Strange Cities

When I arrive in a new city on my own, all is strange, and I seek to orientate myself slowly.  I walk out of the hotel, turn right for a block, then make another right, and eventually go all around the block and come back to the entrance where my journey of exploration began.  If I am not too tired or hungry, I set off again, this time walking two blocks around, and so on, if not that first day, then over the next two, until I have noticed the basic landmarks and do not feel strange and without any bearings.  Even if the city is in a country whose language I do not speak, the exercise of locating myself in a series of concentric walks he

To be sure, if I am in that city only for a very short time and have to meet people or carry out some specific task, then I may not be able to go through my process of orientation completely.  When there is travelling involved and no friend, colleague or guide is sent to pick me up and then to deliver me back to the hotel, it is necessary to ask directions from a hotel clerk, either on how to use the public transport system or to find a taxi.  However, while my appointments are kept, the feeling of anxiety remains, and my sense of bewilderment and fear mounts up as the hours and days pass. I can taste the emptiness and smell the silence.  Because of this, when not at meetings or visiting libraries, museums or art galleries, I tend to stay in the hotel, take my meals there, and wait for the next scheduled event to take place.  No conversations.  No human encounters. 

If someone gives me directions, when possible I ask them to write them down for me in big black letters or to mark out the route on a map with red ink, giving street names, metro station stops, clearly visible landmarks.  Then, while I keep checking my movement on the map or list of directions, I have to stop every few minutes to reassure myself by asking a policeman, a passer-by or a shopkeeper, someone who looks like they speak my language and shows some possible knowledge of the area.  I breathe in the words spoken.  This is the sum of social interactions. 

Once when I was doing this usual way of getting to know a strange city and had a newly found friend going with me, also a stranger, an older woman with a strong and pungent perfume, we had a disagreement.  I said that we had to walk straight ahead for two blocks and she said for only one and then turn left.  Before I could steady my nerves enough to provide a cogent reason why we should try my way first and then, if that were wrong, to return to this very spot and start off again in the way she suggested, she went off on her own—with a determined and quick pace.  She simply walked on and on leaving a quickly dissipating trail of scent, while I waited, trying to catch my breath and control my heart beats.  Some people have a great deal of self-confidence, and also very little patience with my quirky ways. 

Then, because the street was crowded and evening was coming on, she disappeared.  There were no longer any wisps of her perfume.  I forced myself to step out. But when I reached the corner, I stopped.  My new friend was still nowhere to be seen, her brightly colored dress was lost in the crowds and the shadows, though she said she would be turning left.

“Please,” I said to a man standing in front of a shop, “do you speak any English?”  He touched his hat and mumbled something which I took to be an affirmative reply, and so I asked him for such and such a street.  He pointed ahead, indicated the next corner, and then pointed to the right.  I could see the blinking red and green traffic lights.  Saying thank you to my helpful informant, I set out with a little more confidence, assuming somehow that my directions had been correct, and my friend, wherever she have disappeared to now, would be waiting for me at the address we were looking for.  In addition to the evening shadows, a light mist flowed through the streets. 

At the next corner, however, rather than turning right as the man in front of the shop had confirmed I should, I hesitated, stood still, examined the directions on the paper still clutched tightly in my hand, and waited.  I then saw a few paces away a policeman, clearly recognizable in his uniform, and especially by his cap.  Every country has its unique shape to police helmets, some round, some square, some triangular.  This man’s uniform was dark blue, his kepi a nearly silver shade of blue.  There was a little green and red  star in front.  I walked up to him, said as slowly and clearly as I could in the language I really did not know, that I wanted some directions and held out to him the paper and pointed to the address written in large letters at the top.  He did not seem very pleased to see me nor to have something strange pushed in front of him.  Probably in this city and in this country people did not casually go up to men in uniform and address them the way I had done.  He looked at the paper, took out his truncheon from his belt, pointed it towards the left, and said what I believe was “Go this way.”  The wind picked up.  Sharp needles pricked my face.

Though it did not at all seem right—as it was neither what I had assumed nor what my friend had suggested before she went off so abruptly—I felt obligated to follow the directions of the officer of the law.  I could see that the name of the street on the overhanging green sign and on some large public buildings was not the same as on the paper held in my hand, and the numbers were also way off the mark of the address I was looking for.  Moreover, my friend was still not visible.  The lights sparkled through the mist.  It smelled as though snow ere on its way.  Yet I felt compelled to go on a bit further.

Then I saw another policeman dressed in dark blue but with a blue and yellow helmet.  In fact, several officers, male and female, were walking in and out of building, and the first officer was carrying a large black rifle slung over his shoulder and seemed to be guarding this edifice, which I also now presumed to be a police station.  When I walked up to him, my approach was not now casual, as my nervousness was evident in my trembling and frightened look on my face, or so I assumed.  I could taste his raw suspicion.

“Please,” I said, and showed him my uncrumpled paper.

I don’t think he understood English, but now pointed with his free hand at the door at the top of the steps through which other officers were walking in and out.  Obediently I obeyed.  There seemed no alternative whatsoever. 

It was cool but dimly lit. There was an odor of something unpleasant in the air, a mixture of urine and disinfectant.  A wooden reception desk stood at the center of the entrance-hall.  It was rather small and one woman sat behind it.  She was reading a newspaper.  She wore a soft red dress and had long blond hair.  I walked up to her, held out my paper, and tried to smile an ingratiating smile and to seem calm. 

“Please,” I said.

 She took the address from me, holding it between her fingers, as though it were a piece of dog poo.  She looked at it.  She curled up her nose.

“You want something?” she said.  She spoke a sort of English.  Her breath was loaded with garlic.

“Please,” I said, “where is this address?”  I pointed to the words and numbers written at the top of the paper.  I smiled again.

“Who is for this address?” she said.  “Is this the person you know and who knows you?”

“Yes,” I said.  This time I didn’t smile.

“Give me passport,” she said.

I slid it across the desk, with its bright blue covers and the emblem of my country. Then she opened it, leaving it on the desk, and looked up and down at my photo and at me.  Her breath was heavy and it colored the space between us with a sickly palor.

“Here,” she said, sliding it back to me, “you go up and talk to man in first door.  Make a knock first.”

I turned away, mumbling my thanks.  The stairs were steep.  The wooden boards creaked as I climbed to the first floor.  A different stench filled my nostrils, the smell of tobacco.

When I knocked, a voice from within said something I could not understand.  I knocked again.  The voice became more threatening and angry.  I turned the knob and walked in.  It was dark.  A small lamp with a green shade sat on a desk piled with papers.

The voice looked at me.  It said something loud and motioned for me to sit down.  There was not enough light for me to see who was speaking.  The voice was that of a man, deep, thick, angry. The stench of old cigars formed a halo around the man.

I held out my crumpled paper and said, “Please.” 

He grabbed the paper out of my hand.  He said something which I didn’t understand.  I stared into the splotch of light and darkness where he was sitting. 

“Please,” I said, “it’s important for me—“

He banged his hand on the table.

Bang.

“No talk,” the voice said.  It banged the table again.

Everything became very quiet.  The greenish glare from the lamp on the desk was shrouded with mist.  I felt as though I were in some strange dream.

He picked up a phone on his desk.  He made strange noises, his voice somewhat less rough as the conversation went on.  Then he put down the receiver.  He looked at me and his face shone through the vague and now very reddish mist, so that it almost appeared human. 

“You downstairs go,” his voice said.  He slid the passport back across to me, pointed at the door and repeated, “Downstairs go you please.”

So when I got downstairs again, there was my friend waiting for me.  This woman who had seemed to walk away from me, left me alone to face the madness of a strange city, was there.  She explained that there were two streets with very similar names and that I had misread the paper.  When she arrived at the proper destination, my contact there understood immediately what had happened.  He called around, and was told at the police station I was there.  No one had known who I was or what I wanted, but it was all clear now.  Not to worry.  Well, to say I was humiliated and felt deeply ashamed—I am sure I blushed a bright red—would be an  understatement. 

Outside the air had cleared.  There were a few flakes of snow falling.  The bright moon was shining down on the streets, the city, the world.  

“I will take you to the address now,” my friend said.  “The right one.  Don’t worry.”  

She put her arm in mine and we walked together around the corner.  Her scent was  pleasant.

Tomorrow would be another day.