May 10, 1994

Dear Margrit,

Inasmuch as, when we were sitting around the kitchen table talking, I could never reach the end of a sentence, I thought I should write to you, first of all to thank you for the visit with Helmut Frielinghaus, for which, after all, you deserve the credit, since I, such as I am, would never have initiated a correspondence, or invited the visit which proved so satisfying to me, for reasons far more serious than that it might incidentally lead to the publication of my manuscript.  Helmut told me that he thought you and I were very much alike; an comment which tells a great deal either about his critical acumen or about the respective perceptions which you and I have of each other as being totally and irreconcilably different.  Who knows what the future may bring?  They say that all is well that ends well, but then again, the worst may be yet to come, and a catastrophic ending to our relationship may be closer than either of us can now imagine.

I would much prefer, as you know, to write to you in German, and if it is nonetheless in English that I importune you, this is the case because, Helmuts blessing notwithstanding, much of what I have to say is the stuff of controvery between us, potential or actual.  Rather than as criticism, explicit or implied, I wish you would try to read my sentences as observations, as expressions of opinion; and since the criticism in German of which you have been the victim is more than enough for a lifetime, I suspect you will be able to consider my thoughts dispassionately more easily if they are in English.

The trip back was different, the weather was clear, there was hardly a drop of rain.  But I was distracted.  I sang no song; I listened to no tape.  I kept thinking.  I had hoped to be able to dictate a chapter for my book, but every time I started a sentence I heard the echo of a hate-filled venomous voice: "Don't interrupt me, why don't you let me finish." and when I complied with this request, I heard nothing other than the silence of despair.

I thought then of all that had transpired between Mutti and Papa and you and myself in the course of the last sixty years.  Perhaps all my efforts to deal justly with my family had been in vain and that I should rescind them, take them back, if only I could.  I thought of my trips to the Board offices in New York to argue Muttis and Papas interest before Dr. Kirsch and Dr. Gerberding, of my discussions with them about the building of the house.  I remembered how I had injected myself into Muttis and Papas affairs by making my own contract with the Board of American Missions, a contract which explicitly exonerated Papa from C. Ross Ritchies charge of fraud, and secured for Mutti and Papa a life estate of the house in writing.  I remembered Muttis accusations that this contract was part of a conspiracy of Margaret, her parents and their lawyer Edward Weyl to destroy Muttis and Papas relationship to the Board.  I remembered our moving to Konnarock so that I could join Papa in his practice, how having first implored it, Mutti and Papa then both rejected my help and left me to fend for myself in Damascus.

Why, I ask myself, is it that the sad and difficult, the embarrassing and depressing episodes in my relationship with Mutti and Papa now dominate my consciousness.  Why is the memory the hours and days of happiness together overshadowed now by the shadows of chagrin and disappointment?  There was a time when it was different.  I remember vividly how glowingly I described Mutti and Papa when I first entered Germantown Friends School; convinced as I was that they were "etwas Besonderes" and that you and I were "etwas Besonderes" as well.

I think Papa was correct when he surmised that it was during my student days at Harvard that my thoughts and feelings began to distinguish themselves from his.  But it was not the diabolical influence of Nietzsche or Lorenzo da Ponte (Librettist for Mozarts Don Giovanni) as Mutti suspected, nor arrogance engendered by studying at the worlds most pompous and self-righteous university, as Papa thought that accounted for the alienation.  I suspect it was adolescence (im)pure and simple that led my life to take on shape and content of its own.  a meaning which I interpreted, albeit erroneously, as an extension of my childhood symbiosis with Mutti and Papa.  I tried hard, and in ways that in retrospect appear pathetic, to perpetuate that childhood community by importing into the spiritual desert of Konnarock uncounted bottles of Moselwein, of German books, of phonograph records, many of which Mutti subsequently gave to Jack Hall.  I tried to persuade Mutti and Papa to read poetry or other literature together with me, but it was all in vain, as Muttis spirit became inextricably mired in the vulgar banalities of backwoods Christianity, while Papas inferiority complex persuaded him to misconstrue various expressions of my youthful exuberance as insults to him.  For decades thereafter he soothed his soul by reproaching me for the imagined injury.

Two episodes in particular come to mind.  One day in the summer of 1950 he and I were walking along the road by the shore of Thirty-two Island, just past the old concrete block at the foot of the steep school house hill, discussing my impending medical studies, when I confided to him that I did not contemplate becoming a rich doctor with an empty head.  For years thereafter he complained that I had insulted him with allusions to the empty head, although nothing could have been further from my intentions.

It must have been the same summer that he and I were driving to Marion, taking the short-cut along the South Fork of the Holston in St. Clair's Bottom, when he picked up a hitchhiker.  By macabre coincidence, the conversation turned to a particularly frightening and violent crime that had recently been committed upon a traveler on Route 11.  It was obvious that Papa was frightened by the story; he may even have been frightened by our unknown passenger, when he described with a passion that made me uncomfortable the vengeance that he would work upon the storied malefactor - much as an acolyte of the ACLU of my acquaintance looks forward with pleasurable anticipation to the indictment of her neighbors for drug trafficking, even though the only obvious wrong that has been committed flows the putrid collective imagination of the community. - In any event, rapt with the idealistic lyrics of Alois Schickaneder as I was in those days: "In diesen heil'gen Hallen, kennt man die Rache nicht," (Zauberfloete) I commented self-righteously but in no way critical of my revered father: "I would not stoop that low," with the consequence that for decades subsequent, Papa complained to Mutti that my declaration was at the root of his unhappiness and depression, and Mutti dutifully reproached me for my cruel disloyalty, although I think she herself was not entirely convinced of the cause-effect relationship.

Just recently it occurred to me in the light of your own behavior, that Papas taking offense, (Beleidigtsein) was probably genetic, and that an hereditary trait was probably the most plausible explanation for the tenacity with which you dwell on the putative injustices for which you hold me responsible, e.g. your relationship to Klemens' children and to Klemens himself. There must surely be a statute of limitations for my misdeeds some of which are now more than thirty years past.  In Papa's case, it seems clear to me that his interminable anger and hurt at my supposed offenses was in fact a psychic crutch with which he compensated for otherwise intolerable feelings of inferiority and inadequacy, that I, by what I said, became responsible for shortcomings of which he was aware and which he could not accept.  I interpret your own criticism of and anger at me to have similar causes, in that you blame me (and Klemens) for subjective imperfections which you can tolerate only by projecting them outward.  I mention this not to hurt you, but in the hope that, if it is true, my analysis night be of some constructive use to you.

So far as I am concerned, you need harbor no feelings of inferiority.  I am fundamentally committed to eschew all judgment; so far as I am concerned, you are what you are, and there is never a need to justify your personality.  I consider it all the more important that you should be willing from day to day and from month to month to reexamine your actions, and I promise to do the same, not in order to blame oneself or one another, but in order to make these actions as constructive and creative and charitable as possible.
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With this thought, I reach the kernel and the purpose of my letter, because I am perplexed and I do not know how to conduct myself in our relationship, specifically in my role as trustee of your real and personal property.  I begin by laying out what I know about myself and what I know about you.

Let me begin with the worst case scenario, namely that the relationship between us should be ruptured to that we would seldom if ever communicate with each other.  I find such a rupture which would surely preclude all cooperation in business or financial matters very difficult to contemplate.  To parody Sophocles' Antigone: "I can always find another wife and have another child, but both my father and my mother being dead, no second sister can be borne for me." Foremost in my mind is a promise which I gave Mutti some years ago. "Ich mache mir solche Sorgen um Margrit," she said, "Die lasst ihr doch nie verkommen, ihr kuemmert euch doch um sie." "Ihr" referring to Margaret and myself, and perhaps Klemens. When I gave the requested promise I could not know the circumstances under which I might be called upon to fulfill it. To be literal, I did not know what "kuemmern" entailed.  I still do not know.  That is why I write this letter.

If you surmise that the source of my perplexity is your assignment of suvivor benefits for your TIAA annuity to Bill and Hannah you are only partly right.  I have already considered that I might be afflicted with a Judas personality in the sense that I have a compulsion to be the treasurer of the common enterprise and will betray anyone and anything for the ultimate thirty pieces of silver; if this is the case, I have succeeded in concealing my identity from myself. I do not think it is.

I infer from your account Sunday morning that you believe your annuity would continue twenty years after your death and that you have assigned your postmortem benefits to pay for the educational expenses of Bill and Hannah, specifying that any unused funds should go to Klemens. It is difficult for me to believe that you are not mistaken. I have never heard of a retirment annuity continuing twenty years after the primary beneficiary's death. If true, you a paying a high price in current benefits.  More likely the term of the annuity is the lesser of your lifespan or twenty years, that if you were to die now, Hannah and Bill would receive assets with a present value of perhaps two hundred fifty thousand dollars, whereas if you die twenty years from now, they will receive nothing at all.

Consciously, perhaps in consequence of the severe separation anxiety of my childhood, I have always considered my relationships to members of my family as a matter of taking care of them and being taken care of.  As you know, I have made much effort to take care of Mutti and Papa, of you, of Margaret, of Klemens, of Laura, of Rebekah, of Nathaniel and of Benjamin.  In order to be able to take care of so large a group of individuals when one has only limited resources one must rely on them to help to take care of one another; but it appears to me that you refuse to take responsibility for the welfare of anyone, yourself, Bill and Hannah included.

If I understand you correctly, you have assigned any benefits from your annuity which might be payable at your death to Billy's grandfather, in return for a promise on his part to devote any sums he receives to the education of Billy and Hannah, and to return any sums not expended for such purposes to "the Meyer family." What perplexes me about this action is not that the sums received by or expended for Billy and Hannah are lost to the "Meyer family", but its symbolic nature, the appearance of indifference to the actual consequences of your action.  When you first broached the matter to me you stated that the annuity in question would continue for twenty years after your death; then you adopted my supposition that the period of the annuity was the greater of twenty years or the period of your life, so that if you died after August 26, 2013, Billy and Hannah would receive nothing, while if you died within the next year for example, they might receive benefits the present value of which might exceed $250,000.  In the absence of all ascertainable standards, the apportionment of these funds between Billy and Hannah and the "Meyer family" would be a totally arbitrary decision on the part of Billy's grandfather.

Dein Jochen