Charma had been very efficient and had a brand new passport and with the help of our agents, a German visa. I was amazed that she took it so seriously. When I told her that we would go together to the city to buy wedding rings, she freaked out with joy.
As unpleasant as it was me, she insisted that we should buy the rings at the "Gems Bureau". Salim was quite amazed and Charma looked triumphant. We got the most beautiful rings in Colombo and Salim even gave her a blue sapphire as a wedding gift.
Through the shipping agent, I had hired a local cook for my discharge from duties, who was my substitute during the time I was making my wedding-related errands.
The wedding and the gift of the Maledive Island
Charma was her stage name. In her passport I read that her name was Chitra. The dancer Charma had now become my wife Chitra.
We went to the register office and were married in Sri Lankan style. The Captain was my best man and Chitra had an uncle from here relatives, who was speaker in the parliament. Apart from that, her mother and some girlfriends attended the wedding. We were both only 23 years old and firmly believed that June 16, 1965 was our lucky day. The big wedding reception was in the Chinese restaurant with the beautiful name "Golden Lotus" and ended around 3 o'clock in the morning.
The complete crew of the German "Arsterturm" - was there, some girls from the Tropicana and the shipping agency office as well as two gentlemen from the embassy, all together 34 persons who just kept my budget in the affordable range. I had stashed the envelopes from my time of being a purchaser in Kuwait for such a day as this or for a bigger holiday in my homeland. Now our return trip could be done. Chitra's mother said goodbye very early and the marriage witness of my wife gave us a letter, which we were to reply before our departure. It was his wedding gift. We had received some useful and some useless gifts.
We opened the letter the next day and I was very surprised to see the content. It was a letter in the envelope and this letter came from the island government of the Maldives and offered an island for $ 2000 for a lease of 99 years. I asked my wife's uncle if this is meant to be a joke. He was almost offended and told me that the Maldives leased some islands for a certain sum for 99 years.
He had received such an offer and had passed it on to us as a gift. I was not able to assimilate the value of the letter. First of all, we were leaving for Germany and secondly, I could not use an island in the Indian Ocean and thirdly, an island without drinking water would not be worth $ 2,000. We thanked him nevertheless very and rejected the offer. Then we graced the German embassy with a visit to register ourselves as a married couple and were told that we were registered in Berlin at the register office No.1, the register office for foreigners' marriages. With a wry look, the officer wished me good luck. Foreigner's marriage? What was that? Was and who were foreigners? Was I a foreigner now? All my life I was already in a foreign country. At first I was in Germany as a sort of alien and now I'm abroad and I am a foreigner again. Except for my apprenticeship, I was a slave there.
Now I was married to a foreigner. What would I be in the Riesengebirge (the Karkonosze Mountains) where I was born? Today the Czechs rule there. Should I ever go back there, to eventually go on a holiday and consciously see my birthplace, if I was abroad again?
Did I have a home, a homeland? No - but I had a wife. What would I do with her if I wanted to go to sea again? Impossible, I had to now get a job on land. I also could not live with my parents.
I suddenly realized that there were still many open questions. Holy Neptune, stay with me. But he did not listen to me. But instead my little leprechaum answered. He said that it would be a good idea to open a restaurant in Germany.
Asian cuisine, delicious curries, of course also Schnitzel and sausages for my not so well-traveled guests. I was now almost 24 years old and had not yet been in the military. And would they come and get me, and then? Well opening a pub wouldn't be good after all. I would just wait and see how much money I would have when I arrived in Bremen. The travel costs for my wife's passage were nothing but a boarding fee of 4.80 DM was deducted from me each day my wife was on board.
On 17.09.65 we reached Bremen. The trip was very calm and pleasant. It was so wonderful to be with Chitra together every day. Nights were even better with her. There were a few little things, such as teaching my wife to eat potatoes or red cabbage with dumplings; also sauerkraut was one of her major problems. As for our beloved brown bread, she said that it was like eating cardboard. I had tins of Pumpernickel for special occasions. I did not even try to offer this delicacy to her. Rice for breakfast, rice for lunch, and rice in the evening. Which Central Europeans could survive that? An Asian woman could do that. She had bought horrible things to eat before we left and lived on that.
Stinking fish.
And suspicious looking hot spices - everything looked suspiciously hot, they were guaranteed to be hot.
The huge metal container, which looked like a coffin was fully crammed with this kind of food.
Then there were saris, sandals, underwear, some gold jewelry and again large quantities of dried fish, spices and red chillis for a hundred years. Three months at sea with short stops for bunkering and taking provisions. All ports without shore leave; what can someone do in Port Sudan, Djibouti and Aden?
Then through the Suez Canal and we were almost home.
Beirut, Limassol, Istanbul and Tangier were still on our go-to list, and probably all harbors where tea would be loaded. And just through the Strait of Gibraltar, the Bay of Biscay, the English Channel and we were in Bremen. What I had been looking for in the ports was now available day and also at night.
I could now fuck whenever I wanted to and as much as I wanted without going ashore because Chitra also always wanted to - that was probably due to the sea air, she said. Being married was nice, I did not have to clean the cabin; the bed was made and the clothes were washed.
No more thoughts of when and where I had to have the next woman, no worries about unfaithful girlfriends. I could just also simply talk to Chitra. And try to teach her German.
She did not know a word of German, only some Indian-sounding English with a certain singsong in her pronunciation.
My English had stopped at just the mariners' level. So of course some misunderstandings happened.
If my beloved said to me "I am hungry", I took her in my arms and asked her what she was angry about and that I would set everything right.
But she did not get anything to eat.
This was because I understood it as "I am angry". Hungry = hungrig, angry = böse werden. But you cannot be beaten by such trivialities. All aboard were trying to speak in German with her, particularly the radio operator, who always had free time, made constant efforts.
On the way, from the Mediterranean Sea, I assigned the radio operator the job of sending my parents a telegram.
The wording was something like this: "Dear Ones, I got married in Colombo and will come home to you around mid-September. Love you. Greetings from your son and daughter-in-law Chitra".
A mother who has a crazy son, can get such a daughter-in-law in such a surprising way. At last we arrived in Germany three months after our departure. Such a long time in a confined space, day and night, and not being able to get out of the way even when there are negative emotions; you have to learn this first of all.
But we managed without suffering any great injuries and we were both happy as our ship was berthed at the quay in Bremen.
I sat in my cabin on the aforementioned metal box that looked like a coffin, waiting for the customs. Nothing could be faulted in my kitchen store or my customs warehouse, where cigarettes and alcohol were stored. There was something more serious in my cabin.
Also here I was asked if I had personal things to declare after such a long stay on board. Too much alcohol, cigarettes, tobacco or drugs? I said no to everything.
But I told the customs officer that I had a Ceylonese woman and an elephant to declare, if such articles were li
sted in the customs.
He looked at me somewhat reproachfully and asked if my travels to Persia had not agreed with me. Definitely he had to know the saying about becoming "free of murder charges" or the "Ouch Clinic" after a certain number trips to Persia.
He asked me to take him seriously, he was after all an official he admonished me. At that moment my wife came inside through the door. She had been on the bridge to say goodbye to the people there.
The customs officer became a little flustered and wanted to know if this woman belonged to the Indians or the Pakistanis on board. I explained to him and told him that she was my wife. Having become somewhat sheepish, the customs officer asked me once again timidly about the elephant.
But I was able to reassure him - the elephant was made of rosewood and was still in the dry storage warehouse. It had to be checked and so we inspected the room with tinned food and the elephant.
After my wife got her entry stamp, I was permitted to go ashore with my wife, the elephant and the metal box, which looked like a coffin.
We were now a couple with an elephant weighing 70 kg and a coffin-shaped suitcase and were quite legally in Germany.
The taxi driver had problems with the suitcase and somewhat heavy elephant made of rosewood. The metal box did not fit into the car boot.
So there were only two possibilities: take a second taxi or a taxi with a luggage carrier.
Since I had my social day, we ordered another taxi that took our luggage.
In another country I would not have had the courage to do that since the one with the luggage would have definitely not reached the airport. But since we were in Germany, both the taxis reached the airport at the same time. After reaching Frankfurt, I had the same problem with my luggage.
On top of that we looked very exotic. In Bremen we did not attract attention as much as here in Frankfurt. In a port city you see foreign sailors more often, who appear somewhat exotic, or who are exotic.
In Frankfurt, however, we stuck out more. My humble self in a safari-suit, which was made by a tailor in Bombay two years back in six hours. Added to that, I wore white sandals and had extra weight which I had put on in two years.
My petite woman was dressed in a sari and had sandals on, but they were black. Chitra had long, jet-black hair, which, if they were not pinned or braided as it was now, reached below her butt.
Then there were our elephant that could not be overlooked and the metal box that looked like a coffin. Everyone looked at us as if we were aliens.
From the outset, I pointed to the case and demanded for a taxi with a roof rack, which we then also got. The driver maneuvered the box on the roof together with a colleague. The elephant was put on the passenger seat.
And we got inside into the back of the car. The driver was happy when we reached our trip's destination. That was after all almost about a hundred kilometers.
The motorway in the direction Kassel-Hannover seemed to me as if everything would be directed from above by a thread. The insane speed and the oncoming cars on the counter-course made me and Chitra scared. We were not accustomed to such speeds. I was no longer used to it and she had never ever experienced such speeds yet.
We were both glad when the driver had to continue on country roads and that we would be home soon. At a gas station our driver made a stop for fuel and to the surprise of all of us, my father was the gas station attendant. He was the beer tap guy in this gas station and owner of the car rental company - and I did not know this.
My laziness to write had some advantages. We greeted each other like two people who did not think much of each other, rather coldly. My father just said that when I got home, I would get an awkward welcome. He did not make any remarks about my wife in the taxi; I was not sure if he had noticed her or if he just ignored her. After twelve kilometers further, we had arrived at our destination
After we unloaded the taxi and paid the driver, my wife sat adjacent to the door on the coffin box and I rang the bell. The door opened and my mother stepped out.
I don't know what had triggered it but Mother fainted.
I could catch her on time and she came to once again back to us. Since I already had her in my arms, I greeted her heartily straightaway with a hug.
The reaction of the joy of reunion was gone quickly and was replaced by surprise. Who is this woman was my mother’s superfluous question.
So I introduced Mother and Chitra to one another. Later in the living room, I asked Mother if she had not received my telegram from the ship.
The telegram had arrived. But since the name was Chitra, she had thought that the radio operator had made a typo. That it should have been Christa. So my parents had assumed that I had met and married a traveling German woman. They had not thought of an Indian woman. I explained to my Mother that first of all that Chita was Ceylonese.
I had suspected that I would have hard times. Now it was the time for explanations. Probably I had to explain the whole village and even the whole region that I had married a human being and not a wild animal. My animal - a Tamil Tiger, that is how one of my friends called Chita, had two feet, was a bit dark and could not speak the language of the locals, hallelujah!
Christa and Chitra - these two names were really easy to get confused.
But Mother and Father had to get used to it, that it was a Chitra from Ceylon, she had golden-brown skin and jet-black hair that went down over the butt, who wore a sari and was now the daughter-in-law. And it is not blonde Christa. And my Mother found an advantage already, namely that Chitra was a Christian and not pagan, Buddhist, Hindu or Muslim.
I was convinced that she would accept her as daughter-in-law after a while. Later that evening, when Father came home from work and Chitra had already gone to bed, we three sat together.
I would almost call it a Council of War, since I had a somewhat combative tone already and defended Chitra with all my might. I was aware that we had to find a work for myself as soon as possible or work in a restaurant together. An apartment was overdue anyway, because I did not want to be a tenant in my parents' house for ever. So we decided to search for a dining- restaurants for us.
Exchange of freedom against "Security"
I got my chance at the "Irle Brauerei". There was a restaurant with guest rooms at very reasonable conditions.
A week later we were able to drive in Father's new VW to the village near Siegen and visit the property. It had been a farmhouse earlier with a barn, which had been converted to a dance hall, a kitchen, a bar with fifteen tables and a large bar.
There were four guest rooms on the first floor and over that, the rooms for the tenants, that is, for Chitra and me. The lease was moderate and the deposit was also reasonable.
Thus the contract was made and I became the barkeeper. All the hustle and bustle from the ship to the events later passed through Chitra's mind a lot.
Somehow I felt sorry for her but she had to go through this and I stood by her as much as I could at any time and at every opportunity with all my strength.
The first thing I needed to do was to get a driving license. And buy a car, because I couldn't do shopping by taxi all the time. Chitra wanted a Mercedes, like Salim in Colombo had.
But we had to forget that and I bought a used Ford Taunus 12 M as a combination.
Chitra was the attraction in the village and that brought guests.
Added to that was my cuisine, which was also very exotic.
We had a very good business going on.
I was pleased that I had listened to my goblin and opened a pub. The beginning, as every beginning, was difficult. But one has to think of the goal, which one has set for oneself. It was also clear that a lot of hard work was demanded of us.
Over the weekend, when I had my dance events, Mother and Father came and helped.
Father tapped beer, Mother helped in the kitchen, Chitra served and I was in the kitchen most of the time busy cooking. Two waitress came to the hall, only when I had this "beat music" event. Aft
er that we had a regular waitress, who was always there and a cleaning lady, who then brought everything back to order in the morning.
My tax advisor thought that something could be wrong with my statements because compared to what I bought, the profit was too small. The general operating costs were fine but the money was just missing. He wanted to know whether I was taking more from the cash box than what I was entering for him in the cash register.
But I documented everything.
I had a receipt for everything when payment was made or an invoice when it was not yet paid. I wrote everything in my daily reports. He advised me to check everything more accurately.
I'd be careful, I promised him.
I could not understand the whole thing and I reassured myself thinking that the costs at the beginning were somewhat too high and that perhaps I had not written everything down.
Chitra became more and more quiet and withdrew often on the grounds that she didn't feel well. Meanwhile she said she was homesick now and then. She said she missed her Mother and her mother-tongue and that she could not talk to anyone, since no one understood her and vice versa she still did not understand what the people said to her - and that it was so depressing.
She asked me if it would be possible to fly back home and go on a vacation. Trying to explain to her that it was impossible at the moment to take the money out of the business failed.
I felt very sorry for her and yet I could only be nice and kind to her, other than that, I could not do anything. At the beginning, we did not have any day off, because I had this guesthouse.
Someone had to be there always for the guests, to serve breakfast and to let them in and out.
But because Chitra pestered, I decided to take a day off for us. I gave a door key to the house guests so they could go and in and out at any time without us.
The cleaning lady had a key anyway because she came so early. I also gave her the order to serve breakfast. On our day off we drove to Mosel and brought wine; or we went to Frankfurt for shopping or to Cologne to make a cruise on the Rhine.
My Dream to Be Free Page 12