The Neighbors
A terrible argument between a man and woman from the room next door woke me on my first morning as an Army bride in Stuttgart. My husband had already left for the base where he played trumpet with the 82nd Army band. The yelling stopped followed by a knock on my door.
I was terrified to answer, terrified not to. Answering won.
I opened the door. A huge couple spoke in rapid German.
I didn't understand.
I burst into tears.
They switched to English. Regina explained that her husband was an actor: she was helping him rehearse before she went to work as a secretary for Disney.
Sunday the four of us went for a walk splurging on a hot chocolate.
Das Zimmer
Our room held two twin beds that could be disguised as couches, a round table, four chairs and der Shrank for our clothes. All looked like antiques. The rug was probably Persian. Gold-framed paintings pictured bucolic scenes.
We entered our room through a hall twice the size of the room with six doors leading to the two other rental rooms, a toilet, an alleged kitchen and the living quarters of our landlords, Frau and Herr Theissen.
The toilet was two steps from the entrance. Frau Theissen forbid us to use American toilet paper, insisting we use the torn scraps from the Stuttgarter Zeitung. The newspaper regularly clogged the toilet.
Double the size of the toilet room, it had a sink with cold water, a hot plate and an electric coil to heat water. No stove. The refrigerator was the window sill. Frau Theissen would bustle in whenever I was in the kitchen and open the window so the stink would not go into her living area. Regina said she never did it with her.
Die Strasssenbahn
Each morning, I left at the same time to go my German lessons on the base. The tram stop was outside me door and always had the same conductor.
"Der Hauptbahnhof," I would say.
"Der Bahnhof," he'd correct and give me the small square paper ticket.
The next day I'd try "Der Bahnhof," only to be corrected to "Hauptbahnhof." This went on for several mornings until I said, "Hauptbahnhof oder Bahnhof." He laughed.
The next morning he said, Der Hauptbahnhof oder Bahnhof?"
"Der Zwei," I said, the two. It became a game with smiles for all future rides.
German Lessons and Library
The army offered free intensive German lessons. I'd pick up a glazed doughnut and coffee and spend the rest of the day battling with verbs and declensions. I finished before my husband so I would wait in the library, a joyous place for me. Often my German teacher would join me. He was a Spec4, from Chicago with an English Lit masters. His plan was to go on for his Ph.D. and teach literature at a university.
I had left university as an English major to marry but wanted to finish my degree as much as I wanted to breathe.
We would whisper conversations about books and movies being shown at the base 's Jayhawk theater at a cost of 25 cents, affordable even on our limited budget.
The Accident
One of the band's sergeants took my husband, his wife and me on a drive on Die Autobahn in his new-to-him black Mercedes sedan. It was wunderbar until a car smashed into our trunk pushing the car under a truck. Miraculously we were neither hurt nor beheaded. The sergeant kept crying about his car until we were extricated.
Having no money for decorations, I pasted my red roller hair curlers in a Christmas tree formation on our mirror and created a garland of safety pins.
I'd planned to heat a can of chicken and a can of peas and open a can of cranberry sauce for our dinner. Fortunately, one of the sergeants wives invited us to a real Christmas dinner.
Washing
My husband was able to shower on base. I had to heat water with the coil and do the best I could to be clean. My fantasy was a bath or maybe a shower depending on the day.
As for washing our clothes, fortunately we could use the base's facilities.
The Final Straw
My husband and I had come home early and fallen asleep before dinner not waking until evening when it was dark. We woke to a flashlight and footsteps walking through our room. We watched Herr Theissen going through our papers. The next day we found a new apartment.
The Better Studio
The new flat was in an apartment building on the second floor. It had a small living room with a fold-out couch, a kitchen with a gas stove and a mini-fridge. Because tap water ran through a heater that lit from the water pressure, we had constant hot water and most importantly it had a bathtub and a toilet paper holder for normal toilet paper.
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