“Sukha-duhkhe same krtvâ, labhâlabhau, jâyâjayau / tato yuddhâya yujyasva, naivam pâpam avâpsyasi. The Bhagavad-Gita, verse 2:38.”
“Exactly so,” the Badger said. “You had this apateia or samatva even before you went into the combat zone. You had peace within yourself before you went off to war. Thus, you survived the challenge, not being carried away by the passions. It seems that you’ve passed the test.”
Arno nodded. He continued to examine the painting. Well, he thought, here you are in a dream palace, depicted in a dream image… His gaze lost itself in the green and brown hues of the painting’s background, of the dragon’s scales, of the dark sky with its yellow accents.
Arno had been taken to the Dreamworld. A waking-dream world. He was clear-minded but he was in a different land – a land where he had been taken by Ringo Badger, his dream guide who suddenly had appeared on the football field in Munich’s outskirts where Arno had kicked a ball, one day in the summer of 1960.
Arno still lingered in the dream castle gallery. But when he raised his eyes from the canvas the Badger was gone. His hood-adorned, elevated-yet-relatable guide was gone. Well, Arno thought, he’s all right. And I am. It was a beautiful palace this, I think I’ll go and investigate it further!
He went through the brilliant halls and courtyards, along the refined galleries and through chambers decorated with mahogany and ivory, brass, silver and gold, everything being accompanied by soft, beautiful music. It was an enigmatic melody that got him into its power, a flute melody – and he followed it – through the halls and corridors, through gardens and beyond bosuquettes, across lawns and off to a gazebo.
And then; there, in an octagonal, white building with large windowless openings, a garden house shaded by leafy oak trees, a brown-haired woman sat and played the flute. Arno went up the stairs and stopped on the threshold of the room. The woman looked at him with her grey eyes and stopped playing.
“What do you think?” she said.
“It was beautiful.”
She put down the flute. Arno went in and sat down next to her. He was somewhat enchanted by her pure, enigmatic features. She was wearing a white dress. Her soft brown hair fell straight over her shoulders.
“Do you play any instrument?” the woman asked.
“What’s your name?” Arno asked.
“My name is Simida.”
Arno said his name. Then he admitted that he didn’t play any instrument.
“But I can sing,” he said. Then he sang the lady a song.
She liked it. They went for a walk. They passed through a grove of trees, they sauntered along the beach of an azure lake and they ended up on a plateau overlooking the lake. They spoke freely about everything between heaven and earth. Enchanted, Arno looked into the woman’s grey eyes. He thought he recognised her and, finally, he asked:
“Who are you?”
She said enigmatically:
“Who do you think I am…?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then I can tell you that I am your mother. I am your sister. I am your daughter. I am your first cousin, your second cousin and your friend. I am your playmate. I am your twin sister. I am your mistress… I am you.”
Arno drew Simida to him and kissed her. Then everything disappeared, as if washed away by a phantom wave, and next he found himself standing on the street outside his Munich house. It was twilight, the sun had gone down. He had the bike with him, holding it by the handlebars. “How did I get here?” he asked himself.
He was back in the everyday world after a séjour in the Dreamworld. It was all very mysterious. But pragmatic as he was, he went up on the pavement and checked his wristwatch. Quarter past nine. He thought: I must have dreamed a little, fallen into a sort of trance and thus I’ve walked here like a sleepwalker. But that doesn’t explain the time difference. When I was on the football field it was only six o’clock. Now it’s past nine. Well, even dreams are real. I dreamed heavy dreams during the war. I dreamed of the Badger in Ukraine, in Hanover in late 1944 and I’ve been dreaming about him after that, in Aspeboda in 1946. And now he seems to appear even in my waking life, just like that.
Arno shook his head, went up the drive, headed for the kitchen entrance, unlocked the door, went inside and drank some water in the kitchen. Then he went to the bedroom, pulled down the blind, undressed and went to bed.
Weeks went by. Arno soldiered on in his job. He drove around in his grey Volkswagen Beetle and he spoke to people, solving tasks in Bauer’s security company. Unrelated to Cicero AG he was also a consultant for a lunch place that wanted to upgrade and become a gourmet restaurant. As a former chef Arno knew a thing or two about this.
He used to have lunch at the restaurant in question, Gasthaus bei Mayer, situated in the zone between Munich’s industrial area and its central residential zone. The house in question had two floors; via a staircase and an access balcony you reached the tavern. Now, one day in August 1960, Arno slipped in there at noon. He had begun the day by meeting with a shady type apropos some thefts in a grocery store. Arno paid for the information he might find useful. Then he had made some calls from his office desk and then he had gone here, to the Gasthaus. The sky was blue-grey, a lot of humidity in the air. He wore corduroy trousers and a shirt, with his lumber jacket slung over his shoulder. A regular blazer was impractical when you drove a car, so he usually wore this casual jacket.
He walked up to the counter and picked the daily special, marinated pork loin. He exchanged a few words with the chef, Topsi Creuff, the very guy who had hired him as a consultant on how to upgrade to à la carte status.
Arno got his food, paid and took his tray. He would go and sit by a window table. Then he saw her, a brown-haired woman with grey eyes. She looked at him with a calm gaze, a gaze literally pulling him to her. He walked towards her as if in a trance.
“May I sit down here?” he asked formally.
“Indeed,” said the woman, dressed in a moss-green suit. Her hair was up in a bun, as women used to have their hair in the early ’60s. The prevailing style was a bit old fashioned, a bit stiff, a bit “senior” with current standards. This woman was about 25 years old and lively in a quiet manner, being the same beautiful revelation Arno had seen in the dream. Simida she had been called there. But Arno couldn’t say this. Or could he?
“I dreamed about you the other night.”
“And I dreamed about you,” the woman said with a quiet smile. She introduced herself as Renate.
“But in the dream I called you Simida.”
“Hmm,” she said and smiled again. She had finished eating, but she stayed as Arno ate.
He had found his dream woman. He knew it, it all clicked into place instantly. Both felt it. She was literally his dream woman; he had met her in that dream in June earlier this summer. And his dream woman had now revealed herself in the living world. It felt right somehow. She had made a move similar to Ringo Badger, transferring from the Dreamworld into the Everyday world.
Arno accepted this. In essence it wasn’t strange at all. Wonders do occur, on a daily basis: “Either everything is enchanted, or nothing is,” as Ernst Jünger once said.
Arno felt as if he had come home – to Munich and to Renate. She was a secretary at a car dealership, selling German-made Fords. She soon had Arno change to a cherry red Ford Taunus. She even moved into Arno’s house.