A Visit to Germany

Once I had my green card, I could travel home again. My mother’s excitement had been building for months. In every letter and every phone call she asked:
“What shall I cook for you and your husband? What do you want to eat the day you arrive?”
“Cook something typically German,” I told her.
She did. The first evening we sat down to a substantial meal of fatty Schweinshaxen, sauerkraut and mashed potatoes.
“Best to have a good foundation, so you won’t get too drunk,” my mother said toasting with Earnest.
“Summ Woll.”
I had tried to teach Earnest a few German phrases, but he was hopeless. While my mother delighted in her new son-in-law, his manly voice, good manners, handsome looks and funny attempts at German, my brother’s face turned sour. Heinrich did not approve of my move to fascist America. The America of Ronald Reagan, the land of Right to Life fanatics and Evangelical Fundamentalists.
“Anna, tell Earnest he’s not the first black man I met,” my mother said.
“Is that so?” Earnest grinned.
“Langenlonsheim was liberated by American soldiers. When the GI’s rolled into our village with their tanks, I was scared of the Black soldiers. I had never seen Black people before. When an old man warned us that Blacks weren’t human like us and that the soldiers might rape us, all the girls ran home. I hid at home, but I shouldn’t have been afraid. They were very friendly. They gave us chocolate and chewing gum.”
I translated the portion about the gum and chocolate.
“Tell your mother her pork knuckles are almost as good as my mother’s.”
My mother watched Earnest struggle with his knife and fork. He did not manage to cut much meat off the bone. She came to his rescue. Holding the meat up with her fingers, she took a big bite. Earnest, relieved, followed her example. She nodded approvingly, “No need to feel shy. It tastes better this way.”
I studied my brother. Heinrich ate mechanically, without pleasure. He drank too fast. After my father’s death, my brother had taken on my father’s mannerisms, patterns of speech and way of bossing my mother around. Sitting in my father’s chair, under the crucifix, he barked at her: “We need more beer here, Mutti” and sounded just like the old man.
After dinner my brother proposed a trip to Vater Rhein, a brewery tavern. “You’ll be able to taste real beer, not that dishwater they sell in the US,” he promised his brother-in-law. It was a cool and cloudy August evening. Germany’s endless grey winters and cold and rainy summers had always depressed me. Now after years of tropical heat and the unbearable humidity of New York summers, I enjoyed the grey skies. I wasn’t gloomy, rather pleasantly melancholic.
On the way to the pub, I savored the scenery. The factories with their gigantic chimneys weren’t as ugly as I remembered. “Hein, do you remember how we played in the coal dumps. Wasn’t it fun to slide down the slag heaps?”
My brother shrugged his shoulders. “I guess.”
“Remember how mother had to waste a pound of butter, how she scrubbed us for hours to make us look like white children again?”
Hein did not share any of my excitement. I turned to Earnest.
“You might be in for a special treat. Twice a week, the blast furnaces of Krupp Steal light up the sky. It’s awesome. Different shades of flaming reds and oranges you’ve never seen before.”
“Can’t wait,” Earnest said.
There was the unpleasant smell from the Chemical plant. Still, after being away for a while, it was rather romantic. Keyed up by the view of the green meadows and the majestic river, I recited my favorite Heinrich Heine poem for my husband.
Mein Liebchen wir saßen beisammen
Traulich im leichten Kahn
Die Nacht war still und wir schwammen
Auf weiter Wasserbahn

“That sounds lovely,” Earnest said. ”Must be a romantic fellow, this Heine.”
“He was a romantic fellow. Born in Düsseldorf on the Rhine, not far from here, “
I said.
“Your homeboy,” Earnest chuckled.
As soon as we stepped into Vater Rhein, all eyes turned to Earnest. I was glad that he had left his bone earrings and bear claw necklace at my mother’s house. He was exotic enough. People in my hometown had no problem staring at strangers. Perhaps the only Black men they knew were Muhammad Ali and Sammy Davis Jr.? We sat down at the barrel-table and waited for the burly waiter in his blue work shirt and apron to bring the first round. He came with a tray full of small glasses of Diebels Alt, the local specialty-- a copper colored, slightly sweet dark beer. Happy to hear him speak in the local dialect, I didn’t mind his gruff manner. Smiling was not common in this part of the world. If you wanted to see smiling people, you went on vacation to the Italian Rivera or the island of Mallorca. I didn’t need to be around smiling faces when I was home, among my people.
My brother spotted a co-worker and shouted across the room. “Manfred, come over. Meet my sister and brother-in-law from New York.” All heads turned in our direction. It was rare for tourists to visit Vater Rhein. I eavesdropped on people’s conversations. The local dialect melted my heart. The view of the Rhine was sensational. Although it was 9:00 p.m., it was still bright outside. How I had missed the long European summer evenings. I watched the barges headed for Rotterdam, Basel, and Cologne. On one barge, a woman was hanging up laundry, on another a terrier looked expectantly at me. The boats’ lovely puttering sound put me into a dreamy state. I remembered the train rides along the Rhine on visits to my grandmother. The castles, fables and the tale of the Loreley Mountain. I had pictured myself as a stowaway heading for Holland, the North Sea, and finally the Atlantic Ocean on my way to America, the country of my dreams. The land of the Little Rascals, Laurel and Hardy, and Buster Keaton. A country where having fun was mandatory.
When the waiter set down the slender glasses I snapped out of my reveries. Heinrich and Manfred took two beers each. “The first round is on me,” my brother announced. The waiter took out his pen and noted six beers on Heinrich’s coaster. “Na denn, Prost,” Heinrich said and clinked glasses. Manfred emptied his in one gulp, Hein took two for his. They wasted no time and moved on to the next round. Earnest and I looked at each other. I shrugged my shoulders. “Guess, they have to prove their manhood,” Earnest whispered.
Hein inspected Earnest as if he wasn’t good enough for me. Hein and Manfred stepped up their drinking tempo. The waiter served us in shorter intervals. “Let’s see if the American can hold his beer,” my brother said. I was worried for Earnest. Like most Americans, he wasn’t accustomed to real beer. The waiter noted that they had twelve beers. My brother and his friend were not the only ones getting drunk. Many of the guests at Vater Rhein were working themselves up into a drunken stupor. In the rear, a group of fans celebrated the victory of their soccer team. They made sure the rest of the guests knew about it. “M--S--V, M--S--V, let’s drink to the MSV,” they hooted every time the waiter brought another round. Back by the brewing-kettle, two parties battled each other for dominance. They sang songs praising the beauty of the Rhine. “Why was it so beautiful on the Rhine? Because of the jolly maidens and the thirsty fellows.”
The singing and excessive smoking got on my nerves. I’d just kicked the habit a few weeks earlier and worried about a relapse. “Ask Earnest what his position on Reagan’s foreign policy is,” Heinrich demanded. During high school my brother had fallen into the clutches of the Communist Party. He decided against college and chose the revolutionary path: working among the masses in the factories. He never approved of my choices. We had been arguing about politics all our lives. Now he was ready to start with my husband. I translated the request. Earnest was perplexed.
“I have no idea what Reagan’s politics are.”
“But he’s your president. Aren’t you concerned?” my brother screamed.
My stomach felt queasy.
“Not really. I don’t care about politics,” Earnest said.
How could he be so relaxed under an interrogation like this? He had never experienced the barbs of my brother’s fury.
“What do you care about then?” Hein yelled.
“Interior decorating. Whether I should change my slipcovers from hunter green to midnight blue. Whether that would match my carpet.”
“What did he say?” Heinrich asked.
I didn’t dare to translate, but my brother, despite his proletarian demeanor, was quite well-versed in the English language. He was outraged. “The whole world is going to hell because of your government and you worry about your sofa!”
He had a point. I had been mad at Earnest for not exercising his right to vote. When was the last time he participated in politics? During the Vietnam War?
“You need to pay attention to your president’s position on rearmament. He wants to install more missiles in Europe,” Manfred said as his face turned purple.
”I don’t know anything about that,” Earnest said, without sounding the least bit apologetic.
“Don’t you read the papers?” Heinrich countered.
“Not really. I’m not interested in politics.”
Manfred was beside himself. US ignorance had infiltrated his favorite pub. My brother lit a new cigarette with the butt of the old one. Greedy, he inhaled as he worked himself up for further confrontation. The waiter brought another round of beers. One, two gulps and the small glasses stood empty again. Manfred called the waiter back to the table. The coaster had no more room for notations. The waiter turned it over and used the back to write on.
“I expected more from a Black man,” Hein said, “You are a bad example for your race.”
“How dare you say something like that,” I screamed.
Earnest covered his ears. My voice must have been several octaves too high.
“A black man should be aware of his country’s history. Aware of his people’s struggle,” Hein lectured.
Manfred nodded his approval.
“Well, maybe he is,” I said, hardly believing it myself.
“Does he think with his dick? Does he have a big one?” Manfred asked.
I was stunned. I had experienced bigotry a few times in Earnest’s company. While walking arm in arm in SoHo, a car with a New Jersey license plate had stopped next to us. One of four young men stuck his head out and yelled “Why don’t you let us fuck her, brother” before they sped away. This sort of conduct could be expected in New Jersey or Queens, but not here in my hometown, in the company of my brother and his friend, two revolutionary thinkers.
Earnest had not understood a word. I had been looking forward to this visit. The Rhine, my friends, my mother’s cooking, the Tatort detective series on TV. When Earnest got up to go to the bathroom, the revolutionaries took turns attacking me.
“The US is a fascist country.”
”Reagan is a madman. How can you live in such a country?”
“Voluntarily!”
“Look,” I defended myself, “not all Americans are alike. Some even read the New York Times.”
“But look at the politics of the country.”
“Not everyone supports it. At least none of the people I know.”
My arguments fell on deaf ears. Only one thing mattered. The principle. Reagan’s foreign policy had brought us dangerously close to a war. WAR. Didn’t I know what that meant?” Earnest came back to find me shouting on top of my lungs:
”No, I don’t know what war is. Neither do you. We have never lived through a war.” My brother was a pompous ass. So was Manfred. I was tired of their pontificating. They let me have it.
“You’re a fascist pig, yourself.”
“A degenerated Philistine.”
In our teenage years Heinrich and I argued all the time. At times, we chased each other around the kitchen table shouting obscenities at each other. My helpless mother tried to be the peace- broker: “Stop, you’re going to kill each other one of these days. For Christ’s sake, remember, you’re brother and sister.” He was my brother. But he was a fool who had not learned anything in all these years.
People at neighboring tables stared at us. Heinrich and Manfred chain-smoked. I was tempted to light up myself. Earnest looked helpless as if racking his brains for a way to protect me from their attacks. I was ready to leave it all: Vater Rhein, this town, this state, Germany. I wanted to get on a plane and return to New York. Stay in New York forever and never set foot in this country full of dogmatic idiots ever again.
The waiter stopped by our table. Earnest took two glasses for himself. Manfred and Heinrich moved in on me like two birds fighting over a crumb of bread. Each one tried to outdo the other in attacking me. Manfred tried to justify an attack on the US Air Base in Frankfurt.
“You fools. Two people ended up dead and one wounded. What was the point? Do you really believe you can change people’s minds by using such strategies?” I screamed. They never got a chance to answer. Earnest, a beer glass in each hand emptied them out over my opponents’ heads, in one swift move. The beer ran down my brother’s face and soaked his shirt. Neither Heinrich nor Manfred said a word. A temporary cease.

First published in universaltable.org/A Foot in Two Countries