With good luck and perfect timing, the couple booked flights for a vacation to the USA. Margaretha had recovered from her horror experience with surprising promptness. After the event, Walter took care of her for a few days in the Westendstrasse apartment. Soon she went back to Bad Homburg, back to her life, without any physical complications. A homeopathic practitioner in Frankfurt helped her with remedies and healing sessions to support the immune system and prevent possible traumatic side effects of the intervention. Before any major changes in her life, leaving her birthplace, the apartment she grew up in, her environment and friends in Bad Homburg, their vacation break appeared as a blessing. Walter helped out with the ticket purchase and trip planning. Before the departure, he also bought a Super 8 movie camera to shoot the occasion and later show to friends.
It was Margaretha’s first visit to America. Walter had always kept a connection to Anthony in Boston. The two friends had sent each other cassette tapes containing audio letters, descriptions of what went on in their lives; Anthony recorded a lot of music with him playing the electric piano.
The travel plan included the trip from Frankfurt via Iceland to New York City, where Anthony would pick them up at the airport.
When the couple arrived at Kennedy airport, Alexi turned up in Anthony’s company as well. It had been many years since Walter had seen these friends in the middle of India. Alexi had found a new boyfriend, and her second wedding had been scheduled.
They all looked forward to a camping and canoe trip in Maine. First, they all drove back into Manhattan, dropped off Alexi, and then went to the Bronx, where Anthony had grown up. They went to his parents’ home, a condominium they owned in a redbrick, high-rise building. Anthony’s mother, Darlene, had prepared a home-cooked dinner, which externalized her friendliness and warmth. As soon as the guests entered her apartment, she made them feel comfortable and at home. Husband and father, Al, arrived after work, and then the whole family sat down at the table, which almost could not handle the weight of all the good food. Walter felt a sting of jealousy when he compared his family home to what he experienced there. Love had been turned on, the parents were proud to accommodate foreign visitors, and Anthony feasted on his mother’s generosity and the presence of an old friend from long ago. Before they left for their trip north, Darlene told Walter to come back any time.
The weather could not have been more picture-perfect —except on the freeway, when it suddenly started to rain hard, but then the sun came out again as if nothing had happened. At the very last inhabited hamlet near the Allagash Waterway State Park, the team stocked up one more time with anything they might need and proceeded to the rental shop for canoes outside town. They decided to go with a robust aluminum canoe, lightweight and with space enough for three people plus equipment. They put the canoe on top of the truck and secured it. Half of it rested on the cab und protruded into the air.
Once, when a black bear crossed the road in front of them, everybody yelled out with excitement. After a long drive, the crew arrived at the lake’s edge. For a moment, everyone looked around, taking in the vista of the dark, very still water in front of them and the lakeshores on either side in the distance. They heard nothing but stillness. Walter and Anthony lifted the canoe off the truck, set it into the water, and secured it with a rope. Guide Anthony gave brief instructions on how to handle the paddles and keep directions, and then they said good-bye to the truck and off they went without getting wet. As soon as the canoe had gone about half a mile, each one once again became very quiet.
Not the lightest breeze rippled the water, which looked as if it had been enchanted into a mirror reflecting the few clouds slowly moving along. They wanted to reach a specific location before sunset and became aware of the time advancing into afternoon hours. They noticed the increasing cloud mass and the color of it. Anthony suggested that it might be better to step up the paddling and reach the first campsite before the rain. The air turned cooler. With their combined efforts, the campers reached the shoreline. A raw wooden picnic table, fireplace, ridgepole, and privy welcomed them. Hurriedly, the three tried to beat the rain and raise the tent and safeguard any equipment that should not stay outside during the rain. Then they built a fire to cook their first dinner. The team cooked freeze-dried beef stew under a tarp over the ridgepole while a first shower came down. They also drank a bottle of wine out of tin cups. The vacationers enjoyed a happy first night near the campfire, which they kept going despite the rain.
Everybody made sure to stow away safely all edibles in a bag, which they lifted high up into the air with a cord over a tree branch. Black bears and raccoons were easily attracted by food in the area. Other common wildlife sightings included bald eagles, osprey, loons, duck families, and American coots. The tent had appropriate space for the three in sleeping bags. Next morning, the sun rose from behind the trees and filled the campsite with warmth and energy. It dried the tent, tarp, and clothing quickly. The friends enjoyed hot coffee with cereal and a few bits of sweet cake from the last shop. A routine developed, to cover all the details of equipment, safety, and food preparation. Everybody found a specific assignment to take care of.
The canoeists went to the water again and paddled for two or three hours. They reached the point of deviation from the main waterway, moving north and upward, to the next higher level of their planned route. It meant that they had to haul the canoe for distances along the low-level water stream. Sometimes they had to heave it over rocks and, trickling water, up a hill to the next level of the water system. Once they accomplished the portages, the rewards were compelling: sitting in the gliding canoe again, looking at an even more beautiful vista than before. When they first heard and then saw a cascade with medium decline and water level, adrenaline flowed through their veins. They needed to decide whether to carry the canoe or dare to go down the brief rapids. Excitement ruled for them by choosing to go down the rapids. Everyone got wet, and the aluminum body scratched over rocks, but the paddlers came out of it safely. Reaching the shore to dry and investigate the quiet forest with its pine, spruce, maple, birch, and oak trees, the trio left the canoe behind. The hikers followed an old trail inland for about a mile. Suddenly they arrived at a clearing with a small basin where they discovered something that looked out of place, bizarre. An antique steam engine had been left behind in the woods a long time ago. It rusted along with moss-covered parts and green overgrowth.
As they adapted to being outside in the elements for twenty-four hours a day and feelings of awe and exhilaration decreased, the individuals became more aware of each other. Margaretha looked forward to starting her new position with the Free School in Frankfurt and confirmed her commitment to new responsibilities, working with young children in an alternative environment. As Walter looked closely at her physique, for a moment he felt overcome with sorrow about what had happened with her own personal child experience. She had cut her hair short in a way that gave her a boyish appearance, and sometimes when she gazed at him with her blue eyes, he sensed the deep pain within. Occasionally, when she took off protective clothing and wore her bikini, he could see bones in places he had never noticed before. It seemed to him that since they had landed in New York City, Margaretha had regressed into a timid fourteen-or fifteen-year-old girl. Walter did not mention it and there had not really been an opportunity for conversations like that.
He spoke about his new job in the bank and confessed that he might have made a mistake to take the job only for some more money. The atmosphere in the bank building made him miserable. People went to work every day with the feeling of safety, which money could provide, but were not aware of the little details, of life passing by. Anthony listened to his friends and tried to understand their issues. He literally came from a different world and level of experience, which enabled him to be much more easy-going. His issues were the asthma that caused him to carry an inhaler in his pocket at all times and the necessity to earn money. He found his life’s fulfilling pursuit in the world of music and had expressed himself creatively with an instrument at a young age. For Walter, that seemed to be an admirable situation.
After they mounted another incline into the next stream level by pulling, carrying, and pushing the canoe up the waterless stretch, they entered an area where the valley narrowed gradually into a river and then ended in the most beautiful fashion, with a medium-sized waterfall and forest on both sides of the stream. First, the campers secured their spot at a campsite for the night. They had not met anyone else on their trip. Then they took off their clothes and headed into the waterfall. The cool downpour refreshed and cleaned their sweaty bodies. The location they had arrived at was also the point of return. Their plan was to stay there for a day and then head back to the landing spot.
Anthony disappeared into the forest, while Margaretha and Walter climbed up the steep embankment and then walked slowly along the edge naked. Walter, who walked behind his girlfriend, realized they had not been together since they left Germany.
He said, “Hi Margaretha, what do you think?”
When she turned around, she noticed his erection.
“Well, OK, we could do it right here. Let’s find a soft spot.”
They looked around and noticed a green patch of moss between two trees, next to the riverbank.
She sat down on the moss and said, “Oh, it itches. But it is OK, come.” She extended her hands toward him standing over her and pulled him down.
She recognized there was no need for any foreplay.
“Be careful, please,” she said and opened her legs.
She made a thin sound and looked around, across the river. Walter checked the side of the forest. With nobody in sight, he began to move within her, and they both enjoyed the brief moment.
Margaretha sincerely wanted to experience the Big Apple. For that reason, it fit into her personal agenda that the wilderness encounter ended, even though she enjoyed every bit of it. When they arrived at Anthony’s apartment in Boston, he invited a few friends for a good-bye party, and they enjoyed one more night together.
The visitors took a train from Boston, in which they could appreciate three different states pass by the window before arriving at Central Station. Walter purchased their first subway tokens and asked for directions to the Bronx. He had been in contact with Alexi, who told him that she and her boyfriend, Alki, were very much looking forward to receiving the travelers from Germany and had given him their address. The couple rented a two-bedroom apartment on the third floor in a predominantly Puerto Rican, Mediterranean neighborhood. Both of their families had emigrated from Greece, but Alexi had been born in New York City and Alki arrived there when he was still a baby.
Once the travelers emerged from the subway and observed the environment, they realized that not all of New York City was Manhattan. The apartment buildings of the neighborhood looked different from the Victorian style houses in Boston, more basic, and the streets appeared to be narrower, but that had no impact on Alexi’s extremely warm welcome. She made sure the visitors instantly felt at home and at ease. Walter noticed that Margaretha’s recently shy demeanor melted away as soon as she had hugged Alexi, and he really liked to see that. They had plenty of stories to tell, filling the years since their last meeting in India.
When Alki arrived, they all savored home cooking Greek style and talked about family and living in New York City and making it there. For Walter, it felt like a desirable place to be, compared with his situation in Germany. He sensed the vibration of an atmosphere that resonated in pop culture and especially music.
Margaretha could hardly wait until the next morning to get out of the house and roam the streets. Walter prepared the movie camera with new film while adoring his girlfriend’s excitement. There was perkiness in their steps when the Germans exited the subway station near the World Trade Center and walked down to Battery Park to catch a glimpse of the water and the Statue of Liberty. Lovely sunshine increased the pleasure of their first day as tourists in Manhattan.