"But, Mr. Mayr," I almost admonished him, "You do not want to cheat me, right?" And I mockingly raised my index finger. In Mayr's face I realized that he was now embarrassed. Well, I had another point for me. "I suggest you show me the stove first, and then we go on talking," I tried to raise the bar to a factual level, which Mayr gratefully accepted, even small beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. "Gracious lady, this is a wonderful suggestion." He went ahead to his camp, which was on the opposite side of the courtyard and pulled his huge blue-and-white checked sackcloth out of the battered leather, dabbed his forehead excitedly, and wiped his hand over the bull's neck. The property was probably a very old farm with house, barn and stable, which were arranged around the square courtyard and fenced with a high wall. Due to the disaster, it was completely burned out and with tarpaulins, sheets, electricity pylons as steel girders and all sorts of other improvised material again makeshift. In the barn was his camp, in the stable were again animals, it smelled of pig, sheep and goats. His huge Paco-Paco, a three-axle with a three-cylinder diesel engine and large cargo area, stood in the yard. The wood gasifier took the place of the passenger seat in this vehicle and could be easily heated by the driver. Despite his short legs, Mayr was nimble, so I struggled to follow him. As we passed the vehicle, I rather dropped my approval: "May I ask you to take over the transport of the oven as well? You could take the potatoes with you on the way back." He pretended to ignore it, but I knew he had picked it up very well. We rummaged through the camp. Mayer got even more in a sweat, because he did not find the oven right away and had to constantly put things out of the way, because he thought he would find the oven behind it. As valuable as he did, the monster did not seem to be! He had finally found him. "Well, gracious, did I promise to much?" The stove was rather rusted, but with old cast-iron plates and embellishments. If we would clean it, he would be right. I ran my hand across the outer surface and the dust spun up. Exaggerated, I played the role of the outraged and even brought about a real sneezing. Disdainfully, I looked at the good piece and turned to my companion: "No, Mr. Mayr, you offer this bitch to me?" Mayr jerked a bit.
"And you dare to ask for six hundredweight of potatoes for it?" I looked down at him motherly-reprimanding from above. This change of role from the seducer to the stern mother was now strategically very effective. I was about to turn away when he looked me in the eye and said softly: "Five!" Now I was convinced to be on the winner side. "Four!" Came out sharply from my mouth. He pretended to have been hit and said his standard formula, "Gracious, you will ruin me!" I knew that was his okay, and added, "I'll get another pot of heat-resistant iron paint, that we can put the good piece into the bedroom after editing. "He agreed and added," I'll bring you of the object next week." We said goodbye to each other, and I was pleased internally, but concluded to have settled a good trade. It was not a mistake to have learned a lot from my father as adolescent. In addition to a great deal of knowledge about classical music, this included haggling: He taught me all the tricks, that men have on negotiating deals and cheating each other. My mother always said to him: "My God, she is a girl, you educate her like a boy!" It was getting dark, and I quickly made my way back to my village.
At home I found the metal cylinder in my backpack again and treated the screw cap with some vinegar. It hissed, and then I could open it by turning. Inside was a movie poster from times before the catastrophe. It showed a blond woman with big breasts in a white halter dress. She stood on a mesh shaft, from which a wind blew up and lifted her airy skirt. The woman's face showed that while she was frightened trying to pull her skirt down out of shame, the mischievous component of her smile clearly signaled to the viewer that she was grateful to the breeze from the shaft, which was exposing her beautiful legs and showing their perfect contours. This charms every interested man. In this way, on the one hand, she remained a shy young woman, and only the evil wind was to blame for her wickedness! The seductive arts of women are to master this balancing act between shame and sophistication perfectly. ‘The saint and the whore!’, was the reaction of the male part in me. My feminine side had only one disdainful word for it: ‘Slut!’. On the poster next to the woman was a bold signature: Marilyn Monroe.
I found a blank wall and hung up the poster. Not that I found it particularly nice. But the bare wall with the poster I liked better than without.
But suddenly I remembered the dominant stranger with the horsewhip and my butterflies dandled again down south...
The red Paco-Paco
It was almost dark, and I could see almost nothing as I walked light-footed through the former monastery village. In the ruins of the monastery yard I recognized the red Paco with the glowing embers under the wood gasifier. Was the stranger staying here? Here in our damned small dump? Somehow I was suddenly scared and in parallel hopefully stimulated. My joy at trading with Mr. Mayr was almost forgotten.
At home, Golie was waiting for me. He had set the dinner table and was pleased when he saw me. We had dinner together, and then I put him to bed. It was already dark outside, and I put wood in the stove in our kitchen and looked through the hearths into the glow. I had Gottlieb, as he was actually called, found a little foundling in Munich. He had just a sign around his neck with the inscription: "My name is Gottlieb, have mercy on me!" Such was the order of the day since the catastrophe. His parents had probably died of the consequences. As entire families were wiped out, there was always the case that help in the familiar environment was no longer possible, so children were simply abandoned by their dying parents. What should they do in a situation where all medical care had completely collapsed? He had been a cute baby with light brown hair and an eternal smile on his face. In any case, I had no one left and decided to follow the call on the sign and take pity on him. It had been love at first sight, and I never regretted taking him to my little flat where I took care of him like my own baby. At first it was very unfamiliar to me, but over time I quickly grew into my role as a mother, especially as I seamlessly fit into the cityscape with my old, three-wheeled stroller, which I had been able to get hold of thanks to my good negotiating skills on the market.
At some point I decided to leave the city and move out into the country. A good friend told me about an old novel and wanted to accompany me. Books were very, very rare, and only those who had survived the fires of disaster were offered on the markets. In her tattered book, the author was probably a certain Thomas Mann and the title is no longer decipherable, she read from a place called Pfeiffering south of Munich, which was described in the most beautiful colors. Inside the name ‘Dr. Faustus’ appeared. Someone in the old rororo paperback edition of my girlfriend with a blue ballpoint pen on the edge remarked:
Pfeiffering = Polling? and Waldshut = Weilheim?
written. We saw this as a hopeful sign and decided to get to the bottom of it and take a look at this area, where the places had both a real and a literary name. We marched in a beautiful summer week always along the ruined tracks of the old railway line to Garmisch along towards the Alps and actually got there. It was dangerous, but we were young, unreasonable, and exposed ourselves to radiation. In the evening we slept in cellars. The lake we reached in Starnberg attracted us very much to a swim, but we did not want to take that radiation risk, and so we enjoyed the view of the water with the mountains in the background and marched a long the bank. My friend had underlined all the places that were important for our touristic trip and abused the novel about an avant-garde composer as a guide à la Baedecker.
Finally we arrived in Weilheim and saw, to our disappointment, what we knew from everywhere: ruins, burned culture and few people who lived there