My Dream to Be Free

by Juergen Stollin

  To date, she still suffers from the fall.

  But otherwise we had a comfortable life.

  The earthquake in Cairo

  It was on an October day - a beautiful day and a pleasant one at that, even Renate's mother was visiting us, which probably made the day even more enjoyable. At least for Renate and her mother!

  In the meantime, we had moved again and had a lovely apartment in the 12th. floor in a high-rise building.

  I had just come home for my lunch break come home and wanted to lie down for a while, when it began to rumble and clatter around all at once. Even before we could ask what it was, we realized what it was. At the same moment, there was a jolting under our feet and above our heads. It was everywhere and was increasingly violent, till the cups and plates flew out from the cabinet. Even as I screamed out the word ‘Earthquake’, I grabbed both the women and put them next to a supporting column of the ceiling, directly at our door's entrance. Renate tried to walk towards the balcony but I stopped from that.

  She probably wanted to see what was going on out there. It took only a few seconds but it seemed like hours to me. Rarely have I had felt such anxiety. I was not the only one afraid, the women admitted to me. After the shaking and the rumbling, there was a total silence.

  Not a bird chirped nor came any sounds of cars from the street. There was an absolute silence and emptiness in this city, which was always so noisy. Now, we went back to the room and had a look at the damages.

  Only the porcelain items that had slid out, had broken - the cabinet doors were still open. Looking from the balcony, we guessed that the earthquake must have caused a bigger damage.

  The whole part of town, which we could see from our 12th floor, had sunk into a cloud of dust. And now life came back to normal. It hit us with full force.

  There was a honking and sounds of sirens from fire trucks, the police, ambulances and I do not know what else! We were still terror-stricken; so I went and fetched the cognac bottle, we all had a swig of it. Our high-rise building had not got damaged except for a few cracks. Later I heard that some of the houses had collapsed and there was a complaint that some hundreds had died. The quake was one of the most intense one since many years. I remembered the time during my bus journeys. There had been an earthquake in Turkey behind Ezrum and the street had simply vanished before our eyes.

  A deep crater blocked our path and I had to take a big detour. The most important thing here in Cairo was that we did not suffer any damage.

  Renate’s mother visited us often. Then we rented a car and drove to the Sinai. I just could not let of the Sinai with my many friends there.

  When these friends came to Cairo to do anything, it was a matter of course that they stayed with us and so was it for us when we were in the Sinai. We never had any problems for staying overnight. Even my old Hilton director gave us complementary chalet, if we requested for it.

  We also had a good relationship with the colleagues from the four-star and five-star hotels in Cairo. Since they were exclusively Europeans, there was a cultured social interaction. There was a “Chefs’ Table", a brunch event, which mostly consisted of breakfast with champagne and late lunch every Sunday morning for about fifteen chefs from big hotels. Sometimes we also moved on to the Nile and we had our morning pint on a shopping on a felucca. It was also never boring for Renate because the cooks’ wives had a lot of time and they found an idea always to something to escape boredom.

  There were many possibilities to while away the time for anyone in and around Cairo. I can still remember a little story very well, about our friend Lisa from Sharm, Renate and I coming from Fayum, when we bought a live duck from a peasant woman, who was selling her wares at the roadside.

  You have to understand here that toe oasis of Fayum was well known for the fact that the best ducks came from there. So I bought this duck, but it was alive. Only nobody wanted to kill this bird, neither I, nor our girlfriend nor anyone else. But I knew that there was a chicken seller in Zamalek, who also had live cattle and who sold them ready for booking to his customers. So we took the duck to this dealer, who gave the duck back to us ready to cook, in fifteen minutes.

  In our apartment I set to work immediately in applying some spices on the duck and to season, and putting it into the oven. We were all so eager to have our duck but the bird was not fully cooked.

  So I took the poor bird from the oven and put it into a pot to cook it till it became soft. But even this didn’t have any success, because it was still in a single piece, that is, it was not done. I chopped the duckling and tried it with a frying pan.

  The only success was that our roast became smaller and smaller and I had the feeling that it became tougher and tougher till I finally gave up and served the pieces on the plate. When attempting to cut a bite-sized piece of meat from the bone, the bird actually still flew...from Lisa’s plate! I also tried my luck with a vigorous bite into the leg, but lost a tooth and also the patience with the bird. I discarded the complete bird into my trash can.

  I invited the two women to the hotel and we got our duck "a la Fayum” which was well done and very delicious. It fared well in spite of everything!

  I had not asked the saleswoman how many flight hours my duck had spent. It shows again that cooking is not a great mystery but the shopping is! Such small nuisances should be not so tragic. Stay cool always!

  I could not believe it, but I met Guldip Singh from New Delhi, a waiter in the restaurant The Cellar. How often I had eaten the very well-known Zisseling Steak there with Lilian the Englishwoman or Mimung. That was a fillet steak, which came in a hot iron pan, where it sizzled and hissed on the table. The Cellar had the best fillet steaks in the whole of India, mind you they were beef steaks! Now, Renate and I sat with this Guldip Singh from India at a table in in Harry’s bar in the Marriot Hotel and told one another stories from the earlier times and also exchanged news.

  Renate had never been to India and heard the almost unbelievable stories for the first time from a person, who knew me from there. Among other things, we heard the news that Nassem Janiv, the Israeli hashish smuggler, had been caught. I asked Singh for more details of this case, what he did.

  In 1981, Janiv was waiting for a bigger supply from his friend James Barret, who was due to arrive in Hamburg in a camper. It involved nearly 200 kg. On August 18, Barret and sometime later also Janiv were arrested. Singh did not know exactly for how many years Janiv had been imprisoned but the Indian newspapers wrote at the time that he could expect getting up to thirty years.

  The German authorities found out that he had a bank account in Germany as well as in Switzerland, to which millions of dollars were transferred.

  Well, he had certainly got an excellent lawyer and was definitely not in jail for a long time. Thus the "Lizard’s" career as a drug lord came to an end. Not that it was very important for me, but it was interesting. Renate was only amazed about the kind of people I had been dealing with long before her time. I did not willingly talk about matters from “those days”. I thought that it was better if she did not get to know too much. She would definitely misunderstand me, I thought. We said goodbye to Singh and made our way back home. Renate had now got to know a little about my past and wanted to know more but I blocked her off and put her off till later.

  The Flamenco Hotel had good contacts with some Embassies and as a result, they had a good contact with the result that they celebrated their festivities with us or we provided buffets to the Embassies.

  Since I was the contact person as the F&B Manager, I also received contacts and was invited to the celebrations in the embassy. There were always delicious drinks and good food. Also the contacts that you could establish there were always something special.

  The Party in the Embassy Garden

  This time I received an invitation from the German Embassy, which had invited us for the celebration of the German unification, which we already had three years ago.

  Since Lisa from Sharm El Sheikh stayed in
Cairo to do shopping, I invited her to come along. So I went with her and Renate to the Embassy. But since I had forgotten the invitation card, the security officials did not want to permit us in the premises. By chance I noticed the officer, who was responsible for the passport matters, who was just passing that way and had noticed the argument between me and the security official and he vouched for me. So we walked into the premises without me having to go back home to pick up the cards.

  Things really took off at the garden in the Embassy.

  There was a hot and cold buffet, which was meters in length, which the Sheraton Hotel had supplied and you could admire and enjoy the most delicious good, which were dishes in thermal isolation, the chafing dishes, which were from Germany, and which had all probably arrived by diplomatic courier. Added to this, there were the finest wines from very region in Germany. Of course the staff from Sheraton knew me and thus I didn't have any problem having the most delicious food served, while the other guests had to serve their food themselves at the buffet.

  Starting from ‘Kasseler' style meat with sauerkraut and mashed potatoes to roast pork with Thuringian dumplings, Leipzig mixed vegetables, meatloaf, there were still many more German delicacies.

  Not to be forget, there were wonderful desserts!

  From the red fruit jelly continuing with some puddings, red grits on some puddings, cake with crumble topping, pancakes made a la Minute up to real Black Forest cakes - nothing was spared!

  Some of the waiters with trays on their hands and individual wine glasses, ran around through the crowd and offered wine. I grabbed hold of a sommelier, gave him ten Egyptian Pounds and explained to him that it was easier to come to us with bottles. He replied that it was prohibited for waiters to bring the whole bottles, they were allowed to serve wine only in glasses. I replied that it was indeed fine for the other guests. But for us, he could nonetheless make special rules and that he would get another ten Pounds, before we left, I promised.

  Lo and behold, the most amazing German wine bottles came to us. Due to the lack of seats, we sat on the grass in the Embassy’s garden and not only had the best food but also wine in bottles. We had even so much of it that we could not drink everything on the spot but had to take six bottles along with us. 20 Egyptian pounds when converted were not even ten Deutschmark.

  But there were people, who didn't think on a day like that, where everything was free, to give a tip to a waiter.

  Well, they got only a few glasses of wine and they also had to wait for a long time for this.

  Especially on such days, when everything was free, I could surely give a small tip. For this, I also received special service.

  It was not the ignorance, but the greed. Since I was neither greedy nor hateful, I would never become rich - my father said that to me always - God rest his soul.

  I was also not a fanatic, so I also did not belong to any sports club and also or any political party. But I had a little devil on my shoulder or wherever he might be hiding at any time. This party at the Embassy also had stirred up something else.

  The reason was that the gentleman responsible for the passport services spoke to me again and told me to come to him in the next few days because there was new information regarding my matter with my son. A letter had been sent to me to my hotel.

  The very next day I visited the Embassy once again and they gave me a document, which I was to read very carefully, and to either sign it or not sign it.

  I signed the paternity waiver declaration!

  This was probably better for all persons concerned and that meant that I no longer needed to pay child support. The child now had a new father, who would take better care of him than I had ever done. I was a bit sad about this, yet due to all the strange circumstances, it was certainly better for the boy to have a real home. At least the boy was already eleven years old and had never seen his father, pardon progenitor. You can turn back the time in a clock but not time itself! I had to live with that and knew that there would be a day on which I would possibly not have any answer to questions.

  Next on my program was the annual holiday.

  My mother had asked me through a letter if I could organize it in such a way that I could come for my set up to the class reunion in Germany. Of course I wanted to meet my classmates and the girls in my class, whom I had promised a trip to Hawaii back then. Unfortunately I would have to admit to them that I myself had never been to any of these islands. I had been in America already several times but never in Hawaii!

  I was hoping that they would forgive me. Renate and I stayed with my mother and I could hardly wait to see which of my former school mates I would meet, who would by now fifty years old and in which condition they would be. In the morning at six o'clock, Renate and I took a taxi to the bus stop, which was agreed upon as the point of boarding. It was very strange to stand there and see people, who waited for a bus, but you were not sure if they were people known to you or if they were just people waiting for a bus.

  It became clear, when the bus came with the sign “Special Trip”.

  Renate and I got in as the last ones, so we had to pass the others and everyone had the chance to inspect us till the first person came to us. It was the lady who organized it and she called me by my name. From then on the ice was broken and I had trouble answering many questions all at once. I also had a lot of questions, for example, some were missing and I was told that they were dead.

  It turned out that all were married. The partners were not there because it was agreed in such a way. They had made an exception only for me because they are afraid that I wouldn't have come otherwise.

  So they had a chance to get to know Renate and Renate came to know my first love, who was now married woman with four adult children. I had to admit that she was the most interesting out of them all. All had packed lunches with them; only Renate and I did not, since we had assumed that we would stop at a restaurant to have breakfast. But the bus stopped right in the middle of nowhere in a forest with benches, probably an excursion place, which was well-known, since I also saw barbecue facilities. We did not go hungry because buttered bread and hot coffee was offered by everyone.

  The trip was to go to Moseltal for wine tasting. Sure enough, we arrived in a small town around noon. After this, we walked to a castle, were there was to be lunch and the wines.

  Like a Nepalese mountain goat, no, because of the size I had, I would rather say a yak or a decommissioned steam locomotive, which at least whistled and snorted, that is how it seemed to me. I was glad to have arrived at the restaurant. Again and again I had to talk about all the places I had been to and what had happened to my Ceylonese wife. I heard one of them say that my daughters were not doing so well. She also mentioned that my mother was overtaxed. They could not make the day any more emotional for Renate.

  Luckily the food arrived and all of them kept their mouths shut.

  Renate and I were the only ones who had ordered a whole bottle, while the other only ordered in individual glasses. And out of sheer frustration due to the bitchy women, I ordered another and we drank this till it was empty. Since each person ordered the food for themselves, we were also “different” in this while eating.

  Of course, legs of venison, red cabbage and Spätzle arrived for us to the table, while the others had Schnitzel with French fries and meatloaf with fried potatoes.

  I believe that if you take away a Schnitzel from a German, there would be war. I also noticed the lower-middle-class behavior. These people could not laugh and worked themselves up, when the food did not arrive immediately. They only drank one glass of wine at a class reunion, had their packed lunches and tried not to spend money. The class reunion was a reason for me to be happy and spend money for delicious food and wine.

  Most of the women had been to Austria or Italy just once and were otherwise always at home taking care of their spouses. I felt sorry for the four boys, who were already old sacks. They had the same type of wives, who were like the women with us on our t
rip. Now I understood why nobody was upset when there was an advertisement in the radio, which fooled the whole nation.

  In the taxi from the airport to Mother, I heard the following sentence on the radio: Here you (“sie”) will get help! I automatically corrected: Here you (“ihnen”) will get help! I said this to the perplexed driver too.

  He explained to me and said that this was currently the publicity gimmick. We Germans wanted foreigners to speak a somewhat distorted German. Many thought it was cute. But on the other hand many hated foreigners, just like everywhere, where foreigners are hated.

  I found it absolutely sickening that we allowed our language to be destroyed in such a pathetic manner. I had nothing against foreigners, because I was one myself - in my country as well as elsewhere. But I was be surprised about something else entirely different, during the course of my life.

  We walked down the hill, which was easier for me than going uphill and we went to our bus. There was a break for the evening meal during our trip back home. It was late and the lady who was running the restaurant had already waited for our bus company for two hours, and so had the warmed up Schnitzels with French fries.

  The Schnitzels were warmed up in the oven and was somewhat was been warmed up in the oven and looked like a rag, the salad was already wilted and just the French fries were fresh. But here was our class trip became quite fun-filled. We were only eighteen persons and one of the men or ladies had ordered a round of Jägermeister, which was the beginning. There were still a lot of rounds and thus gradually my village beauties thawed. The boys were also awake again and actually danced to the music, which was being played on a jukebox. The landlady looked very happy again and paid some dimes for the jukebox.