January 4. The clouds sweeping low across the southern horizon, you can just see the peaks of the Alps. We never see them spread in their full immensity from our aerie under the eaves of this old house, itself sitting atop the old city walls of Diessenhofen am Rhein. To get the full panorama you need to climb away from the river. Sometimes we don’t see the mountains for weeks on end, but it’s a good feeling to know they’re there, looming across the southern rim of Europe, with the Mediterranean world beyond. I always feel like I need a geographical fix in my head, an internal GPS, to know where I’m standing. I don’t think I’m alone in this; I believe this is why we like to watch the monitor screen tracking our progress when we fly across the Atlantic. I’m trying to get such a fix now, I guess, though it is time as much as geography that concerns me. The year is young but the hour is late. Where do we stand, and where do we go from here?
The flat was cold this morning when I got up and I realized I had left the balcony door ajar during the night. The thermometer read six above, a little over forty on the Fahrenheit scale, warmer than it ought to be in Central Europe this time of year. I closed the door and went back to the warm nest until gray daylight came through the window.
The telephone rings and I pick up the receiver, recognizing the voice as belonging to Edith’s youngest sister, Regina. It’s early for her to be calling, but I am not sufficiently alert to catch this. We exchange a few pleasantries and I hand the phone over to Edith. Returning to my desk I can hear them talking. We have all been waiting for the other shoe to drop. The shoe fell last night with a thud Trudi heard from her upstairs bedroom. Their mother, also named Trudi, had fallen. Trudi the younger helped her go to the toilet; got the old lady back in bed. At seven she called the ambulance. She called Regina who calls their brother Rudolf but could not reach him. Regina called us.
The sun breaks through, a cascade of silvery winter light spilling across the rooftops. I have things to do: Townes Van Zandt songs to rehearse for two shows coming up this month, in southern Germany, near Ulm; then later in Paris. I have a check to send to the bank for deposit back in Galveston. An envelope thumb-tacked to the board in front of me says my AARP membership renewal is enclosed, due to expire this month. I better take care of this: not to be sneered at, with ten-percent discounts on motels back in the States; and not one but two magazines with handy tips and information for seniors. Do I sound facetious?
The telephone rings and it’s Rudolf. I tell him Edith has gone to the hospital but I have no other news. I tell him I’ll have her call him after she checks back in with me. I pour myself a coffee fertig, with a shot of kirsch and light up a big roach from the ashtray. I try not to drink in the daytime nowadays; try not to smoke either. What I really want to do is to put on my walking shoes, take my Nordic walking poles and head upriver or down; just go until these cares fade away. The sky clouding over again, I glance at a calendar I see a month has passed since we buried my father back in Texas. The old lady made it through Christmas and into the New Year. I wonder if she will be going home again after this latest fall. It’s a near miracle she’s been able to go back after her previous falls. It’s a miracle that her daughter Trudi is still living in the house where she—and all the kids—were born. If they had shipped her off to the Altersheim she would have died long ago.
This waiting is nothing new since our return from the States. Jet lag took its time and we waited for it to run its course. We’ve been waiting for the final mixes of the new CD to arrive; probably lost in the mail, we surmise, lost in the Christmas rush. I emailed Rock back in Houston, asking him to send us another copy. I watch for signs of what life will be like now with both my parents gone. Already I feel the urge that I am forgetting something I need to do, and I think it’s time to call the old man at the age home in Dallas. It’s been like this since we’ve been back, a sense of incompleteness, of something left undone, of a new picture of the world yet lacking form or resolution.
* * * *
The phone rang again with Edith reporting back. Her mom had not broken anything after all. I decided to walk downstream, the river on my right, past St. Katherinental, the old cloister turned sanitarium, on through a screen on woods, a leaf strewn trail by the water. I saw no boat traffic on the river, only mallards and swans, and gulls; the water low, recent rains leaving no perceptible effect. After a kilometer or more the trail comes out on top with fields stretching away to the highway. Making a loop across the open country I headed back towards town. She was home when I returned, the car parked in the garage.
Some things happened: My old computer broke down for the last time. Herr Noll came and installed this new one. I asked him for the button to push to turn everything into English and he said this machine isn’t rigged for English. It probably wouldn’t help much; sometimes Edith doesn’t understand the German terms either. There was no time to get used to the new machine as we left the next day for the Townes Van Zandt tribute. Put on by the Koetz Country Music Club, this was the kickoff for their 25th year. I’ve played shows for them over the years, and I confess I was a little skeptical, wondering if these German cowboys had any idea who Townes Van Zandt was, or how this evening would go. Later I was amazed to see standing-room-only at the back of the room… with no stars or line dancers. The brain child of Geoffrey Steinherz, an expat American who fronts an acoustic group called the No Frills Blues Band, and Peter Wrobleski, the club director, the evening turned out to be a great success. Mandy Strobel, a German country singer with a voice amazingly reminiscent of the late Johnny Cash, rounded out the bill. Mandy recorded a song of mine last year called ‘The Fairest Outlaw,’ a song not necessarily about Townes but certainly inspired by the legendary troubadour. Geoff told me it was his band-mates who had turned him on to Townes; but he had caught the fever full bore, and they now had seventeen TVZ songs in their repertoire. They opened the show, playing some conventional—and a couple of utterly strange—versions of his songs. ‘Kathleen’ was one of them. Mandy and I traded songs Nashville-in-the-round style. He later admitted he had learned a couple of Townes songs especially for the occasion. Not only has he got that voice, but Mandy plays guitar like vintage Cash too.
The next day we drove back the way we’d come, through rolling country not unlike the Black Forest, traveling southwest, crossing the Donau a couple of times, heading upstream. We picked up the autobahn at Stockach, coming out on the Hegau, a plateau studded with ancient volcanos, past the exit for Singen. Remembering the one-lane bridge was closed for the Fastnacht parade, we detoured through Gottmadingen to the road to Stein am Rhein, crossing the river at Hemishofen. Barricades were up all over town re-routing traffic, and we had to thread our way through the garishly costumed marching bands to get to our house. We talked about going out later to see the parade, but fell asleep on the sofa.
January 17. Why did I write that phrase, and where did it come from? I dialed up Google and typed in “Etymology, waiting for the other shoe to fall”… and found a conventional explanation that it came from apartment living where people live with sounds from the neighbors above. I found a number of blogs with the key phrase, a lot of people waiting on that shoe. One was worth quoting, but I can no longer find it. It’s a small world; déjà vu all over again. Speaking of which, we leave tomorrow for Paris, a very early train from Diessenhofen to Schaffhausen, Zürich, Basel, and on to the City of Light with another Townes Van Zandt tribute in the offing at La Pomme de Eve. It’s supposed to be a cool venue, as you would expect in Paris. We’ll see what it brings. As I write Edith has just returned from getting her mom transferred from the hospital to the rehabilitation center, the Pflegeheim. Her mother just turned 99 last week; she knows if she wants to go home she must now get about the business of walking again.
Leave a comment