Chapter Twenty Five – Take Me Home Country Roads


To them Munich was large, modern and faceless. Sonthofen was the opposite in every way. Shizuku had never seen it. As it was such a small town, she'd found no good images of it from her web searches. But as the Volkswagen came over a rise and started its descent she needed no map to tell her they'd arrived. It was Luisa's description alone that she had in her head and it was a good one. There were farms on the sides of the low valley above the town with green fields below and even black and white cows. But in the bottom of the valley was a picture postcard place today surely not much bigger than when Luisa and Falco had scared the locals in his car. The buildings clustered around a single bridge over the river and even though it looked like a modern replacement (the war again maybe?) Shizuku could feel the old lady here. The buildings were half timbered and did indeed look like they were made from ginger bread. There were a couple of churches and while at first she'd not understood Luisa's odd phrase 'onion dome', now she knew exactly what she'd meant. At the top of the straight sided, white painted towers of these Bavarian churches, were strange small domes, probably of wood framing and either eight or sixteen sides, sheathed in copper with a stubby spire, atop which commonly sat a weathervane or less usually, a cross. The oxidized copper turned green and they looked exactly like green skinned onions.

They stopped in a car park by the bridge and got out to stretch their legs. They walked along a riverside path and ate a snack lunch at a café. Seiji got out his new digital camera and took pictures. Shizuku could send them by e-mail to their parents and Yuko as soon as they got an internet connection set up in their apartment.

The journey from Munich had taken less time than the map had suggested. They had thought they might make a night stop here but it was still early afternoon and since there was nothing to investigate on the ground they decided to press on south. Unfortunately while Luisa's description of her time here was vibrant it had no geographical details since Shizuku that day had had no large scale map with which to try and pin down the reminiscences. The Trommler farm could have been any one of half a dozen or so on either the north or south side of the valley. It was strange to be in these places, walking the soil where a voice was leading them, to be here and yet not to know where they should look.

Seiji took them south. The land was rising, always rising. The valleys became narrower and pine trees crowded down in places to the roadway, to watch them pass. Small tumbling streams went under the road, the bridges sometimes being small arches which Seiji accelerated across making the car fly and bounce down on the other side while Shizuku squealed with excitement. She led them off the main highways and they now entered a secret world. Now this was Bavaria. Some happy, jolly music was on the radio and as they drove they sang along to the tunes they knew. From time to time Shizuku played air guitar, or the dashboard became her drum kit. It was warm and they wound the windows down and let the summer breeze blow their Munich depression away. The roads grew steeper yet and began to wind around corners, Seiji shifted down gears and they would creep around woodland turns to come across small timber farms where the cows at the fences watched them stupidly as they passed. Her finger crept across map, the villages became smaller and clung to steeper hillsides, she led them through many turns and side roads confidently onwards. The afternoon drew down and the sun began to sink on their right hand, at times in the steeper valleys they'd be in gloom and dusk only to come out onto some higher place a few minutes later to be met by a blaze of golden light as the rays of glory hit them, and lit up the hillsides on their left. A sign was ahead. OBERSTDORF. They passed it and Seiji brought the car to a stop. He got out. Shizuku wondered what he was doing. She looked back and watched him go past the sign again and then photograph it. She smiled, heh, he's hooked now too. The thought skipped happily across her mind. He got back in the car.

"Everything alright?"
"Sure," he replied, "just one for the album."
"Wait – what's this?" she turned up the volume on the radio, "hey!"

Olivia Newton-John singing Take Me Home Country Roads. Seiji sat behind the wheel, his gaze meeting hers and they linked together in the strangeness of the co-incidence.

"Turn it up."

She did so. He drove on, and they sang at the tops of their voices as they entered the town. He took them on four circuits of the large central market square – the marktplatz while they sang the song to the end. He parked the car, the engine died.

"Ooh, the hairs on my neck are standing up. That was weird."
"Mm, quite a co-incidence," he said, "Good though. Is that a good omen?"
"Yes, I think so. Come on."

The light was fading as they walked around the town. They just wandered randomly about for an hour soaking up its atmosphere. This was a bigger place than the villages they'd been through during the afternoon. It was old, that much was obvious, and it still seemed to face toward its heritage rather be turning towards the future like many other places. Farming was clearly still the main occupation of the area and here there were small industries and of course tourism had taken a hold – this was the Bavarian Alps, one of the prettiest places in Germany, and many people came here for the walking and climbing. They found shops selling painted wooden toys and bakeries and a tannery where leather was worked. There were cake shops (Shizuku decided she'd need to check those out properly tomorrow) and a lovely town hall and a church. As it grew dark and places were shutting they returned to the car and went up the front steps of a half-timbered gasthaus that faced the marktplatz. Fortunately for them the owner spoke good English, with an American accent, and they booked a room for two nights, unloaded their gear and went to find a restaurant. What they found was more of a bar and it was full of elderly Americans who were on a walking holiday. They ate and had a few drinks and the alcohol broke down the barriers. One of the American men, an ancient old guy who introduced himself as Carl, came across and asked if they would mind some company. His opening was that hackneyed old line, "Hey, are you guys Japanese by any chance?" Seiji had heard this before in Italy and each time it happened he was tempted to deny it and reply in his best Klingon. But Carl was very friendly. It turned out he'd been based at Kobe after the war. He had been an army engineer and had spent some years on rebuilding things that his fellow soldiers had so recently destroyed. He knew Tokyo slightly and it transpired that, like so many American soldiers after the war, he'd married a Japanese lady but she had died a couple of years back. He was now, with his sons friends and some of his old army buddies, walking the valleys here (just the flatter ones, he'd said with a smile). He asked them what they were doing in Oberstdorf and Shizuku had replied that they were looking for a certain house, a lady they knew had been born here, in 1917 and had left during the war.

"The war eh? Well that's something I can help you with. Have you found the museum yet? No? OK, go up the hill here on the south side of the market place and take the first left and the museum is about 50 yards down on your right. There's a little square there. You can't miss it."
"Thank you, yes, we'll certainly take a look tomorrow."
"My pleasure."

He was a jolly person and it was good to relax and stop worrying about their journey ahead for a few hours.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

9th and 11th - 12th January 2007

For author notes about chapter 25 see my forum (click on my pen name)