Bekka - Retrieval V

This was something of an experiment, and I felt quite sick at the prospect. I wasn't sure where I would find her, or who to 'be'.

Berlin, 1950

 In traveling down to the lower astral, I find myself in Berlin in 1950, beside the railroad station adjacent to her apartment building.  I love the buildings, and the cleanness of everything as compared to 2015, even in this situation. I have decided to be Ingrid Hemmendorf, a friend of hers in the BDM and NSF (women's org) during the war. Ingrid was also of a once well-off family. I am wearing a sage-green suit and pink blouse, lovely upswept hair -very blonde- and heels. Visiting clothes.

I go up to ring the bell and two men come up behind me. Not the Secret Police. Sepp in a dark-blue suit and pale blue shirt with no tie - casual wear; and Otto (Franz in disguise. 'Uncle Otto' who was actually a cousin once removed and only ten years older than Bekka). Tall, stately, dark. Like a film star, in a beautiful, expensive  dark suit. A welcoming committee. Sepp makes a joke about taking a holiday but being under dressed, compared to his companion. 

She buzzes the door open and we walk up the green-carpeted hall. The carpet is shabby, the walls rather dingy. There is a lift but it doesn't work, so we walk up the stairs to the first floor. Down to the left, then on the right is her flat. Number 13 (floor plus room, first floor, third room). Otto knocks on the door. She opens it, her face alight.

'Uncle Otto!' She clasps his hand. She is wearing a wool maroon dress and frilly apron (for receiving, not for housework), her hair done, with the front swept up and curled all round. Worn, but good shoes. The small flat is immaculate, but shows signs that she changed since the street door bell - the bedroom door is ajar and there is the smell of face powder.

She invites us all in and greets us warmly, one by one. Leading to the chairs  in the sitting room, she returns with coffee and sachertorte on a tray. Tiny demitasse cups. The tray and dishes all clearly are second-hand, but the cutlery is actual silver. 

"I am sorry that Karl is at school until later, so you cannot see him,' she says, sitting down and passing the items. The armchair  she sits in is square, of a shiny green fabric, second-hand. To its right is a better chair that Sepp sits in, myself on a kitchen chair and Otto on the small sofa, across from her. Otto holds up his hand.
'It is no trouble. We will see him later.'

There is some short time of catching up - enquiries after friends and relative. She is happy, if wistful. I get the impression from her that she envies us our ability to 'move around', as she is 'stuck in Berlin' working at the coffeehouse. Sepp is slouched in the chair, Thomas-fashion, with the cake plate balanced on his chest. He rubs his jaw ironically, and drawls, 'Well, funny thing, I am going on a holiday to Bern, and when I was arranging it, I happened upon your uncle.... I was wondering id you would like to come along, and show me the sights, visit your family....' Worst non-sequitor ever. Way to be subtle.  It;s hardly even probable that  he would have encountered Otto in a booking agent's here in Berlin. But she is so happy to see them, she takes all of it at face value.

She looks at Otto, with a joyful, expectant, questioning expression. Is it possible? Possible to 'be forgiven' (for something that was out of her control!), welcomed back into the bosom of a family that she left at age 8. She and her boy. Otto is smiling. 'That's what I came here for, to ask if you would come  and stay with us at the Bergschlosse, you and Karl,,,' He looks at Sepp with a sardonic smile. 'The General is most welcome,' he says with courtliness. Sepp is smirking. Somewhere, Wolf and the other Habsburgs are bursting into flames. Bekka is very moved. 'Thank you, Uncle!' She repeats this many times.

'Ingrid can help you pack,' Otto says. 'We will wait.' He looks at Sepp. 

'There is sherry on the cabinet,' Bekka says, gesturing to the buffet under the window. The decanter and glasses are old, gold-rimmed.... Sepp looks like he has been invited to drink poison, but Otto, now smirking, brings over the glasses.

Meanwhile, I go with Bekka into the one bedroom. There is a very small 'double' bed, a dressing table, wardrobe, and chair. From underneath the bed, she  retrieves two battered old suitcases. A smallish pullman and a smaller dressing case.

'I'm afraid there isn't much to pack,' she apologises. Going to the wardrobe, there are two dresses, an extra school uniform, and in the drawers beneath, two sets of underclothes each, a pair of capris and top, and a scarf. (But it is an Hermes scarf.)

'That's quite all right,' I say. 'I'm sure there will be time to get suitable things in Switzerland.'

We pack up the few clothes and I put the items from the dressing table quietly in the small case. There are a few photographs: her parents, one of Otto, and one of the Berghof (! I am uncertain as to whether I should include this). I ask her if she wants to take these with her.

'Why?'

'Well, Otto seemed to imply that you would be staying.'

She stops folding the sheet from the bed she has stripped, and stares at me. Looking around the room, almost alarmed, she regards me in consternation.

'I didn't think of that!' Her hand goes to her hair. I smile.

'You look lovely. Perfectly presentable to your family.' 

'I must at least remove my apron!' 

She does so, then 'What about collecting Karl  from school?' She looks at her watch. 'It isn't nearly time.'

'I'll see.' I go out.

Sepp and Otto are exchanging rude stories. Otto is smoking a cigarette elegantly. I tell them we need Karl. Otto shakes his head, mashing out the cigarette in the tray.

'Not a problem.' He goes to the telephone - heavy, black, Lucite - and speaks to the 'operator' then rings off. 'Tell her he is being sent for.'

I do and help bring the cases out. She has put on a little round cocktail hat - a circle of velvet and net with cherries - lipstick, and dark gloves.

'Hubba hubba,' says Sepp, and whistles through his teeth. She blushes. Otto comes and takes her hands.

'You look lovely.'

There is is a sound at the door,and Karl bursts in, an 8 year old boy in shorts and coat - his school uniform. Looking exactly like Otto as a child.

'Mamma!' He runs over and flings himself on her. (I understand that she has actually been all alone, forever waiting one afternoon for him to come home from school.)

'Well, he certainly is one of us,' Otto says drily. He makes a bow. 'Hello, boy. I am your uncle Otto.'

Karl stops and looks up curiously. ' You look like Grandfather.' (The picture on the dressing table.)

'He was my uncle,' Otto says.

'Liebling,' says Bekka,' we are going on a journey with Uncle and the General to visit my aunt Sophie in Switzerland.'

'When, Mamma?'

'Now,' says Otto.

At that, all rise and do out, downstairs, and to the train station adjacent. Here 'Ingrid' will leave them, and when they stop, they will be in Switzerland here. I turn to Bekka. 'It was so good to see you again my dear! You will write?'

'Yes. Thank you for coming, Ingrid. It is good to see old friends.' There are presses of both cheeks. I watch them  go through the gate and wave them off as Otto hands the cases to a porter. The green train starts off slowly.

I can feel her happiness. She will heal in Switzerland, with family and friends, and move on to her life here, one of us. Helping others, perhaps. Immortal. The dark wound of the past erased.

***

Convo with Franz. I thank him for stepping in, and playing it to the hilt.

K: So, what will this freeing of Bekka accomplish for me, if anything? (I understand perfectly well what it will accomplish for her.)

F: An easing of the 'tragedienne' complex that Claire has mentioned, specifically of 'putting yourself last' and into situations that are impossible to extricate yourself from without help from us. It will also clear out any lingering feelings of 'not belonging'. The nearer she moves to Switzerland, the better she and you feel. When she is there, in the bosom of her family, the realisation of what kind of holiday she is on will dawn [that she is dead] and she will begin to work on experience - processing, releasing.  She may then be in Switzerland or anywhere else here she chooses. For you, the 'desire to be just a housewife' will wane, as well as freeing  the energy surrounding the conflicts regarding hearth and home.

Young women of the BDM

 

Bekka-esque

Sepp

Sepp and Ursula

 

 Otto, Regina, and kinder

Otto

Otto as a child. Both Bekka and her son Karl looked like this.

* Legacy. The Karl here mentioned is Otto's son. The article below was written in 2004.

Karl Habsburg and two relatives are demanding that property worth hundreds of millions of pounds, including several castles and about 50,000 acres of woodland, be given back to the family in a claim filed with the Austrian Restitution Fund for the Victims of National Socialism.

Mr Habsburg, 42, dropped the aristocratic "von" from his name before becoming an MEP for the conservative Austrian People's Party. His father, Otto von Habsburg, is the head of the family.

The intervention by the dynasty's future patriarch has given fresh impetus to a campaign launched by other members of a family whose empire once stretched across much of central and eastern Europe. They say that if they win, the property will be placed in a trust for the benefit of 160 surviving Habsburgs.

"We don't want to be treated like second-class citizens any longer," said Christian Habsburg, the Euro MP's cousin, who co-filed last week's claim. "The Habsburgs were dispossessed by the Nazis and should be handed back property by the state, just like all the other victims of national socialism.

"We are talking about properties that my family had privately owned that were seized by the Nazis in 1938 and then taken after the war without compensation."
Research conducted by Otto's brother, the late Carl-Ludwig von Habsburg, revealed that Hitler had personally directed the campaign against the family.
The best-known asset is Laxenburg Palace and its extensive park, just outside Vienna. The palace, which dates to the middle ages, is open to the public and a popular destination for Viennese day-trippers and tourists. The total value of the disputed property has yet to be calculated, but the forests alone are worth about £135 million.
Although the Habsburgs were robustly anti-Hitler, there is disquiet in republican Austria at the idea of the Nazi restitution fund being used to aid the former royal ruling family when many Holocaust victims are still awaiting compensation. Austrian governments have previously said that they oppose paying money from the fund to the Habsburgs.
Yet Herbert Golsong, a Washington-based lawyer representing the family, said: "This was an act of Nazi revenge. It was a personal instruction from Hitler because members of the Habsburg family were employed in anti-Nazi propaganda abroad, especially in the US." The family had also helped Jewish people to flee to America, he said.