They Thought I Was Dead: Sandy’s Story

90 June 2017

It didn’t take me long to find my favourite place in Munich, or München, as the Bavarians — well, all Germans, I guess — call it. Nor did it take Bruno long, either — his is the awesome multi-storey BMW museum, which we have to visit at least once a fortnight and ogle the automobilia there.

He also loves the huge olde-worlde beer cellar, the Hofbräuhaus, where we have become Saturday lunchtime regulars. We order our weisswurst — white sausage — with sweet mustard and pretzels, accompanied by a weissbier for me and a non-alcoholic one for Bruno, which he holds up proudly and always finishes. Often Erik Lippert joins us and sometimes his parents too.

Afterwards we stroll to the huge Viktualienmarkt, with its green and white covered stalls set in an enchanting square, and select some of the produce we’ll cook over the weekend and the following week. Bruno takes food very seriously, often, intensely solemn, interrogating a butcher on the exact content of the wurst, or vegetable seller on where the produce was grown. Sometimes when I look at him doing this, he seems more like a little man than a nine-year-old boy.

But my favourite place of all is where I am now, on a wooden bench at a table in the beer garden overlooking the boating lake in the Englischer Garten. I’ve read this is one of the biggest city parks in the world. I like it even more than the amazing New York Central Park, which I visited a long time ago with Roy, and we cycled on rented bikes around its six-mile circumference road.

There is so much beauty here in the Englischer Garten, with its two lakeside restaurant bars, a Japanese tea house and vast open spaces for walkers, picnickers and horse riding. At the entrance to the garden, we never tire of watching the local surfers riding the endless waves on that part of the river. The park stretches from the city centre out to the north-eastern extremity, and I can reach the lake within thirty minutes’ walk of our apartment. Or much faster if, like today, I’ve run here, and then gone on to clock up 10k. I’ve never enjoyed running so much in my life. It’s given me my mojo back, time to release some of my stresses, and I use that time jogging to plan and process. I’m now gulping a much-needed water, and then I’m looking forward to a cold weissbier.

It’s a warm day and there’s a wonderful scent of freshly mown grass and lake water and wood varnish — and pure, clean air. Every now and then I catch the waft of cigarette smoke and it sets something off inside me, again and again. The memory of the man I had once loved so much.

And, oh shit, still did.

My heart heaves.

A mother duck, followed by about ten of the cutest ducklings, appears from behind the tiny island in the centre of the lake. I watch them weaving between some of the rowing boats and pedalos; they look like they’re all connected to their mother by invisible string, and they make me smile, as I remember something Roy once said — that ducks add a little extra joy to the sum total of human existence.

I go over to the self-service counter and buy a stein — around two pints — of weissbier and carry it to the far end of a wooden table, right by the lake, and settle on the bench. There’s an elderly couple, with empty glasses, sitting at the far end, and after a couple of minutes they get up and walk off, leaving a newspaper, the Münchner Merkur, behind. It flaps in the breeze. The sound irritates and despite my good mood I feel a flash of anger at them for not taking the damned thing. Then my anger increases. There’s a very determined-looking Nordic walker, in her sixties, wearing bright red Lycra, teeth clenched, ski poles clacking on the hard ground, heading straight towards me. She smiles at me.

And I glare at her.

It works. She veers away, her poles clack-clack-clacking.

I try to remember Hans-Jürgen’s words, from his anger-management course at the schloss, about deep breaths and positive thoughts. Deep breath in for four, out for four. In for four. Out for four. It starts to work. I calm down, look around, try to just enjoy being here. I know another jog would help the stress disappear, but I’m done for the day.

This is my me time. When I have the solitude I crave. And this is pretty much the shape of my weekdays during the time Bruno is at school.

I love just sitting here, enjoying the breeze off the water. I’ll drink my beer, get a sandwich, and think about my plan — until it’s time to head off to collect Bruno from school.

I love my boy to bits. I just wish I understood him. And didn’t worry about his future so much. It’s like there’s something he can’t tell me; I can’t explain it. Part of this is his fascination with death. Often at weekends, when he is not seeing Erik and I ask what he would like to do, he tells me he would like to visit a cemetery. He particularly loves the largest tombs and just stands and stares at them, in silence. And if there is any opening in the sides, he scrambles down onto his knees and peers through, looking for bones.

The damned newspaper is distracting me with its constant fluttering. I need a clear head to focus on my plan. I slide across the bench, grab it, intending to dump it in a bin, but the photograph on the front page catches my eye.

It’s a large, silver motor coach that has rolled onto one side, straddling and buckling an autobahn crash barrier. Emergency service crews in orange suits are standing around it and there is a bleeding victim, partially visible — but not their face — on a stretcher.

The headline shouts — I’m translating from the German — SEVEN DIE IN AUTOBAHN COACH CRASH.

I read on. Disasters of all kinds have always fascinated me. Boats, planes, trains, cars, earthquakes, floods. I guess I’m a bit of a disaster junkie. Call me weird, but I love all this stuff. I read that all the passengers on board were members of a Christian fellowship group in Cologne. Seven dead and twenty-three seriously injured. I wondered, mischievously, what they all thought of God now.

I turned the page, feeling a twinge of guilt at that bad thought. There was a photograph of a cyclist who appeared to be fleeing from two police officers on foot, and another road accident — this time a VW Passat that had rolled over. I flicked on through the pages. There was a story about a factory closure that didn’t interest me. Nor did a photograph of a school football team.

Then, as I turned the page again, I froze.

It was a small advertisement. Just one column’s width and a couple of inches deep.

I read it.

Re-read it.

Re-read it again.

And again.

Then again.