Theirs is a history that can hold its own alongside that of other private banks that not only have a history but have made history: the Bethmanns, Oppenheims, and Rothschilds. The author regretted that he was not able to write more about private banks; they kept their archives under lock and key, and if they did open them it was only to scholars they commissioned to do research for jubilees and commemorative tributes. Private banks gave their archival records to public archives only in cases of liquidation, or of foundations being established.
I took out a pack of Sweet Aftons from the filing cabinet where I lock up my cigarettes so that when I want a smoke I don’t just open a pack but have to get up, go over to the filing cabinet, and unlock it. Brigitte hopes this will make me smoke less. I lit a cigarette. Welker had mentioned only his own documents, not the bank’s archives. Had the bank Weller & Welker dissolved its archives and disposed of their contents? I put a call through to the state archives in Karlsruhe, and the official responsible for industry and banking was still in the office. No, the archives of Weller & Welker were not on deposit with them. No, they were not on deposit at any other public archive, either. No, he could not say with certainty if the bank had an archive. Private archives are only randomly collected and preserved. But hell would freeze over before a private bank would-
“And we’re not talking about any old bank,” I cut in. “Weller and Welker was founded almost two centuries ago. The bank cofinanced the Gotthard Tunnel and the Andes Railroad.” I was boasting a little with my newly acquired knowledge. And they say boasting gets you nowhere.
“Ah, that bank! Didn’t they also finance the Michelstadt-Eberbach Railroad? Could you hold on for a second?”
I heard him put down the receiver, push back a chair, and open and shut a drawer. “In Schwetzingen there’s a certain Herr Schuler who is involved with the archives of that bank. He’s researching the history of the Baden railways and kept us quite busy with his questions.”
“Do you happen to have Schuler’s address?”
“Not at hand. It must be in the file with our correspondence. I’m not certain, though, if I can… I mean, it’s personal information, isn’t it? And it would be confidential, wouldn’t it? May I ask why you want his address?”
But I had already taken out the white pages, opened them to Schwetzingen, and found the teacher Adolf Schuler, retired. I thanked the official and hung up.
6 No fool
The retired teacher Adolf Schuler lived behind the palace gardens in a tiny house that wasn’t much bigger than the nearby garden sheds. I looked in vain for a bell and knocked on the door, then walked through the slushy snow of the garden to the back of the house, where I found the kitchen door open. He was sitting by the stove, eating out of a pot while reading a book. Heaped on the table, the floor, the refrigerator, the washing machine, the sideboard, and the cupboards were books, files, dirty dishes, empty and full cans and bottles, moldy bread, rotting fruit, and dirty laundry. There was a sour, musty smell in the air. Schuler himself stank. His breath reeked and his spattered tracksuit gave off a haze of old sweat. He wore a sweat-rimmed cap the way Americans do, and wire-rimmed spectacles on his nose, and so many age spots covered his wrinkled face that his skin had acquired a dark complexion.
He did not protest at my suddenly appearing in his kitchen. I introduced myself as a retired official from Mannheim who now has all the time in the world to occupy himself with the history of railroads, for which he’s always had a passion. At first Schuler was grumpy, but he warmed up when he saw my pleasure at the wealth of knowledge he displayed. He led me through the burrows of his house, which was chock-full of books and papers, from one cavern to the next, from one hallway to the next, picking up a book here, pulling out a file there to show me. After a while he did not seem to notice or care that I was no longer asking questions about the involvement of Weller & Welker in the building of the Baden railways.
He told me about Estefania Cardozo, a Brazilian woman who had been a lady-in-waiting at the court of Pedro II, whom old Herr Weller had married in 1834 during a journey through Central and South America. They had a son who as a youth had absconded to Brazil and set up a business there, and returned to Schwetzingen with his Brazilian wife after the death of old Herr Weller. There he ran the bank with young Welker. Schuler told me of the centenary celebration in the palace gardens, which had been attended by the grand duke. There a lieutenant from Baden, one of the Welker clan, and a lieutenant from the grand duke’s entourage got into an argument. This resulted in a duel the following morning, at which, to Schuler’s great pride as a man from Baden, the Prussian lieutenant fell. He also told me of a sixteen-year-old Welker who in the summer of 1914 had fallen in love with Weller’s fifteen-year-old daughter, and because he could not get permission to marry her enlisted right at the outbreak of the war, seeking and finding death in the bravura of a foolish cavalry charge.
“At sixteen?”
“What is sixteen too young for? For death? For war? For love? The Weller girl had inherited Portuguese and Indian blood from her mother and grandmother, so by fifteen she was already a woman who could turn men’s heads and make their senses reel.”
He took me to a wall covered with photographs and showed me a young woman with large dark eyes, full lips, a rich cascade of curls, and a pained, haughty expression. She was spectacularly beautiful, and had still been so as an old woman, as the picture hanging next to the first one testified.
“But their parents considered them too young for marriage,” I said.
“It wasn’t a question of age. Both families had agreed not to allow their children to marry. They did not want the two partners to end up as brothers-in-law or cousins, adding family quarrels to potential business conflicts. Well, the children could have eloped and faced being disinherited, but they weren’t strong enough. With the last Welker, though, it wasn’t a problem anymore. Bertram was an only child, as was Stephanie, and their parents were happy enough that the money would remain in the family. There’s not much left anymore.”
“She died?”
“She fell to her death last year when the two of them were on a mountain hike. Her body was never found.” Schuler was silent, and I didn’t say anything, either. He knew what I was thinking. “There was a police investigation,” he continued. “There always is in such cases, but he was cleared. They had spent the night in a hut. He was still asleep in the morning when she went out onto a glacier that he hadn’t wanted to hike on. Didn’t you read about it? It was all over the papers.”
“Did they have any kids?”
He nodded. “Two-a boy and a girl. They’re now at a boarding school in Switzerland.”
I nodded, too. Yes, yes, life’s tough. He sighed, and I made a few commiserating sounds. He shuffled into the kitchen, took a can of beer out of the refrigerator, picked up a dirty glass from the table, wiped at it with the sleeve of his track-suit, struggled to open the can with his gouty fingers, and poured half the contents into the glass. With his left hand he held out the glass to me, but I took the can out of his right hand and said, “Cheers!”