despite the sunny weather saturday found me in darkness. sitting in our tiny lichtlblick kino watching peter lorre's singular directorial effort der verlorene (the lost one). the film, made upon his return to germany in 1951, opens with Lorre as Dr. Neumeister, a physician in a displaced persons camp who is suddenly joined by one Nowak, an associate from his wartime past. as the two men reacquaint themselves in the canteen that evening, we learn the truth about the doctor, his associate and their shared dark past. the film is a meditation on murder, seeing, silence and the burial of truth beneath opportunism - themes which would also haunt it's release and subsequent disappearance (after a short ten day run) from german cinemas. the film's relentless confrontation of historical horror was unacceptable in the germany of 1951 which, on the verge of its miraculous postwar economic recovery, could not bear the sight of its recent crimes. lorre, silenced in his homeland, went back to hollywood where he would live until his death in 1964.the next day we left before noon to ride out the the grunewald. in preparation for a planned trek this autumn through the transylvanian countryside i am training to ride (horses, that is). the riding association of uncle tom's cabin (don't ask) has a riding school and so we went out to make the proper arrangements. afterwards, having noted it on the map of riding trails taped to the door of the barn, we decided to bicycle through the grunewald to the selbstmord friedhof (suicide's graveyard) - who could resist? though setting off in a general northwesterly direction, we soon became turned around and lost among the dense network of walking, riding and cycling trails running through the forest. and we weren't the only ones - as we stopped to ask directions from the other cyclists and wanderers we would often as not be asked the same questions - where had we come from? what was down the next fork or over the next ridge? the woods were full of the desperately lost and disoriented - i think i even spied a group of east prussian refugees still fleeing the advancing russians sixty years later. and one can also imagine the looks of horror we received inquiring for directions to the suicide's graveyard... luckily we soon ran into a orchestra conductor out for a constitutional with the faithful hound and young 'protege'. he closed his eyes and waved an invisible baton, directing us through the forest to the banks of the havel where he indicated we could find a map for the remainder of the journey.
our conductor also remarked that the cemetery was no longer known as the selbstmord friedhof nor the alternate name of friedhof der namenlosen (graveyard of the nameless) but was now officially designated the friedhof grunewald-forst (graveyard of the grunewald forest). the old names reflect the history of the cemetery, which was founded by the local foresters as a burial ground for the bodies that they pulled from the river, whose currents had the habit of dropping the floaters from the big city here along the reeds. since suicide is a mortal sin, the local churches refused the dead entry into the their churchyards and the woodsmen provided this ground in the stillness of the forest as a final resting place for these tortured souls. as the years progressed it became a resting place not only for the suicides and unknown dead of faust's metropolis but also for those who preferred to rest in eternity untroubled by the petty badgerings of religious faith.
as promised, after a bit more wandering through the forest we found ourselves on the banks of the havel. the warm sun had brought innumerable families to the water's edge where their children were busy harassing the local waterfowl and being repayed in kind. finding the promised map we soon determined that we were several kilometers southwest of the cemetery. given our propensity for misdirecting ourselves we thought it best to ride north along the havel - keep the river on your right (or in this case left) and all that. the next few kilometers found us dodging butterflies, toddlers, teens and ancients along the bike path until we reached schildhorn where we paused for refreshment before heading back up into the forest.
leaving the waters edge and riding up into treeline, the lowering sun reddened the trunks of the pines. before long, a clue we were headed in the right direction. a wooden sign pointing down the trail and announcing in large letters 'zum friedhof'. heeding, we found ourselves a moment later at the gate of the graveyard. as we wandered between the plots, we spied a small stone with a pair of names, upon which rested a bottle of wine, a lantern and several pebbles. it was the grave of one margarete päffgen and her daughter christa - better known as NICO. singer-songwriter, fashion model, actress, keyboard player and warhol superstar, NICO was buried here with her mother after her sudden death in ibiza in 1988. funny really, as we have been listening to NICO quite a bit lately after reading simon reynolds writing about her in the guardian. her two albums the marble index and desertshore are to be rereleased together this year as the frozen borderline. siren of the lost, NICO was our youthful companion of many a dark and delirious night and we've even a vague memory of seeing her once in concert. our recall of the evening a bit dim, the main thrust being that she was extraordinarily late to come on stage.
leaving the chelsea girl and onward through the graveyard - past the final resting places of the nameless fished out of the river, the unknown soldiers, the russian war prisoners of wwi, lost beloved parents and the children who perished on christmas eve. all of them buried here in the middle of this pine expanse beneath the dome of the sky. as the hour was growing late and the woods were darkening we left to make our way back into the city, the low wall of the graveyard disappearing behind the pale screen of the pines reaching heavenwards from the sandy hills....
What a wonderful, darkling woods! I have this money-making idea: rent out shovels at a steep hourly fee to sick American tourists--like me--who want to take their chances on digging up the skeleton of a German soldier, or a live bomb even, from the sandy soil. Alex doesn't like the notion, but I think the city of Berlin could raise significant funds with it. They might even kill some Amis while they're at it.
Posted by: mike | 26 March 2007 at 16:20