Welker waved his hand with a broad welcoming gesture. “Gregor Samarin is one of the family. You see, he likes to drive, and he’s better at it than I am …” Welker saw my surprise. “No, he does like driving and is good at it, which is why he was at the wheel the other day when we met. But that’s not his job. His job is to see to all practical matters.” Welker looked over at Samarin as if to check whether he agreed.
Samarin nodded slowly. He must have been in his early fifties. He had a large head, a receding hairline, and protruding light blue eyes. His colorless hair was cut short. He sat confidently, with his legs apart.
Welker didn’t continue right away. At first I thought he might be weighing what he wanted to say, but then I wondered if there wasn’t a message in his silence. But what message? Or did he want to give me an opportunity to take everything in: the atmosphere, Gregor Samarin, himself? He had been particularly attentive and polite when he greeted me and walked me to his office. I could see him as a suave host, or at a diplomatic or academic affair. Was his silence a question of style, old-school good breeding? He struck me as a man of breeding: clear, sensitive, intelligent features; good posture; measured movements. At the same time he struck me as sad, and though a certain cheerfulness flitted over his face when he greeted me or smiled, a shadow would quickly darken it once more. It was not just a shadow of sadness. I noticed something sullen and sulking about his mouth, a disappointment, as if fate had cheated him out of some promised indulgence.
“We’re about to celebrate our two-hundredth anniversary, a major event for which my father wants a history of our establishment. I’ve been working on it for some time, whenever I can get away from business, and as grandfather had done some research and left some notes, my task isn’t difficult, except in one matter.”
He hesitated, brushed a few strands of hair from his forehead, leaned back, and glanced at Samarin, who was sitting motionless. “In 1873, the stock exchanges in both Vienna and Berlin collapsed. The depression lasted until 1880—long enough for the days of the private banker to become numbered. The era of the big stock banks and savings banks had begun, and some private bankers who survived the depression turned their enterprises into joint stock corporations. Others merged; others simply gave up. Our bank prevailed.”
Again he hesitated. I no longer get irritated; in earlier days I would have. I hate it when people beat about the bush.
“Our bank prevailed not only because my great grandfather and great-great-grandfather were good businessmen, and the old Wellers, were, too. Since the 1870s, we had had a silent partner, who by the time of the First World War had brought in around half a million. That might not sound like a lot to you, but let me tell you, it was a significant amount. The long and short of it is that I can’t write a history of our bank without also focusing on this silent partner. However”—this time he paused for dramatic effect—“I don’t know who this partner was. My father doesn’t know the partner’s name, my grandfather doesn’t mention him in his notes, and I haven’t found it in any of the documents.”
“A very silent partner indeed.”
He laughed, and for a moment had a youthful, rascally look about him. “I’d be grateful if you could make him speak.”
“You want me to—”
“I’d like you to find out who this silent partner was. His name, his birth and death dates, what he did for a living, who his family was. Did he have children? Is one of his great-grandsons going to come knocking at my door, asking for his share?”
“Wasn’t this silent partnership terminated?”
He shook his head. “After 1918, my grandfather’s notes don’t mention anything about it anymore. No mention of the partnership, nor of any more money being brought in, nor anything about settling accounts or buying anyone out. Somehow the partnership came to an end. Now I can’t really imagine any great-grandsons suddenly turning up. Anyone who had a large pile of money stashed away with us would have had ample reason in all these years to come claim it.”
“Why don’t you hire a historian? I bet there are hundreds of them who get degrees every year and can’t find a job—they’d jump at the chance to go looking for lost partners.”
“I’ve tried my luck with history students and retired professors. It was a disaster. I ended up knowing less than when I started. No”—he shook his head—“I’ve chosen you for a reason. One could argue that your job and theirs is the same: historians and detectives both go after truths that are buried and forgotten, and yet the methods are quite different. Maybe your approach will get better results than those history fellows.’ Take a few days, cast about a bit, follow different leads. If nothing comes up, then nothing comes up—I’ll get over it.” He picked up a checkbook and a fountain pen from the table and placed them on his knees. “How much should I give you as an advance?”
I’d do some casting about for a few days—if he wanted to pay me for that, then why not?
“Two thousand. My fee’s a hundred an hour, plus expenses. I’ll provide you with a detailed breakdown once I’m done.”
He wrote out the check, handed it to me, and got up. “I hope you’ll get back to me soon. I’ll be here at the office, so if you prefer dropping by to calling, I’d be delighted.”
Samarin walked me down the stairs and past the tellers. When we reached the door he took me by the arm. “Herr Welker’s wife died last year, and he’s been working day and night ever since. He shouldn’t have taken on the history of the bank on top of everything else. I’d be grateful if you would call me should you come up with something or if you need anything. I want to lighten his load any way I can.” Samarin peered at me expectantly.
“How do the names Welker, Weller, and Samarin go together?”
“What you mean is, how does Samarin fit in with Weller and Welker. It doesn’t. My mother was Russian and worked as an interpreter during the war. She died when she gave birth to me. The Welkers were my foster parents.”
He was still peering at me expectantly. Was he waiting for confirmation that I’d come to him and not to Welker?
I said good-bye. The door didn’t have a handle, but next to it was a button. I pressed it and the door opened, then fell shut behind me with a loud snap. I gazed over the empty square and was pleased with the job and the check in my pocket.
5
The Gotthard Tunnel and the Andes Railway
At the University of Mannheim library I located a history of German banking: three fat volumes filled with text, numbers, and graphs. I managed to check them out and take them with me. Back at my office I sat down and began to read. The traffic hummed outside, then came twilight and darkness. The Turk from next door, who sells newspapers, cigarettes, and bric-a-brac of every kind, closed his shop, and when he saw me by the lamp at my desk he knocked at the door and wished me a pleasant evening. I didn’t go home until my eyes began to hurt, and was once again poring over the books when the Turk opened his shop in the morning and the children who were always his first customers were buying their chewing gum and Gummi Bears. By afternoon I had finished.
I’ve never had much interest in banking—and why should I? Whatever I earn ends up in my checking account, and what I need on a daily basis gets drawn from there, as do payments for health insurance, social security, and life insurance. There are times when more money accumulates in my account than gets withdrawn, and what I do then is buy a few shares of Rhineland Chemical Works stock and put the certificates in my safe. They lie there untouched as the market rises and falls.
And yet banking and its history is anything but dull. In those three volumes I found quite a few references to the Weller & Welker Bank. It was founded toward the end of the eighteenth century when Herr Weller, a Swabian who was a sales and freight expeditor in Stuttgart, and Herr Welker from Baden, who had been banker to one of the prince elector’s cousins, formed a partnership. They began with currency transactions and bills of exchange but soon moved on to government loans and securities. Their bank was too
small to assume a leading role in any important ventures, but it was such a reliable and reputable establishment that larger banks were happy to involve them in projects, such as the founding of the Rhineland Chemical Works, the launching of the Mannheim Municipal Loan in 1868 that funded the construction of the Mannheim-Karlsruhe railroad, and the financing of the Gotthard Tunnel. Weller & Welker had a particularly lucky hand in Latin American ventures, ranging from Brazilian and Colombian government loans to involvement in the Vera Cruz and Mexico railroad and the Andes line.
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!”
“Here’s to you!”
We drank.
“Are you the archivist of Weller and Welker?”
“What makes you say that?”
“The official at the state archives talks of you as if you are colleagues.”
“Well …” He burped. “I wouldn’t say I was a colleague, exactly, nor could you c
all this a real archive. Old Herr Welker was interested in the history of his bank and asked me to put all the old files in order. We knew each other from school, old Herr Welker and I, and were like friends. He sold me this house for next to nothing, and I tutored his son and his grandchildren, and whenever we could help each other out we did so. His cellar was full of old things, as was his attic. No one had the slightest idea what was there or knew where anything was. Nobody ended up doing anything with it.”
“What about you?”
“What about me? When Old Herr Welker had the storage area renovated, he had lights, ventilation, and heating installed in the cellar. So here are all the old things, and I’m still busy sorting it all out. Well—perhaps you could say that I’m the bank’s archivist.”
“And every year you acquire more old files. It sounds like a Sisyphean task.”
“That it is.” He headed back to the refrigerator, took out two beers, and gave me one. Then he looked me in the eye. “I used to be a teacher, and all my life had to listen to my pupils’ clever or silly lies, their excuses, their explanations, their little dodges. This place is a mess. My niece keeps telling me that, and I know it myself. I can’t smell a thing: no good smells, no bad smells, no flowers, no perfumes. I can’t tell if the food is burning on the stove or the clothes on the ironing board. I can’t even tell if I stink. And yet”—he took the cap off his head and ran his fingers over his bald pate—“I’m no fool. Are you going to tell me who you really are and what it is you really want?”
7
C, L, or Z
Once a teacher always a teacher, and for a good teacher we all remain pupils, no matter how old we might be. I told him who I was and what I was looking for. Perhaps I did this because of our age; the older I get, the readier I am to assume that people as old as I am will be on my side. And I did want to know what he might have to say.