No one had anticipated such a late end to the meeting. Dinner was no longer an option. Summer drove Robin quickly to the airport so that Summer and I could get to the Kassel train station before the train to Augsburg left at 18:15.
We got to the train station and purchased our tickets in time for us to stand in front of a train schedule to see if the train that had just left the station was the one we wanted.
I watched as Summer read the schedule and tried to listen to her explain that the train which had just left the station was not the one we wanted even though it pulled out at the time that was printed on our tickets.
I tried to calm my mind so I could rationalise the situation. I had worried about the meeting with the customer but the meeting went smoothly. I had worried about not making it to the train station on time, thinking the autobahn was crowded but hearing Summer comment about how deserted the road was, presumably because of the nice weather so everyone was probably home early. I had worried that we were not going to figure out the automated train ticket machine at the station but we had printed the tickets and had made it to the train platform in time to ask a porter if the train was the one we wanted and been assured it was not.
Now, I was catching my breath and trying to remember what Summer had said while she stood next to the train schedule information poster, talking quietly, with me behind her trying to figure out the pictures and listen to her at the same time.
I only heard a few of the words Summer had said and was confused.
“So help me here. This is the first time I have come to Germany. Even though I learned German in school, it is still different than standing here, wondering what the symbols and time mean. Can you show me that the train that just left is not the train we needed? After all, it is past 6:16 and I think we were supposed to be on the 6:16 train.”
Summer turned her head to the side the way she liked to do and smiled a non-worrying smile, an expression that I assumed was often used when Summer tried to explain something simple to her children. “Oh, don’t worry. This is Germany. The trains are never on time.”
I looked from Summer to the train schedule and back. “Okay. I can handle that. But you said something about car number 10 or track number 10. I look at the trains here and see a car number 10 but how is it associated with the Augsburg stop.”
Summer stepped back up to the schedule. “Augsburg,” she mumbled to herself in her lispy voice. “Augsburg…see, here it is.” She put her finger on the glass.
“Yes, but that’s the 17:25 train. I can also see Augsburg on the 20:27 train but I don’t see Augsburg on the 18:16 or 18:24 train.”
Summer nodded her head from side to side, probably mimicking her little girl. “Well, yeth, it’s not there, but don’t worry. That is the train we’re supposed to take.” She pointed to the map and then stepped back.
I squinted, trying to figure out how not to worry.
“Here, I will show you.” Summer reached into her bag and pulled out a crumpled printout. “Augs…burg…here! See, Augsburg is on the 18:24 train. It is just like I told you earlier today, a train through Augsburg every hour.”
The sound of brakes pierced the air. “See, here is the train. We can go now.”
======================
The bells tolled 11 p.m. I opened my eyes. How long had I been asleep? My head was tilted to one side and my legs felt cold. I had just heard the sound of a roaring train. No, it was just the sound of another jet screaming past. How late did the airport stay open? And boy, it sure had gotten cooler.
In my half-asleep state, my thoughts wandered. I tried to remember what I’d just been doing but something was blocking my thoughts. I then realised there was something pressed against my right thigh. More importantly, I realised I wasn’t wearing any pants.
I quickly reached my right hand over to my left and felt my wedding band on. That was a good sign – I always took my ring off before I crawled into bed for the night, even at home with my wife. So either I hadn’t crawled into bed for the night or I hadn’t crawled into bed with the intention of staying in bed for the night.
What was the last thing I remembered? Ooh…I wasn’t sure it if was a good memory. Summer had said…well, at least I thought she said it…she approved of me taking my pants off.
“That’s no problem, David. I cannot see you in the dark anyway. I will probably be asleep again in a minute. I will turn around and close my eyes, though, anyway.”
“Thanks, Summer. I’m still almost too drunk to stand up so I’m just going to sit here and take my pants off. God, I’m so embarrassed.”
“That’s okay. I should have closed the window before I went to bed. I didn’t know the rain would keep falling.”
“You know, back home, this would look really bad if someone walked in right now.”
“Well, it would look bad here, too, probably, but I think we are all right. Many people are sharing rooms this week that would not normally do so. I think…if somebody walked in…we…would…be…”
I could hear the quiet sounds of Summer sleeping. I’d just close my eyes for a few minutes and rest before I got up.
========================
“So what do you think about the train?” Summer asked after we’d settled into seats in car number six.
“This is great. It sure beats driving. And thanks for driving here, by the way.”
“No problem. I think we could have flown from Paderborn but it would take just as long to fly as to take the train or drive. Or maybe we could have gotten there faster by driving but then again we could get on the autobahn and the road would be filled with cars and we would take five or six hours to get to Augsburg. It happens sometimes.”
“I bet. Hey, are you hungry?”
“Are you hungry?”
“A little bit.”
Summer nodded her head and stood up. “Well, then, let’s get something to eat,” lisping the word ‘something.’ I then figured out that part of what I thought was lisping was really just some Germans’ way of trying to pronounce the letter ‘s’ as an English ‘s’ instead of an English ‘z’.
I led the way to car number 10, stopping at the toilet, after which Summer was walking in front of me.
It dawned on me that Summer had a typical post-birth runner’s body. A slightly wider set of hips but not really wide in the sense of being overweight. I envied her figure, knowing that the wider stance gave Summer an advantage in keeping her balance. I felt like my hips were narrow and thus I looked heavier because of the extra fat bouncing around my waistline. Heaven forbid I let someone see my bouncing shape and yet I insisted on running road races with very little exercise in between the events.
==========================
So there I sat, the bells tolling 11:30 or “half midnight” as some might say, and I was sitting there in my shorts, listening to the constant stream of planes flying into Bavaria. And the steady rhythm of the bar band. How late did they play on the weekdays? But then again, it was a nice fall night. Maybe a lot of people stayed out late on nights like this. Maybe folks got an early start on the weekend around here?
I shook my head. There was no more dizziness, no more feeling the room swirl or spin. I stood up and beelined for the bathroom, suddenly sensing a full bladder.
==========================
We both ordered our meals, with me stumbling through my German. The server smiled politely and complimented me when I correctly pronounced the beer, “Kernig Loodvig” for the König Ludwig hefeweisen on the menu.
Summer put her elbows on the table, leaned forward and gave me a warm and friendly smile. Despite knowing better, despite trying to turn Summer into an other, an undesirable person of some sort, I instantly fell in love.
“Thank you,” I said, although I wanted to say, “Thank you for being such a wonderful companion whose pronunciation of German is so cute and appealing at the same time that I forget my desire to learn the German language and lose myself in the song of your voice, instead.”
Summer raised her eyebrows. “Thanks for what?”
“This.”
Summer shrugged her shoulders and then nodded her head. “Yeth…this.” She turned to look out the window at the trees passing by. “Yeth, this is nice. The last time I took the train, it was raining. Not so nice.”
I sighed and Summer turned to look at me. She broke into a big smile.
I looked at her face and wondered how old she really was. She had a youthful spirit about her and probably always would. And yet, her face was framed by more wrinkles than I had first noticed. My own wife had wrinkles but they were not as deep, partly because…frankly, part of the advantage of being overweight was that your skin is stretched out a little and hides wrinkles around the face.
Summer had a slender face. So was Summer the same age as my wife, Karen? Would Summer be in her 40s? Any time the subject of years came up, Summer always seemed to find a way to hide the passage of too many years, as if she was thinking I was calculating her age.
I looked at her face and wondered how old she really was. She had a youthful spirit about her and probably always would. And yet, her face was framed by more wrinkles than I had first noticed. My own wife had wrinkles but they were not as deep, partly because…frankly, part of the advantage of being overweight was that your skin is stretched out a little and hides wrinkles around the face.
Summer had a slender face. So was Summer the same age as my wife, Karen? Would Summer be in her 40s? Any time the subject of years came up, Summer always seemed to find a way to hide the passage of too many years, as if she was thinking I was calculating her age.
The server handed us our drinks. I took a big swallow of beer. “I used to brew my own beer, very similar to this, slightly cloudy.”
“It is legal to do so in the US?”
“Well, at least in Alabama, you can brew up to five gallons of beer before you have to pay taxes.”
Summer raised her glass, ‘’Cheers.”
I reached across and clinked the top of my glass to her.
“No, no. You hit it here, on the bottom,” and Summer clinked the bottom of her glass to mine.
I took a gulp and put the beer back on the table. I thought about the situation, laughing in my mind at the comparison of the situation to one of my favorite movies, “Before Sunrise”, starring the French actress, Julie Delpy and the American actor, Ethan Hawke, where the two meet on a train as strangers and decide to spend the evening together until the woman has to get on a train to Paris the next morning and the man has to fly back to the States.
In this case, I was not romantically interested in Summer. I was riding a train with a business companion. And yet...oh, the imagination runs wild sometimes, doesn't it?
In this case, I was not romantically interested in Summer. I was riding a train with a business companion. And yet...oh, the imagination runs wild sometimes, doesn't it?
===========================
The stroke of midnight. Somewhere, Cinderella was running away, leaving her glass (or furry) slipper behind. I leaned against the bathroom door. I was tired. I had not gotten much sleep on this trip.
I looked across the room at the incoming planes. They seemed to land in bunches, three, four or five at a time. Between the roar of the jet engines, I thought I still heard the band. Were they saying goodnight? No, they were strumming another dance tune into action. I decided to step into action himself.
I looked across the room at the incoming planes. They seemed to land in bunches, three, four or five at a time. Between the roar of the jet engines, I thought I still heard the band. Were they saying goodnight? No, they were strumming another dance tune into action. I decided to step into action himself.
I tiptoed to the foot of Summer’s bed. “Summer,” I whispered. I waited a few seconds.
“Summer?” No response.
“Summer?” No response.
I walked back across the room and felt around the base of the chair for my pants. I picked them up and they didn’t seem especially wet, more damp than anything else. I sat in the chair and pulled on my pants, clasping the belt buckle in one hand so that it wouldn’t clang and wake up Summer.
I let myself out of the hotel room and locked the door behind me. As I did so, I heard the band announce that they had just performed their last song. “Perfect!” I thought while I walked down the hall to the lift.
By the time I got to the bar, several people had left and the band members had stored away their instruments. I plopped down onto a barstool.
“So, you are back?” the bartender asked.
“Yes, I am. And I’m still in the same predicament.”
“Well, until you leave Germany and return, this is still your first time here in Germany. As you say, there is a first time for everything. Everything!” the bartender exclaimed as he placed a beer in front of me. “Here, this one is for you. It is on me. It was actually ordered by a man who just left but I am giving to you anyway.”
One of the band members stepped up to the bar and stood next to me. He nodded at me. “So, we never saw you dance on the floor. Did you not like the music?”
“Oh, yeah, well, you guys are fine. I just don’t have anyone to dance with.”
“That is no excuse. There were plenty of dance partners here tonight. You could have picked any one of them for a dance. I think you just did not like the music…” I started to speak. “No, no, that is okay, I am just kidding with you. I don’t really care if you like my music or not. Dieter here will pay me either way, won’t you, Dieter?”
The bartender turned to face me. “Did you hear someone speak? Do you know anyone who shows up an hour late but still wants the same money? I don’t think I would pay someone like that. Would you?”
I shrugged.
“Of course, you are the guy who is a million miles away from home, who thinks that being a goody two-shoes may or may not have to do with your work, your wife, your family and all that other stuff. I say just drink beer and forget it. But I bet you are still debating yourself about sleeping with the woman in your room upstairs.”
“I…uh…are you going to pay this guy or not? Even though he was an hour late, I bet you still sold your quota of drinks.”
“Yes, that may be true but he did not know that before he was late. You see, there always consequences for our actions. For me, I lose a few customers early in the evening because there is no band as promised. It is not for me or him to say that their music drew in more customers later on or got the same customers to order more beer. Or even, the early customers may have been driving by later on, heard the music and brought back more friends with them. I cannot say that the band had anything to do with the sale of beer. It could just have easily been the rainy weather that forced people into here when they would rather have sat at a biergarten in town.”
“So you’re saying that you’re not going to pay me a share of tonight’s good time?” the band guy asked, sounding pissed off.
“No, I am saying that this customer here can sit and drink one beer with me or he can drink six beers with me or he can even go somewhere else to drink beer but when he goes back up to his hotel room, there will be a woman sleeping in the bed next to him who is not his wife.”
“So that is not my problem. Pay me now or I will never come back.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“Even after I pay you sometimes when no customers show up?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then don’t waste my time anymore. Pack up your stuff tonight and leave.”
The bells tolled 12:30. I counted on my fingers and figured I had about five and a half or six more hours before Summer would get up.
I looked up to see the band leader hurry over to his bandmates and make big gestures. “Oh, to be young, stupid and invincible again,” I thought.
I looked up to see the band leader hurry over to his bandmates and make big gestures. “Oh, to be young, stupid and invincible again,” I thought.
==============================
We finished our meals and I ordered dessert – ice cream with strawberry topping.
When the dessert arrived, I looked down and saw not a sumptuous end to dinner but an oblong lump of frozen cow cream covered with high fructose corn syrup mixed with soggy, pureed strawberries. I smiled, internally laughing at how quickly I could turn a simple dinner car meal into a disappointment when what was really important was the few scant hours I got to spend relaxing on a train with someone I could trust, amazingly enough a person I had seen for the first time that day.
“That looks good,” Summer said, her eyes moving from the ice cream to my eyes.
My first impulse was to look for another spoon on the table and offer her a bite. I then saw that I had the only spoon. I took a bite. It tasted just as wan as I expected it to.
I could offer her a bite using my spoon but then I’d be offering her a bite of something that I didn’t really like.
If somehow she could read my mind or read my thoughts on my face, then what would she think? After all, it is just dessert. But then, are there cultural differences at work as well?
Even if Summer read my thoughts, would she understand the rationalisation? Would it be a natural reflection of my German ancestors? I decided to eat the whole thing to prevent Summer from having to eat any of it. I even ate the crunchy freeze-dried pieces of strawberry pressed into the sides of the ice cream.
By the time I finished, I knew two things. One, I would not eat dessert on the train again and two, Summer would probably not expect me to share my food with her.
My first impulse was to look for another spoon on the table and offer her a bite. I then saw that I had the only spoon. I took a bite. It tasted just as wan as I expected it to.
I could offer her a bite using my spoon but then I’d be offering her a bite of something that I didn’t really like.
If somehow she could read my mind or read my thoughts on my face, then what would she think? After all, it is just dessert. But then, are there cultural differences at work as well?
Even if Summer read my thoughts, would she understand the rationalisation? Would it be a natural reflection of my German ancestors? I decided to eat the whole thing to prevent Summer from having to eat any of it. I even ate the crunchy freeze-dried pieces of strawberry pressed into the sides of the ice cream.
By the time I finished, I knew two things. One, I would not eat dessert on the train again and two, Summer would probably not expect me to share my food with her.
==========================
Instead of taking down their stage equipment, the band got out their instruments, turned the volume all the way up and started playing old German polkas. They were on their third horrible rendition of traditional German music by the time Dieter stepped around the side of the bar and flipped the power switch.
“If you do not go home now, I will get the polizei to provide a personal escort to your private jail.”
Dieter walked back to the bar. “So, it is now 10 minutes before I close the bar. Do you stay here and drink more beer with me? You can drink it free. You will be my defense when the band decides to attack!”
Dieter laughed. “Maybe that will convince you to go back up to the hotel room!” He bent over as he guffawed with laughter.
A few seconds later, he stood up. His eyes lit up as he looked past me. “Hallo. Who is this?”
Dieter laughed. “Maybe that will convince you to go back up to the hotel room!” He bent over as he guffawed with laughter.
A few seconds later, he stood up. His eyes lit up as he looked past me. “Hallo. Who is this?”
I swiveled the barstool around to follow his stare. Summer walked toward me.
“So, David, are you not going to go to bed?” she asked.
“Summer, this is Dieter," I said, sweeping my arm around in the air. "Dieter, this is Summer. She is the account manager I mentioned to you earlier tonight.”
“Ah, very good. So you are the person who causes him to have to fly all the way over to Germany while his wife has to be alone with her sorrow at the loss of her brother?”
“Was?”
“So you know nothing about this?”
“Nein.”
Dieter turned to me. “You see, this is the source of your problem. You do not share your personal troubles with people who should know more about you. I have seen it too many times. You get your real problems off your chest and the small ones disappear. Otherwise, you will never get to sleep at night.” Dieter nodded and winked at me.
The bells struck 1 a.m. Dieter looked at Summer. “Well, it is time I have to close the bar. If you wanted to join your friend in a beer, you have a problem. Or you could say that people like to drink beer to celebrate summer but as we know, Summer never gets to drink beer with them!” He snorted. “If Summer’s here, the fall is far behind.”
He walked away and turned toward the band. “HEY, I SAID RAUS!”
He walked away and turned toward the band. “HEY, I SAID RAUS!”
I looked at Summer and rolled my eyes at Dieter's puns. “You ready to go?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I would like to stay here and get more insults.”
“Well, no offense but I think Summer in Bavaria may be overrated. Or on a day like this, ready for the fall.” I raised one eyebrow, indicating it was not my best pun.
“I can tell you that there is always rain around Summer and rain cools down Summer. So since the rain is over, maybe we can cool down on the jokes and get you upstairs so I can try to get some sleep. I cannot stay asleep, wondering if you leaving the door unlocked or perhaps fallen down the steps unnoticed.”
The bells tolled 1:15. Summer grabbed my arm and pulled me off the barstool. “You are almost as bad as my baby. Only instead of eat, eat, eat, you drink, drink, drink. I will drag you upstairs and lock the door but don’t think I will tuck you in. You can sleep on the floor or wherever. I just want some sleep!”
"Isn't there a second bed in the room?" I thought.
"Isn't there a second bed in the room?" I thought.
I let myself be led to the lift.
“And what do I want?” I asked myself. “I really just want to know if my wife’s mental recovery is going okay but I'm afraid to ask.”
Leaning against Summer on the lift, I sighed with relief. Somehow, I knew my wife would be fine.
When we got off the lift, I laughed quietly to myself, hearing the band had somehow started up again and were singing a bad version of “Let Me Love You All Night Long.”
I wondered if there was a song called, “Let Me Worry All Night Long.”
“And what do I want?” I asked myself. “I really just want to know if my wife’s mental recovery is going okay but I'm afraid to ask.”
Leaning against Summer on the lift, I sighed with relief. Somehow, I knew my wife would be fine.
When we got off the lift, I laughed quietly to myself, hearing the band had somehow started up again and were singing a bad version of “Let Me Love You All Night Long.”
I wondered if there was a song called, “Let Me Worry All Night Long.”
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