The Underground Man - Part 52

For Anna, when she heard about Petra she had no intentions to get involved in any drama that could have possibly occurred as each of them had lived a life all by themselves, and that was good as it was.

It was late, dark and cold. Anna woke up. She looked around. Shimmering Street lights were turned on. Wind blew through the trees, touched the grass, shaking the flowers ready to die away. She did not understand what had happened. It took a few minutes before she was understanding in which situation she was in. Ohlsdorf Cemetery opposite Hamburg Airport the largest cemetery in the world before New York was the place she had woken up. She looked at the bench she was sitting on. All of a sudden it came to her mind she had come to the cemetery to have a good walk in a park as this is what the Ohlsdorfer Cemetery was all about, not a place of stones like in France or the one she had seen in Osu in Ghana´s capital, but trees, grass, waterways, ponds, swans and wild ducks enjoying generations that had come to the resting place of soldiers of both last world wars, celebrities from all walks of life, politicians and people like you and me.

She looked around, no one to be seen. Anna closed her eyes, no fear inside her. It was as if the dead bodies would all be her bodyguards. All she remembered was after a good stretch of walk she had decided to have a rest on the bench and must have fallen asleep until the night took over from the day. Looking onto her watch she knew, the cemetery was already locked, the gates closed. No way anyone would come and help her out.

The shadows of the trees portrayed their faces onto the pavement along the roads leading form side to side of the cemetery or falling onto graves. Spooky, very spooky but no place to fear as anyone having bad ideas would be enclosed between the high gates anyway. Not knowing where to go to did Anna walk around looking at graves with stones telling family history, being at the same place for generations.

Heinrich Heerde and Irma Heerde was see reading on a white stone at the junction of two other stone paved walk ways. A big stone with a crow and family name `Rabe` stood nearby like a guardian angel. The grave was for two nicely looked after; fresh cut flowers were standing upright in a green plastic vase. Small bushes in a circle decorated the grave of the couple. Anna stood still, bowed down her head in silence and respect of a man and his wife died not having witnessed their grandchildren`s success in life.

Anna lifted up her head and her heart stopped for seconds. She closed her eyes, touch herself, opened her eyes again, and closed it one more time feeling her heart would come back to life. Three unknown figures, a woman and two men were standing right in front of her. She tried to figure out how that was possible. She had not heard any footsteps approaching her; no sign of people moving from behind, the side, the air. An idea captured her mind. She looked down below the people greeting her. The soil of the grave was cracked; soil all over the place, not where it was supposed to be, where it was before. Anna looked closer being more and more convinced they have come out from their grave, the people which name was on the stone. But she was not certain, as three people were standing before her, two man and a woman. She was shaking her head to get confusion out of it and clarity in. The old man stretched out his hand to her; Anna tried to touch the hand directed towards her; when she did, the hand was an illusion around her hand, nothing to feel, nothing to touch, no warmth to feel; only air was she holding in her hand while her eyes were seeing a hand around her hand. The old man introduced himself as Heinrich Heerde, former accountant, and his wife Irma Heerde, housewife all her life. Anna had the feeling that Heinrich Heerde had been a grandfather every grandchild would wish to have, an old man that loves children of his child and spoils them with love; but not only with love, more so with sweets in abundance. While his wife Irma Heerde seemed to be a gusty woman that had not been too friendly with their children of her child. Anna knew that the name Heerde most likely originals form Holland, a small city near Eindhoven even these two people had German expressions in their faces. Who was the second man, younger than husband and wife, she asked herself. Heinrich Heerde saw her confusion and introduced him as their son, a man that messed up his life too often to the extend his own family had felt ashamed of him, when dead, added his body to his parents with no name on their stone eve carved in theirs.

"Rolf Heinz Heerde, our son", explained Heinrich Heerde looking at the child he had hoped would one day take over his accounting firm, „was married, had three children, but his life was filled with lies. He lied to himself as much as he lied to others. Struggling year in and year out to prove he had changed and be a better person, in the end, it never worked out for him. He died as a lonely man, a man that did not learn his lessons in life."

"But he is our son...that´s it...simple as that!" proclaimed Irma Heerde taking her son Rolf Heinz Heerde into her arms. "When you have children of your own", was she turning to Anna trying to smile with her transparent face, "you will see that whatever your own blood does in life, your blood is still your blood. If you refuse your own blood, you refuse yourself as your blood is in your children. You might not be or feel responsible for what your children do, that is very true as much we parents cannot influence, but in the end it all comes down to the fact, the simple truth, you were giving your child life no matter whether later in life he is a terrorist or mass shooter, he carries your blood and your soul can never deny that simple fact."

"But, if I may say so", stepped Anna one step back as Irma seemed wanting to take control of her mind and make her believe what she thought everyone has to agree with, "all parents can go is to pass on life in their children. Yes, there is blood of both parents in your children and even when you die, the story does not end. While the body is gone, the spirit does never die, possibly jump into another family member to be in future and to become...but family blood is always in the air having or trying to have an influence in our lives...that is what I understand even at my age." Anna stepped back a second step to see the full picture of the core family standing before her: "But I cannot see that by the fact each of us has a free will and given assignment, I as a mother if my child goes out of hand I need to associate myself with it, maybe even that child turns against me and does harm to me like killing me or his siblings!"

"Young lady", was Irma Heerde saying, "you want to tell me, we parents only give birth to a child and will not be responsible for whatever that child does in life or achieves or not does or not achieves, at least to a certain extend?"

"Parents give life, try to do their very best to raise them well, no doubt at all...in any society...but as the free will is there, each individual has a right to mess his life up, correct his mistakes or die in shame even glory could have been his portion...with no regrets on their parents side."

Irma Heerde stepped one step towards her pushing her face forward: "Life is not that easy, young lady. If life would be a mathematical equation than before giving birth we could see whether or not it would make sense to give birth to a child at all or at which time to have a positive outcome that would suite us. No that can never be true. All we can do is to decide to have a child or not and when we say yes, a child comes at its own timing with all its complexity attached. And it are these attached complex factors that determine our happiness or worries as parents."

"This might be true...but it also means, that in the end parents are not responsible for what their children do, whether to kill someone, be drug addicts, die of a car accident while drunken, beating their own kids, reaching the highest position in the land and what have you not", stood Anna her ground stepping half a step forward. She could feel the breath of Irma Heerde in her face.

All of a sudden Heinrich shouted loud out and started to move. He walked towards two women walking their way saying: "Oh my God, Domenica, you have lost weight looking really nice, fresh lady!"

Domenica was laughing any moment dropping down her leather whip used many times before to give pleasure in Herbert Straße, a small stretch of street closed to women and under aged folks, hidden behind the main passage way for the more then discrete scenes of human enjoyment. "Thank you for the compliment, my dear. Here underneath the heavy soil food is not much. Even the meat I carry on my bones get eaten by these stupid and useless insects that are too much in the soil around me!" With a twinkled in her eyes was she pleased to see a living creature around the dead rotten bodies making her spirit so depressed. All her life to give pleasure to people and make lots of money was what had been on her mind. A dark lady, she was dominating men after men. As her service had never come cheap, most of the clients were from well-established families, business people mostly that had worked during the day in posh offices commanding thousands of people, while at nights feeling the need to be directed by someone else. For her prostitution as a Domina was a job, a service like any other work on this earth, a job that needed to be done, a job for which she had found a market and customers. She had ended her life as a Social Worker that also had a little restaurant near Hamburger Fischmarkt. Young prostitutes and drug addicts, mostly in combination of these two life-styles, had found in her a mother to clink to and find refuge when their own families had abundant them. "Life is a funny thing...I am telling you. Very, very strange!" directed Domenica her words towards Anna approaching her to stretch out her hands. "I know you cannot fell my hands as they are form a ghost, from the underworld, from the no longer to be real world", was Domenica laughing. "But be never mistaken, our bodies are gone, our history in the memories of our own generations, possibly in the next as a ghost story once real...but in fact, nothing in this world is really gone forever. We live in cycles, we come and go, in one form or the other we will return. Bodies will be created, bodies formed, bodies will live and souls must fill them. Where to take them from. Invent them again? Oh, no my dear young lady...do not get confused by others, but believe that the numbers of souls are limited...vast, yes, for sure...but limited...and the many more bodies that are going to be created, will all be filled with what you see around you. As otherwise ask you one simple question , how can it be possible that we humans basically in our core never change but animals and plants get extinct once they cannot adopt to their environment. Even you might argue also humans have come in different form like Neanderthal and Homo Erectus...very true...but also in them we can assume where the same human characteristics like love, hate, greed, care jealous and what have you not. It is only that time will unveil to us what has been implanted in us generations back. By try and error humans eventually find their way forward and answers to pressing questions."

"I am impressed of your wisdom!" was Anna astonished to hear a prostitute she had never met before while alive, only heard about, was able to speak words so deep of human knowledge that really matters, a basis on which the outside of science appears to many.