Nobody knew what to do. The fact that Hilde and Walter had moved into the small living room of the apartment made no difference. They had lived in smaller quarters for a long time. It was just sad to see Fritzi lying on the seats self-made from laminated wood, with the blue corduroy-covered mattresses, up on the third floor with no place to run and chase leaves or other dogs.
Hilde decided she needed time off from being together constantly. She departed noncommittally to clear her head on an anthroposophy-oriented farm in another state. At this time, Walter did not sense a major change in their relationship but felt a general unease about where the situation might develop. He spread out his imports inside the room, which looked like an Eastern fashion boutique, and called friends and people he knew to spread the word that he had returned with some interesting products to sell. Fritzi and he went to the nearby Grueneburgpark, where she could run and roll around in green grass. He met Irene and Gerhard, Helmut and Percy, and slowly accustomed himself to the new living arrangements. Erzebet and Gaspar had welcomed the returning travelers with delight and open arms. Walter appreciated the fact that he had something to come back to.
The yellow Volkswagen bus sold for almost the same amount the couple paid for it. With half the money from the sale, plus the profit from the merchandise in his room, Walter had no immediate reason to be concerned about work and income. The issue that made it difficult for him to enjoy being home again manifested itself in the environment and the city: a lot of noise, the square rooms everybody lived in, very few green spots, the food, and the limited possibilities of what to do. He realized his sensibility had heightened.
When Hilde returned from her country visit, he told her he wanted to move to the country. Her reaction was filled with indifference; she said she still did not know what to do. Her trip to the organic vegetables and fruits co-op had been informative, but her mind was still ambiguous. Hilde also said she had stopped taking the birth-control pill to cleanse her body and let it recuperate after many years of taking it. The couple let things rest for the moment and accepted the situation.
Hilde reapplied for a copywriter position with the same company where she had worked before, and the firm accepted her at once. Walter received a phone call from Percy, who wanted to take an extended vacation. Her job as a switchboard operator and administrative assistant in a large travel agency became available, and the company was looking for a replacement. Walter went for an interview, passed the typing test, and the travel agency hired him while Percy went on her vacation. This opportunity could not have arrived at a better time for Walter.
Weeks passed. Life seemed to stabilize for the partners and their dog in the third-floor apartment. Summertime pampered everybody with pleasantly warm weather, and extensive outdoor activities on weekends added to a general feeling of happiness. Walter bought a used Citroën 2CV, which improved his mobility and range of endeavors. At home, it was never dull, with roommates and many issues to talk about, politically, socially, and psychologically. Music to listen to and movies to watch enabled all four of them and Fritzi to live a good life in the small apartment.
One day, as Walter and Hilde talked about the future, she suddenly said, “OK, you know what? Let’s do it, let’s move to the country. I think I may be pregnant, and this could be the right thing to do. We can search for a farmhouse and then see what happens.”
Walter’s face must have expressed what he felt inside at that moment. The smile he displayed contorted his appearance so much that Hilde asked, “Are you OK?”
He replied, “I am so very happy,” and then they hugged for a long time.
A few days later, Hilde’s pregnancy was positively confirmed by a self-test and an examination by the physician. Thus, a new plan came into reality. The future parents counted all their available funds. When they knew what might be possible, they informed their closest friends. Their relationships with all of them had been quite intimate, more or less communal, and they already shared feelings. Hilde and Walter invited them to participate in their future project in any way they wanted.
Gerhard’s occupation as a traveling salesman provided him with detailed knowledge of the provincial northern part of the state, where it might be possible to obtain property at an affordable price. On weekends and holidays, the actual search began by driving around the countryside with newspaper ads and notations.
Patience, mutual reassurances, Gerhard’s information and vehicle, as well as a reminder from Hilde’s slightly curving belly made the quest real, determined, and effective. By midsummer, they had located, viewed, and liked a half-timbered house on two-and-a-half acres in a hamlet of 350 souls seventy-five miles north of Frankfurt with the county seat nearby. They enjoyed the initial excitement. The sheer joy of having found adequate acreage and the thoughts of what to do with it, generated a new energy level.
Negotiations with the owner’s family representative commenced. They met him in his newly built house and in the old kitchen of the property, which had stood vacant for a few years. It was still untouched and fully furnished, including tableware, cutlery, beddings, and furniture in all five rooms, all of which was included in the sale amount. The proceedings took on a very personal and emotional undercurrent. Mr. Schmidt had been born in the house and resided within the municipality, where he operated the local egg factory. He sat at the old table in the kitchen with Hilde, Gerhard, and Walter and exhibited a crafty, provincial attitude when it came to the sales amount, but soon agreed to a more beneficial approach for both parties that enabled a compromise.
The date with a notary was set. Then, all of a sudden, a problem arose. When the homebuyers appeared at Mr. Schmidt’s house to sign the contract, the egg-factory owner confessed that his mother did not want to sell the house anymore. Walter and Hilde reacted with bewilderment since on the previous weekend, they had already been on the property to mow the grass and clear one of the rooms. Even Percy had been there, and they all reveled in the space like little children. Gerhard would not accept this move. The following week, he went to the village of Hohenhausen and paid the real owner, Schmidt’s mother, a visit to talk it over. On his return to Frankfurt, he reported that much emotion had been involved. In addition to the mother’s feelings, a rumor had started in the village that the people from Frankfurt planned to open a discotheque on the property.
With the emotions and gossip handled, the whole team visited the sole tavern in the hamlet, and that settled the issue. The mother was persuaded to approve the sale, and after adjournment of some weeks, both parties signed the contract. By the end of November, Walter had moved into the house first and for good.
Erzebet went with him for a few days to help set up things and most of all take care of the very pregnant Fritzi. The first night, as soon as it became dark outside, Fritzi began working like a dog and, as cool as only an Afghani could be, gave birth to her first litter of pups. They were healthy and placed in a wooden basket on the kitchen floor.
During the first two weeks, violent storms raced through the hamlet on the north side of the low mountain. Being alone with himself, Fritzi, and her litter of five, Walter took his first baby steps on his way to becoming an alternative farmer. By early evenings, he was pooped, his joints hurting from the initial groundwork of composting: six inches of greeneries, two inches of manure, then add some lime and soil and top it off with another layer of greeneries. He hunted for manure, and the next-door farmer neighbor promised to supply a cartful once his next cow-barn cleaning took place.
The half-timbered house had been built almost one hundred years earlier using a traditional framework method, which utilized mortise and shank joints where the frames are exposed and painted. The lattice panels had been filled with clay, and the structure appeared to be in sound condition. A barn stood next to the house, separated by a narrow passage with a door. Attached to the very end of the barn, a cubicle built into the barn wall accommodated the pit latrine, the only toilet on the property. One of the major projects to be done was to create a water closet inside the house, which included putting a septic tank in the ground.
Sometimes on weekends, the entire crew plus friends arrived to work, and everybody slept in one room on mattresses covered with Indian fabrics. Gerhard moved into the house using a rental truck from Frankfurt, which they also used to pick up an old, beautiful kitchen stove in town that provided an additional heat source in the house.
The stove looked smaller than Walter expected, but the chief chimneysweeper said, “When it shows its red face, it will get quite warm in the kitchen.”
Walter’s parents also visited on a weekend. They had kept in touch during the years, and when they learned that Walter would soon be a father, their interest in their son appeared to improve. Lisa and Friedrich Herzog had difficulty understanding or accepting the India trip and subsequent move to a little village in northern Hessen. When they arrived in his new used Peugeot, they brought a lot of flour, grains, sugar, birdseed, and Walter’s old bicycle in the trunk.
Hilde continued to live and work in Frankfurt during the week and came to the new domicile on most weekends with Gerhard or someone else. Occasionally she did not make the trip. She looked pretty and healthy with the growing child in her rounding belly. During the weekend visits, she slept with Walter in his room under the rabbit fur. Their relationship was subtly changing. Hilde displayed an increased seriousness and determination; Walter felt as though he was embarking on an experimental mission by leaving the big city, with all its downsides, to begin a new and healthier life in a way only a few had tried before. He knew of other individuals and groups in the area who were trying to make a living from the land, and he perceived that as a rather exclusive club.
Alone with the Fritzi and her puppies during the week, Walter rose early, tried to accomplish as much as possible during the day, and then went to bed early, physically drained. During this period, he began to read the Mother’s writings, in which he discovered simple but helpful daily meditation instructions that he used before sleeping. Later he opened Sri Arobindo’s Synthesis of Yoga and started on a comprehensive excursion to follow the true path to divine consciousness. Walter did not understand the direct meaning of all the expressions, but he quickly realized that behind the many words was a system of thought that provoked an internal flow of energy and understanding of the mind process.
When Gerhard moved into the house full time, Walter relocated into one of the rooms upstairs. He obtained a used living room heating oven and placed mattresses on the floor for a temporary bed. Soon he realized that while the clay panels filling the house’s framework might have been sufficient a century ago, the current heat of the oven, however, vanished almost as quickly as it was generated. The solution for this problem arrived one day in the paint store in town where he discovered thin, foam polystyrene rolls that could be used as a wallpaper layer under the final wall covering. He decorated both the ceiling and the walls with this material, and from then on, his new room stayed as warm and cozy as in any contemporary building. This was a big step forward for Walter because soon the temperatures dropped well below zero and would stay that way for a long time.
Gerhard soon realized that he could not make the change of residence and environment as rapidly as he originally thought. He had grown up in the eastern part of Berlin, took refuge in the western part of Germany, where he moved to Frankfurt. Gerhard had been there for a long time before he met Irene. He liked the nightlife in the city, spent long hours in a club playing chess for money, and maintained his relationship with Irene, who, being a city girl, would not be moving away from Frankfurt. All that affected Gerhard’s plan more than he had first comprehended. He took the first step and then gradually increased his presence on the farm by being there regularly on weekends, adding a few days here and there. Sometimes he arrived with Irene, most of the time alone.
Since he was familiar with the area before they bought the farm, he also knew precisely where to go on a weekend night: the discotheque about fifteen miles to the east in another medieval-looking, pretty county seat town. From there he picked up occasionally a good-looking and agreeable young country girl who spent the night with him in his new country home. At first Walter refrained from going with him, but later he joined Gerhard and enjoyed being in another place for a change. It also gave him an idea of what was available in town in case a need surfaced. To enhance his bond with the farm, Gerhard asked Walter to keep one of the male dog puppies that he liked and had named Flecki. Hilde and Walter were in the process of giving away the adolescent litter, which demanded a lot of attention and energy and caused damage on the property. Fritzi’s pregnancy had been an accident, instigated by her and a horny little half-breed from the neighborhood.
With respect to Gaspar, it became obvious that while his intentions for a move to the country had been honest at first, at least rhetorically, in practice it appeared as if he enjoyed the now emptier Westendstrasse apartment too much.
Walter now owned two guitars and a sitar he had bought in New Delhi. He found out that Gerhard also strummed guitars, and they had some very nice jam sessions. Gerhard took days off his work and together with Walter installed a system of shelves and workspace in the kitchen. Cutting the panels by hand required a lot of time, but when they were done, the job generated a very rewarding feeling in both of the hobby carpenters. For the workspace, they used an old table with a thick plate that they cut to fit. The walls and ceiling of the kitchen were covered in the same insulating method as Walter’s room, and looked and felt warm and homey in fresh white paint when the stove showed its red face.
Sometimes Walter did not leave his room on Sundays because he fasted and enjoyed being alone. He appreciated being on his own and realized how valuable a time it could be.
The winter moved ahead, activities slowed down, and people in the house relaxed. On Christmas Eve, Gaspar and Erzebet arrived, together with a friend from Munich—Jutta. Gerhard, Irene, and Walter had already been there for a few days. Hilde did not spend the holidays at the house. She visited her parents, as she usually did during Christmas.
Despite the harmonious jam sessions of the past and their shared work, an argument evolved between Gerhard and Walter with the result that Gerhard said he wanted to move back to Frankfurt. The two had expressed what they did not like in the other during daily life in the village. Gerhard told Walter it was too demanding for him to be there and then left without taking any of his possessions. The episode triggered a thought process in Walter, as well as initial doubts that he might have taken on something that was too big for him. The whole dispute centered around where one’s space and authority ended and how and when to do things. As time went by and Gerhard did not return to pick up any of his stuff, it indicated that it might only be a reassessment period.
For Walter it sent a message about his life purpose and his energy to go for it, his temporary solitariness, and specifically the issue of future survival funding. He also knew that Hilde would join him to start her new life with their child in the country.
Walter in his seclusion thought, Why not try something different tonight and check out the disco? Let me see what it has to offer.
He had been a disco lover ever since he stepped into one for the first time, and he liked to dance. When Walter met Hilde and the two became a couple, the opportunities to dance decreased because they went to clubs only occasionally. That night, he got into the car and drove twenty miles on the county road to Bransfeld. The disco, on the second floor of a building, appeared almost empty. On one side, next to the windows, a group of people sat drinking and talking at a few tables. The music sounded loud and recent as far as Walter knew at the time—British, American rock and roll and top forty styles. Nobody was on the dance floor, where silvery metal plates had been screwed into the ground and colored lights moved from the ceiling.
Since Walter had smoked a joint before he entered the club, he ordered a bottle of beer to moisturize his dry throat and lit a cigarette at an empty table. Naturally, everybody in the room had noticed him arrive and sit down. A stranger heading for the only open disco in town on a Wednesday night provoked curiosity. Suddenly Walter recognized one of the people sitting at the table in a group of four girls. He had met Bettina once briefly when she stayed with Gerhard at the farm for a night.
Before long, she came over to his table and asked, “How are you doing? I know you from the farmhouse.”
She had long legs that made her look tall. She was a brunette with curly hair and big, brown eyes that looked friendly and directly into his eyes. She also had a very sexy body.
“I am just fine, Bettina. Would you like to dance with me?”
They danced a couple of songs in freestyle. When the music changed into a slow tune, they advanced closer to each other in a light embrace and moved gently from side to side. Walter felt a carefree squeeze in her embrace and then inside his pants as well—a tickle of excitement he had not experienced for a while. The dancing couple rubbed their chests against each other’s. He moved his right hand up and down her spine and then rested it on the lower back to enforce the pressure.
Bettina smiled at him, opening her full lips, and asked, “What are you doing later?”
Walter smiled back and replied, “I’ll drive home to my village—you want to join me?”
She followed him back to the house in her own vehicle. He decided to use Gerhard’s abandoned room and bed because of the heating situation and so they could listen to some music. They undressed, went quickly under the comforter, and immediately kissed and felt for each other. She had extremely soft skin and firm flesh. Bettina stayed until the next day and then left with her car.
The next weekend, when Hilde arrived with Gerhard, her looks showed her condition and a beauty that Walter had not noticed before. She was vibrant and healthy-looking, and Walter thought, she becomes more delightful the larger her belly grows.
The baby inside her had developed and showed strength by punching against Hilde’s abdominal wall with visible moving bumps. From the Organization of Single Mothers, Hilde had picked up a used baby carriage and three cases of baby clothes and announced that she would stop working and move into the house within the next three weeks. The news made Walter realize that many changes would happen soon. Seeing Gerhard again also meant change; Gerhard said that he had thought about what occurred, offered an apology, and decided to stay in the country more often.
Hilde’s presence in the house would bring their original plan into realization, and that made Walter very excited. It also appeared that both of them or their relationship had changed, rendering it less personal but more profound. When the parents-to-be had talked about it in the past, they agreed not to marry and take a conventional path, but to make an effort to parent in an alternative, more companionable approach.
To make the home more urbane, a large concrete septic tank plus connecting pipes had been laid in the ground just in time before frost could interfere. With good luck and availability, one of Percy’s friends arrived, installed all the copper pipe connections for the kitchen, and set up the toilet, sink, and bathtub in the assigned room next door. He also hooked up the new used washing machine to the system. Once they turned on the running water, it seemed to Walter as if a miracle had occurred. Having had only the outhouse for months, luxury descended on the farmhouse.