'Threshold'

John Howard's last story in Inner Europe is set in the early years of Weimar, when Germany had become a model democracy.

The protagonist is an East Prussian aristocrat faced with selling his family estates. Not only has he lost his ancient birthright, his wife and child died in the Spanish Flue epidemic. The Count Philip von Stern is a sympathetic character, a civilised and kindly man who hopes that Germany's future will be secure and prosperous. But, as the title hints, we are on the threshold of something very different. And central to this idea is a focus on money, more specifically coinage.



As a boy the count did magic tricks with coins - the heavy gold ones of the old regime. The new currency consists of notes and lightweight coins. We know that soon the Weimar mark will be hit by hyperinflation and people will be taking their wages home in wheelbarrows. The count's rediscovery of his conjuring skills, then his awareness that he is capable of something more than sleight of hand, suggests that something mysterious but vital was lost in the fall of the old order.

This is a sad, elegiac tale of people caught in the turbulence of history, and the way in which they cling to memory, love, and even less definable things. It reminded me slightly of W.G. Sebald's book The Rings of Saturn, which also looks at the decayed, forgotten resorts and estates of the old Europe.

One more story to go.