Nobody Can Stop Don Carlo

by Oliver Scherz

  Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  “How do I get from here to Palermo?” I ask.

  The woman at the ticket desk in the station types something into her computer. I shuffle my money-roll from one hand to the other.

  “Your next chance would be the 14:29 train to Munich on Platform 3. Then change to the night train to Rome. It arrives there tomorrow morning at 09:25. The connection to Palermo leaves an hour later. Arrival in Palermo Sunday evening twenty-three hundred hours,” says the woman at the window.

  It only gets to Palermo on Sunday night! How could it take so long? I’d never be back here in time for breakfast on Monday!

  “Is there any quicker way?” I ask.

  “No, do you want a sleeping car or couchette from Munich to Rome?”

  I can’t decide. I’m still thinking about Sunday night and twenty-three hundred hours. The woman taps her fingers on the counter.

  “Sleeping car or couchette?” she asks again. I’ve no clue; but it’s a bit hard to sleep on the couch at home sometimes.

  “Sleeping car,” I say.

  “That’ll be €278.95.”

  €278?! I’ve got €210 in my fat money-roll. I emptied out my whole money-box. I thought, half of it would be enough for the train to Palermo! Maximum.

  “Would it be a bit cheaper if I don’t lie down anywhere and just sit in the passageway?” I ask.

  The woman pushes her glasses up onto the top of her head and gives me a funny look.

  “How old are you anyhow?” she asks.

  “Eleven,” I say.

  I should have said thirteen! Everybody thinks I look at least thirteen anyway. Especially in my suit, the one I’m wearing now. It’s really class, with a white shirt and a tie. I look like an Italian Don in my suit. Don Carlo, the Gangster-Boss and nobody and nothing is going to get in his way. My suit used to belong to Papa. He wore it on special occasions when he was a boy. Now it’s mine. And this is my special occasion. I’m going to bring Papa back home.

  “Where are your parents?” asks the lady behind the ticket desk.

  “Papa’s in Palermo and Mama works in the Old People’s Home.”

  “And your Mama and Papa are okay with you going on such a long journey on your own?”

  “I can’t tell Mama about it or it would all go wrong.” The words just burst out of my mouth.

  Whenever I ask Mama when we can visit Papa, she just lists out all his faults and gets as angry as if he were still around. I told her that I was going to stay the night with my classmate Martin and spend all tomorrow with him.

  The woman isn’t smiling any more. “I’m very sorry, I can’t sell you a ticket if your mother or father aren’t with you.” Then she stops for a moment. “Tell me… did you run away from home, lad?”

  I started to sweat. “Nope. I just want to go to my Papa. That‘s home too.”

  Why doesn’t the woman behind the counter just tell me if I can get to Palermo any cheaper. Somehow everything is going wrong.

  “Would you wait a moment, please.” The woman goes over to talk to the ticket seller at another desk. They talk quietly, looking over at me. They’re very serious. They’re against me, that much is clear.

  Then the woman comes back. “I’d like to give your mother a call, okay. Can you tell me her phone number?”

  I pick up my case and turn around.

  Then I run out of the ticket hall, past two security men. They’re all against me, for sure. I run even quicker. Straight to Platform 3, up the steps and along the platform, right to the end. At the end of the platform I hide behind the chocolate vending machine; it’s the only quiet spot.

  Everything is all mixed up in my head. The woman behind the counter, Mama, Sunday night, €278. My plan was much simpler. I just wanted to sit in the train and go. I had the envelope with Papa’s address and the picture of his balcony. And I know the map of Italy off by heart. Italy looks like a boot on the map and Sicily looks like a football just in front of its toe. I know exactly where I am going.

  For the last five months I’ve wanted to go to Palermo, for the last five months and six days. Since Papa left because Mama threw him out, in the middle of the night. Now Papa’s things are in boxes down in the cellar. At first, I kept bringing them back up.

  “No way, Carlo, you can’t do that!” Mama said.

  “When’s Papa coming back?” I asked.

  Mama just stared at the ceiling looking for an answer. But there are no good answers on the ceiling.

  I’m still waiting, always waiting, in school, in bed, at mealtimes. I just can’t shake off the words waiting and Papa. But Mama won’t go there and Papa won’t come here. So, I’ve got to try it on my own and surprise Papa. But I can’t get to him without a train ticket.

  “When you want something, Carlo, you have to persevere. Then you can do anything. You just need to really want it. Just do it! And don’t think so much!” That’s what Papa said to me once on the ten metre diving board. And then he took off – did a cannonball – hitting the water with the biggest splash ever. I’ve got a photo of him, mid-jump. His gold chain was flying through the air behind him and his sunglasses were perched on his head, like always.

  When the Intercity Express comes into the station, I take my case. I can hear Papa’s deep laugh as he opens the door in Palermo and finds me there. “You’ve come here, all the way from Bochum, all on your own! You’re something else, Carlo! You’re just like me.”

  I switch off my head, just like I did on that diving-board. That time I had jumped too, without thinking. Then I see the train like in a haze, as if I were looking through Mama’s glasses. Better to look around in a haze rather than see any conductor. Decision made! I’m going without a ticket.

  I look down at the ground as I’m getting into the train. Then I walk along the corridor, from one carriage to the next, as far as the restaurant car. As I sit down at a table the train is already pulling out of the station. There’s no going back now.

  Suddenly our apartment block goes by. I can see my Italian flag fluttering on our balcony. The balcony looks down on the railway. That’s where I used to see the Intercity Express trains; it’s where I cooked up my plan. Now I’m looking up at the balcony from the train and… tomorrow evening I will be in Palermo. I had really wanted to be back in Bochum by then and have Papa with me. I wanted to take his stuff out of the cellar, all before Mama gets back from her night shift.

  A man gives me a funny look, as if he knows that I don’t have a ticket. I turn around because I am sweating so much. Right now, I would like to disappear.

  There’s a dog lying between my feet. He belongs to the woman behind me and has crawled through under the seat. I bend down to him and disappear under the table. The dog is chewing on an old train ticket. He looks up at me lovingly. I like dogs. They don’t care whether I have a ticket or not, or that I’m fat. For them the most important thing is getting something to eat. And dogs always think that I have something for them to eat. I pull a slice of pizza out of my pocket. The dog wags his tail and I feel better immediately.

  “Tickets please!”

  I jump and bang the back of my head on the table. That’s a bummer, I feel sick. I never thought the guard would come into the restaurant-car!

  I keep my head under the table and look vaguely at the guard’s shoes and at the clicker hanging from his belt.

  “Help me, doggie,” I whisper.

  But the dog just swallows the slice of pizza and goes back to chewing the old train ticket. The guard has already finished with the man opposite. “Good day,“ he calls down to me. “Your ticket please!”

  I wriggle out from under the table and stand in front of t
he guard. My tie is hanging crookedly and the lovely shirt is stuck to my round mozzarella-belly. I’ve sweated so much that it’s nearly see-through around the belly button. If the guard sends me back, the station security men will bring me home to Mama. Then I’ll never, ever get to Papa!

  “Young man, your ticket!”

  “The dog’s eaten it,” I say suddenly.

  Or did I really say that? The guard bends over as if he hadn’t understood me properly.

  “The dog’s eaten it. I can’t help it,” I repeat pointing under the table.

  The guard slowly gets down on his hunkers. And I look down with him. There are only a few soggy bits of ticket on the ground and a couple of scraps hang from the corners of the dog’s mouth.

  “Impossible…” says the guard.

  The woman behind me turns around and pulls the dog back by the lead

  “What’ve you done, Rudi?!” she asks.

  “He’s eaten the lad’s ticket,” says the guard starting to laugh.

  Now all the other passengers turn around. The woman gives Rudi a slap on the back and pulls a couple of scraps out of his mouth. But nothing can be saved. The whole restaurant car is laughing now, everyone except me and the woman.

  “Okay, the dog has already stamped the ticket for me,” says the guard and goes on his way, still laughing.

  But the woman can’t calm down. She gives out yards to Rudi and wants me to choose something off the menu. It’s her treat. My mouth is dry and my tummy is in knots. I couldn’t swallow a thing. All the same I order a thick slice of chocolate cake and a hot chocolate, just so that the woman will leave me in peace.

  Eventually everyone stops looking at me, I hang my suit jacket on one of the hooks beside the window to air it. Then I dry out until my belly-button isn’t showing through my shirt any more. Outside fields and trees race by. This is like flying, I think. I’m flying from Bochum to Palermo. All I need to do is sit there and let everything fly past me.

  I think of Pietro. On my way to the station I went by his pizzeria. Pietro was setting tables out on the path and asked me where I was going. I really hadn’t wanted to tell anyone. But Pietro is my second Papa and I’m his fourth son, along with the three real ones, or so he always tells me. Besides he often helps me with homework or we play cards when the pizzeria is closed in the afternoons.

  “Palermo!” he shouted, absolutely delighted. “You see! I knew it! Always! Mama’s going with you to see your Papa!”

  “Nope. I’m going on my own. Mama still doesn’t want to. She doesn’t know a thing about it,” I said.

  Pietro looked my suit up and down. My tie was knotted around my neck like a bootlace because that’s the only way I can do it. With a couple of moves he had knotted it properly. Now it hung down like a flattened snake.

  “You can’t even knot your tie properly but you want to travel alone the length of Europe, and not a word to your Mama?!” he said in Italian-German. “Carlo, you are an absolute rascal! I know how sad you are. And I hope that your Mama and Papa will see sense so that you all get back together again. But really you can’t be serious, go on home. Watch a film or play some football. The world is how he is and you cannot change it. I’m twenty years in this restaurant and I must work. I never see the sea even though I want to. The world is how he is!”

  “But I can’t wait any longer,” I said.

  “When you finish waiting, what you want just come, all by itself.”

  “You could come with me. Then you’d see the sea at last,” I said.

  Pietro laughed even louder than Papa when he heard that.

  “I have the sea in a photo behind the bar,” he called running to the table. “So, come over here tomorrow. We play a game of cards and talk about everything.”

  Then, for a joke, he put two slices of pizza into my suit pocket, for the journey home.

  Really it would have been much better if Pietro had liked my plan. I really like Pietro but I find it strange that the sea in the photo is enough for him.

  The waiter brings the chocolate cake and I get my appetite back, slowly. But when my appetite comes back all’s right with the world.

  I loosen my tie and try a piece of the cake. It tastes better than all Mama’s cakes put together.

  I stay in the restaurant car until we get to Munich. Whenever the guard goes by he laughs.

  “Your ticket please,” he growls at me every time. And when a new guard comes, the waiter tells him the story of the dog and the ticket and he lets me stay sitting there.

  The dog-lady has left long ago. She dragged Rudi behind her out of the restaurant car. Rudi slid backwards, to see me longer. Sorry Rudi, I thought. And thank you. Rudi wagged his tail at me and barked goodbye.

  Me and dogs, we get on well.

  I get off the train in Munich. The station is enormous. There are six InterCity Express trains lined up in a row and there are a lot more snack stalls than in Bochum.

  Outside the sun is already going down. I know everyone who works on the little sausage stall in the station in Bochum. I go to a brezel stall and buy myself a crisp twisted brezel roll. The brezel-woman speaks differently from the sausage-woman in Bochum. “Take care m’dear,” she says when I’m going, not, “See ya”. I think I hear something in English coming over the loudspeakers. I don’t understand anything here.

  Standing under the noticeboard to eat the brezel, I notice there’s a train going to Bochum. Pietro would put me on that train straightaway. Because the world is how it is. I think about it; I could get on and go back to Bochum, get into my own bed, go and play cards and eat pizza tomorrow with Pietro. I could hang Papa’s balcony photo on the wall like Pietro’s sea. I could take down the Italian flag from the balcony, put it away in the cellar with Papa’s stuff and stop dreaming about Italy.

  “When you stop this always waiting, whatever you wait for just come, all by itself,” Pietro said. But I don’t believe him. Mama will never come with me to Palermo. Pietro’s sea will never come to Bochum. Never, no matter how long he waits. But now I know what I’m going to do. I will dip a bottle into the sea, fill it with sea water and bring it to Pietro as a souvenir.

  Suddenly the noticeboard shows the night train to Rome, right down at the bottom. I start to sweat again. 21:03 hours, Platform 12, it says.

  I buy myself some pumpkin seeds at a kiosk. I always chew pumpkin seeds when I’m nervous. Then I head towards Platform 12. I sit down on my case on the platform, chewing pumpkin seeds and I look at the photo of Papa’s balcony. Papa drew himself with a biro in the middle of his balcony.

  “Do you know why we’re both so fat?” he asked me the last time he phoned.

  “Because of pumpkin seeds,” I answered.

  “Nonsense. It’s so that we can see each other when we wave from our balconies.”

  I thought that was funny. But Papa’s balcony is in Italy and mine is in Bochum. Papa often says things that sound good, but don’t really mean what the words say.

  Mama runs through my head. When she comes to wake me on Monday morning, I’ll be sitting beside Papa on the balcony. She’ll get an awful fright because I’m not in my bed. She’ll phone Martin’s mother, and then the police.

  Then Papa is in my ear again. “Don’t think so much, Carlo. Just do it!”

  Papa gets by everywhere. Once he was gone for three days in Bochum. Mama didn’t know where he was. That wasn’t anything out of the ordinary but what made it so bad was that it was my birthday.

  “He even forgets your birthday. He FORGOT YOUR BIRTHDAY!” Mama was even angrier than I was.

  “You forgot my birthday,” I said to him the next evening when he suddenly turned up again.

  “Your birthday?! Carlo!! Dio mio! Your birthday!!” he shouted. “Forgot your birthday? Carlo, what do you think? I just postponed it! To today!”

  He hugged me tight, fat on fat. He was really strong, just like a bear, squeezing the air out of me. Then he let out a great laugh, that warms my tummy. Papa’s laugh
can wash everything away and you can’t stay angry at him.

  “Have you got the tickets for the game?” I asked.

  “Tickets for the game! Yes, sure! We just need to pick up the tickets. Let’s hit the road straightaway.”

  “Or is it too late for the game now?”

  “It’s never too late for anything!” he cried.

  Then we rattled off to the stadium on the moped.

  The sky was full of floodlights and there was loud cheering and drums beating in the stadium.

  At the ticket-desk Papa got really excited. “They won’t stump up any tickets for us.”

  “But you said, we just have to pick them up!” I cried.

  “That’s true. Now we’ll look for Luca. He’s our ticket,” he said.

  Then we walked half-way around the stadium. We found Luca at one of the entrances. He was wearing a neon shirt with “steward” printed on it.

  “Luca! Tell us, it’s not all sold out, is it? Can you have a look?”

  Luca and Papa laughed. Papa knows nearly everyone in Bochum, especially the Italians.

  “I can’t just let you in. I’d be fired,” Luca said.

  “Luca! Are you my friend? It’s Carlo’s birthday today. It is so important! Do I really have to tell him that we have to go home again?? Carlo wants to be the goalkeeper here, so you’d better be good to him. Now tell me honestly, Luca, are you an Italian or what?”

  “Well, I don’t know…”

  “You don’t know? Of course, you’re Italian. And when you have a steward’s shirt, you have to make use of it.”

  Papa spent another two minutes persuading Luca, and then, with his help, we were in, over the turnstiles.

  We were in before half-time and after the second half there was extra time and penalties. And we won because the goalie saved two penalties. After all that I had no voice left.

  “Now we’ll collect your present, from the president,” Papa said.

  He went up the steps with me. Our president sits at the top of the stand, just under the roof of the stadium. A football president is a bit like the king of the club. Papa pushed his way through a row of seats, past important people, until he got as far as the president. Then he spoke to him. I saw it with my own eyes. He pointed at me and talked until the president laughed. Papa and the president were like best buddies!