Justin Go - The Steady Running of the Hour

I log on to the Internet on one of the lobby computers, searching for a specialist in Scandinavian jewelry who might be able to identify the brooch. I run searches using every term I can think of, but the only dealers I find are outside Germany. It’s already September 24 and I can’t waste time sending the brooch away. I run more searches with the term Berlin and I find the website of a jewelry designer whose name sounds Scandinavian. Among a section called “Replicas” I scroll through images of Viking jewelry.

The brooch is there. The plaited bodies of the warring creatures, the curled dragon’s head singing in exertion. It’s the same brooch but the style is different, the strands thicker, the dragon more realistically defined. The caption advertises Brosche im Urnes-Stil, Sterling Silber . I click on the CONTACTbutton. The address is Arthouse Tacheles, Oranienburger Straβe 54–56a, a short walk from the hostel.

I grab my bag and dash south across the intersection.

The building is immense, five stories tall and the length of an entire city block. I check the address several times, but it’s the right number. The half-ruined facade is covered in graffiti; vast craters gape amid the ornate moldings and the sculpted figures high above, their heads and limbs pried off the stone.

The foyer is littered with beer bottles and cigarette stubs. I climb a grimy staircase to the second floor, a maze of hallways with closed doors. A young man walks past dragging a smashed television on a rickety dolly. I ask him for directions to the jeweler’s studio. He answers in an Australian accent.

— Go to the third floor and make a right. Walk straight to the end.

I follow his instructions to a hallway of glazed white brick, everything coated in graffiti. The corridor ends in a sturdy metal door, the arch above painted in huge black capitals: HIER SIND SIE SICHER. It looks like the entrance to an abandoned bomb shelter. A business card is taped to the door.

L. KRARUP — SCHMUCKDESIGN

The door is cracked open, but I knock anyway. A woman’s voice beckons me in.

The studio is cavernous. A series of worktables are pushed against one wall; against the other wall, an aging desktop computer and an assortment of wooden library card catalogs. Tools are everywhere. A rack of hammers in ascending sizes; tongs and files and pliers hanging on a pegboard; a table with soldering irons; a forging anvil, an electric polishing wheel.

The jeweler swivels around toward me. She speaks in German and then in English.

— Can I help you?

She has short gray hair and wears a canvas work apron over her dress, gold spectacles hanging from a chain around her neck. She is eating from a plastic take-out container with a pair of chopsticks.

— Excuse me. A late lunch today—

I tell her I’m trying to identify a piece of my grandmother’s jewelry. The jeweler regards me with mild curiosity, wiping her hands on her apron. I hand her the brooch from my bag. She examines it for a moment and looks up at me.

— Your grandmother gave you this? Where are you from?

— California.

The jeweler frowns.

— But your grandmother wasn’t from California—

— No. She was English. Part Swedish, really.

The jeweler sits down at her workbench. She switches on a bright halogen lamp, looking at the brooch under a swiveling magnifying glass. Her English is accented but fluent and clear.

— Generally, you would say it’s in the Urnes style. There are a few late-Viking Urnes brooches that survive. This is a modern copy of one of them. But not so recent—

The jeweler flips over the brooch. She makes a little sucking sound through her teeth.

— An inscription. Do you know these letters?

— My grandmother’s initials. I don’t know what the symbol is.

The jeweler goes to a bookcase, pulling a huge paperback from the shelf and paging through it slowly. She murmurs something and hands the book to me. It is a glossy auction catalog in some Scandinavian language. On the page there is a photograph of a brooch identical to my own. The jeweler smiles triumphantly.

— I knew I’d seen that symbol before.

The jeweler thinks the brooch is the work of Ísleifur Sæmundsson, an Icelandic silversmith who worked in the early twentieth century. The symbol engraved after my grandmother’s initials is his signature. Ísleifur’s work is quite rare, the jeweler says, and she has never seen his pieces outside of a few museums in Scandinavia. She peers over my shoulder as I look at the catalog.

— It’s in Danish. Do you want me to translate?

The jeweler takes back the catalog and puts her reading glasses on. She translates haltingly, considering her words as she goes. I take notes as quickly as I can.

— Urnes-style brooch by Ísleifur Sæmundsson. Made in — or around—1928. Based on original found on abandoned farm of Tröllaskógur, Iceland, thought to be eleventh century. The Tröllaskógur brooch is told to have belonged to one of the heroines in Njáls Saga . Ísleifur was a talented silversmith who revived the Urnes style in the 1920s. He made jewelry inspired by medieval originals. Few examples of his work survive. A fine example valued at nine thousand kronor.

The jeweler smiles.

— It’s a beautiful brooch. And rare. It’s probably quite valuable.

— Does the engraving mean it was commissioned in Iceland?

The jeweler sighs. She puts the brooch under the magnifying glass again.

— The initials could be Ísleifur’s work. They’re well done, they match his signature—

She turns and looks at me.

— But you can’t be sure. Any good silversmith could do it.

— Then someone could have bought it from outside Iceland? And had it engraved locally?

The jeweler frowns. — I’m no expert. But I don’t think this Ísleifur was so famous then. And Iceland was very far away. I doubt he sold his work in other countries.

— Then someone must have bought the brooch in Iceland.

The jeweler takes off her glasses and shrugs.

— Probably. But why does it matter? You’re not going to sell the brooch, are you?

— No.

She nods. — You’ll give it to someone one day. But not for money.

I thank the jeweler and ask her if I can give her anything for her help.

— Do you mind if I take a few photos of the brooch? For reference. It helps my work.

The jeweler puts the brooch under her lamp and takes a few photographs with a digital camera. She turns the brooch in her hand for a final moment and looks at me. Then she hands it back. I sling my bag over my shoulder.

— Can I ask you something? What’s the story behind this building? It’s so damaged.

The jeweler smiles. — I didn’t get to Berlin until ’87, but I know some of the story.

She tells me that when the building was erected a hundred years ago, it was one of the largest shopping arcades in Europe, running the whole length of Friedrichstraβe to Oranienburger Straβe. It had an ornate ribbed dome and a system of pneumatic tubes that whisked messages in capsules. Later the building became a department store, then a showroom of modern appliances, home to one of the first television broadcasts in Germany. Then the Nazis took the building: they bricked in the skylights and kept French prisoners in the attic. The building was shelled in the Battle of Berlin and fell into disrepair after the war. The dome was pulled down in 1980. A decade later, the building was due to be leveled when a group of artists saved it from destruction.

— I thought we should save this old place. And not just because I needed somewhere to work.