Anna Mayer: Wheel loader to the Hotel

Daughter-in-law alarm

 

Lüneburg, Minsk, Lüneburg, Bardolino, Venice, Ravenna, Loreto, Ascolii Piceno, Amalfi Coast, Pescara, Verona, Erding, Lüneburg – take a deep breath

 

„Mum, I’m going to marry Katja.”

It was a beautiful day in May and we were sitting in a park in the Schröderstraße in Lüneburg. There were outdoor seats in a friends‘ pub, under a maple tree. Actually, we wanted to discuss our upcoming business trip to Pescara in Italy. My son would be attending a meeting of an international organization there. The meeting was in July. I intended to accompany him. I knew quite a few of the people better than he did. On previous trips to New York, New Orleans and Dubai, he was happy to be represented by me. Apart from his fear of flying, there were no deeper reasons for this division of labor. Pescara could be reached by car. He could go there himself without wetting his pants. The plan was to stop in Verona, stop in Venice and take a trip to Abruzzo. I had a premonition that my impending mother-in-law would also change something in the travel plans. On the other hand, there was a chance that he would finally get rid of a woman with whom he would stay together permanently. However, his father was already self-absorbed. Junior is even more so. I’m on the women’s side. ‚Katja, the poor child.‘ But he is my son. His well-being is my job. Still. “Do you love her?”

“You know I do.”

“You say it to each other all the time, and I’m sure you’re in love. Would you still feel that way in ten years if she were sick and in a wheelchair?” That sounds harsher than it reads. My son grew up with this question. Others who told me with a certain hormonal abundance about the acute peculiarity of their emotional world, I could actually flatten the mood with the wheelchair. It didn’t work with him. He was ethically oriented and morally stable – that would have been my hope. In fact, he was hardened. What I call a word of caution is annoying waterboarding for him, as if he were used to it.

“Mother, you raised me.“

”I tried.“

”Yes, I love her and we want to get married. Anyway, it’s much more practical. The long-distance relationship, the visa applications. And she always has to go back to Minsk before she can re-enter the country to stay longer overall. Besides, the Belarusian authorities won’t go along with it much longer. It’s getting more difficult for her.”

‚She says? The young, slender lawyer who has been all over Europe and our immigration officials don’t know what to do? Call the Office for the Protection of the Constitution or put on the blinkers for love?‘ I thought and stopped my thoughts from running further. For now. ‚When are you going to get married? You only took her to the airport two weeks ago and you haven’t seen that often now.

“I haven’t asked her yet, but I’ve hinted at it.“

”How romantic.“

”I’ll propose to her, with a ring and all the trimmings, when she gets back. We’re going to Italy, the three of us.”

The imagined sound of wedding bells was abruptly replaced by a tinnitus-like alarm siren. “Together? Are you crazy? You’ll go there alone.”

“No, it’ll be great. Then you can get to know each other properly. After all, you’re going to be family.“

I can’t say that the word ‘family’ conjured up warm feelings in this context. It smelled like a trap. Stress was inevitable. I had been looking forward to the trip because I love Italy, even if long car journeys and his tendency to cut corners are an abomination to me. But more important in the new situation was that my son himself, perhaps for once without rose-tinted glasses, would get the opportunity to spend more than just a few days and nights with his bleached-blonde beloved. “When do you want to get married?”

„I don’t know. As soon as possible. Maybe in September.”

Everything pointed to the fact that they really needed every second to get to know each other. I may be stuffy, but since the modern age, without parental marriage, it is quite common and practical for the parties to live together for some time before getting married. How can you talk about good and bad days when it’s always just about bundles of hours spent together in the sunshine or in bed.

For a few days I tried to talk him out of the plan for the trip with my participation and supervision. It was no use. His at least theoretical family model was indestructible. The well-intentioned warnings burst like flying insects on the windshield at two hundred kilometers per hour. It was worse. The planning for the trip was set. There was none, except that we would leave four days before the meeting and two days after the meeting her plane would take her from Franz-Josef-Strauß Airport, Munich, back to Minsk. So I expected that we would pick up Katja in Munich on our way south – or that she would land in Hamburg, stay for a while and then we would leave together. Again, this was not at all in line with reality.

“Mother, we have to go to Minsk.”

“Why? What happened? Is Katja okay?”

„Everything’s fine. She wants to show us her home country, and my future in-laws want to meet us.”

“What do I have to do with it? They will be your in-laws, and Minsk may be the home of your future children if your future ex-wife should leave you.“

Okay, that wasn’t particularly empathetic. I can’t say that it was borne of etiquette or even exuberant enthusiasm. But it is true: the two hardly knew each other. A constant: ‚Honey this‘, ‚Honey that‘, that I began to doubt whether it was self-understanding, exuberance or a prayer-mill-like repetition to convince themselves of their relationship and show it off. My son remained unperturbed.

„No, they specifically asked about you. They want to meet you and show you Mink.”

‚Damn,‘ I thought. ‚I don’t even have an old dog or a sick mother to take care of that I could use as an excuse.

“So, what’s your plan?” I feared – nothing at all. For the moment, I was satisfied and thought it couldn’t get any worse.

“We’ll jet off to Minsk two days before our trip to Italy, check into a great hotel, see the city, meet the family, and then come here with Katja and off we go on vacation.”

He had really thought about it. It impressed me that love made him overcome his fear of flying. On the heroic wings of immortality, he would flutter, sorry, heroically travel to his beloved, to pick her up behind the iron curtain and escort her to freedom. Somehow touching again, and the stuff of a not-quite-great, but schmaltzy romantic story. ‚Popcorn and handkerchiefs at the ready.‘

“You’re flying? My respects. It must be love.”

“It is love,” he confirmed. “But of course we’re not flying. We’re taking the train.”

Boom. The sun of truth rose and scorched not his wings. He didn’t have any. Not that that made the day any better. The light provided a better view of things. The contours became sharper, and the water droplets in the air that prevented a clear picture evaporated like all my illusions.

“What? Train?“ I hadn’t had a stroke, but I had lost the ability to speak in full sentences. This was accompanied by a feeling of hemiplegia and slurred speech.

”It’ll be great. We’ll take the local train to Hamburg. From there we’ll take the ICE to Berlin Central Station and then ‚schwupps‘ we’ll take the night train directly to Minsk. Back the other way.”

“Night train? Not me. How long is the whole trip?“

”Exactly. It leaves twice a week. 23 hours, plus changing trains. Of course, the night train runs through. Only one track change at the Polish-Belarusian border. We stay on the train.”

I had no idea what a gauge change was. For me, it was initially synonymous with a track change, i.e. driving over a switch to change to a different track. Far from it. I would learn the difference from a raised, elevated position.

„Back to the night train. What kind of train is it? Do we sit in the open-plan area all night?”

“Nonsense. It’s a real sleeper train with single compartments. We’ll take our own compartment. The train has extensive sanitary facilities. We’ll go to the on-board restaurant in the evening, eat there, and if we’re not tired, have a drink. We’ll have breakfast the next morning and get off in Minsk refreshed and rested.”

The conversation went on a bit longer because I still didn’t see what I had done wrong in the whole matter, except for giving birth to a child decades ago who was now of legal age and should have grown up. He had the opportunities. The education too. He was not lacking in social interaction and customs either. Nevertheless, something went wrong. His loving mother understood that he was trying to compensate for his fear of flying with a total of more than twenty-six hours of travel time, which was by no means inexpensive. As an accompanying person, the situation was different. There seemed to be no alternative. Of course, there was a practical alternative that had also been suggested to me in the course of my futile struggle:

„We can drive.”

He had learned this trick from his father: simply present a modest suggestion in a better light by offering an even more idiotic solution. It always works for me. The idea of my son driving us through unknown areas east of the Elbe at night caused me anxiety. I had a vision of everything: accident, car theft, blood transfusion. We would certainly be on the razor’s edge of European car insurance protection. I dreaded the dim yellowish lighting of the streets, if they were even switched on or present. As a worried mother, ignorant of the languages and surrounded by the totalitarian system, I would try to save his life. The return journey by car with my future daughter-in-law would be just as unwelcoming. An Eastern European foretaste of our trip to Italy. I should definitely have canceled the trip to Italy. Taking the night train was nothing new. Twice, it made sense to travel down to Lörrach and then start the family vacation in the south by car. Car-carrying trains were more common then than they are today. We also had other options in our repertoire that were more in vogue. Driving on the highway at night because it was more free might have its charms. A husband with strained nerves and wide-open eyes the next morning, or proud of how much distance he had covered, was not the ideal solution. I preferred to prepare travel provisions. Then a leisurely gondola ride, stopping wherever we liked and taking breaks. The child could run around, and the driver could refresh himself, relax and stretch his legs. Once we went from Barcelona to Hamburg with day and night trains. I think that was also about twenty-four hours; via Geneva. There was no other way. When we landed at Barcelona airport after our vacation in Ibiza, there was a pilots‘ strike. At that time, it was tricky to find the right train connections so as not to be stuck there at the airport even longer. But damn it, I was young and my nine-year-old son had a great time at the airport, regardless of the languages spoken. Most of the time, he did the talking. On the train, he enjoyed collecting sugar packets until he had all the signs of the zodiac together. We also had fun and good conversation in a six-person compartment with other vacationers whose flights had been canceled. The Ibiza vacation was also the one where my son felt queasy in the plane for the first time. Well, it was also our first flight, of all things. “Captain Juan welcomes you on board.” All the passengers had painful ears and the pressure equalization did not work. Juan needed two approaches and had three hops when touching down for landing. We did have other flights together, but my son never warmed to the means of transport again. When landing in Naples, we flew through the black clouds of smoke from burning tires on a mountain of garbage. The subsequent trip in the glass-walled coffin, the hydrofoil to Ischia, was just as unappealing to him. He flew four more times after that, once of which was on a business trip. He had enjoyed a single flight. It was the route from Corfu via Munich to Hamburg, and it wasn’t because of the route. Corfu Airport is a bit adventurous. The runway ends in the sea, and on the opposite side it quickly becomes mountainous. It is very small and makes an improvised impression. A special feature is that the main road is closed because a wing and an engine extend over the fence into the airspace above the road so that the pilot can use the full length of the runway to avoid driving belly-first into the water. It was a measly Boeing 737, and we didn’t expect much from the start. Far from it. The pilot, named Richthofen, greeted us on board and my son, who claimed that if he flew himself, he would not be afraid, sensed professionalism and adventure in the pilot’s name. It started well. The engines ran up and up. The plane didn’t move. The pilot was on the brake while the roaring engines did their best on already swinging wings. The view out of the window signaled that the people who had gotten out of their vehicles on the road next to me and the traffic cop were also interested in our take-off attempt. Then the pilot released the brake and the plane shot forward with incredible force. Nevertheless, some water splashed up as the plane took off. We were sitting in the back. The flight went normally. At least at first, over the Adriatic it was calm. I could see Venice well. It awakened memories for me, as well as the decision to travel there again. Then came the captain’s announcement asking if there was a doctor among the passengers due to an emergency on board. There was, and five minutes later there was another announcement.

„Dear passengers, this is your captain Richthofen. We have a medical emergency on board and will make an unscheduled stop in Munich. We are flying directly. The entire airspace over the Alps has been cleared for us.”

He could have spared the last remark, but it seemed as if that was the chance and legitimization for him to turn the flying bus into a fighter jet. No sign of cruising speed. He put his foot down and flew so low at times that the mountains of the Alps were within reach. Not below me, but next to me. It bordered on contour flight. My anxious son was thrilled. “He can fly,” he said appreciatively about the pilot. Junior has a tendency to embellish things: ‘If something goes wrong now, it won’t just be a simple crash, it’ll really bang.’ For my son, it wasn’t the fundamental risk of crashing, but having to process the feeling of taking the wrong flight while falling. We landed in Munich, the plane dashed to the place where ambulances were already standing. The patient was further treated and transported away. The door closed. “We have permission to take off.” The pilot headed towards the runway. On the way there, he accelerated in the curve and took off without stopping first. When we reached the Kassel area, there was another announcement: “Dear passengers, this is your captain speaking. I am pleased to inform you that we will land in Hamburg as scheduled without any loss of time.”

 

My son pulled out all the stops: “Not taking the car to Minsk? No problem. How about you flying from Hamburg to Frankfurt or Munich or Vienna and then to Minsk, and I’ll take the train alone. We’ll meet there. You can also follow.”

He also got the argumentative twist from his father: “Mutti mit der Extrawurst” (mommy with the extra sausage). The subject was closed. One early morning we left Lüneburg by train in the direction of Hamburg in time to guarantee that we would not miss the evening train in Berlin. Our visas, issued only for this period, along with the train reservation, should not be jeopardized. The train from Berlin to Minsk seemed to be a fast seller. Not in terms of speed, but in terms of popularity. It was not easy to get seats. I was prepared. At the behest of my son, I had done without the usual provisions and trusted in his extensive embellishments and tributes to the on-board restaurant. I can’t swear to it, but it’s possible that he chose his words and keywords because I had mentioned several times over the years that I would love to travel on the Orient Express.

Berlin Central Station. We came to what was supposedly the right platform, but there was already a train there. It seemed to have the patience of a saint, because it didn’t move. Actually, our train should have been there already. Instead, the rust bucket to Nizhny Novgorod was still standing there. The train had something very practical about it. However, it looked so spartan that it would probably not have been allowed if the guests had also strapped their suitcases, kitchen appliances or car tires to the roofs of the wagons. The atmosphere was like being on a campsite. Quite a few of the passengers had already made themselves comfortable. Some were walking around on the platform in flip-flops and well-worn bathrobes.

“What’s going on here?“ I quietly asked myself in a moment of admiring horror at the kind of time travel I was witnessing in the middle of Berlin. ‘They’re still missing chickens and geese. Hopefully our train will be different.’

”This is our train. We’re getting off in Minsk. It’s going to continue. Let’s see where our car is,” said my son.

“I don’t see a dining car.“

”We’ll take care of everything once we’ve found our car and our compartment.“

We found the compartment, somehow settled in, and soon the train pulled out. Then my son set out to find the on-board restaurant. It wasn’t long before he confirmed my premonition. ”There isn’t one here. We can’t even get from carriage to carriage. The lady in charge here has a few sandwiches and there’s a huge samovar next to the toilet.“

I was ready for a vacation and wanted to go home. This had little to do with the missing dining car. I was doing something all along that everything in me resisted, and I decided to get off at the next station, Frankfurt an der Oder.

At the height of my resistance, Katja called, full of expectation, to inquire whether we were on the train. My son confirmed and told her that I was turning back. She began to cry and the die was cast. ‚Minsk and Lukashenko, you can go to hell, but I’m coming and bringing an idiot to the woman who seems to love him.‘

“Give me the phone!” ‘Katja, we’re coming.’

Once that was finally settled, I kept the commanding tone. ‘How long do we stop in Frankfurt?’

He looked at the timetable: ”Ten minutes. I’ll jump out and buy something.”

No sooner said than done. A few kilometers later he got off – and I with him. He dashed into the station concourse and I sat on the platform on the packed suitcases. I didn’t stand by. I didn’t wait on the train. Like a chicken, I sat on the baggage. The tall train attendant called me back into the car, but I didn’t move. She tried to discuss with me in her native language, but I didn’t answer and didn’t even smile. My posture had only a partial elegance that went admirably with the finest French luggage below me. Its manufacturer likes to describe itself as a craft business, although it is part of a luxury empire. On the other hand, I was the aforementioned chicken between shock and readiness to attack. If my son didn’t make it in time, I would be sitting on the platform and definitely not traveling alone to the woman whom even he couldn’t really know. Since puberty, he was rarely on time. Why should it be any different now? I found the train awful anyway and the reason for the trip highly questionable. The train attendants in the individual carriages took a final look at the showpiece of early Stone Age vehicle construction and prepared to get back on board.

Then my golden boy came running. Both hands full of various small, thin-walled plastic bags, as if he had plundered a kebab shop. With the look of a self-assured victor on his face, the happy-go-lucky boy grinned, asked me to stand up, handed me the bags and threw the suitcases back on the train. The trap had finally snapped shut. We had caught an extremely warm day in July. Outside. It was unbearably hot on the train. My son had thought of everything. Sandwiches, coke, lemonade and water in cans, and he even had wine with him. Cups and sweets rounded off the program. It certainly wasn’t the same emotions as in the saloon car on the Orient Express that were evoked in me. We wouldn’t starve or die of thirst, even if the train broke down. The air conditioning could not fail. There was none. The heat suggested that we should at least eat the buttered food quickly. I knew what Coke cans at thirty-four degrees Celsius felt like from a vacation in Yugoslavia. My son – an engineer by trade – made what he considered a great discovery in the compartment where we would sit, eat, and sleep.

“Look, there’s a refrigerator under the seat. The seat is the lid. Our problems are solved.“

Solved? Our problems got a new participant. At least the assumption that it was a lid, a cover, corresponded to reality. What was covered was another matter. – A general misunderstanding of the following weeks.