Bertha had thought of that too. I was able to produce bills, receipts, and dunning notices. The bottom line did not look good. My uncle reimmersed himself and shook his head.
"So, more than I thought."
A silence ensued. Finally, he said:
"I will hire you all the same. Leave the bills here; I'll settle them, and you'll also get an advance on your salary. I don't like someone to start out with debts. Mind you: it's a loan."
That was a burden off my mind; it was more than I had hoped for. I thanked my uncle; he shook my hand and said:
"The day after tomorrow is the first of the month; you can begin then. Don't get me wrong: it's on the basis of your credentials. The fact that we are family and that you are even our next of kin is a different kettle of fish. As your uncle, I would have given you the money. But in the office, I am no uncle and you are no nephew; that's what I've already told Friederike."
Sergeant Stellmann had expressed himself in similar terms, but more robustly. One of his mottoes was: "I'm a kind-hearted man — but on duty I'm a bastard. And I'm always on duty."
Well, it was not as bad as all that. Ultimately, I count Stellmann among my benefactors. Walking back from Potsdamer Strasse to Steglitz, I stopped off at Rollenhagen's and spent part of my advance on a lobster and a bottle of champagne. The nicest thing of all was that Bertha's face was at last cheerful again. We could now save our furniture from being repossesed.
She had also regained her sense of humor: when we took a nap after the banquet, she said: "You can now stop looking as if you'd seen a ghost."
She was already alluding to my job.
At 8:0o A.M. on the first of the month, I began my new job. Uncle Fridolin informed me about my duties; there was truly no question of nepotism. He concluded: "You will start at the bottom and work your way up." Then he introduced me to the chief executives.
I was now a manager at Pietas. "Manager" is a makeshift title, which can mean anything and nothing. It corresponds to the military title "for special services." I was a factotum, a maid of all work, constantly busy, even Sundays and after hours. The concierge would telephone me in emergencies — and everything in this business is an emergency. Furthermore, death comes mainly at night.
Now "at the bottom" did not mean that I had to lay hands on the coffins — there was a special squad for that, the burial men, and they caused me enough trouble. Pallbearers and gravediggers are a strange guild, they are border crossers of a kind. While they may not philosophize like Hamlet, they are nevertheless concerned with the question of what remains of us. Usually only a couple of bones in the grave or ashes in the urn — that was their conclusion.
But my job was to deal with their functions, not their thoughts. I benefited from my experiences in Liegnitz. All in all, it's always good to have performed rigorous service somewhere. I had to check their suits, their slow, regular pacing, their measured, even slightly sacral movements, their postures down to the mimicry, their solemn faces. It was important that they should not report for work in a tipsy state. Unfortunately, before arriving, they tended to wet their whistles — and rather copiously at that. After a funeral, it was customary — even if they did not take part in the funeral feast, they could usually count on a libation. All in all, I generally got along with them.
Thus I often had to deal with cemeteries and crematoriums. I also had to go to their administrations, to churches and registry offices, to suppliers and newspapers. At first, I could barely cope with it all.
Needless to say, given the size of Uncle Fridolin s firm, I had to take care of only one sector; the work was divided among the cemeteries. However, three of them, including a large one, were more than enough. I had relatively little trouble with a Jewish graveyard that had escaped being plowed under. It was small, and a religious organization, the khevra kadisha (burial society), did the bulk of our work. This was good, partly because special prescripts had to be strictly observed. No flowers were allowed; Jews lay stones on a grave. I particularly liked this place because of the old, mysterious headstones. Inscriptions that we cannot read inspire a deeper level of thinking — there was a touch of Zion and Babylon to it.
Life in an office was new to me. I got accustomed to it within a year. There are two rules for such work; one: plan; the other: delegate. Little by little, I cut back on the paperwork and made more use of the telephone. This saved a lot of time and a lot of errands. I also knew the partners now, and when my uncle saw that I was proving myself, he gave me a secretary. She prepared the incoming papers; on some I only made a few jottings, chiefly figures; she would call the administrations. Sermon, chapel, flowers, and so forth were then automatically taken care of. Finally, even these jottings were dropped; a small machine stood next to the telephone: I pressed buttons as Bertha had done on the cash register.
After a year, I was also relieved of making house calls — they are my least pleasant memories. Usually, I was expected, for the bereaved turned to the tried-and-true Pietas after the initial shock. This obtained even for state funerals. The name of the firm, with the palm fronds, appeared between newspaper obituaries and in every subway car. The more lavish the funeral was to be, the more readily they thought of us. Before the war, Uncle Fridolin, together with Grandfather, had started a burial fund; it too flourished, but he terminated it. He said: "That's something for little people" — let them go to his competitors.
I began sighing even before those visits, when I knotted my silver necktie and slipped into my frock coat. What was I in for this time? Who would open the door — the ghostly widow or the weeping maid? No hush can be deeper than in a house where someone has died and the mirrors are draped. I would get involved in turbulent scenes, watch the family standing around the deathbed, and have to prompt anyone who would not reply. Nor was there any lack ofinfamy: the heirs already bickering in the next room, the creditors mobbing the door as they had done after Balzac's demise, the ill-concealed delight ofthe successor in the store, the office, the conjugal bed, rubbing his hands.
One thing was not as bad as I had pictured it: the close bond between tragedy and business. Whenever I entered as the harbinger of Charon's boat, followed by my assistant with his tape measure, I actually sensed a feeling of relief among the mourners. The chaos was beginning to ease — I could take over some of their worries. And also, the moment comes when, hard as it may be to say farewell, one wishes that the dead person were under the ground.
Then again, I could not neglect business. Once, when I submitted an order to Uncle Fridolin, he said: "They would have been more than willing to spend twice as much for their father and they are even obligated to do so: he was a general. After all, we're not running a charity here."
I took his words to heart; on the other hand, I could not exploit the bewilderment of the bereaved. Gradually, I struck a balance.
Why did I care less and less about these visits the more routine they became? The answer would require a bit of soul-searching, for I would not wish to present myself to myself as a good person. Nevertheless, the work was stressful. My situation was roughly that of a thespian who has to perform in dramas every evening. At first, he is passionate, then it becomes a daily habit; it imbues his language, his gestures, his acting — the mask becomes constant.
That was what happened to me. Now, when I went to the homes of the deceased, I had no stage fright; this development was harmful to my character.
It was Bertha rather than I who noticed the change. She said, when I came home exhausted: "You can stop looking as if you've been to your own funeral!" And she was no longer trying to be funny.