“My dear aunt, he doesn’t understand the slightest thing about art, but that doesn’t matter.”
“Certainly not, but the niveau matters, my child. The Duc d’Aubreyville threw himself at my feet in Ostende and I paid him no mind, and you know that Professor von Lossen was a childhood friend of mine. I know the world, ma chérie, you can be friends with whomever you like, but marriage is a question of milieu and niveau. Kaliski does not have our niveau. I will congratulate you once the divorce has been settled. He does not belong in our family. The worst was the letter from his sister in Schrimm, in which she wrote that she had always hoped that her brother, who was the pride of the family because he was an academic, would marry well, but that marrying into the Waldschmidt family was almost too much for the Kaliskis from Schrimm, despite being the first family to settle there. I felt this was decidedly over the top.”
“Times have changed. War, revolution, and inflation.”
“Certainly, and my dear brother is a brilliant man who said to me that it would be good for new blood to come into the family, and your little boy is a darling.”
“Yes, dear Peter turned out beautifully.”
“But Kaliski is simply dreadful. I don’t know, perhaps you didn’t make the right inquiries.”
“We wouldn’t have learned anything, dear Aunt. Father may be very clever but he always says that you only come to realize what’s important once it’s too late. No one wants to impede an engagement.”
“That’s certainly true. I don’t enjoy saying anything unflattering when I’m asked about a match. If the match is made, I’ll have been indiscreet, which will lead to a lifelong rift with the people in question.”
“You say that father spoke of degeneration; that’s a problem too. Our Klaus Michael is only interested in golf and Rot-Weiss, talks about Wimbledon and cars and horses and champions. Father would have preferred a real businessman.”
“But he was a bit too much of a businessman, dear child. Get divorced and live with me for the next quarter of a year, or go on a trip. And tenue, Ella, tenue, maintain your dehors, you’re a Waldschmidt. Goodbye, my child, bonne chance.”
“Goodbye, dear Aunt.” She kissed her hand.
That evening, Kaliski came home. Ella was sitting on the sofa.
“Well, doll, are you mad?”
Ella started; he was so terrible!
“I wanted to let you know that I’ve decided we should get an amicable divorce.”
“Amicable, what’s amicable about that?”
“You’ve betrayed me, dear Reinhold.”
Ella was discreet. But Margot Weissmann told Mrs. Muschler.
Mr. Muschler decided to terminate Kaliski’s contract. “I couldn’t care less if I were making twenty-five thousand marks in interest on the property and didn’t have to pay interest on the second mortgage, but I do care since the rental income doesn’t even cover the interest on the first mortgage or the expenses, and I don’t know what will become of the theater since the Käsebier film was such a flop.”
And so he canceled the contract, on the grounds that Kaliski hadn’t sufficiently advertised the rentals. Kaliski fought back. The apartments should have been finished by the spring of 1930, but they would only be done in the fall. Luxury apartments could only be rented out right before they could be moved into, and the economy had gone through disastrous changes.
“For years, you tried to raise money and build on your terrain,” Kaliski wrote Muschler. “The biggest firms turned you down. You received this risk-free deal purely through my connections to Mr. Rübe. I did not ask for a commission, but contented myself with your binding promise to give me the rentals. These apartments were offered to thousands of interested parties. The fact that the renters decided against renting wasn’t just because of the price, but also due to the terrible floor plans and unfortunate apartment design.
“Despite these problems, which make leasing significantly more difficult, I spent several thousand marks on advertising. I will not take you to court, since I am not an idealist and do not intent to ‘seek justice,’ but the injustice remains.”
Muschler was unmoved. If Waldschmidt’s daughter got divorced, Kaliski would have no more money to advertise the apartments. That was enough for him.
Being fired, Kaliski thought, is a disgrace. His contract, which ran until the first of April, should have been extended since the construction was so far from complete. But there were larger things at stake in his divorce, and he accepted the harsh termination, which robbed him of his commission, without much of a fight. He no longer belonged. He sank back into the mass of small-time Jewish agents and brokers. The great match he had made had unraveled. He had to start over again. He went to Mr. Klass, who gave him rubber Mickey Mouses to sell. When Kaliski asked Klass what had happened to Käsebier, Mr. Klass said, “That product’s finished, over. We need fresh wares for winter, fresh ones! That’s essential.”
A few weeks later, he wrote another pointed letter to Muschler through a lawyer. “You told Mr. Mitte that Dr. Reinhold Kaliski’s business was facing complete financial ruin. I hereby deny this and would like to note that, in light of these falsehoods, I reserve the right to make the source of these rumors legally liable for any possible arising damages.”
You’ve got to be joking, Muschler thought when he received the letter.
Three days later, the papers printed a notice that Dr. Reinhold Kaliski, real estate and mortgages, was declaring bankruptcy, but that the firm would pay its outstanding debts in full and that no one would suffer damages. No one had expected anything less. Waldschmidt, of course, had stepped up.
27
Rohhals of Feinschmidt & Rohhals shoots himself
IN THE meantime, the building was growing. Schulz was on call. Miss Fleissig was on call. The details for the theater had finally arrived. The contracts for the stuccowork were ready to be given out. The interior was being plastered up where the lighting had been installed. Messengers came and delivered floor samples; messengers came and delivered sample door and window handles. Schüttke’s carpentry shop was already delivering doors and window frames to the construction site.
Feinschmidt & Rohhals hadn’t received the contract. They had been too expensive.
“What can I do?” said Mr. Schulz. “I’ll get for less. You know that I like working with you, but business is business, and I have to watch expenses.”
Feinschmidt told Rohhals, “The contract could have bailed us out, but how can I operate with these losses? I’ve calculated everything down to the last penny. We have forty thousand in outstanding debts, which includes an assured loss of twenty thousand to illiquid firms. I don’t know what will happen. Taxes are eating us up. Who can bear capital taxes? Otto Mitte and Co. has always worked with us.”
Rohhals shrugged his shoulders. He was tired of fighting. “If even Otto Mitte and Co. won’t work with us anymore!”
Schüttke’s carpentry shop was already delivering doors and window frames to the construction site.
Karlweiss had finally settled on a design for the theater. Lots of wood, more like a beer hall, something comfy. Duchow was among those asked to do the carpentry work.
Duchow came to Schulz, “You know, Mr. Schulz, it’s none of my business, but I’d rather make something good than something bad. Take a look at these drawings, I’m supposed to turn them into a carving. That there’s supposed to be embellishment. Now look at it, Mr. Schulz. Up close it’s nice looking, one of them modern affairs. Now take a look from far away. What’s it look like to you now?”
“Like a naked man lying down, sort of on one elbow, propping himself up on something.”
“Yeah, on a platter. And I’m s’posed to send it off like that to get done? The foreman’s fiddled around with the drawing so it looks fancy up close, but from far away it’s just plain dumb. You want me to send off the naked fella?”
“Yes. The project’s in so much hot water, the only thing that matters is getting it done. Mitt
e’s backing the project, and there’s nothing to rent! And what’ll happen to the theater, God only knows. Doesn’t matter anyway, since Mr. Karlweiss isn’t upset!”
Oberndorffer came to see Duchow a few weeks later and saw the model. “What kind of funny thing is that?”
“Paneling for the Käsebier theater.”
“Lots of dying gladiators?”
“What, doctor?”
“Dying gladiators, it’s an ancient motif, a naked dying man with a shield.”
“See, Doc, I was right! I always thought it looked like a naked fella with a platter. S’posed to be decorative.”
The glaziers came and put in the windows. In the meantime, three new apartments had been rented out to a Russian, a Baron von Schleich, and an odd woman with no profession. But that was meager progress.
Dipfinger was furious with Karlweiss, that “dirty bastard with no conscience,” but what could he do. Mitte shrugged his shoulders. Who knew if it had been worth trading this miserable Karlweiss project for Hohenschönhausen, he thought. In all likelihood, he’d still be compromised. A lot was slipping through the cracks.
Dipfinger said, “Look here, councilor, he didn’t even draw the windows right. They’ve been split up differently on the Kurfürstendamm side. Now we’ve learned there’s not enough space for the doors, so we’ve gotta cut off the moldings. There’s one piece that won’t do, we’ll have to get Schüttke to work it over. This here’s a piecemeal job slapped together by a shameless architect.”
Mitte said, “I’m not exactly thrilled with what Karlweiss gave us. The rooms are so badly planned that no one wants the apartments. A few missing door and window moldings won’t matter now, dear Mr. Dipfinger. Just get it done somehow.”
New problems kept popping up. Doors had been installed so that beds couldn’t be put in the bedrooms, there was no space for cupboards in the kitchens, and there were no sinks in the bathrooms. The rentals weren’t progressing.
The painters began their work in July. There had been a heated battle over the painting contract, and Schulz had managed to award it for two thousand marks less than the lowest original bid.
In mid-summer—it had been a very rainy summer—the Käsebier production company released its new talkie. A military farce.
“Dreadful,” said Gohlisch worriedly. “In the evening edition, I gently but clearly and lovingly pointed out its mindless premise. It’s becoming clearer that Käsebier has no taste at all. He picks the dumbest scripts.”
The evening papers came in. “Ah, here’s Gohlisch,” said Miermann, “and here: ‘The old carpentry firm Feinschmidt and Rohhals declared bankruptcy today. Forty-nine-year-old co-owner Franz Rohhals shot himself.’ Franz Rohhals was in my class at school, he was a good fellow. Isn’t it awful. Imagine what’s behind news like that!”
Oberndorffer sat at the regulars’ table. “Today, Rohhals of Feinschmidt and Rohhals took his own life. Do you know who that was? Feinschmidt and Rohhals used to work for Schinkel. They did the woodwork on the theater. Schinkel once wrote, ‘My honored master carpenter Rohhals showed me exquisite work today, which, I hope, will rapidly allow us to receive the outstanding permits from the highest office.’ I looked it up today when I saw the news in the papers.”
“You know, the building doesn’t matter anymore when you’re building,” Krone said.
“And the content doesn’t matter for newspapers anymore,” Gohlisch said, and stood up. “Heil and Sieg and catch a fat one.”
Miss Fleissig said to Schulz, “Just think, Mr. Schulz, Feinschmidt and Rohhals declared bankruptcy today, and Mr. Rohhals took his own life.”
“What?” said Schulz. “That’s terrible! Do you remember, Mr. Feinschmidt came to see me a few months ago for the Kurfürstendamm project, and then Schüttke was cheaper, so I went with Schüttke? Now there was a great business! Their work is priceless these days. They made everything that’s quality in Berlin. No, it’s not pretty these days. It’s not fun. Everything good’s been ruined. But Miss Fleissig, you know Schüttke was cheaper, I couldn’t justify it. We’ve got to watch expenses, after all! Otherwise we’ll go to the dogs ourselves. It’s the taxes; the economy simply can’t handle them.”
28
Meyer-Paris goes to America
IT WAS summer.
Margot Weissmann was getting ready for La Baule.
The Muschlers were in Salzkammergut.
Mrs. Frechheim was in Gastein.
Uncle Gustav was on the Isle of Wight.
Miss Kohler received a thick letter covered in familiar handwriting. She opened it. It contained the program and the text for a Käsebier play in Stuttgart. There was a card as well. Completely blank. Just “M-P.”
The Rhineland had been liberated. Miermann traveled to take part in the festivities. He was over the moon. The beautiful landscape, the lighthearted people, the wonderful weather, the Rhenish wine; the lovely girls filled him with bliss.
Frächter asked Gohlisch whether Miermann’s reports were meant ironically.
Gohlisch replied that Miermann was utterly thrilled, and that the only worry to trouble his heart was whether it was preferable to drink a wine from 1921 or 1911 in Trier or Mainz.
Käsebier was on tour. Berlin was empty.
M-P came to Berlin in July. Miss Kohler thought it over for a day, then called him up. He claimed that he had no time, so she walked over to the office to see him. He solemnly pressed her to his chest without saying a word.
“In four weeks,” he said. “In four weeks, I promise. I’m going to the South of France. We’ll visit Arles, Nîmes, Avignon.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” he said, with sad dog’s eyes, which in his funny head she found sweet. “We’ll go this time for sure. I’ve thought about everything a lot this year, my dear.” He kissed her hand. “I just have to travel briefly to Leipzig for a radio show.”
He sent a card from there. “Yes, here—why are you not here now? I’ve put my cares aside and am celebrating the first completely free hour I’ve had in a long time.”
Miss Kohler wrote, “Since I haven’t seen you in almost a week, I have, by heavens, the feeling that you are not real, only a spiritualist’s apparition. You will see that it is therefore vital to make yourself appear once again. Right now, an acquaintance wanted to pick me up for an evening walk, but I said that I had ‘things to do.’ The ‘doing’ consists in writing you a letter on Möve letter-paper . . .”
He sent no word.
She wrote him, “If I were to avoid you, as my so-called pride dictates, a human relationship that could still offer both parties stimulation, clearheaded conversation, and joy would be destroyed. It seems to me that we are both wandering and climbing. I would be happy if we could—to conjure a bold image—sometimes be a bench for each other from which we could enjoy the views over the valleys and peaks. I therefore ask that you not let feelings of displeasure over this lowly womanly behavior take hold; please try to view me in a more generous light. A coarsely cut rope is perhaps easier to repair than an unraveling silk thread.”
She wrote him letters like this every day, but didn’t always send them. Instead, she went to a small café on Markgrafenstrasse every day at three o’clock, on the off chance that Meyer-Paris would be drinking his coffee there. Sometimes, she found him. His reason would leave him the moment he saw her. She wrote to him in the same grave style in which he spoke to her. Every time he met her, his gaze was filled with great, festive solemnity.
“I will come by with a finished program. In Paris,” he said, “in a few weeks. I think that everything will be much easier in Meudon or Versailles.”
“But why is it so hard? Perhaps because you resent me for what you’re doing to me?”
The rhododendrons bloomed in great mountains of yellow, red, and purple in the Tiergarten. The girl Kohler walked through the Tiergarten. Every time a man approached her, she quickly walked away. She sat in the café, waited, ordered coffee, sometimes a chocolate ma
rshmallow. She had to be at the office by half past four. Meyer didn’t show.
Gohlisch was tacking up his latest watercolor over his desk, a lake in Brandenburg with a sailboat. Miermann was grumpy:
“Frächter’s put out a book, The Newspaper Business.”
“It’s the most cold-blooded thing I’ve ever read.”
“Everything that’s indecent, he calls the essence of capitalism.”
“He wants Fordism to satisfy consumer needs, rationalization, collective work.”
“Rationalization! It’s always the same,” said Miermann. “Are the people there for the machines, or are the machines there for the people? The machine is an incredible boon. Man is no longer a pack-horse. But in return, the machine controls him. They’re inventing increasingly foolproof methods to wean humans off thinking and habituate them to mechanical tricks.”
“On the other hand, they’re saying that soon there won’t be anyone with enough training to operate complicated machinery.”
Miermann said, “For years, they said that mechanization—only mechanization—could bring us forward. They spent millions to get machines into businesses, and thousands of people who wanted to earn their hundred marks through honest work were let go. Suddenly, we had a crisis. Then they said rationalization was completely wrong, we should hire more people, all rationalization gave us was unemployment.”
“As my father used to say, you can’t just put people out on the streets,” Miss Kohler said.
“That was early capitalism, things look different now,” said Gohlisch.
“Frächter, the servant of capitalism, that’s right,” said Mierman.
“What do you have against Frächter, anyway? I think he’s just a pompous fool,” said Gohlisch.
“No,” said Miermann. “He’s dangerous. He’s a speculator. He supports every trend that should be stopped. He likes to bluff. He likes hoopla. He scorns intelligence. He thinks it’s silly to think something of culture. He talks about sports and worships the microcephalous. I know Frächter.”
Käsebier Takes Berlin Page 22