Dresden Weihnachten (2 page)

“A
mean
asparagus soup. This I am not sure of. It must be an
typisch
American saying.” But he grinned.

“
Typisch
, yes. It’s a way of boasting my asparagus soup is very good. Sometimes. But how did you know I’m American?”

Dieter laughed. “Your accent. And when you talk German your grammar is usually wrong—it is like the American grammar I studied in school. But what you want to say, this is very clear. I think you know German mostly from talking with Germans, not so much from school studies.” Well, Fräulein Müller might not take that as a compliment, but I certainly did.

“How did you remember I bought a can of barley soup and a can of asparagus soup?” That really did amaze me.

He gave me an inscrutable look for a moment and then said, in a rather arch manner, “I always remember what you buy. It is part of my job. And also, these soups were new for us, so it is interesting to see what customers say of them. I notice you have not bought any more.”

“Only because I’ve not been in the mood for soup. Not because the soup was bad,” I hastened to assure him.

“We are coming soon to the winter times, and you should have soups in your kitchen, I think. Perhaps some cold and wet day you should enjoy to have some, and you will not want to take the time to cook your, ah,
mean
soup.”

A lady was bustling toward the express lane, so Dieter pushed my bag of groceries to the end of the counter and then winked at me before turning to ring up his next customer.

I walked home with an absurdly warm feeling inside, rather as if I’d cooked a mean asparagus soup and eaten it all up by myself. It felt good that someone in Dresden had been noticing what food I was buying. I didn’t care that he was doing market research and more than likely trying to up his sales of soup for the month. I very much liked our connection, tenuous though it was. But why, I pondered as I let myself into my new home, was a simple cashier doing market research?

*  *  *

Work
was ridiculous the next three weeks. The separation house screwed up the entire batch of photos for a huge four-nation ad campaign that was already dangerously behind schedule, and the art director got the flu. I simply hired Fräulein Müller to work for me in the office full time as a translator. I wasn’t about to trust Berlin’s Tweedle-dum or Tweedle-dee to relay my instructions accurately or to give me the correct information from the separation house or any of the other off-site vendors with whom I was constantly dealing. In addition to their antipathy to me personally, I was discovering there was no love lost between Berliners and Dresdeners in general. It was like Yankee fans and Red Sox fans, but with umlauts. So I was sure neither of my Berliner managers would mind if the Dresden office fell flat on its face, just as a matter of civic pride, of course. Solloway & Kaye/Arnheim Group could scream all they wanted to about the added expense of Fräulein Müller. I knew if we botched the ad campaign they’d scream even louder, and if it was successful, they really wouldn’t even notice the money.

The few times I actually managed to make it to the grocery store before they closed at night, Dieter wasn’t there. I took his advice and bought some extra “soups,” and I was surprised at how disappointed I was he wasn’t the one who rang them up. I really hated the idea that he might have gotten another job. But he was obviously much too intelligent to spend the rest of his life ringing up groceries in the express lane of a chain grocery store. Was he a student? That didn’t seem right. He was a bit too old for a college student. Though maybe if he was going for an advanced degree? No, he had seemed very comfortable at the grocery store, not like he was just doing it as a temporary part-time job. I couldn’t figure it out.

By November I was seriously crashing. The office was up and running surprisingly well, but I felt too drained to find any joy in it. I was tired of the constant struggle of dealing with another language, another culture, another business and artistic environment. I missed being able to kick back and just talk with someone. In English. I missed being able to pick up the phone and talk to Kent, and I missed his offbeat humor. Like the time in New York I got back to my office after a hellacious meeting and hit voice mail, only to hear a wild bit of cacophony from a symphony orchestra, a woman shrieking the words “Triff noch einmal,” followed by the most God-awful groan imaginable, and then Kent saying merrily, “I’m at your place. You wouldn’t
believe
what I found today. So I got lobster ravioli at Balducci’s. Pick up, oh, two bottles of champagne would be appropriate.” Which, in Kent-speak, meant he 1) had the night off, 2) had found an obscure and probably totally amazing live recording of Richard Strauss’s
Elektra
(the music at the beginning of the message) and 3) more than likely a recording by one of my favorite performers that I had no idea even existed (thus, two bottles of champagne). Web cams and e-mails didn’t begin to replace that. Even though we were friends, not lovers, there was no one else remotely like him my life, and I missed him.

I was feeling alone and alienated and realized if I didn’t take myself in hand this was going to become an awful unstoppable downward spiral. So the next Saturday, I took the entire day off, slept late, went to the Neustädter Markthalle and spent an astronomical amount of money on food, and then several hours puttering around in the kitchen cooking. There was a delightful fall cool snap to the air that added to the pleasure of spending time in the kitchen, and it was even more fun because my stereo and absurdly large CD collection had arrived from the States. I had the gizmo that let me plug it into the German electrical circuit and was listening to my CDs for the first time in months while I cooked. Finally, it really felt like home. I was a happy man—until I realized I didn’t have bacon and I didn’t have cinnamon, and I had already started dishes that needed both of them.

Fortunately, the grocery store came to my rescue, and Dieter gave me a dazzling smile that clearly said
welcome back
. “Ah, bacon and cinnamon. What, ah,
mean
things does the single man cook that needs bacon and cinnamon?”

“How on earth do you know I’m a single man?” I asked.

“This is very easy. You do not buy food for two people. But until this time you buy food that makes meals, not as this time when you forget something you need.”

I laughed. “You got me there.” Then, at his puzzled look, added, “
Typisch
American, meaning you are absolutely right.”

“And you are cooking…?”

I pointed to the cinnamon. “Apple pie.” And to the bacon. “Veal stew.”

“And will they be
mean
?” he asked with a look that could only be described as saucy.

It was the almost-come-thither look that made me say, before I thought, “Come over and try them for yourself, then you let me know.”

“Really?” he asked. His face lit up like a kid on Christmas morning, looking at what Santa had put under the tree. “Truly, you are inviting me to your home to eat? This is very generous of you. But is this joking or true?” He suddenly looked unsure.

“I’m serious; you’re welcome to come have dinner, but what time are you done working?”

He looked at the clock over the outside doors. “I am already over my allotted hours. If you can wait for five minutes, I can go with you.” He motioned for another clerk to replace him and disappeared into the back.

Five minutes to the dot (the Germans really
are
a punctual
Völk
), Dieter joined me, minus his grocer’s apron, sporting a very elegant-looking soft leather jacket over his white shirt. His grin was pure delight. “This shall be very much fun. I know it,” he said. “And it is very generous of you to do this thing. Thank you.”

Then he did something I found incredibly appealing and also confusing. He linked his arm through mine and squeezed my arm with his other hand. In the U.S., when a man did that with another man, it means, “I’m gay, you’re gay, I’m glad.” But I knew that wasn’t necessarily true in Europe at all. Men walk arm in arm, and it just means they’re buds. Dieter didn’t wear a wedding ring, but that didn’t mean anything. Did I hope he was gay? Yes, probably. Even thought he was a
lot
younger. Then I thought,
Daniel,
chill
. Enjoy this and don’t try to figure it out or make it go anywhere. Enjoy the rest of the afternoon and evening.

“Veal you said?” Dieter’s voice cut through my whirling brain.

“Yes, veal. And apple pie.”

“Just one moment. Please.” He untangled his arm from mine, leaving me feeling rather cold and alone, and darted into a wine shop. I was a little concerned when I noticed what shop it was. It was on the expensive side, and they simply didn’t have much in the way of wine that I would ordinarily drink because of the prices. But then I thought,
Daniel, chill. Dieter’s a Dresdener. He knows what shops are like a lot more accurately than you do. You’re not his father. He’s an adult.

A few minutes later he popped out of the shop, face glowing, and linked his arm back with mine, the other arm cradling a plastic bag.

“You live close by, I think, but where?”

“Just here,” I said, turning us into Obergraben, then into Number 18.

“Ah. Very nice. This building suits you.”

I let that slide and opened the door to my apartment. And, I must say, if I had to pick a time to introduce Dieter to my home, it was a great moment. The warm afternoon sun was streaming through the patio doors into the living room, giving everything a golden halo. The cooking I’d already done had put delightful smells into the air, and the CDs I had not yet shelved spilled from opened boxes, making an inviting mess. It was my home, and he was my first guest.

“Let me take your jacket,” I offered as I tossed the bacon and cinnamon on the counter separating the kitchen from the living room.

He shrugged it off and slowly turned in a circle, surveying the room, taking in everything. “Amazing. Simply amazing,” he said.

“What’s amazing?” I asked, hanging up his jacket and moving toward the kitchen.

He started to say something, then stopped, and said slowly, “I thought you would live in a place like this. Very beautiful, but also comfortable. Not too much.” He walked up to me and put his hands on my shoulders. “Thank you for bringing me here. But I don’t know your name.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m Daniel. Daniel Richardson.”

Something obviously clicked in his mind. He suddenly looked very… watchful, as if my name was significant for some reason. “Daniel,” he said slowly, almost trying it out. He made it three distinct syllables and made the last “el” sound like “ale.” It was utterly charming.

“And you are Dieter…?” I asked.

“Wunderlich,” he said.

“One of my favorite singers is named Wunderlich,” I said, curious if he would know of the great German lyric tenor Fritz Wunderlich who died tragically in 1966 at the age of thirty-six.

“Alas, no relation,” Dieter said, seating himself on one of the high stools at the counter. “We have always been Dresdeners and he was not. But, yes, he is a great favorite still. You do have excellent taste. Especially for an American,” he added impishly.

We chatted comfortably while I got the stew ready to simmer. He came over and stood very close, watching what I did but didn’t comment except to occasionally ask the English word for something I used, prompting me to ask, in turn, what it was called in German. It seemed quite natural that he often touched me lightly, or rubbed my back when he made a joke about something. He accepted my offer of a beer and made the sarcastic remark I expected about me keeping the beer in the refrigerator “just like an American.” But when I offered him a room temperature beer from the stash in the pantry he refused, staying with the cold brew.

Once the stew was slowly cooking, I pulled out the wild rice and the carrots, onions, beef bouillon cubes, and bay leaf I would need for it (God bless Julia Child) and then took a pull on my beer and said, “Okay, we have veal stew, and I’m making wild rice to go with it. We’ll have apple pie for dessert. What vegetables would you like? Squash? Carrots?”

I was looking to see what else I might have when he said, “I think this is already a wonderful meal. Just these things. Why would you want more?” He seemed to have gone very still all of a sudden, as if what we were saying was suddenly of great importance.

“Well, you’re company, I’d like there to be more.”

“There is,” he replied, again with that deadly serious tone of voice.

I looked at him, puzzled.

“There is you. There is your generous sharing. Your home, yourself. What could be more than that?” He walked up to me and hung one arm on my shoulder. “As your American song says, ‘Who could ask for anything more?’”

Well, two could play this game, I decided. “That depends on what you really want,” I replied, giving the back of his neck a quick squeeze, and then I moved toward the living room. “Do you mind if I open the patio door a bit? It’s going to get very warm in here with the pie cooking too.”

He nodded and perched again on the stool. “Would you like some music?” I asked, and when he agreed I put on the stereo. I rolled out the piecrust on the counter where he sat, and we listened to Ella Fitzgerald sing her way through the Rodgers and Hart Songbook. Occasionally Dieter would comment on a song that was popular in German, but for the most part we just listened and enjoyed sharing the experience. I noticed he really listened intently. He wasn’t thinking of other things with the music as background; he was savoring Ella’s phrasing, the way she pronounced the words, the way she molded the music to point up a line. He would laugh or smile at a humorous line and look at me to make sure I had gotten it as well.

It was a marvelous way to bake an apple pie, I decided, but I was suddenly afraid it might not be too good. So at the end of Ella’s first CD, I commented, “This is the first time I’ve baked since I got to Dresden, so I’m not sure how this is going to turn out.”

“It will be very fine,” he said simply.