Bear stopped at a rickety shack, kicked the side stand, swung himself out of the saddle, and without a word went inside.
Arthur, not really sure what he was supposed to do, followed him. A dark-skinned Indian in a grimy undershirt was standing behind a wooden counter goggling at them in amazement. He continued to chew his betel nut, faintly reminding Arthur of a cow. Bear slumped at a small plastic table and Arthur did the same.
“What’s gotten into him?” Arthur asked Bear.
Bear took his hat off and put in on the table in front of him. “This is probably the first time a Westerner has come into his hut. We’re in the boondocks; there are no tourists here. “Hey!” he called out, “get us two chai, ok?”
The stall owner took two tin cups, placed them on the ground, and with his outstretched arm began to pour spiced Indian tea into them in a perfect arc. Not a drop was spilled. Arthur was hugely impressed by the performance. In the meantime the first villagers had gathered in the doorframe to have a good gawk at the two world-wonders sitting at the wobbly table. The two cups were placed in front of them without a word.
Nostrils quivering, Arthur sniffed the unfamiliar drink. “What’s this?” he asked Bear.
“It’s spiced tea with milk. Drink it or leave it,” Bear grumbled as he noisily slurped his tea.
“Can I have some sweetener?” Arthur called to the stall owner who looked back at him blankly. He turned to Bear. “D’you think the water has been boiled? And what about the milk, is it pasteurised? You know, you do hear these stories about India.”
Bear rolled his eyes. “Jesus! It has been boiled, yes. You’ll survive.”
With puckered lips, Arthur took a tiny sip. It didn’t taste as bad as he’d expected. No, not bad, just different.
“Mmm... yes, it’s all right, quite drinkable.” Arthur turned back to the stall owner. “Not too bad, but I’ll have a Latte Macchiato after this.”
Bear groaned. “Are you nuts? You can forget about that. You’re lucky if they understand English.”
Arthur slapped his forehead and laughed. “Of course, I’m such an idiot! Everything’s a bit more basic around here, right? I get it... hey landlord! Forget about the Latte, I’ll just take an Espresso!” He winked at Bear suavely. “That’s better, no?”
“You haven’t been abroad much, have you?”
“How can you tell?” Arthur asked in honest surprise.
“Just a guess... now look. Let’s get one thing absolutely clear,” said Bear, slurping his tea and ignoring completely the growing number of curious, gawking Indians. “I know my ways around these parts, you don’t, okay? So if we want to have a pleasant tour together, you listen to uncle Bear, is that clear?”
Arthur nodded, although the mob of Indian villagers was starting to get to him.
“I’ve been thinking about your idea” Bear continued, “and I don’t think it’s so bad after all. But—if I am going to get us to the spot where I once met the Golden Biker, I’m the boss. And you do as you’re told... is that understood?”
Arthur bent forward and whispered “Do they all have to gawp at us? It’s like we’re in a spotlight, or something.”
“You’ll get used to it. In India curiosity is not embarrassing. If they see something strange, they gawp. Did you understand what I‘ve just told you?”
“Yes, all right, whatever you say.” Arthur tried to stare back at the mob, which evoked some laughter, but made them all even more curious. Eventually he gave up, accepting the fate of them being a declared miracle of nature, and turned back to Bear. “But let’s not forget that it was my idea to buy the ‘Golden Biker’ and then flog it back in Germany. So we’re not boss and lackey here, but partners. You get us to the Golden Biker, I sell the stuff in Europe and we split seventy-forty.”
“You mean seventy-thirty” Bear corrected him.
Arthur gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder. “Deal! That’s very generous of you.”
Somehow Bear could not help feeling he had just been had. But Arthur gave him no time to ponder.
“So why is your name ‘Bear’?”
“It’s not Bear, actually. It’s Albert.”
“Aha. So why Bear then?”
“Short for ‘Al-Bear-t’. Got it at school... never could get rid of it.”
“I see.” Arthur stirred his tea, thinking. Bear remained silent. Clearly he had said all there was to say on the subject. The numerous Indians, gathered around the table, remained silent as well. There was only the sound made by Arthur’s clanking spoon in his cup. A small child was pushed to the front of the crowd to get a better view. Arthur felt as if he was in a theatre play but nobody had given him any stage directions. Desperately he searched for an elegant way to resume the stalled conversation, just to end the unbearable silence—but he couldn’t think of anything. Bear cleared his throat—and immediately forty pairs of eyes looked at him expectantly. But nothing followed.
At long last Arthur thought of something to say: “Your Goan friends, do you think they’re on your tail?”
“You bet they are. And not only on my tail... partner.”
Arthur looked at him perturbed: “What do you mean? Me? What have I got to do with it?”
Bear gave him a broad smile. “Well, whose bike is it that you’re running around on, eh?”
“Ahh...”
“We’ll have to swop your bike in Bombay, anyway.”
“How come? It works just fine. It’s an excellent motorcycle—it’s just, not mine...”
Bear shook his head contemptuously. “It’s a brand new Yamaha. I’m not riding around next to a guy on a Yamaha, it’s too embarrassing.”
“And what would your highness recommend I should drive?”
“Some sled like the one I’m riding. An Enfield. God’s gift to Indian road traffic.”
Arthur gave Bear a puzzled look. “You can’t possibly mean some antique oil dripper like the one that’s been rattling along beside me?”
Bear sighed. “You know Arthur, there are people like me for whom maintaining a certain style is important. The Enfield means style and class on wheels. The Yamaha is just a fast and simple means of transportation. At best they built passable synthesisers. And then there is people like you, for whom ‘class’ means going to school!”
Arthur looked a bit miffed. He could not let this pass. “All right then,” he grumbled, “inundate me with your knowledge. What is sooo special about that ugly old clunker?”
Bear took a deep breath. He had recited the following words over a hundred times. Be it sitting down, standing or walking he never got tired singing a hymn of praise to the epitome of Indian motor vehicles.
(We interrupt the book at this point for a thinly disguised plug. But we also attest that we are neither getting any payment nor other benefits for doing this. Thank you very much.)
“For the aficionado, there is only one motorbike in India: the Royal Enfield Bullet. Originally, Royal Enfield was an English company and the Bullet was built under license in Madras. But then the parent company in England went under. The factory in Madras bought up all the existing spare parts from England and just went on producing right up to this very day. Therefore the motorbikes that are being built there all look as if they come fresh out of the fifties. Naturally, there are some idiosyncrasies. For example, in contrast to every other bike, the brake and the gearshift are inverted, which makes many experienced bikers, riding it for the first time, run into a ditch. If you know how to handle it though, it will return the favour with unmatched driving fun and a few near death experiences in Indian traffic.
On top of that, Enfield is the only diesel motorbike in the world... if you’re interested.
Sophisticated upper-class Indians turn up their noses at the sight of an Enfield and rather get on a Yamaha or something similar. B
ecause the Enfield is for the common man, it’s the people’s bike. Yes, it’s temperamental—it’s been called ‘The Indian Patient’—but for all its flaws, for the enthusiast here or overseas, it has to be the Enfield Bullet.”
Arthur listened to Bear’s monologue as he sipped his tea. There was a long pause, which he correctly interpreted as the end of Bear’s deliberations.
“Okaaaay” Arthur put the tea down carefully, “I’ll just have to change the Yamaha for an Enfield then, won’t I?”
“Good boy! For the Yamaha we will not only get an Enfield but something more on top.” He stood up, making eye contact with the owner above the crowd. “Hey, master of the counter!
Two more chai!”
The order was instantly discussed by each and everyone of the attending Indians and since most of them wanted to assist the owner, it took quite a while before the aromatic-smelling beverages finally stood before them.
“Tell me” Arthur asked blowing his steaming, spiced tea, “how did you get to meet the Golden Biker back then?”
Bear’s gaze wandered dreamily into the distance—or rather, for lack of distance, into the fat belly of one of their besiegers.
“It happened a long time ago” he began. “I had just arrived in India... that was about...”
1991
Everything had come to an end, apprenticeship quit, school finished, no more silly jokes and rhymes from his classmates about his name:
“The Bear and the hare had an affair
You have too much hair said the hare to Bear
The Bear in despair shaved off all his hair!”
He had successfully avoided a career at the local bakery, had outsmarted the recruiting methods of the German army and had used his savings to abscond to Delhi. Not that he had any specific plans, but it was very clear that could not come back for quite a while. He soon realised that his meagre savings meant quite a fortune in India. His first major acquisition was a motorbike, an Enfield Bullet, diesel powered, with which he rattled through the streets of Delhi.
In a backpacker hotel, he met Suya Starchild, a rather spaced-out esoteric chick, whose real name was Mechtild. She came from Struempfelbach in Swabia and she was a dedicated tree-hugger. She was heading for the Himalayas because there she would be even closer to the ‘she-moon’ when she started her next period.
“The what?” had been Bear’s response, not totally unjustified. He was elucidated in so far as to the moon being only male in the German language. In all others, the moon is female, which of course is much more appropriate. “But what about in English? ‘The moon’—it’s neither, right?” Bear insisted but had only been thrown a pathetic glance. He made a mental note only to refer to the sun as ‘Him’ in the future, because it was male in all other languages and he decided to ignore her mystic drivel and instead concentrate on the really impressive pair of boobs she was carrying about.
It was the boobs in the end, more then her trying to persuade him, that made him take her with him on his journey to North India. He drove, she sat pillion, her arms around his belly.
After a few days, during which he had unsuccessfully tried to get his hands on her breasts (and further down), they finally reached the mountains. Negotiating hairpin curves they drove higher and higher until they became dizzy from the thin air. They eventually stopped at a little mountain lake.
Bear took a deep breath of ice-cold air. “What fine weather to get laid!” he boomed, glancing over to Suya. (Tactfulness was not one of his strongest points.)
Suya turned towards the lake. “It’s freezing cold, and your constant randiness has gotten to your brain. You have to learn how to overcome the mere physical. Did you know that with every ejaculation you waste loads of pure vital energy?”
“Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it waste... Suggestion: we take off our clothes, go and have a swim or something, and then see what happens, okay?” Bear thought himself to be very cunning. To make a start, he stripped, threw his clothes on top of the bike and waded stark naked into the lake. Damn it, she had been right, it really was freezing cold. Suya copped a dismissive look at his loin region. “Didn’t think it would be thaaat cold” she sneered.
“Well, you can warm me up” Bear parried, as salaciously as he could. “Hey, how about you get undressed as well?”
Instead Suya sat down at the shore, lotus fashion, fully dressed, and closed her eyes.
Bear waded out from the lake and sat down next to her. He was freezing cold. He cuddled up to her, but she pulled away. “Just do as I do” Suya whispered. “If you meditate over it, over what coldness really is, then it cannot harm you.”
Bear rolled his eyes. “Jesus, it’s just fucking cold, that’s all. Can’t we just have a little bit of fun, like other people? Does it always have to end with a philosophy about life?”
Suya did not move. “You are so immature. Immature, stupid and subjugated by your ephemeral body. Can’t you feel the power of the ancient mountains?”
Now Bear was pissed off. He jumped up in anger.
“Fuck this esoteric bullshit—you just want to distract yourself from the fact that you’re really just a frustrated cow. ‘Subjugated by the ephemeral body’? You’re so full of shit. Look, I’m going for a swim with my ‘ephemeral body’. It’s freezing cold but afterwards I’ll feel better. Maybe by then you’ll have meditated yourself warm. And then you can meditate on how you’re going to continue this trip. Because it’s not with me, that’s for sure, you stupid bitch!”
Without waiting for a response, he turned and made a running splash into the water. Which turned out to be not such a good idea. The coldness immediately took his breath away and burned his skin like a thousand fiery needles. But, because he knew that she was watching him, he tried to not let it show. Swimming hard he front-crawled to the middle of the lake. He turned and looked back to the shore, wheezing.
Suya... was gone... disappeared... completely... with his motorbike... and his clothes!
In a complete panic he did the crawl back to shore, shouting volleys of oaths every time his head came up for air. As soon as he touched firm ground again he ran up the shore, back to the road, hoping that the absence of his bike was an illusion that would dissolve when he got closer. But when he reached the mountain road, soaking wet, mother-naked as the day he was born, shivering in the ice-cold wind, he knew he had a problem. Suya had definitely nabbed his motorbike. And his clothes, and his passport too, the cunt, just to make sure he couldn’t follow her. And unless anybody came by really soon, he would be deep-frozen food.
He followed the road for a few hundred yards as it snaked its way down into the valley in wide curves, but he could not make out any vehicles. No help could be expected for the next half hour from that direction. There remained the opposite direction but it was not visible. Quivering, Bear sat on a stone and tried to raise his hopes. Surely someone would arrive soon with a blanket... absolutely... with a thermos filled with steaming hot tea... in an overheated vehicle...
His whole body was shivering uncontrollably and in desperation he actually tried to meditate over the coldness, just the way Suya had told him.
He sat down cross-legged (at the time he lacked the flexibility for the lotus position), closed his eyes and tried to ignore the rocks that were piercing his backside.
...Now, I have to empty my thoughts, I am thinking of nothing... Absolutely nothing... Wait a minute, that’s already a thought. Damn. If I’m thinking that I’m thinking about nothing, then I’m thinking... Fuck, it’s cold. But what is ‘cold’? Stupid question, go sit outside at freezing temperature, buck naked and soaking wet, then you know what cold is. Oh man, I am so co-o-o-old... I’m freezing my balls off. Wouldn’t it be nice now if a car came by...?
... with a king sized bathtub inside…
... and a portable open fire…
.
.. somehow it doesn’t feel so cold anymore...
... oh, what a nice green meadow, I hadn’t noticed that before...
... and look there, a flock of sheep with their thick wool, lovely pink sheep…
... with wings...
... and... a golden knight...
“Smoke this!” a voice urged through his foggy consciousness, and he sensed someone pushing an object between his frozen lips. He drew in—and in a single moment he felt as if the sun had risen inside his body with all its hot and glorious rays.
“I feel it, the sun—I mean, ‘Him’!” Bear babbled, overjoyed. He opened his eyes as wide as possible. He could vaguely make out a figure, gleaming golden from head to toe. It was bending over him. He was still lying in the ditch but the coldness was already vanishing from his body. “Who... who are you?”
“I am the Golden Biker. The alpha and the omega...”
Bear slipped into a blissful dream world again, just in time to be spared the rest of the speech the Golden Biker had prepared for such occasions.
Two days later he awoke inside a Buddhist monastery, where a clean-shaven monk informed him that he had been found in front of the gate, smiling blissfully, with a half smoked golden joint still between his lips. His saviour had been none other then the Golden Biker.
“And who would that be?”
The monk gave a profound smile. “The Golden Biker has lived here for centuries, cruising through the valleys on his golden motorcycle. He punishes the evil and saves the righteous!”
“He’s alive? And cruising through these parts for centuries?”
“That is so” the monk nodded.
“On a golden motorcycle?” Bear probed.
“That is so” the monk nodded again.
“You mean, he was riding a motorbike even before motorbikes were invented?”
The monk’s expression darkened. “By God, maybe he was riding a golden horse before that, do not be so petty-minded!” He got up quickly, looked down at Bear again, let out a scornful huff: “Foreigners...” and left.
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