Only the History Society knows the code.
We take an interest in all that secrecy.
The Homeland House celebrated the 700th anniversary of Fürstenfelde with an Open Day. Even the Archivarium was to be opened. Frau Schwermuth wore local costume, although it wasn’t 100 percent certain what locality the costume came from. The Mayor made a speech, mentioning the new lock among other things. She called Fürstenfelde a site, because that always sounds like new jobs. She waved her arms about as if showing the size of a very large fish. Then Frau Schwermuth tapped the code into the lock, and the massive wooden door swung open, buzzing.
Ooh, aah, applause.
The walls were covered with sheets, but the room was empty except for a Perspex podium with a stack of papers on it, and about eight members of the Sound and Smoke Firefighters’ choir. They had had to wait in that little room behind the locked door for an hour because of delays to the planned course of events. They looked annoyed and heated.
The papers were the original manuscripts of the chronicle of the village by Paul Wiese, which is famous all over the village. Frau Schwermuth had “acquired” the chronicle from the Museum of Brandenburg History for the anniversary celebrations.
We were disappointed. We had hoped for better from the Archivarium. Frau Schwermuth explained that for want of suitable means of displaying them, and in the expectation of large crowds, she had been obliged to take the items in the Archivarium, which after all were valuable, to be kept in a place of safety. Not everyone went along with that, but fair enough.
Sound and Smoke gave it all they had. The acoustics of the cellar were sensational. Senior citizens went red in the face, junior citizens took their hands out of their pockets. The vaulted room was very full. The unhewn rock of the walls was sweating. The air almost ran out with all those people in the cellar, just ask Frau Kranz.
Our historical interest in Paul Wiese is confined, at the most, to Paul Wiese’s melancholy. In his day, Wiese tried to compile records of all the houses in the village and their inhabitants. Such-and-such a house built at this or that time by such-and-such a person, passed into the possession of whatsisname, fell into ruin at such-and-such a time or was still standing. A joke here, an anecdote there. Sentences beginning “Ah!” and charmingly excited, as melancholics tend to be when they have a good story to tell. Paul Wiese liked Fürstenfelde. A man who longed for steadiness in unsteady times.
The old windmill was demolished in 1930. I was there to see it come down. The demolition was necessary; it was extremely dilapidated. In 1945 the miller’s house burned down and was destroyed. I saw the flames. No one had to light a fire. What will happen now we cannot tell. Everything is transitory. .
There’s a portrait of Paul Wiese, a charcoal sketch done by Frau Kranz from a photograph. A man with a round head and a small moustache. His eyes are full of regret. We take a historical interest in whatever Wiese’s eyes are regretting.
We are even more interested to know why, on the Open Day at the Homeland House, all the other doors had to be locked while the door of the Archivarium was open. Even the doors on the ground floor, and even after Frau Kranz was left gasping for air when the Firefighters’ choir sang the folk song “Cling-clang,” and Imboden only just managed to catch her before she fell down in a faint as the singers reached “the tolling bell.”
Cling-clang, drink up and sing! / Tomorrow may yet bring / The ringing of a knell. / The world may fall apart / but sing with all your heart / above the tolling bell.
For the curious, copies of Wiese’s melancholy writing were available next day, ready for anyone on a little table between the tiled stoves.
To this day, however, no one has had a sight of the archives. Aren’t archives there to be consulted? Ah, but there is so much material, says Frau Schwermuth, and it hasn’t all been properly assessed yet. In addition, some of the documents are so fragile that they seem to tremble when you look at them for any length of time. So fragile and so valuable.
Well, let’s hope they’re valuable! If not, the parish would hardly have paid good money for the new lock and the humidity-regulating thingummy, while the Nordkurier complains that the long-distance cycle path is in a “shocking” condition where it reaches Fürstenfelde; the last time it was cleared was when Rudolf Scharping, the cycling politician, rode from Berlin to Usedom when he was standing for Chancellor.
Okay, so it’s not quite true that we don’t get a sight of the archives. Frau Schwermuth provides it. She notes down what we want to know, and makes copies if she finds anything. Or doesn’t make copies, but says, “Come back the day after tomorrow,” and we do go back the day after tomorrow. And if it takes longer than that, she says, “Things don’t move as quickly as all that in the past,” or something similar, and her heavy head sways on the neck under it, which is much too thin, like those long rocking horses you see in kids’ playgrounds going up and down on their metal springs.
We are surprised that no stories are growing and proliferating around the room in the cellar. That sort of thing usually happens when we come across cellars, locked rooms and open questions. We take a historical interest in the non-proliferation of stories. For instance, why Paul Wiese’s entry on House Number 11, today the Homeland House, ends with an incomplete sentence: In the cellar of the house I found, in a small room. .
We take an interest in incomplete sentences.
We take an enormous interest in when the window of the Homeland House was broken into, and who it was that Uwe Hirtentäschel saw from his studio moving around: the shape of someone, and a beam of light traveling over the wall.
Now that, yes, that is really interesting.
IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1592 THERE WAS A VERY wet summer, during which Season the Rain fell in Cloudbursts, and the Fields and Meadows were flooded, Gardens laid Waste, and the Great Lake rose so high that the Carp in the Pond swam out of that Same. Cattle and Sheep also contracted the Rot, of which many did die, and whole Flocks and Herds perish’d, and the same was noted of Hares. Then there was in the Autumn a terrible Drought, making the Land intractable to work and Harvest very poor. The People, being in great Want, fear’d the Winter, and Famine threaten’d.
On the Morning of the second Day of November, however, there appear’d under the Oak Tree hard by the Church five Wagons full of Grain, Butter, dried Meat and Beer, the Origin whereof None could explain. The Church expected Prayers of Thanksgiving, yet it remained empty. However, a Quarrel had broken out concerning the rightful Owner of the Food, in uncouth and unChristian Fashion, like the Brute Beasts, and a Fox was even to be seen watching, Every Man took what he could carry, and tried to trip up his Neighbor who was carrying more.
But Joy in the Booty did not last long; that Miracle fail’d as quickly as it Came. The Foodstuffs vanished once more from Cellars, Storehouses, Chambers and Halls, sometimes even from Tables.
Where did it go? None could say.
And why? Some guess’d, and came to Church in a penitent Condition.
UWE HIRTENTÄSCHEL LEAVES THE PARSONAGE AND steps out into the night, only for a moment, but long enough to be drawn into our round dance. The ferryman takes his left hand, we take his right hand. Let’s just give him a moment to update his placard on the oak in front of the church.