Oh to be here
Bavaria in 1926 and a dance at the old villa that was Aunt Gertrude’s until the government seized it after the revolution came. A photograph to pose for to send back to Mother in Paris. Time for a cigarette in the hall and a few drinks in the drawing room before the party begins.
Some gauche people from the villa down the road from Berlin but something to be ignored. Odd. Austrian, someone said, but not Vienna with its cultured edge. No, from somewhere with peasants, Transylvania or wherever it was that it turned into Hungary after the war.
An orchestra all the way from Baden, the one with the lead singer whose father played for Kaiser Wilhelm before it all went up in smoke. Not the same anymore but something left.
Enough for winter in a cut-rate villa that at least has an address in Nice even if it isn’t really. The Lutheran church on February Sundays where Father put piles of money in the plate. Only enough for ten marks now but something. Not like the poor Russian chaps with only one kopek. Bad but not as bad as that.
Better than nothing but not the same. Heirloom tiaras for weddings and a veil to match but the grand house up on the Baltic sold. Only the townhouse left and half of that leased out. But a better day to come and for now another dance and dinner . . . . .tomorrow for rubies and the pawnshop on Monday but still one can dream.
