Love Is Pink!

Again, that indeterminate facial expression. “But of course. Your name is Kr?mer, right?”


“Right. Michelle . . . I mean Michaela Kr?mer.”

“We’ll have that in a second.” She sat back down in the swivel chair, which groaned under her weight. Her fat hands pounded on the keyboard. The printer whirred. She took out the paper and stood up again.

“And here is your ticket.” She pushed it toward me.

I nearly had it in my fingers when she pulled it back, as quick as lightning.

“What’s happened now?” I said.

“I need your passport.”

“You need my what?”

“Your passport. I can only hand this ticket to Ms. Michaela Kr?mer. I need to check your personal data.”

“But, as I just explained to your pubescent colleague, the one with the acne, my purse got stolen. My purse with the ticket and my passport. And if I don’t catch my flight, I’ll lose the man I love, my future, and everything that I worked years to build. Do you think you can take all of that from me just because you bake your Christmas cookies with butter?”

A gray-haired colleague came over from the neighboring counter. He wore an unflatteringly cut blue-and-white suit. There must have been a nest somewhere.

“What’s the problem?” he asked.

“Problem?” I shouted. “There is no problem here! This walking Christmas elf”—I pointed to the woman behind the counter— “refuses to give me my ticket. She’s purposely trying to destroy my life!”

The man looked questioningly at his colleague, who seemed not to have gotten my insult. She was scratching herself with the pencil again, this time on her forehead. “She has no passport,” she said.

The man turned to me. “You have no passport?”

“No passport? Of course I have a passport! Just not here. Or, rather . . . wait!” I reached into the purse, pulled out the wrongly folded map of Paris, and banged it on the counter.

“Here’s my passport. And if that’s not enough, here’s another,” I said, tossing the pack of Marlboros next to it. “I have all types of passports in this bag. Just give me my ticket!”

A diabolical smile appeared on the counter-woman’s face. She again held out my ticket within my reach, and then tore it apart in one swift motion.

She raised her hand and called out, “Security! This woman would like to go.” As if out of nowhere, two brawny guys appeared on either side of me, grabbed me under my armpits, turned me around, and led me—or, to be more precise, carried me—out of the airport. The man from the neighboring counter followed us with my two suitcases.

Outside, it was almost dark. The cars were driving with lights on, and it had grown even colder. The gray-haired man set my bags on the sidewalk next to an enormous mound of snow and made a quick hand motion. The musclemen let me go.

“Well, Ms. Kr?mer,” he said. “We are very sorry about your situation. But we are in no way responsible. Should you enter our airport again, I will have you arrested for disturbance of airport activity. Do you understand?”

This time, all I could do was nod in silence.

He turned around, paused a moment, and then faced me again. “And we wish you pleasant holidays, of course.”

He’s probably still grinning with schadenfreude at this very moment.

I stood on the sidewalk with airplanes taking off and landing all around me, so close and yet so far. Not a single person who knew and cared about me in sight. Banished, humiliated, and completely alone in the world.

A bus stopped across the street. Its destination sign read “Center.”

I couldn’t stay here. Perhaps someone would help me in the city. A German consulate was there. I could ask the bus driver to let me get on without paying. Or I could simply risk it and evade the fare. I made an instinctive decision, grabbed my suitcases, and began climbing over the mound of snow that loomed between me and the street’s curb. I’d almost gotten past the summit when one of the bags got stuck. I didn’t want to let go. It was the last thing I still owned. So I pulled harder—but it wouldn’t budge. Furious, I yanked on it with all my strength. It came unstuck all at once, and I tumbled backward into the middle of the road.

As two headlights approached, I immediately realized that the car wouldn’t be able to brake in time. It was about to run me over. I closed my eyes and awaited my violent end.

To my great surprise, I heard an infernal screech. I opened my eyes to see an enormous red-pink hunk of rust standing half a meter in front of my face.

The driver’s side door opened, and David stepped out. He said something I couldn’t understand. And this time, I really fainted.





8


I awoke as if out of a deep sleep—fresh and oddly rested. I lay on my back, on the sidewalk. Directly above me was a small freckle-faced girl with huge blue eyes and brown locks. Then someone from behind sat me up halfway and held me by my shoulders.