Marcin is one of the foremost cellists in Europe,” the man informs me. He begins twirling a coin between the knuckles of his left hand, index finger, middle, ring, pinky, and then back again without stopping. His fat fingers, each a sizable sausage, are surprisingly nimble. “He should be playing filled concert halls, not background music for wedding guests munching on canapés and cheap wine.”

The red-scarfed man beside me raises his glass. “Hear, hear.” His words are slurred.

Krysia pats the arm of the man who has handed us our drinks. “Margot, this principled fellow is Ignatz Stein.” I am surprised to hear her introduce the barman as a friend. “He owns this place.” I take a sip too large, caught off guard by the full, cold taste of hops, carrying me back to the fields of Bavaria in late harvest when Papa and I hiked there years earlier. The extra liquid spills out of the corner of my mouth. I reach for a napkin and, seeing none, furtively blot at the moisture with my sleeve, hoping no one will notice. Krysia turns to the man seated beside her. “And this is Deo Modigliani.”

“The artist?” I cannot help but blurt out, awestruck. I have studied his work, seen it in the finest galleries and museums. Yet here he is sitting in this nondescript café and drinking beer like everyone else. I’ve heard of this Paris, artists and writers gathering in the Montparnasse cafés to drink and share ideas. It exists beneath the surface, separate and secret from the pomp and formality of the conference and everyday life overhead.

Krysia does not answer but turns her attention to a debate on the future of Alsace-Lorraine that has heated up at the far end of the table. “Surely the territory will be returned to France now.” I have not been introduced to the man who is speaking.

“If the Americans and the French don’t tear one another apart first,” Krysia interjects. I nod. The conference is just days old and things had reportedly gotten quite contentious already.

“But the Americans …”

“It is quite easy to have views from halfway around the globe.” Her observation is unfair and yet at the same time true. The Americans came to help with the fighting and they are here to help make the peace. Yet they will return home, largely unscathed by what is decided here. So why are they at the center of it?

She continues, “If the conference is to be democratic, then why is so much being done by the Big Four behind closed doors? And where is Russia?” I watch in awe as Krysia speaks her mind in a forthright way, mixing logic and passion in the way of a woman long accustomed to debate. Holding court, she appears ethereal, bathed in light. I have seldom heard women offer up opinions and have never seen them received with such respect. There is a keen intensity to the way she speaks, her voice low and melodic and commanding, that makes her somehow beautiful.

“Did you hear a kitchen boy from the Orient sent Wilson a petition for his country’s freedom?” Modigliani offers, changing the subject.

“Ask Margot about it,” Krysia says, gesturing toward me with her head. “I was playing in one of the salons, but she saw the whole thing.”

“You were at the Wilson reception?” The barman, Ignatz, comes up to my chair, regarding me with newfound interest.

“Yes, my father is with the conference.”

“Her father is Friedrich Rosenthal,” Krysia adds with emphasis. Heads nod in recognition.

“Your father doesn’t write under a nom de plume,” Ignatz observes, still twirling a coin.

“No, why should he?”

“I think Ignatz only meant that not every writer has the courage to speak of such things in his own name,” Krysia clarifies. Courage. I recall the news from back home in Berlin, the violence that had erupted as a result of the civil unrest. Politicians has been shot for no more than their views. Could Papa and the other academics be in similar danger?

Modigliani leans in, his artist eyes soulful. “And what are you, ma petite?”

“Deo,” Krysia warns in a low voice, protective like an older sister.

I am uncertain how to answer. “I’m engaged,” I offer. My response is met with blank stares around the table.

“I believe,” Krysia prompts gently, “that he was asking what you are planning to do now that the war is over?” Krysia’s clarification is of little help. Before the war, my future was clear—marriage to Stefan, the biggest question being whether to live with Papa indefinitely or save for an apartment of our own. That world is gone now. But still the old ties and expectations remain.

“I don’t know,” I confess finally. The room is warm and wobbly from the beer.

“How exciting.” I search for sarcasm in her voice and find none. “Starting fresh, reborn out of the ashes. The war was horrible, but it has shaken things up, given each of us a chance to stake a claim for what she wants.”

“They say that Kolchak’s Whites are making gains at Perm …” Ignatz offers, turning the topic to Russia. I sit back, grateful to no longer be the focus. But I find the topic unsettling. Russia has become a wild land since the czar was taken down, his whole family murdered. The Bolsheviks are in charge, or at least most think so—the country has largely been cut off from the West and so only rumors trickle out.

“Papa says we need to engage with the Whites as well as the Bolsheviks,” I say, speaking up in spite of my own desire to remain inconspicuous. I fight to keep the uncertainty from my voice. But I sound childish, falling back on my father’s opinions as if I have none of my own. “That is, perhaps we can help them to form some sort of coalition government….” I falter, unaccustomed to the eyes on me. Even the dark-eyed boy behind the bar appears to be listening with interest. I have discussed politics with Papa all my life, but never in a public forum such as this.

“What else does Papa say?” Ignatz asks from where he stands behind Krysia, a note of chiding to his voice.

“That the conference will move quickly to act before Russia can subsume too much territory.” I speak quickly now, too far gone to stop. “With a quick vote on recognition of the new Croat-Serb state, for example. The vote is to take place as soon as the conference opens. And it seems that Wilson and Lloyd George are favorably predisposed to a Pan-Slavic nation. But Clemenceau is likely to side with Orlando and the Italians and hold it up….”

“They can vote all they want. Lenin will not compromise on any sort of coalition,” Krysia remarks. She is talking about the Bolshevik leader not with the same fear I’ve heard at the parties, but with a kind of hushed reverence.

“You’re communist?” I ask, recalling her description of Papa’s work.

“I detest labels,” she replies coolly. “I’d say socialist, really, though there’s nothing wrong with communism as an ideal.”

Thinking of the stories I’ve read about Russia, I shudder. “It’s anarchy. They destroy businesses and overthrow leaders. They murdered the czar’s whole family, even the children.”

“That’s the problem with Germans,” one of the men scoffs derisively. “No stomach for reform. As Lenin says, revolution will never come to Berlin because the Germans would want to queue up for it.”

“It’s a shame that social change has to be accomplished by such violent means,” Krysia says before I can respond to the insult. “Though the previous rulers were hardly saints. Really the ideas behind communism of equal contributions and distributions are good. But they’re being corrupted for power just like any other ideology.”

One of the men snorts. “Bah! The socialists are too weak to act on their principles. We can sit around here talking all night and it will do nothing. We need to do something.”

“Raoul …” Krysia says, and there is an undercurrent of warning to her voice. “We should go,” she adds abruptly.

I’ve offended her, I fret. But the gathering has begun to break up, and around us everyone is gathering their coats and reaching for their pockets for a few loose francs. I picture guiltily Papa’s allowance money folded neatly in my purse. Should I offer to pay? Only Modigliani sits motionless. “Am I to accept another drawing from you?” Ignatz asks him chidingly. I notice then that the wall behind the bar is covered with artwork, framed paintings and hastily pinned sketches to pay for food and drink. The artist does not answer, but stares into the distance, his eyes heavy lidded.