I returned to Paris this afternoon and shortly afterward Joan walked through the door with a sackful of groceries and a new corkscrew, the type with the two prongs. “Boy, you were right about Hugh’s,” she said. “I couldn’t get it to do anything.” I pointed out that she’d just bought an exact replica of the corkscrew we already have, and she knit her brows. “What are you talking about?”
She opened the drawer beside the refrigerator and pulled out a palm-size plastic disk attached to a shallow coupling. “I thought this was Hugh’s corkscrew,” she said. “The circle part fits over the top of the bottle, but when I tried turning it toward the arrow, nothing happened.”
This was for me one of those adult moments involving a choice. Do you shrug your shoulders and say, “I couldn’t get it to work either,” or do you tell the woman she spent the weekend trying to open a wine bottle with the broken knob to the dishwasher?
April 30, 1999
Paris
This evening a man knocked on the door of our apartment and said, “Hello, I just got out of prison, may I come in?”
I’m not sure if he was legally required to introduce himself like this or if it was his own idea. Either way, it was a case of honesty getting you nowhere.
“Hugh!” I called. “There’s somebody here to see you.”
The ex-convict was attempting to sell a series of Magic Marker drawings he’d matted into little cardboard frames. They were geometric designs, the kind people sketch when they’re trapped on the phone with a relative or, possibly, a parole officer. When Hugh told the guy we weren’t interested, he became hostile. “You’re all the same,” he spat. “You think that just because somebody’s been in jail they’re not good enough to come inside and sit on your furniture.”
He called us a number of names I’ve only recently come to understand, and then he banged on our neighbor’s door and insulted her as well. This is the third time this month that somebody has gotten into the building and come knocking. It used to happen every so often in New York, but there I never gave it much thought, as I’d been able to fluently lie and talk my way out of whatever someone was selling. Last week I was visited by two Catholic nuns collecting money for what I can only hope were new uniforms, and a few days later a small elderly woman came by wondering if I wanted to buy her bath mat. “Look,” she said, “it’s dry and clean. Perfect for the feet!”
May 8, 1999
London, England
Over dinner I stupidly asked if Vanessa did anything that got on Steve’s nerves. I meant it as a joke, but Steve answered seriously. He complained that she always leaves the caps off bottles, and just as I thought that was that, he started in on a list of other things. Vanessa tried defending herself, and when it got awkward, I suggested that Steve put a lid on it.
“Do what?”
I learned then that in England, one says, “Put a sock in it.” The phrase originated in the early part of the century. Gramophones had no volume control, so to lower the music, you put a sock in the horn. I also learned there’s a woman at the BBC named Jonquil Panting.
Why is it you so rarely see a woman with a hearing aid?
May 17, 1999
Berlin, Germany
I flew from Paris on Air France and was seated across the aisle from the fattest man I’ve ever seen in my life. He was German, dressed in a T-shirt and shorts with an elastic waist. They brought him an extender for his seat belt and when he sat, his stomach pressed against his folded-up tray table. The guy was on the aisle, while his friend took the window. In order to fit, he had to raise both armrests. Half of him invaded his friend’s space and the other half was repeatedly battered by the food and beverage carts that struggled to get past him. When breakfast was served, his tray had to be placed on his friend’s table. The fat fellow ate his food and then asked for two additional rolls. The only thing I touched was my coffee, and though I could feel the guy’s eyes on my food and had no problem with him taking it, I didn’t know how to offer without saying, in effect, “Hey, you’re fat. Why don’t you eat this?”
May 18, 1999
Cologne, Germany
Harry Rowohlt, the fellow who translated my book into German and is reading with me on my tour, told me that when someone on the bus or at a nearby table in a restaurant talks on a cell phone, he likes to lean over and shout, “Come back to bed, I’m freezing.”
May 19, 1999
Cologne
Yesterday at five a woman arrived to take my picture. She was in her late fifties and because her English was weak, we spoke in French. During our time together I learned that her husband had recently died of lung cancer and that she was grateful to have no children. She said that her mother is in her nineties and has recently started to pee in her pants.
When we had finished I said good-bye and walked to a supermarket I had passed earlier in the day. You don’t have to know French to feel at ease in a French grocery store. Many of the words are recognizable to an English speaker, so you’re not likely to mistake cat food for tuna. In Germany, though, it’s not so easy. I was standing in the soap aisle when a young woman approached, pushing her shopping cart with her chin. She was in her mid-twenties, and attractive. The first thing I noticed was her beautiful shoulder-length hair. Then I realized that she had no arms. It didn’t look as if she’d lost them in an accident, at least not recently. Her ease suggested she’d been born without them.
Next to me were the shampoos. The young woman stopped, and after considering them, she slipped off a shoe and reached up to the shelf with her bare foot. It was level with my chest, but she seemed to have no problem grabbing the plastic bottle and putting it in her cart. I didn’t see her paying for her groceries but imagine she was just as skilled at opening her wallet and presenting the cashier with both bills and change.
The hotel offered a buffet breakfast that included what looked to be a tray of flattened meatballs. I asked what they were and Gerd said, “I believe you would call them little hamburgers.”
Every time we go out to dinner I find something in my food. On Monday night it was a bit of tinfoil and today it was a rubber band. As long as it’s not glass or a thumbtack I don’t really care. I’m just wondering what it might be tomorrow.
May 20, 1999
Stuttgart, Germany
It rained yesterday so we all bought umbrellas. Mine is brown and is patterned with little flowers that Tini identified as edelweiss. I’d been in a crummy mood, but by lunch it blew over, and I enjoyed the company of my two hosts. Together we walked through the old part of town, where I saw a man with two canes doing tricks with a soccer ball. Later, at the restaurant, I saw an empty wheelchair parked beside a table for two. It was strange to see. Either someone didn’t need it all that badly, or one of the two people wanted a little change. After leaving, we came upon a bronze statue of the man who invented the Bunsen burner.
June 18, 1999
Paris
Today I saw a one-armed dwarf carrying a skateboard. It’s been ninety days since I’ve had a drink.
June 19, 1999