Confessions of a Vagrant Engineer

I would have been content to drink my beer and look out of the window and think my thoughts but the man began to talk to me. He tried Italian first and then German and I shook my head each time and said, "No comprendo."

"Parla inglese?" he said finally.

"Si," I said.

"I was reading because I was alone," he said, "but I would be glad with your company."

"Would you like me to join you?" I said, comprehension came to me slowly, it is not very often that a stranger asks me to join him at his dinner table.

"Yes please, please," he said.

"I would be delighted to," I said and picked up my beer, and went over to his table. We did the handshake thing. His name was Karl, he said. He looked like he was about fifty five and he had been drinking.

"Why did you think I might know Italian?" I asked when I sat down. "You first began speaking to me in Italian."

"At a distance, you looked like you might be from Sicily," he said.

"But now I think you are too dark. Americano?"

"Only a little bit," I said. "I live near San Francisco in beautiful Silicon Valley; I am an engineer. But I grew up in India."

"Where are you going? Are you on vacation?"

"Yes," I said. "I am going to spend a day in Milano, then I'll go to Venezia to join a bicycle tour group. Are you going to Milano too?"

"No, my coach is going to Zurich," he said. "Then tomorrow morning I will catch a train to Berne. I was on holiday in Portugal for two weeks but Portugal was too hard, too difficult, so I go home early."

"Difficult?"

"Yes, nothing worked. Nothing. I traveled alone." The memories of Portugese inconveniences seemed to upset him. Or had he gotten lonely?

"You'd better not go to India if you couldn't deal with Portugal," I
said.

We drank, people drifted into the dining car, our dinner arrived.

"Did you visit Madrid?" he asked me as we began eating.

"I spent a few days there. I have a good friend who lives there - a
rather hot headed senőrita actually."

"I stopped in Madrid too," he said. "I visited my wife. My first wife. She lives there now and teaches German."

"How long were you married?" I asked.

"Seven years."

"And how long have you been divorced?"

"Three years," he said.

"So you are still friends. You know, I've never met anybody who was divorced and still friends enough with their ex-spouse to visit them."

"To me," he said, "it is impossible to spend seven years with somebody and then never want to see them again."

"In America," I said, "when people get divorced, they try and take each other for as much as possible, the lawyers wind up with all the money, and the couple end up hating each other and never wanting to see each other again. That is the American way, by God."

"That is not good," he said.

"No," I said. "By the way, you mentioned that that was your first wife. Did you marry again?"

"Yes," he said, "my wife is on vacation in England with a girlfriend."

Why didn't they vacation together, I wondered. But this was a new and strange continent.

"Where did you meet your wife?" I asked.

"On the street," he said. "She was walking down the street one way, and I was walking the other way. So I looked at her and said, 'Would you like to have a drink?' and she said 'Yes', so we went and had a drink."

"Just like that?" I said.

"Just like that."

"That wouldn't work in America," I said. "People are scared stiff of each other, there are a lot of crazies about. You just can't go to a strange woman and start talking to her. But do go on."

"She stayed with me, then we got married because she is German and wanted to stay on and work in Switzerland. Immigration laws... Are you solo?"

"Yes," I said, "I'm single."

We both got another drink. I looked around and saw that the dining car had filled up. A lot of people were smoking and the air was thick.

"About a year ago I stopped drinking so much," he said, "but in Portugal I began again. It is better to live life properly and die before I am fifty, than to live until seventy or eighty and not enjoy life."

"How old are you?" I asked in alarm.

"Forty five," he said. "And you? You have thirty years?"

"Yes," I said.

"You know it is nice talking to you," he said. "For the last three days, the only people I have talked to have been taxi drivers and putas."

"Whoa," I said. "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Back up there. Did you go to a prostitute in Barcelona?"

"Many," he said.

This, I thought to myself in delight, is why I came to Europe.

"This is really none of my business, but how does your wife feel about that?"

"Oh, she understands," he said. "You see, sex and love are two different things."

"I am completely intrigued," I said. "I would not be having this conversation in America. I have never met a married American male who admitted visiting a prostitute." (Though to the last man, they all complain that after they get married their sex life comes to a complete halt.)

"Ah the Americans," he shook his head sadly. "Very repressed and moralistic people. You know Miterrand, the last French President, had a mistress while he was in office."

"That would never happen in America."

"But you see, he was quite a good President. What did having a mistress have to do with how good a President he was?"

I nodded.

"And the French President before that had an illegitimate child while in office. And he was a good President too."

I nodded again. "Pardon me," I said, "I don't mean to harp on this but this thing about your wife being ok about you visiting prostitutes. Is that a European value or is it Swiss or is it just you and your wife."

He thought about that. "Just me and my wife," he said. "I don't know if that is common, but I do know other Europeans who think this way."

"Wow," I said. This was great stuff.

"Where is your family?" he asked me after a while.

"I have a sister in the States and my mother lives in India."

"Where do you work?"

"A company called Silicon Graphics," I said. "Have you heard of us?"

"Yes yes," he said. "Of course. You must make a lot of money in Silicon Valley."

"The money is good for an engineer anywhere in the valley," I said.

"You must make 10,000 dollars a month?" he said.

"No where near that," I said, "though a lot people in my company who make a lot more."

"How much do you make?" he asked.

I thought of all the personal questions I'd asked him and told him how much I had made.

"That's how much I make too," he said.

"You will like my wife. She has thirty one years," he said. "You
should come and visit us in Berne. Will you ride your cycle in
Switzerland?"

"Yes," I said. "First, I am going to bicycle in Austria for two weeks and then I'll spend one week in Switzerland."

"Leave your bicycle group when you are in Switzerland and come and see us," he said.

"All right. I'll give you a call when I am in Switzerland."

"Do you have a paper," he asked.

I gave him a business card and he wrote his address and phone number on the back.

"My wife likes sports. You should take her with you for bicycling."

"Sure," I said, "I'll take her for a bike ride."

"Have you ever had a Spanish brandy?" he asked?

"No," I said. And I didn't particularly want one. I was beginning to feel the beer and I had blown my daily budget.

"But you must have one. It is a very good drink."

"No, no," I protested weakly but my heart wasn't in it.

"Please allow me to get you one," he said, "to celebrate your coming to Europe."

"Ok thanks," I said and he ordered a brandy for me and another cognac for himself.

The brandy arrived. He toasted me and my vacation in Europe. The brandy was brilliant and I put it down quickly.

"Another?" he said.

"What the hell? I am on vacation," I said and waved gaily at the waitress, "but I'll buy this round. That was a great call on the brandy."

"Do you live in San Francisco?" he asked.

"About an hour away, but I go up there all the time on weekends to race sailboats."

"You have a yacht?"

"Yes," I said. I had a 13 foot Laser; I guess you could call that a yacht.

"My wife likes sports," he said, "you should take her on your boat with you."

"Sure," I said, "if you ever come up to San Francisco, I'll take you and your wife sailing."

The second brandy took a long time to drink. He wanted to know more about my extended family and I told him. Later, I would wonder if he was trying to determine if I came from good genetic stock.

The waitress came and he spoke to her in a low voice; I had had too many beers and Spanish brandies to be able to tell the language.

"La cuenta por favor," I said to her when he finished. I had learnt to ask for the bill in Spanish (Also the toilet, beer, and a date.) She came back with a single bill and put it down in front of him.

"No, no," I said. "No, no. I really can't let you pay for this."

"I would really like to buy you dinner," he said firmly. "It would give me great pleasure. This is to celebrate your coming to Europe. But you should promise to come and see us in Berne."

"Ok," I promised. "I am sure I'll be able to get away from my bicycle group for a day or two."

"You should go for a bike ride with my wife."

I nodded but through the alcoholic haze I was having a feeling of deja vu, like I had read something like this somewhere. Where? Cervantes? No. Joyce? No. Shakespeare? No, it was Penthouse! This wife thing was straight out that jewel of journalism.

"No, no. This cannot be," I said to myself, "Here is this really nice guy who invited me to join him at his table, bought me an expensive dinner and drinks, invited me to visit him at his home, and I am casting all these perverted aspersions on him."

I waited until he had finished his drink.

"Ready to call it a night?" I said, "I have a long day tomorrow."

"You look tired," he said, "so maybe you want to sleep."

"I think so," I said. "Are you going to stay and have another?"

"Yes," he said. "I'll have some more."

I stood up. "Thanks for dinner and the drinks. When I come to Berne, you must let me buy you and your wife dinner."

He got to his feet and we shook hands. Then he winked and grinned and said, "You should have fun with my wife and take her to America with you."

_________

About the author:
Madhavan Thirumalai (Mad), graduated from the Department of CS and E in 1986. In his first week in Hostel 4, he was given the nickname "Mad". This because there was another Mad in the hostel at that time, Madan Mohan Rao of the class of '85, and the freshie batch decided that they needed a Mad of their own.

(Ed. note : Fate has brought both the "Mad"s together as Managing Editors of Y-Point -  it just goes to show that freshies are very prescient !)