The strange holographic ticket sent to me by the Secretary worked without a hitch. It seemed as if in an instant I was back in Berlin. I must have slept on the plane but even that seemed unreal. Had I gone through customs? I thought I remembered being at the old airport but it had closed four years ago. I checked into my usual hotel in the Mitte district, which seemed devoid of patrons. My room was small with an enormous skylight. I looked to see if there were cookies in the jar on the mantle. Yes, oatmeal as usual. I unpacked a few things, quickly washed and headed out. I had an appointment with the Secretary within the hour.
My coat was unlined but made to shut out the wind. I stopped at the small cemetery that runs parallel to the train line, to visit the lone statue of Mary, the humble queen of heaven. I had secretly named her ‘Our Lady of the Urban Field’ some years ago, as she stands in the grass before a heavy rod iron fence with a backdrop of Berlin behind her. A small boy hunkers down by her knee grasping one of the roses beneath her feet. I have photographed her many times. Whenever I have focused on her face she has appeared almost human, concerned, yet somewhat resigned. Perhaps feeling compassion for the boy, condemned to face the modern world.
Entering the familiar cemetery, I feel overcome with a kind of spatial disorientation. It is the same place, the same heavy gate, the same backdrop, but something is wrong. I spin around and realize with a shudder that she is gone. Yet how could this be so? A life-size statue that was always there, her pedestal somewhat embedded in the earth, existing within an assured amount of solitude. It is a lovely though lonely place. In truth, it is usually empty, though on my last visit perhaps two years ago, there was a father with his little girl. She was kicking through piles of autumn leaves, and they followed a path in another direction, never once glancing at the statue. She could have been a peer or sibling of the boy, dressed in Postwar clothes, just as I might have been clothed as a child in 1949. I had been concentrating on the boy grasping roses and l had two shots left in my camera. I watched as her father took her hand and followed them with my eyes. It was a beautiful sight, but I did not take a picture as I couldn’t bare to invade their privacy. To this day I can still see the shot not taken, a little girl kicking through the dry leaves in the quiet shimmering autumnal light that seemed holy, and every step taken was like a still from a film that eventually dissipated.
I closed my eyes for a moment picturing the scene then swiftly turned fully expecting to see the statue, but my lady of the urban fields and the unknown boy were truly gone. I would most likely never see her again and felt an unnatural melancholy taking over me. I could not help but think of the young country girl Bernadette Soubirous, who became a saint, waiting for the same beautiful lady to materialize on the hill in Lourdes, then living the rest of her brief life without her.
I stared at the empty patch of grass. I felt unsettled, not certain whether this unexpected change to the entrance of the cemetery was a presentiment of things to come. I walked along the train track to my destination, trying in vain to decipher the meaning of the strange yet possibly insignificant episode. It occurred to me that it may be important to document any future proceedings, perhaps even succeed in getting a snapshot of the elusive Secretary. I reached for my phone but it wasn’t in my pocket. Had I even brought it? I couldn’t remember carrying out the obligatory switching the airplane mode to on then off. Maybe I had some jet lag for everything seemed hazy. Passing the small children’s park and the familiar water tower, I suddenly realized that in my haste to leave I had also forgotten to pack my camera.
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free