tania

Travelling, part One; Athens in August 2/11/06 06:53 Over the last months of 1989 an empire crumbled; the iron curtain had rusted and suddenly fell apart. Leaving the people of DDR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria in a bleak wintersun of freedom, still with the sinister shadow of the Soviet looming over them. Suddenly they could travel. Well, travel outside the walls of the old empire. They could go to The West, or at least to Western Europe where all their dreams lay. Spring and summer 1990 saw the first wave of these travellers. Free people now, full of wonder and curiosity – but extremely poor. Perhaps not poor in their own countries; but the amounts and the currency securing them at home, were mere nothings in The West. Anyhow, many travelled. Did any kind of work for a meal, a bed, a ticket. Many girls found boyfriends from the west, easily and often because of their mutual exotics (for some reason at that time it never functioned the other way, east boy finding west girl). Not too seldom, there were also less romantic motives: The east girl would get travel and luxury, the west boy would have a girl far beyond the standard he rated with west girls. Some of the travellers became criminals, some more or less prostitutes. Because travelling was freedom, the west was the future, and adventure too. They had to have it, at any cost. All above are facts, if far from all relevant facts. Below is fiction dedicated to all eastern girls who travelled Western Europe in 1990. Have you ever been to Athens in August? I had not, and if I’d known how gruesome is the moist heat there at that time, I’d have stayed far away. However, in August 1990 we ended up there; ‘we’ meaning Jannik and me, having travelled Europe together for two months, hiking trucks, stowawaying trains, making some small money at almost any kind of short-time dirty job here and there. The sun was hammering my head with white pain and my mouth felt like blistered desert-sand, as I stared up at Acropolis shimmering in the heat high above town. My soul awed at the gorgeous sight, my mind was full of joy to see the cradle of European culture, but the predominant feelings were thirst, hunger, and concern – in that order. I had no money left, at all; I knew that Jannik had some, but this girl never demanded anything from anybody. To smile softly at an old man would get me water and a salad, I knew; to look any woman warmly into her eyes would assure me a bath and a bed, I knew. If I did either, it would make Jannik mutely angry for days, I also knew. And smiling softly to him, or looking him into the eyes would make him happy, make him kiss me, make him fuck me, make him formulate elaborate monologues about love, all very nice; but water, salad, bath, bed he’d never pay for. I had already understood that I’d never understand Germans. ‘Do you have money for a hotel?’ he asked; I just shook my head tiredly. ‘Then, let’s find some park with shadow’, he suggested. In Athens?! As we wandered around, I became more and more weak and dizzy. He walked us into some taverna, had coffee and water, asking me if I’d not like to order something also. When I shook my head, he smiled. Sipping cool water from a glass dim with dew, with icecubes clinking. Sitting in the shadow, the white pain struck me directly into my eyes, from the walls, from the pavement, from the gleaming cars gliding by in the haze of heat. ‘You know’, he said and signalled the waiter to come, ‘you girls have no big problems. Whatever happens, you always have something to sell.’ I stared at him, not understanding – well yes, but not believing. Put the question with my eyes. And he answered, ‘Yes, whatever happens, you can always sell your body!’ Guess that he was right, in a way. But it woke me up. The waiter put a glass of uozo in front of him. ‘So, how much could I demand, per time, do you think?’ ‘In your case…..hmnnn…. with that wonderful, slender, agile body, those warm big brown eyes, and all of that long, thick, dark hair…. Adding intellect and language skills….Something like 800 Deutschmarks per time, I guess’ I smiled softly at him. ‘You suggest, that I do that, Jannik?’ ‘Why not?’ he shrugged. ‘It’s a decent occupation, you know.’ ‘Yes…’ It is, I know, I knew. For a moment I felt like crying. Then I composed myself. ‘And, you’ll protect me, of course?’ ‘Naturally’, he assured me calmly and sipped his uozo. ‘And…sell me, too?’ ‘If you like’, he smiled. For long, we were both silent. I do not know what he was thinking. Must be fair to him, perhaps he meant well. Again, he sipped the water in the dewy glass, clinking the cubes. ‘Usually, men do that at a percentage, I’ve heard?’ I whispered. ‘Commission, yes’, he said with a smile. ‘But first, costs are deducted, I’m told’ ‘Such as?’ ‘Well, like hotel… you don’t have money left even for that, right? – and clients will not pay 800 to make you on the hard, dirty soil of a park.’ Silence again, for a while. I was fingering a toothpick, trying to disregard all the white pain attacking me from everywhere around. Consciously forgetting how thirsty I was, with difficulty – true thirst is like drowning in clouds of sand, feeling like a cancer deliberately and carefully devouring bit after bit of your soul. Determined to forget, who I was, had been, could become, would like to be. Just listening, deep inside my mind to Tolkien poem I remembered: I sit beside the fire and think of all that I have seen Of meadow flowers and butterflies in summers that have been; Of yellow leaves and gossamer in autumns that there were With morning mist and silver sun and wind upon my hair I sit beside the fire and think of how the world will be when winter comes without a spring that I shall ever see For still there are so many things that I have never seen In every wood in every spring there is a different green. Looking anywhere else than into his mistygrey eyes, finding nothing but the white pain everywhere, all around and inside me, I finally nodded. He looked astonished, just for one second; then he smiled greedily – how I had adored that wolfish smile! ‘So, start deducting costs!’ I said. ‘Order water, a salad, and a glass of retsina for me, will you?’ He did. Imagine the taste of that sweet water, the feeling of the crispy salad in my mouth, and afterwards the bite of the retsina. White pain diminished, and then vanished gradually. I felt good, relaxed, determined. ‘Now, then,’ I said, ‘let’s find a good hotel. I must have a shower, first of all.’ ‘Nope,’ was his reply, ‘first we must buy you the right clothes.’ ‘Hey, I see costs are getting out of control!’ He grinned, ‘All right, let these clothes be my investment…’ Then I remembered something. ‘What about that commission? What will we agree?’ He suggested 80% for him. I just laughed at that, offered ten. He grinned, claiming that the normal percentage in Europe is 85%. Told him, that this girl is not average, offered him fifteen. Jannik claimed that as it was his idea, and as all I had to do was to enjoy some more fucking than usually, he should have 70%. My reply was that it was my body, and me to work it, so he could have twenty. He claimed, that with him having to do the sales and protection, he’d have most of the risk and deserved at least 60%; my answer was, that sales would hardly be needed, I could anytime get any man, and as for risk, he’d only have to fight for me when I was in mortal danger, so risk bigger on me – offered him twentyfive. We ended up with 40% for him, and then he’d pay clothes, meal, hotel, plus one bottle of champagne without holding these costs against me. So, we shared the bottle of champagne, clinking to future business success. While sipping the cool, bubbling, flowing moonshine, I looked him thoughtfully into the eyes, these mistygreyones, once so much adored. Wondering, what kind of man was this, whom I had thought that I loved. Or, at least considered a good friend.