The Rathskeller

THE RATHSKELLER

Peggy Hormann

I always believed the money was there somewhere. For years it had been a family tradition to speculate about the money, but I was the only one who still believed. Now maybe I would have a chance to prove I was right.

When I was a little girl, Mother used to tell me the stories that had been passed down from her mother and her grandmother before her. I never knew which ones were true and which weren’t, but it didn’t matter—I loved them all. They were so vivid in my mind that I still remember every one. My favorite was about my great-great-grandmother, Marguerite Wolfgang, and her hidden cashbox.

Marguerite was a servant in the household of the mayor in Freiburg, Germany. She was young and beautiful and determined to make something of herself. She caught the eye of the oldest son, Charles, and they fell in love. But Charles’s father thought Marguerite an unfit match for his eldest son. So Charles and Marguerite did like many young couples in the mid-1800s—they eloped and came to America. That is the way the story always began when Mother told it to me. She always seemed so sincere when she told the story, I just knew she believed it, too.

But today is different.

“Humph! There is no money,” my mother says to me when I tell her about the box.

“But what about the key?” I reply. “Everyone’s always said if we could find the box that the key fits, then we would find the money.”

The key is the reason the story of Marguerite’s money has persisted all these years. Charles and Marguerite settled in a large house on Fifth Avenue in Leavenworth, Kansas, the year the city was incorporated—1855. They built what they called a rathskeller—a basement restaurant and tavern—on the corner of their property at the intersection of two busy streets. The rathskeller was a very lively place, full of men who’d stop in for a few drinks on their way home from work or gather for political meetings and such. Always clean and tidy, it became known as the place to go in town.

With Marguerite’s management, the business did very well. Barely five feet tall, she couldn’t have weighed much over 100 pounds, judging by the pictures I’ve seen, and she wore her black hair in a severe bun at the back of her head. She wore long, dark dresses and sturdy black shoes. I think all this was meant to give her the appearance of authority and seriousness. It must have worked, because she never allowed any nonsense in her establishment. She served hearty food and the great German beer her husband made and she kept the books as tidy as the rathskeller, all while raising five children. But Marguerite didn’t trust banks. She never talked about what she did with the money, but there was a key that she always wore around her neck. It was still there when she died. So, the rumor has always persisted that there was money hidden on the property.

“Mom,” I say now as we sit in the solarium of the nursing home, “I remember you telling us that when your great grandmother died, a key was found in her jewelry box. Remember? And everyone was sure it was the key to the cash box where she had hidden all that money.” Mom looks so small and vulnerable now as she slumps in her wheelchair, covered with a blanket on this warm spring day.

My mother shushes me with a flip of her hand. “Enough!” she says. “It’s a silly story. No one but you believes it.”

“But they found a box, Mom. When they were bulldozing the old house. What would it hurt to just test it and see if the key fits? What if it does? It really could be the money.”

Mom looks away, out the window. She stares for a long time. I know she is not going to discuss this any more. I already knew she wouldn’t, because I’ve tried several times to talk to her about this but she always refuses to discuss it. Still I try one last time.

“It’s not really the money I care about, you know. It’s the link with the past. After hearing about this woman all my life, I’d just like to have something that connects me to her. Can’t you understand that?”

“They should never have dug it up. I want it put back!” Mother has said this before, too. She says it with intensity, like she’s afraid of the box.

I can’t understand why.

“Mom,” I reply, “we can’t tell them to bury the box. The land doesn’t belong to us anymore. Remember, we sold it.” Funny, I think to myself. She remembers some things so well, and other things—important things, like having to give up the house—seem to go right out of her head. I think she just refuses to remember anything that is unpleasant. I wish I had that ability. I would forget that Mom is no longer capable of taking care of herself and that it was left to me to find a place for her. And to sell our ancestral home to pay for her care.

“Mom,” I say, trying again, “just tell me where you put the key. We’ll look and see what’s in the box. Then we’ll know. What would it hurt?” I wonder if she’s forgotten where the key is. Maybe that’s why she won’t talk about it.

Of course, I could just pry open the box, but it’s so old, I want to preserve it. And after all, the box belongs to her, not me.

It was when they were tearing down the house that they found the old box. The rathskeller had been torn down years before, but the house had remained in the family. Now it was being torn down to make room for a shopping center. I knew Mom wasn’t happy with me for selling it, not happy about moving out of it, but I didn’t know what else to do. Dad had gone through all of their savings during the long illness that finally took his life, leaving Mom with nothing but the house. And now she was too ill to stay there by herself.

I was there, sadly watching the crew raze this home that had been in my family for four generations, when they found a large metal box buried underneath the back porch. I claimed it immediately—I knew what it was—and drove as fast as I could to the home where Mom was now living, excited to share the wonderful news and sure she’d be thrilled to find out the stories were true all along.

“Where’s that old key of your great-grandmother’s?” I had asked her. “You’re not going to believe this, but they found the cash box!”

It was then that I found out she had no intention of opening the box. That was a week ago. Now the suspense was killing me. I was about ready to pry the box open anyway. But I knew that would upset her more.

Now, as I sit brushing Mom’s thinning gray hair, she suddenly starts to cry. “Please put the box back,” she says. “I’ll be haunted forever if Grandma finds out I dug up her box again.”

At first I thought she was kidding. “Again? You mean you dug it up before? When? What was in it?” I ask these questions not expecting a real answer.

I am right. She won’t answer me at all. She just looks straight through me with her dull blue eyes that see a time long gone by, but she does not share this with me. My mother never cries, so this really gets to me. I go to her and put my head in her lap, like I did when I was a kid. This seems to comfort her, as it does me. She strokes my hair. I feel the wrinkled skin of her hand brush across my cheek and the warmth of it penetrates through me. I stand and kiss her and say “I love you” and she smiles with the assurance that this is true. I decide I am not going to talk about this for a while. I’ll let her get used to the idea of the house being gone, and her living some place new. Maybe later I’ll bring it up.

As I start to leave, Mother stops me suddenly. “The key is in my top bureau drawer,” she says softly.

“Do you want me to open the box?” I say.

“Bring the box here. We’ll open it together,” she replies.

And so I do. When I return with the large metal box, I remove it from the brown paper bag I have been storing it in. It is still caked with mud and smells of earth and age. I notice there is writing engraved on the front. It is in German. I don’t know what it says, but this must mean it was Marguerite’s.

“Did you really find this box before?” I ask as I set it between us on the coffee table.

“When I was very little,” she replies.

I try to imagine her, young and strong, with her beautiful brown hair pulled back with a ribbon and running in curls all down her back, and her mischievous blue eyes shining bright. She had been a tomboy, I was told. I can imagine her hiding under the back porch, digging big holes in the dirt and being scolded for getting so dirty and making such a mess.

“What was in it?” I ask.

But she just smiles.

“Did you bury it again?”

There was no hesitation in her reply, as there so often is now—when she is trying to remember what she wants to say. “My grandmother found me under the porch after I dug up the box. I think she saw me sneak out of the house with that old key. She told me if I didn’t bury it again that Great Grandmother would come and haunt me. That box was part of the land and it was a part of all the people who had lived there. And it should always stay there. It was meant to be that way. So she made me rebury it. She told me to never tell a soul. We always had such a laugh together whenever anyone would mention it. Oh, how I miss her!”

“So, what made you change your mind about opening it now?” I ask her.

Mother just laughs. Laughs loud. Like I haven’t heard her laugh in a very long time. Has she really lost it now? I wonder.

“It’s always been our secret, Grandma’s and mine. No one else, except Marguerite, of course, ever knew the truth about the money. But now everything is gone. The house is gone and the land is gone. It’s just you and me now. You might as well know the truth.”

I take the key from the bureau and turn it in the lock.

“Are you sure?” I ask. Mom smiles at me in a loving way I haven’t noticed for quite a while.

The box creaks as I open it. Flakes of dirt and rust spill onto the coffee table. I gasp as I look inside. It is full of money. Stacks of bills, each stack with an old paper wrapper around it. My eyes grow large, unbelieving and yet knowing all along it is true.

“Look closely,” my mother tells me.

I pick up a stack of bills and gently pull off the wrapper. The bills are strange, not like any currency I’ve seen. But they’re old, right? I flip though them. Fives and tens. “There must be several thousand dollars here!” I say in amazement.

Still, she smiles at me and says nothing. I look the bills over more closely. On the top of each bill in engraved letters is the following: Leavenworth, May, 1871, The Treasurer of the City of Leavenworth.

“Why, this isn’t even real money!”

“No,” replies my Mom. “A lot of cities printed their own currency in the early days. They’re as worthless as last week’s newspaper. But, goodness, it was fun listening to everyone all those years, thinking they were going to find a fortune. And they tried, too; let me tell you. They dug all over the property, but no one ever thought to dig under the house.”

“Well, aren’t you just the clever one!” I reply.

I remember now the end of the story of Marguerite and the rathskeller. Whenever anyone would ask her if it was true that she had hidden money, Marguerite would just smile and say to them, “What does it matter about money? Only love and laughter will make us happy.”

As I look at my mother now, I see not a woman at the end of her days but the woman who has loved and nurtured me all my life. A woman who has carried on the family traditions of hard work, balanced by laughter, good friends and much love. I resolve to enjoy my time with her more, be more patient. I want to hear some of those family stories again. I always loved every one.