Uncle Fridolin was a dexterous planner; his business grew visibly — not in a hectic way, but step by step. The bad times that came later could make no dent in it quite the contrary.
The upswing also raised my uncle's lifestyle. He gave up his apartment and moved into the fashionable West Side ofBerlin, purchasing a house in our neighborhood, on Fichtenberg. He now met my grandfather not only en famine but at the Rotarians. He wore custom-made suits, Friederike wore silk frocks and, in winter, a fur coat. His demeanor was as correct as ever; it was joined by growing authority.
Grandfather said: "Fridolin is presentable." Indeed, gradually, my uncle became our piece de resistance. That too is a statistical matter: the decline of old families. The time comes when they either face extinction or need replenishment. Power slips from their fingers; they suffer the fate of drones or come to an arrangement. British lords, French marquis marry billionairesses, who restore their castles. Princesses elope with bandleaders. The Hungarians say: "In our country, coachmen are fathered by counts and counts by coachmen."
Regarding the nobility, there were two big thrusts: the first, in the French Revolution; the other, in the two world wars, which future historians will, presumably, not separate. Salient turning points came when the entails were broken by the Code Napoleon and then by the Weimar Constitution, the goal being a redistribution of land. This was made possible by the spiritual weakness of the aristocracy, which was also physically liquidated in vast areas. Numerous members of my family did not escape this fate.
Quite generally, one may say that Prussia was well represented by the nobility until the Franco-Prussian War. Bismarck, Moltke, and Roon were paragons. The decline is evident when we compare portraits from that war with those from World War I — say, the portrait of Wilhelm I with that of Wilhelm II, or that of old Moltke with that of his nephew. But then, in my father's generation, came Moltke's grandnephew, Helmuth James Moltke, who was executed.
I close the circle: Uncle Fridolin did not contribute to our replenishment like the Hungarian coachmen. In this respect, he most likely did little; at any rate, Friederike did not bear him any children. Thus, I will probably be his heir, although this has no meaning for me; for either my problem will be solved on a higher level, in which case I will have no need of money, or else my problem will be my doom. At any rate, there will be enough for a cell in a madhouse or even in a private sanitarium.
Financially, however, we were considerately replenished by Friederike's marriage in the changing times and their catastrophes. My uncle became a lifesaver for Bertha and me after I obtained my university degree. In choosing my subjects, I had thought of my grandfather. But he had died in the meantime, and even the most modest jobs in his firm were taken. I had wasted important years in Liegnitz. After Grandfather's death, we moved into his Steglitz apartment and lived there rent-free but lavishly. I was surprised by a tax for "residing in one's own home" and other vexations — all in all, today's exploitation surpasses by far the practices of absolute monarchy. The state has become a multi-armed octopus, drawing blood in thousands of ways. There was only one thing I liked more than in the East: in your free time, you did not have to march behind the flag and yell hurrah, and also you could read and write whatever you wished.
There were weeks when I looked forward to Sunday — not because I had nothing to do, for I was idle even on workdays. But at least Sunday brought no mail with dunning notices and rejections. And at breakfast, Bertha's face was not so distressed.
We slept under one blanket, and at night, when I woke up with a start, I mused how good it would be if we never got up again. I reached out and felt Bertha next to me. I was safe here; I wished that it could always be like this, and that we, occasionally waking up, could lie next to one another for years — centuries.
Nevertheless, this period provided me with time to read. I learned more from books than at the universities. Day and night, I lived with the philosophers, the classics, and also the Bible as in a mountain range with its wellsprings and valleys — so long as I was not writing and answering ads or looking for a job. Bertha took over most of my correspondence. The offers were sobering: vacuum-cleaner companies were looking for enterprising peddlers, chinchilla farms wanted to dispose of their animals for a "nominal investment."
Nor did I fare any better with the heads ofpersonnel departments — if I so much as managed to get that far: their psychological training in dismissing people was perfect — from offering a cigarette to buzzing the secretary who showed me out. "You'll hear from us as soon as something comes up." But nothing ever did come up.
Going to Uncle Fridolin was almost an act of despair; naturally, I had already thought of him. My reluctance is shown by the number of visits I had tormented myself with before calling on him. My lack of eagerness was probably due in part to my memory ofthe days when the family had somewhat looked down on him.
I went to see him not at his office but at his home, which was only one block further. Aunt Friederike's coffee was excellent now; I missed her home-made cakes, but, to make up for them, there were petits-fours from Schilling's Pastry Shop. We "chitchatted" at length, as the Lower Saxons put it. Finally, when twilight was setting in, I came out with my request.
My uncle showed little surprise. He looked at me with his "character gaze," perusing me for a long time — not as inscrutably as the heads ofpersonnel departments, but skeptically, like the little bookkeeper that he had been. My aunt placed her hand on his arm. He took off his spectacles and said:
"Friedrich — I expected this. Come to my office tomorrow morning at eleven. Bring along your documents — every last one of them, starting with your birth certificate."
The next morning, accompanied by Bertha's good wishes, I stood outside his firm on Potsdamer Strasse. Having come early, I spent a quarter of an hour pacing up and down in front of the building. The bombs had spared it. It had only been "aired out" — and not until the final days of the Reich Chancelery. My uncle had redone the rooms for his needs and added a new facade. No show window — whatever belonged to the final arrangements could be seen in the branch offices. There was a sign at the entrance:
PIETAS
Funerals
Above it, two silver palm fronds. There were no other firms in the building, only an apartment for the concierge. The latter was indispensable, for many calls came at night.
At the stroke of eleven, I entered his office. I was led not into the waitingroom but directly to my uncle. "Herr Gädke is expecting you," said the secretary when I gave her my name. She pressed a button; my uncle opened the door and ushered me in. His office was plain, but roomy, with a big desk on which there was little paper— all incoming items were processed instantly. No pictures, only a few diplomas and the portrait of the old kaiser in uniform. "Some customers are offended, but I don't care."
After a quick handshake, my uncle put on his spectacles and delved into my credentials; they formed a thick file, which Bertha had put in order. There was nothing amiss in my transcripts — I had done well, indeed, to some extent, very well in the Gymnasium, the university, and also the military — until my desertion. This was a blemish more in my eyes than in Fridolin's.
My uncle read everything carefully, even my swimming certificate and my certificate of membership in the Dynamo Athletic Club in Liegnitz. I saw him nodding his approval several times. Then he took off his spectacles:
"And how are your finances, Friedrich?"