The headstones of the parish priests were lined along the wall of the chapel. The dates reached all the way back to the Thirty Years' War. Chalice and wafer were reiterated in red sandstone from Baroque style to Art Nouveau. A sovereign judge, a seminarian, a man who had been struck by lightning, many children, but mostly peasants who had tilled the soil. Perhaps their families had died out, but the stone preserved their names, stirring the reflections of strangers who, like us today, happened to pass by. They had even memorialized a tightrope walker who had plunged down in the village square.
When Edwin had returned with the canisters, and we were driving back to the highway, Kornfeld said:
"Now that was a graveyard worthy of its name. When I think of the cemetery in my hometown, where I may end up: a switchyard, worse than in New York."
He expounded: "You see, I maintain a family vault that I inherited, it dates back to my great-grandfather. I don't know how much longer I can afford it. No year goes by without my being pestered by the administration. The very word 'inherit' annoys people today like 'destiny' or 'the Good Lord.' I'm afraid that the North German lowland has become a seismic area. Now one headstone wobbles, now another, although they're located along the wall and most likely wobble only when some sort ofviolence is inflicted on them. I get bills from stone masons, cemetery gardeners, miscellaneous fees yet one hundred twenty years ago, my great-grandfather paid for the spot once and for all — and in gold. Evidently, more land speculators are at work there than death watchers; that's why most of the old families are giving up their rights."
Kornfeld went on: "The family vaults are then replaced by rows of uniform stones. Those people arrogate authority for themselves even in questions of taste. But just take a look at the Campo Santo in Genoa. It teems with examples of poor taste — and they all combine into a wonderful tableau."
I had to agree. The ahistorical person knows no peace, especially eternal peace. He has adjusted even his graves to his chauffeur style. Like all structures, they are meant to last thirty years. The mourners are content with a standing order at a gardening center. Such is their piety. I was acquainted with it from my job.
"That's the way it is," said Kornfeld, "the old washerwoman who saved up for her funeral, taking her shroud from her chest every Sunday in order to caress it — you'll find her only in half-forgotten poems."
He mused: "And yet something has remained — you discover it when you scratch the polish: a grieving in November, when the leaves are falling and yet seeds are already stirring in the earth. Believe me: a loss is felt here, a need slumbers here, unsettling everyone, moving everyone."
That was how it began, during the drive to Verdun, to one of the great cemeteries. The conversation lodged in our memories; we felt we had touched on an important issue. We then saw a great deal of one another in Berlin, socially too, and developed the theme.
I would like to say to our credit that we initially did not think of business. Kornfeld planned as an architect and artist; his ideal had long been to create harmonious landscapes outside the workaday world. They were meant to inspire pure well-being and meditation — and perhaps also have ritual meaning — preferably both in unison. He frequently quoted a forgotten historian, von Rotteck: "A compilation ofburial customs would be the counterpart of a collection of theories of immortality."
Richly illustrated works, from Vitruvius and Piranesi to Lenôtre and Prince Puckler, were to be found in Kornfeld's library, which led into a map room. I enjoyed being in these rooms. The work wing also included a studio and a drafting room, with an array of marble steps set into the walls. A garden led down to the Spree. In the garden, there were sculptures from the period when Kornfeld had been an active sculptor. Now he employed draftsmen, who also worked for Pietas from time to time. It was in the context of such a commission that I had made his acquaintance.
As regards myself, I was initially moved by only a vague passion. What appealed to me was something general, which I could serve if only by contributing a single stone. With that stone, I would confirm that the Pharaoh is immortal, and everyone carries a pharaoh inside himself.
I thought of great buildings, Kornfeld thought of forests and plains near the Polar Circles. We were united by the conviction that we were on the trail of a yearning. If a need is to be aroused, it has to exist; one cannot talk people into it. Only that which slumbers can be awakened.
We had an idea, but, like any inventor, any author, we had to go and find a reliable partner in order to make it come true. Clearly, we first turned to Uncle Fridolin, but he flatly refused. He was a good businessman, but averse to fantasies and with no appreciation of art. Furthermore, he did not much care for the thought of eternal resting places. After all, his livelihood depended on as many burials as possible, virtually in rotation. Like many conservatives, he was at the cutting edge when it came to business. Thus, he viewed cremation as a great advance, although he rejected it personally.
Sigi Jersson was one of my new friends, perhaps the only one to whom I can really apply that word. We had met in a Jewish cemetery that had been opened only recently. The headstones gave me pause to think: each was shaped like an open book with one or two names inscribed in it; underneath stood a list of the missing — not people who had fallen in battle, but people who had been deported and murdered. Sigi's father was one of them.
We exchanged only a few sentences; but with a genuine affinity, this often suffices to begin a friendship. It can be a wink, an ironic silence that reveals a spiritual rapport. And here there was a lot that had to be veiled.
Sigi visited me in Steglitz, and I visited him in his bungalow at Wannsee Lake, in the Western sector of the city. Bertha was not edified by this acquaintanceship, which contributed to our drifting apart. "He's not your kind — did you see the way he eats asparagus?" This hardly troubled me; after losing Jagello, I was starved for conversation with a historical and literary grounding. Sigi could oblige with both. I could tell from my very first visit to his library that he possessed an inner order. For literati, books are the costumes by which they judge one another. Hume, Machiavelli, Josephus Flavius, Ranke in long, brownish golden rows — there is a mood in which books directly radiate substance.
In time, I needed these visits as much as an old Chinese needs opium. Exhausted, I drove from my dreary office on Potsdamer Strasse to my new friend, if only for a few minutes, and when I left, I was refreshed. Occasionally, I missed dinner and stayed past midnight. Bertha conjectured that I had strayed from the path of virtue and in a way, I had.
Inevitably, we also exchanged personal memories. In our century, almost everyone who has escaped has an odyssey behind him. Sigi came from a family that had lost everything and then become wealthy again. They must have had a natural relationship to money. In this regard, Sigi was no chip off the old block; he was considered a sponger by his rich kinfolk, but his life was free of care, for he had married within the family.
Sigi's wife was a Jersson by birth, the only daughter of the well-known banker. Her name was Rea, she had dark hair and a very delicate figure. She could have come straight out an Egyptian frieze as one of the slave girls stretching out their arms to offer Pharaoh a gift. Thus, when we were sitting in the library, she would come in, serve fresh tea, and empty the ashtray. I could imagine her breasts. She entered and vanished like a shadow; all that was lacking was for her to knock as on the door of a chambre separee, where one does not wish to disturb a loving couple.