Dresden Weihnachten (3 page)

“How do you know?” He had no way of knowing what kind of cook I was.

“I watched you. As I often have watched my aunt who is a master baker. So is her husband. What you did was much as they do, so why should the pie not be good?”

He gave me a look I was coming to think of as “the Dieter look.” It was a combination of “so that’s all there is to it,” and “gosh, this is fun” mixed with more than a little flirtation and a wee bit of clever-boy smugness. It was certainly infectious, but I was still feeling a little at sea. Back home I would be assuming this was a date, given all that had gone on, and I would be thinking about doing a little making out. But even given Dieter’s openness, I wasn’t at all sure he was gay, and it seemed beyond crass to ask. Nor did it seem quite right to make a pass, so I decided to just flow with the ambiguity. To return his occasional physical closeness and touching, to match him flirt for flirt (as I saw it) and see what happened. If nothing else, being around him was fun, and fun like I hadn’t had in a long time.

I cleaned up the pie mess, looked at the clock, and asked, “Would you like some cheese and crackers or bread? It will be about an hour and a half or two hours before dinner is ready.”

“This sounds very good. Do you mind if I look at your CDs? I have been—what is your American expression?—
dying
to see what you have.”

I waved him toward the open boxes and partially filled shelves and, a few minutes later, brought out munchies, along with two more beers and put everything on the coffee table. Dieter looked like a kid in a candy store. He kept examining CDs, shaking his head, putting them down, looking at another, and occasionally saying, “Amazing.” I smeared some Gorgonzola dolce on a couple bits of bread, took one over to him, and then started putting CDs on shelves.

Dieter thanked me and dove back into the box of CDs. It was about ten minutes later when he came up behind me, rested his chin on my shoulder, and asked, “May I make a request?”

“Of course,” I said, savoring his touch of his body against mine.

“You shall probably think this is silly, but when I saw you had this CD, I felt I wanted to hear it even though the time is not right. Not exactly.”

I didn’t want to move and break the connection our bodies had, so I didn’t face him. I just asked, “Which CD?”

His left hand reached around to show me the CD. His right hand circled my waist and rested on my stomach. It was Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, a classic recording conducted by Karl Richter. The tenor soloist was Fritz Wunderlich. I leaned back into him a bit and said, “One of my favorites. Who says we have to wait a few weeks?” Then I turned and gave him a kiss. No tongue, but not a quick peck, either. Just an affectionate but definite press of my lips against his.

He sighed, put his arms around my neck, and returned the kiss; then he laid his head on my shoulder. We stood like that, holding each other. “I like this,” he said. “You feel good, just like I knew you would.”

I reared back to look him in the face. “How did you know how we would feel together?”

He hesitated and then said, “It is complicated, and I… my English is not enough to explain. Not completely as I must. But this is good,” he added with a smile. “Yes?”

“Very good,” I said, and I gave him another kiss.

We put the Bach Christmas Oratorio on the stereo and sat close together on the sofa, touching each other and occasionally eating some cheese or feeding each other an olive until, at the end of the first section, I realized if I didn’t start the wild rice we would never eat. We alternated puttering in the kitchen and semi-necking on the sofa until the meal was ready.

While setting the table, I suddenly realized what it was that had been trying to get my attention for the last hour or so, the thought that had been nudging the back of my mind. This was unlike any “first date” I had ever had. There was a comfort level between us that argued we had done this before, that we knew each other far better than was rationally possible when, in fact, we had done nothing but chat briefly a few times in the grocery store and spend a couple hours cooking and listening to music. God knows I was hot to trot. Dieter was a very attractive young man, and the more I was around him, the more desirable he became—and the physical evidence was obvious if he looked at my crotch, as he had several times, giving me a satisfied smirk. But ironically, I was in no hurry to rip his clothes off and explore his hot, tight German body. Part of me knew when the time was ripe we’d go at it like a couple of satyrs in heat; that somehow was a given. He knew it and I knew it. But for now, we let the sex simmer in the background like the veal stew. For the first time ever, that ambiguity was fine with me. I discovered I didn’t have to be in charge and have it all mapped out. What was developing between us was enough, just as it was.

The meal turned out marvelously. “For sure, a most mean meal,” Dieter said in approval. The wine he had bought was a local Saxon red that went with the veal perfectly. When I confessed I never realized Germany made red wine, too, he promised we’d take a trip to the vineyard so I could meet the winemaker, a friend of his. The idea left me even more confused about who, exactly, he was. In New York grocery store cashiers aren’t too likely to be friends with high-end winemakers.

 We were dawdling over the last of the apple pie (and savoring the B&B he had bought to go with it—again making me concerned about the money he had spent) when I finally asked him the question I had wanted to all evening: what on earth was such a bright, creative, personable, and obviously well-educated young man doing working as a cashier in a chain grocery store?

He threw back his head and laughed heartily. “I am sorry. You seem so comfortable in Dresden I sometimes forget you are new here. I thought when you learned my family name you understood.” At my blank expression he actually looked embarrassed. “We own the grocery store. Several hundred of them, all through Saxony. And these last years now in Thuringia and Sachsen-Anhalt, too, a little bit,” he added, naming two of the German states that border Saxony.

“The Wunderlichs have run grocery stores for many generations. Someday my two brothers and I will be in charge, but for now my father is the head. He insisted we all go to university and explore other things, but food is in our blood. We all started by sweeping floors and putting food on the shelves. I was sent to your store because the sales were not what they should be, so my father said I should work as a cashier and watch what people bought.”

“So it really was your business to notice I had bought two cans of a new brand of soup.”

He nodded.

“And you could take off today and come have dinner with no problem.”

“Ah, no. I do have the hours to work. And the boss’s son must set an example, so I always work more than my own hours. But not today,” he added with a pleased look on his face. “Tomorrow, though, I am on duty all day and evening. So I must go, but only with many regrets.”

“You are welcome to spend the night.” I couldn’t help myself, I really, really had to say it.

If I live to be a thousand years old, I will never forget the way he looked at me then. Part utter pleasure, almost bliss; part anticipation; part genuine regret; part… well, “recognition” is the only word that fits. He was certainly pleased by the invitation, but I knew he was not going to accept. “Soon,” he said softly, and he reached across the table for my hand. “Soon.”

*  *  *

I floated
through the next week. Nothing much bothered me, until I got an e-mail from Jason Solloway. It summoned me, and the rest of the branch managers in Europe, to a “strategy meeting” in New York. For reasons known only to the big boss, it was set for Thanksgiving week. Maybe he thought he was doing a favor for the Americans, bringing us home for the holiday, but all I could think of was the hassle of traveling during that hectic time, the disruption to our Dresden office it would cause and—to my surprise—how much I did not want to be so far from Dieter. Especially right now.

Given the impending time out of the office my schedule got absurdly tight, as did Dieter’s in preparation for the Christmas holidays. In Germany it’s not just Christmas Eve and Christmas Day that’s important; they have a whole string of festivities, most of which involve food. And they take them very seriously, indeed. But we managed to have coffee a couple of times, and during one of them I suggested he come with me to New York. “Come on, it’d be great to show you the city, and you could experience Thanksgiving too!”

“Daniel, just because I am the boss’s son does not mean I can suddenly leave work for a week at this very busy time. But it would be fun,” he said wistfully. “Not only to go to New York and see it with you but also to be with you for a whole week.” He looked into my eyes, and we both were imagining exactly what we would be doing together during those long New York November nights. He smiled softly. “When you get back, very soon, I think is the time.” I knew exactly what he meant. And I knew he was right. But, damn, was I going to miss him.

*  *  *

I’ve
always adored New York City with a passion that only comes from someone born elsewhere who adopted the Big Apple as an adult. I’ve heard that wherever you chose to live when you were in your twenties and starting your career is where your real home is. In my case, there was never a doubt that was New York City. Cole Porter’s songs “Take Me Back to Manhattan” and “I Happen to Like New York” were my personal anthems; they made my blood zing, and, as far as I was concerned, they were absolutely true.

Until now.

I had spent three and a half months in a town where almost nothing was more than about six stories high, at least in the areas where I lived. Anywhere I went the highest things I saw were the dome of the Frauenkirche and the tower of the Residenzschloss. Everywhere I went there were open spaces, market squares, parks, sprawling terraces, streets with huge trees running down their middles surrounded by green spaces with benches where people actually sat and chatted with friends while cars went past on either side. For heaven’s sake, at least twice a day I crossed a famous bridge built in 1728 that showcased one of the most gorgeous cities in Europe. I was getting to know that baroque jewel of a skyline in all kinds of different light. Its grace and elegance was now a part of me, as was the very humane tempo of the pulse of the city.

Manhattan’s streets, lined with skyscraper after skyscraper suddenly seemed unbearably oppressive. The masses of people spilling off of the sidewalks, silently daring you to not get out of their way as they rushed toward you—it was assaultive. The constant noise was intrusive. The Christmas decorations were garish, and the enforced holiday gaiety seemed cheap. Even my trip back to the Met to see Strauss’s
Der Rosenkavalier
was a disappointment. Kent’s oboe solos were wonderful, and it was a joy to hear him in performance again. But I kept remembering Dresden’s Semperoper where
Rosenkavalier
had had its world premier and the playing of the Staatskapelle. Kent had been right. Their sound shimmered.  “Like the luster of old gold,” was the way one famous conductor put it. It was difficult to hear Strauss played by an orchestra that did not have that special sound, without the flexibility, the lyricism, the transparency, or chamber music musicianship of the Dresden orchestra.

“You turned into a Dresdener faster than I thought,” Kent said when I confessed how I was feeling. “But then you always did have a good musical ear.”

He tried to get me to talk about Dieter, but I didn’t want to. It was too soon; I didn’t know what to say. And it seemed like a betrayal to Dieter to talk about him, even with my best friend. That surprised me. But even more surprising was Kent’s reaction my last day in New York when I, again, deflected his questions about Dieter. “Don’t blow this one,” Kent said. “I have a feeling this guy is the real, long-term deal. Don’t fuck it up like you usually do. I can’t be there to put you back together unless you get me a job with the Staatskapelle. So play this one right.”

I thought about that all the way back across the Atlantic Ocean to Frankfurt. I should have been thinking about the stacks of papers and proposals I had from Jason Solloway. The meetings could not have gone better for me; the Dresden branch kept being singled out as the way things ought to be working, which rather embarrassed me, though I was proud all our hard work was paying off.  I made a note to treat the whole staff to a great lunch as a thank you.

But Kent’s words kept turning around in my mind. In a weird way, I had the feeling, down deep inside, that this time I wasn’t going to blow it. Whatever it was that was growing between Dieter and me seemed organic. It fit. We both seemed to sense it and we both were protective of it.

*  *  *

It was
the first weekend in December before Dieter and I could spend time together. We’d talked on the phone and seen each other at the grocery store once. Though he was not checking out the express lane, all we could do was wave and smile. We had both “just happened” to mention we were free both Saturday and Sunday, but I wasn’t counting on him spending the night. Still, it seemed at least a possibility.

He had announced he was in charge of the day, so when he arrived a bit after ten o’clock, I didn’t know what to expect. Except for our first hug which lasted a good ten minutes. That really wasn’t much of a surprise, though it sure felt good. What was a (delightful) surprise was the amount of pretty deep tongue kissing he instigated. I was starting to wonder if we were going to spend the day in bed when he pulled away, looking a little dazed, and told me to put on my coat. “We have a full day, and I think this is to be a bit special,” he added.

It was.

Dieter showed me his Dresden—at Christmastime. It wasn’t just a tour of the city all decked out for the holidays by someone who knew all the sites and the historical facts; it was a man sharing his passion for something he loved and treasured with all his heart. I thought I knew my part of the city fairly well. I’d even walked through the famous Christmas market several times on my way to and from work. But I hadn’t seen beneath the surface. Dieter opened my eyes, just as he was opening my heart, and that was the day I truly become a Dresdener.