There’s a small town in Germany called Fursten Walde. It’s south East of Berlin and until recently was part of East Germany. I was in Fursten Walde with my wife Bienchen, our three adult children, Romany, Arlen and Louis and Milla, an eighty year old member of the London refugee set, as had been Bienchen’s mother. Milla had fled the Nazi’s from Praguewhereas Bienchen’s mother, Kate had fled her fellow Germans from Fursten Walde. We’d come to the town to celebrate Bienchen’s Aunt Lisel’s 90th birthday party. The celebrations had centred around the big house built by Bienchen’s grandfather. My group was staying in a very new Euro-Motel in the centre of the town. After the Saturday night birthday celebrations I slept quite well and Bienchen and I went down for breakfast at about 9.30.
Breakfast was a serve-yourself thing. The dining room was vast and the tables and chairs were yellow pine. Bienchen, Milla and I seemed to be the only guests eating. The kids had yet to arrive. There was one waiter. As we ate and waited for the others I became aware of a middle-aged man who seemed to be very drunk. He was sitting on the other side of the dining room, as far away from us as it was possible to be. I mention this because it is an important detail for what follows. He was joined by another man wearing a white sweat top, a hulk of a man, with no neck and the body of a wrestler. Two very thin girls with badly dyed red hair and white faces joined them. They wore coats with bedraggled fur collars. I watched them, intrigued, wondering what their story could be. The older man was short and looked like Peter Lorre. They could have stepped out of a George Grosz illustration.
The hulk suddenly spotted me watching and said something to the older man. They both laughed, the Hulk choking on his food he laughed so much. And then he looked at me again and our eyes locked.
Then a really strange thing happened. He stuck his tongue out at me and put his hands in his ears, wiggling his fingers and in a high pitched voice said “Yoo hoo”. I waved back, adrenaline pumping as my brain computed that we were in a ‘situation’ that usually has a limited resolution potential. Realizing also that staring was perhaps not a great idea I studied my food. Meanwhile the kids were arriving.
Arlen is a very big boy but he seemed very young suddenly. Louis looks like a trainee poet of the Keats school and Romany turned up in a black mini skirt with no idea of what was happening. Although I was now studiously not looking at the scary table I was aware that they were now all four studying us with great interest as the kids sat down.
What happened next was strange. I became aware of movement and glanced back to the other table. Again I would like to stress the considerable distance between the two tables. They were as far apart as it was possible to be in this fairly large room. So I glance back in time to see the hulk at the end of a movement, like he’s just thrown something. Something like a big, greasy German sausage, half eaten and flayed. I caught the last moments of sausage flight just before it hit Bienchen.
I was the only person at our table who had any clue as to what was going down. Bienchen was puzzled and then saw the sausage but had no idea where it had arrived from. Suddenly everyone was talking and I had to explain the circumstances. Arlen (21 years old – 6 foot London geezer) was understandably angry, his mum had just been attacked with a sausage. But this was not something ordinary – this hulk was a nutter and we were in a small town in Germany and it was getting stranger by the minute. I restrained Arlen. Meanwhile the party of four were chortling away at the free entertainment.
I called the waiter over. He listened politely whilst I explained that a sausage had been thrown at us. I pointed to the table where it had come from. In fact this was a no-brainer, there were only two tables occupied. Us and Them. I suggested he do something about it. Bring the manager in, call the Police. He carefully took the sausage, placed it on his tray and then walked over to the other table. I saw him pointing back at us as he presumably repeated my story to them. He then gave them the sausage (it did belong to them after all) and exited the dining area. Our table was now quite tense, none of us wanting to stare at the other table but at the same time being so aware of it, the sound of their weird laughter very loud and clear. And then that specific sound when someone is trying to attract your attention. I glanced over just as the Hulk threw the sausage a second time. This time it hit Milla. Milla, the frail 80 year old. Howls of laughter from the table for four. The irony of the situation. Bienchen, whose mother had fled the fascists in this very town. Milla who’d fled the fascists in Czeckoslovakia. My step-daughter, Romany, half Jewish. Sausages now, what next? My family looked at me. The situation was clear. DO SOMETHING MANLY. I stood up with the intention of fetching the manager myself.
The problem was that in order to reach the exit I had to pass the table where they sat eating and giggling. The act of walking towards them was in itself aggressive, whether I liked it or not. Certain classic cowboy films come to mind as I stood and began that long walk towards them.
Walking is an interesting thing. The realization that you have choices in how you walk. Too fast would seem like panic. Too slow would be overly aggressive. Also how is the face. I went for the ‘slightly lost in my own thoughts’ approach. I had a very attentive audience, my gang and the other gang. If this was a film the walk would be stretched and stretched, the editor would be cutting between
1. my feet
2. my face
3. my family watching
4. the German table watching
5. my feet
6. clean point of view (mine) of the table approaching
Like in those coming of age films where the kid who is not very good at sport has to catch the ball. The slugger whacks it high into the air and the inept kid gets ready to catch. And then the fucking editor slows it all down, the soundtrack gets real quiet except for some stringy effect of tension, and the film cuts between
1.the kid, panicky look on his face,
2. dad, panicky look on his face (Please God, let my inept son catch this one ball)
3. other kids who have been nasty to inept kid but if he catches this one they’ll be friends
4. the ball itself suspended in slo-mo as it arcs and begins its downward trajectory.
And it dawned on me as I approached the table that to pass it would be to fail. If I’d continued my walk to the exit and got the manager it would have been an act of cowardice.
As I passed the table I had a moment of inspiration (conceived in desparation). I stopped and spoke to them.
I asked them if they spoke English. The older man replied that he did. Said he’d spent time in Liverpool. I asked if it was alright to sit with them for a moment. He said it was ok and I sat.
The Hulk muttered to his food, angry that I was there. He said (in German), ‘why doesn’t the pig speak German’. I answered in bad German something idiotic like ‘Ich kanst nicht gut Deutsch sprechen, aber Ich verstanden ein bischen’. After this he said not a word but giggled to himself and stuffed his face whilst the older guy and I talked. It’s an interesting thing about language that if there is no communication at all it is much easier to behave badly but the moment you establish some kind of verbal communication things can get better. (There is also the German thing about authority which somehow crept into all of this but that’s another story).
I told Peter Lorre that the sausage game was upsetting everyone at my table. I explained that my table was here from England for a special 90’th birthday party here in the town. My German was getting more confident by the minute, as soon as I mentioned the ‘Gebortstag’ the little guy became animated and offered to buy us all Champagne. The two skinny Grossz gals watched with a dulled curiousity
and things calmed down and the older guy became friendly and sort of apologized for the Hulk saying that he was crazy and that they ran a Disco and had been up all night.
There may be a deep irony to all of this in that the Disco is called ‘STICHT’ and Herr Sticht’s grandpa may have been the guy that Aunt Lisel and Bienchen’s mother, Kate fell out over all those years ago.
By now everyone had gone off the idea of breakfast and we left the room. But Milla was incensed and returned with paper and pen to demand a written apology from the Hulk but by then he had gone. In all probability the police would not have come for it seemed that the older guy was a very rich man who more or less ran the town.
We still talk about the incident, it made a big impression of the kids, funny now but very scary at the time. Being in a place like that seems like a long way from home. Romany felt very intimidated and her Jewish heritage was clearly confronted. Lots of mixed signals.