by Helen Moat
‘Jealousy will get you nowhere, mate,’ I laughed. ‘Too bad you have to sit on a razor.’
‘At least I don’t have a tank for a bicycle,’ he shot back. So Gertrude was rechristened ‘The Tank’.
I was grateful for these moments, and that Jamie had honoured a three-year-old promise to accompany me on this trip – my dream, not his.
Early in the journey, he’d overshot a turning and slammed on the brakes. I was close behind him and didn’t hit my brakes quickly enough and ended up in a ditch. The bike fell on top of me, metal slicing my little finger. Blood oozed from the finger and smeared the bike. Jamie bent over me in concern, angry at himself for causing my accident.
‘Hey, I’m fine.’ I got up feeling wobbly, worried I’d done serious damage so early in the ride. Jamie hauled the bike off me, and I shook my legs. They were working – just a grazed knee. My arms were fine too. We laughed, but realised we’d have to be more careful and keep a bigger distance between us if we were ever going to reach Istanbul in one piece. Jamie found a plaster and helped me cover the cut.
Maybe I’d done okay as a mother. Jamie would often retreat to somewhere inside his head, but he was also considerate and thoughtful, easy-going and cool-headed. In many ways, he was the perfect cycling companion – if only he would talk a little more.
Maybe I’d done okay as a daughter too. My dreams were not my mother’s dreams, but I had a drive that came from her: a drive to challenge myself – to follow my own path – one that now led up the Rhine, down the Danube and across the hills to the Black Sea and Sea of Marmara. I was curious to know what lay out there, to see how other people lived.
She made bread; I made journeys. And I carried her with me along the Rhine.
‘Was darf es sein?’ The shop assistant was asking me what I wanted. We picked out Brötchen for our lunch along with meat and cheese, then took our croissants and coffee and settled at a corner table – thankful that the hotel had chosen today for its Ruhetag; thankful for the strong, aromatic coffee and steaming croissants; thankful for German bakeries.
Afterwards, we mounted the bikes again and made our way back to the Rhine. I was beginning to settle into the cycle, no longer worrying about flat tyres or mechanical problems with every push of the pedal. There was little point in mithering about what might not ever happen. I saw that there was already a shift in my thinking. I was living in the present, and the knot of pain in my chest slackened a little more.
*
Two men shot past on charcoal bikes, clad in black. They sat squat and square on solid frames and thick tyres. The word ‘Bosch’ flashed by in blurry letters. The wheels turned with the Vorsprung durch Technik precision of a German washing machine on an energy-efficient spin. The men were certainly advancing at an impressive pace. And their technique was faultless – they were forging ahead with minimal effort, easing along the riverbank, deep in conversation.
The air was still damp from the rainstorm and low cloud clung to the river. The Rhine sulked in grey. Vegetation dripped rainwater onto our numb hands and the odour of rotten vegetation permeated the air. Sodden leaves mulched the cycle path and deadened the sound of our tyres to a faint squelch. Winter clung on although it was early May.
I spotted the men were carrying panniers – our first touring cyclists! I pedalled faster, hoping to catch them, but they moved further and further ahead of us and into the distance. We finally caught up with them at a railway crossing. It was then I spotted the electric motors. My Formula 1 cyclists were cheats.
‘Ja, e-velos – Moustache Samedi 28 Titanium. Sie sind wun-der-bar. Su-perb.’
They reeled off their bikes’ credentials: cruising speed, 25kmh; top performance speed, 45kmh; hydroformed alloy chassis; hydraulic disk brakes; state-of-the-art crank drive motor. I took in the men’s matching lycra, expensive cycling shoes, identical handlebar bags with plastic folders, neatly stacked with map printouts – and felt inadequate.
They asked where we were going, speaking German with thick Alsace accents. I felt embarrassed to admit I was cycling across a continent. The Alsatians frowned at my scratched town-bike laden down with my found-in-the-sale Raleigh panniers, now sagging under the weight of Rhineland showers – and hiding Tesco bags that kept my belongings dry. Their eyes dropped to my scuffed trainers and up again to my old hiking waterproofs. I was a model of make-do British improvisation, not German precision. My steed was a sit-up-and-beg bike, and at that moment I felt like the bag lady.
I blushed. ‘Istanbul.’ Again, that ridiculous word.
‘Is-tan-bul!’
But the men seemed less concerned with my inadequate mode of transport and cheap equipment than the destination: ‘Eastern Europe … Turkey. A risk. It’s a question of your safety. It’s not like here, not like western Europe …’
The words stayed with me as we continued up the Rhine. The warnings I’d heard before I set out filled my head once again – of murderous lorry drivers, vicious dogs, thieving Gypsies, scammers and unscrupulous opportunists. A place of monsters and dark shadows; a hinterland of Eastern Europe that few western Europeans actually knew but still had an opinion on.
*
But there were more immediate challenges. Just outside Rheinberg we came to our first obstacle: the building of a new flood defence. Our path was lost in the mounds of dug-up land. We slipped through a gap in the fence and crossed the wetlands toward Orsoy along the dyke, praying there wouldn’t be another impenetrable barrier at the other end.
The wind dropped and we stopped by a pond of mute swans and tufted ducks to eat our Brötchen and hold our wind-battered faces to the weak sun. Home and all its comforting familiarity seemed far away now. Still, Duisburg was very close now and another stranger had invited us into her home for the night: a language teacher called Petra. As we drew closer to the city, I wondered how Tom and Patrick were managing on their own: I imagined Tom in the kitchen, chopping vegetables; Patrick surrounded by school books at the table. I felt a yearning for the other half of my divided family, my far-flung island, my home. But curiosity about the unknown drove me on, enticing me.
Ever southwards.
Upstream, the Duisburg Bridge delivered us to the district of Ruhrort, an ugly echo of the larger Duisburg – a thrown-together muddle of mostly post-war buildings. No sooner had we reached the banks of the Ruhr than the wind and rain lashed down with the ferocity of a trapped animal, forcing us off our bikes. We sheltered behind a lorry, pushing our bodies against its overhang while gripping our bicycles with white-knuckled fingers to stop the wind from ripping them off us. It was a strange day, the weather a moody mess. And indeed, the wind died away as quickly as it had arrived. We cycled along the tree-lined Ruhr river, dodging drips and willing Duisburg to show us its kinder side.
The harshness of Duisburg lay in its industrial, then political history – the town cradled strategically in the crook of the Rhine and Ruhr rivers. Along with Essen and Dortmund, it sat in Germany’s industrial heartland, the Ruhrgebiet, an area once so rich in coal and iron that it became a powerhouse of blast furnaces, factories, mines and mills connected by an extensive network of railway lines. By 1870, it was the largest industrial region in Europe, with an urban population of three million people.
During World War One, attention turned to the war effort and the entire Ruhr valley became one big weapons factory – a stockpile of ammunition rather than coal heaps. But by the end of the Great War, Germany was on its knees. In 1923, a bankrupt and disgruntled German government encouraged its Ruhr workers to sabotage production at the industrial assets that had been seized by the French and Belgian troops in lieu of unpaid war reparations. Then in 1936, in an act of sheer provocation, Adolf Hitler sent 30,000 troops into the demilitarised Rhineland. The French acted as if nothing had happened – et alors? – while the British shrugged their shoulders and made mutterings to the effect that Germany had a right to its own backyard. Hitler interpreted this as a carte blanche to go on the march, and it wa
s only after he had marched right into Poland that Britain decided enough was enough and declared war. Too late, Hitler’s ambition was insatiable and soon the world was at war.
Germany’s industrial and ammunitions heartland was an obvious target for the Allied bombers. In June 1941, the British dropped 400-odd tons of bombs on Duisburg alone and then went on to obliterate the old town in 1943 with another 1,500 tons, give or take. But this was nothing in comparison to a raid in 1944, when 9,000 tons of incendiaries were dropped in a raid that lasted all day and night. By the end of the war, little remained of Duisburg, arguably the most heavily bombed city in western Germany in World War II.
As the British carried out the ruthless and relentless onslaught on Duisburg in 1941, the Germans made a surprise first attack on Belfast that same year. It must have been a shock for my father: everyone believed our city was safe from the Luftwaffe. Even after the Nazis invaded the Cherbourg region of France, extending their reach, the city continued in its complacency to the point of carelessness, not even complying properly with blackout regulations. The Germans, realising Belfast was the most poorly defended city in the United Kingdom – despite the fact that shipbuilders Harland and Wolff, and Shorts the aircraft company, were busily tasked with building destroyers, aircraft carriers, mine sweepers and bombers – made the city a priority target.
At the beginning of April 1941, the Luftwaffe tested the ground, dropping 800 incendiary bombs on the docks area before returning a week later to widen their target. Some 1,000 people were killed in the Easter raids and another 1,500 injured. Two hospitals were targeted, placing my father’s ambulance service under immense pressure. Was my father there when they took the bodies to St George’s Market and laid them out for identification? Had he known the unidentified were buried in mass graves? Was my father there in the following May raid, when a further 200 corpses were dug out from bomb sites? I asked myself why I hadn’t known this history of my own city, and I wished I had questioned my father about it before he had shut down. Would he have answered anyway? Had he put a lid on something that was too painful to resurrect? Probably. But I felt ashamed that I had not been interested enough to ask.
As Jamie and I pedalled along the Ruhr river, the city did little to endear itself to us, its buildings flung up after the war with no thought for planning or aesthetics – until we reached Duisburg’s Inner Harbour, near our CouchSurfing host’s home. We cycled along Philosophenweg, over canal bridges and on past cafés, restaurants, museums, offices and apartments. They stood in stark contrast to the scruffy town fringe we’d just passed through. Shiny architecture stood side by side with traditional wharfs, mills and pieces of industrial machinery on the harbour’s banks. By the time Jamie and I had reached the end of Philosophenweg, the sun was shining primrose over the water and my view of Duisburg had changed.
We turned a corner and came to a halt outside Petra’s townhouse. In front of the elegant façade, boxes of lettuce, carrots and leeks spilled from the front drive.
*
2. Petra
Petra opened the door to our knock, her hair swept back in a wave. She had a smoothness of skin, curvature of body and an economy of movement reminiscent of a ship’s figurehead cutting water. Her containment of body didn’t match her flow of chatter.
‘Lucky you were coming on a Wednesday. My evenings are so busy. The apartment is rented out at the moment, but there’s plenty of sleeping space in the living room. Chain the bicycles to the railing here. I’ve got a stew in the pot. You must be hungry. I’ll get it ready straightaway. Don’t worry about shoes. Leave your bags in the corner. Come on in.’
My brain worked hard to keep up with the rapid flow of information. We followed Petra to the kitchen where she busied herself with the stew. Above her head, shelves bulged with foodstuffs: containers of herbs and spices; jars of jams, jellies, chutneys and coffee; packets of tea and an assortment of dried foods and staples.
Petra served Jamie and I the perfect antidote to wind, rain and cold: a hot, spicy Eintopf, a one-pot full of flavour. The stew steamed and the smell of spice filled the ground floor of the house, mixed with the peppery aroma of savory herb. I took a taste of the sweet chilli sausage and its warmth coursed through my body. Gemütlichkeit: German comfort.
‘I salvaged the beans and potatoes from the market,’ Petra said. ‘They would have been thrown away otherwise. My local market and some of the smaller supermarkets and shops have signed up to the food-sharing project.’
‘So, what’s food-sharing exactly?’ I asked.
‘Well, it’s an internet community of people who don’t want to see unsold or uneaten food go to waste. Members create a “basket” of food they want to give away – if they’re going on holiday or they’ve had a party with lots of leftovers. Then it can be collected from the member’s home or one of the pick-up points around town. A lot of the food I eat comes from the food-sharing community and is free.’
‘Sounds like a great idea.’
‘It is, especially when you think about how much food is thrown out. And I save a lot of money.’
There was little wastage for us growing up. With a house full of children, it was rare for food to find its way to the bin – and anything left over was given to the dog – potato skins, gristle and bones mixed in with lard and anything else that was left on a plate. It was a canine diet that would make a vet shudder.
In fact, nothing was thrown away – whether fabric or metal, or any general household item. The rag-and-bone man and travelling door-callers made sure of that. The Gypsy woman knocked on our door regularly – an exotic creature dressed in long flowing skirts and carrying a baby that was wrapped across her chest in a piece of cloth. I was fascinated by this traveller as she was unlike anyone else I knew. Nobody carried their babies in cloths in my town or spoke with a thick-as-broth southern Irish brogue that was almost impossible for me to decipher.
My mother rummaged around, looking for some small thing she could donate: a too-small dress or an old knitted jumper. Goodness knows what she hoped to find, for our own clothes were passed down from one to another until hems and cuffs were frayed and small holes appeared in elbows and knees, patched and re-patched.
My mother dug deep.
While the Gypsy tramped the town door-to-door on foot, the rag-and-bone man came with his horse and cart, a rickety construction of wood piled high with junk: scraps of bicycles, rusting buckets and bundles of rags, tied together with strips of fabric. And once again my mother would cast her eye around to find some scrap of something. Our house was filled with broken things since my mother had grown up in the War and couldn’t bear to throw anything out, whether it was a defunct hairdryer or a broken vacuum cleaner. The parts could be useful for something else, so please Helen, keep it.
Petra was a modern version of my mother. Not a moment was wasted; her life filled to bursting point. I wondered how she found time to sleep. Gardening, crafting, sewing and knitting, cooking, baking, jelly and jam-making crammed her days. She hosted strangers from hospitality websites, rented out her children’s old rooms as an Airbnb apartment and cooked for everyone who entered her home while chattering non-stop. She organised music events in her living room, which was filled with art and sofas and throws – and what looked like a row of bus seats.
Petra embodied the sharing philosophy. Her home, her car, even her camping equipment and gardening implements were all available for loan or rent. A leader, organiser and ambassador for all sorts of local community and international organisations, she spoke English, French and Dutch with fluency and was getting to grips with Spanish and Italian. Not content with all of that, she was delving into Turkish and Polish too. In between she worked as a French teacher. And when not knee-deep in her own community, Petra travelled all around Europe, throwing herself into other lives and cultures.
A child of Duisburg; a child of the world.
My mother had Petra’s energy and organisational skills – although most of her time was t
aken up with children and her own home, not strangers. She sewed dresses for us girls, matching floral frocks with little bows and puffed sleeves, crocheted ponchos and knitted thick woollen jumpers for all of us. My father set parsley, celery, leek and lettuce and tomatoes in the greenhouse, and grew rhubarb and scallions (spring onions) and other root vegetables, along with lobelia, sweet pea, dahlias, chrysanthemums, geraniums, gladiolas and begonias for my mother’s table arrangements. She cooked flavourless, salted root vegetables (no herbs or spices) and potatoes from my father’s vegetable plot. But when it came to baking, she delighted our taste buds. Homemade bread, tarts and cakes emptied out of the stacked tins as quickly as they were filled up. Her children were as greedy as they were skinny. My mother swore we all had tapeworms.
The smell of homemade bread, the syrupy aroma of cooking jam or fruit tarts, the dust of snipped fabric and paper patterns, and the gentle fragrance of freshly cut sweet pea – all were the scents of my childhood.
Petra reminded me of my mother, but Petra was an eco-warrior, a hipster and progressive, kicking against the consumerism and wastefulness of modern life. They were labels that didn’t exist in the sixties, yet my mother could match Petra action for action. No weekly shops to the supermarket for her. She bought fresh, seasonal food from the fruit and vegetable man (who also delivered his goods in a horse-drawn cart) and the best joints from the local butcher, a man who punctuated every sentence with a Mrs Rab-i-son when he dropped by with our meat. My father supplied the rest of our food from his grocery store, greenhouse and kitchen garden.
The throwaway society had not yet been properly invented, nor food-sharing or environmental awareness. Yet my mother was a de facto environmentalist. While Petra had made a life choice and followed it consciously and conscientiously, my mother simply lived it without thought. And she was not alone, for everyone was an environmentalist in the sixties, and sustainability was the norm. Petra, on the other hand, swam against the tide of consumerism and empty need with an energy that appeared effortless. It was as if she’d realised she’d been gifted a moment of life and she was determined to fill her lungs with air and dive in – as deep as she could.