Marek Żebrowski: My German adventure

On another concert tour, after a rehearsal at the Marburg Stadthalle and following a well-worn pattern, I dropped by for a quick visit with my artist friend, Bernd. After a cup of tea and a chat, I left his apartment to walk over to my car parked across from his apartment on the Uferstrasse. As I did so, I noticed a middle-aged lady, her blonde hair neatly braided, dressed in a traditional Hessian green skirt and a white wool richly embroidered jacket, struggling along the riverbank sidewalk with two very full shopping bags. I walked up to her and offered a ride which, after a few perfunctory protests, she readily accepted. After I dropped her off and helped her with the shopping bags to her apartment door, she inquired about my name. After I introduced myself she immediately said that she saw my name somewhere. To which I answered, “Probably on the posters all over town announcing my recital.” She then introduced herself, “I’m Frau Adelheid von Geyr” and added, “I love music and would love to hear your Stadthalle recital. I’ll bring some of my relatives and friends as well.”

A few days later, as I was receiving random fans after the concert, at the end of the line I saw smiling Frau von Geyr and several other people of various ages that accompanied her backstage. The most senior was her diminutive mother-in-law, who introduced herself as Ursula Geyr von Scheppenburg, Freiin von Rheinbaben. As we began to chat, she quickly mentioned that many, many years earlier, she befriended Col. Michał Żebrowski, who lived on a nearby estate in what is now north-central Poland. They occasionally met for a game of bridge, sometimes at her house and sometimes at his. “Is he a relation of yours?” she quickly inquired. Indeed, Michał Żebrowski was my grandfather’s younger brother, whom I never met because he died in 1949 after returning from a POW camp in Germany! 

Afterwards, Frau von Geyr often invited me to Sunday afternoon tea at her Marburg apartment, tastefully furnished with Biedermeier furniture, old paintings and drawings, and many other lovely objects d’art. Her circle of titled family and friends gathered on such occasions to take turns reading romantic German and French poetry aloud, then sip tea and enjoy various cakes laid out on a starched linen tablecloth. Summer afternoon breezes animated the muslin curtains of half-opened windows, and the sunlit garden shaded by the old cherry tree provided a perfect backdrop for the mesmerizing verses that gently drifted through Frau von Geyr’s salon. Throughout these magical Sunday meetings her guests sat still, daydreaming as the gently rolling rhythms of the finest and most evocative poetry instantly transported everyone to the bygone era.