Schwarzfahrer literally... Once again Wole’s performance in the Bavarian town of Weilheim has been endless, and so has been the very late dinner in an excellent restaurant. We get to bed very late, or should I say early in the morning. And as usual we have to get up very early because Kongi has to catch a plane at Munich airport. In fact we even get up too early since our host and transporteur ‘the DENK’, who is to fetch us at our hotel, comes late: the night before there had been heavy snow-fall and the roads have not yet been cleared. We somehow glide to the railway station, from where we intend to take the surburban train to Munich airport. We race through the underground passage to our platform, sit down breathlessly in our compartment. And I suspect that TODAY it is going to happen… and it does!
We have hardly moved out of the station when a ticket controller approaches and asks for our tickets. None of us has one. The Denk simply had no time to go to the ticket counter and buy them for us. All three of us are thus Schwarzfahrer, ‘black travellers’, meaning people travelling illegally. Big laughter all around nonetheless.
And then Prof. Denk, well known in Germany for his stubborn fight against the new German orthography rules concocted by some stupid education bureaucrats, and quite a performer in front of television cameras, embarks on his defence speech. He mentions the weather condition, mentions the VIP status of the black ‘black traveller’ and that his plane is waiting for him. He produces his German identity card and promises to put it all in writing to the controller’s superiors. We are allowed to continue our journey to Munich airport, where Wole reaches his plane just in time.
One year later we are having lunch in the centre of Munich, in an Italian restaurant which Wole had already chosen on an early morning walk. Wole asks the Denk whether he ever had to pay a fine for that fraudulent train ride, but the Denk – ‘well-known from the Press, Radio and TV’ – truthfully reports that his criminal record is still immaculate.
And since he was not punished by the Munich municipal transport police he takes his revenge on Wole... when it comes to paying the hefty bill for a dozen meals, accompanied by the usual line of Italian Red and Grappa.
For when Wole asks the padrone for the bill the latter responds politely but firmly: “Scusi, everything has already been pagato, paid for.”
Wole wonders, “How is this possible?” Well, towards the end of the opulent meal ‚the Denk’ had excused himself with the need to go to the conveniences. But instead of ’relieving himself’ he had quickly paid the hefty bill:
“No problem there. We did after all still have some pennies left in the till from the last ‘Weilheim Literature Days’.”
And Wole is left to threaten the Denk that next time he would be faster and would take his revenge. |
