Hello... I Love You! Good Bye!

By Steve Reichstein

A humorous and thought-provoking narration filled with wonderfully written observations about the places, people, societies, and situations that the author encountered during his journey around the world. Reflecting the adventurous spirit of the time, this book is surprisingly serious, funny, and entertaining at the same time. With heart-warming narration, the book takes its readers through the feelings of grief and longing for companionship, weaving a tapestry of genuine characters and heartfelt moments.
Embark on a magical and mysterious journey of love and lust!
• Showcases observations on different types of people, places, and situations.
• A tale that'll resonate with readers deeply.
• Gripping narration.
• Engaging characters.
• Reflects the adventurous spirit of time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fingerprint Publishing
• Release date: Dec 1, 2009
• ISBN: 9789358561296

Book preview

To my wife and two daughters

and

anyone who has loved

List of Photographs

Prologue

Chapter One: Awakening—Europe

Chapter Two: Differences—The Middle East to Afghanistan

Chapter Three: Life Lessons—South Asia to Bombay

Chapter Four: Complications—Bombay, Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia

Chapter Five: Anomie—Asia: Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and Japan

Chapter Six: Home

Epilogue

The author in Amsterdam, Holland

Pedestrian street, Copenhagen, Denmark

Harbor and walls, Dubrovnik, Croatia (ex-Yugoslavia)

The Blue Mosque, Istanbul, Turkey

Trajan's Kiosk, partially submerged, Lake Nasser, Egypt

Winter street scene, Kabul, Afghanistan

Three girls and their father, Shah Cheragh Mosque, Shiraz, Iran

Two women at entrance to Shah Cheragh Mosque, Shiraz, Iran

The Golden Temple of the Sikhs, Amritsar, India

Saffron market, Banares, India

The Taj Mahal, Agra, India

Erotic sculpture, detail from temple, Khajuraho, India

Fakir novice wearing a kavadi cage of steel pins, Singapore

Orgy scene from a temple frieze, Khajuraho, India

Stone warrior and Thai monks, Wat Po, Bangkok, Thailand

The South Gate entranceway to Angkor Thom, Cambodia

I am a quiet person by nature. Writing this memoir has allowed me to tell my story in a form that could be shared and enjoyed by many.

Most names have been changed, along with some identifying information, in order to protect the privacy of individuals. I have invented one scene between Julie and me in order to provide a clearer narrative structure and my letters are reconstructions of what I may have written.

I want to thank: Hayes Jacobs, former Chairman of the New School's Writing Program for his confidence building critiques of my early work; the author Brian Morton for his long and generous reviews as I struggled to tell my stories; and the author Bill Roorbach, whose excellent editorial advice helped me improve the manuscript.

I also want to thank Joyce Greenfield, founder of the Hunter Critique Group, for her many suggestions and the following Group members for their comments: Mike Vota, Barbara Schoenberg, Tom Pryor, Liz Ostoloza, Joe Molnar, Constance Mitchell, Barbara Lifton, Arthur Ingerman, and Mary Eagen.

Special thanks to Dr. Ada Nicolescu and Natalia Nikova for their encouragement and advice; the late Nancy Cooper for her wit and insights— she'll be sorely missed; Dennis Crumbine for his help and computer savvy in preparing the manuscript; Steve Suckenik for his unswerving faith in the book and his brother Harold Suckenik for his lawyerly assistance.

Special thanks to my wife for her support during the many years of writing and thanks also to the many friends who were subjected to excerpts at various parties and readings.

Her deep sighs and contented look said all I needed to know. I was giving her as much pleasure as she was giving me. A back massage wasn't sex, but in the fall of 1962 it was the closest I'd gotten to Julie. And each smooth, sliding stroke relieved my own anxieties. I was a Northerner in Nashville—constantly reminded that I was in Rebel territory. When I moved to the South a few months before, I'd mistakenly believed that the Civil War had ended.

I was living in Tennessee's capital, a place where God's presence was announced daily by a host of radio evangelists, a place where honor and duty were sacred virtues. Ethnic diversity was non-existent; there was black and there was white. It was a place where your kinfolk and their length of residence in Tennessee counted for much. Other than work, shopping and family, there wasn't a lot to do—married couples kept to their own kind and singles hoped to meet the right person. The big music and recording scene—and a loosening of the country's sexual mores—was still in the future. Me, I was looking to do good works.

In his 1961 inaugural speech President Kennedy said Americans should Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country. My recently earned Master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania, the top planning school in the country, gave me the ability to help people build better cities. And what better place to help than Nashville, a city concerned with its future but still stuck in the past. Fired with idealism and free of any romantic attachments, I left Greenwich Village, family, and friends to take a job with Nashville's planning department. I found an apartment near Vanderbilt University, off West End Avenue, an easy commute to the agency's offices on Lafayette Street. However, I discovered rather quickly that I was not hired to make policy, reshape the city, or to use planning as a social engineering tool. My job was to prepare a master plan for parks. As one local Councilman put it, Son, the mayor and councilmen are elected by the people to represent them, everyone else is just a hired hand.

I also realized that I lacked the indispensable ability to develop a blind eye. Eight years had passed since the Supreme Court had unanimously ruled that segregation was illegal. Yet, a Black friend and I were denied service at a downtown Nashville restaurant. If we wanted to eat together, we were advised, we'd have to use the cafeteria at Vanderbilt University. I realized that making changes in Nashville would mean changing policies, which would mean changing minds, the entrenched way of looking at things. Progress would be slow. Would small victories in the limited planning sphere be worth the time I'd have to spend, the battles I'd have to fight? A master plan for parks might take two years to do—and there was no certainty that when completed it would be approved. As summer turned to fall, I felt I wasn't going to improve anyone's life. I certainly hadn't improved my own.

It was about this time that a neighbor told me that some students had recently moved into our building on Louise Street. She said that one of them was a real good looker. The sixteen apartments in our two-storey building housed mostly singles, including some women students who roomed together while attending the nearby medical technician's school. There was a lot of partying, and that pretty much fit in with the prevailing local attitude, which was that apartment living was not for decent, stable, hard-working folks. One morning I noticed two young women in the stairwell walking down from the floor above. One, dressed all in white, was animated. Her voice was strong but not loud, her walk lively, almost buoyant. Her facial expression, framed by her brunette hair and dark tan, was an engaging mixture of openness, inquisitiveness and warmth. Our eyes met—for a moment longer than courtesy required. We both smiled, embarrassed that we were consciously evaluating one another. As we passed, she waved a few fingers in my direction and said, Hi-ya.

Julie and Gail turned out to be friendly—they never even locked their door. Coming from New York City, I was fascinated by their trust. It seemed to take only a knock to be admitted to Julie's world—so different from my world of facts, analysis and painstakingly cautious decision-making. Her open door opened my eyes to the world of young Southern women— their sorority-sisterlike bonding, their carefree spirits, their crushes, their boyfriends, their coyness, and their disappointments. Julie was twenty-one, three years older than her schoolmates, and recently divorced.

Maybe it was the fifth week after we'd met. By then we'd had a few brief conversations and a quick peek into each other's apartment. I remember it was a weekend. I had nothing to do and, feeling lonesome, I knocked on her door. She opened it barefoot, wearing Bermuda shorts and a sweater. Her surprised look turned to a smile. You'd like to come in? Sure. She had been writing in a small green book. Oh this? it's my diary. Notes on my dreary life. She took a seat on the couch, her legs tucked under her. She occasionally winced as we chatted and I asked if she was in pain. Honey chile, she said, laying on a thick accent, my daddy said that pain is good for the soul and for the soul's moral development. And she added, mockingly, And boy, is my soul in good shape?

The poor girl! Do you want me to rub it where it hurts? I asked.

Sure, she said, and rose from the couch. But you're going to have to see one ugly-looking back. You have an older sister, don't you, Steve? I said yes and she said, Good, then there's nothing to hide. She turned away and pulled her pink sweater over her head, somehow leaving her arms in the sleeves and the sweater across her chest. She lay facedown on the couch. That took maybe three seconds, but it was enough! A white bra too, just like Janet Leigh in Psycho. She actually purred when I began to gently rub. Her skin was firm, smooth, and soon my fingers began playing their way up her back. That's when I noticed she had had some type of major operation—there was a large scar that ran parallel to the length of her spine.

Oh that? Just a little itty-bitty operation I had when I was a kid. Kept me in the hospital awhile, actually, a long time—months.

You were very brave.

That's what all the doctors and nurses said, but I couldn't wait to get out. They were spoiling me. The less I complained the more praise I got. I loved all the attention, but it ruined me.... Oh, that's just the right spot, Steve, keep your hands working there.

A couple of weekends later I, again, found myself alone and went up to see her. Would she be studying or talking on her cute new Princess telephone, pure white? Neither. While the hit tune Telstar—a tribute to the Russian-American space race—played on the radio in the background, I was ushered in and reintroduced to Julie's school chum, Beth. I once mentioned to Beth that I'd heard that Tennessee's public schools ranked so poorly nationally that local school administrators were fond of saying, Thank heaven for Mississippi. Beth didn't think it was funny, Not one bit. It didn't take very long before she had picked an argument with me— You Northerners think you're better than us, don't you!—that I foolishly tried to respond to. I made one retort and was beginning a second when a pillow hit me in the head. Another pillow hit Beth in the chest.

I declare war on both of you, Julie shouted gleefully.

Surprised, Beth and I began to laugh and soon we were all flinging pillows at one another. When I suddenly found I had no pillow to throw, I made exaggerated boxing jabs with my arms, flailing at the open space but advancing on Julie who had an arsenal of pillows at her feet. She didn't retreat and when I lightly tapped her on the arm with an open fist she hit me hard.

I made an exaggerated cry of pain and crumpled facedown onto the couch. She ran over to me, saying, I'm sorry, I'm sorry and gave me a kiss on the back of the neck. I turned in time to see her withdraw, her fingers over her lips and an anxious what have I done look replacing the playful expression of a moment ago.

After we had put everything back into place, Julie smiled and said, Well that was interesting! But it isn't helping my study habits any so the two of y'all had better git and let me be.

I'd seen Julie read people before and change the dynamic. She was no poor little ole country girl as she sometimes called herself. But her pains, the pain of surgery that she controlled with pills and the pain of divorce that she hid through partying, were real. She was struggling. My husband walked out on me and didn't want to see me, she bewilderedly confessed one day. I still don't know why he left me—it's hell being punished and not knowing why.

After months of feeling alone and useless in Nashville, I'd suddenly found a purpose. I became her confidant. She talked to me, the friendly neighbor, the older, supposedly experienced man. I loved my new role. I empathized. I listened. Ad hoc, I was becoming a social worker like my mother. And the more Julie shared her feelings, the more I wanted to help, to the point that I felt that she might not be able to achieve her goals without me. The fact that she was good looking, and looked great in the tight sweaters she often wore, only increased my desire—to be helpful.

When her school recessed for Christmas, she left Nashville for Lexington to spend the holiday with her Mom and Dad. I got her okay to visit.

This is the scene I remember: I was at her parents' house, the darkness of the winter evening had just enveloped the sky, and we were in her bedroom dancing slowly, arm-in-arm, to the haunting melody from Breakfast at Tiffany's. We stopped. I drew her to me and lightly kissed the soft skin of her eyelids, inhaled the sweet smell of her body, kissed her chin, lingered at her throat, then worked down to her chest, kissing, through her sweater, the uppermost part of each breast. With my fingers I traced her smile along her wide, moist lips, then the outline of her nose, circling each nostril, then felt the lids of her closed eyes, then stroked her eyebrows until, finally, my fingers rested on her warm cheeks. I could not linger. In the dim light, I moved my hand from her face to her shoulder, down her side, then to her waist, slipping my fingers underneath her sweater and slowly moving my hand up to the center of her back. She breathed in and held me more tightly. I absorbed the feel of her body. I touched the clasp of her bra...

No, we mustn't, she said. Mom and Dad are in the next room.

She squiggled, put her hands on my chest and pushed herself from my embrace.

Now we were supposed to be dancing, weren't we? she said teasingly, her eyes surprisingly luminous in the dimly lit room.

Isn't this nicer? I said, and gently pulled her towards me.

She put the side of her head on my chest as my arms folded over her, sighed and was still a moment. She said something I didn't quite hear. She turned her head so her face looked right into mine, gave me a peck on the chin, rubbed her nose playfully against mine, pushed herself away, tugged her sweater down at the waist, brushed her hands over her chest and then over her hair and said:

I think it's time y'all left and got going, Yankee.

I wondered what she was she thinking and feeling. She moved about the room so quickly and purposefully, turning on additional lights, straightening out the furniture; I moved slowly, laden painfully, perspiration appearing suddenly on my forehead. I didn't want the lights so bright, I didn't want the moment to end.

You're walking funny. What's the matter? she said and suddenly cupped her hand over her mouth, stifling a giggle, a mischievous smile spreading across her face. Well, if y'all are going to get that excited just dancing, I guess it's a good thing we stopped when we did.

Kidding, I made a hurt face and said, You're so mean to me Miss Scarlett O'Hara.

It's your own fault, I can't be responsible if men can't control their own bodies, she said with an air of false solemnity. Now I'm going to open up the door and we're going to be with Mom and Dad. Goodness, they must think we've been doing something awful in this gloomy room.

When she returned to Nashville, we began to spend more time together. One night, as we drove home from a date, she shyly began singing, Getting to Know You. She said I shouldn't read anything into her choice of song— she just liked the words. I smiled. I knew better. Another time, she came to my apartment and after scanning the bookshelf remarked, I haven't seen so many good books in years. She said she was sorry she'd dropped out of the University of Kentucky. I thought it would be wonderful if she wanted to try it again. When I looked at her I saw a brave, determined face. When I looked into her eyes, I saw pain. I promised myself to help her get another chance.

Two months and several dates later, at a party in her apartment, we once again danced arm in arm in a dimly lit room. She looked so pretty, her body supple, her chest against mine. I breathed in the hint of perfume at the nape of her neck. I knew that it was too soon to speak the words forming in my mind, but propelled by a mixture of desire to help and desire for her, I heard myself say,

Julie, I love you and want to marry you.

She stopped dancing. She shuddered. Her eyes glistened. Silent, she turned and walked away.

We didn't see one another for several weeks. When at last we met my ill-chosen words were still on my mind.

We stood in the hallway. I tried to explain, but as soon as I said the word love she became agitated. Better you hit me than tell me you love me. I don't want love! I've been divorced only a few months. I want time for myself. I want to have fun and I want friends. I can live a long time without any more love! I'd never seen her angry. I was speechless. Steve, it's over. This is the end of me seeing you. Thanks for all the things you've done for me. You're a nice person . . . She hesitated, and added, I could never have a happy relationship with you. Head bent, she hurried off.

I heard her words—and ignored them. I felt neither sadness nor anger, only the need to convince her to change her mind. I simply couldn't let it end. I'd been happy. I slipped a letter under her door.

Dearest Julie,

I want to thank you for the happiest months I've ever known. I can't forget all the things we did together: The Grand Ole Opry, the Nashville Ballet, the tour of Vanderbilt University, Printers Alley and Little Richard (remember when he got on top of the piano?), the Art Museum and Gardens at Cheekwood Mansion, ice skating, going to a movie, taking a drive, going to church and afterwards eating out, dining and dancing at the Executive Club (you danced so well).

Do you remember the everyday things we did? You washing and me drying dishes, you straightening out and me hanging up your uniforms (I told you we could get all forty of them on the shower curtain rod); spending a quiet, lazy Sunday afternoon at your side; or even brushing your hair. I've never had that kind of relationship with anyone. There's an old saying that when one person lives in a dream world he is ill but when two people are able to share a single dream they are in love.

You've shown me how good it is to be able to respect and have faith in someone else. Thanks for the good times. I'll always remember that they were with you.

As ever,

Steve

I don't know if my letter touched her in some way, or we each had gotten something out of the relationship, or she didn't want to hurt me, but after a few weeks we began again to talk. It wasn't over! But she absolutely prohibited me—upon pain of banishment—from expressing my feelings for her. She did not want to hear or be involved with anyone that made demands on her heart. I could be a friend or a big brother but nothing closer. I understood that it would take time to win her love and agreed to play the role allotted to me. To do so, I had to repress my feelings—ignore her fun-loving, impish ways, not react to the occasional touch of her hand on mine.

We resumed most of our former routine over the next several months, chatting and going out with her friends, but we avoided physical contact except for a kiss goodnight before we went to our separate apartments.

In early summer, I received a letter from friends who were temporarily living in Canada, an Australian couple I'd met while working in New York City in 1961, asking if I would like to travel with them through Europe, Asia and then on to their home in Sydney. The cost would be split three ways. What a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! How tempting! I had majored in geography in