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The Idle Hill Of Summer

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Lazy girl you’re saying. Can’t be bothered to tell. To idle to type. Lost in her own sweet dreams. Alright, it’s true. I can’t be bothered. But really, do you want to hear about more train stations and hot hotels? It is just so crazy hot in Europe this year and I am going to boil away I promise you. And that would not be nice, because if I boiled away then my poor Romy would never find me and I would miss being my wishful Vivien-self. But then I think of Romy and I just want to feel my finger tips playing with her hair and pushing around her lovely ears and sliding down over her cheeks and pulling her lips towards mine and it would be so lovely and it will be and that will be my favourite thing ever. But I am such a lazy girl, don’t you think?
 
pkindenhaag said:
Lazy girl you’re saying. Can’t be bothered to tell. To idle to type. Lost in her own sweet dreams. Alright, it’s true. I can’t be bothered. But really, do you want to hear about more train stations and hot hotels? It is just so crazy hot in Europe this year and I am going to boil away I promise you. And that would not be nice, because if I boiled away then my poor Romy would never find me and I would miss being my wishful Vivien-self. But then I think of Romy and I just want to feel my finger tips playing with her hair and pushing around her lovely ears and sliding down over her cheeks and pulling her lips towards mine and it would be so lovely and it will be and that will be my favourite thing ever. But I am such a lazy girl, don’t you think?
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I never would accuse Pkin of stalling but is she going to stay or go???

...I just need to know if I need more Seagram's...

T
 
Friday morning, the morning after the storm. The evening had started lovely and sunny and maybe just too warm. I was outside. I think it was nine o’clock when the long line of dark cloud slid over the sky and probably twenty minutes later when the first drops of rain, not many, fell. And then it began. I love storms. Especially when I’m inside, leaning by an open window, smelling the earth in the air and watching the fireworks.

I’m in Wurzburg. My journey is carrying on. It’s a beautiful pastiche of a place, all facades and concrete pretending it’s the city it was before the RAF dug out their Baedecker Guide. But still it’s nice and the river rolls under the bridge on its way to the sea, where I’ll be going soon. It was easy to get to here from Salzburg and I was tempted to stop so many times to visit places. I wanted to stay in Munich but I didn’t. I just changed trains. So I got here a couple of days ago and found a nice place to stay and I’ve enjoyed being here. But the other night, not last night, when the storm came, I just felt the need to give in a bit. I know I have to be careful, because He wants my body perfect and so do I, but that’s not for a while yet and I thought I could and I wanted to. And it’s rather easy. You just get out your laptop and log on as long as the wi-fi is working and search and there you are. Every city has a place, maybe a couple. I had a choice. I contacted them both and then decided. So I’d have to pay but I don’t care. I won’t need much more money, just enough for the rest of the trip. I won’t tell you the address, because that wouldn’t be fair on her. She was in her thirties I guess, not exactly beautiful, but with a strong, angular face and of course the usual get up of leather and latex. I asked her if many girls came to her. She said not many but I wasn’t the first and she asked me if it was my first time. I told her in a way it was, because I’d always either done things with friends or I’d been paid and this time I’d be paying her, so she quickly understood I wasn’t without some experience.

I explained to her that I wanted her to really hurt me as much as she could, and that she could mark me but any marks would have to fade within about a week. She raised her eyebrows at that. Maybe she thought I was crazy. I’m sure lots of her clients must have asked for similar things though. I said I wanted tying and whipping and I wanted her to ignore my screams. I knew that she’d quickly work out the limits, so I wouldn’t need a safe word. I paid her. Then I undressed and showered and came back to her dungeon naked and held my hands out so she could tie them.

You know the rest, I know you do. It was terrible and gorgeous and exciting and I adored the whip like I always do. It will be rather sad to have my last whipping. Maybe, I thought, this might be my last whipping. Still, when He ropes me it will be for something better still and there’ll be no regretting the absence of the lash after He’s finished with me. She didn’t cut me but my back and breasts were beautifully raw and red and sore and my wrists and ankles had lovely rope marks all over them.

And when I look in the mirror this morning they’ve faded a bit and soon they’ll be gone I guess. But it’s nice to touch the lines and remember.

Later today I’m getting on the train again. Travelling north. I haven’t decided yet where to get off.
 
Monday morning at last. It was a pretty miserable night for me. I was travelling along the Elbe valley, a succession of local trains and a succession of long waits on empty platforms sheltering from the incessant drizzle. Monday morning and still the rain is coming from the unremittingly grey sky. I’m sheltering in a small café in a town called Tangermünde. It’s like so many other pretty German towns, red roofs nestled behind ancient stone walls. I’m eating my lunch. A pitta bread with some falafel and tabbouleh. And a coffee to keep me warm. I’ll take a stroll later on and see what there is to see. Maybe it’s got something to see. Perhaps you know. Maybe you’ve been here.

The weekend was sunny and hot and I loved the two nights I spent in Erfurt. Maybe you know Erfurt too? It’s such a gorgeous place. Germany is full of gorgeous places. There was a market in the huge square beneath the cathedral spires, and the town is all higgledy-piggledy streets and a bridge over the little stream called the Gera that has houses and shops on both sides. It’s the sort of place I’d like to stay and spend longer and buy some presents for my mum, but then I don’t think that makes much sense somehow. I think of her sometimes, but I try not to.

I don’t know why I decided to get off the train in Erfurt. Sometimes you just take a chance. It was easy to find a place to stay in the centre. There were lots of tourists too, and I enjoyed sitting in the sun by the little bridge and watching them go by. I like looking at people. I talked to the waitress in the café and she told me some places to visit. The town hall was interesting. Lots of weird paintings of myths and legends in the stairway. The girls in the stories looked so romantic with their long tresses of hair. And I went to a church where Martin Luther had studied and where there was a memorial to the bombing in the war of the cloisters. Lots of people died. There, you see. Dying doesn’t mean that much does it? They all went there to shelter, right near the end of the war. They weren’t a target or anything but then a bomb just happened to fall right on the spot they were, where they thought they’d be safe. And they were all killed. Every single one. It can just happen like that, I thought. At least I am making my own mind up. So much is just chance, don’t you think?

And so I was glad I stopped in Erfurt. I’m not so sure about Tangermünde. It’s pretty, but it’s not that big. I’ll wander around after lunch. The rain seems to be stopping. It feels like the end of summer somehow. I hope that’s not true. Oh, and I heard from Romy and we’re going to meet up in Berlin, so now I have to work out my travel plans too. I’m excited of course, because I’m longing to see her. But when I see her then that will mean that I’m closer than ever to seeing Him too and to becoming the Viven-girl. That’s exciting and just a tiny bit scary. It gets more real every day somehow.
 
So after lunch the rain stopped and I went to see the lovely brick Rathaus and I got a surprise, because I came across this amazing statue.
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And I took a picture. She’s called Grete Minde and there’s a history to the statue, all about a young girl from Tangermünde who was put to death in 1619. Maybe she was no older than me. So we have something in common. But she didn’t want to die I think and she shouldn’t have had to, but they were cruel times I suppose. I read the little story. It was horribly graphic and I struggled with the German, but a girl came up while I was looking at the information board and said she’d translate it for me.

She said it was the judgement that was handed down to poor Grete in the very building where her statue now stands. It said this:

"ihre fünf Finger der rechten Hand, einer nach dem anderen mit glühenden Zangen abgezwacket, Nachmalen ihr Leib mit vler glühenden Zangen, nemlich in der brust und arm gegriffen, Folgig mit eisern Ketten uff einen erhabenen Pfahl angeschmiedet, lehendig geschmochtet und also vom leben zum Tode verrichtet werden, von Rechts wegen".

It was frightening, but for me exciting to hear the words in English. It said that the five fingers of her right hand were to be torn off with red hot pincers, and then her arms and breasts to be torn with the pincers and then she was to be chained to a stake and burned slowly to death.

The girl, who I liked, explained to me that she was a simple girl who had done nothing bad, but who had been trapped by her step-brother and sister who didn’t want her to inherit. They had managed to blame her for a great fire in the town and now she was condemned to burn too. But it was all untrue. She was innocent. I suppose lots of poor innocent girls have died terrible deaths, just like my Vivien-girl. I wondered how I would have felt if it had been me in the chains waiting to face this horrible death in the square by the Rathaus.

She asked me why I was visiting the little town, because apparently not many people do. She suggested we might have a coffee together and I agreed. So we found a little place and sat down and talked.
 
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So. I could. I could tell you everything about her and then tell you all about what we did and all about our train journey together to Berlin and I know in some ways you want me to. But I know that in some ways you don’t and that my travelogue, my little Baedeker bombing trip around the Reich might be getting just a teeny weeny bit annoying. Because it’s so lovely and the weather now is getting really summery again and every town is a perfect conjunction of water and stone and red tiles and half-timbered history that it just wants to make me weep.

And so, despite the fact that there’s lots to tell, I am going to skip all that. Because this morning, around eleven, I arrived at the wonderful, beautiful Hauptbahnhof in Mitte, and stepped out to the great plain of green and the concrete erections of bureaucracy that litter the heart of what was once the heart of an empire. I am sure that Frau whats-her-name loves it, but then she was an Ossie at heart and maybe still is and I can understand why the Greeks don’t love her. Or her finance minister. But I wasn’t staying there. I wanted to stay in Prenzlauer Berg because I thought that would be sexy but Romy had found a place by the K-Damm in Charlottenberg and I thought I better go to where she was. And it was really very nice and I’m glad, even after a few hours, that we’re here in this old corner of West Berlin, because it’s crumpled and lived in and real and the little Italian place around the corner in Goethestraße is just the most perfect little Italian place and I have no idea what it will become when the lovely old people who run it die because that can’t be that long off. But for now it was nice to sit and hear them talk and eat their perfect pasta. And of course to gaze into Romy’s lovely eyes. That was super nice. It’s always super nice.

And yes, we had lunch and then spent the afternoon in the room with the high grey ceilings and the lovely wide bed in the old apartment block in Grolmanstraße, the block with the great heavy door and the flight of stone steps and the hand-written name plates and the courtyard with the overgrown shrubs and the broken plastic chair. It was so perfect to touch her skin and feel her touch my lips. Here. And here. Both. Twice. With her lips.

Then we went to the little museum across the K-damm and it was still open and we wandered around in silence just absorbing how a mother could cry in stone. You should go. She’s amazing. Her work is amazing. And if you haven’t heard of Käthe Kollwitz then you better Google her. I really want you to. She understands everything. And we needed to cheer up a bit. Not really, because when you get an insight, even if it’s sad, you don’t need cheering up. But we wanted an excuse for a drink and we had one and it was hot and sunny and so we went back towards Savignyplatz and found a bar and bought some drinks and wrapped our wrists around each other's and pretended we’d live forever. Which was quite a big lie really, in the circumstances, and secretly I think we both knew that. Then we went back to the room and lay together some more and then I went out into the little enclosed balcony overlooking the overgrown courtyard and the broken plastic chair and I started to write and that’s where I am now. And tomorrow I guess we will go to see the sights. Because on Friday we’re leaving Berlin and we are going to a little place I know not that far from Hamburg. And I am really scared.
 
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pkindenhaag said:
So. I could. I could tell you everything about her and then tell you all about what we did and all about our train journey together to Berlin and I know in some ways you want me to. But I know that in some ways you don’t and that my travelogue, my little Baedeker bombing trip around the Reich might be getting just a teeny weeny bit annoying. Because it’s so lovely and the weather now is getting really summery again and every town is a perfect conjuction of water and stone and red tiles and half-timbered history that it just wants to make me weep.

And so, despite the fact that there’s lots to tell, I am going to skip all that. Because this morning, around eleven, I arrived at the wonderful, beautiful Hauptbahnhof in Mitte, and stepped out to the great plain of green and the concrete erections of bureaucracy that litter the heart of what was once the heart of an empire. I am sure that Frau whats-her-name loves it, but then she was an Ossie at heart and maybe still is and I can understand why the Greeks don’t love her. Or her finance minister. But I wasn’t staying there. I wanted to stay in Prenzlauer Berg because I thought that would be sexy but Romy had found a place by the K-Damm in Charlottenberg and I thought I better go to where she was. And it was really very nice and I’m glad, even after a few hours, that we’re here in this old corner of West Berlin, because it’s crumpled and lived in and real and the little Italian place around the corner in Goethestraße is just the most perfect little Italian place and I have no idea what it will become when the lovely old people who run it die because that can’t be that long off. But for now it was nice to sit and hear them talk and eat their perfect pasta. And of course to gaze into Romy’s lovely eyes. That was super nice. It’s always super nice.

And yes, we had lunch and then spent the afternoon in the room with the high grey ceilings and the lovely wide bed in the old apartment block in Grolmanstraße, the block with the great heavy door and the flight of stone steps and the hand-written name plates and the courtyard with the overgrown shrubs and the broken plastic chair. It was so perfect to touch her skin and feel her touch my lips. Here. And here. Both. Twice. With her lips.

Then we went to the little museum across the K-damm and it was still open and we wandered around in silence just absorbing how a mother could cry in stone. You should go. She’s amazing. Her work is amazing. And if you haven’t heard of Käthe Kollwitz then you better Google her. I really want you to. She understands everything. And we needed to cheer up a bit. Not really, because when you get an insight, even if it’s sad, you don’t need cheering up. But we wanted an excuse for a drink and we had one and it was hot and sunny and so we went back towards Savignyplatz and found a bar and bought some drinks and wrapped our wrists around each other's and pretended we’d live forever. Which was quite a big lie really, in the circumstances, and secretly I think we both knew that. Then we went back to the room and lay together some more and then I went out into the little enclosed balcony overlooking the overgrown courtyard and the broken plastic chair and I started to write and that’s where I am now. And tomorrow I guess we will go to see the sights. Because on Friday we’re leaving Berlin and we are going to a little place I know not that far from Hamburg. And I am really scared.
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Love the place specificness of this in old Berlin ... makes it so real :)
 
Saturday, lunchtime. We’re in the train, crossing the great German plain. Passing stands of trees and fields about to be harvested of their gold, swaying in the summer breeze. It was a lovely couple of days, wandering the streets and imagining. Prussian Uhlans on their horses in the Tiergarten. Students in their uniforms and jurists running to the courts. Beggars and street pedlars. Dancing in smoke-filled basements and whores smiling as they stretch out on bent-wood chairs. Office clerks pushing onto trains at Zoo and women and children pushed into trains at the Anhalter Bahnhof, shoving their cardboard cases through windows. The engine swallowed by a sea of steam as it groans its way south. And bombs and the screech of tanks and barbed wire; and concrete and unremitting grey; and a daisy in the rubble by the Philharmonic Hall in the wasteland of Potsdamerplatz. And speeches and coffee drinkers in cafés along the K-damm and neon lights blazing and the Reichstag wrapped in plastic and pretty mothers pushing babies in prams to the outdoor market in Prenzlauer Berg.

It’s a city for remembering and imagining. Wandering by the Spree and the old warehouses and the watchtowers and the gallery along the wall. Getting up early to miss the crowds on Museum Insel, touching the bruises on the Pergamon’s walls, enjoying the silence and the cool of the marbles in the Altes Museum. Then the S-bahn back to Charlottenberg and glasses of wine under the lindens by the Landswehr Canal, fingers touching

But that was yesterday, and yesterday is a long time ago. And soon we will be arriving in Hamburg, that place that debouches all the waters from the Gera and the Unstrat and the Elbe into the deep darkness of the North Sea. That place I remember so well. The white villas around the Alstersee. The towers and spires and the dark, dank bricks of the old harbour and the run-down little streets in St Pauli. But we won’t be staying. Not even a night. We’ll be taking a bus into the country. And then we’ll be there. Where I’ve always been going. Both of us. But, and I can’t help thinking about this, only Romy will be leaving. I won’t ever be leaving again.
 
Here's this part of Lisa's story as a single file
 

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Fantastic beautiful writing, Pk. "...a city for remembering and imagining..." - the reader is there with you. It's wonderful. It works well with the anticipation of what is to come.
 
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