Riding the Iron Rooster Read Online Free Page B

and anyone who looked like an American.
    I missed the riot. I was at the Deutsche Oper on Bismarckstrasse seeing
Don Giovanni.
I had gone on the spur of the moment when, back at the hotel, I heard the members of the group arguing about the bombing of Libya, and Kicker saying: "Them fucken Arabs have been asking for that." Do I want to listen to this? I asked myself. Mozart seemed preferable.
    I went alone and found it pleasant to have an empty seat next to me, an entire armrest to lean on, and to enjoy this excellent production. But after the intermission the seat was taken by a young woman, and several times in the darkness, while Don Giovanni was gasconading or Dona Anna was singing, this woman was staring at my head.
    "Do I know you?" she asked, when the opera ended.
    I said no.
    "I have this feeling that I do. What is it?"
    I sensed what it was, but I didn't say anything. Until then I had been proud of the fact that no one on the tour had the slightest idea that I was a writer—and of travel books about train trips, too. I thought it would inhibit them or else, and just as bad, provoke them to importune me ("Boy, have I got a story for you"). Some of the members of the group I had told I was in publishing, and others I had told I was a teacher. I hardly ever entered a conversation. I listened, I smiled, I made notes. When Kicker was being outrageous I blinked and shuffled away. I was the man who got up from lunch before it was over and people started talking about themselves. I was the man who was constantly drifting away—the man with no last name. I was the man with the book that you didn't want to interrupt. I was the quiet, dim, dull fellow in the old mackintosh, standing and whistling tunelessly on the platform. I agreed with everything you said. You hardly knew me—in fact, it was only when you saw me on the train that you remembered I was on the trip, and even then I was unobtrusive and faintly barmy looking, just harmlessly scribbling.
    "I've seen you on television," the woman said. "Haven't I?"
    "Probably," I said, and told her my name.
    "Amazing," she said. "My sister won't believe this—she's read all your books."
    Her name was Rachel Tickler, and I found it a relief to tell her I was on my way to Mongolia and then China—yes, to do some writing—and that I had just come from London. What was that about the States? Oh, yes, I did spend part of the year on the Cape—yes, it's a wonderful place. A far cry from this trip, which was involving me in note taking. I told her everything, I bought her some tea and we sat up late so that I could be confessional. There was no risk. Unlike the members of the tour, Rachel Tickler was a perfect stranger.
    It did me a lot of good to tell her these things, because I had been so secretive on the tour it was like being invisible. It certainly wasn't much fun to be the dim, dull fellow in the mackintosh, keeping out of every conversation. Keeping quiet gave me chest pains. I longed to lecture them about the Middle East, and if they gave me half a chance on the subject of travel, I could seize their wrists like the Ancient Mariner, and a tale unfold.
    Rachel herself was in Berlin working on lawsuits connected with asbestos hazards, one of the current growth areas in lawsuits. A lawyer from New York, she was attending a conference of insurance companies—reading papers and evaluating information.
    Having told her everything, I went to bed strengthened in my resolve. In one sense we were like an adulterous couple—or more accurately it was like a one-night stand. It was tender and I was eager to be candid, and she was a good listener. At five o'clock the next morning I rejoined the group, and it was like being back with a lot of distant relatives.

    We had taken the train to East Berlin, and changed, and were now on the Warsaw train, making a slow trip to the Polish border. Police, customs officials, soldiers—it was impossible to tell them