Picasso

The summer of 1951 my husband Tom who was a painter, our baby daughter Catinka and I spent in Paris staying in the apartment of friends in St. Germain.Tom’s hero among modern artists was Pablo Picasso about whom he knew everything at that time knowable. Every painting ever published, every sculpture, every book,every apartment or studio he had ever lived in in Paris, Tom knew them all. He also knew that Picasso had an apartment and studio not far from where we stayed, at the rue St.Augustin. While Tom painted in the dining room I played the piano in the living room and Catinka, age eight months,crawled on the floor,exploring. Every so often she arrived at the piano,tickling my toes. When Tom needed a breather he would go for a walk which inevitably led him to Picasso's building. One day he came home excitedly. Picasso was in Paris. His car was in his courtyard. Now there was no holding Tom.He knew that the woman who took care of the building was the former flower girl whom Picasso had dis-covered by the roadside somewhere in the south and whose name was Inez. So he went up to her apartment, introduced himself in broken Spanish and asked if he could meet the maestro. Of course he could not.The maestro wasn’t in. So he went back the next day, and the next and so on.Once I even went with him. Then, one day, when Inez had delivered her friendly but firm denial, a voice behind her said:yes, he was here and asked Tom to come with him up to his apartment.Tom spent about thirty minutes with Picasso who kept asking him questions about his student years in Nazi Germany when “entartete Kunst” was forbidden.Later Tom complained that he really had not wanted to talk about himself, he wanted to talk to Picasso about painting. Nevertheless he was in seventh heaven, specially since Picasso asked him to come back again and bring his wife and child.So one day we went to visit the great man. Upstairs Picasso greeted us with a big smile and an even bigger one for Catinka whom I carried, riding on my hip. Then he opened a door behind which was a spiral staircase which led to the top floor. Slowly walking up the stairs we passed assorted sculptures such as the cows head fashioned from a bicycle saddle and the handlebars photos of which had been published. None of these items were displayed. They were just standing there in storage. After negotiating the narrow stairs we arrived at the top and entered a very large room without any furniture, just an easel. All around the wall were paintings, three and four deep with the face toward the wall. Picasso invited Tom to turn over any painting he wanted and as many as he wanted. Since I am not a painter, do not speak Spanish and had a child sitting on my hip I have no idea what they were talking about.But clearly both of them got along very well, Picasso as the maestro and teacher and Tom as the pupil At one point Picasso turned to me and told me that his wife,Paloma,carried their child the same way I did.When we were leaving he patted Catinka's cheeks lightly and gave her a small kiss. This is, what I have taken away from our visit with the giant of the modern art world.I have no profound in-sights but neither do I regret having had the experience. To me Picasso was a warm and friendly man,full of energy.Though Catinka has become an artist she has stayed away from any abstract art.Neither has her father ever followed the abstract style.

My childhood part III

Other than having flashbacks at seeing myself on the floor in our entrance hall I remember my red coat with an attached cape which reached just to my wrists. I also had an invisible friend. That is, invisible to other people but very real to me. This person was Little Red Riding hood. Walking with my mother there always had to be space between her and me each of us reaching toward the invisible person between us. I have no idea how long I kept this up, maybe only during a few weeks in spring since I do not associate really cold weather with this memory.

Though of equal importance was the telephone tree on Elm St. the one block of shops which served our area. This tree stood ,and maybe still stands,close to the curb opposite the row of shops.It occupies almost half of the sidewalk. About twenty years ago, when I last visited that neighborhood it was still there and seemingly perfectly healthy.I would judge it to be at least a hundred years old since it’s trunk was about a meter in circumference, Whenever we approached the tree I would run ahead abandoning my mother and Little Red Riding Hood to make a phone call pretending to dial and then talking to someone though I don’t remember to whom.

When I was six years old I learned to ride a bike. Looking at the fancy bicycles in my neighborhood I marvel at the change in design and modernization. My first bicycle was positively primitive as were most bicycles the. For example there were no, and I mean no, pedal breaks. The tires were just half-inch thick rubber. Not filled with air to cushion the ride. I don’t think it took me long to learn to balance myself and ride on the sidewalk though I think I fell a few times. Scraped knees were par for the cause for all of us kids. We climbed trees and practiced who could climb highest and still jump down.

Another favorite game was: swinging as hard as one could and then jumping and seeing who could jump furthest. Or we would load the seat of the swing with as many who could possibly fit: at least two sitting and one or two standing sideways. When we were ready to swing we would sing some of our favorite songs of which we knew many. Mpst of these adventures were performed in the garden of our friends the Renners. Dr. and Dukka Renner were friends of my parents. They had five children of whom only the oldest,Willy, was a son. The middle child was my best friend ever since we were quite small. Her name was Barbara which was shortened to Bear.It seems to have been a custom generally to attach nicknames to people. I just now, as I am writing this remember that even later in school my classmates would complain that they couldn’t turn my name “Kirsten” into a proper nickname.Maybe, had we been speaking English we easily would have come up with “Kitty”.

Bår and I were just about inseparable. We had music lessons together, started school together ,played together and often slept over in each others house.Though it was much more fun staying at their place since we were all in the same room together except for the baby Marianne better known as Mücke which actually means “mosquito”, which meant, we could tell stories or chitchat or plot next day’s play we were enacting. These plays always centered around a king (Willy),a queen Hessa to oldest Renner daughter and Bår the princess. I had to play a prince because of my boyish haircut. It was already then evident I had no talent for acting because I always started to giggle when I was supposed to kiss the princess. This close friendship lasted throughout my early childhood.

My childhood part II

The first apartment which I remember was very old-fashioned.though at least it had running water but only cold. Neither did it have a bathroom. One had washstands in the bedrooms. I remember being bathed in a rubber tub which sat on the floor.The rooms, though, were large and ceilings were high. I have a photo of my father sitting at his desk and behind him in the next room my mother sitting by the window, the sun flooding in.As far as I remember the apartment buildings in that section of town were about a hundred years old when that section of town was under the jurisdiction of the state of Prussia. Unfortunately that part of town was totally destroyed in the last war.I can still smell the old wood in the staircase.

After my sister Jakobe was born we moved to the subburbs into a modern four-story apartment building. Not only was the apartment much larger but it had central heat,hot and cold water, three balconies, one to the street and two to the back and a few practical features such as a bell pull hanging from the wall of the bathtub.This bellpull had a large knob which fit neatly into the palm of a hand and was made of brass.Naturally the brass needed to be polished which the maid dutifully and regularly did.She or my mother also came running when I pulled the cord,which I often did just to see if it worked. Another practical feature was the garbage chute in the wall of the kitchen balcony though we were never able to use it since somebody had stuck an umbrella down which opened up between our apartment and the one below us and could not be reached to pull back up. So much for modern features in our new apartment.

My most favorite place in the new apartment was the entrance hall of which my father in a sense took possession. It wasn’t enough for him that it had nice mahogany panelling, he also had to decorate it. So he hung framed woodcuts by Albrecht Dürer depicting Jesus’ “walk to Golgatha” into the top row of panels. The floor was covered with an antique Persian rug.My father loved Persian rugs but always only had enough money to buy somewhat threadbare ones. On rainy days I would lie smack in the middle of the floor and gaze at the woodcuts.

This panelling went three quarter up the wall, interrupted by the doors which led to the front rooms. Everybody who went in an out of the rooms carefully stepped over me. Nobody ever complained that I was in the way. Above the panelling my father had designed a swirling pattern to break the monotony of pure cream color. I think the swirls were some sort of blue. Maybe they were supposed to give the impression of a busy sky. In any case, this was my domain at the age of four while my baby sister was asleep in the nursery.

In good weather my mother went on long walks with us. At least to me they seemed to be long. I remember being very jealous looking at my baby sister in the carriage lying comfortably looking at the sky whereas I had to walk.Nowadays I see mothers talking into cellphones while pushing their strollers. My mother told me stories while we walked,Every once in a while she would stop and maybe show me a leaf,pointing at the tree from which it came and telling me what sort of a tree it was. On these walks she was always there just for us, never doing any shopping or having long gossipy chitchats with other mothers.

Times are often dangerous nowadays and cellphones can be very useful helping to keeping track of your child, for example specially if you are a mother at work.I guess there are two sides to every story. More about me next time.

My childhood

The news, both here and in Germany is full of information about child development. The experts talk about too much stimulus, too many activities, too anxious parents among the middle and upper middle classes. The poor, of course, as usual are losing out. Since I have spent the last few weeks writing and remembering  events and periods of my past I think I will  delve a bit into my own childhood which by now seems to belong to the dark ages.

Not only am I now eighty eight years old but my father was an old father,born in 1876, which meant that all his references, experiences, ideas about children  and their development belonged to another age.Though his family was financially comfortably off but  by no means rich. So were we.

My father was Baurat Dr. Jakstein.“Baurat “or Building Inspector though he never became“Ober-Baurat” But basically he was an architect.So  much for my “official” father.Aside fom being to much older than the fathers of my classmates he was an enormously creative person.

He came from a very creative family on his mother’s side. My great-grandfather was a writer and educator, his daughter, my grandmother, was a painter. Her specialty was as copyist. I have several copies of Rembrandt's on my walls which greatly impress visitors because they think they are originals.

Aside from all this creativity both my parents made music. My father played the violin and my mother accompanied herself singing Schubert songs. As a small child I loved listening to here while waiting to fall asleep. Needless to say, my sister and I were exposed to everything that furthered creativity. Except I don’t think anybody ever called it that. It was simply a way of life. I don’t think I was ever bored, or at least never for long. I simply had to figure out what to do next.And then, there were the books.Obviously when I was small they were picture books with just a few lines of text. I remember bragging I could read the two lines above the picture which I simply had memorized.At that time I was four years old.But I grew older and our children's library grew with us. Both our parents had writer and publisher friends who, when visiting, brought a recently published book which was not always suitable for a child.

One such book was written by the explorer Sven Hedin who had climbed the Himalays. It had wonderful photos and a lot of grown-up text.I have to confess, I did not bother much with that text but loved looking at those photos. I also was very glad that it was not I who had to climb those mountains.Maybe I was an early version of a couch-potato.

From early childhood on we were encouraged to make things. We did not just go out and buy a present. After all, anybody with money could go and buy something but not everybody could make something. At least, I think that was the thought behind this philosophy. One year I made my father a pouch in which he could store his starched collars. I think he really used it. Though it was the ironing woman who did the starching.

I remember my mother as being busy, but never frantic. She was working at home,translating as well as doing the cooking but not cleaning. For that we had a maid. My father,after coming home from the office , would disappear into his study to work on any of his multitudinous hobbies or writing.I often fell asleep to the sound of clacking typewriters, one from above and one next door.