by Arjun Razdan
I walked in without a knock. He was on the top bunk. There were eight beds in the room, all suffused with a sort of orange light of the evening. He did not look at me when I walked in. But, later, he smiled and introduced himself. I had wanted a hotel room. There was none available for Christmas. I had walked in from France, for the Christmas break from the School where I was teaching English to French fellows. Peter had blond hair, and he was barely fifteen. It was strange to spend my Christmas break in a foreign country with a boy I hardly knew, who was half (even less) my age. As I walked in, I walked to my bunk at the furthest end of the room next to the radiateur, looking over the Boulanger selling his Dampfnudel at 6.30 am in the morning. Now, it was mid-evening, and Peter smiled and came over to me, and introduced himself. I had some experience of knowing German people, my first girlfriend in Europe was German in fact, but this was a new breath of air, that came in wafting from the windows for Peter was different from the staid and meticulous Germans I used to meet in hotels who used to sleep on the top bunk, when the top bunk was assigned to them, and who used to properly count their change. Peter was not staid at all, he was fresh as dew on the petals of chrysanthemums outside. His esprit was unsoiled by travel, or the constraints of foreign language, or the effort of tugging your heavy luggage up three floors, to give your middle-aged heart a run for his money.
He was an Orphan. He was raised by his granddad. Maybe the granddad was called Peter as well. Peter, Peter Sr. Or, perhaps, Peter Sr. Sr. But Peter Sr., I do not know what happened to him? I do not know what happened to his parents, in fact? That is why, I say his esprit was fresh, because he never mentioned the incident which severed him from his parents, all I know is that his mother married a couple of times, but his granddad stayed in touch with him, and was now raising him. We had a coffee together, rather I had a coffee from the 50c machine, in the compound of the Youth Hostel in Augsburg. Why I had come to Augsburg, and not Regensburg, or Nuremburg, is another matter? Perhaps, for the Black beer, the black beer in Black Bavaria, or the Black Forest Ham. Anyway, it was very much to do with food. I wanted a break from France, and a break in a new country, never mind where they did not speak French, which I missed immensely. With Peter, I spoke a sort of a broken English. With his generation, I would imagine, his English to be better, but having taught English to irreparable French children, I was grateful to speak another language, even broken English. In that sense, it was one of those children of mine. Those children, I saw at 8 O’clock on the morning along the lake on the banks of the cold Serre-Ponçon. Peter had a lot of pride, he offered me the money for the coffee machine when I could not find change, but I débrouilled otherwise and got it from the receptionist. I left him soon enough remarking this fresh and insolite incident in a Youth Hostel and went out for a walk.
I took a left turn at the crossing, just below my window, and kept walking. I walked straight, along the highway for a long time. The encounter had a brief spell on me. There was something poignant in his blond hair, and his melancholy of being there alone on the top-bunk on Christmas eve. I kept walking, and I wanted to take my mind off things. I entered a brothel. German trips were often for bars, brothels, butchers… three of the commandments of a civilised life. For me, a country where I feel comfortable is where I can find a bar, a brothel, and a butcher at 8 O’clock in the morning. Butchers, I had explored in Berlin, along with my friend Christoph earlier, and got good quantities of Bratwurst, Weisswurst, and of course, Berliner Mett. I moved on to another sort of meat.
I entered a brothel, with four flights of stairs and I was not sure what I was looking for. In fact, it is a worst sort of a client for the girls, who does not know what he is looking for, when he walks in to a brothel. I did not care. I knocked on the door of a Turkish girl, she was busy even though I just saw a mister walk in. Maybe she took only Turkish men. Besides, she was not pretty. I was hankering for company, female company, and especially the desire to drink a Saschen Elbling with a girl. I knocked on the door of a Romanian girl. From the picture, she was blonde but when she opened the door, she was prettier, and thinner.
She asked me what I wanted? I told her about Peter for some reason, and I told her it made me very sad to see a lonely boy alone on Christmas eve, and I did not want to be lonely, but spend my Christmas eve with someone, before I go back to my boy and relieve him of his loneliness. ‘Please come in,’ she smiled.
I stayed there for a good two hours. We had good conversations. ‘What does she want?’ she asked me right away, pointing to my crotch hidden by a grey GAP zip. ‘She?’ I protested. ‘In my country it is a man, a very beautiful man, called… Napoléon Bonaparte.’ ‘Alors, Napoléon Bonaparte… what does she want?’ ‘I told you it is not a she… not even Joséphine’ I told her. ‘I can do nothing, in my country, in my language, it is a She, for that reason I am willing to be a lesbian’ with that adage, she lowered immediately to my bas-regions.
I left her, and she helped me dress myself. I struggled with the zip, owing to the cold, and she brought the zipper up and tucked me in nicely like a mother waving a child goodbye, or a homely wife waiting for her mari for an undue errand from which she wants him to return soon and spray his seed over her legs. She had a thin nose over turquoise eyes.
I moved. I came back. I was empty from having made love, a wife having attended to me, and a son attending me. I told her about Peter, and she told me to wish Peter ‘Merry Christmas’ in her language. I walked along the highway. There were other brothels there, but I did not want to go in. I walked on the grey tarmac of the highway slightly frozen by the December sleet. I walked very gingerly because I was empty from my insides having gone down inside me, and now I needed some refreshment, so I probably stopped at a bar for a glass of white wine.
Normally, I would have done that all evening. More White wine and more Women… more Women and white wine which are the Ws of life just as the beautiful Bs of life are Bars, Brothels, Butchers. Ah, the sanctity of having being stationed in a Bar, Brothel or a Butcher at 9 O’clock in the morning, preferably with a White woman and a wine, I meant, a white wine and a woman.
A woman I missed. In my life. Maybe I needed a wife. But, definitely not a son. I thought of Peter. I wondered if he had gone out. I wondered if he had the money to go out. He had the change in his pockets, so he offered me that much, so certainly he would have gone out for a coffee. But, then, it was cold. I began to worry if he had enough warm clothes. Maybe, I should have left my large jacket on the hook there beside the door, just in case he felt tempted.
Today, I cut short the evening. Normally, I would have gone on on rounds of white wine and women, but I went into a Pizzeria. It was an Italian Pizzeria, but all Pizzerias in the world must be Italian on account of Metonymy. He, certainly did not, speak Italian. Otherwise, I would have conversed better with him. For, whatever, you hold against the Italians, they certainly do have a beautiful language.
I asked for a Tuna pizza: a strange choice, I asked for a large one. A blond 15-year old son, and a Romanian wife, certainly a strange choice. I kept thinking of my girl, and the way she had brushed my jacket as I was going out. The pizza arrived in no time. The haste was certainly not Italian.
I walked along the highway, and now came to the suburb. Peter was at the fourth-flour on the second bunk, as I had seen him when I entered the first time. He did not smile. I asked him if he went out. He said No, his grandfather had left him a little money and he wanted to save it for lunch for tomorrow.
I felt something crippling within me. I normally do not offer food to anyone, besides women I sleep with. Here, I cleaned the table, put a candle I got from the reception, I do not know if we said grace, it would not cut mustard with me, anyway, and Peter and I sat on two sides of the table, on a cold damp Christmas Eve, and finished our pizza.
Then, I had a temptation to buy a bottle of champagne from the nearby grocer, but Peter was perhaps too young for it, and I did not want to drink alone. I fell asleep from tiredness.
In the morning, I left early without saying goodbye to Peter. I descended down to have a Dampfnudel, while he was sleeping at his top-bunk. I had my huge luggage suitcase with me, and my breath was short. Just, as I was walking out of the glass shop of the Boulanger, I caught the eye of Peter waving me from the window.