The Great Game E-Book

Michael, Lederer

• Herausgeber: PalmArtPress
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Seitenzahl: 291

Beschreibung

The Great Game is a collection of eighteen short stories. The American West is supposed to be wild compared to the East. In Europe, it is the other way around. Lederer has lived in and writes about each of these places. He finds the differences are not as convenient as the myths. A hitchhiking trip across America. A drunk horse in California. A train from Berlin to Warsaw. Powerlessness among the rich. Innocence in New York City. Home. These are some of the themes explored in this book.

Leseprobe

The Great GameBerlin-Warsaw Express and Other Stories

Michael Lederer

The Great Game

Berlin-Warsaw Expressand Other Stories

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen NationalbibliothekDie Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://www.d-nb.de abrufbar.

All characters appearing in the stories in this book are fictitious.

Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

To order: www.palmartpress.com

ISBN: 978-3-941524-12-5

ISBN (E-Book): 978-3-941524-56-9

First Edition, first printing, 2012

© 2012 Michael Lederer

PalmArtPress

Pfalzburger Str. 69, 10719 Berlin

All rights reserved

Front Cover: Genia Chef, Transformation, Oil on panel, 2011

Back Cover: Photo by Zeljko Tutnjevic

Editor: Catharine J. Nicely

Layout: Pauline A. Peters

For Katarina my love,and again for Nicholas

“It’s a bittersweet symphony this life.”

- The Verve

(from their hit song Bittersweet Symphonyplagiarized from the Stones)

Shooting Star

As a shooting star are we today

Within eye’s sight but for briefest time

And though we would we cannot stay

Yet we can always linger in your mind

If you recall our passage as your own youth

Gone, as beauty, in deed but not in name

Remembrance of a past as sure as truth

Your memory now for us the truest flame

For sure as light reflects and echoes sound

Both mind and heart can hold that which has passed

`Till Nature’s game must child-like come ´round

And all once gone instead forever lasts

Still, as your own star now flies fleetingly through time

Look to the day when it will follow mine

Contents

Prologue: Shooting Star

A Father and a Son

Hole in the Fence

Three and a Half

Happy Ending

Champagne

A Very Nice Man

Objects in the Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear

Dulcinea

A Wish Come True

Berlin-Warsaw Express

Not Science Fiction

A Bad Story

Alles Klar

Family Album

For the Children

Nothing Out There But the Wind

Butternut

Spain II

Wolfgangsee Again

Epilogue: The Wonder of the World

A Father and A Son

The City Café had not changed much for half a century. The cane backed chairs and round tables and long mirror on the wall. The wrought iron railings and wooden bar, and the shiny copper espresso machine. It all looked pretty much as it always had in the memory of the old men who gathered every morning in the corner beside the large window overlooking the square. They would sit together and sip coffee and remember things, and then they would share stories about what they remembered. It used to be this, she used to be that, they used to…and so on. Somehow everything said was ever new enough to be interesting, while at the same time familiar enough to be a comfort to men who had known each other when they were not old, but whose days now were measured more in yesteryears than tomorrows. All knew it, though they didn’t talk about it, except for the occasional joke at which they would all laugh before falling silent for a moment or two.

One of the men was an old doctor named Teo. After the others had gone, he would always stay and keep talking as if he was not alone. The locals did not look at him then because they knew him, and they liked him, and they would even protect him if anyone bothered him, though no one ever bothered him. Even the tourists passing through would look at him only for a moment and then turn away, somehow understanding that he was as much and as natural a part of the City Café as any of it. The waiters would bring Teo his sherry, and espresso with two sugars no milk, and his still water, and when he left there was never a bill, just a “see you later.” Then off he would go for lunch and a nap and a shower, before coming back to the café in the evening for another sherry and espresso with two sugars no milk, and a still water. The waiters never asked what he wanted. They would just bring it.

He had thick glasses, and white hair long like an artist’s that was cut nicely. His clothes were clean, and he always wore a tie even in summer. Because he talked to himself, the impression given was that somebody must take care of him. A wife perhaps, or a housekeeper, or maybe he had grown children with families of their own, and someone in the family took care of him. Because talking to himself like that, it was easy to think that he could not take care of himself.

The oldest waiter in the café was named Marko. He had started work there as a young man when his uncle was chief waiter. It was the only job Marko had ever had. Now his uncle was long dead, and Marko himself had become chief waiter. When he was not serving, Marko liked to stand in one corner of the large room with the high ceiling and the brass chandelier and all the people. He would look around “his” café with sharp brown eyes that saw and understood everything. One thing he could see was that because of all the electronic devices everyone carried, old Teo was often not the only one sitting alone while talking. Many people talked through their phones, or to their phones, yet somehow even without any kind of device the old man looked more natural doing it. He would hold a cigarette in one hand and wave it as he talked, though the cigarette was never lit because smoking was not permitted inside the café. Still, he would hold the cigarette and wave it elegantly while staring at the empty chair across from him and talking to it.

Summer now was over. The days were growing cooler and the winds stronger, and everyone except those who absolutely had to smoke sat inside. The smokers who couldn’t not-smoke would huddle in the corners of the wide stone terrace outside, with their collars up and their backs to the wall. Old Teo clearly had issues, but a slavish addiction to tobacco was not one of them. He would sit inside the large window, where there was still a good view of the square, and it was enough for him just to hold the cigarette and wave it elegantly as he talked to the empty chair.

One morning a young American came into the café. He crossed to the back and sat alone at the table furthest from the door. Marko came to him. The young man ordered a double espresso. When Marko left, he pulled a laptop computer from his shoulder bag, opened it, and looked around the room.

The young man’s name was Jack. He had decided to write a great novel, and so had done what many of the great writers he admired had done before him. He had bought his generation’s equivalent of paper and pen, and moved to Europe. Hoping that what had worked so well for them would work for him, he had settled on this old café as the place where he would commence his life’s work.

Marko brought his coffee. As he drank it, Jack looked around the room while waiting for his great novel to make its appearance. An idea finally struck him. He started to write about a cat he had seen the night before in one of the cobblestone alleys of the old town. The cat looked hungry and alone, and the story started well enough, but then it reached a dead end when Jack couldn’t decide where the cat had come from, or where it was headed. After awhile he gave up. He figured that was a false start. He looked around the room again and tried to think, which is different than thinking. The idea of a cat led him to the idea of a dog, which led to the idea of a boy, which led…nowhere. Oh well. He would try again the following day. He paid his bill and left.

The next morning he returned, and sat in the same chair at the same table and ordered his double espresso from Marko. As Marko walked toward the bar, the young man already felt like a local. He wondered how many times he would have to come, and how many espressos he would have to order, before Marko would also start to think of him as a local. He took his laptop from his bag and opened it, and like many young men then, now, and forever hoped that anyone looking at him would understand he was there to do great things. But great things didn’t happen. Not yet. So after half an hour, when an idea for a great novel still had not come to him, he leaned forward against the table and rubbed the sides of his head, and looked around the café.

The old man by the window was there again with his friends. Jack had noticed him the day before. Now, as his friends stood to go, he wondered if the old man would start to talk to himself again. He did.

Both as a traveler and as a New Yorker, Jack had seen and heard enough people talking to themselves. On park benches and church steps, at bus stops, and one winter day he would never forget on St. Mark’s Place when he thought some foam-at-the-mouth nut was screaming at him. But then he got into a cab and looked over his shoulder, and it turned out the guy was just screaming.

This old man was different. He looked normal, clean, measured. Not loose like the others, but put together tightly and correctly. It even looked as if he was having a regular conversation, just that the other half of it wasn’t there. It seemed like it was more the other person’s fault for not showing up, rather than the old man’s fault for talking to air.

Jack watched him carefully. After awhile he tried to write again, but for some reason he couldn’t stop thinking about this old man who was talking to himself. Finally, as he had the day before, he gave up and paid his bill and left. As he walked out the door, he overheard the old man say:

“I wouldn’t tell you these things, except you need to know them.”

The next day, Jack came back to the café. He was about to sit again at the same table, when he noticed the old man by the window, already alone, already talking to himself. Jack decided to sit closer to him so that he could listen.

Marko came over and Jack ordered his “usual,” and as he sat waiting for it he heard the old man say:

“If you want something from someone, don’t think they’ll know it. Ask them, or tell them, but don’t just wait for it, because if you wait for things they will never come.”

The old man took a sip of his sherry, waved his unlit cigarette, and then said:

“A little boat gets smashed about by the waves, while a big ship cuts through the waves and gets to its destination. You want to be that big boat, not the little one.”

He added:

“And remember, a girl’s breast is a beautiful thing, but never let it hide her heart. To be truly happy, you must consider both.”

The coffee came.

“Marko?”

He knew the waiter’s name from his name tag.

“Yes?”

Jack lowered his voice so the old man would not hear him.

“Who’s the old man?”

“His name is Teo.”

“Who does he think he’s talking to?”

“His son.”

“Where’s his son?”

“Dead.”

A pause.

“How?”

“Motorcycle. You want something else?”

“No. Thank you.”

Marko left.

Jack kept listening. It didn’t stop. One gem of advice after another.

“If you don’t believe in one part of yourself, find another part you can believe in. And then lean on that with all your might. Build everything else on that, because that’s your foundation. Remember, how will others believe in you if you don’t believe in yourself?”

There was more. Much more.

“They say talking well is a gift, but listening well is a greater gift. And they are right. Because any good teacher must first be a good student. In fact, the best teachers never stop being students. Because always what you do not know is greater than what you do know.”

And a moment later:

“You start with a dream. Okay, fine. You think what something will be like when you finish it, and that’s what makes you start. But the dream is not enough. Everyone wants to be rich. Or wants the girl. Or wants to fix the world, maybe. But then you have to make a plan to do it. And then…this is the hardest part…you must work very hard, and probably very long. Because remember, dreams do not come true, they are made true.”

Jack tried not to look at the old man. He was afraid that if he caught him looking he would stop talking. And Jack did not want him to stop talking. More than anything else, he wanted him to continue. There was a reason.

When Jack was seven years old, his family had been living in California. One evening his father had been returning up the coast road from Santa Cruz to Pescadero where they lived. It seems that he was driving too fast, because the next morning someone found his car at the bottom of a cliff, battered on the rocks along the sea’s edge. But they never found the body.

Two years later, when Jack’s mother announced that she was moving them back to her native New York City, Jack exploded into tears. “But then how will Daddy find us?” The boy had convinced himself that his father had somehow survived the crash, been thrown into the sea, and once the cold water had revived him had probably swum to a nearby beach. Then probably he had amnesia and had wandered around until someone had found him and taken him to a hospital. No amount of gentle persuasion could convince little Jack otherwise. And when the moving truck came to collect the household, the boy ran off and hid in a bush in the back yard, determined to stay and wait for the day his father would come home. But his mother found him, and they moved to New York City, and his father never did return.

Many years later, as a grown Jack was about to leave home to go to university, his mother came to his room with a small package wrapped in white paper. It was a journal that his father had kept.

“There are six of them,” she told him. “This is the one he was keeping when you were born. Someday you’ll have them all, but I’m giving this one to you now. There are some things in here that you should read.”

On the plane that night, he opened it. He read it all. Every word. His father had neat, slanted handwriting. He used blue ink. One of the entries was written just two days after Jack was born.

“Welcome to the world, little Jack,” he wrote. “It is a big place, and you are very little still. But one day you will not be so little. You will have many adventures. We will have many adventures together. But always remember, still your best friend will not be me. Or Mommy. It will be your older self. Imagine that he is with you always. When you are 20, think of the 40-year-old Jack. When you are 40, think of the 60-year-old Jack. And so on. And when you are faced with any great choice to make, and you will be faced with great choices, then just ask your older self what he thinks you should do. And listen to him carefully. You can trust him, because his interests always will be the same as yours. If he thinks something is a good idea, then go for it with everything you’ve got! But if he tells you something is not such a good idea, also listen to him then. He will ask you not to smoke, for instance, for his sake. And not to drink too much. But he will also ask you to have those adventures, so that he will feel that he has lived. A person’s older self is the best friend they can have, and if you let him he will be with you everywhere, and always.”

And suddenly, here now in this café half a world away, was a man who had lost his son. And who was offering the same kind of wisdom and love that Jack had felt, literally felt, in the pages of his father’s journal.

So everyday Jack would come to the café, and he would sit close to the old man, and he would listen. He would watch him out of the corner of his eye while pretending to look at other things, or to write. And after awhile he did write, but not his novel. He wrote down every word he could hear the old man say.

Only once did their eyes meet. It happened by accident. The old man was looking out the window toward the square, and Jack was looking at him from behind. Suddenly the old man’s eyes refocused on the reflection in the window. And in the glass, they looked at each other. Jack looked away at once. As much as he had wanted to know him, he was always afraid that if that happened the old man would never talk to himself when Jack was close by. And more than anything, he wanted to hear those words.

One day he heard him say:

“Everything in its time. Don’t hurry so much. That stupid motorcycle. What’s the rush? You have your whole life ahead of you. But once, I told you not to wait for things. I’m sorry. That was my mistake. Maybe you were listening to me, and so you thought ‘I better hurry.’ But sometimes, it can be okay to wait. Everything in its time.”

October became November. Soon Christmas passed, and the new year advanced into spring. And one day the old man did not come. It had happened a few times before, so Jack did not think anything of it. Again the next day he did not come, and still Jack did not worry. But then the day after that the other old men did not come either.

“Marko?”

“Yes?”

“Where are they?”

“The old men?”

“Yes. Especially, you know, the old doctor.”

“He died.”

“What?”

“He died. A couple of days ago. Everyone’s at his funeral. You need something else?”

“No. Thank you.”

Some tourists stood up from one of the nearby tables. Marko went to wipe it clean with a damp cloth. Jack sat there for a few minutes. Then he paid his bill and left. He walked through the old town, and he did not stop walking for a long time.

Hole in the Fence

Half a century had taken its toll. Everything had shrunk. The house. The city. The world.

The hill was not as steep as he remembered it. One could hardly call it a hill, in fact. A sloping lawn was more like it, though as a boy shooting down it on a sled in winter it had seemed so…grand. Looking at it now, Cal wondered how he, his brother and their friends could possibly have achieved those great speeds on . He could still hear the ice scraping under the blades, see the apple tree looming closer, feel the struggle to turn the handles just in time to miss the tree. And there had been so many near misses.