This had to have an end, I couldn't be just unlucky all the time. Again the question of what would come now. If I had brought the brochures for the flights along, I could have put them up here. There were certainly travel agencies that would enter into the business with me. Somehow I had the saying ringing in my ears: "When one door closes another opens." Behold, my rescue came and I found a travel agency, which found my idea with the travel to India, Nepal and Sri Lanka to be very good.
I explained that I had ready brochures in India, but they were available only in English, French and German but not in Dutch. "That is not a problem at all”, said the good man. "The Dutch speak almost all speak these languages, at least one of them."
I was told to get the brochures here quickly. But I could not reach Lilian because we did not have any telephone and she didn't respond to my telegrams. Then I just had to fly, the travel agency man told me.
I managed to make him sell a very cheap ticket to Delhi.
Mother had sent a little bit of money again to Holland. I got my one-way ticket and had 5$ in my pocket, when I finally sat in the plane.
The plane was not full, so I had a whole row of three sets for me alone.
I ordered a bottle of "Chivas Regel” Whisky and a bottle of water from the stewardess. That cost me $4.50. I wanted to give the stewardess 50 cents but she declined, saying that she was not allowed to accept tips. Thus I had 50 cents, then that was it!
Traveling with half a dollar to India
I do not know how many people are there with a one-way ticket and 50 US cents in the bag to India. It sounded very adventurous or should I say, very crazy.
I did not have any travelers’ checks or credit cards, but I had an apartment in India and thus a home.
I did not need to go to any hotel and I could take a taxi from the airport to Panscheel Enclave and pay for it at home. But then I had my doubts again. What had Lilian done during this time?
I had been now already over two months on the road. What would I have to lose? For normal thinking people, I was certainly already a candidate for a lunatic asylum. I did not think normally any more. But on the other hand: What is normal? Is the person normal, who does the same job every day? Who takes the same train at the same time? Who goes out every morning at the same time from home, who sits in the same pub always, who travels for the twentieth time to the same place for holidays? Who has sex with the same woman twice a month, if at all: is that all normal?
Then I did not want to be normal. Then I am just crazy and I like it.
Since I was alone and did not have any happy thoughts, I broke the seal of the "Chivas" and permitted myself a hearty gulp pure and straight from the bottle.
I did not even mix it with water. For the second gulp I did put it into a cup and drank it with water. Someone tapped my shoulder from behind just then and asked me if I always drank alone. I told him that I did that because I didn’t have anyone, who would drink with me. I invited him to come to the front, which the man did. We introduced ourselves and I ordered another cup and a coke for my new neighbor.
My new booze-buddy was Heinz and he was on the way to Thailand via India. I asked him if he had already been to India, and he said no.
This was my chance, because I had the feeling that somehow something wasn't right with my neighbor.
Heinz was older than me; I guessed he was about 55 and had snow-white hair combed back strictly, a thin moustache on his upper lip; he was very slim and what was special about him was that he had only one leg.
After a few drinks, Heinz became chatty and told me a story. People called him “Leg” and that he was on the run. He had been cheated by his buddies but he had the tables turned and so he had to emigrate. After another drink of the "Sabbelwasser", the so called whiskey of the sailors, Heinz told me very interesting things. His accomplices robbed a fur business in Düsseldorf and he had not wanted to participate in it, although he had arranged everything and was willing to keep watch. But the others were scared that he would not be fit enough with one leg. So they did not want to share the profits with him.
Since however Heinz had prepared the whole deal, he also knew the customer and had made a separate deal with him and it was quite simple: Heinz received the money to be distributed.
But Heinz did not distribute it, but he relocated to Holland and then took the next flight. This was even the one to Bangkok. Now he was sitting next to me and drinking my whisky! He was not afraid of the police but of his buddies, whom he had cheated. After all it was at least 60 000 DM and he could live in Bangkok for quite some time.
Now it was time for my entry and I told him that he would not be safe in Bangkok because his friends would find out that he had escaped to Thailand. They were probably already at the airport and making enquiries about him. But no one would buy a ticket for Bangkok and disembark in Delhi. And this is precisely what he should do.
I told him of Lilian and our apartment and that he could stay with us for some time. Nobody would find him there I said.
I had convinced him and he disembarked in Delhi with me. The flight attendants and also the customs and passport officials had not realized that he should continue to fly. As a German, you could get an Indian visa directly at the airport. However Heinz could not take along his suitcase, which was checked in for up to Thailand. But that was not too bad, since he had only some stuff in the suitcase, which he could buy here in India.
So the suitcase flew to Thailand. After arriving in Delhi, I convinced him that he should give me a few hundred German Marks, so that I could exchange it the currency for him.
Over and over again, tourists got cheated while exchanging currency since exchanging allegedly was allowed only in banks or authorized money exchanges.
But since you could get up to 50% more on the black market, there was a greater appeal to exchange on the street. But it is so dangerous that you could also get fake money.
Heinz had understood and I exchanged hundred German Mark to Indian Rupees. So that everything was easier, I kept the rupees. Heinz agreed to it.
We took a tourist taxi, which was significantly newer and better than the normal city taxis, and were driven to Panchsheel Enclave.
After reaching, I got the next surprise: there was another tenant in our apartment.
The house owner told me that Lilian had already moved a month ago and had flown back to England.
I have been many surprises in my life but I had not wanted to think this would happen, though I had a slight idea of it. But I had suppressed these thoughts. Heinz composed himself first and said that there were hotels.
We drove back to the Connaught Place and checked in at the Imperial Hotel, of course with Heinz’s money.
He realized very quickly that I was totally broke.
My brochures for the India - Nepal - Sri Lanka Travel, were also gone. I assumed that Lilian had not thrown them away.
I could imagine how angry she had been with me.
Later I got an enormously long letter in which she told me that she had the brochures in England and she herself would market the travel business, since she felt that I was not serious. She also wrote that I should not write to her any more. She was sick of me and I should go to hell.
There I stood again at zero, zero money, zero friendship, zero love and zero ideas. Well, how I could I make money again? But how was that with the door, that when one door closes, another one opens? The current door was Heinz, the “Leg”. As I now had got to know Heinz, he knew of a way of getting money. “Leg” was full of surprises and he had business cards that identified him both as geologist as well as expert in precious stones.
We visited the somewhat better jewelry shops in Delhi. Heinz quickly got into a business relationship with the owners.
It worked like this: Heinz sat there just casually as a specialist when tourists or – even what happened very often - Embassy staff or flight crews came to the shop, Heinz presented himself as an expert stone expert. Of course they trusted
the expert coming from their own country and bought the stones, which Heinz described as particularly lucrative".
Since “Leg” looked so helpless with one leg, had a very well-groomed appearance and had me as an aide, none of them had any idea that everything was only staged only. And every time, the customer bought many and really worthless stones.
The shop owner and “Leg” divided the profit coming from it. If anyone asked about “Leg’s” story, he was always the poor Ex-Officer who was so helpful during the war, who then went underground and fought against the Nazi regime, and had helped many Jews to escape from Germany, so to say before they got to the gas chambers or otherwise helped someone from irreversible death.
It was during such an action that he had lost his leg.
Heinz earned very well, which was also beneficial for me.
I had food, accommodation and therefore no worries. I was definitely world class when it came to pushing things to the back of my mind! What had happened to me? Basically, I was no better than the Indian beggar, who carried a borrowed baby in one arm and told people that his wife was dead and that there were some more hungry mouths to feed at home and that he had to carry the youngest one always since no one could take care of the baby, and that he also did not find a job since he had a crippled leg. The boy was really doing it well! His limping looked really genuine and you could see his plaster cast as well after all.
Many tourists gave him some rupees but I knew the guy already, who had his territory in Connaught Place for some years and the child had however not grown up in all these years. The trick was that he always borrowed a baby and renewed the plaster cast every week. Tourists did not want to see so much of misery and gave him some alms. They had also done their good deed for the day to calm their own souls.
Was I at the level of the Indian beggar and got my alms from “Leg”? At that moment, I had no better idea than to play the role of Heinz’s servant.
When it became too hot for “leg” in Delhi, since the first flight attendants and travel managers reported to the jewelers that they were deceived, we changed our residence to Nepal. I wanted to know why “Leg” cheated, since he had enough money, which he could of course invest. With his money, he could of course establish an honest business.
His life could not manage anything consistent any more, since he was always on the run, not only from his companions from the fur business, he had also got up to all kinds of other things that were no good, which were being processed by the public prosecutor’s office. Thus I would almost say that “Leg” was a criminal.
Did I have to put myself at the same level as him? Was I dependent on him or did I still have enough of my own backbone? “Leg” could not return back to Germany but I could at any time, if I wanted. So I was much better than him.
There were not so many jewelry shops In Kathmandu but he discovered the casino in Soaltim Oberoi Hotel.
From that day he gambled every night until the early hours of the morning and was almost always the last guest to leave the casino.
Heinz lost and won. I could not find out how much, any more. He had made me his clerk. My task was to note down the different figures and whether red or black came up. Also I had to record the odd and the even numbers on a form. So I made an analysis, statistics of how often there were receivables.
We then checked everything in our hotel room and Heinz said that it was very important for the further course of things. Till then I didn't know that “Leg” was also a professional player, that is, a miserable gambler!
How could this be a good thing? But I was more interested in the Reno girls.
There were very beautiful, tall Chinese women, who served the players drinks. Since I also sat at the roulette table but however only wrote the numbers in the preprinted slips of paper, I also got my whiskey. I got my salary from Heinz. Sometimes when he won especially a lot, I got an extra bonus.
Often I could persuade one of the Chinese women to spend a day with me together. Later we rented a room in another hotel. It had to be during the day, since they worked in the night.
Chinese women are not every imaginative with regard to lovemaking. The reason for this was their education or even the communist system. The Indian women are better in this in comparison. But I was not here to study the Chinese women's art of love.
And then what was inevitable happened: I was lying in my bed one day, when Heinz work me up roughly and he was very distraught. I was told to get up immediately, pack our suitcases and get a newer taxi. We had to leave Kathmandu immediately, yes even Nepal.
Of all days, I had left “Leg” along that day in the casino, since I had had my day off and had been traveling with the Chinese woman, whom I had later on spent the night with. She had just left a few minutes before Heinz came.
What had happened? Heinz had messed up things - he had gambled away everything!! It had already started a few days prior to this that he was very anxious and nervous. He had played, overplayed and had lost, played with higher stakes again to recover what he had lost. And in so doing, the following happened: there had been a zero four times in succession and Heinz was thrown off the table. Almost all of the 60,000 German Mark thus landed little by little into the vault of the Hong Kong Casino Ltd.
Heinz also had another business in vavolites, which was also called Jack. These are fake diamonds. He had given these diamonds to the casino management as a deposit for the 10,000 dollars borrowed in cash in exchange.
Heinz said that if the Chinese went the next morning to a jewelry shop to find out about the authenticity of the diamonds, they would realize that the objects were not worth anything. They would then definitely kill him. So we had to get out of Nepal, and that too, as quickly as possible.
I found a somewhat newer taxi and explained to the driver that we wanted to drive to Pokhara, not directly to the border, because this would have made the driver nervous. But even so he was happy about a nice ride. In Pokhara we changed to another taxi and we drove up to the Indian border. We changed there again and we took the train from the next bigger city and made our way through to Bombay.
Only here “Leg” calmed down again. I knew that he had 10,000 dollars and some more money from the fur business. We did not have to go hungry. Somehow I didn't like the whole matter.
I did not want to be on the run all the time from the Chinese. But “Leg” calmed me. He was the one who had to have a restless sleep because they would hang him.
It would be easy to find him because there were certainly not too many Europeans with just one leg. We held a War Council and I realized that Leg was really a crafty devil.
We settled down at the Hotel President. I had stayed there a few times before. The first thing we did was to look for a money exchanger, where we exchanged a few hundred dollar notes into one dollar notes. The money exchanger was glad because the many small notes were difficult to smuggle out of the country. But we needed the small notes for our purposes.
Back in the hotel, we made a stack of the one dollar notes and packed a hundred dollar note above and below respectively. So the bundle looked like they were all hundred dollar notes.
We made the room service to bring us a tray and put the bundles on it and went to the reception, to put the money in a customer safety deposit box. We were sure that everyone at the front desk had seen the money on the tray. With that action, we became first of all relaxed with regard to hotel bills. Heinz always exchanged his money from the same illegal money exchangers.
Even if we did not need any rupees, Heinz exchanged Dollars to Rupees, and then also sometimes Rupees to Dollars. He said that the frequent exchanges had the appearance of a business and this would in turn instill confidence.
Of course “Leg” found a jeweler also here at Nariman Point in a big hotel.
He just couldn't stop, he had to cheat people.
Our money exchanger was really a big man in his industry. His business was with industrialists, people from the film industry. Even high-level po
liticians were his customers.
It was a lot of money, which was moved back and forth, of course all black money and the State did not get its part from it.
It was an absolutely prohibited game with money. But on the other hand, it was very lucrative because there was a difference of up to 50% on the black market. A tourist had to pay for his hotel or also for a flight ticket or other expenses, for example to buy a carpet or objects of art.
Our money exchanger visited me in my hotel and we drove in his Ambassador, a real Indian car, to Taj Hotel. There we had a delicious dinner and he came out with his request. He asked if I didn’t want to earn thousand dollars. And if I wanted to!
I asked what I had to do for that. I was told that there was no risk for me to fear I was told. I was curious to see what this business could be, which did not have any risks. The money exchanger spoke to me now somewhat more softly because he did not want the waiter or someone else to hear what he was saying.
I had to make a trip to the United States. But without drugs or such things. It dawned on me. Of course, he was a money changer. And then he came up with his offer.
First I should get a visa for America, which of course would not be a problem for a German. For Indians however, it was almost impossible.
I completed that and got a B-1 indefinite multiple entry visa. The first step was made.
Next I got a ticket for a flight to New York. In addition, there were dollars in cash for hotel stay for two days and a return ticket to Bombay as well as pocket money for taxi and food, a total of 1000 dollars. I would get my thousand dollars after I returned from America.
The task was quite clear: It was all about money, quite a lot of money. I had to give a check for an amount of eight million Indian Rupees at the Irvin Trust Bank, and come with the acknowledgment immediately back to Bombay. That was all.
The only risk was that if they found the check on me here in India, this would certainly guarantee me a stay in India up to my end of life. Otherwise I had nothing to fear.
My Dream to Be Free Page 31