backfiring and stinking.
My father was an art dealer, she said. Not that he made any money at it. He collected art out of a passion for it. Grandfather was very rich. And he did not mind funding my father’s artistic pursuits. My grandfather’s idea was: What is the use of having all this money if we cannot subsidize the artists and dreamers in this damned family?
She took several sips of tea.
We were the Rothmans, you see. Of the “Joseph A. Rothman and Company” Rothmans. The maker of the finest textiles. Established in 1809 by my great-great-great-grandfather. But you don’t even know my original name.
She laughed.
I was Margarette, Margarette Rothman. Oh, there was another whole life in that name. For seventeen years, I had that esteemed name and that wonderful life, from the “before time.” I saw my last ball in our ballroom when I was fourteen, the last swirl of dresses, the last incense of perfumes, the last salons.
The Rothmans, Michal continued. My father’s side of the family. They had lived in and around Berlin for three hundred years. My mother’s family was a more recent arrival.
She laughed.
Only a hundred years.
You see, she said after a pause, we were later called anti-German elements. I ask you, how many hundred years does it take to become a German?
We did not think of ourselves as Jews, you must understand. We considered ourselves to be … in English you would say, “Germans of Hebrew Heritage.” What we inherited: so many silver wine cups and little spice boxes. Otherwise no different from the Germans who were Protestant or Catholic.
The German Jewish community was very, very rich, very established. You must understand this, what the world was like for us then. Imagine it: the synagogue on Fasanenstrasse. A magnificent structure. Crowned by three domes. My parents told me that the emperor himself attended the opening in 1912. Seats for seventeen hundred people. It was our cathedral. Seventeen hundred well-dressed German Jews gathered for the Jewish New Year.
Her voice became bitter.
Our cathedral did not stand for long. I last saw it just before my parents left. It was destroyed by the Nazis on Kristallnacht.
You see how they came to hate us.
Why would they come to hate you? the patient on the tape asked her mother.
Because we were doing too well. Ah. Here is the new pot of tea at last.
See the pattern on this set? said Michal after she had served the tea to the sounds of clicking cups and clanging silver. Look at the roses, the tiny roses. Each painted by hand. This is Rosenthal porcelain. From before the war, I mean before the first war. I searched and searched in the Sunday markets until I found it: the pattern my mother had for her dinner service. I have just these two cups and saucers and the creamer.
All gone. My mother’s beautiful things. Service for twenty-four, all the pieces you can imagine on a table.
She said nothing for several seconds; there came the sound of her settling back in her chair.
All gone, she said again. Looted by my husband’s family with the help of the Nazis. All the china and silver and crystal and linen. The feather beds and sofas. The mahogany furniture and the paintings—let’s not forget the fortune in fine art carried away by the Nazis—all the things they were jealous of and hated us for. Looted by that band of thieves.
I don’t understand, the patient said. Your husband’s family?
Michal sighed, almost a sob.
I’m getting ahead of myself, she said. Let me go back. Let me stay awhile longer in that … in that “before time.”
She stopped to drink her tea, then said:
Oh! We knew everyone. All the famous artists of Weimar, and the ones who would become famous, some of them because of Father. There was Max Liebermann, of course. Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Christian Schad, Hannah Hoch, Oskar Kokoschka, Ludwig Meidner. But do you know even one of these painters?
The patient must have shaken her head no.
Ach! Of course not, she said. American cultural limitations. I am sure you know no one but Monet and Picasso.
Renoir? said the patient weakly. Degas?
Her mother laughed.
I am sorry, dear. Most everyone loves the Impressionists. But hatred of them was one of the liveliest parts of our evenings. Our drawing room was crowded every night my mother was receiving—Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays. The artists and their girlfriends—or boyfriends, in some cases. Musicians and poets. My sister’s beauties. Hangers-on and would-bes. Desperate former members of