Archives for posts with tag: Relationships

THREE CHEATING HEARTS

May 15, 2014 //
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Falling Like Dominos

Haresh Shah

threehearts

The plan is for just the two of us to go out for dinner. Leave the business behind and talk men talk without women tugging at our arms. For me, whenever I am in Munich, it would be Susi as my forever companion. Normally Günter would have brought along his wife Hilda. Our usual double date every visit. For tonight, I am thinking of maybe us two having dinner at my early favorite neighborhood kneipe, Georgen Stuben on Prinz Regentenstrasse and afterwards maybe hit a couple of Schwabing locals like Tangente, Giesela’s and Domicil. Go down the memory lane, re-live the nostalgic days of my not so distant life in Munich.

But first, we’ve got to talk some business. Günter is one of the senior editors at the German Playboy. He has spent time in America as well, so we have got that too in common. We have spent lot of time together and have shared hundreds of silly laughs.

The first McDonald’s in Germany opened in Munich scant ten months before my arrival there in October of 1972. Just in time for Munich’s 1972 Summer Olympics. It must have taken a while for the national Life like illustrated Stern magazine to notice this American invasion, prompting them to run a cover story with the blurb screamingly calling Big Mac der Schmackloss Hackfleish – the tasteless minced meat. Günter and I couldn’t agree more, especially considering the humble German fricadel, a tasty meat ball the shape of a hamburger patty, made of the minced meat, eaten lukewarm with a hard shell brötchen – a bread roll and blob of yellow mustard on side. Lekker.
But that didn’t stop Günter and me to frequent the local MacDonald’s, conveniently located on my way home on Lindwurmstrasse. Often we would feel nostalgic about America and go grab a Big Mac or McChicken menus with some beer. Yup, you could actually have beer at McD’s in Europe. In Prague you also have a choice of white or red wine. And we would talk about the Stern story and how horrified the editors must have been along with a large amount of German population vis-à-vis the arrival of the Yankee Golden Arch. We would agree that fricadel was great, but once in a while, nothing would do but a juicy Big Mac. We would come to the conclusion that it must be Ronald McDonald’s secret sauce. We would often get carried away with our wild imagination of the Big Mac’s sex appeal, calling it a furburger instead, and acting out asking for them to be easy on onions – the silly childish stuff. I really am looking forward to spending this evening alone with Günter.

‘How if we first go to my hotel, have a couple of drinks in the lobby bar, then have dinner at Georgen Stuben and then following that hit a couple of joints in Schwabing, just like god old days?’ I suggest.

‘Sounds like a plan.’ He responds, but lacking in his voice is his usual exuberance and enthusiasm.

We drift away talking something else while I notice a certain amount of uneasiness on his face as he switches his butt back and forth in his chair.

‘The thing is, something else has come up since we made the plans!’ Looking nervous, he finally spills it out.

‘Like what?’

‘I got two press passes to tonight’s Paul McCartney concert.’

‘Wow! Paul McCartney live?’

‘I thought we would have a quick drink. Go to the concert and then get a late night bite at some place.’

‘That sounds super!’

‘It does, doesn’t it? I was very much looking forward to it.’

‘But…?’

First I see a bit of shrinkage with some wrinkles suddenly appearing on Günter’s face and then watch him take a deep breath and let go. That irons out his wrinkles and the smoothness of his face returns.’

‘The thing is, there is this woman!’

‘What woman?’

‘Her name is Ursula. Uschi.’ I wait for him to elaborate. ‘We see each other on and off.’

‘You mean…?’

‘Yup. Seitensprung!’ And we both break out laughing, remembering the fun we’ve had years earlier defining and re-defining the expression. Literally, it means a sideway leap. Simply put; straying or cheating in a relationship. Have a fleeting affair on side. Hoping no one notices it and then leap right back in the line. No harm done!

I am not happy about it, but I understand. An opportunity of a quick clandestine bums always trumps an evening out with a friend. But why tonight of all nights? The crossing in my mind of the expression bums makes me want to burst out laughing. Because it’s one of those other German words – literally it means, to bump! bounce! bang! Or normally used to run into something or someone. But it also means…

And I remembered another one of the editors during the early days: Carmen Jung using it and then telling me what it really meant in answer to my simple question.

‘Do you have a boyfriend?’

‘A steady one? No. But I do have someone I have bumsverhältnis with…recently it was perfectly defined in Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis movie, Friends with Benefits. And then she goes on to elaborate, how perfectly it works for her. That they have each other, and yet they are free.

‘I wouldn’t do this to a good buddy like you. But she called me a while ago whether we could have a rendezvous tonight that her husband had to take a sudden trip to Hamburg.’

‘I still don’t say anything. The expression on my face has a question mark.

‘And?’

‘And Hilda knows I am having dinner with you. You see?’ I certainly do. What could be more convenient?

But I still don’t want to see it. I notice a certain dismay on his face and then watch him slide open his desk drawer and pull out the two strips of the tickets and hand them to me. Printed on them is Paul McCartney & Wings. Not a bad trade off.

‘I guess.’ I say. Since I am busy for the next two evenings of my stay in Munich, I won’t be able to re-schedule another dinner with Günter this trip. But the next time around? After all, how often you get all access press passes to Paul McCartney concert?

‘I am sure, you and Susi will have fun at the concert.’

I am sure that Susi would be ecstatic. But wouldn’t it be great also if Barbara were free that evening? A thought crosses my mind. But out of sheer protocol and the guilt I would otherwise feel, I call Susi from Günter’s phone, wishing that she wouldn’t be around to answer it. And she isn’t.

‘I’ll try to call her again from the hotel.’ I say.

It’s half past five when I leave Playboy offices in New Perlach, wishing Günter nice evening with his seitensprung with his squeeze, Uschi.

I catch the S-Bahn back to the hotel and immediately call Barbara. She’s already home from work and answers her phone on the first ring.

‘I would love to!’ I can hear the excitement in her voice. Takes me back to the days when we both lived in California.

‘Let me hang up. We don’t have much time. I just got home and need to change and freshen up. Where are you staying? I’ll pick you up at 7:30.’

Her little BMW pulls up in Grand Hotel Continental’s driveway. The concert is at the Olympia Halle. Normally I don’t really care for such large venues packed with thousands of people. But though our press passes have no reserved seats, they allow us an easy access to everywhere except the back stage. We spend the entire evening in the arena – which is the open area right in the front of the stage and dance the night away as if in a small and cramped smoke filled venue of Schwabing or on Ripperbahn in Hamburg where the Beatles first began. Instead, on the stage are Paul & Linda McCartney and Denny Lane and rest of the Wings belting out their Band on the Run repertoire interspersed with some Beatles classics.

© Haresh Shah

Illustration: Celia Rose Marks

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

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Next Friday, May 23, 2014

MAKING FRIENDS

One of the fringe benefits of me working for Playboy in the job that I did, was an opportunity to meet the most interesting and creative people from around the world, many of them have become lifelong friends. More importantly, it allowed me to maintain those friendships by not fading into out of sight, out of mind state. Because I had no geographical barriers. It also allowed me to re-kindle non-Playboy relationships. Among them Dieter (Stark), whom I had originally met and worked with at Burda in Offenburg.

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Categories Friendship, Memoire, Playboy, Relationships, Romance, Women

HUGH GRANT IN MY SHOES

April 17, 2014 //
0

HUGH GRANT IN MY SHOES

Prowling The Streets Of Beverly Hills

Haresh Shah

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The media had field days following Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill star, Hugh Grant’s tryst with Divine Brown, on the night of June 27, 1995. And it wasn’t only the tabloid press but also mainstream media and the network talk shows like Late Night With Jay Leno and Larry King Live couldn’t well ignore their LAPD mug shots splattered all over the printed pages and on the television screens. On his Late Night Show, Jay Leno came right out and asked: what the hell were you thinking?Grant’s answer: I think, you know, in life what’s a good thing to do and what’s a bad thing, and I did a bad thing…and there you have it. His whole body twisting and turning this way and that, the boyish Grant squirmed in his hot seat as if run over by an eighteen wheeler. But he kept his sense of humor and got the roaring applause of approval from Leno’s enthusiastic audience.

On Larry King Live, he elaborated: I could accept some of the things that people have explained, ‘stress,’ ‘pressure,’ ‘loneliness’ — that that was the reason. But that would be false. Psychoanalysis is more of an American syndrome. In the end you have to come clean and say ‘I did something dishonorable, shabby and goatish.

Fair enough. I couldn’t help but admire his candidness instead of hiding behind some psychological mumbo jumbo. Especially also because he had so much to lose. His budding career. His stunningly beautiful model/actress girlfriend Elizabeth Hurley. He faced up to the fact that he had picked up a prostitute off the street in Beverly Hills and was caught by a Los Angeles police receiving oral sex in his BMW. And I couldn’t help but think that nineteen years earlier, it could have been me in my Buick also in Beverly Hills. Uncaught.

After an animated dinner with Levi (Raimund le Viseur) and the two photographers accompanying him – Steve and Ron and drinks before and after the dinner at Beverly Wilshire’s Blvd Lounge, feeling mellow, we decide to call it a day. Levi offers to walk me back to my car and see again my Buick Skylark – what they all called my lastwagen – a truck, in Munich. I still have a hundred mile long drive back home to Santa Barbara. Leaving him with Steve and Ron in the passage between the two wings of the hotel, I run over to men’s room before starting my journey. When I return, I see them surrounding a good looking young woman.

‘Well, would you like me to call up a couple of my girlfriends and we have a party?’ I heard the girl saying. The guys hustle for a while and then chickened out, decided to return to their rooms. It still hasn’t occurred to me that she could be anything else but a hooker. Attractive with a petite figure she looks just like an ordinary girl. Sweet and somewhat confused at Steve and Ron disappearing. I would have liked to talk to her some more, but Levi still lingers little distance away, waiting to walk me to my car.

‘I will be right back.’ I don’t know what makes me say to her as I walk toward Levi to bid him good night. Instead I let him walk me to my car, making a smart comment about the girl being eine nutte – a hooker.

‚Klarafall‘ of course, he hastens. I am parked close by on a side street. We talk some more before I get into the car. Levi waits until I turn around and then starts walking back to the hotel. I see the girl still waiting on the steps of the back plaza and then begin walking towards my car. Levi and her cross paths half way. I stop and pull up closer to the curb. Levi sees me getting out of the car, breaks his stride a bit and then slowly returns to the hotel.

‘What’s your name?’ I ask.

‘Sharon, and yours?’

‘Haresh.’

‘Harish? That’s a neat name.’

‘Thanks.’ She has mispronounced it like everybody else, but has come pretty close the first time.

‘Whatever happened to your friends. I thought they wanted to party?’

‘Well, I thought so too. But all of us are sort of tired, I guess!’

‘Would you like to have one all by yourself?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘You know?’

She doesn’t quite finish the sentence. In spite of my comment to Levi about her being a whore, this is the first time it occurs to me that she really was one, and I didn’t know for a moment what to say or do.

‘I’ll buy a drink.’

‘Alright.’ She slips her hand into the loop of my right arm and we start walking back to the hotel. She hesitates a bit in front of the revolving door and turns sideway to look at me.

‘Don’t you just want to go home and party instead?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t think I can afford you.’

‘Yes, you can!’

‘Not everyone coming out of Beverly Wilshire is rich. I am just a student.’

‘So am I.’

‘Where do you go to school?’

‘UCLA, and you?’

‘I go to UCSB in Santa Barbara.’ I bluff. And I can tell she did too.

‘How much can you afford?’ She changes the subject abruptly.

‘Not much.’

‘Do you have a girlfriend?’

‘No, I don’t.’ I would have liked to say ‘yes,’ but lies don’t come easy to me.

After a stretch of beautiful relationships, I am going through a very dry period in my life. It’s almost been a year since Debbie broke up with me, and since then I haven’t had a woman in my life I could hold close to. I am deep in my novel and it doesn’t bother me quite as much. Writing a chapter a day usually exhausts me by the time the sun goes down beyond the Devreaux Point in the western horizon. And the few good friends that I have, keep me afloat during this period of me having been de-womanized.

But standing in front of Sharon has thrown off my inner chemical balance. I have never in my life been with a whore, and neither do I aspire to be with one now. I am basically a romantic type, needing gentle intimacy and closeness. Time to look into each other’s eyes, lean over her face and experience tender touching and caressing, create that mellow span – and above all have a feeling of the two people’s mutual need to be together – even if it’s for one single night.

I look back at Sharon. I still can’t see anything about her that comes even in the slightest close to her being a whore. She practically has no makeup on her face, not even bit of mascara over her eye lids. Her skin is baby smooth, devoid of any blemishes. Her hair looks clean and smells freshly washed. Her blouse is modest and covers her breasts. She isn’t even wearing the customary knee high boots that is synonymous with ladies of the night around the world. The kind they would make Julia Roberts wear fifteen years later in her role in Pretty Woman. If not for her miniskirt, she doesn’t look any different than a beautiful girl next door that us men fantasize about.

As I am taking her in, I am transposed back to Chicago. My friend Sandra and I are sitting at the bar of Ricardo’s. We haven’t seen each other for a while and we have a lot to catch up. As usual, she tells me about her amorous encounters – which she has many. Sandy is such an incredible magnet to men all over – and she loves them like no other woman I know. She is always heart broken or is the breaker of the heart. I am glad, we’re just friends. During the course of the evening, out of nowhere she comes out and says:

‘You won’t believe this, but from this very spot on the bar, I picked up a john last night and let him take me home.’

‘You mean?’

‘Yeah. I had always wondered what it would feel like to turn a trick!’

Now I have known about Sandy’s many impulsive adventures and her having brought home all sorts of males of the species, but never before she had ever mentioned a john.

‘He was good looking,’ she says with an impish smile on her face, ‘and I needed the money.’ Then she goes on philosophizing about how every woman at one time or another in her life thinks of an option of doing just that. Most of my girlfriends have fantasized about it. I guess, it confirms something deeper inside us.

‘Don’t worry. I don’t think I would ever make a habit of it.’ She concludes as an after thought.

Could be that Sharon is telling the truth and she is really a student and in need of money? The thought crosses my mind.

‘Let’s walk.’ She says and takes me by the arm. She obviously doesn’t care to stand in front of the revolving door and looking conspicuous. Neither do I. I obediently follow her to the steps, and suddenly stop.

‘Listen, you tell me how much you cost and I’ll tell you if I can afford you.’ She ignores my question and gently pulls me behind her.

‘Let’s sit in your car and talk.’ So we do.

‘That’s a nice jacket.’ She compliments. ‘And a nice car too.’ I thank her for the compliments and wonder whether she believes me being a student wearing a $200.- velvet jacket and owning a shiny, almost new Buick Skylark.

‘I don’t think I can afford more than twenty dollars.’ I divulge. Thinking she would probably push me away and exit the car in a hurry.

‘Okay, let’s go and make beautiful love.’

I turn on the ignition.

‘Where do you live?’

‘In Santa Barbara.’

‘Oh yes, you said that earlier, didn’t you? In that case, go straight ahead and turn right at the light.’

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Categories Divine Brown, Elizabeth Hurley, Hugh Grant, Memoire, Playboy, Prostiitution

MY WINTER VALENTINE

November 21, 2013 //
0

Haresh Shah

Of Pinot Noir And The Burlaping in Boonville

burlapping

The year is 1995 and talking of California wines to the Europeans is somewhat of a joke like the early transistor radios made in Japan were to everyone. Never mind that almost twenty years earlier on the day of America’s Bicentennial on July 4, 1976, the world’s wine experts were asked in a blind tasting to compare six California Cabernets and Chardonnays along with as many of Bordeaux and Burgundies and to everyone’s horror and American wine makers’  delight, California’s best stood shoulder to shoulder with the French on everyone’s scorecards, putting them instantly on the world map.

While the wine professionals of  Europe took a note of it, the wine consumers of the Continent remained oblivious to even their existence. Frustrated, California’s vintners decided, the time had come to make the world aware of the lush Napa Valley and its wines that were growing by leaps and bounds off the northern California Coast.

As a part of the broader push, California Wine Institute has invited the Dutch edition of Playboy to experience California’s wine country in all its glory, including its rapidly emerging cuisine and enjoy their steadily growing warm hospitality industry, in hopes that Playboy would take the message to its upscale demographics in Holland.

The editor-in-chief Jan Heemskerk himself takes upon the project and picks me to accompany him and assigns me to write a major piece for his edition. Not because by any dint of imagination I am a connoisseur or even an expert of wines, but because he thinks of me as someone who knows his wines, especially the ones from California.

He certainly doesn’t expect me to write something like what is on the back label of the 2011 Ménage à Trois I just picked up from the store: Ignite the romance with our silky, smooth Pinot Noir. Made with grapes from a trio of top California growing regions in a lush, fruit-forward style. It’s utterly irresistible. Bright cherries mingle with sultry violets and hints of toasty oak in a delicious slow jam on the palate. Whew! Enough to induce an instant wet dream!!!  Nothing like that. You haven’t picked a wine that I didn’t like. I’m obviously flattered and pleased. Not to mention all the fun we would have traveling together. Also to get out of Chicago’s bitter winter during the month of January is nothing to sniff at.

Over the next eleven days, we did the wineries of Napa Valley that included Sonoma and Mendocino counties. We met with the owners, wine makers, PR people and tasted a whole slew of what California had to offer in terms of wines paired to what has come to be known as California Cuisine, and enjoyed tremendously the hospitality of exquisite small, quaint and cozy boutique hotels, such as Vintners Inn and Medowood and others dotted along the wine trail. I hope to write of them in detail some other time, but the story I want to tell you today is that of the evening we spent with Pinot Noir farmers in the little hill-top town of Boonville.

With Ken Beck of Fetzer, a group of us drive up the long and winding mountainous route 128 to the place called The Sound Bite. It’s a down home all American small town restaurant and bar, complete with the pool table and serving very basic food. We have what looks and tastes like minced meat pie baked with a layer of mashed potatoes. The place is buzzing with the wine grape growers and winemakers of Mendocino County.  They have gathered here to present, taste and talk about their own Pinot Noirs, for which the region is renowned. More than any other varietal, they tell  us, Pinot Noir is very site specific if truly great wine is to be made.

Through the evening, we taste total of twenty one Pinot Noirs, including three sparkling varieties. The tasting is divided into six flights.  Each flight contains wines from three to four wineries.  Most of the wines presented are of ’93 and ’94 vintages and to our un-educated pallets they taste more like Beaujolais Nouveau.  For us, non wine-growers, the most interesting thing is to be among the wine farmers and the producers themselves, instead of the owners and the PR people describing their wares. The men and women we find ourselves surrounded by are the real farmers, they till the land, harvest the crops, press the grapes, make the wines and bottle them. You can see a definite parental pride and joy in their eyes as they fondly fuss over the wines that cross our lips and titillate our taste buds.

Of the five women sitting at our table of eight, four are grape farmers with their own Pinots, the fifth, Leisha is Ken’s daughter, and even though Ken too is a wine maker, he is with us as an observer – the other two men being Jan and I. Curiously, us three men are either married or committed, whereas all five women are apple heads–the Boonville slang for single women. I will call the four farmer femmes, Sally, Nicky, Christine and Mandy. They are all in their early to mid-thirties. Good looking even, in rustic sort of way. While they are dressed up for the evening, you could see and feel that they are true farmhands, wholesome and strong of toned muscles. After a couple of flights and after the ice has been broken between us, the women let their hair down and begin to educate us in the local secret language called Bootling.

‘You know what an apple head blanketing means?’ Asks Nicky. Seeing that we’re shaking our heads, she continues.

‘That means, a single woman getting laid. Like our Mandy here.’

‘Nicky! Please!!’ Mandy throws a faux embarrassment.

‘Actually she got burlaped, didn’t you Mandy?’ quips Christine.

‘What’s that?’ either Jan or I ask.

‘That means…’

‘No, don’t you dare! You are embarrassing me,’ squeals Mandy. Nicky throws a friendly wicked smile at Mandy and continues.

‘That means she got taken on top of a burlap bale,’ we see Mandy’s face turning water melon red.

‘Ouch, that’s got to scratch your sweet little booty good!’ It’s Christine again.

And while we are trying to imagine Mandy getting burlaped, the girls break out in a roaring chorus of a laughter, joined by Leisha and Ken, and then also by us while poor Mandy tries to hide her still reddening face behind the shield of her hands. The rest continue with how about, and throw at us some more Bootling slangs, such as Bucky Walter, Horn of Zeese, and Bal Gorms.  They mean public telephone, cup of coffee and good food.  And not to forget Madge and Moldunes meaning a whore and big boobs. Madge because in the days past, a woman called Madge ran the local bordello. Moldunes comes from the early Hippies that had migrated to the region and their women let their pendulums hang out and down – braless. There’s a story behind all of them and there even exists a book or two to keep the lore alive.  While we’re all having lots of laughs interspersed with different Pinots,  Sally somehow seems withdrawn, lost and a bit out of it. She is directly in the line of my vision and I can’t help but notice and observe the sadness settling on her face.

‘Poor Sally here, she’s sad tonight.  She just broke up with her boyfriend of  two years.’ Interjects Mandy, probably to shift the attention from her being blanketed on the burlap. But realizing that perhaps she has touched upon a raw nerve, the girls switch back to talking about their wines.

While I am busy conversing with Leisha, who’s sitting next to me, my attention keeps drifting to the sad face of Sally.  She is the runt of the group, perhaps even youngest and wears shorter hair that hugs closer to her neck. She has been quiet all evening long. She looks so sad that I feel she may just break down and cry. The passive pain of her face  makes you want to caress and comfort her. I see her excusing herself and slowly walking out of the restaurant.

‘She probably needs a smoke and wants to be alone for a while,’ says Christine. I wonder about Sally all alone outside the restaurant, smoking. Something draws me to her and I find excusing myself to go to the john and than casually step outside in the open. Sure enough, she is smoking, leaning against the hood of one of the parked pick-up-trucks.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Yes. Just needed bit of fresh air.’

We engage in small talk. I ask her discreet questions about her break up. She gives me a feeling of being welcoming to have someone to talk with. The night is crisp and clear, the stars are bright and the mountain air is refreshing. Our subdued voices waft in the air like mellow musical notes. The stray light illuminates and deepens the sadness of her face. Us both leaning on the hood, seem to have slid closer. A sweet whiff of her perfume and her gentle breathing feel somehow intimate. I imagine her face tilting and resting over my shoulder, sliding down and buried in my chest. Out lips are so close, fluttering.  We’re at that certain now or never moment of either sealing or quelling of our suddenly awakened ardor.

And then I think of Susan, two thousand miles and two time zones away in Chicago, probably sitting in front of a television.  We’ve now been together for more than two years. Something similar must have been going through Sally’s mind as well. We consciously and slowly retract and step back.

‘It was wonderful meeting and talking to you. Hope you write a nice article about the Pinots.’

I wait until the taillight of her pick-up disappears in the downhill slope.

●●●

I do write a nice article about the California Wine Country. I write a series of them. A few days before the Valentine Day, Susan and I are having Sushi at Kama Kura in Evanston. We both are quiet or making polite low key conversation to fill the void that seems to have dawned between us two since my return from California. I sense it, but can’t quite put my finger on the possible cause.

‘You’re too sophisticated for me.’ I hear her say. Right!

She obviously has given our relationship some serious thought during these days. We talk for the umpteen time the perception and reality –  misunderstandings and interpretations.  But we both know, there is nothing more to say.

‘You know, you’re right, I have middle class values,’ she concedes. I’m disarmed.

Two days later, its Sunday and two days before the Valentine Day. The night before I have cooked an elaborate Indian meal. We have washed it down with a bottle of Cuvee Fumé  Preston. We have spent another one of the most loving and passionate nights. We are sitting at the round glass top table in the breakfast nook of my kitchen. There are tears. No more words. Laying in the middle is a bouquet of a dozen champagne roses – more my style than the traditional red ones.

And then she is gone. Emptiness begins to fall like the fluffy snow flakes. Slowly accumulating and settling on the ground.

© Haresh Shah

Illustration: Celia Rose Marks

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Next Friday, November 29, 2013

“HE’S A SON OF A BITCH’

That’s me they’re talking about. The question most asked of me time and time again is: How does one get a job at Playboy? Or more to the point: How did you get to work for them? Other than joking around, I have always avoided giving a straight answer to these questions – lest it may end up sounding like a boast.

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Categories California Wines, Food & Wine, Pinot Noir, The Netherlands

MY SPRING VALENTINE

April 4, 2013 //
0

As The Time Goes By

Haresh Shah

myvalentinev2

Exactly thirty six years ago today on April 5th. 1977, in Santa Barbara, California, it was another fucking beautiful day, as my neighbor Greg Ketchum and I had began to refer to our forever such gorgeous weather, whenever we both found ourselves out on our respective balconies, overlooking the awesome Santa Ynez Mountain Range.  I was done with my writing for the day and was sitting around in my living room with Mike and Guusje, drinking beer, when the phone rings.

Without any pleasantries, the female voice on the other line dives right into it.

‘I understand you are auditioning young ladies for Playboy.’

‘Not quite.’ I respond with trepidation, trying hard to think who it might be. Sensing confused silence on my end of the line, the voice breaks out in a hearty laugh.

‘This is Carolyn,’ it says.’ It still doesn’t ring the bell.

‘I was just passing through. I am on my way down south to see Gwen in LA.’ And then I knew.

‘Where are you?’

‘I am here. In Santa Barbara.’

‘You are? Why don’t you come on over?’

‘Okay.’

She doesn’t ask for the direction. Soon I see her pulling up on the Linfield Place in her yellow Volkswagen, named Rachel Rabbit.  She had once lived here before moving up north to Sacramento.  She plans to spend a couple of days walking down the memory lane, perhaps meet up with some people she knew and then continue on to Los Angeles to see her sister. As soon as she walks in, we hug, ever so self  consciously, but there is a feeling of a certain intimacy, which becomes apparent after Mike and Guusje leave. We stand in the middle of the room with our arms wrapped around and holding each other as if we were long lost lovers, and then abruptly but gently step back.

I invite her out for dinner and we drive down to Dobb’s in the city center from Goleta, where I live off the UCSB campus. The dinner is animated and we talk a lot about relationships. Hers with her husband Bob has just ended and they have filed for no-contest divorce. I am trying to build a long distance relationship with Patricia in Mexico City, but neither of us is quite sure. We are sort of oscillating. Carolyn has also been sort of dating someone. But as we talk, the magnetic pull between us two is obvious. After dinner we take a walk on the beach, feeling mellow, listening to the gentle waves of the Pacific splashing the shore. The vast expanse of the beach is deserted that night. I don’t remember for sure if it were a full moon night, but let’s assume that it was, just to give an extra romantic edge to the evening. We feel the ocean breeze lightly feather our exposed skins. The stars seem to be aligned just right on this clear cloudless night. We are walking hand-in-hand and feel the tender but intense energy transpiring through our entwined fingers.

The way I normally tell the rest of the story is: I bring her back home that night, thread my three hour long reel-to-reel tape containing Keith Jarrett’s soothing Cologne concert. And keep her.

●●●

I first met Carolyn and her husband Bob in the bar of a canal side little B & B in Amsterdam, where I had stopped by to look for a room. They were fully booked. But I stayed to have a beer in their bar before venturing out in the early January cold. Sitting diagonally opposite from me was a young couple from Duluth, Minnesota.

I had not planned to be in Amsterdam on this trip.  Certainly not to spend the whole week there. A little over a week earlier I had run away from Chicago in hopes to mend my broken heart. I had picked Denmark literally by putting my finger on the map. The place where no one I knew lived and the place where I could be face-to-face with my lonely self, the place where I could nurse  my wounds and disappear in its anonymity. Copenhagen seemed to do just that for me. Regaining some of my spirit back, I flew on to Stockholm – thinking I would celebrate  my New Year’s Eve up there. But on that morning, it got to be too lonesome. At the last minute, I called my friend Franz-Hermann Gomfers in Wachtendonk, a little town in the lower Rhine, that bordered with Venlo in Holland. As usual, he was hosting the Sylvester party and I found myself amongst the jubilant throng of the New Year’s Eve revelers.

Four years earlier, also at Franz Hermann’s Sylvester party, I had met the flaming red head, Felicita. Fe, as everyone called her,  grew up in a house in the alley diagonally opposite from Fran Hermann’s house. Shy as she was, we had clicked and spent most of the night sitting on a corner sofa, talking. Getting up once in a while to slow dance and then sit down again.  There is a photo of me sitting next to her, holding her wrist in my hand and twirling her bracelet, gazing at it as if in admiration. As good a pretense as any to hold her hand. Three weeks later I had left Europe to come to the United States.

Reconnected, we drive to Krefeld to have dinner the night of the New Year. Staying out late, we  leisurely stroll the deserted streets of the town. Stop frequently at store fronts and window shop. Four years earlier, she wore her hair very short. Now seeing her in a longer than shoulder length hair, I am blown away by how breathtakingly gorgeous she looks. Her radiant smooth skin matches the color of her hair, her shy smiles has me absolutely captivated.

Playfully, I say to her: ‘I’ll marry you when your hair grows down to here,’ pointing to the small of her back with the blade of my hand.

‘Be careful what you say, because my hair grows very fast. In fact, I did have it down to my waist up until a month ago.’ She responds with an impish smile on her face.

And our game begins, as if we were an engaged couple, soon to be married. We pick the bridal gowns and the tuxedos that she and I would wear on our wedding day. We build an imaginary house and begin to fill it with the furniture we see on display. We select baby clothes and the little booties and bonnets for our baby. Even toss around a few names for the daughter we would have. And as we continue our silly little make-believe game, I imagine her walking down the aisle, her radiant face luminous behind the veil.

My plan is now to spend the remaining eight days of my escape from Chicago in Amsterdam. Something I had dreamt of doing with Karen. But it wasn’t meant to be. And now my fickle heart is longing for Fe to explore with me the canals, the bridges and the alleys of the Venice of the north.

●●●

On that Sunday evening, as I stand over one of the thousand bridges of Amsterdam and watch the canal floating down below, I see in its ripples the faces of the women that dot the canvas of my emotional landscape.

Netty, who worked at Drukerij Bosch when I was an intern there seven years earlier,  now lives in Amsterdam. It’s been nice seeing her again, but I can still feel a certain amount of tension linger  between us. Her girlfriend Reneé, on whom I had an incredible crush, leading to a few stolen kisses, is now married and also lives in Amsterdam. Both Netty and I went  to see her and her husband one evening. There is also Carolyn. I thought she was pretty and liked her American way of dressing in blue jeans and a simple top. Lacking of any visible makeup and the hair almost touching her waist. She reminded me of Joan Baez . But I don’t carry any  deeper impression of her. And of course, there is Karen, back in Chicago – the woman I have run away from. But the face that superimposes all of them is that of Fe’s.  What I see clearly in that fluid water is the parting  image of her, clutching the bunch of red tulips, her eyes fogging up and the tail light of her disappearing train.

Having spent the whole weekend together, walking around Amsterdam till wee hours of the morning – still feeling weary and sleepy after the late morning breakfast, we are lying sideways on her single bed – talking, almost whispering – sharing with each other and feeling a certain   closeness at our parallel stories of the bruised hearts, I am overwhelmed at the silence that has fallen between us. Us staring deep into each other’s eyes.

‘Willst du mich heiraten?’ It just pops out of my mouth. Something I had never asked anybody up until then and have not to this day since. ‘Will you marry me?’

The fog has fallen dense on the city of Amsterdam. My emotions are torn. The longing intensified. The faces dissolving in the ripples as they march on.

●●●

It’s January 3rd 1979. Delayed by two and a half hours, our United flight from Los Angeles is the last one to land that night at 12:30 at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, before the back-to-back snow storms would blanket and paralyze the city for weeks and months to come. We check into the Playboy Towers – the old dame of the hotel known as The Knickerbocker, before and after its present avatar – at two in the morning with a whole bunch of boxed live potted plants that make up the bulk of our excess baggage. Because we are told that they would never make it to Chicago in the truck. I have returned to Playboy full time to work out of their head offices. Carolyn is seven months pregnant. We have bought a condo in Hyde Park and would move in soon as our stuff arrives.  The side streets remain buried under mountains of snow up until April. When the truck finally makes it to Chicago area, they deliver bits and pieces by minivans. Soon as they deliver the mattresses on the 26th, we move in.

After three weeks of being stuck in a hotel, it feels good to be in our own place. However inadequately equipped. We are prepared to sleep on the hardwood floors if we had to. In the meanwhile, I keep trucking. Of which Lee Hall writes in his International Publishing Newsletter dated February 5: Haresh will be returning from Spain this weekend to assist in the last minute birth of his first child. He and Caroline (sic) have recently moved into a delightful apartment in Chicago but are currently awaiting the arrival not only of the baby but of their furniture van which has been marooned somewhere in the Mid-western snow.

And then its March 6. Its 04:04 in the morning – the drama of a new child being born is enacted in the bedroom of our apartment. Propped up and leaning on the wall at the edge of the bed is me, Carolyn’s head resting on my shoulder. At the ready is the midwife Kay with her experienced hands to clutch and catch the baby pushing to emerge into this world. Surrounding the bed are Dr. Elvove, Anita and Keeline while Bob is clicking away with the little Kodak Instamatic with his trembling hands.  We see first Anjuli’s head pop out and then with another push, all of her. Dr. Elvove hands me a pair of scissors to snap the umbilical cord. A daughter born in Playboy family receives Playboy kind of welcome by telexes from around the world in response to Lee Hall’s following announcement, barely making it  in his Newsletter dated March 5, but not mailed until later.

PS: Anjuli Shah-Johnson, the first daughter of Haresh Shah and Carolyn Johnson, was born on March 6.

© Haresh Shah

Illustration: Jordan Rutherford

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

Next Friday, April 12, 2013

FACE TO FACE WITH JAN CREMER

It is very likely that the most of you have never heard of Jan Cremer, the ultimate enfant terrible of the Dutch literature and the art. He once famously said in an interview: Rembrandt? I have never heard of him. I’m not interested in sports. Arrogant? Brilliant?  Whatever. But I am a big fan of his books, I Jan Cremer and Jan Cremer Writes Again. And have had a pleasure of meeting and talking to him.

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Categories Relationships, Romance, Women

BY THE TIME I GET TO AMSTERDAM…

February 21, 2013 //
3

Haresh Shah

Leaving On A Jet Plane

amsterdamwindowcafe2

The captain has already announced for the crew to prepare for the departure. The aircraft door is already pulled in and slammed shut, when  I notice one of the flight attendants picking up the receiver from the wall phone and in turn calling the cockpit. The plane comes to a halt and then very slowly inches back to meet the jetway. The door opens and in comes trotting  a young woman, weighed down on her right by a fairly large and what seems like a heavy blue duffle bag. The flight attendant helps her with the bag. Looking frazzled and out of breath, she gives a feeling of being distraught and disoriented . She is tall and pretty, but looks a bit haggard with no visible makeup on her face and her unkempt, unwashed shoulder length blond locks. She has a chiseled angular face, a small but proportional nose and the dull grey eyes. She is dressed in a beat up pair of blue jeans and a long sleeved well fitting deep purple T-shirt, under black leather jacket. Her frame carries a shapely figure. She is being escorted to the empty seat next to mine. She throws her bulky purse under the seat in the front and plumps herself down next to me, hurriedly snapping together her seat belt.

‘Hi,’ I greet her. She gives me a cursory look without responding. Realizing she probably wants to be left alone, I pick up the copy of Holland Herald from the seat pocket in front of me. I hear a sigh of relief from her as she sinks into the long and wide first class seat.

Once up in the air, when the aircraft has reached the cruising altitude, she seems to let herself be relaxed and accepts a glass of champagne when the flight attendants come by with drinks and bowls of roasted almonds.  I order a glass of dry Sherry. Then I sense her head turn side ways with her glass of champagne raised and hear her say, ‘prost.’

‘Magda.’ She offers her hand sideways.

‘Haresh.’ I introduce myself and we shake hands if a bit awkwardly. We clink our glasses  and once again the silence prevails as we both retreat to our own private little world.

‘I just left my husband!’ I hear her say, addressing to no on in particular.

‘What happened?’ Hesitantly, I venture.

‘Nothing really that I can pinpoint. I just felt so cramped and smothered, so very suffocated that I couldn’t breath. So boxed in. I just had to escape before I snapped.’

●●●

From then on until we land in Amsterdam seven hours later, sprinkled in-between our drinks and  meals, she tells me the story of her life. I have strung together here from whatever I remember of those conversations with as much accuracy as my memory affords me. What I couldn’t remember in details, I have taken the creative freedom to fill them in.  Yet, the story itself remains pretty much the same as she shared it with me. Narrated in Magda’s voice, told  in the first person to give it intimacy.

‘I was born and grew up in Alkmaar. Do you know the town in the north west of Holland? Its known for its famous cheese market.’

‘Actually, I do know Alkmaar quite well. That’s where my friend Jan Heemskerk lives.’ And I give her a quick rundown on my long and warm relationship with Holland and its people starting with my internship in the printing house Drukkerij Bosch in Utrecht, the family Tukker and my Dutch girlfriend Netty and years later me returning back to Holland to do Playboy.

‘Then maybe you will understand how I feel.’

‘I will try.’

‘Anyways, when I was old enough, I moved to Amsterdam and found myself a job, a small one bedroom apartment of my own and was living a life of a small town girl really in love with the big city of Amsterdam.

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MY LATIN VALENTINE

February 7, 2013 //
3

Haresh Shah

Eres Tu, Eres Tu, Asi, Asi, Eres Tu…

between_the_fountain

Premonition? Up until this very moment, I had never thought of it that way. But there are times when you can’t help but wonder and end up giving things the benefit of the doubt!  During the trip I took from Chicago to Mexico City, I met with Francisco Sadurni, the local attorney hired by Playboy to help me get a long term multiple  entry visa.  Knowing that I didn’t have any plans for the evening, he tagged me along to a party at his uncle’s house – also an attorney.

From the outside, the house looked quite unpretentious. Ordinary even. But what I encountered behind the closed street-side gate was nothing like anything I had seen inside a private home. It opened into a vast courtyard running into a spacious living room. The centerpiece about which the people milled around was a real fountain, like in a small garden of a Shinto shrine. There were ornate columns buttressing the slanted skylight roof. The palm, cactus and other tropical plants gave you a feeling of being in a rain forest. Five piece strolling Mariachi band  serenaded while the guests made trips back and forth between the individually canopied food and drink stands, set up  like in a traditional Mexican mercado. Bottles of French champagne popped open and emptied every few minutes. Men were all dressed like  lawyers in their dark pinstripe suites, which many of them probably were.  There were scores of beautiful young women dressed so provocatively and yet elegantly in their clingingly skin tight outfits with revealing tops. I felt like Alex in the wonderland.  What I had thought to be a party  containing of about twenty people, turned out to be a hundred or more guests.

Francisco takes me by the hand and introduces me to many of the guests with his good humored effervescent Mexican manner with an abrazo here, a back slapping there.. As everywhere else, the name Playboy evokes an awe as people shake hands with me and make small talk.

Seeing that I am eyeing the approaching morena in her dark and shiny burgundy-on-burgundy striped satin jumpsuit, he stops her in her tracks.

‘Let me introduce you to my cousin Luis’ daughter Patricia.‘

We say hello. Her English is rudimentary at the best, and my Spanish is yet non-existent.  When Francisco runs away to greet new arrivals, we are left alone standing in the middle of the hall – trying to communicate best as we can.  She is more exotic than she can be called  pretty. Her oily dark brown skin is darker than mine. Her jet black hair and big penetrating dark eyes and the complexion makes her stand apart from most of the light skinned women swirling  around. Up close, I notice that cut out at the top of her tight fitting jumpsuit is a heart shaped slit,  revealing the firm round breasts through her cleavage.

We try to talk for a while and then excusing herself she disappears in to the crowd and is gone for hours. Soon she fades from my awareness as I engage in conversation with other guests.  It must have been closer to one in the morning.  I guess I must have been having good time to still be around. Francisco is long gone and the crowd is now thinning out. And I see her again. Now looking a bit weary, she is sitting on one of the two facing love seats. The another one is occupied by an elderly couple.  Intuitively, I walk up to her. She gestures me to sit down next to her.

‘Meet my parents, Luis and Rosario.’

‘Mucho gusto,’ I say.

And we talk. Rosario has lived in Los Angeles for a while, and she speaks good English.  Mainly it is her and I talk while Luis sits there looking tired and bored.  Rosario engages me and Patricia in pleasant talks.  Asking me about myself, my job, even my family back in India. I could tell, the mother likes me. A definite kiss of death!  Or maybe not.

Soon after, Rosario gets up with; ‘I better bring my husband home before he falls asleep’ Patricia too makes a move to depart.

‘Stay for a while, please!’  I plead. ‘I will bring you home in a cab.’

‘She doesn’t have to go with us. She has her own car,’ says her mother.

Patricia sticks around for an hour or longer. We somehow manage to communicate,  mostly in mimes augmented by a few words in-between. Actually she ends up taking me back to my hotel in her little Volkswagen Bug. I manage to make a date with her for the weekend.

‘I am sorry but my younger sister Tere will have to come with me!’

I agree. I guess that’s how things are done in Mexico.

I shouldn’t have worried about the third wheel. She indeed shows up with her sister for the poolside buffet at Camino Real. Soon as we finish eating and have moved to the grassy patch to lounge around, Tere promptly excuses herself and is gone. She is spending the afternoon with her boyfriend!

●●●

During the next seven days that I spend in Mexico City, Patricia and I see each other several times. Sneaking out for quick lunches, meet for dinners. Growing closer and feeling more and more emotionally linked at every encounter.  In absence of being able to verbally communicate fluently, we complement our body language with passing back and forth of my Spanish-English pocket dictionary. She fills it in with some English words that she remembers from what she must have learned in school. I use the few Spanish words I pick up everyday from here and there. But most of our growing infatuation with each other can easily be summed up from the night before I return back to Santa Barbara. We sit  together huddled on a bench seat of the most elegant and romantic restaurant,  Le Fouquet’s de Paris, nestled inside the vast expanse of my hotel.

Mostly we hold hands and communicate the intensity of our feelings by varying the pressure of our squeezes. We gaze into each others eyes and catch that certain ray of the flickering candlelight from her eyes to mine and mine to hers. Between the courses, while waiting for the next, which are paced just right, we would scoot – or more like cuddle closer – as if it were possible to be any nearer.

Me whispering: You’re so beautiful, almost wanting to break into Joe Cocker rendition of you’re so beautiful, to me. Her looking back, meeting my gaze and whispering back, probably translating eres guapo, into “you’re a beautiful boy.”

Sitting there with this exotic beauty, only twenty two years old, working as an executive secretary, it amazes me to think that how sophisticated she is  in the way she is dressed,  and in her knowledge of good wines and the food. And how refined is her manners. I am specially touched by the way she takes a piece of bread, butters it daintily and hands it to me so tenderly, like a loving little mother. And then watching me eating it as tenderly, before picking up a piece for herself.

As the evening wears and we sit there with the glasses warmed over the open flame of the cognac warmer, she takes a sip, then puts down the glass. Takes my hand into hers. We are facing each other sideways. I see her lips flutter.

‘I love you.’ She whispers.

‘I love you.’ I whisper back.

By the time I escort her to her little VW Bug, the hotel garage is deserted save for a few cars  strewn here and there. I am overwhelmed with emotions and the desire so deep and fervent that I don’t want to let her go. We stand by her car and hold each other close. There are kisses and then she gently peels herself  away.

‘My father will kill me.’ Those words emerge slowly. Somehow she has managed to utter an entire English sentence.

I pull her to me one more time. My arms resting on her shoulders, I scoop her face into my hands. I don’t want to let her go. ‘This is a crazy question to ask, but would  you be my girlfriend?’ It just rolls out of my mouth.

Startled, she steps back. Her eyes fixed on mine, I hear her utter, ever so softly: ‘Si.’

●●●

Next morning she picks me  up and brings me to Benito Juarez International Airport. We have coffee up in the terrace café. We are both tired, sleepy even. We don’t say much but hold hands across the table. My hand sandwiched between hers.

‘I’ll miss you.’ She says.

‘I’ll miss you.’ I repeat.

‘I’ll wait for  you. And…’ she whispers something that I don’t quite grasp at first but then understand as,  ‘And be good!’

‘I am always good!’ I answer playfully!

‘Be good.’ She repeats. ‘Or…’ And I see her slide the blade of her hand across her neck.

‘Ouch!’

I let out a nervous laugh.  I could almost feel the sharp knife slashing through my throat and see the blood dripping.  And think: she is a Latin Lover alright.  But no importa. I haven’t felt this good and this close to anyone in a long time.   I reach across the table and put my other hand on the top of our already layered hands, like in a Pyramid.

They announce my flight. We shuffle and I sling my carry on bag over my shoulder.  As we walk down the stairs, we stop on the landing. I put down my carry-on and take her in my arms. ‘But the people!’ Her mild protest is lost in our sealed lips. And we continue our descent. She takes my hand in hers, gives it a slight squeeze and I hear her say, ‘I feel triste.’  The sadness has dawned upon me as well. We pause at the bottom of the stairs, and then I hurry through to the immigration desk. When I look back, she is gone. I imagine  her blurry eyes. I want to run back.

© Haresh Shah 2013

Illustration: Jordan Rutherford

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

 Next Friday, February 15, 2013

IN THE NAME OF LOVE

It’s easy to fall in love. But it takes some doing to sustain a relationship.  Most of the time it’s only little things that make big differences.  To wrap up my Valentine Month, I tell the story of a friend who chooses to sustain his love with his wife than to hold on to something that was emotionally so dear and near to him.

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