Walter recognized that something had changed within him during the exciting and hapless week in Frankfurt that he finished off by being committed to the psych ward by his friends. He had accomplished his return to reality in time and with help from friends and a few signs, he observed in the city.
One of these pointers occurred one day when he walked through downtown Frankfurt from the Hauptwache toward Liebfrauenberg. Lunchtime crowds trying to catch a quick bite and the usual groups or individuals posting their attention-drawing messages kept the moderately small space busy. Walter was trying to crisscross through the masses without any delays when his attention was caught by a sign and then the sign bearer, in a split-second between two passing bodies. He stopped, turned around, and waited for a moment to catch a closer look at the person, who held a red-on-white sign that exclaimed, “Jesus will save you!” It was not the sign that interested him, though. With unbelief, he recognized the female psychiatrist who had helped with his swift release from the hospital. She held the pole with the attached cardboard sign high above her head, smiling.
Walter had asked himself then, “Who is insane here?”
Later, after a year when he met Phil at the airport in New York, as well as during his time in Oklahoma City, he recognized a continuous background sensation of latent depression in himself and secretly pondered, “What is wrong with me?”
Walter examined the initial diagnosis of the admitting psychiatrist, who had recorded schizophrenia, psychosis, impairment of the motor nerves, and a few other minor misfortunes. He knew the diagnosis was wrong; he was happy to go on with his life. Then again, Walter had not been able to figure out what caused his sadness and depression.
After deciding to return to Germany, he purchased an inexpensive ticket from Oklahoma City to New York City and a charter flight ticket that took him to Luxemburg, where Denise waited for him. He immediately noticed her as he walked through the small arrival terminal; she was standing on the upper level looking down at him over the balustrade.
Neither talked much during the three-hour ride; Walter was tired, and Denise’s shyness in personal matters made her appear restrained. She had picked him up in her Citroën Dyane, which allowed a comfortable ride. Denise’s interests were causes, the underprivileged, disasters, and war zones. She never talked about her personal life if not asked. Denise looked at Walter with her blue eyes and embedded question marks at all times. One of her habits was to examine people when talking to them. Neither he nor she knew exactly what to expect or even what to wish for in this unfolding situation.
Walter wanted to lay down somewhere and sleep. He also knew that the reason he sat in the car was that Denise liked him and in a way admired him for what she knew he had done so far with his life. In the past, they had met occasionally and had become a little closer during party events or socially, together with Andreas and Hilde. Once in winter, all four of them had gone together to Prague, Czechoslovakia, where they had a good time during the Prague Spring. Before Warsaw Pact governments occupied the country.
To bridge the developing uneasiness in the car during the drive from Luxemburg to Wiesbaden, Walter pretended to sleep slumped in the seat, his head toward the window. Then at some point, he suddenly felt a tender hand on his upper leg, and from that moment, he knew that all would be OK.
She insisted that he could stay at her place as long as he wanted. After the long trip and a modest dinner at home, the time arrived to go to sleep in Denise’s studio apartment. His host did not point to a spot on the floor where Walter should place his sleeping bag; it became unmistakably evident that she expected him to sleep next to her on the futon mattress, and he did not mind.
As she walked naked through the room, with her thin, tall body, pale skin and round behind, long legs, and an amazing pair of soft, large, upright breasts, she looked very appealing. Walter’s fatigue faded away. When Denise slid down to the mattress and looked at him, he detected not only question marks, but also encouraging flashes in her eyes. She moved swiftly toward him while opening her legs. With one move, he managed to be on top of and inside her, starting to go in long-lasting strokes. Walter turned her around and entered all the way into her wetness, then pulled back again and repeated the same pelvic push. Denise grunted once in the beginning when he entered her. That was all Walter noticed as a sign of enthusiasm. During the entire performance, she kept her eyes wide open and looked at him inquisitively.
Walter thought, Perhaps I can help her step out of character for a moment.
Before his departure from Oklahoma, he had also received a farewell gift from Phil: a quantity of organic mescaline. Some of Walter’s friends never indulged in any drugs other than alcohol and tobacco, especially not psychedelic drugs. Denise was one of them. Walter thought that using a dose of mescaline in the current situation might help to arouse passion in her and enable her to feel her body instead of investigating through her mind at all times.
He mentioned it to her. “You know, I have some of this nonchemical mescaline. Would you like to try it sometime?”
She thought about it for a while and said, “I am a little afraid of it, but you will be there with me when I take it.”
It was a Wednesday; she had to work for another two days until Friday. The next evening, Andreas came by to visit and say hello to Walter. It was their first meeting since the hospital visit. Another awkward aspect was that Andreas and Denise had been together for some time, and Andreas did not know what to make of Walter’s presence at Denise’s apartment; nor did Walter have any clue how and what to talk to him about. The three went out to dinner.
During the meal, Andreas asked Walter casually, “Would you like me to give you a ride back to Frankfurt later?”
Puzzled and not knowing what to say, he answered, “I do not know where I should go in Frankfurt, Andreas.”
Walter’s contact with his parents had been limited to a few postcards and letters during the past year and one telephone call when he came back from America. He did not know any other person in the city whom he could stay with and had no intention of asking his parents.
“So you are staying here for a while?” Andreas asked hesitantly.
Denise jumped in to help. “You know, Andreas, I invited Walter to stay here for some time until he knows what to do next.”
Andreas appeared to accept it; he gave no external sign of any disagreement or argument, but an attentive observer would have noticed reluctance and a gulp of his Adam’s apple.
After the trio left the restaurant, Andreas took his car to drive back to Frankfurt, while Denise and Walter got in the Citroën Dyane and headed back to the studio, discussing what had just occurred. She said they had been together for more than a year, but she never knew what he wanted from her. He was always busy with his career in the liberal party and his law studies and did not show any determination regarding the relationship or its potential future. Denise and Walter stayed quiet for the rest of the evening, watched the news, and then went to sleep.
The next day Walter called Irene in Frankfurt to let her know that he had returned and what happened in Oklahoma. Irene immediately invited him to stay at her and Gerhard’s apartment if he wanted to. But she did not like his news, saying, “It is not OK that Hilde and you are separated. There is no future with the hippie, I tell you.”
Walter was happy to hear her voice and being able to talk to someone who understood, said, “Let me see. I have to figure things out, give me some time.”
Besides money salvaged from the café, Walter had also saved some of the modest wages Phil had paid him for his services in the restaurant. He did not need to look for a job immediately. He enrolled in a local martial arts studio to continue practicing Korean karate, which he had begun six months earlier in Oklahoma City.
Denise invited him to come to a party with her. Coworkers celebrated at the apartment of a male fellow journalist. Walter felt uncomfortable appearing for this occasion since it happened to be a birthday party with people who knew each other. When they arrived at the small residence, the discrepancy became even more obvious when he noticed the dress code. All the men wore dress shirts—no tie, but some with a coat. The women were less formally dressed, but Walter stuck out in his blue worker shirt and bell-bottom blue jeans with the leg edges decorated in hand-stitched needlework: a red and white rim that he had done himself. In addition, his long, curly hair had reached shoulder length by this time.
Friday night after Denise returned from work, they had a salad and then sat down on the futon. Walter opened the plastic bag containing the few little blue tablets. They agreed to take only half a tablet each. Walter doubted there would be any real effect with a quantity that small, but thought, Better than nothing. As time went by and the drug launched, the actual effect was as subtle as the amount taken. This set the mark for what followed. Walter hoped that Denise could experience an opening in her emotional expression and a richer sexual experience. The night, however, turned into a repetition of the first night, a lot of initiative on his side, with curious examination by Denise. Reality revealed the truth, and both realized there was no future for them as a couple. Walter quit the martial arts training, called Irene to accept her invitation, and took a train to Frankfurt within a few days.