A Week of Wandering: Kevelaer

The funeral mass was in the Basilica in the early afternoon, and the day was fittingly cloudy and quiet. It was my first church funeral, as I'd only attended a memorial service and a scattering of ashes before, and so the ceremony was even more absorbing.

Altogether I strongly felt that Opa would have been pleased by the funeral. It took place in a church he knew well, and which his father had helped to decorate; a fair assembly of family and friends and neighbours was present; the priest who pronounced his eulogy was an old acquaintance; his humour and love of family and art were duly honoured; Oma was remembered; and altogether the traditional rites of the church were observed in a sincere way that made them not formulaic but truly fitting.

If something did bother me, it was the reference to Soviet Russia, a quotation from Opa's memoirs. Evidently Opa had every reason to speak of a "Stalinist beast" as he was in a Soviet prisoner-of-war camp for so long, but I do not understand why the priest chose that quotation. It sounded as if it were still the 1980s and the Vatican were still inveighing against "Marxist heresies," and so on and so forth, and did not exactly breathe the spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation; besides, it ignored the fact that Russia was hardly the only country to have horrible camps in World War II. I think that the "Fürbitte" did more justice to Opa in pointing out his general abhorrence of war and its consequences.

Afterward we came together in the restaurant where we often meet for our family reunions; Mama finally talked with old friends and relatives she had not seen in years, and so did we, but to a lesser degree (J. and I, for instance, were contentedly ensconced in one corner). Then the family straggled over to the A*** Straße, for a uniquely warm and unstrained version of our past family reunions. Everyone talked, the children shrieked and played games, and we ate a little, ignoring the passing of time. Even the photography session was unforced, though protracted, so that there was some impatient groaning. After the travelling, it was comforting and reviving for me to be among many friendly people whom I knew again, and already during the church service I felt that it had been good that I had come.

* * *

On the following morning I bade goodbye, and, after a lengthy but relaxing conversation at the train station with N., rode off to Nürnberg. I sat in the restaurant compartment, ordered a drink, and, after paying for it, wondered if I should have paid a tip, too. So I went to the counter to inquire and found out that financial considerations are most welcome. It appears that the employees are not very well paid, and this day was most unpleasant for them as there was no food being served due to technical(?) difficulties, and the drinks would not bring in much tip-money. One girl said that, in her year or so of working in the restaurant car, I was the only one who had ever inquired about tips. Whether this meant that I was uniquely idiotic or considerate was unclear. In any case, I paid up. But my waitress had cared for all the customers in such a kind, but not obsequious or overbearing, grandmotherly manner – without expecting it to bring her much – that she merited much more. She quietly looked after my comfort for the rest of the train ride, too.

I mention this because in travelling (I think) one is so dependent on the consideration and politeness of others that little episodes like these seem disproportionately important. Besides, I think I partly understand now what it means to be desperate for work and an income, to have to save money, and to be overtasked; this is why I was so interested in the welfare of the Munich tour guide, waitress, musician, etc.

* * *

After staying in Nürnberg for a good hour or so, as I described in a past blog post, I went to Würzburg. In the information centre at the train station, I was given a map and pointed to the youth hostel, which lies on the far bank of the Main River and was once a female correctional institute. The twilight walk to the hostel was not so agreeable, as the Kaiserstraße and Juliusstraße were all right, but the streets after that were lonely, poorly lit, and frequented only by little groups of juveniles. Still, it was superstitious, but when I came to the Alte Mainbrücke, I felt guarded by the figures of the saints (and of Charlemagne (c: ). I walked too far up the bank, but then found the hostel. My friend was not in the register, but I decided to stay there for the night anyway. It did cost 34 Euros, comprising not only the board but also a 12.50 Euro charge for a youth hostel association card. Fortunately the 75 Euros that I had withdrawn in person from the bank in Munich covered it.

My room was nice. There were three wooden double beds in a generously large chamber, windows that opened onto a green courtyard and were hung with curtains, security lockers, a wooden table with two chairs, and an orange-tiled area with two sinks, towel hooks, and ledges for holding one's toiletries. The tiles and the black carpet had such a clean effect that I had no compunction about walking barefoot on them. Best of all, one of my two roommates was a nice Japanese girl, who spoke English well and German less well, in a very good accent. As she was sitting at her laptop, listening to music on iTunes, she played fine recordings of Bach and Pachelbel's Canon for me when she found out I liked classical music (she likes rock and classical music). Bach's famous toccata, she remarked with a smile, was too dark. Within a minute or so, she had thereby quite won my heart. So I happily spread the pink linen, which I had carried up from a bin on the ground floor, on my bed; brushed my teeth and rinsed my face and changed into my pyjamas; phoned home and checked my e-mail with the help of T., so that I found out where M. was staying; and went to sleep.