Christmas Eve. I stand on the hill by the Oscar Wilde on Friedrichstraße. Glasses clink as the last singsong dies. William streams into the snow. He stubs a cigarette as he zips up. See you later, he says. That’ll do, I say. I never ask him where he goes. He’ll be back, but when is hard to say. He went for a month once. I stayed at the Bahnhof. 24-hour security guards within 100 metres. Call the Schutzpolizei if there was trouble. Blast of the air con, a blessing in the November cold, a gift in the July heat. I played on the street on my own. One-man band. Takings were well down. William kept the melody straight. But takings didn’t rise when William came back. I watch him walk down to the Mehringplatz. If I followed, he’d get mad. He doesn’t want me following him. Unless he calls me. I’m used to him going and coming now. He needs to go. He needs to be solo at times. Every man does. Snow all over the place, the roofs, the log cabins of the stalls, the tree branches along the streets weighed down with the ice. The sky blacker as I look up. Clouds blocking the star lights, the moon. The city bright makes it darker. Door whines in the Oscar. A lady laughs. We’re all in there. A big spill tonight. It’ll take the bottle boys hours to clear the place. The old country rules in the city of time. Here the bus comes five minutes early, even at this hour, the carriage full of emptiness. Buses are never late in Berlin. Early is easy. But me and William don’t get on any buses. No timekeeping where we come from. We use a while, around and ago. Hours, minutes, seconds in this land. But we’re not really from the old place no more. No time for waiting. I start to walk, boots crunch in the snow. I pull together my jacket. I find a bootlace in my pocket, the very thing. Tie up as best as I can. Air is cold. Golden heat from the streetlights. I hear other footsteps. I stop. Footsteps continue. Footsteps are real. I turn and see two men up the hill. Arms over shoulders. Wobbling. Relief flows like William’s piss melting into the snow. The pair trip, their shapes shadowing ahead of them. They see me. They speak to each other at the same time, neither listening to the other. They walk and talk. They reach and pass by. They turn down Reinhardtstraße. Street is quiet again. Lights of the season flickers. Colours of the old country. Red and green. Haven’t seen those green fields and red heather for decades. Never will again. I become sick one day in the closest city to home three decades later. Die after a few days lying on a trolley in a hospital corridor. But not now. The future in the present. Giant tree in the Mehringplatz. Draped in lights. Topped with a star and an angel. Neck stiffens as I look up. The Angels’ eyes are blue. The glasses William gave me are catching snowflakes on the lens. I take them off. William found them on the seat at the bus stop. Good find they were. I can see with them. Einfach Klasse! Wipe them with my sleeve. I put them back on. Much worse now. Edges are softer. But I like the world in this vision. I leave them as they are and move on. Don’t need to see all that well anyway. I’ve seen enough. I look back up Friedrichstraße. Lights flicker. I crunch on by the giant tree. Music jingles all the way. I pass the wooden huts of the Weihnachtsmarkt. At the centre of the Mehringplatz, there is a fountain. It spills water from the mouth of a stone carved angel with wings. It drips to a motte all around. Water pours all day and all night. The noise of dripping is soothing. I sit on the concrete surrounds. I pull up my sleeve and reach into the ice-cold water. The floor of the motte is carpeted with pfennigs. I take enough for a Laugenstangen and Schwarzkaffee from the Bahnhof Café in the morning. Somebody else’s wishes come true. I only ever take a few coins. Too much and the Stadtrat will cover it with mesh, William keeps saying. You’ll get the pfennigs in but not out. They did that to us in Munich. Leave something for the next man in boots and string anyway. At the top I’ll see the whole city. I’ll get to the Park Platz easy from there. Think of William as I climb the hill. William never tells me where he goes. I never ask. Maybe some day I will ask him. And maybe he will tell me. But not now. I don’t want to know tonight. Music jingles all the way. Louder by the wooden stalls. Special shops for the season. All shut for the holidays until the 26th. Start work again. Survival easier in our line of business when economy is open. Our business dead on Christmas Day. Clock chimes. Time is King in this country. Everything comes early. Early is easy. William and I were born late. Different in different lands. Time zones. Christmas Day in Kiritimati on Christmas Island doesn’t come until 13 hours after Berlin. Christmas came 12 hours before Berlin in Baker Island. Berlin is even an hour ahead of our old land. William got me a book once in the Weihnachtsmarkt about it.
The Park Platz. That’s where I need to be. The place I love to go. The last space. The Fiat. All the wheels long taken. Hubs rusted over. Just four circles of metal. You can’t even see the original nut holes. But I’m the only one that looks. Back window long gone. You can see behind you more clearly. Fiat left here since 1988. Fahrzeugschein is the date stamp. The past in the present. It’s a present for me. The Fiat. I climb in the back window. Wet and cold. But free and safe. Relatively. I pull out the folded newspaper from my jacket that I’d taken from the Bahnhof Café bin. The Fiat seats are red leather. Fluff busted through at the seams. I use the old words to dry the seat. Put the sheets under me. Breaking news now breaking cold. My nose is frozen. Red-nosed for the jolly season. I take out my steel flask. Twist off the lid. Take a bolt. Sweet sour sharp. Blood into cheeks. Warmth in heat. Waiting for it all day. A release. Comfort good enough to make being alive worth it. Almost. Then it’s gone as quick. Put lid back. Put flask into jacket. I lie. Crinkle of news smashes silence. William trudges elsewhere. He doesn’t like the Fiat. No room to stretch his longer legs. I am a foot shorter. A foot wider too. You wouldn’t ever think we came from the same stock. But I am less cramped in the Fiat. I still have my foot against the back side window. Toes cold. Springs pierce through the newspaper. Not much foam left. Like my jacket. Morning getting close. Eyes shut. Christmas presents. Under the lovely Christmas tree, with bells, and tinsel and an angel with blue eyes and a star at the very top, jostling to be the one we all looked up to. The angel won, for talk’s sake, in case anyone came. The angel always wins. But the star was up there too. William and I run barefoot in pyjamas to the sitting room, to the tree. William finds a little snooker table. We’d begged for one after the black ball world final we’d watched on the black and white TV. When the legs broke we put it on the kitchen table. We lost some of the balls. The black and the blue. William blamed me. We started using marbles. We lost some of the marbles. The red mixed with white and the green mixed with orange. The cues got broken in a fight. I wanted to play swords. William started using the sweeping brush to pot the marbles. But it wasn’t very accurate. Should never have used the cue as a sword. But I didn’t like the game of snooker. It looked easy when we watched it on the TV. But it wasn’t easy at all. The balls wouldn’t go in. I started pushing them in with my hands, pretending I potted them, imagining I was making century breaks. It was the start of fantasy. I had to play on my own for this game. I didn’t want to play with William anymore. I didn’t want to tell William that. He would have been disappointed if I had told him. But I couldn’t see any of the pockets when I was taking a shot. I had no glasses. Eyesight weakening even then. We lost the rest of the marbles and the balls. William was outraged. Speeding thoughts of William. Where is William now? Sleep not coming. Breathe. Air cold. Steam comes out my mouth. Chest is radiator of warm air. I adjust position. Not more comfortable. Even less so. Should have stayed still. But I can’t find the place I was before. Face to Fiat front. Two seats. Headrests watch me. Like the blacks of an eyeless skull. Ghosts beyond of many passengers. Years of conversations across the gear stick. Laughter. Cries. Shouts. Bad directions. Couples. Parents with a child on the back seat. Madmen with an empty car and a full trunk. The present in the past. Sleep closer. Sleep falls. Hardy bucks in this cold. Used to it. Sleep anywhere now. Mild satisfaction as I drift. Dreams of back and forth. Past, present, future. Tense. Histories and mysteries. The Park Platz by the Mehringplatz. Snow falling gently on the roof. I get to my old dream, same dream I have for years. Three figures from an ancient time, maybe thousands of years ago, before writing or reading was invented, maybe even before the wheel, before people thought. But these figures did think. They sit in a cave on a hill. They are trying to decide what to do with some very important thing. I can never figure out what the thing is. Everyone in the world wants it. I want it too. I badly want it. It kills me not knowing what the thing is. No one will take it if they are given it, one of the figures says. They will have to find it. But if they find it, another says, they will not want it. They will throw it away. The three figures think about this for a while. The best thing to do, the third one says, is to put it somewhere they will never find it. If we put it somewhere they will never find it, they will spend their whole time looking for it. Then they won’t find it. But that’s right, the first figure says, because if they find it, they won’t want it and it will perish. Agreed, the second figure says. But where do we put it? The three figures think about this for a while. I have an idea, the second one says eventually. If we put it in the very bottom of the sea, beyond all the fish and shell-life and sea plants, underneath the seabed. There is no way any of them will ever find it there, the second figure says. They think about this for a while. I can’t agree, the third says then. They are very clever. Someday, in a future we can only dream of now, here in our simple cave, believe it or not, they will have inventions that can go beyond all the fish and shell-life and sea plants, down to the depths of the sea. Contraptions with navigational systems and special tools for digging up even the seabed. It will take a long time, but they will eventually find it and we will be lost. You are right, the first one says. We cannot put it there. They think again for a while. I have an idea, the third one says. I think we should shoot it out into space. There is no way they will ever get into the deepest, darkest reaches of space, beyond all of the moons and the planets and all of the stars and suns, to the furthest reaches of the universe. We should put it there. That is what we must do. They think about this for a while. I can’t agree, the second one says. As my friend said before, they are ingenious. And if you are right that they will eventually concoct a way to get down to the deepest parts of the ocean, beyond all the fish and shell-life and sea plants, travel the seabed and dig it up and find it there, well, there is no reason to think that, believe it or not, the finest minds will not be clever enough, in many centuries in the future, to concoct a way to rise like a majestic bird to the skies and beyond to the great blackness of the infinite night, to all of the moons and the planets and all of the stars and suns, to the deepest, darkest reaches of outer space, the furthest linings of the universe, and find it there, with some incredible technology we can only ever dream of in our lifetime. They think about this for a while. You are right, the first one says. But where do we put it? Is there nothing we can do, nowhere we can put it that they won’t find it? The second figure did not know. The third figure did not know. The three figures became disconsolate. They sat in silence, meditating for a long time. In the end, the first figure said, I have an idea. I know somewhere we can put it that they will never, ever find it in a million years, not before the end of time itself. And where is that? the second one said. Yes, that would be interesting to know your solution, my friend, the third one said. What we can do, the first one said, is put it inside them. They will never find it there. The three figures all agreed. I could never figure out what the thing was they were trying to hide.
Snow falls gently on the roof of the Fiat. Soft on the tin. Door hinges somewhere. Oscar Wilde far down the street. Dog barks. Step of foot. Nearby. Eyes open. Sleep broken again. New threat. Newspaper crinkles. Look out glassless back window. Cold night against cheeks. Three drunks on a bench in the Park Platz. Drunk and happy. Not dangerous. But they don’t see me. I pull out flask. Take a slug. Blast of heat. Red cheeks. Heat dies. Put away flask. Night of Oscar Wilde in head. Singsong. William with guitar. Too packed for security to usher us away. Accordion on my lap. Claps of the local trade. The accordion and the guitar like bread and butter. Tea and milk. But they don’t drink milk in the tea in this country. Or spread butter on bread. They take hot drinks black and pour oil on the crusts. We are outsiders.
Oscar Wilde better trade than the Bahnhof. Wet blow in from air con in winter. Dust in lungs in summer. Threat of theft. Turf wars with other practitioners. Awkward questions from the Schutzpolizei. Security Personnel eventually usher us away. Small returns. Oscar Wilde pays us better. Security ignore us mostly. Except when owner is on premises. But usually pub is too packed then.
Only danger addicts know we collect. Made aggressive attempted withdrawal on occasion. But Oscar Wilde safer overall. Turn and turn about. No sleep. No wake. Cause by flask. Short heat at a price. Dawn soon. Night will be gone. The past sleeps by. The future will be present. Mixed-up. Eyes shut. Dreams dawn again. Now the future. Now the past. Now the present. Snow gentle on the roof.
Back in hometown. Augustine Street. Cold weather. Damp. William sits across the table in our coffee shop. Not our coffee shop. We don’t own the shop. We only own our instruments. Drink coffee and scones here in good times. I tell William the coffee is good. William agrees. William examines guitar. Large hole in body. Stubs of lost strings hang on the pegs. My accordion is torn. Unplayed music escapes. Accordion fills with water on wet days. Tuning forks required in all departments. We sit at table. Keeping watch on the day. William looks at black coffee. Silent noise at table. Coffee girl brings William soya milk. Normal Tuesday at 4pm. I drink cow’s milk in the coffee. Missed out on William’s cosmopolitanism. William looks closely at neck of guitar. We are non-musical musicians. There are many such practitioners. Earning a living nonetheless. Or a dying. As the case may be. All earning out there this big day. The whole street. Adjust my chair. This is my regular chair at my regular table. In my regular coffee shop in my regular street. Augustine The Saint.
Same street. Same chair. Same table. Same coffee. Same accordion. Same time. Same day. Waitress changes. William has taken a single string from his pocket. He clips it to the peg on the saddle and draws it up the neck to the tuning keys. I tell him he needs to get a new set of strings. William does not like this advice. He smiles. We drink coffee. I tell William our sister has died. He nods. The funeral will be next Tuesday. I got word at the Post Office last Tuesday. Our addresses are fluid. Difficult for brother-in-law. William tightens the string, turning the tuning key. The sister’s funeral will be in England. Her husband is English. The family is English. The husband is famous. Political politician. The husband could buy a million sets of new guitar strings. A million new accordions. If he wanted. But he doesn’t want to. He is not a musician. Nether are we. But we continue to play nonetheless. We are non-musical musicians. We have this in common with brother-in-law. Sister went to London university. We abandoned school and joined musical tour. Tour’s filtering threshold was low. Accordion and guitar practitioners. Not good idea. Failed and failing. Onward and downward. Sister has maids and butlers. Chandeliers. A golden turfbox. No newspaper blankets. No Fiat feet in the Park Platz. Simple things. The funeral. We are not going to the funeral in England. Surely not. Complicated business. Expense. William wants to go to the funeral. William tightens string around tuning key. Sound is odd. Our duty, William says. Coffee is cold. We take train and boat. Plane is cheaper nowadays. But we never flew. Not birds. Security hassles. Simple train. Simple boat. Simple things. We agree.
Non-musical musicians. Standing on the street. The present in the past. On Augustine Street. Shoppers pass by. Christmas. Just home from the Deutschland. Good calendar. Got us right. Raindrops glide down the decorated seasonal windows. Rolling on the smooth glass. Makes up shapes of things if you look long enough. Jaws. Noses. Eyes. The side of William’s face and mine. Countries. England. Germany. Home country. Drawing the past, present and future within the frosted frames. Painting lives. Clear and coloured. And then fades toward the sill. To a line. Then to nothing. If you stare. Which I do.
Loving couples pass by in warm soft boots with gloved hands together or naked fingers in each other’s rear jean pockets. Sweet romance. Many other buskers at Christmas jolly. Amateur part-timers. Big time of the year. ‘Tis the season to collect the lolly and the holly. Turf wars. But we get there early. Early watch on footpath avenue. 5am start. Early is easy. Good training in the Deutschland. No hassle. Simple rules. First there, first served. Set up on the cobbles. Three-hundred-year track. Worn to glass smooth. Ghost footsteps stare back at us. The past in the present. Buggies rattle by with newborns. Fruit of the loins in the rain dripping street. The future looks out over a milk bottle. Missed that bus. Fleshy pleasures off the menu after the music tour. We are side-by-side. Accordion cold in the grip. I press buttons, push and pull. Sounds come out. All together now.
William strums the guitar. Some strings attached. I press the keys of my accordion, squeeze the sides in and out. Harmony is quite off. Passers-by don’t care. Not listening. Street is loud. See us and instruments and coffee cup. Sufficient for potential contribution. Play the old favorites. Come-all-ye. Not our favorites. Street’s favourites. We don’t have any favourites. Play another. Stand for our anthem. Stand for the music. We must like music after all these decades. Bubbles of rain on my glasses. Lens glisten. Marbling my vision to blurry blobs. William’s sunglasses the same. William doesn’t clean his. William does not wear sunglasses because of the sun. There is never any sun on Augustine Street. William has other reasons to wear sunglasses. Protective strategy. Avoid unnecessary recognition. We had to get out of town fast after music tour. A woman and guitar involved. We try a few anthems. Cup is empty. We don’t have starter coins today. Or most days. An empty cup for our efforts. New threat. Youths running through street. One grabs the accordion. He breaks the strap across my shoulder. Other pulls the guitar off William. Slaps given to head. Kicks given to groin. Hole smashed in William’s guitar. I freeze in the scrum, looking to the fresh torn chipboard edges. The gloss wood finish exposed as mulched-up glued chips. A large guitar, full of nothingness. The bundles of unplayed music spill out silently onto the street, escaping as William wrestles. Other youth plays tug-of-war with me and accordion. Rips hole in the top. Untapped tunes fly away. Youth laughs on street. I take him in headlock. I punch him in neck. Little effect. I am poor boxer. William gets the other on the nose. Face bloody. We are muscular non-musical musicians that day. Youths scoot away. Hole in guitar. Hole in accordion. Muscular non-musical musicians with non-musical musical instruments. We leave the city centre in disgust and walk along the salty promenade in the rain. Boots leak. Wet sock on right foot. William not speak since youths came and went. William ten steps ahead. Rain gets heavier. William hurries further away. William becomes a blob in the distance. I try to keep up. Keep William in my sight. We keep walking. We leave the city far behind. We walk for days and nights. Rain comes for weeks. We pass through many towns. We pick up sustenance on the way. Few hours wash-up at restaurants. Free meal and cash. Short term. Wash-up liquid bad for William’s guitar fingers. Staff complain of smell.
Learn to harvest scrap bins in restaurant backyards. Plenty of cold meat and vegetables. Cream and pie alright if separated from rice and pasta in congealed sauce. Sleep under bridges and in fields. Year becomes summer. Rain stops. Year becomes autumn. Rain starts. Winter. Christmas. Spring. Summer. Back in the city. We find charity shop. William finds new shoes for us. Not new. Dead men’s shoes. Dead men’s jackets, shirts, jumpers, trousers. Shopkeeper talks to William for a while. Shopkeeper gives William idea. William claps hands. Tells me idea, but it sounds complicated. William goes to another shop. William talks to shopkeeper at counter. William given boards. Two for me. Two for him. Ropes at tops of boards. Worn like a bib. Back and front covered. We wear on Augustine Street. Four hours contract daily. We stand where we played. Retired non-musical musical instruments in our bag nearby. Persons stop. Talk to each other. Read boards. Ignore us. We don’t know if they go to shop afterwards. Or any other day. No job satisfaction. With music, audience nod head. Or tap feet. Or spit. Or curse. We return boards after four hours. Shopkeeper pays William. We eat at hostel. Boards good idea. But next day controversial. Youths try to steal boards. We fight, but we are weaker, worn from year of walking. Youths get away with boards. Police catch youths. Shopkeeper has no licence for boards on street. Policeman takes boards away from shop. Policeman asks William’s name. Asks how to spell William. Policeman tells William name not on system. We are from country of red and green. We are ghosts. We were away for years. Policeman gives up and leaves. William goes to another shop. Easily gets more boards. We are experienced board-minders now. Other board-minders on street. But no turf wars. Payment guaranteed. Nights in hostel. Days on Augustine Street with boards. Simple things. Years pass by. A beautiful woman comes to Augustine Street. Hair waist-length, straight and black. Eyes oval and large. I am in love. She has a board. But the board is not for advertising. She attaches white sheet to the board. Board is easel, we soon learn. Woman has a bag. She takes out pencil. She looks across at us on street with boards. But we are not beautiful. We do not look back. Woman places cap on cobbles. It fills faster than our cups. We should have a cap instead of a cup. We lost our caps a long time ago. She sketches on the sheet. We soon see the sketch is of two board-minders on Augustine Street. She completes the sketch. Now she takes out a palette. She squirts blobs of paint from tubes on the palette. She looks at us. Crowds of people stop and look at easel. Look at us. Shopkeeper will be pleased with the attention. She takes a brush. She looks at us. She dips the brush and fills in the sketch, colouring in the white spaces between lines. Green above the red. Old country colours. Good guess by the woman. Board-minders on sheet do not wear glasses. We can see their eyes. The eyes look at us. We look at them. William elbows me. He wants me to raise an exchange with the woman. An exchange of words.
Crowd stop and look at painting. The woman’s cap fills with coins and notes. We might negotiate a fee for being the subjects. But I do not talk to artists. Artists are tricky. They do not always tell the truth. Or they tell it in the wrong order. We are artists. Of a sort. William elbows me again. The woman fills the bodies of the board-minders on her canvas. William kicks my knee. I say my prayers. William dances. William goes across the street to her. William circles her. She paints. William smiles at the cobblestones. No exchange takes place. Painful view. Some stop and read my boards. I call William back. We have work to do. William crosses over. Adjusts his boards. William elbows me. I say my prayers. I go across to her. The woman does not look at me. She is more beautiful at short distance. Painting is pretty in closer view. Two half-painted board-minders on a sketch of Augustine Street. They wear advertising boards and stand on smooth cobblestones. There is a bag of non-musical musical instruments on one side. I can see the broken pencil lines of the top of the stringless guitar. The gaping hole in the accordion. The woman knows detail. I weep by the cobblestones. I walk around the easel. William dances. I lie under the easel on the cobblestones. William laughs. Passers-by slow, look at me, point, laugh, then move on, not looking at the painting. Looking at me only. The woman continues to paint. She turns to William. She speaks to William. She walks across the street to William. She still holds her paintbrush and her palette. She takes off William’s glasses. She smiles. William smiles, his eyes naked to the air. She dips the paintbrush in her palette, in the red blob of thick paint and she runs the paintbrush across William’s face, a thick red streak. Rain falls. The rain runs onto William’s red-streaked face. Red drips off his jaw. I take off my glasses and look up at the sheet drawn on the easel. Raindrops hit my face, roll into my eyes. I blink, the world is glassy. The woman and William link arms. They dance, legs rising high in the air. Rain hits the woman’s painting. The two board-minders on the canvas become smudges. Cloudy colours drip off the end of the canvas. Bubbles drop onto my face. Sour on my lips. I lie on the ground and salute.
Back on the road again. Just like the old times. Time still old. Along with us. William leads the way. Train journey over fields and flowing rivers. Silence in the music. Noise outside. We start to play a tune on the aisles for a sandwich. Scuttle for toilets when Ticketmaster appears. Oh what fun, dashing by the loo, in a one-legged open play, jingling all the way! But we weren’t jingling any coins. Good old plan. The Big Smoke. William in a hurry. Slow down. I call him. Slow. Sister finished with the rush. Not going anywhere. Lies flat, mortally rigored. Hands in beads. Unless the other lost have converted her. Big wide streets in the capital. Higher buildings. An extra floor or two into the sky. Land cheaper in the air. Better markets here for buskers. Turf wars raise higher stakes though. We don’t involve our tunes. Accents higher and lower pitch. Singy-song. Bus to the ferry port. Some controversy at terminal. Heckled about our patched-up non-musical musical instruments. William’s sunglasses stare through the rain. Foot passengers on the ferry. William holds ferry tickets, talking to green-jacketed official. William gestures back to me. I scratch my withered head. Companions on a journey. William and me with wrong tickets. Confusion in the travel booking system. We missed out on real world modernization arrangements a long time ago. We were dreaming. Still dreaming, William and green-jacketed officials talk for a while. William weeps. Sister Act. Green-jacketed official starts shouting. William grips green-jacketed official. Wails. Green-jacketed official gets distracted. Appears to become interested in a distant corner of ferry. Green-jacketed official walks off. William nods sadly to me. We get on the ferry. Night hours of choppy water. Vast sea of the Irish. Stand on deck. Salty and biting. Look over the cross bar. A point for the old red and green. Wind in the thick darkness. Wary of the water. Lose something forever down there in the sea. Never find it again. Me and William hoarders. Luckily we accumulated few goods to hoard. Veiled blessings. But could lose the glasses. No blind man will be King in the land of the two-eyed. I always wanted to be King. Stand back from the cross bar. Check glasses. They are still there. I can see the sea. We ply the lounge for the passing trade. Cup by feet. Serious need for caps. Non-musical musicians. Families pass by. A baby cries. I was a baby once. William too. Babies no more. Shapes of the past in the present. Times of youth and hunger. No more youth. But hunger still. Always hunger. At dawn William leads the way to the food area. No staff visible. Half past seven. Staff fill the bain-maries and take break before the breakfast rush. Old reliable stroke. Climb over barrier. Food smells good. Grab sausages. rashers, black and white pudding, stuff into jacket. Pastries off the sweet trolley. Opportunities may come only once today. Squash sweet sugary doughnut into mouth, yellow custard and whipped cream oozes. Sweetness injected into body. All together now. Hurray. Now hurry away. Comfort of filling up stomach. Warmth lifts. Accents of the singy-song behind. We get back on the deck. Salty freedom.
At the other side, we await to see same green-jacketed official. Sympathetic shaved-jaw side of bureaucracy. But different green-jacketed team on appointment for disembarking foot passengers. Second chance Sunday for ferry company. On a Monday. Passenger tickets checked as they walk gangplank. About-turn to the toilets. Military style civilians. Wait until ferry empties. Boat gets quiet. Silent noises. Hoovers. Fans. Voices of the singy-song. Footsteps. Soon toilets will also be cleaned. We make our move. Race to the gangplanks. Dashing all the way, ho-ho-ho! Energizing exit. Free. Lift bottle of water in the Port Shop. Springy-song accents, taxi-ranks, yellow number plates. Hot fuel smell. William peels off notes for taxi-driver. No stroke pulled here. Unusual status, having notes. Coins the staple we deal in for decades. Never notes. Unless in Rome. When in Rome do as the Romans do. We were eternal millionaires in that city. Driver looks at the notes. Looks at us. Looks at the address. Grunts. He opens all the windows in the taxi. We get in. Feel like royalty. Leather seats. Sign says no feet on seats. We take our feet down. Driver glides out road through neat square fields. Thatched roofs with white houses behind black lines. Drive for hours. We get to granite pillars and electronic gates. Silver post box. William does not know key code. Driver wants to press intercom. We do not allow this. We get out. William tells driver to return in three hours. Driver nods and leaves. We climb the wall by the gates. Walk through many tall trees. We get near mansion. Long drive up. I count 24 windows. Chimneys with cowls. Stables to rear. Many large cars. Autumn leaves. At back of stables, large tent. Marquee. TV cameras. BBC. SKY. Bowler-hatted persons on horseback. Suited mourners. White tablecloths in marquee. Glasses clink. We stand watching from distant trees. Soft music. Violin and flute players on a stage inside. We watch them play through clear plastic windows. William smiles. Politicians get out of smooth limousines. Noise in sky. Helicopter. We hide under bushes. Helicopter lands on grass. Royalty get out of helicopter. From the cover of Hello! magazine in the bin in the café on Augustine Street. Royalty shake hands with brother-in-law. Brother-in-law wears black tie. Niece and nephew nearby. Babies last time we met. Only time we met. William brought them German chocolate. January of Christmas. Lost good calendar that year. Christmas all year round in the Oscar Wilde. Left Berlin in a hurry. Controversy on Friedrichstraße. We should have brought a metal lorry toy to them. Last longer than chocolate. Country estate crowded. Not our scene. William weeps. We walk back to gates. Wait for taxi.
Christmas Day. Sunlight shines on the soft snow. White season to be jolly. Awakening. First failure of the day. I stand stiff. I have cold Fiat feet. I am against the grain in the past, present and future. I look out at the entrance to the Park Platz. Green and red lights of the old country flicker everywhere. Cold rises. Church doors bolted shut. Midnight mass hours ago. Times ahead of carols and rhymes. Mistletoe and wine. Time difference still niggling, a discomfort. Christmas Day at a different time in one place to the next. Which is the right time to be in? Forthcoming glory of the Bratwurst with mustard. Bird-like voices of the worshippers from the church will fill the straßen. Services. Genuflect. Stand. Kneel. Sit. Kneel. Stand. Genuflect. Then leave. Nourished. But not us. No church tile darkened with our shadow for decades. Pray in the mind. I will bless the food later. In the Berlin Korps. William will come back. He always has. He always will. He is my brother-in-arms. Sister will marry in the New Year. William will leave me alone in Berlin. He goes to Finland. A job from the beery bird-slinger operatives in the Oscar Wilde on Friedrichstraße. With the Finns in the High North. Picking berries off the winter trees. Promise of markka, short hours, steak teas, topless bronzed blondes in steam pine saunas every evening. But hours long, markka minimal, evenings of cat food and wet leaves in rotting cabin near a blocked sewer. Today Bratwurst Christmas lunch in the Berlin Korps warehouse in Kuglerstraße. Bier in wrinkled tankard. Sharpens the World View. Dry snow on glasses as I walk. Settling.
Lying on the corner of Augustine Street. Face of William streaked in red from the woman’s brush flick. William beats his advertising board unmelodically. He misses the strings on his guitar. I miss the keys of my accordion. I lie still under the painting. Glasses in my hand. I watch William and the woman link arms and join in song and dance. They salute the street. I salute. Raindrops roll down the painting, making a crooked rainbow on the sheet, over the smudged non-musical musicians and their non-musical musical instruments. All the green and red of our old country dripping off the edge of the canvas. Green rolls onto my face. Into my naked eyes. Vision blurs. I try to sing.
Martin Keaveney has written 5 books of fiction, all published by boutique publisher Penniless Press. His short fiction, flash pieces and poems have been published in many different literary magazines. His play Coathanger was staged in NUIG in 2015 and later performed at the Scripts Ireland playwriting festival, where it was selected from a national competition. His screenwriting has been produced and broadcast on national television, and his films exhibited throughout the world at many film festivals. He has several academic qualifications including a PhD in Irish Literature, Narratology and Creative Writing. He is a contributor to global discussions on the narratology of Irish literature and his research has been published at several leading journals. He operates MKCW, a provider of creative writing and literature courses working with hundreds of students annually from all over the world. He is Director of Studies at Writers’ Isle. Learn more at https://martinkeaveney.com.
Eunoia Review 