Dresden Weihnachten

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer

O NE thing I learned very early in my years in the advertising field is to never be surprised when the unexpected happens. But even so, I confess I was surprised to get the following memo from Human Resources one broiling Friday in the middle of August.

To: Daniel Richardson From: Melissa Ward, Executive Senior VP Re: Reassignment It is imperative you contact me as soon as possible about a new position in our International Division. This is in reference to your response on your intake form.

I read the memo several times, but it still didn’t make much sense. If it was so damn “imperative” I speak with Ms. Ward, why the hell didn’t she simply call me? Or have her assistant call me? Or, considering the fact she was an executive senior vice president, have her assistant’s secretary contact me? I had been at Solloway & Kaye Advertising for almost five years, so I had no idea what “response” she was talking about. Hell, I didn’t even remember an intake form. But another thing I had learned very quickly about the corporate world was that you don’t ignore memos from executive senior vice presidents. Those people don’t leave paper trails just for the sake of 2

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer killing trees. About the time I joined Solloway & Kaye they had expanded their operations into the international arena. Joining forces with some local agencies in places like London, Paris, Berlin, Milan, and Zurich had turned out to be nothing short of a gold mine, and the decision had been made (by Jason Solloway himself, it turned out) to expand the international division even further. And to do it now. It also turned out that, five years before, on my intake form, I had checked “International Division” under the question asking what other areas of the company interested me. I had also listed “Germany” and “Czechoslovakia” as places I would be interested in working. (I had also listed France, Italy, Austria, and Australia, but that, apparently, was irrelevant.) It might have been the dog days of August in Manhattan, with most of the advertising world out sipping martinis or Punt e Mes in the Hamptons or on Fire Island, but it turned out a significant section of Solloway & Kaye was not only in our Park Avenue offices, they had a bee up their collective ass and were ready to roll. By noon that Friday I was beginning to think I had stepped into The Twilight Zone. Our Berlin partners, the Arnheim Group, had convinced Jason Solloway that Eastern Europe was ripe for the plucking, at least from an advertising point of view, and among the new offices that ought to be opened immediately, if not sooner, was one in Dresden, Germany. Someone had decided that Dresden being only a hop, skip, and a jump away from Prague meant it would be a great base of operations from which to launch “the Eastern Offensive” (I swear that was the term Jason Solloway used) while at the same time greatly expanding our business in the former East Germany. And since I, on a whim, had indicated on a form I didn’t even remember filling out I would like to work in either Germany or Czechoslovakia, in Mr. Solloway’s mind 3

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer that meant I was the right person to head Solloway & Kaye/Arnheim Group’s new Dresden branch. True, I’d been very successful during my time with the company, but figuring out how to sell to targeted groups of folks in the United States, where I was a native, did not necessarily translate into doing the same thing to Germans, Czechs, and Poles. (Poland was stage three of “the Eastern Offensive.”) Those objections were waved away, as was my protest that I didn’t know German and had never worked in Germany. “But you have international work experience,” Solloway insisted, waving my intake form in my face. Teaching English at the Berlitz School in Milan the year after college apparently counted as “international work experience” since it meant I “knew how to get along with the natives.” Maybe Solloway still acted and thought like this was the 1950s, when Corporate America believed the entire world was just salivating to buy a house with a white picket fence around it and stock it full of American goods. I, on the other hand, knew it was one thing to hoist a beer in a Biergarten and enjoy listening to your neighbors sing lustily in a language you didn’t understand, but it was something else entirely to actually have to work, every day, in a different society and make money dealing with people who were, in some ways, quite different from you. It turned out that before I had even sat down in front of Jason Solloway’s desk my boss had signed off on my possible transfer, assuring the Solloway that while he would miss me dreadfully, my work could be covered in an appropriate manner. (No surprise there, he’d been maneuvering to get rid of me for months if he could only find out how to do it without seeming to do it. This was his golden 4

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer opportunity.) The salary I was offered was a whopping forty percent more than I was currently making, and the Arnheim Group was taking care of getting my work permit and all the legalities the German government required. Solloway & Kaye would have my things packed and moved at their expense and make sure my apartment was subleased so I could move back any time during the next two years. I was handed a check for five thousand dollars for “immediate expenses,” an airline ticket to Dresden, via Frankfurt, on Lufthansa, leaving JFK at nine o’clock Sunday night, which would put me in Dresden at one p.m. Monday, their time—three days away. I also had an open-ended reservation at the Radisson Gewandhaus Hotel in Dresden, with assurances Solloway & Kaye/Arnheim Group would pay the bill. Though it was suggested that I could surely find an apartment within three months, given the generous living allocation that was part of the deal. It was all heady, to be sure. But part of me felt railroaded. Still, that night, as I looked around my beloved studio apartment on West 10th Street I knew, down deep inside, this was too good an opportunity to pass up. My best friend Kent agreed and, as usual, was not shy about expressing his opinion. “Look, you’ve been chomping at the bit for some change in your life. You’re forty years old, you’re bored at work, your love life is in the crapper, you’ve fantasized about moving some place like California. Now you’ve got a great new job with ridiculously generous pay and benefits in one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, which also just happens to have the best fucking orchestra in the entire fucking world. My God, Daniel, do you know that you’ll be able to hear the Staatskapelle Dresden any time you want to? And in their own fucking home? Jesus!” (Kent had studied and then lived in Germany and played the oboe in the Metropolitan Opera orchestra, so he had some 5

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer basis for his assertions.) “Besides, now I’ll have a place to stay for free on my next vacation. Yes, I’ll miss you, but it was just for situations like this that God invented e-mail and web cams. Have you finished packing yet?” Apparently I really didn’t have much of a choice. * * *

I T TOOK about six weeks for the dust to clear and for Grim Reality to start rearing its head. Fortunately I’m a compulsively hard worker, so discovering my existing staff consisted of two middle managers relocated from Arnheim’s Berlin office plus two secretaries was just a challenge. Hiring copy writers, an art department, and the rest of the creative and marketing folks—in a foreign city where everyone claims to speak English but most seem to barely understand a simple sentence like “Please have this delivered to the client by messenger as soon as possible.”—well, that’s a challenge too. It was understandable the two managers from Berlin resented having an American head the division when either of them might well have been in line for the job, so I was delighted when the new art director quickly became a great ally. The Radisson Gewandhaus turned out to be not only a superb hotel (with a fabulous restaurant called Weber’s); the office was only a block and a half away on Kreuzstrasse—a wonderful blessing in those first weeks. And next to the office was a language school, where I promptly signed up for private German lessons, five days a week at seven a.m. That was one way of making sure I was at my desk by eight a.m., much to the annoyance of Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee from Berlin. I was pretty amazed when two of our initial ad campaigns were 6

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer greeted with such enthusiasm by the clients, who promptly upped their ad budgets in their excitement. That gave me some much-needed credibility in the office plus an e-mail from Jason Solloway (or his secretary) expressing his congratulations. From the beginning I had forced myself to do a lot of wandering around Dresden despite my ridiculous work schedule, so when the art director told me about an available apartment in the Neustadt section of the city, just on the other side of the Elbe River from the office, I knew I was very interested even before I saw it. Dresden dates from the 800s, so it’s not really a surprise that the Neustadt (New City) largely came into its own in the eighteenth century as opposed to the Altstadt (Old City) that had already been around for centuries by then. I had walked many times across the Augustus Bridge, which links the two sides of the city over the Elbe, marveling at the incredible beauty of Dresden’s baroque skyline during different times of the day. I was already a bit familiar with parts of the Neustadt section, and grateful to discover that 18 Obergraben was not one of the parts that had been rebuilt by the Communist East German government (back in the day) as prefabricated “people’s housing.” Instead it was one of the eighteenthcentury buildings that had survived the ghastly bombing at the end of World War II and had been turned into gorgeous apartments. The available apartment was advertised as a “one bedroom” but had an “extra room” that—to someone used to the size of Manhattan apartments—could easily be used as a guest bedroom. It was on the ground floor, in back of the building and, best of all to my mind, its Lshape cradled a large brick patio otherwise surrounded by a high wall. Both the living room and bedroom had French doors that opened on the patio, and there were two trees that would offer great shade. The 7

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer place was the perfect combination of eighteenth century grace and style with twenty-first century conveniences. It came with a washing machine in the modern bathroom and had a well-equipped modern kitchen for which the landlord (a friend of the art director’s) offered apologies on its small size. True, you wouldn’t want to try serving Christmas dinner for sixteen in it, but it looked plenty roomy to me. The apartment was about a twenty-minute walk from the office, but a half dozen streetcars were three minutes away if the weather was bad, and, being a residential neighborhood, there were plenty of shops. I knew there was a great indoor farmer’s market, the Neustädter Markthalle, about five minutes further into the Neustadt district, but there was also a chain grocery store just around the corner and up a couple blocks. And that’s where I met Dieter. Dreams of weekend shopping at the Markthalle and then using all the delicious farm-fresh meat and produce in gourmet meals throughout the week pretty much stayed just that—dreams. I had forgotten what it’s like setting up a kitchen from scratch, and I had never done it in a foreign country. You try picking up a sealed package labeled with a nineteen letter word (including two umlauts) and a photo of a smiling family gathered around a table with about a dozen different foods on it and then trying to figure out 1) what food is inside the package and 2) is it already cooked or not. Not all packagers are thoughtful enough to put clock faces with fifteen minutes shaded on the back to give you a clue. So I was pretty preoccupied my first dozen or three trips to the chain grocery store. Preoccupied making sure I had something I knew I could eat while I bought my way through a variety of things that 8

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer might be interesting or that I might end up taking to my German lesson the next morning for explanation—much to the amusement of Fräulein Müller. But even so, it eventually got through to me that more often than not, the same young man was the cashier at the express lane. The same attractive young man. During my next shopping trip it finally registered that “Dieter” was written on his name tag, that he looked to be in his early or midtwenties, that his intelligent face was rather elfin-looking, boarding on impish, with a deep cleft in his chin, and that his eyes were the most marvelous dark chocolate brown, a color matched by his boyish floppy (but neatly cut) hair. And his smile was simply devastating. Maybe it was the fact there was no one in line behind me just then that made him ask in English, “Do you like the two soups you bought recently?” “I’m sorry?” I shook my head as if to clear it. “The two soups you bought last week.” He raised his eyes to the ceiling as if a list was written on it. “One is, ahhh, how you say, barley? And one is asparagus. You have eaten them, yes?” “Yes,” I said, and I gave him a big smile because 1) I remembered having the soup and 2) he really was a sexy-looking guy. “They were good. I think I liked the barley more than the asparagus, but then, I’ve been known to make a mean asparagus soup myself.” “A mean asparagus soup. This I am not sure of. It must be an typisch American saying.” But he grinned. “Typisch, yes. It’s a way of boasting my asparagus soup is very good. Sometimes. But how did you know I’m American?” Dieter laughed. “Your accent. And when you talk German your grammar is usually wrong—it is like the American grammar I studied 9

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer in school. But what you want to say, this is very clear. I think you know German mostly from talking with Germans, not so much from school studies.” Well, Fräulein Müller might not take that as a compliment, but I certainly did. “How did you remember I bought a can of barley soup and a can of asparagus soup?” That really did amaze me. He gave me an inscrutable look for a moment and then said, in a rather arch manner, “I always remember what you buy. It is part of my job. And also, these soups were new for us, so it is interesting to see what customers say of them. I notice you have not bought any more.” “Only because I’ve not been in the mood for soup. Not because the soup was bad,” I hastened to assure him. “We are coming soon to the winter times, and you should have soups in your kitchen, I think. Perhaps some cold and wet day you should enjoy to have some, and you will not want to take the time to cook your, ah, mean soup.” A lady was bustling toward the express lane, so Dieter pushed my bag of groceries to the end of the counter and then winked at me before turning to ring up his next customer. I walked home with an absurdly warm feeling inside, rather as if I’d cooked a mean asparagus soup and eaten it all up by myself. It felt good that someone in Dresden had been noticing what food I was buying. I didn’t care that he was doing market research and more than likely trying to up his sales of soup for the month. I very much liked our connection, tenuous though it was. But why, I pondered as I let myself into my new home, was a simple cashier doing market research?

10

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer

* * *

W ORK was ridiculous the next three weeks. The separation house screwed up the entire batch of photos for a huge four-nation ad campaign that was already dangerously behind schedule, and the art director got the flu. I simply hired Fräulein Müller to work for me in the office full time as a translator. I wasn’t about to trust Berlin’s Tweedle-dum or Tweedle-dee to relay my instructions accurately or to give me the correct information from the separation house or any of the other off-site vendors with whom I was constantly dealing. In addition to their antipathy to me personally, I was discovering there was no love lost between Berliners and Dresdeners in general. It was like Yankee fans and Red Sox fans, but with umlauts. So I was sure neither of my Berliner managers would mind if the Dresden office fell flat on its face, just as a matter of civic pride, of course. Solloway & Kaye/Arnheim Group could scream all they wanted to about the added expense of Fräulein Müller. I knew if we botched the ad campaign they’d scream even louder, and if it was successful, they really wouldn’t even notice the money. The few times I actually managed to make it to the grocery store before they closed at night, Dieter wasn’t there. I took his advice and bought some extra “soups,” and I was surprised at how disappointed I was he wasn’t the one who rang them up. I really hated the idea that he might have gotten another job. But he was obviously much too intelligent to spend the rest of his life ringing up groceries in the express lane of a chain grocery store. Was he a student? That didn’t seem right. He was a bit too old for a college student. Though maybe if he was going for an advanced degree? No, he had seemed very comfortable at the grocery store, not like he was just doing it as a temporary part-time job. I couldn’t figure it out. 11

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer By November I was seriously crashing. The office was up and running surprisingly well, but I felt too drained to find any joy in it. I was tired of the constant struggle of dealing with another language, another culture, another business and artistic environment. I missed being able to kick back and just talk with someone. In English. I missed being able to pick up the phone and talk to Kent, and I missed his offbeat humor. Like the time in New York I got back to my office after a hellacious meeting and hit voice mail, only to hear a wild bit of cacophony from a symphony orchestra, a woman shrieking the words “Triff noch einmal,” followed by the most God-awful groan imaginable, and then Kent saying merrily, “I’m at your place. You wouldn’t believe what I found today. So I got lobster ravioli at Balducci’s. Pick up, oh, two bottles of champagne would be appropriate.” Which, in Kentspeak, meant he 1) had the night off, 2) had found an obscure and probably totally amazing live recording of Richard Strauss’s Elektra (the music at the beginning of the message) and 3) more than likely a recording by one of my favorite performers that I had no idea even existed (thus, two bottles of champagne). Web cams and e-mails didn’t begin to replace that. Even though we were friends, not lovers, there was no one else remotely like him my life, and I missed him. I was feeling alone and alienated and realized if I didn’t take myself in hand this was going to become an awful unstoppable downward spiral. So the next Saturday, I took the entire day off, slept late, went to the Neustädter Markthalle and spent an astronomical amount of money on food, and then several hours puttering around in the kitchen cooking. There was a delightful fall cool snap to the air that added to the pleasure of spending time in the kitchen, and it was even more fun because my stereo and absurdly large CD collection had arrived from the States. I had the gizmo that let me plug it into the German electrical circuit and was listening to my CDs for the first time 12

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer in months while I cooked. Finally, it really felt like home. I was a happy man—until I realized I didn’t have bacon and I didn’t have cinnamon, and I had already started dishes that needed both of them. Fortunately, the grocery store came to my rescue, and Dieter gave me a dazzling smile that clearly said welcome back. “Ah, bacon and cinnamon. What, ah, mean things does the single man cook that needs bacon and cinnamon?” “How on earth do you know I’m a single man?” I asked. “This is very easy. You do not buy food for two people. But until this time you buy food that makes meals, not as this time when you forget something you need.” I laughed. “You got me there.” Then, at his puzzled look, added, “Typisch American, meaning you are absolutely right.” “And you are cooking…?” I pointed to the cinnamon. “Apple pie.” And to the bacon. “Veal stew.” “And will they be mean?” he asked with a look that could only be described as saucy. It was the almost-come-thither look that made me say, before I thought, “Come over and try them for yourself, then you let me know.” “Really?” he asked. His face lit up like a kid on Christmas morning, looking at what Santa had put under the tree. “Truly, you are inviting me to your home to eat? This is very generous of you. But is this joking or true?” He suddenly looked unsure. “I’m serious; you’re welcome to come have dinner, but what time are you done working?” He looked at the clock over the outside doors. “I am already over 13

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer my allotted hours. If you can wait for five minutes, I can go with you.” He motioned for another clerk to replace him and disappeared into the back. Five minutes to the dot (the Germans really are a punctual Völk), Dieter joined me, minus his grocer’s apron, sporting a very elegantlooking soft leather jacket over his white shirt. His grin was pure delight. “This shall be very much fun. I know it,” he said. “And it is very generous of you to do this thing. Thank you.” Then he did something I found incredibly appealing and also confusing. He linked his arm through mine and squeezed my arm with his other hand. In the U.S., when a man did that with another man, it means, “I’m gay, you’re gay, I’m glad.” But I knew that wasn’t necessarily true in Europe at all. Men walk arm in arm, and it just means they’re buds. Dieter didn’t wear a wedding ring, but that didn’t mean anything. Did I hope he was gay? Yes, probably. Even thought he was a lot younger. Then I thought, Daniel, chill. Enjoy this and don’t try to figure it out or make it go anywhere. Enjoy the rest of the afternoon and evening. “Veal you said?” Dieter’s voice cut through my whirling brain. “Yes, veal. And apple pie.” “Just one moment. Please.” He untangled his arm from mine, leaving me feeling rather cold and alone, and darted into a wine shop. I was a little concerned when I noticed what shop it was. It was on the expensive side, and they simply didn’t have much in the way of wine that I would ordinarily drink because of the prices. But then I thought, Daniel, chill. Dieter’s a Dresdener. He knows what shops are like a lot more accurately than you do. You’re not his father. He’s an adult. A few minutes later he popped out of the shop, face glowing, and linked his arm back with mine, the other arm cradling a plastic bag. 14

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer “You live close by, I think, but where?” “Just here,” I said, turning us into Obergraben, then into Number 18. “Ah. Very nice. This building suits you.” I let that slide and opened the door to my apartment. And, I must say, if I had to pick a time to introduce Dieter to my home, it was a great moment. The warm afternoon sun was streaming through the patio doors into the living room, giving everything a golden halo. The cooking I’d already done had put delightful smells into the air, and the CDs I had not yet shelved spilled from opened boxes, making an inviting mess. It was my home, and he was my first guest. “Let me take your jacket,” I offered as I tossed the bacon and cinnamon on the counter separating the kitchen from the living room. He shrugged it off and slowly turned in a circle, surveying the room, taking in everything. “Amazing. Simply amazing,” he said. “What’s amazing?” I asked, hanging up his jacket and moving toward the kitchen. He started to say something, then stopped, and said slowly, “I thought you would live in a place like this. Very beautiful, but also comfortable. Not too much.” He walked up to me and put his hands on my shoulders. “Thank you for bringing me here. But I don’t know your name.” “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m Daniel. Daniel Richardson.” Something obviously clicked in his mind. He suddenly looked very… watchful, as if my name was significant for some reason. “Daniel,” he said slowly, almost trying it out. He made it three distinct syllables and made the last “el” sound like “ale.” It was utterly 15

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer charming. “And you are Dieter…?” I asked. “Wunderlich,” he said. “One of my favorite singers is named Wunderlich,” I said, curious if he would know of the great German lyric tenor Fritz Wunderlich who died tragically in 1966 at the age of thirty-six. “Alas, no relation,” Dieter said, seating himself on one of the high stools at the counter. “We have always been Dresdeners and he was not. But, yes, he is a great favorite still. You do have excellent taste. Especially for an American,” he added impishly. We chatted comfortably while I got the stew ready to simmer. He came over and stood very close, watching what I did but didn’t comment except to occasionally ask the English word for something I used, prompting me to ask, in turn, what it was called in German. It seemed quite natural that he often touched me lightly, or rubbed my back when he made a joke about something. He accepted my offer of a beer and made the sarcastic remark I expected about me keeping the beer in the refrigerator “just like an American.” But when I offered him a room temperature beer from the stash in the pantry he refused, staying with the cold brew. Once the stew was slowly cooking, I pulled out the wild rice and the carrots, onions, beef bouillon cubes, and bay leaf I would need for it (God bless Julia Child) and then took a pull on my beer and said, “Okay, we have veal stew, and I’m making wild rice to go with it. We’ll have apple pie for dessert. What vegetables would you like? Squash? Carrots?” I was looking to see what else I might have when he said, “I think this is already a wonderful meal. Just these things. Why would you 16

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer want more?” He seemed to have gone very still all of a sudden, as if what we were saying was suddenly of great importance. “Well, you’re company, I’d like there to be more.” “There is,” he replied, again with that deadly serious tone of voice. I looked at him, puzzled. “There is you. There is your generous sharing. Your home, yourself. What could be more than that?” He walked up to me and hung one arm on my shoulder. “As your American song says, ‘Who could ask for anything more?’” Well, two could play this game, I decided. “That depends on what you really want,” I replied, giving the back of his neck a quick squeeze, and then I moved toward the living room. “Do you mind if I open the patio door a bit? It’s going to get very warm in here with the pie cooking too.” He nodded and perched again on the stool. “Would you like some music?” I asked, and when he agreed I put on the stereo. I rolled out the piecrust on the counter where he sat, and we listened to Ella Fitzgerald sing her way through the Rodgers and Hart Songbook. Occasionally Dieter would comment on a song that was popular in German, but for the most part we just listened and enjoyed sharing the experience. I noticed he really listened intently. He wasn’t thinking of other things with the music as background; he was savoring Ella’s phrasing, the way she pronounced the words, the way she molded the music to point up a line. He would laugh or smile at a humorous line and look at me to make sure I had gotten it as well. It was a marvelous way to bake an apple pie, I decided, but I was suddenly afraid it might not be too good. So at the end of Ella’s first 17

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer CD, I commented, “This is the first time I’ve baked since I got to Dresden, so I’m not sure how this is going to turn out.” “It will be very fine,” he said simply. “How do you know?” He had no way of knowing what kind of cook I was. “I watched you. As I often have watched my aunt who is a master baker. So is her husband. What you did was much as they do, so why should the pie not be good?” He gave me a look I was coming to think of as “the Dieter look.” It was a combination of “so that’s all there is to it,” and “gosh, this is fun” mixed with more than a little flirtation and a wee bit of clever-boy smugness. It was certainly infectious, but I was still feeling a little at sea. Back home I would be assuming this was a date, given all that had gone on, and I would be thinking about doing a little making out. But even given Dieter’s openness, I wasn’t at all sure he was gay, and it seemed beyond crass to ask. Nor did it seem quite right to make a pass, so I decided to just flow with the ambiguity. To return his occasional physical closeness and touching, to match him flirt for flirt (as I saw it) and see what happened. If nothing else, being around him was fun, and fun like I hadn’t had in a long time. I cleaned up the pie mess, looked at the clock, and asked, “Would you like some cheese and crackers or bread? It will be about an hour and a half or two hours before dinner is ready.” “This sounds very good. Do you mind if I look at your CDs? I have been—what is your American expression?—dying to see what you have.” I waved him toward the open boxes and partially filled shelves and, a few minutes later, brought out munchies, along with two more 18

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer beers and put everything on the coffee table. Dieter looked like a kid in a candy store. He kept examining CDs, shaking his head, putting them down, looking at another, and occasionally saying, “Amazing.” I smeared some Gorgonzola dolce on a couple bits of bread, took one over to him, and then started putting CDs on shelves. Dieter thanked me and dove back into the box of CDs. It was about ten minutes later when he came up behind me, rested his chin on my shoulder, and asked, “May I make a request?” “Of course,” I said, savoring his touch of his body against mine. “You shall probably think this is silly, but when I saw you had this CD, I felt I wanted to hear it even though the time is not right. Not exactly.” I didn’t want to move and break the connection our bodies had, so I didn’t face him. I just asked, “Which CD?” His left hand reached around to show me the CD. His right hand circled my waist and rested on my stomach. It was Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, a classic recording conducted by Karl Richter. The tenor soloist was Fritz Wunderlich. I leaned back into him a bit and said, “One of my favorites. Who says we have to wait a few weeks?” Then I turned and gave him a kiss. No tongue, but not a quick peck, either. Just an affectionate but definite press of my lips against his. He sighed, put his arms around my neck, and returned the kiss; then he laid his head on my shoulder. We stood like that, holding each other. “I like this,” he said. “You feel good, just like I knew you would.” I reared back to look him in the face. “How did you know how we would feel together?” He hesitated and then said, “It is complicated, and I… my English is not enough to explain. Not completely as I must. But this is good,” he 19

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer added with a smile. “Yes?” “Very good,” I said, and I gave him another kiss. We put the Bach Christmas Oratorio on the stereo and sat close together on the sofa, touching each other and occasionally eating some cheese or feeding each other an olive until, at the end of the first section, I realized if I didn’t start the wild rice we would never eat. We alternated puttering in the kitchen and semi-necking on the sofa until the meal was ready. While setting the table, I suddenly realized what it was that had been trying to get my attention for the last hour or so, the thought that had been nudging the back of my mind. This was unlike any “first date” I had ever had. There was a comfort level between us that argued we had done this before, that we knew each other far better than was rationally possible when, in fact, we had done nothing but chat briefly a few times in the grocery store and spend a couple hours cooking and listening to music. God knows I was hot to trot. Dieter was a very attractive young man, and the more I was around him, the more desirable he became—and the physical evidence was obvious if he looked at my crotch, as he had several times, giving me a satisfied smirk. But ironically, I was in no hurry to rip his clothes off and explore his hot, tight German body. Part of me knew when the time was ripe we’d go at it like a couple of satyrs in heat; that somehow was a given. He knew it and I knew it. But for now, we let the sex simmer in the background like the veal stew. For the first time ever, that ambiguity was fine with me. I discovered I didn’t have to be in charge and have it all mapped out. What was developing between us was enough, just as it was. The meal turned out marvelously. “For sure, a most mean meal,” Dieter said in approval. The wine he had bought was a local Saxon red 20

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer that went with the veal perfectly. When I confessed I never realized Germany made red wine, too, he promised we’d take a trip to the vineyard so I could meet the winemaker, a friend of his. The idea left me even more confused about who, exactly, he was. In New York grocery store cashiers aren’t too likely to be friends with high-end winemakers. We were dawdling over the last of the apple pie (and savoring the B&B he had bought to go with it—again making me concerned about the money he had spent) when I finally asked him the question I had wanted to all evening: what on earth was such a bright, creative, personable, and obviously well-educated young man doing working as a cashier in a chain grocery store? He threw back his head and laughed heartily. “I am sorry. You seem so comfortable in Dresden I sometimes forget you are new here. I thought when you learned my family name you understood.” At my blank expression he actually looked embarrassed. “We own the grocery store. Several hundred of them, all through Saxony. And these last years now in Thuringia and Sachsen-Anhalt, too, a little bit,” he added, naming two of the German states that border Saxony. “The Wunderlichs have run grocery stores for many generations. Someday my two brothers and I will be in charge, but for now my father is the head. He insisted we all go to university and explore other things, but food is in our blood. We all started by sweeping floors and putting food on the shelves. I was sent to your store because the sales were not what they should be, so my father said I should work as a cashier and watch what people bought.” “So it really was your business to notice I had bought two cans of a new brand of soup.” He nodded. 21

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer “And you could take off today and come have dinner with no problem.” “Ah, no. I do have the hours to work. And the boss’s son must set an example, so I always work more than my own hours. But not today,” he added with a pleased look on his face. “Tomorrow, though, I am on duty all day and evening. So I must go, but only with many regrets.” “You are welcome to spend the night.” I couldn’t help myself, I really, really had to say it. If I live to be a thousand years old, I will never forget the way he looked at me then. Part utter pleasure, almost bliss; part anticipation; part genuine regret; part… well, “recognition” is the only word that fits. He was certainly pleased by the invitation, but I knew he was not going to accept. “Soon,” he said softly, and he reached across the table for my hand. “Soon.” * * *

I FLOATED through the next week. Nothing much bothered me, until I got an e-mail from Jason Solloway. It summoned me, and the rest of the branch managers in Europe, to a “strategy meeting” in New York. For reasons known only to the big boss, it was set for Thanksgiving week. Maybe he thought he was doing a favor for the Americans, bringing us home for the holiday, but all I could think of was the hassle of traveling during that hectic time, the disruption to our Dresden office it would cause and—to my surprise—how much I did not want to be so far from Dieter. Especially right now. Given the impending time out of the office my schedule got absurdly tight, as did Dieter’s in preparation for the Christmas 22

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer holidays. In Germany it’s not just Christmas Eve and Christmas Day that’s important; they have a whole string of festivities, most of which involve food. And they take them very seriously, indeed. But we managed to have coffee a couple of times, and during one of them I suggested he come with me to New York. “Come on, it’d be great to show you the city, and you could experience Thanksgiving too!” “Daniel, just because I am the boss’s son does not mean I can suddenly leave work for a week at this very busy time. But it would be fun,” he said wistfully. “Not only to go to New York and see it with you but also to be with you for a whole week.” He looked into my eyes, and we both were imagining exactly what we would be doing together during those long New York November nights. He smiled softly. “When you get back, very soon, I think is the time.” I knew exactly what he meant. And I knew he was right. But, damn, was I going to miss him. * * *

I’ VE always adored New York City with a passion that only comes from someone born elsewhere who adopted the Big Apple as an adult. I’ve heard that wherever you chose to live when you were in your twenties and starting your career is where your real home is. In my case, there was never a doubt that was New York City. Cole Porter’s songs “Take Me Back to Manhattan” and “I Happen to Like New York” were my personal anthems; they made my blood zing, and, as far as I was concerned, they were absolutely true. Until now. I had spent three and a half months in a town where almost nothing was more than about six stories high, at least in the areas where I lived. Anywhere I went the highest things I saw were the 23

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer dome of the Frauenkirche and the tower of the Residenzschloss. Everywhere I went there were open spaces, market squares, parks, sprawling terraces, streets with huge trees running down their middles surrounded by green spaces with benches where people actually sat and chatted with friends while cars went past on either side. For heaven’s sake, at least twice a day I crossed a famous bridge built in 1728 that showcased one of the most gorgeous cities in Europe. I was getting to know that baroque jewel of a skyline in all kinds of different light. Its grace and elegance was now a part of me, as was the very humane tempo of the pulse of the city. Manhattan’s streets, lined with skyscraper after skyscraper suddenly seemed unbearably oppressive. The masses of people spilling off of the sidewalks, silently daring you to not get out of their way as they rushed toward you—it was assaultive. The constant noise was intrusive. The Christmas decorations were garish, and the enforced holiday gaiety seemed cheap. Even my trip back to the Met to see Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier was a disappointment. Kent’s oboe solos were wonderful, and it was a joy to hear him in performance again. But I kept remembering Dresden’s Semperoper where Rosenkavalier had had its world premier and the playing of the Staatskapelle. Kent had been right. Their sound shimmered. “Like the luster of old gold,” was the way one famous conductor put it. It was difficult to hear Strauss played by an orchestra that did not have that special sound, without the flexibility, the lyricism, the transparency, or chamber music musicianship of the Dresden orchestra. “You turned into a Dresdener faster than I thought,” Kent said when I confessed how I was feeling. “But then you always did have a good musical ear.” He tried to get me to talk about Dieter, but I didn’t want to. It was too soon; I didn’t know what to say. And it seemed like a betrayal to 24

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer Dieter to talk about him, even with my best friend. That surprised me. But even more surprising was Kent’s reaction my last day in New York when I, again, deflected his questions about Dieter. “Don’t blow this one,” Kent said. “I have a feeling this guy is the real, long-term deal. Don’t fuck it up like you usually do. I can’t be there to put you back together unless you get me a job with the Staatskapelle. So play this one right.” I thought about that all the way back across the Atlantic Ocean to Frankfurt. I should have been thinking about the stacks of papers and proposals I had from Jason Solloway. The meetings could not have gone better for me; the Dresden branch kept being singled out as the way things ought to be working, which rather embarrassed me, though I was proud all our hard work was paying off. I made a note to treat the whole staff to a great lunch as a thank you. But Kent’s words kept turning around in my mind. In a weird way, I had the feeling, down deep inside, that this time I wasn’t going to blow it. Whatever it was that was growing between Dieter and me seemed organic. It fit. We both seemed to sense it and we both were protective of it. * * *

IT

WAS the first weekend in December before Dieter and I could

spend time together. We’d talked on the phone and seen each other at the grocery store once. Though he was not checking out the express lane, all we could do was wave and smile. We had both “just happened” to mention we were free both Saturday and Sunday, but I wasn’t counting on him spending the night. Still, it seemed at least a possibility. He had announced he was in charge of the day, so when he 25

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer arrived a bit after ten o’clock, I didn’t know what to expect. Except for our first hug which lasted a good ten minutes. That really wasn’t much of a surprise, though it sure felt good. What was a (delightful) surprise was the amount of pretty deep tongue kissing he instigated. I was starting to wonder if we were going to spend the day in bed when he pulled away, looking a little dazed, and told me to put on my coat. “We have a full day, and I think this is to be a bit special,” he added. It was. Dieter showed me his Dresden—at Christmastime. It wasn’t just a tour of the city all decked out for the holidays by someone who knew all the sites and the historical facts; it was a man sharing his passion for something he loved and treasured with all his heart. I thought I knew my part of the city fairly well. I’d even walked through the famous Christmas market several times on my way to and from work. But I hadn’t seen beneath the surface. Dieter opened my eyes, just as he was opening my heart, and that was the day I truly become a Dresdener. “Today is Stollenfest,” he announced with glee as we started across the Augustus Bridge to the Old Town. “For me this day is the true beginning of Christmas. We have to hurry, or we shall be late and that cannot be allowed.” So we picked up the pace and soon found ourselves in the middle of a huge crowd making its way to the Old Market Square. “Ah ha!” Dieter said, pointing. “Here it comes!” “It” was an enormous Christmas stollen, known as “Christstollen,” or, in the local dialect “Striezel,” the fruitcake/yeast bread that has become world famous. And Lord was this one enormous. It was thirteen feet long, weighed four tons, and was proudly accompanied by several hundred pastry chefs, all wearing their medieval guild costumes. The crowd burst into applause and 26

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer cheers as it passed, and, standing next to Dieter in that city that was over a thousand years old, I felt something click deep inside. A warmth, a sense of being part of a community stretching back long into the past seemed to embrace me, almost as if it were welcoming me home. Dieter took my hand and we fell in behind the stollen, following it to its place of honor at the Striezelmarkt that had taken over the Old Market Square. With great ceremony, the attractive young woman who had been named Stollenmädchen cut the first piece with the traditional “Dresden Stollen Knife,” and we all cheered again. We were packed so tightly together it as easy for Dieter to turn, slip his arms around me, and in front of several thousand people—to say nothing of one four-ton fruitcake—kiss me on the lips and whisper, “Fröhliche Weihnachten, my Daniel.” “Merry Christmas to you, too, my Dieter,” I said before kissing him in return. Dresden’s Striezel Market dates back to 1434, which, according to the locals, makes it the oldest Christmas market in the world, and it’s named for the Christmas pastry they, not surprisingly, claim to have invented. Part of the stollen’s early appeal stemmed from the fact that in 1491 the pope finally yielded to years of entreaty on the part of the rulers of Saxony and allowed butter—previously forbidden during Advent—to be used in the making of Dresden’s Christmas stollen, giving it an unusually rich flavor for the time. Some claim the pope was swayed by the long, rounded oval shape of the stollen, said to represent Baby Jesus in his swaddling clothes. Especially since stollens are covered with white confectioners’ sugar and traditionally packed in boxes cushioned with hay, said to represent the manger in which the Christ Child lay. Others point out the religious “fines” paid by Saxon bakers to the Vatican for the privilege of using butter during 27

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer Advent built a good many churches. To this day “Dresden Christmas Stollen” is a tightly regulated commodity. Only the approved one hundred and fifty Dresden bakeries, many of them still family-run, may legally use the term. We had worked our way to where pieces of the giant stollen were being sold, and Dieter bought us two, which we savored as we maneuvered out of the thickest part of the crowd. “Not bad,” Dieter pronounced as he licked the powdered sugar from his fingers. “Better than last year. But nothing like you shall have later on.” Silly me, I thought it was wonderful, but what does a New Yorker know? I did know something unusual was going on because I didn’t mind the crowd at all. In New York I already would have been in a fury at the pushing and jostling. Here I felt like I was surfing on the genuine holiday cheer that flowed all around. When a young boy ran into me and almost knocked me over in his excitement, I actually laughed and spoke to him in jovial German, rather than getting pissed. “It gets better, your German,” Dieter said. “He could understand, even with your accent.” We made our way a few blocks away to the courtyard of the Royal Palace—and dropped right smack back into the Middle Ages. Tented stalls with vendors dressed in medieval costumes were everywhere. An entire, enormous pig was being roasted over the fire, as were candied nuts. Signs used the old Gothic German script I usually had a lot of trouble reading, but I made out a few words like “Sauerkraut” and “Bratwurst.” We strolled around suits of armor, watched an archer in medieval costume showing his prowess (and refused his offer to pit our skill against his), and everywhere we looked there seemed to be more wooden toys and Christmas figurines, hand carved in a tradition 28

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer unbroken for centuries. “Hungry?” Dieter asked, and at my nod, he headed for a stall selling roasted sausages placed in freshly baked mini loaves of bread called “Semmel.” Next to that stall, most conveniently, was the Glühwein vendor. Dieter also got us a couple rough ceramic mugs of the warm spicy wine, and we leaned up against the wall of what once had been the royal stables and devoured our treats. I couldn’t help wondering about all the people through the centuries who had stood right where we were, eating their lunch, warming themselves, if they were lucky, with a bit of Glühwein, though more often they probably had to content themselves with whatever local beer was handy. I could almost smell the hay and the horses that had once been here, could almost hear the blacksmith call for his apprentice to hurry up. Dieter smiled when I looked at him. “They are here, still,” he said. “We just cannot see them right now.” It’s a measure of how completely I had been seduced by the Christmas Market and its celebration of Dresden’s past that it did not seem at all odd he knew what I was thinking. He slung his arm over my shoulders and for several hours we explored the Dresden Christmas Market. The amount and variety of goods available at the open-air stalls was flabbergasting. Everywhere I looked there seemed to be something new, yet traditional. The folk crafts, wooden Christmas figures, seasonal ornaments, nutcrackers, and candles I would have expected. But there were also gorgeous glass objects, beautifully woven and dyed fabric, adorable glove puppets, and more kinds of food than I could eat in a month of Christmases. I managed to sample some gingerbread and stuffed roasted apples, to say nothing of getting some refills for my medieval 29

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer ceramic Glühwein mug before Dieter called a halt. “You will ruin your appetite,” he warned, “and if you do you will be later sorry.” “Oh?” I asked, but he merely looked smug and pulled me down another row of vendors, where the smells seemed especially marvelous, a mixture of frankincense and sandalwood with more gingerbread, smoked meats, spiced wine, and yeasty breads. Darkness began to fall, and with it, the Christmas market turned into a fairyland. Lights outlined almost everything, and carolers dressed in Victorian costumes carrying candles or lanterns strolled around, leaving bits of musical magic in their wake. Dieter looked at his watch. “It is time,” he said, and he gave me a smile that would melt stone. Within a few minutes we reached the Frauenkirche, the church that had been a symbol of Dresden for centuries. The rubble it was turned into during the February 1945 bombing became a searing international rebuke to the futility of war. The decision to rebuild it was not made for almost fifty years, and when it was finally consecrated in October 2005, Dresden, in a very real sense, was reborn. We walked up the steps, Dieter handed a pair of tickets to the usher, and we made our way to the front center section of the church. I had been in the Frauenkirche several times already—you can’t be in Dresden and not visit it. But I had never seen it like this. The ravishingly beautiful and carefully restored gilded Baroque interior glowed warmly. Christmas wreaths and sprigs of greenery dotted the interior. At the end of each pew a large white candle burned in an elegant ten-foot gold candlestick. Before I could ask the occasion, the lights dimmed and from the back of the church came the unmistakable sounds of the famous Dresden Boys Choir as they began to process up the aisle. I turned to 30

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer Dieter, eyes wide. How on earth had he managed to get tickets to the Dresden Kreuzchor’s Christmas concert in the Frauenkirche? They were some of the most eagerly sought tickets of the season, and such fabulous seats too! All I got back was “the Dieter Look,” accompanied by an affectionate squeeze of my arm. After a couple of songs… well, I can’t exactly describe what happened. It was like an invisible membrane had broken and some alternate reality began to take shape, without in any way altering the present. More like the alternate reality was equally present, in the same space where the present was unfolding. It was like a double exposure on a photograph, but with both “pictures” equally clear. As the boys sang, they were, somehow, joined by boys from the past who had stood in the Frauenkirche singing their own Christmas concerts. I looked at the famous frescoes on the inside of the great dome to try and clear my head, but it didn’t work. When I looked at the people sitting in front of us the same people were there who had been there before the concert started. But so were people in clothing from the period before World War I. Oddly, it was more comforting than frightening, knowing I was participating in a public rite that had bound together the different communities that had been Dresden for centuries. I chalked it up to the excitement of the day. And when the congregation was invited to sing along with some of the traditional carols at the end of the concert, I joined in, adding my (usually English) words to all the German around me. Dieter, it turns out, had a beautiful tenor voice. We sat for a bit at the end, letting most of the congregation leave before us. After a while Dieter turned to me and said, “You saw it too.” He didn’t have to explain; I knew exactly what he meant and nodded. After a couple minutes he stood up, and we walked slowly through the 31

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer almost empty church. “I will try to explain over supper. You are hungry, yes?” I suddenly realized I was ravenous. Outside the church the largest Christmas tree in Dresden glittered in New Market square, and the huge round wooden Christmas pyramid, with its life-size angels and Nativity figures on its six levels, soared above us. Dieter took my hand. “This way.” We snaked through some cobblestone alleys until we were next to what had once been the walls protecting young Dresden from attacks that might come from enemies approaching via the Elbe River. He opened a door I had not even noticed, and we found ourselves in a cellar that had a few tables underneath a low barrel ceiling. Why did this place look so familiar? A waiter in a long white apron seated us in a corner where we would have some privacy, though there were only a handful of other people there. “Trust me to order?” Dieter asked, and I assured him I was happy to do so. “Tonight is my treat, so do not even think of touching your wallet,” he added, then turned to the waiter and spoke rapidly and softly. He didn’t say anything after that, just looked at me in a way that turned my insides to jelly, until the waiter had brought some warm bread that smelled heavenly, a selection of cheeses, and opened a bottle of champagne. We toasted each other silently. “This place is familiar to you, yes?” he said, his knife trying to decide which cheese to spear. “Oddly, yes,” I replied. “It must be the fact every U.S. city has at least one German restaurant with the same décor.” He quirked one eyebrow at me, skeptically.

32

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer “Well what else could it be?” I asked. “I don’t remember every place I’ve eaten here in Dresden, but I know I haven’t been here before. I didn’t even notice a sign outside or a menu posted. Come to think of it, there wasn’t even a light over the door.” “No. This is a very private place and not anxious for the tourists. It dates back to the 1200s but has not always been a restaurant. But for these last years, since early 1800s, it is a restaurant.” I was still getting used to living in a place where the early 1800s was considered recent, but I didn’t say anything. “Daniel.” He paused and bit his lower lip for a moment. I suddenly knew what he was about to say was something very difficult for him. Ordinarily, when I was out on a date with a guy I really liked, and he started to hesitate before speaking, I panicked and figured he was trying to find the words to break up. This time, for some reason, I felt a tingle of anticipation, like a totally unexpected Christmas present was about to be handed to me. “You know I like you very much and, ah, if you would like it, I would be happy to stay this night with you. We both told that we have tomorrow off, so I thought it was your way of inviting me. Yes?” He looked adorable but also a little uncertain, which I found even more appealing. I reached over and ran my finger along his free hand. “Thank you. I would, indeed, like that very much. In fact,” I gave him a smug look of my own, “I even put fresh sheets on the bed just in case you could stay over.” We laughed and then sat gazing at each other until the waiter set down two large plates of cold cream of asparagus soup. “Perhaps this is not mean as your asparagus soup, but it is most often still very good,” Dieter said. 33

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer He was right; it was delicious. The soup was followed by a roasted Christmas goose, stuffed with prunes, chestnuts, and a bit of onion and nutmeg. There was a sauce of prunes, port, and heavy cream to go with the goose, and chestnut and bread dressing, plus a variety of vegetables. By the time the waiters had finished serving everything, I was in awe. “Dieter, what have you done? This is just unbelievable. The meal alone is worth a trip to Dresden, but this whole day—the Christmas market, the concert, spending the entire day together and now this feast….” I shook my head. Not often do I find myself at a loss for words, but this was one of those times. “I wanted the beginning of our first Christmas together to be very special,” he said simply. It gave me the opening I needed. “Look, I know we have something very special between us, even though we have not known each other very long and we’ve not spent the night together—yet. I am happy to hear you use the phrase ‘our first Christmas together’, but it worries me too. What if ‘we’ don’t last?” He looked at the gourmet Christmas meal on his plate for a moment and then said quietly, “I do not mean to add pressure on you, and what you say is right. We do not even know what the rest of tonight will bring. But I am sure that if we both live, we will be together. This is our time.” I cut a piece of goose and dipped it in the sauce. “Himmlisch!” I said after I had eaten it and speared some more. Then I decided it was time for me to get serious too. “Dieter, I don’t mean to discourage you at all. God knows I’m crazy about you—and in a way I can’t begin to explain. If you were an American, I would chalk up your certainty, at this stage of things, that we were going to stay a couple to being just 34

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer naïve and the headiness of infatuation. But you are more mature than that. You’re not a teenager. What are you, twenty-five?” “Twenty-six.” “I just don’t understand your calm certainty about us. Though, I admit, I find it appealing.” “The only way I can explain is to say I have seen it.” He took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. “You might think this is crazy— really crazy. But in our family, in each generation, there are one or two who sometimes see things from the future, and sometimes, also, from the past. My mother can do it, but she does not like to. It is something I have always had, this gift. When I was very young, I did not know it was special to see something before it happened. Fortunately my aunt—the baker I spoke of—she has the gift too. And she taught me how to value it.” “So you’ve seen us together?” He nodded. “When did this happen? After we met?” “No, many years ago. About the time I realized I was gay.” He ate some of the stuffing and growled with pleasure before he went on. “I saw a room with big windows filled with afternoon sunlight and good things cooking in the next room, and I knew that was the home of the man I would be with. When I went to your home for dinner, I recognized the room. “And when you told me your name, I understood why, every time I had thought of my mate, lions appeared.” When I looked puzzled he said, “Daniel and the lions’ den.” He shrugged ruefully and added, “Often what appears is not the exact thing, but a symbol. Though, this sexy look,” he reached over and ran a finger through the gray that was spreading rapidly over my temples, “this is exactly what I have seen too. But never your face. And when you offered to cook some extra 35

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer vegetables for that first meal, this too I had seen, that you could not yet see the value of yourself and so would want to add food to make up for it.” I pride myself in trying to keep an open mind about most things. I certainly believe there is much more to the world that what we choose to see. But this was more than a bit far-fetched. “What if I hadn’t come to Dresden?” “But you did. You have never told me how this came to be, but I would guess it was sudden and very unexpected. Something you had not planned on at all. Yes?” He had me there. “Okay,” I said. “But what was this craziness with people from the past at the concert and even during the day today. What was that all about?” He hesitated, and for a moment I thought he wasn’t going to answer. But then he said slowly, “My aunt once explained to me that we can ask for knowledge and sometimes a picture appears, and sometimes it does not. Most times, though, as we are going to sleep, or waking up, or in a meditation, a picture appears. For me, many times the picture is from a life I lived in Dresden before, during the end of 1800s and the beginning of the 1900s. “Since you have been in Dresden, things have often seemed very familiar, yes?” I nodded. “Today at the Striezelmarkt it was as if you had seen before the bakers carry in the big stollen, even though this was supposed to be new for you?” I nodded and he gave me a long, assessing look. “Daniel, I have often seen you in that life with me.” When I raised my eyebrows, he said, “We were very good friends. I do not know if we were lovers, but we were closer than brothers. When the first World War came I joined the Kriegsmarine and served on a U-boat. It sank very soon in the war. I have not seen 36

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer what happened to you in that life. I have tried, especially since that day at your home. But I never see anything.” Suddenly I remembered an incident from early in my Dresden days. “That’s interesting. The city museum is very close to the hotel where I lived when I first came to Dresden, and one weekend I went in to explore. When I entered the wing on the twentieth century, I suddenly had an very odd feeling that I couldn’t explain,” I told him. “I just stood there for a while, trying to make sense of it, but all I could come up with was that I almost understood something, but I didn’t know what it was I almost understood. Then I noticed a metal can that was part of a display. It was about the size of a soup can, but a little larger. It had a curved metal handle and a slot cut in the top. The words ‘For the U Boats’ was printed on it, in German.” When I stopped he asked gently, “And what did you feel?” “I burst into tears,” I said. “Thank God I was alone in the room at the time. It made no sense to me at all. But I felt such sadness and grief, I just suddenly burst into tears. It scared the hell out of me, actually, if you want to know the truth.” He caressed the side of my face. “Thank you. I am touched you still mourn, even into this life. But you see, we have another chance. Again we’re in Dresden, again it is Christmas—yes, we ate here before I left for the Kriegsmarine, and we had Christmas goose. Only in this life there is no world war to separate us, and we are both older, and we are ready to explore together what life has for us this time.” It was just too bizarre for words. It went against everything my conservative Southern Baptist upbringing had taught me. But I couldn’t deny that—on some inexplicable level—it seemed to fit emotionally. I wasn’t about to fight it. At least not right then. “So where does this leave us?” I asked. 37

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer Dieter’s grin was inconceivably beguiling. “Ready for a stroll along the terrace and then back across the bridge to a nice place I know on Obergraben for a hot night?” “Sounds good to me. And what do you see for tomorrow?” He laughed and ostentatiously closed his eyes and waved his hands around in a fake magical incantation. “Ah, yes, it is coming clearly now. I see much fantastic sex before we get out of bed, followed by breakfast with Dresden’s best Christmas stollen, and then a stroll to try and find the best Christmas tree in town.” “Let’s get out of here,” I growled. * * *

I’ M NOT going to describe what happened in the bedroom about thirty minutes later. Whose what went where when and how often. If we had been having sex, I would give you the details. But we weren’t. We were making love, and that’s quite a different thing. I had had a lot sex before and in quite a variety of ways and places. But that first time with Dieter, I realized I had never made love before. It really was a melding of two souls, a time somehow out of time where nothing else mattered and where everything that would happen in days to come was changed because of what we were doing. “Precious” does not begin to describe it. It really was sacred in the deepest and most holy sense of that word. A giving, accepting, and melding of that part of ourselves most of us are so scared of we can hardly even acknowledge its existence. Accepting, cherishing… worshipping, really. According to the stories, the wise men traveled a great distance to worship at that manger in Bethlehem. I had traveled a lot of miles to get to that bedroom in Dresden, but that evening 38

Dresden Weihnachten * Edward von Behrer Dieter showed me that love does not know anything about distance, or about time or place. It transcends all that. It just needs to be given. Of course we fell asleep in each other’s arms and woke up the same way—as we undoubtedly would for the rest of our lives. And as for his “predictions” for what would happen the next day? Well, I’ll only tell you that the Christstollen he somehow conjured for breakfast was out-of-this-world delicious, and we both agreed the Christmas tree we decorated that evening had to be the best in all of Dresden.

39

Got Mistletoe Madness?

The Dreamspinner Press 2009 Advent Calendar is available at http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com.

EDWARD VON BEHRER’s mother was surprised when he came home from his first day of school in tears. “They didn’t teach us to read today, and you promised they would. That's the only reason I went,” he wailed. His cousins still talk—decades later—about the stories he spun during his summer visits to their home in Chicago a few years later. Obviously he was fated to write. That sort of thing seems to happen to a lot of Southern guys. Even those who fled the South ASAP.

Dresden Weihnachten ©Copyright Edward von Behrer, 2009 Published by Dreamspinner Press 4760 Preston Road Suite 244-149 Frisco, TX 75034 http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/ This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. Cover Art by Paul Richmond http://www.paulrichmondstudio.com Cover Design by Mara McKennen This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines and/or imprisonment. This eBook cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this eBook can be shared or reproduced without the express permission of the publisher. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press at: 4760 Preston Road, Suite 244-149, Frisco, TX 75034 http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/ Released in the United States of America December 2009 eBook Edition eBook ISBN: 978-1-61581-318-6