Travel Journal, May-August 2006

by Adam Jeffries Schwartz

Adam Jeffries Schwartz Four Viennese Men
Vienna, Austria

Viennese Man Number Two:

You're sitting on the stoop, looking your sweet self and waiting for someone, when Viennese man number two walks past, sees your guide book and doubles back. He's over seventy and looks professorial--in the happiest possible way--all tweedy and sprightly.

Do you need help? He asks.

Actually, no, you're just waiting for someone. You say, What do you recommend?

Behind his glasses his blue eyes gleam, they really do, and he inquires what you've seen so far.

The opera, how wonderful! Was it very difficult to get seats?

No, you say, no seat.

Professor man looks concerned, Was it very bad?

No, no, on the ground floor you see right into the stage, it was really OK.

He looks relieved. Then he tells you about special libraries, small museums and leaves you with a secret,.

All numbers get smaller as you go to St. Stephen, many Viennese don't know that.

Just remember that and you can never get lost.

Viennese Man Number Three:
Your someone still hasn't shown up, so you go to the market next door, where the self-service bread is in a bread museum.

You see a long metal stick but are unsure what to do with it.

A Turkish-Viennese man motions. Apparently it's like a fun-house game, you reach in and try to pull out a prize. Rolls fall into the trough below, which you grab with your filthy, plague-encrusted hands.

That, you say, was complicated and useless.

Of course, Viennese man number three says, this is Vienna, everything is complicated and useless.

Viennese Man Number Four:
Your someone must have drowned in the Danube, poor guy, so you walk, walk, walk away. Actually, walk, stop, stop, stop is more accurate. Stop lights are taken very seriously here.

You have stopped and you are waiting, when Viennese man number four takes one giant step backwards into you. Your hand raises defensively to stop him. Viennese man yells at you.

This yelling is a mistake, Stupid foreigner.

Excuse me?

Stu-pid foreigner, why don't you go home.

You take one giant step closer to him and say,

If you're dumb enough to back into someone, you probably shouldn't yell at him also.

Viennese man walks quietly past six other Viennese, who had lost both hearing and sight, before saying,

Stupid Foreigner, why don't you just go home.

It's lucky--for him--he said foreigner and not Jew.

Italian and German Trains
Dresden, Germany

Italian trains are so complicated that no one, not even Italians, especially not Italians, understands them. Whole carvans of families stop and ask whole other Italian families--who happen to be picnicking in the corridor,

Where are we? Where are we going?

Followed by, Are you sure?

You can tell this is an important moment, they stop eating.

In contrast, on German trains, everyone has that look of certainty, the look that says: Yes, I know where this train is going, when it will arrive and what the weather there must be like there.

Let's anthropomorphise, shall we?

Italian trains (or train schedules, but let's not quibble so soon) are the worst kind of lover, the one who loses things: her house keys, all her money, her car, and shows up at irregular times (5 AM, your wedding ... to someone else), and yet she makes you forget the cold nights on the platform, waiting ... alone.

German trains are a baker's daughter, up at dawn day after day, producing pastries that are delicious and good for you: full of integral wheat and fruit. She does this so routinely you forget it's hard work.

Now a quick tour of my neurosis: I prefer the surprise of the former rather than the regularity of the latter, and I have no idea why.

Not Lost in Dresden
Dresden, Germany

You walk out of the spanking new train station smack into a tram line so shiny it looks like a Christmas present. It's a sunny day and you can see spires so you start walking towards them, this is your first mistake.

But first coffee and some re-confirmation. You walk across the sparklingly new mall, into the coffee place and ask the tall fella behind the counter for a macchiato (it's an Italian chain, but still you're asking for an Italian coffee in English to a German and there's not a flicker of doubt, you have to love that).

Of course, says the very tall fella.

Which way is the old town?

And suddenly there is doubt. Excuse?

You try again, The Elba? The center of town?

Which tram stop is that? He asks.

Walking. You say.

He reaches behind the counter for a map. There's a lot of this in Germany--the sudden folding and unfolding of maps. This embarrassed you at first, but compared to the Czech habit of shrugging and telling you to piss off you prefer the the maps.

The tall fella has regained his confidence, it's tram number 7 or 8. Right in front of the train station, Good day.

You dutifully follow his directions back across the shiny mall into a new and waiting tram and promptly go in the wrong direction; it's entirely your fault, you asked the wrong question again.

To a woman, Does this train go to the center?

Oh yah!

You find the enthusiam an excellent sign. But after a stop you ask again,

The center of town? The old town?

Oh no! She says equally enthusiatically, to The World Trade Center.

No problem really, you hop off the tram, go across the tracks and wait less than two minutes. It takes exactly fifteen minutes to pass the rebuilt historic center (lovely, really), the Elba, and deposit you safely in what is not the center, but the old part of town, which is now the gay quarter, how clever of them, so well prepared.

You may never leave.

In DU-brov-NICK
Dubrovnick, Croatia

To Du-BROV-nick I say as I put my bag into the hold of the bus.

The bag watcher is weathered-looking, strong, what I would like to look like at sixty.
He smiles, DU-brov-NICK

You never know if it's the truth, a joke, or an accent. After a lifetime of quickly learning how to say: hello, goodbye and thank you, you just repeat.

DU-brov-NICK

He smiles warmly, I take this as a good sign, things will go well-- eleven hours from now--in DU-brov-NICK. I continue feeling lucky until he demands two euros, then I'm not so sure.

In DU-brov-NICK the woman at information says, What?
It's eight in the morning. I'm the first in line and she's yelling at me, What do you want!
It feels just like home.

I ask for a map.
She apparently has matters of State on her mind, She rips it from a pad, flings it at me, says, take it, GO!
There's no one behind me in line, she's stuck in a tiny room. There's nowhere for either of us to go. She squints at me.

What do you want from me--now?

Which way is the hostel?

She circles the fortress (it's labeled, "The fortress," there's a little picture next to it-- of a fortress), even I know this can't be right.

I wonder about her life; I call her a bitch, she calls me insane; then I get a coffee and find the bus.

III

On the bus I read, Cruise Ships coming to Dubrovnick, 2010; and I thought, why does everyplace eventually sell mariachi hats?

I needn't have worried of over-development, the town is already a ye olde ice cream shoppe, full of Russians screaming at each other between licks, the Dalmatians cheerfully overcharging everyone.

But, let's make this about me, shall we? They're all stuck here, I'm the one who made a big effort, who took trains and planes and buses; but why? Why romance a fortress? Fortress dwellers don't like you, they don't like anyone; remember, remember, remember this.

Then I settle into part of a rock, lay out my towel, look at the sea and forget everything--again.

The Men
Dubrovnick, Croatia

The coffee bar downtstairs is full of Russian men. One man is telling a story, the others listen with their whole bodies, they seem united as a group; it's primitive, sexy also, potentially dangerous, but not right now and not against me.

It's nine in the morning, for some reason the bar is playing Fado, sad Portugese music. I have an espresso in front of me, then another.

The Russian men smoke cigarettes down to their fingertips, drink shots of vodka. They do this all day: drink and smoke, tell stories and listen to them with their whole bodies; they love each other. Just don't tell them I said so.

Leaving The Lagoon
Split, Croatia

I grab my duffel bag, hop off the ferry, turn right and see green window shutters.

It's not just any green, but the light green of oxidizied bronze;

it's the color of a statue resting at the bottom of a lagoon.

(That's how I feel, don't ask me why.)

Then I turn left and see a simple white church, for the wives of fishermen, probably.

Knees have worn indentations in the wood, smooth as a bowl, smooth as a bow.

A small, kind Mary, like an older, wiser neighbor, looks at me.

(That's just what I needed, please don't tell anyone.)

In Belgrade
Belgrade, Serbia

In Belgrade there are no pews inside the church. Instead, you stand in line, wait your turn to pay respect.

Women clutch their hands together, desperation pours silently out of their mouths; they bow.

Then they walk backwards out of the church: hands still clutching, mouths still beseeching; bowing.

Finally they kiss the door frame and walk into the day.

My two cents.

(Christ, the redeemer, points to a perfect world--one that is off in the distance--the far distance, a thousand or more years away. But what price heaven?

Mary, the mother, does the opposite. She spots the divinity--however small--that already exists inside you and as a good kindergarden teacher would, she applauds it.

I just made that up. I have no idea what they do.)

Insha'allah

We're in line at the US consulate, waiting for hours. First we waited outside, now we're waiting inside.

I'm ready to hurl a rock through the window; but nothing deters the Bosnians, who are dressed as if for an interview, which they are. Ties are neatly tied, papers held smartly inside folders. Mothers delivered them, handed them baskets of food, wished them luck, or something more than luck,

Insha'allah

The sons repeat, Insha'allah

It means--I think--If god wills it, or if it is pleasing to god. I like this expression, it makes me stand up straighter-- somehow. I want to start every sentence--as they do, insha'allah. I want to end every sentence with it also.

Meanwhile, we swap food, a chocolate bar for a honeyed pastry, a store-bought sandwich for a spinach pie.

To a new friend I say, I like Insha'allah.

He smiles and says, it's meaningless. Repetition makes it worth nothing.

That's how I feel about TV commercials. GE brings good things to life. Which would you pick, god or light bulbs?

But you have so many more channels, your connection to the heavens must be so much stronger than it is here.

Then he smiles, Insha'allah

The Silence
Prague, The Czech Republic

My parents were born during the Warsaw Uprising, where a handful of Jews held off the Nazi armies. But the real rebellion was really against the Jewish elders, who had coddled and acquiesced and assimilated and finally walked their people to their deaths. How could they?

I always meant to ask my grandmothers about this. What must it have been like, being pregnant, knowing you were safe, knowing other people are being erased. First go walks in the park, bicycles. Then go university classes, bank accounts, jobs, homes. Then your hair becomes a wig, the gold from your teeth goes into bank vaults.

It would have been useless of course, my grandmothers were assimilated people also, and with assimilated people you don't get opinions, you get government-issued reports and you get silence.

All I have is the silence.

Here, out of the silence is one little part of my family that was erased:

Here is my uncle who slaps me on the back and pronounces America the Russian way,with a hard K. He smokes horrible cigars. Here is his first wife who complained, here is his second wife, who doesn't.

Here is his son, who used to be handsome and now has too many children: the clever one, the thuggish one, the one who is good at fixing things, the others who who are too young to tell.

And there they go, back into the silence.

The Family That Falls
Beograd, Serbia

My mother got the falling disease early. She embarrassed me, tumbling on sidewalks, dropping things: grocery bags, hats, gloves, me.

By the time my father got it I was more accepting but I had to be more accepting--by then everyone else had it also: my brothers, their children. There were variations of course: my grandmother twitched, my grandfather cursed.

For some reason I never got it; families are like that---there's always someone left out.

The Author

Adam Jeffries Schwartz has a column, "Observations, After" on Sorrowland Press.