Gesamtkunstwerk Macht Frei - 2011

The German word Gesamtkunstwerk is defined as the ideal work of art. 

Last night I arrived on train from Charleroi and immediately changed into a suit to attend a Chamber Music concert at the Luxembourg Theater with the Honorable UK ambassador. Luxembourg might be the most boring city in Europe, but culturally there was always something bring light to a gray northern European fortress town. Annie Sofie von Otter was singing a series of song written by the inmates of Theresienstadt. The Nazis under SS Doktor Seidl transformed the old fortress into a model concentration camp to house the Jews of Czechoslovakia. Designed for 7000 soldiers Terezin was occupied by ten times that number 70,000. The camp was filled with the great minds and the Nazis guided the Red Cross on tours through this Potemkin clone to show that their munificent treatment of the Jews.

The horrible conditions did not prevent the inmates from pursuing their crafts and last night the soprano along with her violinist, pianist, and bassist  resurrected their souls with music from Ilse Weber, Erwin Schulhoff, Karel Berman, and others. The musicians painted a tone poem of the doomed efforts to remain human during the Nazis’ pretending to be humane. Only one of the night’s composers survived Terezin.

The singer’s father had tried to inform the world about the death camps. He had received the information from a SS officer, Kurt Gerstein and died a suicide in French custody. His father was a die-hard Prussian, who wrote his son, "You are a soldier and an official and you must obey the orders of your superiors. The person who bears the responsibility is the man who gives the orders, not the one who carries them out."

This philosophy was repeated by countless Nazis after the surrender.

“We were only following orders.”

Kurt Gerstein obeyed his soul. He died a suicide in French custody.

There were good Nazis. But they weren’t in Terezin. The music of the dead haunts the future with the past.

The last song WIR WERDEN BESTIMMT WIEDERSEHEN brought tears to my eyes and the Ambassador as well. Alice had a tender soul.

‘We will see each other again.’

His 'we' walked as ghosts last night in Luxembourg.

I hope they were happy.  

Fuck-Up At DusselDorf - 2011

The days of December went into double-digits without my purchasing a ticket to Thailand. I was sitting with Vonelli in his Charleroi mansion sifting through the online travel sites. The Floridian suggested Air Berlin out of Dusseldorf. It was a four-hour train ride from Luxembourg, where I had been serving as 'unofficial writer in residence' to a foreign embassy. Thirty minutes later I booked a flight on December 20 and upon my return to the residence overlooking the Petrousse I informed Madame ambassador that my absence would last into the New Year.

"Bon Voyage." Madame Ambassador was stuck at her post. Diplomats at her level are expected to be present at their postings twenty-four hours a day seven days a week 365 days a year. "Get some sun for me."

I departed from Luxembourg a day early to visit Koln's medieval cathedral and the Ludwig Museum. My hotel was close to the train station and I walked over to the soot-stained monument to a mythic messiah, which is the largest Gothic church in Northern Europe. The spacious interior impressed the gawking tourists. I stretched out my arms to test the mysticism radar. Not a beep lit up my 4D screen, then again I was no longer a Christian. 

Winter was more winter in Koln than Luxembourg. I drank Glohwein at the Christmas Fair. The girl serving my mulled wine was the prettiest girl in the city and her beauty was enhanced by the glogg. I staggered back to my cheap, but cheerful hotel and crashed on the single bed to the sound of an argument between a married couple in the next room. Nothing says love better than a fight in a cheap hotel.

The next day I toured the Ludwig Museum for two hours. Its extensive collection was too much to absorb and such a short time and I exited the museum with my eyes burned my images of Yves Klein, Otto Mueller, and Alexander Rodchenko. I had thirty minutes to kill before my train and I spent twenty of them at the gloog bar. The girl's name was Helga. The twenty-year old came from Bremen. Her favorite music was punk. If only I had been thirty years younger with three more hours to kill, but I had a train to catch. I ran to the station and caught the 12:40 to Dusseldorf.

An hour later I stepped onto the platform of the Aeroport Station. A hanging monorail brought passengers to the terminal. I presented my ticket at the check-in.

"This is one-way." The blonde Air Berlin attendant held up my ticket with consternation.

"Is that a problem?" 

"Air Berlin won't accept the responsibility of your getting refused entry to Thailand." She was following procedure.

"It's never a problem at the other end." The passport control at Cobra Swamp was overwhelmed by the deluge of tourists spewed off 747 and Airbus."

"Let me check on it." She picked up the phone. A minute later she handed back my ticket and pointed across the terminal. "Talk to them. They will find you a ticket."

Buying a last-minute ticket at the airport was daunting. January 1 was my daughter's birthday. The counterwoman found a cheap flight back from Bangkok to Dusseldorf on January 16.

$500 one-way.

"Make it so." I love quoting Captain Picard of the Starship Enterprise and saying those words almost made flying an adventure.

Bah Fucking Xmas

I remain true to the old school despite my non-believer status.

Today we were hanging ornaments on the tree at the residence in Luxembourg. I came down in a Scrooge-like night garment. The young people regarded me strange and I explained that I was Scrooge. They had no idea what I was talking about.

"Don't you know Tiny Tim?" They had to be aware of the youngest Crackett's soul.

No was the expression of their face. They were ignorant of Christmas Past Present or Future.

"Fucking hell." I stormed upstairs in an atheistic huff. "Fucking Bah Humbug."

They could decorate their Giftmas tree by themselves.

There is no Christmas in the world of Skyrim and it's a good thing that I didn't ask them for the words to WHITE CHRISTMAS.

They wouldn't have even known how to hum it.

Dumb little bastards.

Nacht Und Nebel 2011

In the summer of 1982 Count-No-Count phoned my East Village apartment. Kurt, a mysterious German playboy was offering a job as ‘tursteher’ at his nightclub BSIR in Hamburg. The pay for a doorman was $150 a night, free accommodations, and all I could drink. Being dead-broke and wanted for questioning by the NYPD Internal Affairs for payment to the 20th Precinct at our after-hours club on West 25th Street, I quickly answered, “Ja.”

My stay in Hamburg had been pleasant throughout the summer. I spoke bad German with a Boston accent thanks to an ancient Bavarian teacher Bruder Karl at my high school south of Boston, but the clientele of young students on holiday dancing to the DJ imported from Paris possessed good English skills. Certainly better than my German. The weather was delightful and this far north the sun stayed in the sky late into the night. I drove an orange VW and lived in a studio penthouse on chic Mittelweg. I was thirty and no one was after me in Europe.

Autumn brought the cold rain, gray fog, and darker days. The sun’s daily traverse across the sky passed over the southern horizon like a frisbee weakening in flight with the approach of the winter solstice. Even worse was how the increasing bad weather allowed arrogant Nazis in their fifties and sixties to creep out of their hiding places. Maybe it was my imagination playing tricks with the shadows during my strolls through Jungfernstieg, but I regularly spotted well-dressed ex-Waffen SS striding proudly down the streets and their eyes didn’t lie about what they had seen or done in Russia, Poland, France, or Germany. They were not extras in a Hollywood movie. These men had not only obeyed orders and they had carried them out to the letter with pride. I was not scared by these old men nor of the young neo-Nazis. I was under the protection of the toughest gang in Hamburg. The GMbH and their boss J, the Black Pimp.

Of course the young Germans were not obsessed by the ghosts of the past.

“We are the Porsche Reich, not the Fourth Reich,” Count-No-Count had told me on many occasions in Paris. The Telex millionaire’s best friend was a Reeperbahn pimp, Kalle, the son of a Harlem American sergeant and a local woman from Hafenstrasse on the harbor of Hamburg.

A black Zuhalter was an anomaly in a German gang. His blonde right-hand man was SS Tommy, a notorious killer. The two of them along with their gang, the GmBH, controlled the ErosCenter, the huge brothel on the Reeperbahn, and also thousands of Huren or whores there and elsewhere in Hamburg. Kalle was always good to me. In truth he was my boss and not Count-No-Count.

His associate SS Tommy believed in the Second Coming of the Third Reich. The original Thousand Year Reich had lasted twelve years, but the weightlifter was not a real Nazi. Not like those old men who had done things no one liked to speak about at parties or even behind their backs. Still I was surprised when SS Tommy presented me a large bill for having sex with Astrid, who frequented BSIR. The Rechtung for my time with the blonde dancer came to 20,000 DMs or $12,000. Every act of intimacy been itemized on his list. Everything. Every sex act in five words or less. He had even charged twenty DMs for holding hands. Nothing was left off the list.

That evening I handed the pimp the keys to my VW and left Hamburg without saying an ‘auf weidersehen’ to anyone. Especially not Astrid. SS Tommy was scary and I was defensively scared of him.

The midnight train pulled into Hamburg’s Hauptbahnhof a little on time. During the wait I scanned the platform like a refugee from Gestapo henchmen. I didn't free safe, until the train entered Belgium. I reached Paris at dawn and I knew I was as lucky to be in France. Everyone does after they escape someplace else in the middle of the night.

Count-no-Count came down to Paris. He said Kalle was alright with me. Count-no-Count had paid my debt and advised me to stay away from Hamburg. I had no intentions of going north or west to America. New York wasn’t an option as the IAU investigation into police corruption was still in well swing. I worked at various nightclubs in the City of Light. Life was good for me. Less so for Count no Count. He ODed in 1985 in his Pigalle apartment. He was 38. I was 33.

I moved back to New York in 1986. The precinct cops knew I was there. They also knew that I had held my sand. I was left alone. A friend gave me a job in the Diamond District and I traveled the world on my savings. I heard from friends that Kalle was still a big man in the GmBH and SS Tommy had fled the Bundes-Republik after a failed bank robbery. The years moved on.

In 2004 I was living in Pattaya, Thailand, running a website selling fake F1 sports gear. I had a Thai wife and child. A car and a house with a mango tree in the front yard. F1-shopping.net was # 1 on Google search for Ferrari shirts. With the baht 50 to $1 a little counterfeiting was worth the risk. It wasn't like I was dealing drugs.

A Belgium marine geologist, Fabo, and I hung out at the Welkom Inn on Soi 3. We called the freelancer bar the Belgium Embassy. We were more interested in drinking than sex. He Heinikens. Me Thai Leo beer. Usually in the afternoon after I had shipped the day's shirt, caps, and jackets. One day he seemed very shook up and told me over a few beers how his girlfriend's ex- had shown up from South Africa. A German. Name of Tommy. I added the SS to complete the picture. It was a guess, but a good hunch. It was a small world and a long life.

"He wants Poo to work for him in Germany."

"As a pute in Hamburg."

"Yes? Do you know him?

"Maybe."

"He wants to meet me at my house. Poo is frightened and so am I."

"I understand. Call me when he's coming and I'll bring Bruno."

"Bruno."

"He's ex-legionnaire. He can never return to France. Good people." I had never discussed Bruno's reasons for his exile. Pattaya had lots of secrets.

I finished my beer and returned home. I said nothing to my wife about Fabo's woes. She probably knew. The Thais gossip more than anyone else in the world and know what is what and why before the news has reached a farang. When Bruno pulled up on his motorcycle, I kissed her and my daguhter. Nu said, "Lawang."

"I'll be careful."

She watched us drive away. I had informed Bruno of the situation. He only had to be told once. We crossed Sukhumvit rode up Khao Talo to a short-time bar in a semi hiso Thai neighborhood. Both of us checked the soi. We had heard that the German was friends with a Thai motorcycle gang. Both of us and Fabo were on good terms with them. There was no sign of them or him. We enter inside the dimly-lit bar. It had never seen the light of day The girls didn't lift from their chairs to greet us. We were known. Neither of us had ever gone upstairs with one of them. Bruno and I were faithful to our girlfriends. We only cheated with our drinking.

Fabo was not sitting alone

He was with SS Tommy. Each held a Heineken beer

I hadn't seen him in over twenty years. He hadn't changed at all. Same stack of muscles. Same bleached blonde shag hair. Just more slash scars on his left forearm from countless knife fights. People had tried to kill him. They had all failed. He squinted and eyeballed us. SS Tommy didn’t recognized me.

I sat down.

He had accused me on being the police.

"I know you. You don't know me. Leave Fabo alone."

"Why?" He most certainly wasn't scared of me.

Bruno had heard enough. He attacked the killer with the fury of an ex-legionnaire. Fabo, the girls, and I watched a short effective beating that are never filmed in the movies. It was over in fifteen seconds. Bruno dragged out SS Tommy and threw his unconscious body into the street. The bikers rolled up to the bar. SS Tommy must have called them for back up. Bruno nodded and they drove away. They knew Bruno well. This was none of their business. SS Tommy fled Thailand. Legionnaires had even more scary than pimp, if you are on their wrong side. A fugitive German conman late said at the Welkom Inn that SS Tommy had been arrested for a solo bank robbery in Jo-Burg. Good riddance. I was 52.

In the autumn of 2011 I was appointed writer-in-residence at the British Embassy in Luxembourg. The old fortress city was centrally located in Europe and I visited to Paris, Brussels, and Charleroi in the first month. Triers on the Moselle River was very close and I planned a trip to the ancient Roman city of 70,000, only a forty-five minute ride way by train.

Telling the Ambassador my plans, I caught the morning express to the Moselle and ferried across the river to Konz for a short train ride to Trier. On my arrival I half-expected SS Tommy to be waiting on the train platform. Not a sign of him there on in the streets.

Germany had changed in the last thirty years. The old Nazis had died off and, while the young Nazis had become very active in the East, they weren’t in Triers, but I kept my eyes open. Walking through the old Roman ruins I studied the faces of the young and old. I didn’t spot a single Nazi. It was, as if their genes had been erased from the Germanic race.

In Triers the only broken glass was from broken bottles and not the windows of Jewish homes and synagogues as was on the morning after Kristelnacht. I ate a bratwurst from an Imbiss stand and drank a Kloster beer. I visited Karl Marx Haus. The creator of Communism had been born in the old city. The street was in the heart of the sex zone. Nothing was happening in the afternoon. As I stood outside the house and old man passed and muttered under his breath, “Juden.”

“And fuck you, you old Nazi.”

My comment turned his head. His skin was withered by age, but he still stood erect. He had never asked for forgiveness for his deeds under der Dritten Reiche.

“Ja, du alte arseloch.”

I rushed him and he prepared to take a blow. I so wanted to hit him, but he wasn’t SS Tommy.

“Gehst heim,” I said with a Boston accent and he stood his ground with Nazi arrogance.

He was about 91. I was 59. 1945 was well back in the 20th Century. I stepped closer to the old man. He did not back away. He still stood for his beliefs and so did I. One blow would have put him in the hospital and me to jail. He was still a Nazi and I was me. Some things never change. I shoved him and said, “Go home.”

Our eyes said everything else. I was a Goy like him, but I wasn't anything like him and neither are the millions and millions of Germans in this world. Some of my best friends are German. I love them. Ehrlich, but not Nazis. This old man and I will always be enemies and I would never have it any other way.

Another Tale From Luxembourg 11-11-2011

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On a gray autumn November 11, 2011 after the ceremony for the American War dead, the dignitaries drove to attend the Ruhe Tag or ‘Quiet Day’ ceremony for the fallen German soldiers at the close-by Sandweiler German War Cemetery, a separate and smaller cemetery. Shaded by the trees and dark as a forest. Most of the tombstones were unmarked, as the decomposed corpses had been recovered from mass graves well after the Battle of the Bulge.

The cobblestone path led to a large gray stone cross on a monument. Two lines of stones formed the image of rail tracks. The heavy gray tombstones were reminiscent of Wehrmacht uniforms.

Over ten thousand German soldiers were buried here. Many were SS and their bodies had been buried one top of the other. The German ambassador explained to my friend, the UK ambassador, that they had been inter was so they would be close to their comrades. I thought the two to a grave policy had been to save space.

I stood next to the American ambassador. Robert was Jewish. His unease was obvious. Neither of us were here to judge the dead and we showed his respect during the somber rites for the dead.

I had earlier cried seeing the rows upon rows of white crosses at the American cemetery. Flowers had been laid at the monument for the German dead and a band played a dirge. I suspected that Germans had many of them. I shed no tears here.

I slipped outside the ceremony and an old man in a good suit was smoking a cigarette by an iron fence. The Battle of the Bulge had been over sixty-six years ago. He had to be in his late eighties. In 1944 he had been very young. He still stood militarily erect. I asked him for one of his cigarettes in German. He gave me one and lit it for me.

“Du kennst hier jemanden?” Did he know anyone here. My high school German was still stuck in my head thanks to Bruder Karl.

“Viele Kamaraden, du?” He smiled and sucked on his cigarette.

“Ich war damals noch etwas jung.” I hadn’t even been born in 1944.

“Du bis rechtig.” The old man laughed with a tobacco cough. Maybe something worse. “Ich bin alt. Sehr alt.”

“Aber nicht tot.” We were both old at different ages, but neither of were dead.

“Das stimmt. Du bist Amerikaner?”

I nodded yes.

“Guten Soldaten.” He nodded in appreciation of the Yankees’ valour and stubbed out the cigarette. “Guten tag.”

I said the same and he walked away, as I finished the cigarette. I didn’t go back inside the cemetery. I knew no one inside. I was better off outside and happy to be so. Every day above the dirt is a good one for the living. The good, the bad, and the in-between.

Mistaken Identity 2011

Whenever I mentioned to my friends in the USA or Europe that I was moving to Luxembourg in 2011, they immediately stated, "Luxembourg is the most boring city of Western Europe."

Actually nearby Brussels won the prix d'or d'ennui in most competitions followed tightly by Zurich and Warsaw. Birmingham has supposedly given all three a run for the money with the added detraction as the most unromantic city in the EEU. I've actually had a good time in Bruxelles on several occasions in different decades. I don't know Zurich or Warsaw, but they are not on the top of my 'must see' list or even in the middle and nothing short of $2000 could get me to visit Birmingham, England's Venice of the North.

I can only say that during the last three months in Luxembourg I have not made a single friend from local population. The people are well-mannered to tourists, but they have embraced the Germanic coldness of half their make-up instead of Gallic warmth, so I was happy to meet the new American ambassador. Bob was my age. We shared similar tastes in books and he loved art.

"What are you doing for Thanksgiving?" He asked at the US Chamber of Commerce Turkey Dinner.

"Nothing." I had no plans. Madame l'Ambassador was visiting her oldest daughter in Paris. I was on my own.

"Not any more. You're with us this Thanksgiving."

I thanked him for the invitation and showed up on time with a Paris Guidebook as a gift. His wife and he were planning a trip to the City of Light for the New Year. The guards confiscated my iPad, but allowed me to enter the embassy with my camera and telephone. Bob was waiting at the entrance. His guests were his daughter and her boyfriend, a niece, the Marine contingent, several couples working at the station, and assorted other invitees. The food was a classic holiday offering of turkey and all the fixings.

"Sorry about the paper plates, but I don't feel like washing dishes." Bob apologized before the meal. At least we had real silverware. I ate to my heart's content and drank a little more wine than i would have, if Madame l'Ambassador was present. As a teetotaler her appreciation of a good buzz are limited to the effects of a bar of chocolate.

Bob and I were having a talk about Obama's chances in 2012. Both of us were supporters of the president. He had spoken with 'Barack' earlier in the day. I was duly impressed by his proximity to the POTUS and toasted the president with a plastic cup of California chardonnay.

"You know from the first time I saw you I thought you looked like someone."

"Really?" Not many people have said this, although once at Max's Kansas City two kids from the Student Teachers came up to my table to tell me that they were playing PSYCHOTIC BREAKDOWN, which was a New York Dolls song. They had obviously mistaken me for David Johansson, but that wasn't the case with the US ambassador.

"Has anyone ever said that you look like Al Franken?"

"Al Franken?" Comedian and now senator from Minnesota. I was slightly horrified by the slight. "No."

"You have the same hair and round glasses."

"A full head of hair and glasses." But Al Franken was much older than me. One whole year and totally more successful than me. I was supposed to be an outlaw and Bob thought I resembled a US senator. I took it as a compliment, but when Madame l'Ambassador heard the story upon her return from Paris, she go a good laugh.

More a chortle.

"Al Franken, you."

More laughter and most of it derisive.

It is definitely time to get a haircut.

Who knows who I look like with short hair.

A slightly younger Barney Frank?

FALLEN BUT NOT FORGOTTEN by Peter Nolan Smith

On November 11, 2011 I accompanied the British and the American ambassadors to the US military cemetery outside Luxembourg City. Luxembourg was a small duchy. The British Ambassador had appointed me unofficial writer in residence. The CIA thought I was a spook. I dressed the part and never told them otherwise. Neither had Alice. I looked out the window of the British Embassy Jaguar, as we exited from the city. The morning sun struggled to break through the low fog. It would have little success on that day as it had at the end of 1944.

In December of 1944 over four thousand American had fallen in the Battle of the Bulge. Our troops had stopped the Nazis by Christmas, but the savage fight had been a close thing.

Our destination. The American Military Cemetery. Armistice Day was an important holiday in Luxembourg for all the combatant nations. The German ambassador and French Ambassadors waited at the gate of the cemetery. They had come to lay a wreath to honor of the dead. Beyond the entrance thousands of white crosses marked the graves of my fallen countrymen. These were my people. These Americans had died to free Europe from the Third Reich. I got out of the Jaguar and walked away from the assembled dignitaries like the old man at the beginning of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN.

"Are you okay?" The American ambassador caught up with me at a wall rusted by autumn leaves.

"Yes." There were tears in my eyes. These men were from the last generation. My father had served the US Army Air Force, testing radar-directed 20mm cannons on B-25. In Kentucky. Far for Europe. The casualty rate had been in the 20%. WWII had been a world war. "I'm surprised by it all."

"I felt the same way the first time I saw all these graves." The ambassador was a few years older than me. "Let's walk to the back of the cemetery."

The dewy grass wet our shoes, as we checked the gravestones for names, ages, and states.

Each one had died in the bitter cold of December 1944. They hailed from every nationality. Most had been in their twenties. More than a few hailed from my home states of Massachusetts and Maine.

We arrived at the last row and returned slowly through the gravestones to General Patton’s grave, who laid forever at the head of his army. Some more dust got in my eyes, as a lone bugler played Taps. The American ambassador patted my shoulder. We didn't say another word, just nodded to honor the dead

The next day I traveled to Charleroi and mentioned this visit to an American friend. Everyone said he was with the CIA. Vonelli poured me a glass of Orval Beer and we sat by the living room fire.

"My father had been with the artillery in the Battle of the Bulge and my old man never got over the horror of that winter."

Vonelli was a veteran of a colder war from the 70s and 80s.

"Every morning the platoon commander held a lottery, which picked the forward artillery observers. After the results the chosen men shook hands with their friends, knowing their chances of coming back in the evening were close to nil."

"And they went?"

"It's what they did," Vonelli said with reverence.

I thought about the graves that the ambassador and I had passed yesterday and seeing those marked unknown.

"They were the best of the best." We could only honor their sacrifice.

"That they were."

Maybe the dust in my eye had had something to do with the lump in my throat, because those men had been us once and I am eternally grateful in the Here-Now as well as dedicated to keeping the peace in the Here-Beyond.

It's the least I can do for those men.

Liege Lost 2011

Luxembourg bound
From Oxford
The Ambassador behind the wheel
A Porsche Boxer
140 kph
Arrive
Folkestone
Late
Well past Midnight___
Wait
In the car park
Board the car-train
Chunnel
To
Pas De Calais
Night
Northern France
On the Autoroute___
The Ambassador behind the wheel
The Porsche fast
180kph
Alice loves speed___
Moi
Un passenger
Le passage
Flat
Eyes shut
Sleep
Wake
Still
Safe on the Autoroute
The ambassador behind the wheel
175 KPM
France becomes Belgium
Jacques Brel's land
Le plat pays qui est a mienne___
Walloonia
Luxembourg three hours away___
Sleep
Wake
We are lost
On a bleak urban street
A dead end
Not a soul in sight
Nothing says where we are
But I know__
Liege
I've been here before
With the ambassador
Two months ago
Alice
Behind the wheel
Lost before Lost now__ The ambassador says one word "Liege."
Alice and I have been here before
With the ambassador
Behind the wheel
Of this car
Lost
Same street
I say
"Turn around."
I have a good sense of direction Even in the dark
We have been her before__
Back on the Autoroute
Luxembourg bound
Lost in Liege
Well behind us
Heading into the dawn___

Lost In Lille Again 2011

After the Chunnel
Night
Luxembourg bound
Porsche Boxer
The Ambassador behind the wheel
Moi
Un passenger
Through the North of France
Flat
Same as Belgium
Jacques Brel's
Le plat pays qui est a mienne.
Eyes shut
Still seeing the flatness
Safe on the Autoroute
The ambassador behind the wheel
Luxembourg three hours away
Sleep
Wake
Past midnight
On a bleak urban street
Not a soul in sight
Nothing says where we are
But I know.
Lille
I've been here before
With the ambassador
Behind the wheel
A wrong turn on the Autoroute.
Lost before
Lost now.
The ambassador says one word
"Lille."
I nod without a word.
We have been here before.
Luxembourg bound
Lost in Lille Again

A WALK IN FOG by Peter Nolan Smith

On a murky November evening in 2011 I attended the opening of the "Dream' exhibition at Luxembourg's Mudam Museum. Madame l'Ambassador bailed early for a formal affair. I was not invited for the dinner.

"It's a diplomatic thingee." Madame l'Ambassador explained, as we walked through a thickening fog to the embassy's waiting Jaguar.

"I understand." A writer-in-residence had to accept his place in the scheme of European politics.

Francois the driver opened the right-hand rear door for Madame l'Ambassador. It was the safest seat in the car. He asked, if I needed a lift back to the city. The museum was located on the opposite side of the gorge running through the city. I had traversed le Petrousse through the ancient battlements many times on foot and refused his offer.

"You go with Madame. I'll be fine." I was a good foggy night for a walk. Foggy.

I lingered at the soiree for another half hour. The crowd was young and artistic. The curator waved to me. The amiable Italian was chatting to an aristocratic couple in their 70s. Patrons of the museum were much more important than a well-unknown writer and I ordered a Duvel beer. The Belgians know how to brew a good beer.

The bartender poured the triple-strength beer into a special glass with reverence. Mittel Europe worshipped its beers. I leaned at the bar and studied the passing faces. The queue at the bar seemed contently unconcerned by the chaos of the Euro, then again Luxembourg has the highest individual income in Europe and even the poor are rich in comparison to America.

The first beer wasdowned quickly and I ordered a second. No one commented on the speed of my drinking. The grand duchy had scored marked the highest beer consumption per capita in 1993 with an unbeatable score of seventeen beers for each man, woman, and child in the tiny country. A light-weight in my late fifties I called it a night after my third beer.

I had a good walk ahead to the upper city across the canyon of the Petrusse.

The Mudam's I.M. Pei structure was shrouded by a spectral fog and I remembered my High School German teacher's translating fog for our German class.

"Nebel." Bruder Karl at Xaverian High School had spoken the word with the muted thunder of someone, whose wrist bore the tattoo of the camps.

Nebel coupled with Nacht became night and mirrors, a mystical combination for the intrigues of the Gestapo.

I heard no jackboots from the foggy night and descended into the reconstructed fortifications with the night's cold on my skin.

The Mudam disappeared into the gray murk. I followed the switchbacking trail like a man going blind. A train sounded its whistle on the tracks below. It was the 7:43 from Troisvierges.

During its reign as Gibraltar of the North Luxembourg had housed thousands of soldiers and on a night in the 18th Century the path from Fort Thungen would have been travelled by hussars, dragoons, and mercenaries. Now only me.

Tonight my footsteps ricocheted unanswered against the stone ramparts and I thought about a movie that an actor friend had made here several years ago. Bill had played a blood-lusting Nosteradu. The city's medievalism had lent the exterior scenes an unexpected aura of horror and I glanced around me with a rising apprehension.

I was all alone.

While I no longer believed in God, I had seen enough vampire movies to know that I offered a fairly easy target for a bloodsucker. Were-wolves were not a worry, because the moon was in the middle of the synodic month. A twig cracked in the surrounding woods. Something was out there in the forbidding shadows. I wished for a sword in my bare hand.

A single pinpoint of light broke through the swirling overcast.

Venus.

I salvaged a little bravery from my fears with the sighting of that familiar object in the night sky, then a lisping wind scrapped the bare branches to chant an incantation from a time before the invention of electricity.

Meeting a woman under a light was too much to ask from this evening.

This was Luxembourg and not Paris' Rue St. Denis.

My pace accelerated through the tunnel underneath the outer bastion. A shiver scrapped a dull razor against the skin of my spine. My cellphone dimly illuminated the black passage of stone. Running would have been a sign of fright to creatures of the night preying on the weak.

I crossed the traintracks before the 7:45 train to Wiltz raced beneath the steep embankment. The smooth cobblestones gave way to gravel and the trail bore the ruts of wagons.

A rusting grate blocked the tunnel under the railroad tracks. I hopped over the metal fence and bushwhacked through the underbrush to the tracks. I looked both ways and clambered across the double set of steel rails to the other side.

I reached the street ten seconds later.

A streetlight glowed overhead.

The fortifications along the Petruche were in sight.

My cell phone rang.

It was Francois the driver.

He asked, if I was all right.

I had reached the safety of the old city.

"Okay." The word meant the same in English as in French.

"Sure?" Madame l'Ambassador was concerned that something bad might have happened to me. She was a longtime friend.

“Fine, I'll be back at the residence within fifteen minutes. Thank the ambassador for asking."

It was a nice feeling to know someone cared and also that a good scare made a man feel alive, which is 100% better than being killed by a vampire any night of the week.

The Debt Of A Nation

In 2011 Madame Ambassador phoned with the offer to be her 'unofficial writer in residence' at her posting in Mittel Europa and she asked, "Do you have an evening suit?"

"Of course," I replied without hesitation from my apartment in Fort Greene.

"Good, because you'll be needing it. There will be plenty of balls and galas," her aristocratic intonations painted a 'pas encore vu' vision of black ties and satin gowns.

"I'll be ready."

I was looking forward to formal affairs.

In America tuxedos are dragged out of the closet only for weddings.

No one wears them to funerals.

After hanging up on Madame Ambassador, I tried on my fifteen year-old evening suit and discovered my waist wedged into the trousers and the jacket was loose on my upper body. As I stood at the mirror, my roommate/landlord entered the top-floor apartment with a bong and asked, "Where are you going?"

"To Europe."

"Europe?"

I explained about my appointment. AP knew Madame Ambassador. He eyed my trousers.

"Does that hurt?"

"No," I wasn't giving him the pleasure of the truth, but the next day my tailor let out the waist an inch. The fit felt much better.

A month later I flew to Europe and unpacked my clothing into a closet atop the residence.

"Where's the evening suit?" Madame Ambassador smiled upon seeing my formal wear. "You clean up good. Next week is the military ball. I expect you to look your best."

The evening of the RAF gala I freshly showered, shaved, and shined my shoes to a gleam.

"You clean up good."

Madame Ambassador was pleased to have a well-attired escort. She was no longer with her husband. The civilian guests conjectured about our relationship. It has been purely platonic for thirty years. The military were more circumspect with their assumptions and I drank with colonels, captains, and naval commanders. The head general of the host nation sat at our table. His glorious dress uniform shamed me, but he was a man used to the admiration of his troops and we spoke about the Civil War and Joshua Chamberlain's bayonet charge at Gettysburg.

The gala had a raffle to benefit its charity. I bought several tickets. The general discreetly tapped my shoulder and asked for 20 Euros. I slipped a blue bill under the table and he winked his thanks.

Generals like the very wealthy, royalty, and poor people don't carry money.

None of our tickets were winners and later I told to the UK military attache of my loan to the general.

"How much was it?" The commander pulled out his wallet.

"20 euros." About $27 and I waved my hand in refusal. "But that's fine. I like the idea of a general owing me money. Especially the head of the army."

Madame Ambassador and I joked about this debt and the story became funnier over the next months, for I ran into the general on several occasions without his reaching into his pocket. Once at a military ball, we spoke for several seconds and he held out his hand. I thought that he might be cuffing 20 euros in secret, but his hand was empty.

After he walked away, I scratched my head. I owed money to my friends for a long time. If I have it in my pocket, I pay them. Obviously the military have a different set of rules, then again I never asked for the 20, because I hold the debt of his nation in the palm of my hand.

The missing 20 Euros felt like good luck.

I hope the EEU feels the same about their debt.

Dawn Along The Petrusse

Last Sunday dawn rose fast on the City of Luxembourg. Only two days before I had arrived with the sun's first light on the flight from London and jet lag prevented my sleeping till noon. It was 1AM back in New York.

Madame Ambassador was in her bedroom. No other human was in the embassy.

Only her cat in the guest room.

I pressed my hand to the window.

The lower pane was icy and I dressed accordingly for the cooler weather of Mittel Europa.

I exited from the embassy. The morning was quiet even for Luxembourg.

The ancient city was sleeping outside the embassy, which was perched on a cliff overlooking the chasm of the old fortress. Not a single car was on the viaduct and pedestrians were absent from the sidewalks of Boulevard de FDR. The city's residents were sleeping in warm beds, I had Luxembourg to myself and the crows swirling around the spike spires of Notre Dame Cathedral.

I wandered down the narrow streets of the old city, hoping to find an open cafe.

The only sound of humans was my breathing and I thought to myself, "How could you have spent six months here?"

Madame Ambassador and I had a good time during my sojourn as resident writer.

Parties at the Aston-Martin dealership.

A soiree to commemorate the Battle of the Bulge.

And a great dance night with the RAF.

Come to think about it and that half-year in 2011-2012 were a good time and I headed over to the ramparts. The sun was rising over the EEU buildings in Kitchenburg, but offered little warmth. Thankfully I was wearing my tweeds and became my descent to the casement, fortified against siege until 1862. A few tourists were shooting the valley of the Alzette River. I stepped on a broken wine bottle. The noise startled the two of them. They were Japanese.

Te famed military architect Vauban had expanded the fortifications in the 1600s and the city withstood a siege by the French for seven months earning it the name 'the Gibraltar of the North'.

Not one solider guarded the city this morning. They too were in bed.

People in Luxembourg like their sleep.

My heavy boots crunched on the gravel path along the old mill stream. I imagined myself an Irish exile serving the Prussians. That ghost was only in my head, but closing my eyes the Alzette's babbling vanquished the years. Life was this moment now connected to back then my my daydreams.

Opening my eyes I saw that the Bock casemates glowed in the dawn as they might have to the Roman legions to have come upon this craggy plateau. It was a good site for a fight.

The plaza of St. Jean de Grund was another empty space.

Except for an exquisite Daimler.

Luxembourg is a rich city.

One of the richest in Europe and rich people get to sleep in late on Sundays.

I yawned and said to myself, "Time to join my pillow."

Madame Ambassador and I would have breakfast later.

She had promised me a proper English Breakfast, although she would be up for another hour.

I could wait that long.

The bells of Notre-Dame were ringing out the hour of Eight.

After all I was still the resident writer in Luxembourg and dawn was still five hours away from New York.