39.

LETTERS

BLUE ENVELOPE

Dearest Peter:

What can 1 say to you?

Sigrid is bringing this and will explain why I have not come to see you. I am watched every minute, my father and even my mother have become a little crazy - that is the only way to describe it - over all the stories in the newspapers and even more over Bobby, who has run away to the Russian woman in America.

I try and try to explain that none of this is your fault, but I cannot convince them.

In the meantime Miss Boatwright brings reports that you have the best doctors and nurses and that you are out of danger. The whole thing seems like a terrible dream. To me. When I wake up in the morning I think, Oh it was just a nightmare, what an awful nightmare, and tonight we will go to another party with Helena and Christoph, and then I remember how the gardeners shoveled the earth, how the earth sounded when it fell on their coffins!

I feel so terrible about the mean and silly things I said to Helena sometimes - about all her men - but it was really only envy! I wished that I could be so radiant, so full of joie de vivre! I think men like that even more than beauty. You are just born beautiful or you are not, but this is something else, this comes from inside, and I just cannot imagine her in that box under the earth.

And Christoph, your best friend! You save his life and his brother takes it! The newspapers talk about Cain and Abel. The most horrible story in the Bible. I do believe that is why Bobby ran away. I mean, perhaps he planned before, but Christoph's death decided him. Bobby was closer to Christoph than to Alfred. Christoph was really more the older brother than Alfred.

Now I must put this in the envelope because Sigrid is here and I must give her this when nobody sees it.

Please get well quickly, my dear, because I want to see you so much

XXX LOVE XXX LOVE XXX

Lili

WHITE ENVELOPE

WALDSTEIN & CO.
No. 4, Gendarmenmarkt
Berlin W

10. Dezember 1923

Mr. Peter Ellis
c/o Klinik Prof. Dr. Jaffa
No. 2, Artilleriestrasse (Ebertsbrücke)
Berlin N

Dear Ellis:

I write this first communication since the tragedies of November because my friend and client Prof. Dr. Sigismund JAFFA advises that your physical health has improved to the point where you may wish to hear about matters of the outside world.

Before turning to the affairs of commerce permit me to share with you our shock and sorrow upon the tragic loss of our colleague and your friend, and his wife, and also to offer a statement of my personal admiration for your soldierly conduct so to speak in battle which, while not preventing the terrible deed, at least put a deserved end to the life of its perpetrator!

The loss of Christoph Keith is not only the loss of a valued co-worker and friend. The loss of Christoph Keith is also a loss for the German Nation, which has already lost so many of its best young men, the men who would otherwise have led the next generation out of the present disorder into an age of peace, prosperity and brotherhood. It was my private hope that his military training, his inborn talent for leadership plus the financial experience he was acquiring with us would - some years hence - combine to produce a business-statesman without peer in this Nation. With "Die Schöne Helena" at his side, he could, in my opinion, have risen to the highest positions this Nation offers. But that was not to be....

My dear young man, I must now turn, reluctantly, to matters of business. Since I assume that you have not been able to follow the financial news in the press, I will begin with the briefest summary of what has happened during the wildest weeks in my memory, the wildest weeks in the memory of any banker or businessman in this Nation:

In sum, the inflation seems to be ending. Dr. Schacht's Rentenmark is being accepted by the people. It is difficult to explain the reason for this, because the reason is based primarily upon mass psychology rather than economics. The idea that the Rentenmark is secured by a first mortgage upon German earth and German industry - while as a practical and legal matter quite meaningless - nevertheless seems to mean something to the German people and seems to be restoring their confidence in German paper money as a medium of exchange. The farmers, in particular, are now accepting Rentenmarks in payment for their crops and thus the 1923 harvest has been released, farm products are moving into the cities, the famine is ending and so therefore are the civil disturbances.

How did all this happen? While the Rentenmark notes were being printed, the old paper marks continued to fall in relation to the dollar. On 20. November the black market Kurs was 11,000,000,000,000 to the dollar! However, the official rate on the Berlin Stock Exchange that day was "only" 4,200,000,000,000 to the dollar. It seemed possible to some of us and to Dr. Schacht that we might be able to "hold" this rate long enough to fix it as the conversion rate for the Rentenmark, because that rate would make the numbers come out exactly even - although "even" is almost a bad joke in this sense! Consequently Dr. Schacht as Reich Currency Commissioner decreed that:

1,000,000,000,000 paper marks = 1 Rentenmark = 10/ 42 of 1 dollar.

To state this another way: the old paper mark was to be worth one million-millionth of one Rentenmark, and therefore to convert from paper marks to Rentenmarks it was only necessary to strike off twelve zeros!

So far, at least, this conversion rate has been maintained: the black market Kurs, and the Kurs on the Cologne Exchange (occupied as you know by the French army!) has fallen steadily from 11,000,000,000,000 to the dollar on 20. November until just this morning, when it reached the "official" Berlin Stock Exchange Kurs of 4,200,000,000,000 to the dollar. It would appear, therefore, that Dr. Schacht has succeeded in "stabilizing" the mark.

These stabilization operations were accompanied by a catastrophic and entirely unexpected fall in the market price of stocks on the Berlin Exchange. There are various theories for this. I will not trouble you with them. It is always easier to explain what has happened on the stock market than what will happen!

In any event, the value of the stocks in your account suddenly dropped below the value of your dollar notes to us. There was nothing for us to do, in the circumstances, but sell your securities for what we could get (as shown in the enclosed statement of 1. Dezember. 23) which was considerably less than the amount of your notes.

It will not make you feel better to know that millions of people in this Nation have also been financially ruined - mostly not by the stock market fall, but by the utter devaluation of the mark, which has destroyed every savings account, every annuity, every pension, every life insurance policy in Germany! The mark has apparently been stabilized, but the middle class has been reduced to the level of the proletariat. Those who are employed may recover; those who were dependent upon pensions or capital or savings are reduced to selling their silverware and their furniture and, in some cases, themselves.

My illustrious partners, although suffering enormous losses of capital, consider the events of the last weeks to be a necessary and inevitable purge. They feel that if some reasonable agreement on reparations can be negotiated next year, then Germany may finally be able to achieve domestic peace and economic prosperity.

I pray that their optimism is justified. In the Jägerstrasse I see respectable old ladies sitting behind card tables attempting to sell knives and forks they were given as wedding presents.... To whom will these people turn?

But none of this applies to you. You are young, you have no financial responsibilities, when you recover your health you will continue your artistic endeavors anywhere you choose to do so, and if you examine the postcard I have enclosed, you may find a suggestion of help to you in the future.

This letter has become too long. If you have any question about the bank statement, please direct them to Herr Borgenicht of our accounting department, who will be only too happy to answer them. On behalf of myself and of the entire firm may I offer best wishes for the fastest possible recovery of your health.
With highest respect!

E. Strassburger

couldn't make much out of the statement, several pages of transactions typed on flimsy paper - a dizzying array of zeros after each number. My cash balance at Waldstein & Co. as of December 1, 1923, appeared to be about 21,000,000,000,000 marks. Strike twelve zeros? Twenty-one Rentenmarks. About five dollars? My debit position, however, was always stated in dollars. I owed over $750. In other words, I was not only broke, I was over my head in debt to Waldstein & Co.

The postcard was a view of the Brandenburg Gate and the Pariser Platz. On the other side, written in ink, was the following unsigned message:

$500 from Amsterdam affiliate transferred to account of Miss Susan Boatwright, Morgan Harjes & Co. Paris (affiliate of J. P. Morgan & Co. New York). As these funds are outside control of Waldstein & Co. and outside jurisdiction of German courts, Waldstein & Co. unable to comply with Reichsbank regulations as to assertion of liens against trading accounts in debit positions.

Waldstein & Co. was saying goodbye. Miss Boatwright was paying my bills.


previous chapter, next chapter


PROLOGUE - THURSDAY, JUNE 15, 1922
I. HOW I GOT THERE
1. PARIS 1922
2. VERDUN 1916
3. IT'S STEALING MONEY, ISN'T IT
4. WHERE WERE YOU IN 1919?
5. RELIABLE TROOPS
6. AN ISLAND
7. BISMARCK FOUND THEM USEFUL
8. INTRODUCTIONS
9. THE LITTLE HOUSE
10. INDIAN CROSSES
11. ANOTHER PART OF TOWN
12. A VIEW OF THE GENDARMENMARKT
13. TWO FOR TEA
14. ON THE TOWN
15. A VIEW OF THE HAVEL
16. REIGEN
II. WHAT HAPPENED
17. THURSDAY, JUNE 15, 1922
18. MONDAY, JUNE 19, 1922
19. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21, 1922
20. FRIDAY, JUNE 23, 1922
21. SATURDAY, JUNE 24, 1922
22. WHAT HAPPENED?
III. THE WITCHES' SABBATH
23. SILENCE WITH VOICES
24. THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS
25. SAME SONGS, DIFFERENT SINGERS
26. THEY'RE ONLY GOING TO HIRE HIS VOICE
27. INFLATION WORKS IN DIFFERENT WAYS
28. SMALL CHANGE
29. WHY NOT PAINT LILI?
30. COLD WIND IN MAY
31. ROLLING THUNDER
32. WALDSTEIN'S VOICE
33. THE MATTER OF A DOWRY
34. A RUSSIAN WORD AND A GERMAN WORD
35. THE MARCH ON BERLIN
36. A PIG LOSES MONEY ALL THE TIME
37. THE ARTISTS' BALL
IV. STRIKE TWELVE ZEROs
38. AMYTAL DREAMS
>39. LETTERS
40. PROFESSOR JAFFA'S PROGNOSIS
41. THE OTHER SUBJECT
42. ROLLING HOME