Haresh Shah
From Sleazy Sex Show To The Celebration Of Suave Saxophonist’s 50th
When I was based in Munich, it wasn’t unusual for me to start my day with breakfast in Munich, have lunch in Essen and land in Paris just in time for dinner and the next evening have dinner in Milan. Georg Kührer of the printing house Girardet once observed: you hop on and off the plane more often than I do a bus. Amazing. But true. Even so, the eleven days I remember the most about my relentlessly on the go happened years later when I was living in Chicago. What to me is mind-boggling still, is the intensity of those days, being in constant motion and deprived of sleep. And I don’t even drink coffee, let alone take any other stimulants. I thrived on the natural adrenaline and the high I got from interacting with people.
I began my journey in Chicago on the afternoon of Thursday, October 15,1992, arriving in Budapest the next morning. I loved the way the airlines wine and dine you in the front of the plane on their intercontinental flights. No phones ringing, nowhere you can escape. I am not for watching movies or doing any real work on planes. Reading yes. But mostly what I love the most is to really let my hair down, enjoy the treats, perhaps snooze a little bit and arrive at my destination, if not well slept, quite relaxed.
My weekend visit had a certain urgency about it. Our original publisher, Dezso Futasz had decided to get off the rat race, but was conscientious enough to bring a group of people, headed by Geza Panczel of Interart Studio to take over the Hungarian edition. All three parties had agreed on the terms of transfer, contingent upon me approving the new organization. So I plunged right into the process soon after checking into the hotel. Meeting after meeting after meeting and then dinner at one of the new partners’ home, is how the day went. Just before the dinner, Dezso had bowed out, leaving me in the care of Geza and his associates. After dinner, the last thing I wanted to do on that night was to go out to Bangkok – a topless bar. Hoping I would catch up on sleep the night after. But no such luck. Instead I found myself sitting on the edge of the stage at the place called Caligula. Caligula was nothing like anything I had ever experienced before. It featured explicit live sex that contained lot of rubbing, slurpy oral sex and frequent copulation – all of that happening just a few feet away from your nose. I don’t know what they were thinking, but that in itself should have been a reason enough for me to disqualify them. If this was their image of Playboy, what would they do to the edition once they got their hot hands on the license to publish the magazine? Sexually oriented yes, but how could I possibly trust them to produce the lifestyle magazine of the highest editorial standards?
So it had to be Dezso pursuing me with a gentle pressure, Geza and his associates putting forth their best foot. In sharp contrast to our social outings, I was quite impressed by their current offices and the publishing activities, which mainly contained of fine arts and literary books. Their offices had more of a feeling of a somber English library than the one bustling with the young men about town. They seemed serious contenders. And how can you not like Geza? A low key intellectual who looked so much like Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead that I fully expected him to break out and begin singing to lay me down, one last time. Plus, he took me home to his mother Idolka’s house for lunch next afternoon and then we had dinner at the restaurant owned by the group – the pizza joint called M*RXIM, with the A spelt with a red Russian star in defiance of the just fallen communism. The place was extremely popular with the young set. Having been around in the former Iron Curtain countries good part of three years, I had observed that the sudden freedom had brought out the dormant entrepreneurship of their people and they were game for anything that would make money.
I wrapped up my visit to Budapest with an optimistic outlook. More urgently waiting for me in Warsaw were my Polish publishers Beata Milewska and Tomasz Zieba. Only three weeks away from launching my third edition in the Eastern bloc. The content needed to be finalized, plans for the launch revised and action plan put into place. This phase of launching of the new edition has always been the most exciting. With all that hard work behind us, now we had to make things happen. It was a feeling similar to that of an actor’s anxiety just before the curtain rises. Gave me a chance to get to know Beata a bit more. A dynamic young lady who would become one of the most successful publishers of Playboy family. Her partner in the venture, Tomasz accompanied me to Prague to pick up pointers from Ivan Chocholouš, the managing director of the Czech edition, who had very successfully launched the magazine merely a year and a half earlier.
It’s already Friday, eight full days since I left Chicago, and not one single night I have had good eight hours sleep. And the real challenge of this trip still lies ahead of me. In order for me to succeed, the Murphy’s Law had to work to the perfection in the reverse order. Anything that can go right, will (must) go right.
Just imagine this: I depart Prague at 11:00 on Saturday and am scheduled to arrive in Frankfurt at 12:20. I have forty minutes to connect to the flight to Hamburg. Having arrived from Czechoslovakia meant I would have to go through passport control and negotiate my way through the sprawling monster – that is Frankfurt International Airport – to get to the domestic departure. But I make it, just in the nick of time. I arrive in Hamburg at around 14:15. Since my baggage is checked in from a non-EU country, however perfunctory, it is still subject to the customs inspection. I have the train to catch at 15:29 from Hamburg Altona to Westerland-Sylt. To make it across the city to the train station in just less than an hour in the afternoon traffic in itself is daunting. But I just can’t afford to think in those terms. Because I have promised my dear friend and fellow Scorpio, Andreas Odenwald – ex-editor-in-chief of the German edition, that I will be on the island of Sylt for his 50th birthday celebrations. And so I am. I make every connection, tight as they were. If that meant me sprinting from one plane to another, nervously rubbing my hands together while the cab sped along Hamburg streets, buying my ticket and making onboard the train just minutes before it slithers out of the platform. Arriving triumphantly in Westerland-Sylt on time at 18:17.
Andreas is waiting for me on the platform. He gives me a hug: amigo! He says. Hotel Stadt Hamburg – where the shenanigans has already began – is only a short walk from the station. I check in, park my suitcase in my room and come down for a quick beer and greet everyone who’s there. There are about fifteen to twenty guests occupying the dining room. Some of them I already know. Andreas’ life-long partner, Gudrun Thiel, Rainer Wörtmann and his wife Renate. And I see two very pretty ladies, they look quite familiar, but am not sure. They both smile at me and go, Eva Peters, Bettina von Beaust. Of course. They must realize that my memory of them was from 1975, when both of them were ever so schlank, so their now Bottero-esque figures have me confused. But they seem comfortable in their evolution, which puts me at ease. There is no one else I recognize or remember, except in my agenda, there is a little note that says: meet Brigitte – interesting! And like the saxophone aficionado – the birthday boy would have said: let the good times roll. And so they do. Between apèritif and digestif, the delicious home-made pasta with button mushrooms and wild duck in pepper crème sauce are washed down with appropriate wine pairings. And still waiting eagerly is the birthday cake with the colorful saxophone motif.
The clock is already ticking beyond 03:30 in the morning. I have the train to catch at 05:50 to take me back to Hamburg. Waiting for me at the station would be Michelle and Rüdiger, with whom I will have breakfast before catching the Lufthansa flight at 10:45 to Frankfurt, connect with their Chicago bound flight at 13:00, and in the evening meet up with our visiting Dutch publisher, Meinard Carper and his advertising director, Auke Visser.
‘I guess, I can take a quick nap and a shower before catching that train.’ I say to no one in particular. By then all of us are wasted and more than ready to hit the sack. But nope! Leave it on Rainer.
‘It doesn’t make any sense to go to bed now. How about another bottle of champagne? And then we’ll walk you to the station.’
‘Warum nicht?’ I answer, as if on auto pilot. And I see a wide smile cross Rainer’s big square face, made it cuter by dimples on his shriveling cheeks and his small baby teeth. As if saying: That a boy! So we order another bottle. At around five thirty, I go upstairs to my room, pick up my suitcase, pay DM 230.- (approx. $115.-) for the room and whoever is still around, practically roll me back to the station and wave until the train slides out of the platform in the early morning fog. One would think there would be nobody on the train that early on a Sunday morning. But there is a group of rambunctious youngsters. So I upgrade myself to the first class, slide doors shut, pull the curtains close and crash like a sand bag.
I have always loved trains at the night and the rhythm of their synchronized motion. It lulls me to deep sleep almost right away. Relaxed, exhausted and deprived of sleep all week long, I slip into a comfortable semi-coma. When I regain consciousness, all I sense is the total darkness and the pin drop silence. The train is stand still. Probably waiting its turn on the embankment, I think. Not even a peep, nor a sliver of light coming through. Now I feel the train moving a little bit. And then I feel it stopping, suddenly. Following that, there is a loud thumping on the locked doors of my compartment.
‘Hamburg, Hamburg. End station. Bitte aussteigen.’ I am not sure, if this is real or it’s a dream. But the knocking continues, like the pounding of a heavy hammer. I spring up like Jack in the Box. Disoriented no more, I slide the curtains and open the door.
‘Gott sei dank. Sie sind da. Hamburg. Aussteigen sie bitte.’ Seeing me well and alive, the conductor looks relieved. Frazzled, he tells me that if not for my friends on the platform, I would have ended up at the nearby train depot, nestled between half a dozen other idled trains. As I emerge from my car, Michelle flashes her sweet dimpled smile. They scurry me over to the airport right away. I check in first and then we sit in a café to have some breakfast.
No dramas or the time crunch with connecting in Frankfurt. We land in Chicago on time at around three in the afternoon. It is past four when I make it back home. I set the alarm and stretch out on my soothingly warm water bed. I am picking up Meinard and Auke for dinner at 19:30. I feel energized as I walk to the garage. I put the key in the ignition of Nora Nissan, as I call my car. The engine squawks, as if in excruciating pain and I hear the fan turning once or twice. And then the hood shudders sideways and pfffft. Sudden death!
© Haresh Shah 2013
Illustration: Jordan Rutherford
SISTER SITE
Next Friday, March 29, 2013
THE STORY OF MY TUXEDO
Up until then I had successfully avoided having to buy my own tux. Cheap? Also. Cultural antipathy? Maybe. But mainly because I never saw any sense in owning something that I would wear less times through my entire life than I could count on my fingers. And I could always rent one if I must.
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