The Scholl Case
Page 17
Such last-minute changes did not bode well, you might think, but the final reunion proved to be the best of the lot. Brigitte Scholl sat among her old classmates, laughing with the women, flirting with the men, like in the days when she was fifteen, a girl with a petticoat and a ponytail. Out on the street, she took Inge by the hand and danced along the pavement with her. She seemed more carefree than she had for a long time. Maybe that evening with her old schoolmates, she sensed for the first time that she could make it alone. Life went on.
The next morning she rang Siegfried Schmidt and told him she’d changed her mind: there would be another reunion, in two years at the latest. It would be best if they started to organise it straight away. Siegfried Schmidt was surprised at Brigitte Scholl’s change of heart, but what really astonished him was her drive. She rang almost daily to discuss the details. She even fixed the day, time and place: 17 October 2013 at 4 pm in the ‘Old Inn’.
On 21 December 2011 they spoke on the phone for the last time. Siegfried Schmidt thanked Brigitte Scholl for the bottle of wine and the Christmas card she had left at his front door. ‘Dear Siegfried,’ the card said, ‘Thank you on behalf of all your schoolmates for going to so much trouble to organise the class reunion for us. Merry Christmas, Gitti.’
Siegfried Schmidt kept the card. For him, it was more than a Christmas greeting: the card was a mandate.
It is 4 pm on the dot, 17 October 2013, a bright sunny autumn day. Outside the wooden houses on Rathenau Strasse, Michaelmas daisies are in flower. In the woods of Ludwigsfelde, mushroom gatherers are out in force. Siegfried Schmidt stands at the head of a long table and welcomes his schoolmates to the seventh reunion of the Class of 1951. Everyone has come, even if there was slight confusion about the time they were to arrive. Siegfried Schmidt had written ‘3 pm’ on the invitations, but after sending them off, he had come across the slip of paper where he had jotted down the essentials of Gitti’s reunion plan. ‘Start: 4 pm,’ it said. Plain and clear. He changed the invitations and sent out new ones. From behind the scenes, a dead woman was directing.
It was as if the Scholls were still playing their old roles. Heinrich Scholl was making a name for himself again, this time in prison. Brigitte Scholl was keeping everything under control.
There is no guided tour; instead there is a visit to the cemetery. Brigitte Scholl’s class lay a flower arrangement on her grave: a cushion of flowers and moss with a bow saying: ‘Thinking of you. Your classmates.’ The evening’s guest of honour is Frank, Brigitte Scholl’s son, who has come from Wiesbaden especially. He misses Siegfried Schmidt’s speech, but is in time to hear the others. Frank is touched by how well they all speak of her—not one bad word—and by the autumn table decorations, which are just as his mother would have liked them. Siegfried Schmidt has gone to particular trouble over the commemorative book. It is even thicker than the last one. The front cover shows the old school in Ludwigsfelde and, superimposed on it, another photo, a large portrait of a dark-haired woman in a white jumper.
Brigitte Scholl is smiling.