Yesterday would have been Marlene Dietrich’s 124th birthday. And so saying, I made yet another pilgrimage to her grave at Städtischer Friedhof III cemetery, which is not far from my apartment here in Berlin. My sister came along with me. By the time we got to the cemetery, the grey clouds above hung low and the sidewalks were slicked with sleet. We passed through the iron-wrought gate into a completely empty cemetery.

It was dark as hell in there, what with the cemetery being fortified by a stone wall and canopied by leafless winter trees. Some of the graves had still-lit red candles inside lanterns, the light of which flickered dimly in the darkness like little ghosts.

We made our way to row 34, and there she was:

Upon her tombstone (which reads “Here I stand at the milestones of my days”) and the gravesite before it were pictures and flowers and little mementos. Someone had gifted Marlene her own little lantern with a Christmas candle inside. I have to say: it touched me that so many people had shown up for her birthday, and with the cemetery soon closing for the night and the temperature dropping fast, I figured we were perhaps the final visitors. We stood in silence for a moment and then zigzagged back through the quiet labyrinth of the cemetery in the direction of home.