THE CORRUPTION OF RUDI RIESENKAMPF (part 4 of 4)

THE CORRUPTION OF RUDI RIESENKAMPF (part 4)

 

Roy and Larry decided they wouldn't complete the whole tour of the bars – planning at some point to slip off to somewhere quiet to smoke a spliff – alcohol wasn't really their thing. They would remain naughty boys another year, joked Larry. And they told Rudi he should take it easy on the drink, pointing out the evening could be a another long one.

Every drinking hole they visited was becoming more and more crowded with more drunken and louder chair
carrying groups coming and going. Their group of young men seemed really happy to have them with them, they all slapped them on their backs and encouraged them to join in with their fun. And they seemed happy that the strangers were getting them noticed by all the other groups parading the town, Rudi had whole heartedly thrown himself into it, and was the centre of attraction in his exotic dress and clownish dancing. However it was becoming less and less interesting
for Roy and Larry.

At one point there were so many groups at one place, that they completely lost their young men – they all looked the same in their bright colours – they looked around for Rudi, but they couldn't see him either. They wandered around among different groups, at different bars, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Well, they thought, it was only a matter of time before they would find him – he stood out like a sore thumb. They would find him later in the square...

'That's enough of this shop,' said Roy. And they headed for the river to blow a joint. They really needed a break from the alcohol, the crowds and the noise, before heading on to the main square to find the others.

Down by the river they edged under a bridge to be out of sight, and sat on some concrete blocks. Their voices and the water running over stones echoed. It was dark, quiet and cool like a cave. In the twilight below the curve of the bridge, they could see the full moon on the horizon spying on them.

Their heads were swimming from the alcohol. However, the spliff Larry quickly made, soon brought their minds to a state they could handle.

They splashed their faces with water from the river, which was cold and refreshing. They talked and laughed about the antics of Rudi...

'He just came out the blue, didn't he...'

'Like a UFO!'

'From the planet of broken toys!'

'A Nijinski doll!'

'Very Dr. Jykle and Mr. Hyde... and both larger than life.'

'I see him as a kind of Mowgli or Pan. I have this image of him as a goatherd pipping his flock in Greek glades.

'More like Icarus taking a dip.'

'Saint Francis the hapless.'

'The keeper of the key has mislaid it.'

The moon looked hard and bright, but its reflection on the slow flowing water shimmered and was softened. They took long sucks on the spliff  and passed it to one another. Coils of brown-blue smoke rose. A light breeze blow across their smiles.

'You know,' said Larry, 'I've been trying to figure out his subtext. Where he's going with it... I mean, on a thermometer that measures craziness he's gone from cold
sober to red hot maniac.'

'Sheer foolery of his own mythology... a blowing fake if ever I've seen one. Did you see him go for that meat... like a dog!'

'But, Roy, do you think we've been a bad influence on him...? I mean... he's really dirtied down... from muesli to booze. Maybe you shouldn't have passed him that joint
that night after the storm...'

'Oh, so it's my fault is it? Well, he looked to me as if he need it... Control and agency, Larry? I think not... He didn't need any holding back, did he? '

'Or maybe it began when he lost his sheep in the sand storm... Maybe the
sand blinded him – sand in the brain. but then again, the locals
think we are all pretty weird objects...

'I think Rudi is more lost than his sheep.'

'He's now showing as much flexibility as his famous bamboo, ha ha!'

'Rudi's world just seems so accidental. But, I think he's a man of masks and persona; an irrepressible performer, or rather, a stuntman... he's never far from the stage... And we cynical villainous characters, Larry... tried joking him out of all that nonsense, didn't we?'

'So you think it's just of itself, then...?'

'How do you mean?'

'No one to blame, or what if his bamboo house had stood that night, would he still be clean?'

'Well, that's all black and white, and lazy thinking... I think he conceals more than he shows. He's probably been shutting himself off from so much for so long... I mean no one can say who people really are... In everyone
there's a vanishing point that no one can see beyond. We are many messy paradoxes... like Dylan Thomas says, ''contradictory complementarity''. The contradictions compliment one another...

But I don't know, man. I mean, what the fuck was he doing in the desert... was he running away from himself?'

'Yeah, maybe you're right... it was just a combination of everything... and underneath he probably has all these squirming worms... It was probably just a matter of
time... like slowly boiling a frog... It's ironic, though, that it
was two storms that twice brought him to a nemesis; first, the loss of his sheep-friends and his way of life, and now the loss of his principles... he's really under the weather.' Larry laughed. 'But maybe it's a destructive-creation-thing, you know; he destroys to
start again'

'Yeah, and just for the sake of neatness he's gone the whole hog with this carnival of excess.'

'Will you write about him, Roy?'

'No... but I'll exchange him with this guy I know back in Blighty...

'What?'

'He'll give me a character he can't use, and I'll give him, our Rudi...

'So mercenary, Roy...

'Ho, he'll be in better hands with him than he would be with me... I'd do open scull surgery on him, expose his self treachery... This guy I know likes to leave all
that to the reader...'

They laughed, and seemed to contemplate this for a few moments...

'Well, our Rudi will be as the proverbial newt by now!'

'We should smooth him out, and take him back to Rome with us...'

'Ah, then he will be as crazy as some kind of Saint Francis!'

Roy made another spliff for later, then left for the square.

 

The square had become really crowded. They strolled slowly among the mass of colours of the many different costumes, their eyes searching for a glimpse of Antonella or Rudi. Faces turned and followed them as they passed. Speeches were being made on the stage, which was also thronged with people in all kinds of colourful national dresses.

Strange haunting voices suddenly emitted from the stage – throat singers, sounding like didgeridoos. The sound seemed to start somewhere deep inside the singers, then creep and scrape its way up from their throats like ancient lizards. Roy and Larry stopped in their tracks. This music's strangeness captured them. The choir on the stage consisted of maybe
twenty men. Many of the singers were old, others were younger. The older ones sat on chairs in a line, while the younger ones stood behind them. The scene was like some Renaissance painting with the fabrics of the backdrops and the clothes of the performers. The voices seemed to mix with the colours, carrying them around the square. The sound was complex; dichotomous and layered into overlapping parts, a was sung by different sections of the choir. One layer began and swelled just before another slowly diminished, which
created a kind of continuum of waves. The guttural sound also
vibrated through the listener's diaphragm and head. Roy and Larry spent the next hour transfixed. Their minds and bodies captured and responding to the slow gyre, until the magnetic music finished.

They now slowly continued their search among the crowd for Antonella and Rudi. They thought maybe they had found each other and gone off to a bar. The evening was so warm, they felt sure they would be outside rather than inside, so they began scanning the tables on the terraces of the bars. But after about an hour they hadn't found them, and they decided to go back to the tent.

On their way out-of-town they saw Antonella in the moonlight coming towards them. When she saw them she ran to them, throwing herself into Roy's arms, sobbing. For a few minutes she was unable to answer their questions because of her sobbing. They took her to the side of the road and sat her down on the grass. She managed to get a little control of her voice, but through sobs she told them what had happened.

Rudi had gone berserk. She had come across him in the square, being dragged away by the Police. He was struggling with them, screaming and shouting like a mad man. She
tried to talk to him and the police, but the situation was so chaotic neither acknowledged her. She followed them after they had handcuffed him and dragged him away. At the police station she spoke with the police in Italian, and told them he was with her, and that he had only drunk too much, but he really wasn't dangerous. They told her he had been jumping around and knocking people over in the square. Rudi had now seemed to have calmed down, he was quiet, he sat at a desk
with his head in his cuffed hands. She finally persuaded the police to let her take responsibility for him, and take him back to the tent, where he could sleep it off. So they took off the handcuffs, and she led him away.

She tried talking to him as she helped him walk back to the tent, but he only began shouting again in German, and would not look at her or speak to her directly. She managed to get him back and into the tent, but he would not be quiet. He only screamed and babbled in German. His eyes looked crazy. She went outside the tent for a while, thinking he might fall to sleep. When he was quieter she went back in. He began staring at her strangely, speaking in German in a low angry voice. When she tried to get him to drink some water, he
knocked the bottle violently from her hand, and sprang at her
,grabbing her and trying to kiss her. She began talking to him,
trying to hold him back, and trying to get out of the tent, but he
tightened his grip on her. He pushed her back and held her down. He was trying to get on top of her, pulling at her clothes. She panicked and began screaming, and frantically struggling. She beat him with her fists and kicked out at him with all he might. Finally she managed to edge and shuffle her way out the tent flap on her back, and then get free of him. She ran off into the darkness. She had been heading back to town when she saw them.

Roy threw into a rage and wanted to go back immediately and have a show down with him, but Antonella held onto him and pleaded with him not to, saying it would not do any good – Rudi was too far gone, and she really didn't want to see him right now. Better to let him sleep it off, better to find a place so she could just clam down... So they walked back to the town, and found a small bar on the outskirts of town, not occupied by revellers. Roy ordered brandies for the three of them. They sat quietly, saying very little. Antonella cried silently sometimes. Roy held her hand.

After an hour or so, and a few more brandies, Anotonella still didn't want to go back to the tent. So they walked into town to the main square. The crowd had now thinned out. A few couples were still dancing to the slow music being
played from the stage. They sat down at the tables placed around the square and ordered beers. Antonella still seemed lost; the shock of her experience. Roy suddenly stood up took her hand and pulled her to her feet. 'Come on, let's dance.' She resisted a little, but let herself be led into the thin throng of couples. Roy held her in his arms. They swayed and swayed long to the music. She held him closer to her. They clung to each other very tight, and she buried her warm,
wet face against his. While Larry looked on as they swayed and swayed.

On their way back to the tent they went down to the river under the bridge, where Roy and Larry had been earlier, and they shared the large spliff Roy had built. Antonella made Roy and Larry swear they wouldn't get into any violence with Rudi. But it was decided they should tell him what they thought of him before parting company. They should pack up in the morning and head back to the coast. They could take it easy for a couple of days by the sea before heading off to Calgari to meet Angelo. But when they got back to the tent, Rudi had
gone, he had taken his stuff and disappeared.

The next day they packed up and left. Walked into town to take the bus. For the rest of their stay in Sardinia they constantly thought they might come across Rudi again. But they didn't. They met up with Angelo and had another nine days of blissful roaming around the West
Coast before returning to Rome and their crazy lives. They told
Angelo about the strange character they had met, and his strange behaviour and departure. But Angelo was just happy that nothing worse had happened to Antonella, and he seemed not amused with their story of the corruption of Rudi Riesenkampf.

 

Berlin
2014