No Road Back Home (German Diary Notes)

Europe (from Diary notes)
No Road Back Home



Frankfurt

I traveled all night, had a passport, and with my Military ID card I had reached West Germany without trouble. I had taken the recommendations of the Captain, AWOL. I had seen enough protests in America, and the usual reports in the newspapers of those objectors to the War in Vietnam going to Canada, but, in point of fact, I went to Europe all the same. Of course I always knew protesters preceded wars. In Germany, I saw trains full of American soldiers, you’d think the war was in Europe not Vietnam. A few of the young soldiers—those like me—when they spoke, they were convinced that Europe was under threat, and they were needed here, all 700,000-thousand of them (as well as in Vietnam, which was another 500,000-thousand) and most were worried they’d be hauled out of Europe to go to Vietnam, like many of their buddies. I was twenty-two years old, I told them I served my time in the states and I was just traveling around Europe now. I was in Frankfurt and took a room at a small hotel; actually my plane ticket was free, paid by the US Government. It was spring, March of 1970, the tourist season was picking up and it was noticeable. I was traveling light, a knapsack was all, it was filled with civilian cloths, and a few Army things I kept, I had brought an Army duffle bag but I didn’t pick it up at the airport, left it there. I had stopped in Minnesota to talk to my mother and brother and relax for that last month of my real life, I mean, I’d be on the run thereafter—and I knew it, or soon after I got to Germany, but I didn’t tell her I was abandoning the Army, just like Mark Twain did, just run, run—he ran to the mountains, me to Germany. I thought it would be the best thing to do, just leave it alone, somehow let it mend itself in its own time.

(Frankfurt, Germany) The city was full of hikers, and bikers, and soldiers.
I paid my rent a month in advance, for my small room at this undisclosed rooming house, I say undisclosed because it was nowhere to me, I couldn’t even pronounce the name of the street had someone asked me.
I walked the streets the next day to get the feel of the city, and I somewhat hid from the German Police and US Military Police and Officers when they walked by me (head down, or I slipped over to the side of a building, excreta); I mean anyone nearby me with a uniform on I became discreet, careful, tactful, even across the street was too close for me. Seeing a lone young man as I was, was suspicious, or at least so I felt. I spent some time looking over the bridges into the river the Rhine River, looking at the dim shapes of the fish. I thought: ‘…look here, Mr. Fish (spotting a big one)…you got the whole river to yourself, and I, I am the one that has to watch out for the big hook,’ he liked me I think, so I felt, yet he had limits in the liking area, he couldn’t help me I mean, he couldn’t leap out of the river and help me, he had but one river and perhaps some tributaries, I had all of Europe to run around in—escape in, both of us running from the hook. It all came pouring out, the Captain in Basic Training, the running to Europe, Minnesota, my mother, human voices, this corner I stood on, the boy in me, the man swinging slowly his hands as he passed me.
I fought down the desire to go into the local bars, those I could see from where I was anyway, perhaps avoiding long conversations with soldiers I thought, and not having answers (a woman now walks by, puts on an unexpectedly merry smile). There was no merry smile in return, I had none to give; yet I felt I had to talk to somebody. My mind said, “You’re in trouble, move on….”
I should go to Pisa, I pondered, or Buffalo but I was here, here in Germany, not quite feeling safe. My mind was split from side to side, and at the moment it seemed as though it would destroy itself with opposition and neither go nor stay.

The City was windless also, everything was still, or so it seemed, as if I was living in an eye of a storm, not knowing the end or the beginning. I suppose I was becoming oppressed by the weather, and burdened by thing things my mind was bringing up. I tried to give my over-crowed mind a rest, flung my bag over my shoulder and started walking again.
Then I walked farther down the river walk, there really was no harmony this first day, this spring afternoon—a warm wind appeared from nowhere, brushing through my hair, as I took off my hat to enjoy the breeze it was like the radiator inside my head wheezed softly, capturing the moment, the air, warm with the smells of the river, grass and dirt. I seemingly was shut away in a fortress. I sat down for a spell, rested on a slap of cement, between two towering poles that led upward to lights—stacks leading into the clouds like ‘Jack and the Been Stock,’ again I must say, the mind plays games, especially if you have an imagination, and this day I did.
‘Hm,’ I thought, I wonder what tomorrow will bring, yet today is not yet over.

(The Hotel) I went back to my hotel room, slept a few hours. I had but a once of confidence, but it would have to do for now, so I told myself.
I heard a knock at my door, I opened it, it was the US Military Police (I would find out later my landlady was in fear I was, just what I was, AWOL).
“What are you doing here?” asked one of the two tall white Military Policemen.
I protested that I was an innocent American Tourist, but that didn’t help much, they insisted I go with them to the military station, and if they were wrong, they’d give me their apologies. Yes, I said to myself, the day is not yet over I see.
“Tell them at your headquarters, I’m a free citizen of the US…!” I said immodestly, and as I said that, I was looking about, wondering how to escape. But there was really no way—my room was perhaps three-hundred square feet, if that, and in that space occupied two windows, a bed, a fifty foot bathroom, one I had to rest my knees on the wall when using the toilet sitting down. Thus, I knew I’d have to talk my way out of it at their headquarters station, if not on the way or here.
Each of the MP’s stepped to a side of me (each on one side of me now) and they walked me down the two flights of stairs that lead to the front door. They seemed to be just the right distance alongside of me, to stop me from any attempt of escape, one was a foot behind me at times. Had I run, I could not have made ten feet I believe, and would have given myself away.

At the Military Headquarters, one of the two soldiers opened up a door to a large room, “Go inside there,” he told me (pointing his finger toward the door) then adding in a rustic, self produced voice, “The Lieutenant will see you in a minute.” (I had wondered often, as I sat in the chair, in this large room with several people moving about, a masculine room with disorder superimpose somewhat to look business like, yet it was a WWII vintage military office of sorts. The American neatness prevailed, and with little charm.
In any case here I waited, then that same MP told me to get up and go into a small room, to be questioned, here I sat on an uncomfortable stool, a table in front of me, and a nice easy chair on the other side, I could guess who that was for; a fat officer came in, but it was a captain. And he said,
“I’m Lieutenant Goodman, how are you?”
“Fine Lieutenant,” I said in return, knowing he was a captain, and not referring to him as an officer—or ‘Sir.’ That would have given me away.
“You really have nothing to worry about, we get a lot of AWOL soldiers about, you know, just walking aimlessly here and there, trying to find a way back home, but of course this is not your case, right?”
“I’m not worried,” I said, taking off my jacket, adding “so start questioning I’m busy, I just got in yesterday and want to get a railroad pass, and see a few things.”
A tall military guard came in, said, “Captain, we got two more out here waiting.” (At that moment the fat officer seemed to struggle with heavy breathing as he moved his chair forward, leaning his elbows on the table.)
Then the captain looked at me, with a smile, “It never stops,” he said.
I looked around the room as if I had never seen a military room before, which actually I had not, in Europe. The small window was barred, the one along the right side of me, and the door was heavy and solid, locked from the other side, and thus the Captain had to knock to get out. It wasn’t completely silent in this little room, I could hear movement on the other side of the door, and I pretended it preoccupied me somewhat.
I sat and waited for his next question. It was dreary, and I gave him that look, realizing, most civilians would take it that way, whereas a soldier has to smile and endure. It was getting close to lunch time also, and I could smell coffee.
“Bring me a cup coffee and my lunch,” ordered the captain over a voice box, and the door opened, and he and I looked at the two soldiers waiting for him. I pretended to be hungry also. He was easier going than the two Military Policemen that came to my apartment. Finally I said, “Do you want my passport or what do you want?” My next statement was going to be a threat I could not fulfill, I was going to say: I want to talk to an official from the Embassy, but I feared it would endanger my position now. And said nothing, and cooperated.
“What were you doing when the police picked you up?” he asked.
“I was in my hotel room sleeping!” I said
“What…!” he said aloud, the door opened wider, and the guard brought in his coffee.
“Maybe they got you confused…hotel room…I don’t get it.”
“I was enjoying the view of the Rhine before that,” I said smiling, “as I told them, the Military Police, and now you, I’m a tourist, not a smuggler or whatever.”
I saw the other two soldiers, the ones waiting to be questioned, had duffle bags, no wonder they got caught I told myself. A knapsack or shoulder bag looked more like a young man’s travel bag.
I think my landlady got overly suspicious and rushed out to find the Military Police, and then excitement started,” I added.
“The landlady,” said the captain, I held my breath, I stated my name although he had read it on the introductory form he held in front of him, no real report yet “Christopher Hunter I’m from Minnesota, I have never been in trouble, no police record, and if you are not going to charge me with an offense, I am hungry, please do your questioning quick.”
I sensed inside his mind he was trying to put together the two pieces of information that I gave to him: landlady and being woke up from my sleep. It almost sounded like harassment, unless he could prove the landlady right.
The guard at the door grunted and looked up as if he knew something but wasn’t sure, as if to say: I bet he’s AWOL.
“Yes, yes…” he said, now looking at my passport, “that is a fact.” I stretched out my hand to take back the passport, as if it was my property, and he handed it back willingly, with a half smile.
“So that’s it, Mr. Hunter, you’re free to go, sorry about the inconvenience.” Said the Captain with a full smile now, I raised the palms of my two hands, as if being satisfied, and of course, got up off my chair and left that little room as fast as I could without raising a hair.
“Have a good lunch,” said the Captain as I was walking to the front doors, I never turned about. I quickly went back to the hotel, it was safer there, and I figured I’d stay for the rest of the month, and then I’d be on my way—somewhere, but only a month, I needed to get out of this military infested city, but fast. I had five hundred dollars on me, and $25, 800 dollars in the bank, my mother had saved for me for my college, if need be I could tap into that.

((I walked through the city a while, down a hill or two, by the river Rhine, life was somewhat renewed in my brain. I thought of Minnesota, my home town, St. Paul, how the snow in the winter was so deep, as high as a car during a snow storm, several feet high along roadsides. In a good winter season, we got 90-inches of snow or more. I thought with all this snow, all the energy we needed to heat the houses, it got below zero in January and February, what makes a person stay in such a climate? I asked my silent self. I used to like to taste the snow in winter when I was a kid, how good it tasted.
It was getting to be late afternoon, I walked back to my rooming house, and it struck me somewhat, the red barns in and along the corn fields of Minnesota (for some odd reason I could not get Minnesota out of my mind). As I came near the fence to the rooming house, I rolled open the gate slowly; the sky was turning sapphire (or black-blue).
To be alive was great, but to have to be watchful every minute of my awaken hours was not likeable, I felt like a tree trying to hide my shadow, or a veil I was hiding under.)(I also got thinking of a gal I used to date, she and her family were really farmers. Robert Bly, whom I had met, was also a farmer, but really simply a poet, whom had what, was called the 50s and 60s press in Minnesota. I was a want to be poet since I was twelve-years old. His best work was his first book, “Silence in the Snow Fields,” I suppose I could identify with him. Donald Hall was also a good poet, I had met also. Wish I could have met Josephine Young Case, and Gary Snyder, also poets, and a few others from the 50s. And here I was lost with my soul in a foreign country, and so on, and so on. I think I was getting that fear of poverty, and needing someone to talk to, I was now remembering that enticing warmth and companionship I often had back home, too cold, yes, but you went from one warm place to another really))




Paris



On Notre Dam Cathedral



I noticed the month I had walked around Frankfurt, there were really so many unhappy faces, too many that is, difficult and dangerous looking faces, perhaps it was because I was unhappy, guarded, and looking over my shoulder, that I imagined they were likewise. People, who are unhappy, can usually count the others that are gloomy like them.
Now I was in Paris, here I found a rooming house, a small hotel down by the banks of the Seine. I was on the second floor, and the steps winded upward like a spiral staircase. (Here I thought is where all the great writers of the 20s were. Hemingway, Faulkner, G. Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Picasso, Dali: I suppose it might be simpler to name those who were not here. There was a close relationship between artist, poet and novelist here; it is where they all ended up. Now all the dusty poets were gone, and here I was.
From my window you could see Notre-Dame and a few bridges that crossed the Seine. I had the sense things would be different here, it was April, 1970, and there was a coolness in the air. The phony Vietnam War was still active, and I heard they were scaling down, from 500,000-troops to 200,000 and downward from there. I was surprised to see that no one bothered me here. I think I could have been Plato and no one would have guessed, or even paid me any attention. On the other hand, I really didn’t feel I existed in this city, I just was, and so I seemed to walk around the city half numb, but alive. I went daily to ‘Shakespeare and Co,’ a bookstore where Hemingway, Joyce, Anderson, and the rest of the 1920s writers that came to Paris hung out, and I bought some cheap books, and read upstairs in what I called their loft, fell to sleep a few times, now and then on the sofa, an old red rustic covering, and lived on books, sandwiches, and in a cheap hotel room.
I suppose I always wanted to end up being a scholar of sorts, or learned person like Plato, I did read his works called, The Republic, and a few other of his works. My brain was so fried during and after such reads, I had to shovel coal into it, like a furnace to keep my mind going; likewise for reading Faulkner, one needs to wash the windows now and then, clear the eyes and mind, dig deep into the garden to come out with success. But I was young; I knew I had time to revisit all those old writers, poets, and etcetera.

When people asked me, Americans in particular, that often came to the bookstore that is, whom asked what I did, I answered truthfully, I didn’t work, and that I had in prior years, a range of trades (but in a way it was work just surviving, keeping my human qualities in place, insuring idleness did not turn into mental disgrace). I enjoyed light conversations over tea or coffee, with, want-to-be poets, writers. This helped my mind stir, which seldom it did in Germany. I didn’t accumulate any human knowledge from these conversations, nor did I emphasize anything, lest I end up in a long drawn out debate. I tried to keep an ultra-modern if not neutral view on things. No real details, real or imagined, I suppose I created more understatements than the average conversationalist. I had to take firm grasp of me, not really knowing who the other person might be. So my views were light in comparison to many of my acquaintances. I tried to study for the most part when not in a conversion.

As I have already mentioned, I didn’t seem to sense the French cared one way or the other who I was as long as I had an up-to-date passport, and money to support myself; had I been low in funds that might have been a different story, plus I had acquired some new friends. On the few occasions I had met officials, neither did they see my situation as in need of repair, nor that I was at the end of my road, thus, unhampered they left me. I knew within these days, I had to keep the names of friends, first and last names if not addresses, in case I had to call on them for a reference, thus they could provide me with a beacon light, sort of.
But this second life I was living was getting boring, I wanted to work, do something beyond reading and having tea and coffee with conversations, yes I think that is the most correct for the time, I was bored, felt discarded in a world famous city, with no regrets, but having no work to do; legally I considered myself a tourist I suppose, so it wasn’t anyone’s fault I couldn’t get a work permit, lest they find whom I really was, save reality, I doubt they’d have cared, they (being the French) didn’t like the Vietnam War anymore than I (and on that note, they might even have given me asylum, had I asked, and shown I had committed no crime other than being at this time still under AWOL statues), but I didn’t know of what connections they had with the US Military to be truthful, or what kind of information they’d have to hand over to the FBI, so I left it alone.

I loved much of Paris, even the wet, and mud puddles. I went to a few of the arts buildings, seen many of the sites. Wined and dined myself. I drank expensive coffee at the Café de Flora now and then, more then, than now; I suppose that was because Hemingway ate and drank there, it felt homelike to me. I had a few ham and cheese sandwiches there, when I felt rich, because they were not cheep, but most of the time I just ate at a local café down by Notre Dame, where I could get a meal for a buck or two. Through it all I found myself liking Paris, not necessarily its inhabitants, in spite of their pig-headedness, rude and horse like manners: I survived by not giving them the compliant, and gave them the same granite tenderness they gave me, and left their opinionated minds dwell unmoved, without a word; although I listened when need be, but most replies did not seem to have anything to do with settling matters. When I saw the edge of their tempers rising, I simply moved on, keeping it under my skin. Remaining somewhat calm and looking agreeable. I suppose you could say, I was somewhat impressed by the single-minded stubbornness under their skins, wanting to attack.

I had a lot of time to do nothing, my world was empty, and I needed not be so guarded, and that had filled my time before, I mean, I felt my world was a tinge more packed, now it was that I felt ahead of time, looking for things to do. I suppose I looked at a few of the friends, those I met at the bookstore with desperate appeal at times, eyes that said, help, but they didn’t believe I really needed it so they didn’t bring it up. And so often did I give the placating nervous laugh, meaning I was afraid somebody might find out my real reason to my being in Paris, and I’d explode on the spot. It never did occur though. The bookstore was my real home in Paris. I’d go back to it, right after lunch. I suppose the owner thought: this guy doesn’t have much of a life. But he was a fine person, white hair, good all through, and what a brain. But he was getting old and feeble, like all of us will be in time I suppose, yet it was sad to see it. I was longing to ask him his age, but dared not, he was trying to keep the old bookstore alive, there was history there.
I was tired most of the time in Paris, or bored, or depressed I suppose. I call it, discontent without interest, a time of fantasies about nothing. I talked to myself a lot. I learned Paris was not the city to be alone in. I could also add, and I shall, it was a time of lost weeks, work, and I fell back and forth into streaks of darkness, a time when one bad thing happens after another, like sleepless nights, needing aspirins, coughs and sneezes.

I was sleeping in my room, and the door opened, I pretended not to notice I was tired, it was my third month in Paris (the end of July, 1970), and I was naked on my bed, it was hot, a week of starless nights, days melting away. But the sun was warm. Some talking in French was going on (and I knew with a light dreadful constriction of my heart, it was not so far away), I noticed as I peeked through my arm, the arm I was resting on with a pillow under it, they were females, talking to one another, all maids, they were fascinated with my white skin just bare as can be on the bed, naked as a jaybird. I was drowsy, but I noticed a certain one of the maids was cute the others, I only got dim view… one being on the heavy side, one small quite young, not sure I told myself, all with white garments on. I think they were thinking I was mad to lay naked when I should know in the afternoon beds are made in the hotel, or was it before noon they changed the bedding—I didn’t really know, a logical madness I suppose, but they were determined to look, and look, and stare for the longest time, and I had too much boredom to stop them, nor did I care to analyze it. Perhaps this was the first time I noticed women, or girls took (like men) an ambitious if not reckless craziness into the likes of man, in particular, his body. I was not accustomed to this, but it seemed a piece of life and I didn’t want to mess it up, the moment, grab the moment I told myself. Plus, there was not much one could do, except provide a little show, by remaining still and quiet. Then the door shut. But I had gotten a good glimpse of one, the cute one.

I got up, walked down the hallway, it was perhaps an hour since the three had gone into my room, they were at the end of the hallway, I noticed as I opened up my eyes wider, closer to the steps than I had previously thought, so, I walked by them somewhat in a quick manner, smiled at the cute one, I think there is an animal that lives in all of us, I wanted to digest her right there, but I moved on—after a double take of her. It consumes you when you think someone is interested in you (that you might be interested in), but I told myself don’t be so silly, perhaps they are not, just in the moment of disbelief of an event. I was thinking nonsense, I told myself, I hated such conversations with my second self, but I didn’t like drugs, beer, I got to liking beer and wine while on my run in Europe. And I was not so depressed I was going to take my life either—just loneliness.
A thought passed through my mind as I walked down those stairs, I would leave tomorrow morning, go someplace, figure it out in the evening. Yes, just disappear. When I got back to my room, Carla was cleaning it, the girl I had seen, the cute one. She looked more Italian, or Spanish than, French, she spoke a variation of English mixed with Spanish and French. I can’t write it, it is too difficult, but she was attracted to me, and it was hard not to be attracted to her. Tomorrow Morning, I told myself, or maybe a few days more I’d hit the road.
“You take me out to a nightclub, and we dance,” she said.
“Good gosh,” I said, “why not,” I said breathlessly. She could save my boring life. I smiled a bit sadly, and I sat on my bed, and she also, I couldn’t think of a thing to say, but she was making me human again. As I looked at her, her age was about right, my age or perhaps two or three years older.
“I am twenty-six,” she said.
“I’ll be twenty three, in October,” I responded.
“Have you got somebody you like back home?” she asked.
“Yes,” I replied, “my mother” and she laughed.
“Me too,” she said.
For a moment there, we didn’t seem to be so strange to each other, an interest was being painted in our minds, and then a cold something run through me, like magic, I grabbed her and kissed her. And we lay on the bed, and she took off her cloths, almost all the way, and then suddenly she closed her self up, said, “I can’t.” I was in such turmoil, emotionally turmoil I didn’t know what to say, but laid back. And when we sat up, after a few minutes, I thought, I didn’t have a visa. I mean it wasn’t hard to get, but I didn’t have one for France, and no one checked me on the train, and I was on leave when I got one for Germany, and here I was, how was I going to leave, or perhaps leave, and hope I didn’t get checked, or if I did, just ask for one, I mean that is what I’d have to do. Funny how things like that seep into your mind when you get rejected, and I guess she was speaking to me, but I didn’t hear her.
The next day, she turned up in my room, and cleaned it, not a word said. This time I left it as is, although I knew she came in person to see me. And there I stood with a smile, in my hotel room. Carla’s friends walked by as if to see what was going to take place, they were both more broad-shouldered than she. One was perhaps two hundred pounds, the other, quite small and thin, not sure if they were the same girls I had seen with Carla before or not.
“Stay right here,” I told Carla, and walked outside of my room to show them nothing was happening, and they walked back towards the spiral stairway. Slowly Carla rose from making my bed, turned around and we found our bodies to be a foot from each other, and we kissed. She started to push away, but decided for what it was worth, not to. She said calmly, in her broken English, “I wish you’d stay in Paris!”
“No,” I said, adding, “Unfortunately I can’t. But never mind, I will be leaving soon.” And I let go of her, my hands were around her thin waist. I knew if I stayed too long in one place, they’d find me, and put me in prison. Carla was taken back a moment, not sure what her next move would be. We both seemed to be in a deep concentration. I felt like a worm, but contemptuously, I felt I had to live with it.





Luxembourg


I said goodbye to Carla, I didn’t want to but I did, breathlessly. I didn’t go to the French consulate, or any consulate, I was going to Luxembourg, Luxembourg, with Carla’s girlfriend, a German Jew, Sandy Schmaltz, who was going there for her work, a business trip for a day or so, thirty-six hours I guess. I said I’d pay half the gas and so we made a deal. Carla said she’d wait for me to return, but you know how that goes, it all consumes itself when the next attraction passes you by.
We passed though the border check at Belgium without showing my papers, I think Sandy saved me by having hers ready, and I being an American with a youthful diplomatic look, the guard had better things to do than to hold me accountable.
In the long term of things I knew there could be no happy ending to this escape from the US Army, the unforeseen future was at best a theatrical twist, with a hopeless conclusion.
At the boarder of Luxembourg, the policeman at the gate had much to talk about with the girls in the car in front of us, gave us a stare, and waved us though.

“I have to go to Zurich tomorrow, if you want to keep me company, pay half the gas, meet me at the Guesthouse, the one I’ll drop you off at, around 11:00 AM,” said Sandy.
Fate had dropped me a morsel, or so I felt.
She had left, and I was talking with the landlady and her husband of the Guesthouse. We had traveled the whole night, and I was hungry, so I sat outside by a little wooden table, and she brought me coffee, bread, jam, orange juice, and poached eggs, they were not hard enough for me, but I ate them all the same, I was hungry.
I figured I’d meet Sandy tomorrow; we’d cross the boarder to Germany and head on to Zurich. I was not inspired to stay any longer than I had to in Luxembourg, it didn’t seem all that accommodating for me.
“Not much baggage,” replied the landlady after breakfast.
“Just one bag,” I said.
I paid her the full days rent and went walking about the city. I must had climbed 100-steps up to this cemetery of sorts, and checked out the old dates on the tombstones, 1713, was the oldest, then I counted them as I walked back down, there were 93—!

A car pulled up, an American girl poked her head out, “Come with us,” she said, “we’re up for fun.”
“What?” I asked (I actually was walking back to my hotel).
“Where you staying,” she asked.
“At a small guesthouse, not sure what the name is, why?” then I walked up to the car, a young American male was at the wheel, and another girl in the backseat beside her, “Come on soldier, come over to our pad and booze it up, we got lots of chicks there, and it will not cost you anymore than your hotel.”
There was a bit of novelty to this, so out of curiosity, I jumped into the backseat with the girls.
On the way to their apartment, she picked up another girlfriend, and she sat on my lap, no pants on, and a dress, and there she sat bare-butt, I thought: now what, but learned it was not uncommon.
When we got to the house they were renting out, she told me her name was Karin, and she’d be my girlfriend if I lived there, but Peter was hers until he left. She aided, I’d not have any trouble finding a mate until then. And there was pot and other substances about. But I felt I just didn’t fit into this scene. I stayed about fifteen minutes, walked around the house aimlessly, and noticed several guys, all American soldiers on the run, about to be sent to Vietnam, and thus, in the same status as I.
“Don’t worry, we’ll find you someone in-between my time with Peter for you.” Karin assured me. But I continued walking toward the door; all my fellow Americans were out of it, either drunk, or high.
A large fellow stood by the door, “If you’re not coming back, I suggest you forget this address.” He said to me in a threatening way. As if I would chance it. I smiled back, said, “I don’t even know where I’m at,” and it was true.
It started to rain as I caught a taxi back to my hotel; I had the hotel’s name written down on a piece of paper. At the hotel, I bought a bottle of Mosel wine and drank myself to sleep.


Switzerland


“How was your day?” asked Sandy.
I was waiting outside the guesthouse, having a cup of coffee; it was 11:00 AM. She had parked her 1967-Red VW, and walked up to greet me.
“I ended up at some clubhouse, strangers all high on dope, didn’t like the scene, and left early, and drank myself to sleep.
“Sounds more exciting than my day, just business at the local bank here, stocks, they are going down, the dollar is going down, lost $50,000-dollars, everyone’s buying Marks again.”
“Some bad luck haw?” I said.
“Just the name of the game I suppose,” she airily said.
“Thanks for keeping my seat,” I commented to Sandy, looking at her profile as we drove off. She was very pretty, light brown hair, hazel blue eyes, a thin shape, not much in the breast area, but a nice smile. She was twenty-seven years old, I, going on twenty-three.
As we drove off, I really didn’t know what to do, I peered out the window a lot, I couldn’t insistent on much either. By mid-afternoon we were back on German soil, and I haply showed my German visa at the checkpoint, I think Sandy felt a bit more comfortable at that.
We stopped at a bratwurst stand, and I got out of the car, purchased two, and ate them down quickly.
“You Americans eat fast,” said Sandy.


My thoughts now were on crossing the Swiss boarder. As I looked out the window I saw the cars zooming by, flying by—and white lines on the highway becoming one. I have to admit, the speed of the cars and the fresh air hitting my face gave me a relief, I untied my shoes, it would be a long ride.
I was annoyed with myself, thinking I should have stayed with Carla in Paris. I wanted to go back, but I didn’t, it wasn’t the money, perhaps I felt safer on the run, some kind of hypocritical happiness.
“Sandy,” I interrupted her driving concentration, moved over toward her. She answered, “What is it?”
“In Switzerland why not share a room together?”
There was kind of a desperate tone to my voice; then a moment of impatience. I next, said to myself: here is now a frightened woman in a car with me, or so I thought.
“Yes, that will do,” my left eyebrow hit my forehead.
We both sat quiet for a few minutes. I seemed to be sweating.
“Are we in Switzerland?” I asked dumfounded, for lack of a better conversation.
Actually I could now see far ahead the stationmaster waving a flag. My companion dug into her purse for her Id. Why I did what I did I do not know, but I pulled out my green military card, knowing it would be better than being caught without a visa.
“You’re a soldier,” said Sandy.
“I was,” I replied.
“Well, now we are in Switzerland,” confirmed Sandy.
“Of course,” I said.
“Was a soldier,” she asked.
“I finally got out after two years,” I told her.
“Oh,” she said, a bit puzzled, perhaps because I was not providing any complicated answer, if anything—oversimplifying.
“Now Sandy, I can do as I please, when I please.”
A small wetness filled the middle of her closed lips, she stared at me, with unruffled calm, and at the stop sigh, and she leaned over and kissed me, lightly on my lips.
“You’re a brave man,” she said.
I was not of the same opinion.
“Americans seem always to be making war, why?”
“Lots of money in Armaments,” I said kidding.
“I quite agree with that, first time I ever heard anyone say it though.”

Switzerland was a neutral country, I thought it might be safe here for a spell. Perhaps the landlady wouldn’t get into my business, or so I hopped.
I took my bag and Sandy her suitcase, and we went into a hotel downtown Zurich, across a bridge, and the river. It was late-afternoon.
Downstairs, in the lobby was a heath, and six folks were sitting around a fire, lightly lit, with wine and beer, and cheese and crackers. They asked us to join them, and we did, and we sang and drank until about 10:00 PM, and went to our room to bed.
She wore a gold chain around her naked waist, and one around her ankle, and we lay in bed and made love, and more love, until we fell to sleep.
We stayed in Zurich for a week and made love for a week straight. Went to a few clubs, walked down along the river, and I bought her a music box. And then we parted, just like that. I often wondered about that, perhaps she knew Carla liked me, and this was as far as she wanted to take it lest she get too emotionally involved, and lose Carla as a friend, and I would leave her anyhow, which I would have.


Lisbon


There was a group of Japanese tourists at the small hotel I was at, the day Sandy left, they came. And after a week of getting to know them, Kiekie, asked where I was heading to, she was much older than I, perhaps in her mid thirties. A nurse she said. Divorced; I told her I was headed for Lisbon.
“Can I come with?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said without hesitation, not sure why, but it seemed I did not want to argue about it; Carla had sent me a letter also wanting me to return to Paris or perhaps meet her at another location, city.
Along with a bottle of wine, my knapsack, and Kiekie, I grabbed a couple of sandwiches from the cook at the hotel, put them in a sack, inside my knapsack, and bought a ticket, and my companion bought hers.
“Have you ever been to Lisbon?” she asked as we sat looking out the train window.
“No,” I said.
“I hear it is one of the most beautiful cities in the world?”
“I couldn’t say, “I responded.
“Then why have you picked out the city in the first place to see?” She questioned.
“A quest,” I said, “I want to see as much of Europe as I can, why not.”
“Oh yes, I do agree,” she said in a high squeaky voice, “you Americans are like that, us Japanese, are becoming like you.”
I laughed, and said, “Let’s not worry about the whys.” She nodded ok.
Once in Lisbon, after getting a hotel room, I took her to bed, not sure why I did it so quickly, but we both wanted to. The following morning we went up to see the castle on the hill, St. George. And to the Iron Tower, created by Mr. Eiffel himself, the very one that made the Eiffel Tower in Paris, in the 1880s; a café was on top of it which we went to often. Off and on during the week we remained there, we also went to bed like an old married couple. What for, other than sex, I don’t rightly know anything special, nothing of any importance, but lots of company, the kind we don’t talk about.
On the 8th day, I said to her, “It is good you came with me,” I kind of whispered it, adding, “I have someone in Paris, I think I may be going back to see her.”
I felt I had to say that, I really could not have taken it any longer. Love me, kiss me, and let’s have sex. But it was not love, it was fun and lust. Love was in Paris, or so I felt. She did leave on the next plane out—somewhat sad and bewildered, and I did appreciate her not asking any questions that long week.


Babenhausen Germany


Carla met me in Babenhausen, Germany, it was safer for me to be in Germany without a visa from another country, I just had to pick out a small town, smaller than Frankfurt that is, and Carla said, Sandy had relatives in Babenhausen and we could meet there. We met and stayed at Gunter Gunderson’s house, a spare apartment he had, and round the corner was an old tower, 1714 AD, was the date on it, that it was built.
We stayed here for a few weeks, went down to a local bar where they had music, and we’d dance there, the twist, and lindy, and a few other dances. Why I stayed away from her so long was beyond me, we clicked, that was love I suppose, what else it could be, so I told myself.
We sat down at a table, ordered a beer and sandwich, and she asked,
“So you and Sandy went to Zurich together, also?” Meaning we were just suppose to go to Luxembourg together.
I kind of gave a feeble smile. “Why don’t we just go?”
“Where?” she asked.
“This place is dead now, no more dancing…!”
As I looked about, I saw many young men like me, all playing soldier, ready for war. I paid the waiter then we stepped out into the glorious night, stars over Germany were heavy this evening. We embraced, I never answered her question, and she never asked again, perhaps at another time. The night was clear, so many stars. We walked back to the apartment, and a little further up the street, toward the old tower, I liked it, it was dark. We stood a while in silence by the tower, across from it, a few lights from up the street. I wasn’t going to answer any such questions for her. I know she had sent me letters in Lisbon, and Switzerland but to me it was just adventures. This was the time of my life, I seemed to have one after another adventures hurled at me recently, and no need to destroy the normal life romances along the way, or dreams of a tormented soldier.
Zurich looked back on me, it filled my mind, Sandy was nice, and we had a good time in Luxemburg also, not much time, but a good conversation; Zurich was different, we were both lonely. Sandy gave me something I thought I had lost, not sure exactly what it was, perhaps my sense of humor, a diluted death, for before that I felt I was dropping off the face of he earth. Carla was my stimulate, my love, I liked the combination, it gave me a chemical charge, one person cannot do everything for you, or so I felt at this time; I kind of wanted to buy back my life, go back into the Army, go to Vietnam, and prove myself. I wasn’t a cowered, I don’t think so, but Vietnam just seemed to me to be acid, and why be forced fed to drink it; but was I a coward? It was harder to run and hide than be disappointed in ones self.

Babenhausen was a sparkling little city at night. Carla seemed almost moonstruck, she laid her back against me, the tower across from us, her heart alive, beating fast, I looked down the street, it looked like a black hollow, a long stone wall, with foliage on top of it.
“Who are we?” I asked Carla. “I mean, if I was just a memory to you, how would you want it to be? Can it be we are never completely the other persons? Will you ever be completely mine? Under our skulls we are a festival of things.”
“You sound like a poet,” said Carla. I suppose I felt like one.
“This is the place Carla, we shall always remember, the place, the tower, the high-ceiling of our apartment, Paris, this is it, there will be no more to be had, our lives will be the highest here. Yes I had a good time with Sandy in Switzerland, we were not afraid of life, but I always seemed to paralyze myself with I thoughts of you. I still do. You shock life into me.” Somehow she nodded that she understood, but I doubt she did, somewhere along the line women remember, and pay back could be heavy, I said no more on the matter and I suppose let her imagination shape what she wanted to. She smiled, and I knew she would, as long as there was no danger lingering too close.
As we made love that evening, I thought, here was a woman I barely know, met in Paris, received some letters from, uneventful past for the most part, but here we were lost in life’s power, hemmed into each other, evaporated into each others soul, like poison.

Military Compound

A week later, the impossible happened, I went to the Babenhausen Military Compound, turned myself in, I had been AWOL for five months. What mattered to me was to prove I was not a coward. To give Carla a good memory of me, should I not make it back from a War, because I knew I was going. Yes, oh yes, that was my reason, and to me that was enough. During the following week, the military was kind I suppose you could say.
I explained it all to Carla, and she said she’d wait for me, I’d have to serve my time, and I had something like sixteen-months to go. The summer was almost over, and I felt a little more carefree, and thoroughly unreal for I was no longer hiding, or running. I wanted to marry Carla, but I couldn’t, not yet, not until I got through this strange situation. But she strengthened me; our feelings for each other were strong. The new surroundings intensely became real. And then I was sent to Fort Lewis, Washington state, for jungle training for Vietnam.
And during all this, Carla hovered over my mind, and she never finished in the mist, in my dreams, I took Ranger Training.
After I finished all my training I ended up a second time at the hospital. I couldn’t run like the other soldiers, I had dropped a bomb on it during Advance Training, after boot camp—at the Ranger School (Eight Inch Projective, about 200-pounds), it broke three of my toes, and I shifted some of my weight (fourteen pounds of it) from my right wounded leg to my left, thus they were in the process of giving me a deferment from war, I would be sent to another location. I didn’t like this at all, thus, when the day came to go to Vietnam, I was suppose to have been in the hospital, but I took my old orders and jumped on the plane. When I got to Vietnam—Cam Ranh Bay, the in processing clerk laughed, said “…you’re suppose to be in the hospital in Washington, why you here?”
My eyes darted from one medic to the next, we all laughed and one of them said in a common interest, “I guess you’re here now…!” and stamped my in processing card, valid, and there I was. It was pure enthusiasm to be in a war zone, I was even delighted, but a month later I received a letter from Carla. It was hard to read the second time, and even harder the third. Two such congenial people, is it unusual to find this or not. I was now twenty-three years old.
It was a Dear John Letter, and it read something like this: I can’t write you anymore, I do not wish to have to worry about if you are alive or dead, or will return back with something missing. It is better to call it off now.
Perhaps she was right, I was healthy, and my muscles were hard, my nerves ok, but who knows, I told myself, there might be a lot of tomorrows and just one bad one can destroy you, mark you for life, or kill you. I would not write back, and I didn’t.

Notes: this is one of four parts to the story, yet this part, "No Road Back Home," was originally written as a complete story.