BERLIN: October, 2000 (Part 12)

The buzzkill on our Charlottenburg experience had me tossing and turning under the Madison's downy comforter. I thought about all the places I'd been in the last month and all the times I'd missed William. My cheeks burned. I'd miscalculated. I'd come rushing back to Berlin believing we both wanted the same thing. That we were on the same page. That we could go forward.

An emotional life of skyscraping heights — and falls — had become tiresome. My acting career had worn me raw, with as much drama offstage as on. Too many near-misses. Too many "you got the job" triumphs, followed by months of perilous bill-paying. A jagged confidence, and angry glances at a telephone that refused to ring. Too many auditions. Too few auditions. Hopes attached to the short film I had directed getting into film festivals. Too many rejection letters.

I didn't want to be in a movie of my life anymore. I wanted stability and staidness, and I wanted us to be together in the same kitchen or in the same living room watching the same television show. And I wanted it yesterday, or soon, or sooner.

But one person alone couldn't make this happen, and if he wasn't with me, then perhaps I was best living alone with a quiet routine, and not racing my heart around the world. I looked over at William's face, lit by a waning moon. He was fast asleep and I envied his peace. His only clock was the morning alarm to get him up and off to work on the types of movies that held the promise of the life I longed for.

In the morning, we showered, dressed and took the elevator downstairs. We hugged and whispered "Six weeks." I waved good-bye from the bus window. William stood on the sidewalk in a grey drizzle, blew me a kiss and mouthed I love you. I smiled with my mouth in a quivery line.

I wanted the driver to be the same burly fellow who brought me here thirty days previous, but he was not. Life does not bookend itself into such clean completion. I wandered around Tegel airport...more lost than when I'd arrived a month ago.

BERLIN: October, 2000 (Part 11)

The night before my flight home to Los Angeles, William left work early and we had a final dinner at a pizza parlor. The pie was savory, its crispy thin crust topped with fresh tomatoes and ribbons of basil. Icy German beer sent each bite on a frothy journey down my throat. All seemed right with the world. And then....

I missed you in Prague. I missed you in Paris and when I walked through the concentration camp...and in little Olomouc. It would be like this, in some pizza restaurant, and I would want to talk to you about these places. About what I'd seen.

William reached his hand across the table.

You know what I love? he asked.

Me?

It's true. Know what else?

Tell me.

I love that you got to go to all those places. I love that I was able to give you this because you're so happy when you're traveling. But I don't crave it like you do. It just makes me happy that you were happy on a train to someplace new and having an adventure.

Blink. Here's what I love: a man who can say what he means.

I flushed and adored him and figured it was time to revisit a distant conversation. As I'd passed through those landscapes on trains and ate alone in restaurants, I'd thought a lot about our conversation back home and my reluctance to even entertain moving in together. I assumed this was as prevalent in William's head as it was in mine. I assumed as I was spending days in travel and contemplation, he was busy at work thinking about...well, moi, and making plans. I assumed all that.

I'm ready to reopen the talk about our future, I started.

He took a bite of pizza and furrowed his brow into a question mark.

You know, the one about living together. The one where you couldn't believe we would never make that move, and how I thought we were fine in our own places. That conversation.

Okay...?

Well, it seems obvious to me now that we should consider how to make that happen. Because I want to be with you and I'm sorry I seemed ambivalent about that.

That sounds good. I can't see it happening any time soon, though.

William took another bite of pizza while a snake of angst crawled up my gut. This clammy coolness would repeat itself several times with us. He, perhaps to please me, perhaps simply speaking off the top of his head, perhaps voicing fantasy, would express a concept — like living together — then backpedal as soon as I came around to the idea.

What do you mean...any time soon?

I can't see buying a new place...and because there might be an industry strike, I can't depend on getting jobs in the future. We can't just jump into a renovation on my house....You said yourself moving in might be too invasive.

What do you mean...any time soon?

Maybe five years.

Five years? I whispered.

And in an instant, the golden romance of our Charlottenburg repast vanished. In its place I imagined a giant clock. Like the clock in Grand Central Station. Like the clock Charlie Chaplin clambered over. A huge ticking monster laughing at me.

Since I had wrestled with the age-difference factor, I thought I was over any misgivings about our relationship...until this particular pizza-pie dinner. For William, five years meant something different. I valued time differently than he did. I hadn't seen this and the knowledge kicked me hard.

William is a careful shopper. Meticulous. Painstaking. It drives me crazy that he deliberates so long before making a final decision. I am quick and impulsive and spontaneous, and had closets full of junk and two divorces to show for it.

But now I felt like a puppy in a store window waiting to be purchased. My flush of love morphed into a rosy fury.

Okay, let's take it right off the table. The whole idea. I'm not waiting around for you to get onboard with this one. Five years. No way. So, we'll continue to date, but no more commitment than that and if I get bored with us sitting on a fence...well, I'll be on my way. because I think five years is ridiculous.

William looked as if I'd slapped him in the face with the remaining pizza. Because of the dramatic tone in my voice and the "I'll be on my way" 1940s movie-type threat...he was close to correct.

He paid the bill and we meandered back to the apartment as if the conversation had never happened. I pretended. I acted. I sucked it up and chatted on about how I loved my life in my apartment back in Los Angeles and heigh-ho, heigh-ho...you're quite right...don't want to rush into anything...don't want to make any more mistakes...had enough of those....

BERLIN: October, 2000 (Part 10)

On my last weekend in Berlin, William and I wandered along Unter den Linden, a wide boulevard closed to traffic at the time because it was occupied by an army of plastic bears. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of the fellows, each about two feet tall. Separated into blocs of yellow, green and blue, row upon row of the animals stood facing the same direction, as if frozen in a military parade.

They could have been a symbol of reunification, or a precursor to the upcoming fiftieth anniversary of the Berlin International Film Festival, or something else. We never found out why they were there, but there was no missing them. We stared agape at this fantastical menagerie of plastic beasts.

Across the street, a mother wheeled a stroller and stopped to show her toddler the bears. The tot struggled out of his carriage, careened on chubby legs towards a blue bear and wrapped his arms around it. With a hefty tug he picked it up and dragged it back to his stroller.

The mother caught up to him, pried the prize from her child's clutches, and replaced the statue back in line. The boy broke loose from her grip and raced back to grab the bear. Once again he got his arms around the bear's tummy and pulled the bear along the ground. That bear was going one place and one place only. The mother spoke what could only have been useless logic. She picked up the screaming, bereft child and plopped him back into his seat with tears streaming from his eyes. He stretched his arms to his blue friend.

Seriously, there are hundreds here....Who would miss one little blue bear? I suggested. I know, William said, we should grab one and stick it in the back pocket of the stroller. Otherwise, he'll never be able to look at any blue plastic bear without trauma.

As we watched this picture of loss and longing, William and I were holding hands. I kissed his cheek. He turned to me and our mouths met. The afternoon sun was warm. The bears stared away and we smiled at the whimsy of this happenstance discovery. The mood of the afternoon was more tender because it was time for me to go. William brushed tendrils away from my eyes.

You're growing your hair.

I touched my head. Yeah, I guess.

Women always cut their hair after a breakup or when they're depressed.

Oh, that's your little theory, is it?

It's true. You're in love and you're letting your hair grow. That's no accident.

Hmmm. Just me in love?

Nope, not just you.

BERLIN: October, 2000 (Part 9)

Back at our home base in Berlin, I tugged William out of the apartment on a Sunday afternoon and we visited the neighborhood of Charlottenburg. We left our Potsdamer Platz location via the S-Bahn.

Emerging from a station stairwell, we viewed tree-lined streets with enchanting nineteenth-century apartment buildings. The air, October-crisp as a Macintosh apple, warmed up enough to keep us comfortable. We held hands and strolled under maples dripping in red and gold leaves. We window-shopped and settled on an Austrian restaurant for an early dinner.

Back home in Los Angeles, William and I had explored our city's restaurants a couple of times a month. On other dates I cooked. I love cooking and William is an unfussy audience for whatever cuisine I set before him. Perhaps too unfussy — he wouldn't think twice about making a meal of beef jerky and Coca-Cola.

Does this broccoli have lemon on it?

Yup.

Hmmm.

I'd order two glasses of red wine to his one beer. I'd rattle off exotic menu items and he'd order steak and fries. I'd whip up a sandwich with roasted peppers, fresh tuna and arugula knowing he'd enjoy it as much as he would a McRib.

Seated at a picture window of the Austrian restaurant, we were lit golden by the setting sun. Classical music floated around the hexagonal room that could well have been a family's parlor in another lifetime. White tablecloths and large matching napkins signaled an elegant meal. We were the only customers and grateful for the courtesy of our highly professional waiter. Genteel in his black suit, white shirt and navy tie, he did not look askance at our bourgeois early arrival.

William drank a beer, amber and foamy, in a frosty glass. I sipped a German red wine and we chose an appetizer to share. Warm, breaded slices of duck lay atop braised red cabbage. The meat tender and the salad tangy, and...oh Lord, bring on more wine, this was delicious.

I was in a mood for schnitzel and this was the place to have it. As with the duck, the veal was sweet and the breading light and crispy. My entrée came with boiled new potatoes and a green salad dressed in a lemony vinaigrette. William ordered a beef dish served with horseradish and a freshly-made applesauce.

We took bites, shared forkfuls across the table and savored exquisite flavors. I would always remember this meal as one of our best, in part because we happened upon it at the end of a long walk, but even more because we were far from home and experiencing it together.

And I would remember this dinner forever because of the light. A caramel-colored October light found its way through tree branches to lay its long fingers across our tablecloth. As the sunlight disappeared into twilight, we stirred cups of cappuccino and spooned up a fluffy pancake-type dessert simmering in a warm plum compote. So, so far from home.

It was Auschwitz, in all of its beauty and sadness, that gave even greater value to this dinner in Germany. The idea of together had deepened for me. My awareness of time and how I intended to spend it grew in importance. William took my hand and I could not explain why my eyes were wet. I squeezed his palm with a rush of love.

Time. Together. Home. I turned these words over in my head as if I'd only just learned them.

OSWIECIM: October, 2000 (Part 2)

I was grateful to be on my own at Auschwitz as Kaspar took off for a couple of hours. Because this was midweek in late October, I was nearly alone at the site. Gray skies with a light rainfall seemed appropriate. In silence, a morbid history surrounded me with its brick walls and barbed wire. The harrowing iron lettering over the gate: Arbeit Macht Frei. Work will set you free.

Much has been written and filmed about the Nazi concentration camps, but being there is an entirely different experience. Traveling from Berlin, where I'd studied the beginning of that power, to here, one of the cruelest sites of human atrocity, made my head reel. How recently these events had occurred. Certainly I knew dates and such, but being at the place created a fresh and ghastly resonance.

In Berlin, I pictured a mother holding her child's hand as they shopped for school supplies or celebrated a birthday or wandered around the zoo and then...they didn't.

In the Auschwitz museum, I stared, stupefied, at displays featuring huge piles of leather suitcases, stuffed toy kittens, wiry eyeglasses, high-heeled pumps, worn Oxfords, and dentures. These were not the day-to-day belongings of an ancient society. Fifty-five years ago, a businessman had carried one of those briefcases, a five-year-old girl clutched one of those toys, and a university student had strutted in a pair of those tan leather pumps and then....they didn't.

A teddy bear resembled one from my childhood, a child's party dress was not antiquated, and journals and books were not from the Dark Ages...and it seemed to me they should have been. My mind could not encompass this terror being so very modern. I ruminated on Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur. What is wrong with mankind that in the face of scientific achievement, in a world of modern medicine and higher thinking, we can backtrack into such horrific behavior?

This place shook me deeply, as it was meant to do. I stood in the long, cold stables where Steven Spielberg had shot scenes for "Schindler's List." In these stables, where prisoners once lived stacked on top of each other, I experienced what a movie could not possibly convey. My hand grazed the frame of a wooden stall and I imagined other hands touching these same splinters. In the death chambers where women and children were herded to be showered and gassed, I felt a clawing loss of my own air as my stomach clenched.

After an hour and a half, I met up with Kaspar. In the rainfall we walked to Birkenau, or Auschwitz II, where bodies had been dumped into a green and murky pond. We stood still, side by side, under darkening afternoon clouds. Kaspar was kind to be there, and kind enough not to speak.

Our drive back to Krakow remained quiet. This time Kaspar's eyes stayed glued to the road. He'd had taken this drive before and knew chit-chat was impossible. As we parted back at the bus station, I palmed him a tip and wanted to hug him, but it didn't seem right.

In the dark of evening, I stumbled home to my hotel. I nibbled at some food in a Chinese restaurant, but my appetite was negligible and I gave up. Later I crawled into bed and wept. That night brought horrific dreams filled with awful images. I would remember this day forever, and that is as it must be. The Auschwitz museum had made its point.

When the German army packed train cars with innocents and journeyed them into hell, they separated parents from children, husbands from wives, and siblings from each other. My last night in Krakow, curled up in that hotel bed, I imagined what that terrible separation might be like. My month in Europe, both with and away from William, was sealing the relationship in my heart and I needed to let him know that. No, I can't imagine we would live our whole lives apart. No.

OSWIECIM: October, 2000 (Part 1)

Bus schedules had been checked and rechecked. My eyes blinked open early, and after breakfast I made my way on a drizzly, cold day to the station. But the nine o'clock bus to Oswiecim was nowhere to be found and my rudimentary Polish was useless in getting information.

I paced the platform as if I could will the bus into place. I studied and re-studied the schedule. I kicked myself for my mistake. Or was it my error? Inside the station it took a total of one minute to deduce a coherent conversation would not be viable with my language skills.

The nine o'clock bus? Oswiecim?

I pointed to my watch in a silly clichéd movie gesture. The ticket seller waved me aside.

Back outside, the posted schedule indicated the next bus would leave Krakow at noon, if these itineraries could even be trusted. Because I planned to leave Krakow the next morning, this was my only opportunity to visit Auschwitz. It was beyond my comprehension to have come so far, be so close, and not pay homage to the terrible place where so many lost their lives.

A stocky gentleman of maybe forty years hurried toward me. Dressed in a worn beige overcoat and with an errant lock of thin sandy hair falling over his brow, he gave me an energetic look from bright blue eyes. He wiped his hair back with his bear paw of a hand and asked, You like to see Auschwitz?

Well, yes, but I missed the bus....I'll come back later.

No, no...young lady...I take you....Here...my car. And he pointed to a beige wreck of a Volkswagen Rabbit and urged me forward as if it were a stretch limo. How could I get out of this? What excuse could I drum up without insulting him? The Rabbit hardly appeared capable of a trip around the block, let alone out of the city. And who the hell was this guy, anyway?

Ummm...thanks, but I can wait for the next bus.

No, no...I take you....I show you....Private tour!

How much?

Instantly I was negotiating, translating Polish zloty to U.S. dollars and arriving at fifty-three dollars for a return trip. This was one of those moments. One of those spontaneous travel moments. The rush of the back and forth over the money clashed with deciding whether I could trust this guy.

Okay.

My name, Kaspar.

Nice to meet you.

From the back seat, I listened to the engine of Kaspar's Rabbit grumble as he gunned us out of Krakow and into Polish countryside on an hour-long journey to the concentration camp museum. The car rattled and shook along with my nerves. I was certain a single pothole would doom us to wreckage.

Once we were out of Krakow and on a two-lane road, I grew more alarmed at the carefree style of my driver. Kaspar wanted to chat. He seemed to see nothing wrong with turning halfway around in his seat to converse with me. His hands stayed on the wheel but his eyes were rarely on the road, and the highway was hardly straight. My crazy chauffeur careened around bends with no more than a casual look-see beforehand.

Kaspar also believed his English-language skills were top-notch. I had zero idea what the man was saying. Truly, I was mystified, and I didn't care. I just wanted him to face front and focus. And yet I couldn't overcome my good manners. Whenever confronted with a language barrier, my habit is to simply nod, laugh, or express dismay as I pick up clues from my conversational partner's tonal quality or sound level.

No kidding?

Oh, yes, I know...very frustrating.

Terrible.

Yes...ha, ha...funny.

It took me nearly the entire trip to understand what Kaspar meant when he jabbed his index finger at the window and cried Crumbles! Crumbles! After six such interjections, I realized the man was pointing out crash sites. He was communicating that this was a dangerous road on which foolish drivers made deadly mistakes on a regular basis.

I trusted. There was little choice from the back seat of a Rabbit in this Polish Grand Prix. And we eventually pulled into the parking lot of the Auschwitz camp. I stepped out of the car with rubbery legs. Kaspar, as it turned out, was a fair and good travel guide. He led me into the main building of the museum, made sure I had the correct ticket, and we coordinated a later meeting time when he would give me an extended tour of the camp. Private tour!

KRAKOW: October, 2000

Book, book, book. Food, food, food. Bed, bed, bed.

This was how I jumped off the train in Krakow. A woman with a list and a mission.
While traveling I read, a lot. In restaurants, on trains and in hotel rooms. I was downing an average of five books a week as I scurried across Europe. I'd turned the last page of a novel at the end of the six-hour train ride from Olomouc to Krakow.

The railcar creaked to halt and I alighted in a city painted gold as the sun dipped. A promising vista, but I was without a hotel reservation, I was hungry and I had nothing to read. And that was before I learned some sort of business conference had most of the city's rooms booked.

Filmu.

Krakow sits on the Vistula River and, like Prague, was left fairly undamaged after World War II. The German army invaded Poland and used Krakow as their headquarters. The small city houses a population of just over seven-hundred thousand and is divided into walkable districts. The most engaging area is Stare Miasto (Old Town), a walled center enclosing a large market square attractive to tourists, locals, and certainly me.

In Old Town I searched for a hotel room and found a place for exactly one night. The next day, after much scrounging, I would luck into another room for two nights. Both hostelries charged thirty-eight dollars a night, including breakfast. A water closet down the hall meant no private bath, but I was used to that. Neither was comparable to my expansive apartment in Prague, but to even find a pillow on which to lay my head was fortuitous.

After a cursory glance at my first hotel room, I raced back out to the streets to find a bookstore. There were many, but none with books in my language. I whipped through four stores before spotting one lonely rack of English paperbacks. Not exactly bestsellers, but I was desperate and grabbed a couple of British spy adventures.

Room: check

Book: check

Dinner: Hmmm?

Twilight settled over Krakow. Restaurant windows framed in lace glowed amber in candlelight. Cobblestone walkways reflected lamplight and the scents of roasted meat floated from doorways. Couples swayed, teetered and giggled, presumably after pre-dinner cocktails. The city's atmosphere radiated warmth and giddiness.

A stone-walled restaurant caught my attention. Tapered candles stuck in wine bottles flickered with tiny flames, casting shadows off the ancient brick. Settled at a table with my book and a glass of wine, I exhaled with satisfaction. Small potatoes roasted on the hearth of an open fireplace in the center of the room. Customers helped themselves to tender charred morsels. I dined on borscht, pork stuffed with prunes, two glasses of red wine, mineral water, cappuccino and as many of those potatoes as I could pluck from the hearth.

The next morning my I started my exploration of Old Town. As in the Czech Republic, a youthful exuberance resonated from cafes offering internet services. Posters hanging on city walls advertised all sorts of artistic performances and gallery viewings. I trekked up Wawel Hill to Wawel Castle and Wawel Cathedral, and further on to the Jewish district with its synagogues and cemeteries.

Across the main square, pigeons fluttered into nooks and onto windowsills of apartments and offices. I rested on a bench alongside the Vistula, munching on an apple and a homemade pretzel, salty and warm, I'd picked up in a farmer's market. Under the shade of a stone archway, I studied the details of the architecture around me. I was grateful this jewel of a city had not been obliterated in the war — but the next day I would see, up close, the handiwork of the Nazi regime.

In a short telephone conversation with William, it was impossible to describe all that I'd seen in these three cities. The routine of his workdays continued unchanged and he seemed content with that.

"I miss you."

"Me too."