Atlantis and Other Places (18 page)

I don’t know how I got here. Wait. That’s not quite right. What I mean to say is, I know how I got to Europe and everything, for Chrissake. They sent me over here to find myself or something after that trouble I had. I’m sure you know about that. I’m certain you know about it. Practically
ev
erybody knows about it. Some of the biggest phonies in the world think they know more about it than I do. They really think so. It’s like they read it in English class or something.

So like I say, I know how I got to Europe. I don’t know about this finding myself business, though. I swear to God, if you can’t find yourself, you’ve gotta be some kind of psycho. I mean, you’re right
there
, for crying out loud. If you weren’t right there, where the hell would you be?

And sending somebody to Europe to find himself has got to be the stupidest thing in the world. You have to be a lousy moron to come up with something like that, you really do. You can’t find
any
thing in Europe. Honest to God, it’s the truth. You really can’t. All the streets go every which way, and they change names every other block, or sometimes in the middle of the block.

Besides, the people don’t speak English. Try to have an intellectual conversation with somebody who doesn’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Go ahead and try. It’s a goddam waste of time, that’s what it is.

Anyway, I went through France, and some of that was pretty neat, it really was, and all of it was historical as hell—not that I was ever any good at history. What I mean is, every single stinking bit of it happened a long time ago—some of it happened a goddam long time ago—so how am I supposed to get all excited when some phony moron of a teacher stands there and goes on and on about it? It’s not easy, I tell you.

After I was done with old France, I went over to Germany because it’s next door, you know—and I took this boat trip up the Rhine. I don’t know what the hell “Rhine” means in German, but it looks like it oughta mean “sewer.” The whole river smells like somebody laid a big old fart, too. It really does. I won’t ever complain about the Hudson when I get home, and you can walk across the Hudson, practically.

When I get home.
If
I get home. The boat stopped at this place called Isenstein. It’s a real dump, I tell you, but back of it there’s a kind of a crag thing with a castle on top. I wasn’t gonna get off the boat—I’d paid the fare all the way up to Düsseldorf, wherever that is—but the river just smelled so bad I couldn’t stand it any more, so I left. Maybe they’d let me back on the next one. And if they didn’t, who cares? I had piles of money and traveler’s checks and stuff.

Well, let me tell you, the streets in old Isenstein didn’t smell so good, either. That was partly because it was still right
next
to the Rhine, and it was partly because the people there had the most disgusting personal habits in the world. I saw this one guy standing in the street taking a leak against the side of a crumby old dirty brick building, and it wasn’t even like he was drunk or anything. He was just
doing
it. And then he went on his way happy as you please. I wouldn’t’ve believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, and that’s the truth.

They had a church there, so I went inside and looked around. I always tried to look at those cultural things, because who knew when I was ever coming back again? Coming back to Europe, I mean—I wouldn’t’ve come back to Isenstein if you
paid
me, you can bet your bottom dollar on that. But the church was pretty dirty and crumby, too. By the time I got done looking at it, I was feeling pretty goddam depressed. I really was. So I got the hell out of there.

I was feeling pretty goddam
hungry
, too. I was feeling hungry as a sonuvabitch, if you want to know the truth. I didn’t exactly want to eat in Isenstein—it really was a filthy place. You have no idea how filthy it was. But I was
there
. Where else was I gonna eat, is what I want to know.

Getting something to eat when you don’t speak the language is a royal pain in the ass. If you’re not careful, they’re liable to give you horse manure on a bun. I’m not kidding. I’m really not. When I was in France, I got a plateful of
snails
, for crying out loud. Real snails, like you step on in a garden somewhere and they go crunch under your shoe. With butter. If you think I ate ’em, you’re crazy. I sent ’em back pretty toot sweet. That means goddam fast in French. But whatever they gave me instead didn’t look much better, so I got the hell out of
that
place toot sweet myself.

Over across the street from the church in old Isenstein was this joint where you could get beer and food. Nobody in Germany cares if you’re twenty-one. They don’t give a damn, swear to God they don’t. They’d give beer to a
nine
-year-old, they really would. If he asked for it, I mean.

So I got a beer, and the guy sitting next to me at the bar was eating a sandwich that didn’t look too lousy—it had some kind of sausage and pickles in it—so I pointed to that and told the bartender, “Give me one of those, too.” Maybe it was really chopped-up pigs’ ears or something, but I didn’t
know
it was, so it was all right if I didn’t think about it too much. The guy behind the bar figured out what I meant and started making one for me.

I’d just taken a big old bite—it wasn’t terrific but I could stand it, pigs’ ears or not—when the fellow sitting next to me on the
other
side spoke up and said to me in English, “You are an American, yes?”

If you want to know the truth, it made me kind of angry. Here I was
starv
ing to death, and this guy wanted to strike up a conversation. I didn’t want to talk. I wanted to eat, even if it didn’t taste so good. So with my mouth full, rude as anything, I said “Yeah,” and then I took another bite, even bigger than the first one.

He didn’t get mad. I’d hoped he would, I really had, but no such luck. He was a very smooth, very polite guy. He was a little flitty-looking, as a matter of fact—not too, but a little. Enough to make you wonder, anyhow. He said, “We do not often Americans in Isenstein have.” He talked that way on account of he was foreign, I guess. I took another bite out of this sandwich—it probably
was
pigs’ ears, it sure tasted like what you’d think pigs’ ears’d taste like—and he asked me, “What is your name?”

So I told him, and he damn near—I mean
damn
near—fell off his chair. “Hagen Kriemhild?” he said. Boy, he must’ve had cabbages in his ears or something, even if I was still kind of talking with my mouth full. “Hagen
Kriemhild
?”

“No,” I said, and told him again, this time after I’d swallowed and everything, so he couldn’t foul it up even if he tried.

“Ah,” he said.
“Ach so,”
which I guess is like “okay” in German. “Never mind. It is close enough.”

“Close enough for what?” I said, but he didn’t answer me right away. He just sat there looking at me. He looked very
intense
, if you know what I mean, like he was thinking a mile a minute. I couldn’t very well ask him what the hell he was thinking about, either, because people always lie to you when you do that, or else they get mad. So instead I said, “What’s
your
name?” You can’t go wrong with that, hardly.

He blinked. He really did—his eyes went blink, blink. It was like he’d forgotten I was there, he’d been thinking so goddam hard. He’d been thinking like a madman, I swear to God he had. Blink, blink—he did it again. It was crumby to watch, honest. I didn’t think he was going to tell me his lousy old name, but he did. He said, “I am called Regin Fafnirsbruder.”

Well, Jesus Christ, if you think I even
tried
to say that like he said it, you’re crazy. I just said “Pleased to meetcha” and I stuck out my hand. I’m too polite for my own good sometimes, I really am.

Old Regin Fafnirsbruder shook hands with me. He didn’t shake hands like a flit, I have to admit it. He said, “Come with me. I will you things in Isenstein show that no American has ever seen.”

“Can’t I finish my sandwich first?” I said—and I didn’t even want that crumby old sandwich any more. Isn’t that a hell of a thing?

He shook his head like he would drop dead if I took one more bite. So I went bottoms-up with my beer—they make
good
beer in Germany, and I wasn’t about to let
that
go to waste—and out of there we went.

“Whaddaya got?” I said. “Is it—a girl?” Could you be a pimp and a flit at the same time? Would you have any fun if you were? I always wonder about crazy stuff like that. If you’re gonna wonder about crazy stuff, you might as well wonder about
sexy
crazy stuff, you know what I mean?

“A girl,
ja
. Like none you have ever met.” Old Regin Fafnirsbruder’s head went up and down like it was on a spring. “And also other things.” He looked back over his shoulder at me, to make sure I was still following him, I guess. His eyes were big and round as silver dollars. I’m not making things up, they honest to God were. So help me.

“Listen,” I said, “it’s been nice knowing you and everything, but I think I ought to get back to my boat now.”

He didn’t listen to a word I said. He just kept going, out of Isenstein—which wasn’t very hard, because it’s not a real big town or anything—and toward that tumbledown castle on the crag I already told you about. And I kept walking along after him. To tell you the truth, I didn’t
want
to go back to the boat, or to the smelly old Rhine. The farther away from there I got the better, you bet.

All of a sudden, these really thick gray clouds started rolling in, just covering up the whole goddam sky. It hadn’t been any too gorgeous out before, but
these
clouds looked like they meant business, no kidding. “Hey,” I said, kind of loud so old Regin Fafnirsbruder would be sure to hear me. “You got an umbrella? It looks like it’s gonna pour.”

“Ja,”
he said over his shoulder. Yeah it was gonna pour or yeah he had an umbrella? It wasn’t like he
told
me, for crying out loud, the stupid moron. I’ll tell you,
I
didn’t have any umbrella. Jesus Christ, I didn’t even have a crumby
hat
. And my crew cut is so short, it’s like I don’t have any hair at all up there, and when it rains the water that hits on top of my head all runs down right into my face, and that’s very annoying, it really is. It’s annoying as hell.

But old Regin Fafnirsbruder started up this crag toward the tumbledown old crumby ruin of a castle, and I kept on following him. By then I was feeling kind of like a goddam moron myself. I was also panting like anything. I haven’t got any wind at all, on account of I smoke like a madman. I smoke like a goddam
chim
ney, if you want to know the truth.

Sure as hell, it started to rain. I knew it would. I
told
old Regin Fafnirsbruder it would, but did he listen to me? Nobody listens to you, I swear to God it’s the truth. This big old raindrop hit me right square in the eye, so I couldn’t see anything for a second or two, and I almost fell off this lousy little path we were walking on, and I would’ve broken my damn neck if I had, too, because it was a
crag
, remember, and steeper than hell every which way.

“Hey!” I yelled. “Slow down!”

That’s when the biggest goddam lightning bolt you ever imagined smashed into me and everything went black, like they say in the movies.

 

 

When I woke up, there was old Regin Fafnirsbruder leaning over me, almost close enough to give me a kiss. “You are all right, Hagen Kriemhild?” he asked, all anxious like I was his son or something. I think I’d kill myself if I was, I really do.

“I told you, that’s not my name.” I was pretty mad that he’d taken me all this way and he couldn’t even bother to remember my crumby old name. It’s not like it’s Joe Doakes or John Smith so you’d forget it in a hurry. I sat up. I didn’t want to keep laying there on account of he might try something flitty if he thought I couldn’t do anything about it or anything. “What the hell happened?”

Right then was when I noticed things had started turning crazy. Old Regin Fafnirsbruder had asked me how I was in this language that wasn’t English, and I hadn’t just understood him, I’d
an
swered him in it, for Chrissake. Isn’t that gorgeous? I figured the lightning had fried my brains but good or something.

Then I realized it wasn’t raining any more. There wasn’t a cloud in the goddam
sky
, as a matter of fact. Not even one. It was about as sunny a day as old Isenstein ever gets, I bet.

I took a deep breath. I was gonna say “What the hell happened?” again—old Regin Fafnirsbruder hadn’t told me or anything—but I didn’t. And the reason I didn’t is that the breath I took didn’t stink. With the nasty old Rhine running right by it, the air in Isenstein always smelled like somebody just laid the biggest fart in the world right under your nose.

But it didn’t, not any more. It smelled like grass and water—
clean
water—and pine trees, almost like one of those little air freshener things, if you know what I mean. Too good to be true. It wasn’t one of those, though, on account of I could smell cows and pigs and horses, too, somewhere way the hell off in the distance. It was like I wasn’t by a town any more, like I’d gone off into the country. But I was still sitting right where that old lightning bolt had clobbered me.

Old Regin Fafnirsbruder started dancing around. I’m not kidding, he really did. He had this grin on his face like he was drunk, and he was kind of halfway between doing an Indian war dance and jitterbugging. Watching the old sonuvabitch shake his can like that was pretty damn funny, it really was.