Familienfest: Friday

On Friday and Saturday my parents, siblings and I made our way per train or per car to the town in the Lower Rhine region where my mother was born, and where her father still lives.

The car ride there, which took more than five hours, was interesting and mostly beautiful. We reached the highway by driving along the Berliner Strasse/Potsdamer Strasse/Potsdamer Chaussee through Zehlendorf, where trees and brush grow untamed and tall along the streets, and houses peek out of them. Just before the highway Papa pointed out where the border between West Berlin and East Germany had been. When I saw an overpass that might have been built in the eighties, I felt the vague remnant of my memories of Germany from when I lived there as a very small child crystallize into a strong sense of recognition, though I'm not sure how spontaneous the feeling was. Then we turned onto the six-lane highway, and Papa made good use of the accelerator (the speed limit is 120 km/h).

Along the highway there is mostly hilly pine forest at first, then large fields. As we passed Braunschweig I was much amused because it is written "BS" for short. Since the car windows were mostly open it was very loud, but we still talked because we were all in a cheerful mood. Before we had left, T., with the assistance of Gi. and Ge. had carefully worked out a list of provisions that they had then bought back in Berlin, so we happily consumed Turkish flatbread, granola bars, licorice snails, and licorice allsorts along the way.

At length we reached the Weser Berge, a hilly region where the forests take on an unregimented and wild aspect, and where it began to rain. It was around this point that the scenery begins to be really idyllic. The fresh green landscape rolls peacefully; dark forests run along the crests of the hills and down the sides of the fields, with the subdued reddish-brown tints of roofs glowing out from them; row upon row of poplars or other trees formed delicate silhouettes against the gray sky until they were swallowed up in the soft blue land at the horizon.

Then, after the highly industrialized Rhein/Ruhr regions, we finally entered the Lower Rhine (Niederrhein) area. The scenery along the roadside becomes gradually more agricultural; the land is flat, rivers (for instance the Weser) are more frequent, cornfields appear at the roadside, the number of farmyards increases, and rows of poplars become more common. Here, too, the grass and crops and trees were flourishing green with the recent rainfall.

At last we reached Kevelaer and found our way to the house where our Opa lives. We went up and talked with Opa and with M., our youngest uncle. Then we had lunch (sausage with fries -- or "Pommes," as they are called here). After that we had time to do whatever we wanted. We each tried out the harmonium (small organ?) in the studio where we were quartered for the weekend.

Mama and I went for a walk, first to the Basilica in the centre of the town. Since Kevelaer is a pilgrimage station (the Holy Mary appeared to a couple there in perhaps the seventeenth century, and an engraving of her image is kept there), the basilica is richly decorated. The father of Opa was one of the artisans who painted the interior. Even the columns bear the portraits of saints or popes, and the flutings that run down them are painted in colourful stripes and other patterns in dark green, red, blue, and gold. Some of the stained glass windows are intricate and vibrant, others are modern and minimalist and rather boring. Beside the basilica in the central cobblestone square there is also a Kerzenkapelle, which used to be the main church of Kevelaer, and the Gnadenkapelle, where the engraving of Mary is kept. At the Kerzenkapelle there are rows of candleholders where one can light a candle, for instance for the well-being of friends and family. The sight of the long trails of melted golden wax hanging down from the holders is fascinating, particularly against the old shadowy grey of the church, also because it stirs up vague thoughts about the passage of time. Around the square the facades of the mostly old-fashioned houses are diverse in style and origin, in keeping with the changing fortunes of the town, from simple white buildings with neoclassical trimmings on the windows to the Priesterhaus with a baroque-ish false front whose walls are adorned with paint pretending to be brick (!). The shops around the square are full of Catholic-themed candles and figurines and so on; just beyond the square onyx vases, conservative clothing, shoes, sports goods, etc., fill the windows. Mama's and my walk ended with a trip along the Kreuzweg, or path of the cross. It was very tranquil and shady because of the tall leafy trees. We were intrigued by the sight of single white feathers sparsely but evenly scattered along the tiny dark red gravel of the path; could the feet of pilgrims have shuffled them into such a regular distribution?

In the evening, then, we all went to the big, vine-draped brick house where my mother, her eleven brothers, and her parents had all once lived, and where of my uncles still lives with his family. Not everyone had arrived yet, but even so the number of relatives was impressive, and the amount of hand-shaking considerable. Everyone had made himself comfortable outside or inside, and conversed tranquilly until after eleven. T., Gi., Ge., J. and I ranged ourselves first along a low brick wall and then along a bench; we discussed Omama's memoirs, Poirot, and James Bond films, too shy to mingle much. Then we walked home in the darkness and caught up on our sleep.