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Sleeping in Seattle
Our travel expert directs readers to accommodation and fun in the rainy city, plus advice on trips to Manhattan and Apostle Island.
By Donald D. Groff
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[10/16/99]

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By Susan McKinney de Ortega
[10/15/99]

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Peter spoke flawless German.

Peter, who isn't Jewish, who lived in Germany that year and at other times in his life, spoke flawless German. And wherever we went, people were amazed that he was American, that my blue-eyed boyfriend was not, in fact, German. Sometimes, in the car, he would get annoyed with other drivers and snap at them, or at me, in German. It was a reflex after living there for a year, I suppose, as unplanned as my response to it: visceral horror, fear of this language yelled. I found myself pinned to the seat after these bursts of irritation, immobile. "Don't shout at me in German," I said, embarrassed by the power of my reaction. "Don't shout at me, Nazi-boy." Laughing at the absurdity of it.

And, of course, Peter translated for me. He helped me order food in restaurants, communicated with the doctor when I needed an antibiotic, pointed out interesting pieces of information I would have missed. Like the Judengasse -- the Jewish Alley. We were in Rothenburg, a small Bavarian city that, unlike most of the rest of Germany, has been untouched by war because of the wall that surrounds it. Rothenburg was an unplanned detour, an excuse to get out of the car after a long day of driving and a wrong turn and a fight. It was late, 11 p.m., and the city was relatively deserted. We wandered, relieved, through its narrow streets, gentle with each other in the tentative maintenance of love. Both of us surprised by the thick tangles of it, by the strength of the webbing between two people who, we were slowly, belatedly realizing, might not belong together. Here, outside, there was more space, at least, for things unspoken to hang in the air between us.

The houses in the Judengasse are closer together than those in the rest of the town, and shabbier, more cramped. People live there today, only they are not ghetto Jews, of course, just German people going about their daily lives. We could hear their voices float through open windows, laughter and the bumps and murmurs of movement as they settled in, prepared for bed. We could have been on any street. I ran my hands along old stone, tiptoed into somebody's dilapidated courtyard -- three crumbling walls, grass growing through the cracks -- and wondered if it used to be the synagogue.

There are no Jews there, and no ghosts, either; no echoes, no voices, although I strained to hear them. I wanted something, comfort or impossible reassurance or just the presence of absence, more than a polished town and an incongruous street name, someone to whisper, "Yes, we were here." I wanted at least to hear voices as we walked holding hands down the street that is still called the Judengasse.

Peter and I traveled across the country. I looked at people and tried not to think, Where were you? What are you teaching your children? But I walked through the streets of Germany and looked at people and I wondered, and wondered, and wondered.

Heads together, laughing, we renamed rock groups: Guns 'n' Moses, The Shtetl People. Sang in the car. Were sweet to each other. And fought. We sucked everything we could from one another, drank each other dry. Argued about everything we could think of -- directions, routes, what time to stop for coffee, where to go next, whether to keep the windows up or down. We picked fights, picked the scabs of our relationship till they bled. But once when we were walking down a steep, rocky path I tripped and cut a deep gash in my knee. He took the bottle of mineral water from his backpack, knelt at my feet and poured the water so gently over my bleeding wound that it was almost absolution, almost forgiveness. We pulled the last threads of our love taut, frayed, almost broken. One moment we would be lovers, wandering German streets; then out of the corner of my eye I would see evil old men in black armbands. The depth of my anger surprised me. It breathed.

We would split up, finally, when we got back to the States.

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