5. Bastian
Chapter 5
Bastian
I walk her back to the hotel and I stop outside. “Thank you for a lovely evening.”
“I should be saying that to you. Really Bastian, you’ve totally turned this visit around.”
I can’t help myself, I move toward her. “How’s that, my sweet?”
“I thought I was going to be homeless and hopeless in this big city, but you not only saved me from being trampled in the stampede, but you set me up with a beautiful place to stay and after paying less than twenty euros for that meal, I have a feeling, you supplemented that, too. I really can’t imagine how I can ever?—”
My lips seal to hers and my arms round her waist. She doesn’t need to say anything more. I don’t want her praise or her appreciation.
I only want her.
Her body molds to mine. Her arms encasing my neck and cementing our lips together. I test the waters to take the kiss deeper and she opens willingly and with a soft moan. Our tongues dance like the ballet dancers of our famed Staatsballett . Twirling, spinning, sliding… we’re almost becoming one entity.
She pulls back. “I… I’d love to invite you up?—”
“But,” we say together.
“How’d you know there was a ‘but’?”
I shake my head. “I don’t expect to be taken upstairs to ravage your body.”
She blushes in the full moon and the flush is more breathtaking than the best paintings in our museums. It’s both innocent and knowing. And tells me that we have something.
But with all good things, they come to an end in my life and she will leave, too.
“But…” she says with a sigh and then a big yawn, “I am bushed.”
Bushed?
I tip my head in confusion. “I don’t care what you look like down there. Hairy, waxed, whatever. That’s not a problem for me.”
She starts laughing and she almost can’t catch her breath. “No! Bushed means tired, sleepy, exhausted.”
And now it’s my turn to blush. But I don’t. I laugh with her. “Oops. Sorry about that.”
She leans into me again and presses her lips to mine briefly. Her lips go to my ear and she whispers, “But I believe Germans call it… rasierte Muschi .”
Shaved pussy.
My body flares. Every muscle tensing. I growl into the night air. “You are very mean, Ms. Harper.”
She steps back. “Have a good night, Bastian.”
“Can I see you tomorrow?” I call out as she goes into the hotel.
“If you can find me!” she yells back and I chuckle.
“I know where you’re staying and your room number.”
“Then I guess I’ll be waiting for you!” She disappears into the hallway with the bank of elevators, and I miss her.
This woman came into my life needing help, but I’m the one that’s going to need CPR soon. I can’t breathe when I’m near her. She steals my breath with her smile, her honesty, her wit, and… her body.
Harper is the embodiment of an angel, sent from the heavens… to save me?
“You want to have a beer?” my brother Henry asks, bringing me from my thoughts.
“ Ja ,” I answer, nodding and joining him at the doorway.
“That was quite the kiss,” he says.
“She’s quite the woman.”
“You tell her?”
“Yeah, I’m going to tell a woman from another country that I preyed on unsuspecting and innocent visitors to feed our family. That’s a sure way to have her running away from me.”
We take seats at the bar and the bartender hands both of us a nice dark German dunkel , not a Schwarzbeier , the darkest of all the lagers, but this has nutty, bready, and creamy malts.
“You can’t keep the secrets from her.” He doesn’t speak English as much as I do, so he tends to add “the” in front of nouns.
“I don’t even know what we are yet, so why ruin it with my scary past, Henry. Why? She’s leaving in a few days and I will only be a memory to her. Why can I pretend that I didn’t do those bad things? Why can’t I just be happy for a few days?” The whole bar goes quiet. Thankfully there are only some regulars who know my past and a couple of the hotel’s employees enjoying a night cap before they head off to their homes.
Henry leans in. “Because when she finds out, she may feel deceived and she may push you away.”
“And how exactly will she find out, if I don’t tell her?”
He pauses. “Brother, if it weren’t for the bad luck, you’d have no luck at all.”
My laughter echoes the room. “That is very true.” I lift my beer. “To better luck!”
He shakes his head but lifts his glass to clink.
“Prost!” we say together, looking each other in the eye. A traditional drinking toast that means “bottoms up” and was said to originally be a way to guarantee that the other person didn’t poison the drink as you down them together. However, over the years, the word has come to have the funnier meaning that if a person doesn't make eye contact, they are in for seven years of coital misery. No one wants that. Henry doesn’t want that with his wife, Katerina and I don’t want to tempt fate if I should ever get to find heaven with Harper.
“How’s work going?” Henry asks, changing the subject to my relief.
“They have me on the streets, pointing out techniques now.”
“Snitch,” he says with a chuckle.
“Don’t do that. I don’t love what I do, but you know it’s necessary.”
He rotates his bar stool. “It was necessary. Mother was in the depression. You did everything you could to avoid it, but it was the only way to keep our family together, brother. And for that, I will be eternally grateful.”
That’s the first time we’ve been this honest and some sort of weight seems to fall from my shoulders.
“You are my hero.” Henry says quietly.
I don’t want to be anyone’s hero. I just want to be wanted for something other than what I need to do to stay alive.
And keep others alive.
I grab the back of his neck and give him a nice little shake. “ Danke .”
“ Erw?hne es nicht.“
This appreciation is new and I wonder what the change is. He’s always been a thoughtful type of man, but we’ve never been this honest and vulnerable with each other. Maybe a German trait, but I doubt it, probably more that I had to act as the brother and the father and the mother. I was his parent.
“What’s new with you?” I ask.
He sighs. “Katarina left me.”
My stomach dives to my feet. “What? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Is this about you?” he says with a raised eyebrow.
I chuckle. “Good point. Thank you for telling me.”
“That’s better.” He shakes his dropped head. “She fell for her co-worker. It’s a done deal. They’re living together.”
“Henry, I’m so sorry.”
“So am I. I tried everything to make her happy.”
“Maybe that’s the thing. We have to make ourselves happy first.”
“Are you happy, Bastian?”
That is the question I need to figure out.
Next morning, Saturday, I’m at the hotel bright and early waiting outside. I decided not to go to her room as my brother warned me that if she gets uncomfortable, they will ban me from the hotel.
Thanks for that, bro.
I check my phone. 7:49 a.m. Probably still getting her beauty sleep. Not that she needs it. She would be beautiful in the rain. And we might get that situation today.
Summer in Berlin can be unpredictable but seems it’s that way almost everywhere these days. The temperature is hovering around seventy Fahrenheit today, but that means a potential for downpours of rain.
The morning is chilly, but it’s not cold. A light jacket is enough to keep the chill away.
“Mr. Klein.” I turn to my left and coming up the sidewalk is none other than Dieter Bauer, pickpocket that Harper encountered yesterday. I really don’t want him to know where she is, so I pretend to be looking at my phone.
“Bauer,” I say back. The police know that I remain friends—or in this case acquaintances—with the pickpockets in the area. They know what I do now and they find it mostly amusing. We remain on talking terms, even if they technically think I work for the Teufel - the devil himself. They are cautious around me and I’m aware around them. It wouldn’t surprise me if they try something on me just to try to prove that I’m not the best anymore.
I don’t want to be the best at anything. It puts too much pressure on a person.
“What are you doing over on this side of the city?” I ask as he lights up a cigarette and blows smoke my way, just to emphasize what he thinks of me.
“Why did you head me off yesterday?”
“What do you mean?” I know what he means.
“I could’ve had it all. My week made, and you made me break out.”
“Not really smart to work in front of the police station, anyway.”
He throws the cigarette down hard and stomps on it before getting right in my face, his finger poking right into my chest. “It’s not for you to decide what’s right for me.”
“There are cameras everywhere there. It’s… not … smart,” I spit back. I’m not sure why I care anyway, but part of me remembers back to not having anything. No food. No dreams. No hope. I don’t want to be the one to take what he needs to do away from him but being smart about it is essential.
“So who is she?”
“Who?”
“The woman. I saw you talking to her after you carried her off.”
“I don’t know.” I don’t want to give him any hope that she’s a valid target.
“Yeah, see, Leo over on Oderbergerstrasse says something different.”
Shit.
I forget that I’m also a target in a different way. They watch my moves because the code of ethics among pickpockets isn’t… well, it’s shit. They will steal from each other and often they work in packs of two or more. It’s an industry unto itself in many major cities. And it’s not about taking things that are expensive, but more about the thrill and ability to get away with it. It’s a street drug that no one talks about.
And this is where I have to decide. Tell him a lie, tell him the truth, or just walk away.
“She’s a cousin from America.”
His brow peaks. “Really?”
“Only here for a couple days and then she’ll be heading off.”
He huffs. “Sure she will.” He pretends to brush non-existent dirt off my shoulder. “Well, I’m going to take her for everything she has.”
A shiver runs my spine.
I’m not sure what he means, but it’s never good when a man of the street — Taschendieb — makes a threat.
“Just leave us alone, Dieter.”
He steps back with his hands in the air. “If you say so, Polizei .”
They all know that irritates me. Although when I told Harper last night she seemed genuinely impressed and interested in what I do. Maybe it’s not all that bad.
“And don’t you forget it,” I snap back.
He turns and starts to walk away before pulling something from his coat and holding it up. “Let Ms. Harper Anderson that I’m asking a thousand euro for her passport, but the highest bidder will win. And I’ll be sure to let everyone know that you’re a fuckin’ liar now. One of them, part of the devil’s brigade.”
Fuck.
And with that, he’s gone. Many pickpockets are like the wind. They come and go and often the only thing someone will feel is like they’ve been brushed by something ghostly.
“Bastian?” her voice brings me from wondering how I’m going to get that damn passport back. I make good money, but I don’t have a thousand euros and I know she doesn’t have a thousand euros.
“Good morning, beautiful,” I say as I turn around. “How are you today?”
She stills, her head tipping. “You okay? You’re a little pale?”
“I just pale in the presence of your beauty.”
She rolls her eyes. “Oh, you flatterer.”
“Fatter than what?” I ask, confused.
“No, flatter er —meaning a person who flatters another. We call them a flatterer.”
“Really? Flatter-er.” I try it and definitely doesn’t roll off the tongue.
She slips her arm through mine. “As long as you’re okay, that’s all that matters.”
Okay is a strong word.
“What would you like to do today?” I ask.
“I want to see it all.”
“All is a lot, but let’s start with some.”
“Okay, some is good, but I only have two days,” she says with a little defeat.
“Two days is just enough.”
But two days to raise a thousand euros…
That’s not enough.