Shortly thereafter, Walter received visitors. One of the staff members led him into a part of the station that had been closed off by a large glass door. In front of it, he saw Hilde and Erzebet standing next to each other. Erzebet carried a little boy on her arms: Johannes. The toddler smiled at him widely, and the grownups smiled at him and waved their hands. It was one of the most real and beautiful sights he had ever encountered. Hilde had permission to enter the visitor’s room, where they talked for some time. Walter indicated that he wanted to get out of the place as soon as possible. Hilde carefully advised him to take it easy. But by the end of the week, Erzebet returned in Hilde’s blue Citroën to pick him up and drop him off in Hohenhausen.
The season had begun to change already. Sometimes it could become cool at night. Silke had moved away with her children, back to her husband. Instead of her, Walter met Egon and Andrea, who had moved into the house with their two children, Katja and Lukas. They occupied two rooms, including the one on the second floor where Silke’s baby had been born. The couple tried to expand their materials mailing business from the house in Hohenhausen. Small squares of fabric cut out of large pieces and pasted onto paper could be found everywhere. Combined with their children, they took over the building. Walter did not mind, except for the noise sometimes. Hilde made an agreement with them to pay some rent.
In any case, the situation in the house did not create a major issue, as everything else in Walter’s life did. The two most important questions were: what to do with the bank’s claim and how could he survive. He did not ask himself, but Hilde, who visited occasionally to see how things were going. She investigated and contacted the female psychiatrist in the clinic that Walter had left after a few hours. The physician agreed to send a written statement, confirming that Walter left the hospital after he had been committed while certifiably insane. A lawyer told her that with this statement, the bank had no case against him to collect any money. Hilde also encouraged Walter to visit the welfare office in Flederbach, where he might receive some cash.
What he enjoyed during this time at his home in the country were the moments when the early autumn sun came through the thick cloud layer, and he could sit on a chair or on the bench in front of the house. He would close his eyes and let the sun shine on his body. Other than that, he did not care for anything, let alone making plans or actively preparing for his survival. The very dark gray space in which he lived did not authorize moments of happiness.
Hilde went to the welfare office with Walter, made sure he filled out an application, and drove him back to Hohenhausen. She also mentioned that the small room in the Westendstrasse would be available for him in case he wanted to move back to Frankfurt; Gaspar would not mind living with him for a while.
The thought of being back in a city made Walter shiver, and he stayed on in Hohenhausen with the family and kids who treated him with respect and let him be as he needed to be. After some time, he received a letter from the bank, stating that under the given circumstances, they would not go to court. They wanted to use the value of the Avant, and he needed to tell them what happened to it. He also received an extremely small amount of cash he could pick up at the welfare office. Very slowly, reality trickled down into him to a place of recognition, and Walter considered the idea of a move to Frankfurt and the options it would provide for him.
On a dreary day, Hilde took Walter to Frankfurt. His alternative lifestyle experience concluded.
Gaspar, who had retained the Westendstrasse apartment for some time already, welcomed Walter with friendliness but aloofness. When Walter entered the kitchen and the room next to it, he experienced a déjà vu episode: many memories passing in front of his eyes. A foam mattress with cover and Indian-style spread lay on the floor. When he pulled down the old blind in front of the window, he could still see the watercolor painting of a sun over the blue ocean that he had painted some years ago.
For weeks, he spent most of the time on top of the mattress, watching the ceiling. He left the apartment only to buy necessary supplies to survive. Gaspar and he occasionally talked about his social life, did he have any plans, and whether he looked for jobs. Since Walter was able to pay his share of the rent, Gaspar could not push him too much.
Many of the visitors said hello to Walter, and sometimes he would sit with all of them at the red kitchen table next to his room. He listened to their conversations about what went on in the city and the world. Raimund, who worked at the Information Service and had also visited Hohenhausen, developed an interest in Walter’s well-being. He persuaded him sporadically to go for a walk in Grueneburgpark with him. They talked about depression and other mental issues, therapy methods, and the will to face these matters. The most pleasant distraction for Walter happened when Klara, Gaspar’s new and much younger girlfriend, spent time in the apartment. The couple was going through a period of love, and Walter could feel the excitement of it a little bit. He enjoyed the views and energy of a younger person.
When the first snow fell on the city, Erzebet called to ask Walter if he would cover for her job as a dishwasher in the Argentinian steak-house for a month. She needed to take a vacation and prepare for her final exams at the university. He said yes, walked to Grosse Bockenheimer Strasse next day, and introduced himself during a brief interview. The manager of the restaurant accepted him as Erzebet’s replacement and told him to be at work 3:00 p.m. in two days.
Before Walter had left the farm, he found a blue plastic windbreaker with cotton lining halfway hanging off the water barrel in the back of the house. It had been drenched in rainwater but was in good condition. The jacket became his companion during this phase. He wore it everywhere and showed up in it for his first shift as dishwasher. The shifts lasted until 11:00 p.m. and sometimes until midnight. He fed the dishwashing machine with continuously incoming tableware and made sure that the waiters had sufficient supply to set the tables in the restaurant.
Besides the job itself, an additional benefit was the free food he could consume on his break. It helped him add a few pounds that he had lost during the previous episode. After work, he usually walked immediately back to the apartment, but sometimes, before his day off, he went across the street into Kleine Bockenheimer Strasse. In the bar next to the disco and the Jazzkeller, he would have a beer or two. One of these nights, he was sitting at the counter when a pretty woman seated herself next to him on a vacant stool. They began chatting about this and that, and Walter thought about leaving because he had been in the bar for some time. He asked the woman if she wanted to go home with him.
To his big surprise, she asked a counter question: “Would you like to join me at my home? I have to take care of a child.”
Walter said yes, and both of them walked to her car and then drove for about thirty minutes to a large suburban housing development. She rented a two-bedroom apartment. They had had a straightforward agreement from the start and developed it into straightforward sex on the floor. They were kissing and fondling on the couch in the living room and then slipped down to the carpet, which caused Walter to scuff his knees, and he came quickly. The woman asked him if he could do it again, which he did, and then they went into the bedroom and slept together in the erstwhile matrimonial bed.
Next morning he took the train back into the city because the woman needed to attend to her child, who had not awakened yet, and then go to work. Walter on his day off felt sorry for the woman and an empty loneliness inside of him. Back in the apartment, Klara, who sometimes stayed with Gaspar for a few days, had invited a friend of hers over. Hedda and Klara both lived in Bad Homburg, where they went to high school together, and kept the friendship going by meeting up frequently. They talked a lot about the bygone times. None of their classmates had made any decisive changes to their lives yet, besides going to work or to study. Hedda grew lots of curly hair in a kind of afro look, but was white and had an extroverted attitude with a loud voice. It fascinated Walter to listen to the women talk, discussing their lives and what they would do in the future.
They all spent time together in the kitchen, and one night, when Klara and Gaspar went to his room to sleep, Hedda and Walter sat at the table. He had not felt any attraction to her; it just felt good not to be alone for a change. She mentioned that she had to catch the last train to Bad Homburg and needed to leave soon. Walter casually said she could stay in his room and share the mattress if she wanted. It had been obvious during their dialogue that she wanted him to ask this question. He stayed unemotional when she accepted his offer. Walter brushed his teeth and when he came into his room, Hedda already had positioned herself on one side of the mattress. They talked for a while about Bad Homburg; he mentioned that he had gone through a rough time recently and then turned the light off.
Sometime after they had both said good night to each other, Hedda very coyly asked whether she could hug him a little bit. He said yes, and they immediately pressed each other’s bodies. She kissed him, they played with their tongues and lips, and he felt how he hardened and pushed against her bush. She backed off and told him that she had never done it, that she had been too afraid about getting pregnant. Walter told her that was OK, no need to do anything. However, Hedda yearned to try, and she carefully enfolded his tail in one hand to feel and play with it. He kissed her large, soft breasts and belly.
They were rubbing and gliding a bit on each other, and then she asked him, “Would you carefully stick it in just a little bit and let me feel it?”
He obliged and rolled on top of her and tenderly pushed into her. With it halfway inside, Hedda pushed him back again, and then both refrained from further explorations that night.
The earnings from the dishwashing job enabled Walter to pay the rent for another month and to buy food. Meanwhile Gaspar began training to be a snowplow driver for a company that operated a fleet of small plows. They worked on residential properties that subscribed to their service. He told Walter that in the future there might be openings for additional drivers.
One of the visitors to Westendstrasse was a woman who was affiliated with the Information Service for some time. She also mingled in the alternative political scene, as well as the women’s liberation movement. She visited Gaspar on an issue regarding the news service and met Walter at home, his dishwashing engagement ended. Melanie possessed a gentle presence, and Walter sensed that she had gone through issues on her own. He instantly recognized that she might have been through depressions or relationship dramas. Most of all, she expressed an interest in Walter’s situation. They talked with each other. Before she left, she invited him for tea the next day at her apartment, which she shared with other women.
Walter felt honored to be invited because he had acquired a great deal of respect for the women of the movement in Frankfurt. In its beginnings, it had been a grassroots action group. It occasionally appeared loud and vulgar, but in time had modified behaviors within the alternative society. He asked Melanie many questions that she happily answered. Her descriptions of the man’s role given by nature included his way of peeing into a toilet bowl standing up. This technique caused odor and stains, and additionally, most men did not raise the toilet seat before doing their business. This assessment impressed Walter very deeply. He had a strong urge to become more women friendly, let go of old patterns, be softer, and show feelings as a man. From that day on, he consciously started to sit down on a toilet seat while peeing, and later it came naturally to him.
One night, Melanie called to ask whether she could visit him, and of course, he agreed. The two spent time on his foam mattress with candlelight, just talking, hugging, and feeling each other. Walter found out she had been in a long relationship that ended recently, and the breakup jolted her security and self-image. She felt very hurt, which affected her relation to life. Before they fell asleep, they hugged one more time. Both of them were happy to have one another for the night. A few days later, Walter visited her again, and they had sex, but it did not feel right. It did not have intensity, and he thought it would be better to let go of a connection that included so much need and hurt on both sides. He went back to his foam mattress, his own world of loss and pain, embarrassment, guilt, and depression.