Ursula Pflug - Seeds and Other Stories

After their talk Lulu had gone into town again, back to the laundromat to fold, first telling her not to run away, but it was silly, really. Where was there to go? Tanya left the beach for the fire pit in its scraggly patch of lawn, started the night’s bonfire. The backpackers would be arriving from their day trips soon, and those who knew who she was would want to ask her questions. She got the drums out of their hiding places in the bushes. Tonight, she’d drum so loud she wouldn’t hear a thing.

The door bangs; it’s Lulu, returned from her hike. She looks at me, questioning. I put down this pen, pick up our room phone. Koke’e Lodge has room phones now, as it didn’t back then. The mouse jumps off the page while I wait for someone to pick up. Or we could go there together. It’s not too late to learn how to sail.

OUR FIRST NIGHT IN BERLIN I went out with Katie, the German label’s A and R woman, to a pub called Die Ruine, in a bombed-out building near the Brandenburg Gate, never restored since the war. The second storey, roofless, crumbled upwards into the night sky, while in the tiny, one-roomed club itself, a trio of young women looked like they were falling asleep from terminal boredom.

I found myself staring and Katie nudged me. “They’re junkies,” she whispered. “Disgusting.”

Still, I stared. I felt like I was in the bar at the end of time. In those days, before reunification, West Berlin residents received subsidies from the state, hence, all sorts were attracted to the city by the lure of easy living. And heroin was as popular with artists and musicians as among street people, unlike in Canada. So, of course, were Colours.

The bartender’s name was Max; he wore a western shirt and a flowered tie. He sported slicked-back hair and a handlebar moustache, looking like a character in the Wenders film, The American Friend . There was a record player of elderly but good vintage, and Max played us Velvet Underground and early Rolling Stones. Everyone was dressed in black and very thin.

I watched an old gay derelict clean tables and empty ashtrays for a few minutes; Max pulled the man a pint in exchange for his trouble. He sat at a table alone after that, sipping beer, opening and eating a can of sardines with a clean fork he got out of his jacket pocket.

Katie and I were joined by one of her producer friends, but before we could be properly introduced a raven-haired woman extricated herself from the trio and offered to read our Tarot cards. Katie tried to get rid of her but she whined persistently, reeking of patchouli and layered in scarves. At last I gave in, making her promise that once she’d done my reading she’d leave us alone. Leni, for that was her name, agreed, laying out my hand after I’d shuffled. My question, which I didn’t share, was whether Rudy’s German tour would ensure greater success back home. In Canada to be famous you have to be famous somewhere else first.

Card fifteen, the Devil, came up. She asked me to re-shuffle, as if to want for me a kinder fate, but even when I did, there he was again, and the third time too. I thought Leni must be adept at sleight of hand, would promise to exorcize my devil for some large price, but instead she sighed, “What are you doing with him?”

I thought she knew I was Rudy’s girlfriend. I was smug enough about his small-time fame to assume bar gossip had already labelled us his for-the-moment prince-less entourage, and told her truthfully: “Even back in high school, his music spoke to me more than any poetry ever had. I even changed my name to the same name as the girl in my favourite song. When we finally met last year, I asked who Kim was and he told me she didn’t exist; he’d made her up. I said I’d changed my name to Kim because of the song and he said he’d hoped someone would do that, become Kim for him.”

I was so busy delivering my monologue I didn’t at first notice Leni staring as if I were a little mad, and Katie glancing from one to the other of us, suppressing giggles. I could have gone on, but I shut up. Scotch and jet lag, what can I say?

“Who are you talking about?” Leni asked.

“Rudy Mix, of course.”

She tossed her locks. “I’ve never heard of him. Does he play with Lou?”

Katie elbowed me, whispered, “She means Lou Reed. He lives here now.”

“I’ve met Lou,” Leni said. “I’ve read his cards. Here. Right at this table.”

Canadian that I was, I unashamedly glanced around the room to see if Lou was there, if I might have to call Rudy, get him to cab over, meet his maker. He’d thank me forever. But no Lou. Just his music pouring out of the speakers, changing us forever like the first time we’d heard it.

“Maybe he lied. Did you ever think of that?” Leni asked menacingly. “It would be a good way to get in your pants, yes? I bet you Kim is his first wife. It’s your Rudy who’s the devil, I see it now.” Leni tossed her hair again.

“But the devil doesn’t mean the devil personified,” I said, explaining Leni’s Tarot to her as if it was my profession and not hers. “It can mean addiction of the mind or body, any kind of enslavement.”

“Precisely.”

“I don’t even believe in the devil,” I said.

“No one said you had to,” Leni said. “But you agree with me there exists real evil in the world?”

“Of course.”

“Keep it symbolic then, if you prefer,” Leni said.

I stubbornly kept defending my boyfriend. “Rudy’s music is amazing. He’s not rich but he is by my standards; I’d never have gotten to Europe on my own. What’s devilish about any of that?”

“All the same,” she said, peering at the rest of the layout, reading a meaning there that was, even with my superficial knowledge of the cards, completely opaque. “I see coming enslavement of a kind.”

“How precise. You have real talent,” Katie’s friend sneered. I thought maybe he was trying to save face for our little group after I’d made us look like ingénues not knowing who they meant by Lou. Leni just shrugged him off, a piece of fluff, a beetle. Katie pushed several Deutschmarks in small denominations across the table, as if hoping once Leni had her money she’d find someone else to scam.

“He paid my airfare here,” I said.

Katie looked alarmed; she hadn’t thought I was taking this seriously. I hadn’t thought so either. Scotch and jet lag, I told myself again, call it a night and get some sleep.

“That’s worth your soul?”

“My soul isn’t in danger,” I pointed out, “it’s my self-respect.”

“How so?” Katie’s sneering friend asked.

“I’m a fan, for God’s sakes. I went backstage at a concert in Toronto and got him to autograph my programme. I gave him my number and he actually called. How pathetic is that?” I’d never seen myself as a groupie before then. I’d thought Rudy was in love too. “I should come up with an art of my own,” I continued, “not just turn myself into a character in one of his songs.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Katie said. “You’ll do something worthwhile one day—or not. Not everyone should feel they have to. What’s the point of it? And to be pretty and clever is more than most people ever get. Whether you worked for it or not you should enjoy what it brings you.”

Katie’s friend, whose name turned out to be Hans, agreed. “If a handsome young musician asked me to keep him company on his U.S. tour, you’d be sure I’d go. What if the chance only comes once?”

I nodded, trying to believe them. Leni reassembled her deck, wrapping it in a square of patterned blue silk with pretentious ritual. Katie and Hans rolled their eyes after she’d slunk off to another table to try her luck. The table was populated by regulars, not a rube like me among them, and she was waved away. Katie pointed and laughed at her as she sat down alone at the bar, nursing a glass of red wine and smoking; her friends had already left. Still, I said good-bye on our way out.