5 June (Sontag) 1994
Arrived in Germany after a connecting flight from Abu Dabai. I was sitting next to Renate Scholz und ihr Man (complete strangers). In Frankfurt the plane arrived 3 hours late. I caught a train in the right direction, rang Dino’s mother then his flatmate, Rashid, then Dino’s Mum again as Rashid didn’t turn up to Mainz Sud station to pick me up. Dino’s Dad finally picked me up and showed me into town. He made me eat up a thin sausage balanced on a tiny bun, mild mustard, and vinegary coleslaw on the side. I was dazed, listening to him in torpor. I forced my eyes upward to gawk at history and architecture. He spouted on about the lot. I was buggered when we finally got to a house. A funny mailbox on the lawn hailed where my letters to Dino had settled over the years. The wife and mother was a gushing bird. I was made to eat more, then pointed to the bathroom and Dino’s old bedroom, where I eventually landed on a bed.
I was expecting nothing special to happen to me. Dino had never answered my last letter, the one where I said I was coming to Europe. I imagined trudging with backpack and dying on streets for kicks, not this. These events seemed very unreal. Later in the night, I roused as a silhouette of Dino appeared in the doorway. He looked like he was bald and wearing some kind of sheep on his chest. It was a vest. I got up. We hugged.
I was whisked off to a carnival in the street (small), outside Mainz city, a country town street, I think. I have never been so cold in my life. I was hyper from it, jumping up and down and chit-chattering my teeth. Dino grabbed me and kissed me. I guess we were both expecting something like this could happen. The suspense of 12 years.