In the black of night thunder explodes seeming to shake the ground itself as rods of rain pound down. Autonomic flight or fight response triggered. And incredulity. So this is the heart of darkness, here in the ‘big jungle’ as termed reverentially even by the Congolese. Before the daily deluge, striking out from the camp alone along the track carpeted with tropical mulch, the rainforest life’s cacophony overwhelmed. Pure blackness, save for tiny stars formed of some bugs’ bioluminescence. Endless range of squawks, whistles, croaks, hisses, buzzes, rumbles, chirps, rustles, a low growl maybe … during the drive up from the river a leopard bounded across the remote logging road ahead: Senses overloaded by wondrous but extreme unfamiliarity prompt an anxious about turn back to the compound.
On this side of the city here and there are viewing platforms of scaffold about a half storey high. In central European biting freeze a clamber up the clanky steps reveals the Brandenburg Gate. Splendid yet forlorn and impotent sentinel of the death-strip. Once triumphal monument marooned by tall, hard concrete slabs, coils of barbed wire, in no-man’s land. Above, crammed in watch-tower turrets East German soldiers’ eyes stare back, cold, indifferent. A few kilometres West the Ku’damm’s opulence spits in the face of communist empire destitution. Being there on the elevated vantage the witnesses mark the hurt of a torn World. Chilled faces hard up against the opposing force in the frighteningly fragile balance of power: Peace on the precipice, as Cold War propaganda has embedded in a generation’s childhood psyche. The Wall’s abject futility spawns a physical upwelling of sorrow.
Pete possesses an enviable hi-fi system. ‘Listen to this!’, with a wide grin he gingerly lands the needle in the smooth space before the sixth track of a spinning LP. Highly amplified, the opening chords of ‘Sultans of Swing’ swell to fill the sun filled room. What jubilant music this; truly electrifying melody, riff and licks wash all over and around. Never heard anything like this before! For decades to come, this sensory overload will be resurrected whenever the composition’s first notes revisit the tympanic membranes.
The room occupies a corner of the rambling Victorian house in a leafy suburb near Birmingham university. Below its windows, a broad lawn is circled by lofty trees which seclude the building. It’s home to more than a dozen young people; several fresh returned from the hippie-trail. All are relaxed and happy in their commune style living, sharing bathrooms, kitchens and any work needed for building upkeep. Mike, he likes to garden, tends the flower beds with great care; he proudly shows his opium poppies’ dazzling splendour. The house is something of a scene. Artists and musicians drift in and out. We hang out, drink, philosophise; sometimes joined by members of famous rock bands, Led Zeppelin. A large house party reverberates to a jam by as yet undiscovered talents, UB40. Only the haziest recollection the morning after. Youth.
Hunched, smiling old lady, in black from head to toe, beckons the way to her small kitchen. She speaks no English, there’s no written menu, just an array of large, metal pots to peer into; simmering away within, a choice of Cretan staples, dishes based on lamb, fish, aubergine, pepper, okra, tomato, feta cheese and much more. Selection made, re-seated at a table made of wood, sip retsina and study a huge mural opposite: It depicts, vividly, the slaughter of invading Nazi paratroopers by Cretan civilians and allied soldiers, just about forty years before. The old lady must remember well this bloody Battle of Crete. Seated below the scenes of carnage, young, sun-bleached, German campers enjoy evening beers. For our generation the savage scene just a gratuitous image on a wall.
Re-visiting, barely ten years later, the taverna’s business has boomed, no longer solely two pokey bedrooms and a field for campers. The dear matriarch remembered by a photo hanging on her kitchen wall, though her pots still simmer gently on the gas. The mural wall white-washed. Time came for everyone to move on.
