1000 Days of Spring: Travelogue of a hitchhiker

by Tomislav Perko

  “I was very good at what I did,” he continued, knowing that he’d left me speechless, “if I hadn’t done it, someone else would’ve.” He was justifying his actions. “Besides, I thought I was fighting for the right cause.”

  He started talking about the political situation in Ireland, justifying murder for “the greater cause”, and after half an hour I had to admit that everything he’d said actually made sense. The man sitting next to me was actually quite a nice person.

  After a few years of active service he didn’t want to fight anymore, his daughter was born and he moved to the country. He found peace there, he said to me. At one moment I caught myself thinking that I would actually like him to invite me to spend a night or two at his place, but that didn’t happen. Maybe it was better that way because I couldn’t guarantee how he’d react if I liked his 17-year-old daughter.

  He left me on a gas station and two rides later I arrived to Hamburg along with the night. I went to the house of my host Johann.

  As I climbed up the stairs I sensed wonderful aromas of something cooking coming from one of the apartments, something that I would obviously associate with my Berlin uplift. I was hoping it would be coming from Johann’s apartment.

  And it was.

  A tall and handsome guy with a wide smile on his face and holding a bottle of beer opened the door.

  “You’re just about in time for dinner,” he said, hugging me.

  I love hugs. In fact, it is the unofficial salute among CouchSurfers: warm, friendly, intimate. Instant connection, breaking the walls that can be quite an obstacle when you start building a relationship between two people.

  I was slowly getting to know my host over the spiciest, and maybe even the most delicious dinner I’d ever had, and an unlimited amount of beer. He was forty and living with his partner, who was currently out of town, and that was the reason why he could host people. He was a jolly fellow living in what could easily be the most beautiful apartment I’d ever been in. Everything was so spotless. They took care of the smallest details, the towels in the bathroom were so neatly folded that even my Mom would be jealous, and when you opened the bathroom door a light would turn on instantly and classical music would start to play from a small radio player.

  “When was the first time you realized you were gay?” I asked him naturally, after a few beers, excited that I could finally talk openly to someone about those things. I knew a couple of people in Zagreb who were gay, but I wasn’t close to any one of them so I couldn’t talk freely about that topic, which was, at least where I'm from, still taboo.

  “Believe it or not, when I was very young, when I was four or five years old,” he replied in an even more natural way. “I was in the hospital to have my tonsils taken out and I distinctly remember one boy I couldn’t stay away from. Of course, back then I was too young to understand my feelings, but as the years passed I realized that it was a part of me from birth. I did try something with girls as a teenager, but I soon realized that there was no point: I didn’t feel anything when I was with them, despite their appearance.”

  “And how did your family and friends react?” I asked him, sipping my beer and imagining what my parents would say if told them that I was spending the night in the company of a forty-year-old homosexual, in his apartment, with a lot of alcohol. And not only my parents, how would my friends react if I told them that, as it happens, I liked guys?

  “They were totally cool about it,” he said. “I believe the secret lies in the fact that they’d known several people with the same affinities, which helped them convince themselves that they were completely normal people who just happen to have different habits, aspirations and lifestyles. Naturally, I’ve lost some friends, but I don’t regret it. Do I even need friends who cannot accept me for who I am?”

  My new friend was speaking wisely.

  The following morning a large glass of water was waiting for me by the headboard, perfect to help prevent a hangover. As I wasn’t really able to remember everything that had happened the previous night (!) I wasn’t quite sure how the glass found its way to me, as if I’d ordered it.

  “What is this glass of water doing here?” I asked Johann as I heard the rattle of dishes in the kitchen.

  “I brought it to you this morning, we had a lot to drink last night, so...” He replied as he was leaving the kitchen carrying a tray with a couple of small sandwiches with cheese and jam.

  My first breakfast in bed.

  “Johann, your are the king of hospitality,” I said munching, “I wouldn’t mind a bit if I had a girlfriend like you.”

  He chuckled, sat next to me and helped me with the rest of the delicious sandwiches.

  We spent the following few days together, cycling the streets of Hamburg, having lunch with his colleagues, swimming at the sandy beach placed next to the third most active harbour in Europe, enjoying movies laid back on a big marital bed. If I ever showed any signs of homophobia it was completely finished off by spending a few days in the company of that sweet homosexual.

  That could be the best way of curing homophobia, racism and religious intolerance: put two different people in the same room and let them hang out. Once they realize that the other, no matter how different, is basically the same, the prejudices will collapse like a house of cards.

  As my stay in Hamburg was coming to an end I had to take out my map of Europe and pick my next direction. Where should I go? I’d arrived from the east; there was nothing interesting on the south, so maybe north? Or should I go on westward?

  I studied CS profiles in Copenhagen and sent a mail to an interesting guy. I stressed that I would be coming only if he could host me, if not, I would be going in the other direction.

  I received a reply in a matter of few minutes. And the reply was negative. I threw another quick glance at the map and made one of the easiest decisions ever: Amsterdam, here I come.

  Day 283.

  “Hello,” I greeted a guy in a suit and tie as he was entering his SUV, somewhere near Hannover. Even though my earlier experience with people in expensive cars was telling me that the chances of him giving me a ride were slim, I had nothing to lose. I never have anything to lose. Besides, he was the only one at the gas station with Dutch licence plates.

  “Hello,” he greeted me back cautiously.

  “Do you happen to be headed for the Netherlands?” I was smiling and glancing at his plates making it clear to him that it was quite obvious where he was heading.

  “Yes, I am,” he continued with the same caution as before, “why?”

  “Well, you know,” I started, “I’ve been hitchhiking across Europe for a couple of weeks now, I don’t have much money and I’m headed for Amsterdam so I was wondering if you could give me a ride for at least one part of the route.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “From Croatia.”

  “Will you kill me I give you a ride?”

  “Will you kill me?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, then I won’t kill you either.”

  Humour always worked. He gave me another look and that was it: I got into the car.

  It was one of the most interesting, fastest and most comfortable rides ever. In two hours, which was the time the ride lasted, we touched upon various subjects, the conversation flowing easily. He told how he, in a similar way, travelled when he was my age, and now he had a factory with seventy workers, a son studying in the USA, a wife he still adored and so on. He was a very pleasant, intelligent and interesting person.

  “Thank you very much,” I said as I was taking my backpack out of the trunk some eighty kilometres from Amsterdam. I was only one ride, or maybe two, away from my destination for the day.

  “Oh, you’re welcome,” he replied sincerely, grabbing his back pocket, “here, that’s for you.”

  There was, just like that suitcase in Pulp Fiction, a fifty Euro bill shining in his hand.

  “Thank you, but I really cannot accept it.” I refused his
offer still feeling a bit hypnotised.

  “Why?” he wanted to know.

  “Why?” I was taken aback. “You’ve already done me a huge favour by giving me a ride for a good part of the way: it is only because of you that I will be in Amsterdam before dark. And now you still want me to take money from you. That wouldn’t be fair.”

  “Let me explain it to you,” he began, “these fifty Euros don’t mean much to me and they could to you. You’re travelling across Europe, you don’t have much money, and this could help you a bit. I know because I travelled the same way.”

  “But...”

  “There is no but,” he insisted, “I won’t take no for an answer. In fact, you’ll be doing me a favour if you take it. It would make me feel better if I knew I’d helped someone today. So, we both win.”

  He made a good point. These fifty Euros could come in handy, and it won’t harm him if he’s left without. Moreover, he will feel better. I took the bill, thanking him once again from the bottom of my heart, pranced a bit as I watched him leave the gas station. I was rich!

  I calculated quickly that with that donation my daily expenses dropped to less than five Euros a day. Now I just had to keep them that low...

  In less than a couple of minutes I understood why the Netherlands was popular in hitchhiking circles. I had already managed to find my last ride to Amsterdam. My driver was a jolly British guy.

  “Where are you from?” he asked me.

  “From Croatia,” I replied politely, fastening my seat belt.

  “Croatia?” he frowned, “yes, yes, there are many sea cucumbers there, aren’t there?”

  Déjà vu. Where had I heard the story before, that when a person hears about Croatia, of all things it’s known for, the first thing that comes to their mind is squalid sea cucumbers.

  Ha, I got it.

  “A couple of months ago was hitchhiking around Croatia and a nice man from Hungary gave me a ride,” I began. “He told me a story about a sea cucumber business; how he and his partner intended to export them to the Japanese market where they are considered an exquisite treat since they are rich in protein. At first, I didn’t believe him, but he had quite a detailed business plan so I even left him my e-mail address in case he needed a sea cucumber picker. It would definitely be a cool occupation, and well paid.”

  The Brit was listening to me carefully and gave me an incredulous look from time to time.

  “From Hungary?” he asked me after a brief silence, “do you remember his name?”

  “His name?” I repeated, “I have no idea, we spent an half an hour together and I never heard from him again.”

  He was silent again. He took out his cell phone, dialled a number and put the phone to his ear.

  “Hey, partner,” he started the conversation with the person on the other end of the phone, “did you, by any chance, pick up a hitchhiker a few months ago in Croatia and talk to him about our sea cucumber business? You did? I have too, a few kilometres from Amsterdam.”

  He handed me his phone, smiling showily. On the other end was the man who, a few months ago, gave me a ride to Zadar. We exchanged a few sentences, not believing that we were actually talking to each other: what were the odds?

  Unfuckingbelievable.

  I loved my new life, just like I loved the town I was arriving in. I adored it.

  I adored everything about it: its inhabitants who always wore a wide smile on their faces as they were riding their colourful bikes; its street lights that said how many seconds you had until the green light came on; its squeaking trams honking every now and then to let people know they were arriving. I adored its circular streets bordered by canals where you could see someone’s floating home, connected by numberless bridges, where I’d gotten lost so many times, but never cared. I adored its neighbourhoods in which behind every corner you could expect the intoxicating scent of a plant that was prohibited anywhere else, or you could expect a woman in her underwear inviting you to spend some intimate time with her for only a couple of tens of Euros. I adored its street artists: jugglers, musicians, beggars – all of them make you feel as if you are in a giant open air theatre – a city where something is always happening. I adored its unique bricked houses, tossed around in all directions. I adored its museums, which even I, with my professional couldn’t-care-less-about-art attitude, enjoyed. I adored its parks, and particularly Vondelpark, which, on a sunny day, was a gathering place for families and friends to play soccer or badminton, and in the evening you could see people dressed as stuffed animals running around or men in suits saluting to each other and doing push-ups.

  I adored the grey clouds above it; I adored its frustrating rain and the unstopping wind. I adored its streets early in the morning, empty and still dirty from the previous night’s parties, full of broken bottles and food remains. I adored its famous coffee shops, where in a claustrophobic atmosphere you could hear giggling, deep conversations about the meaning of life, and nonchalant assistance of the waiters to guests who, due to excessive consumption of weed, suddenly went pale and dropped their heads on the table. I adored its Red Light District, cocaine dealers, prostitutes with empty eyes and drunk passers-by who appeared never to have seen a naked woman. I adored its numerous tourists who came there with one intention only: not to remember anything when they left a couple of days later.

  I adored the people I ran into every time I got there.

  “Maaike, nice to meet you,” my new host welcomed me with a hug to her cute one-room apartment near the centre of the city, which she shared with her dog Lola and four nameless puppies.

  “Make yourself at home, I know that you’ve had an exhausting day so if you want to take a shower feel free. I’m going to prepare us something to eat.”

  I accepted her offer whole-heartedly and shortly after I was washing six hundred kilometres off of my body.

  “Hey, there is nothing better than having a warm shower after a whole day spent hitchhiking,” I exclaimed enthusiastically as I exited the bathroom with a towel wrapped around my hips.

  “Are you sure?” she asked approaching with a tray with two giant sandwiches, a glass of red wine and a famous Amsterdam specialty, a joint that was a mix of tobacco and White Widow.

  “Well, girl, you really know how to please a man,” I said happily and only later realising what I’d said.

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” she readily accepted the play on words winking at me and throwing a quick glance on my half-naked body.

  I had a feeling that we would get along quite well.

  After I made myself decent, I dug into the food listening to her, only superficially focusing my attention on one thing that was truly interesting to me – her face. She was beautiful, but her face was drained by a lack of kilograms, and she was very pale. She had long, straight brown hair, a shy smile and direct green eyes.

  She appeared to be brave. She didn’t hesitate to make direct eye contact, or talk about delicate subjects. Very often she would start talking about sex as if she wanted to make it clear that she was open-minded, careless and unreachable. But at the same time, she was timid – I had a feeling that by talking so directly she was, in fact, unconsciously defending herself from something much simpler, more ordinary and more natural. It seemed to me that she was defending herself from talking about topics against which she wasn’t protected by shocking words and her collocutors’ visualizations; from topics where, rather than talking about baring her body, she would be made to bare her mind to others.

  “I’m thinking about getting myself a slave,” she said all of a sudden, looking straight at me.

  “A what?” I coughed, ruining a particularly good pull on the intoxicating smoke.

  “A slave,” she smiled innocently, “there are people who enjoy that, and I could really use one.”

  “And how does that work exactly?” I inhaled carefully, making up for the last lost toke and paid close attention to what she was saying.

  “It’s very simple,” she start
ed, “you place an ad online in which you say that you’re looking for a slave. There are even pages specializing in that kind of thing. And then people who’re interested in your ad contact you. I don’t have first-hand experience since I placed my ad only recently.”

  “What did you write?” I couldn’t believe my ears.

  “I wrote that men were worthless to me. Women are the ones who make things happen. They are smarter, more beautiful, more sociable, better in what they do, more communicative and they are the creators of life. We don’t even need men to get us pregnant anymore. All this means that men are here to serve us” she laughed proudly and spitefully. “The person who accepts to be my slave has to take care that my apartment is always spotless, do my groceries, walk my dog, cook dinner, paint my walls, everything I may need. If I want an orgasm, he will have to satisfy me in the way I please without looking me directly in the eyes. If I don’t want to see his face, I will put him in the closet. He will have to give me all of his money and his credit card pin numbers. I will give him a weekly allowance which would suffice for his basic needs and the rest of it will be mine.”

  “And?” I still couldn’t believe it.

  “You’re not going to believe it,” she was reading my mind, “but one guy said yes. He told me his exact salary, 1800 Euros a month and after he pays for food, his apartment and monthly expenses he has 900 Euros left. It would be so easy to save the money for journeys,” she smiled.

  “Yeah right.” I observed her, realizing that she wasn’t messing with me. “How can you tell that you’re not dealing with a crazy person?” I asked her, remembering instantly that I’d hosted hundreds of people in my apartment over the past few years, via CS, in the same way. I’d also arrived at her apartment in the same way, after we exchanged only one e-mail.