As a
matter of fact, I’ll make the deal even sweeter for you and tell you the main
point of this one now so that you can stop wiggling in your seat in
anticipation and making your coworkers nervous. They’re starting to think that
you might be incontinent.
This,
my dear friends, is the Story of Ute. It is legendary. It is bat-crap crazy. And
most important of all, it’s true.
I have
to share a moment with you that happened shortly after I moved to Germany. It
just goes to show you that no matter how well you learn a foreign language in
an academic setting (or on your own), real life will always give you a pop quiz
that will bust your chops. A word of warning though – this entry is a bit long.
Being a
naturally out-going and friendly person has its advantages. It gives you plenty
of unexpected opportunities to get useful information like the directions to
the nearest subway stop or recommendations for the best Thai restaurant in the
area. In many other cases, it even presents you with the occasional
once-in-a-lifetime moment to make a new friend.
I
didn’t really know anyone in the city, so I spent most of my days wandering
around so that I could get to know the area and practice my German in random
situations. On this particular day I found myself in the city’s lovely
marketplace. The fruits and vegetables are fresh and colorful, and the flowers
sold at the market would be any American florist’s dream inventory. Every
single plant and flower is robust, intense in color and laden with blossoms.
As I
was standing there admiring the selection, an older lady walked up to me. She
looked at me and smiled, and I returned a polite smile and said hello. She looked
as though she was about 50-55 or so, and in retrospect, I suppose that there
were clues that she wasn’t completely mentally healthy. I mean, she had gotten
a hold of a razor, shaved off all of her eyebrows and replaced them with two
thin purple arches – permanently tattooed on her face to make her look like she
was in a perpetual state of shock and surprise. Her eye shadow was power-blue,
but it looked as though a drag queen make-up artist intent on exacting his/her
revenge at a pivotal moment had angrily applied it. The combination of poorly
dyed limp and tight curls framing her aging face reminded me later of a faded
wig Ronald McDonald might have worn when it had seen better days.
Despite
the fact that it was at the beginning of one of the hottest European summers on
record, she wore a thin tan trench coat over a white blouse and an ankle-length
floral print skirt with tan flats that quietly whispered “orthopedic shoes” and
had a blue and tan floral print scarf loosely tied around her neck to
accentuate her outfit.
You
might be wondering why I can recall all of these details so vividly. It was
actually a matter of necessity. I needed to provide a full statement to the
city police.
After I
had politely acknowledged her presence, I thought that she would move on. She
didn’t, so I did. I walked up to a florist and asked him to tell me the name of
the plant in German. Before he could utter a word, the woman interjected, “I
can tell you what the names of the plants are. My name is Ute. I’m part of the
local welcoming committee. You’re new here, aren’t you?” Well, the florist was
happy to oblige and left to attend an actual customer. Naïvely, I confirmed
that I was fresh-off-the-plane and asked her the name of the plant. Once she
told me, I thanked her and began to walk away.
She
scuttled to catch up and asked, “Sollen wir spazieren gehen?” Which, with my
slightly-better-than-tourist German, I understood to mean, “We are walking as
we should.” I thought it was kind of stupid of her to make such a statement, but
I just smiled politely, because where I’m from, you aren’t rude to older
ladies. It seemed obvious to me that this lonely, fashion-challenged woman just
needed someone to talk to, so I humored her for a bit. She told me about her
group of special friends who were all involved in either the performing or
applied arts. Then she told me about her lovely apartment, which wasn’t too far
from the market place…
By the
way, here’s something that might be useful if you ever find yourself in a
German speaking country. “Sollen wir spazieren gehen?” (literally, “Should we
go for a stroll?”) is clearly a pick up line. The genius that I am, I didn’t
figure this out until months later, when a guy on a motor scooter asked me if I
wanted to go “spazieren”. I’ll just blame the school system – none of the
chapters in my textbooks covered pick-up lines.
At that
point, I was a bit perplexed and started to feel uneasy. Whatever welcoming
committee she was on, I knew I didn’t want any part of it. When she pointed to
a bouquet of flowers and asked me if I’d like her to buy them for me, I’d had
enough. I said no, thank you, but I needed to be going. I said goodbye and
briskly walked to the nearest tram stop, glad to have had that awkward
experience behind me.
Which
would have been ok, but she decided to join me in the tram. (I did at least
have enough sense to get into a tram that was NOT leading me back to my
apartment.) When I got out three stops later, so did Ute. I hopped into another
one and rode one stop. So did she. I waited at the tram stop and looked at her.
She smiled and waved. All southern courtesy forgotten, I scowled at her and
yelled that she should leave me alone. Another tram arrived and I jumped in.
This time I rode six stops. Ute was right there, riding along looking surprised
and trying hard to pretend like she wasn’t stalking me. She always sat three
seats either in front or behind me.
At this
point, I was starting to freak out. Clearly, the Crazy Old Lesbian Stalker
division of the city’s Welcoming Committee had targeted me. I pulled out my
cell phone and called my husband. I spoke to him in frantic English.
“This crazy
woman is stalking me! What do I do? I’m riding to the train station. Should I
get on a train and leave the city? What if she follows me there, too? I can
never go home again! We have to move!”
I was
getting hysterical. My husband, thankfully being the voice of much-needed
reason, gave me some very useful information about my city.
“There’s
a police station inside the train station. Go there and tell them you’re being
followed.”
As soon
as the train station was in sight, I high-tailed it from the tram. You would
not believe it, but Ute was literally running behind me, trying to catch up!
Standing in the middle of the busy train station and knowing that there were
some police officers somewhere in the vicinity, I got bold. I abruptly stopped
running, turned around and practically collided with bat-crap crazy Ute. My
German classes hadn’t taught me how to make threats. In that moment, I
recognized the disadvantage of having had such an incomplete education, and I
mentally kicked myself in my own butt for ignoring my classmates as they took
to time to memorize inappropriate words. I had sat there like a nut memorizing
lines from Goethe’s Faust. Who’s the smart kid now? My inner a-hole taunted me.
In
complete and utter desperation, I used every bad word I knew in German. I
stamped my feet, flailed my arms in the air and yelled at the top of my lungs
and in the direction of Ute,
“War!!”
“Death!!” “Hitting!!”
I just
kept repeating these three words, kind of in the way we love to chant “USA”,
you know? And yes, I was aware even then that if the police had finally come in
that moment, I clearly would have been the one clamped with the crazy bracelets.
Ute
stood there, looking genuinely surprised and murmured, “But I thought you
wanted to be friends!” That crazy chic had the audacity to look bewildered. In
America, you can just threaten some coo-coo puffs with fierce looks and empty
promises of violence and they’ll usually leave you alone. These European ones
are different breed entirely.
I saw
the sign for the police and ran in, blubbering something to the effect of
Ronald McDonald’s crazy aunt following me around the city and I was too scared
to go home. Two officers rushed outside and looked for Ute, who had since then
already disappeared. I’ll tell you, that woman moved like a velociraptor.
I wish
that I could say that I never saw Ute again, but I did – once. At least my
husband had a chance to get a glimpse of her as well. We were walking downtown
and as a tram passed by and slowed to a stop, Ute was sitting in the back,
talking to a young woman who looked polite, fresh-off-the-plane and likely ready
to switch trams for one moving in a direction opposite from where she actually
lived.
I wished her a successful escape.
I wished her a successful escape.
