Once, in a neighbouring town, I saw a small procession watched by an expressionless crowd, carrying a large golden sun-disc on a pole, singing in German:
Wrinkling with distaste, Mother said, ‘Hooligans!’ in the tone reserved for incompetent servants. At another time, in unusual irritation, Father exclaimed, ‘Hegel!’ as if expecting my intelligent response, which did not come. Another mystery, Hegel suggested, not, I discovered, in total absurdity, a monster, hungry for prey, scared of Ragnarok.
I need open the Turret to none. Small, it was also boundless, housing an Emperor Earth.Downstairs, parents were handsome as Margrafs and Margraffins in old paintings, but I stared sadly into glass, striving for some marvellous detail of bone or frown reiterating my powerful lineage, that of crusaders against Danes, Russians, Poles, Russians, wresting Estonia from the Danish King, slaughtering pagans, grabbing walrus-bone and, from their Table of Honour, bawling, ‘The Sword is our Pope.’ The Herr General said that Pope Innocent IV pardoned any criminal who joined the Teutonic Order, its black cross on white cloak cruel yet splendid. I read, too, of Livonian Knights, Knights of the Garter, of the Golden Fleece, of the Star, forbidden to flee in defeat. Also Counts of the Rhine, Brothers of the Sword, beaked, metallic, competing with Robber Knights, magic bears, evil planets. An oak-bred prince, an ash that taught the alphabet, tall castles staring bare above wooded, wistful valleys. Germania.
My thoughts were exceptional, real marvels: of abyss, wolf, murderous bishops, troll country and of the Sound abruptly drowning islands, towns, estates, so that Rising Tide became code for my sudden change of mood, dismissed by mother as sulks, until I overheard the Herr General state that ‘sulkiness’ was deployed by those of too little imagination against those with too much.
Rising Tide could be dispelled by a smile, rush of sunlight through thick winterset, fiery cloud over the Lake. Or deep, tolling words from Pastor Ulrich in his small, wooden church, ‘In Heaven ye shall have Peace, in the World, Tribulation, but be of Good Cheer, for I have overcome the World.’ Heavy, black-bearded, he had probably done so, like Tsar Peter, and Friedrich der Grosse, Old Fritz, mighty Prussian, though no Knight of Germania like Lohengrin, Parsifal, Siegfried, Charlemagne, Barbarossa and Conradin, last of the stupendous Hohenstaufen, his young, naked limbs, a block, a reeking neck.
The Manor had remote, dusty attics, darkened stairs, winding passages tinged with mothballs, polish, camphor, gun-oil, dog, often so oppressive that I sniffed ghosts. In the kitchen they spoke of house-spirits, their cordiality unreliable, their anger perilous, hiding in cupboards, scuttles, lofts. A derelict cowshed sheltered a red-eyed imp so that, even at nine, I avoided it when shadows were dense and hungry.
One room, black-panelled, was sunk in gloom; another, with frayed crimson hangings, smelt of hay, with a mirror so blotched that, gazing, I saw someone else. The Rose Room, boudoir, first line of a story, was never used and seemed forbidden. To my questions the servants, though I believed they loved me, affected deafness. I would cautiously open the door to see whether anything had been changed, perhaps by spirits, but it was always newly dusted, with fresh flowers, the lumpily framed portraits of High Folk bravely watching. The curved, padded chairs, tapestries of hunts and moonlit woods, were unaltered, the Rose Room another adult secret.
On all levels the past intruded. An old laundry-woman possessed a copper bowl in which, she asserted, dwelt an ancestral frog. I wanted to put it in a stove, then await a flash, then mist, black or bloody.
The kitchen nourished imagination with its tales and gossip, its hams, pungent herrings, strings of onions hanging from smoke-grimed rafters, the great stove patterned with swans, leaves, reeds. One scullery maid each morning greeted every utensil by name, wishing them fortune. For her, a plate, cup, bucket had a human face.
Everywhere portraits hung, ranged between stuffed heads of wolf and elk, the top right-hand corner of a wall always covered, for there demons hid. Portraits described eras – of Wallenstein, star-crazed warrior; of Old Fritz, frozen in triumphs – faces spectral and narrow under helmets or wigs, hands with pistols or tasselled swords. Armour gleamed beneath starred cloaks, a watch dangled from a neck seemingly blue with cold, spectacles disfigured a slender girl holding a rose, some Winter Queen in purple cap rimmed with gold. I would stand at attention beneath one portrait: powdered hair, calm, reflective face, high collar and stock, grey coat sprayed with medals, a locket on silver chain, holding what Father called an Icelandic gyrfalcon. An ancestor, a sort of knight, Count von der Pahlen, inspirer of the murder of Paul, mad Tsar, son of Catherine the Great and father of Alexander, who had defeated Napoleon in the snow. I would have liked sharing a name with Pahlen, who could thus have still lived somewhere within me.
On Great Family occasions, past faces reappeared: one day my own must join them, hard behind their joviality. Did people follow their faces or create them, as if with modelling clay, some very carelessly? Could the Rose Room be haunted by Count Pahlen, patriot or traitor?
History lingered like dust. In mother’s books were the Black Prince encased in shadow, Queen Victoria in diamonds, her Empire straddling the globe with turbaned soldiers and huge grey ships, the House of Lords retained – the Herr General considered – by the English spirit of fun. He used the English word, which I could not quite understand. Edward, the boy king, dwindled to a white, despairing face at a Tower window.
In the hushed library, amid dim, magical volumes, was suspended a curled headpiece with runic signs, cut from a bear’s skull and reputed to make heroes invisible; for a coward it was too large. Testing this, I was almost smothered.
Books were not imprisoned but lay everywhere, in neglected alcoves, on antique tables, in scented bedrooms, oaken bible-boxes and elaborately gilded cabinets and in what Herr Estate Manager Bruest called the first place of general interest on leaving the hall. Father would select a book and shyly offer it or leave it beside my plate like a password. His books were mostly German but with some French. Adult books I seldom read in full, usually opening them at random to read a few fragments, enticing, if incomprehensible, then feeling gifted with superior knowledge. One book had the magnetic powers of a riddle:
Words were skates, speeding me to horizons where dwelt Pharaohs, Pahlens, Cyclops scared of green, trolls that burst if they saw sunrise. They were almost visible in dusky corridors where antlered heads seemed to thrust through woodwork, binding me to Forest, where winter sky was scattered, handfuls of milk frozen between black branches.
My insights ceased to be unique when, confiding some to the Herr General, I learnt they were common to young adults, a phrase comforting distress that had reduced me lower than Hegel. I continued to collect phrases like birds’ eggs, pocketknives, pens, songs. ‘Rounder than a grouse egg.’ ‘Larger than an ox-eye flower.’ ‘Lower than a daughter-in-law’s spirit.’ These I gathered from our dependants, die Eibleute. Stable jokes and rhymes were darker, the tales more menacing. Lost children were, in fact, betrayed by the hungry witch. ‘They tasted delicious.’ Less exciting was that tiny Estonia had been sired by Kalev, son of divine Kaara, who rode the North on an eagle, and whose other son ruled the Underworld. From Mother’s English stories I learnt the danger of fingerprints and of leaving footprints in mud.