Holy Fire - Bruce Sterling [38]
Someone spoke to her, right at her elbow. She turned, looking away from the steeple penitents. “What?” she said.
And there stood a young good-looking guy in a sheepskin jacket and sheepskin pants—basically, in fact, the guy was wearing an entire sheep, included the tanned and eyeless head, which was part of his jacket lapel. He was white and woolly-curly all over. But he had black slicked-back hair, which went well with his rather slicked-back forehead and his sloping black eyebrows. “Ah, English,” he said. “No problem, I speak English.”
“You do? Good. Hi!”
“Hi. From where are you coming?”
“California.”
“Just come to Munchen today?”
“Ja.”
He smiled. “What’s your name?”
“Maya.”
“I’m Ulrich. Welcome to my beautiful city. So you’re all alone, no parents, no boyfriend? You are standing here in the Marienplatz two hours, you don’t meet anybody, you don’t do anything.” He laughed. “Are you lost?”
“I don’t have to go anywhere in particular, I’m just passing through.”
“You are lost.”
“Well,” Maya said, “maybe I am a little lost. But at least I haven’t been spying on other people for two whole hours, like you have.”
Ulrich smiled slowly, swung a big brown backpack off his shoulders, and set it at his feet. “How could I help but to watch such a beautiful woman?”
Maya felt her eyes widen. “You really think so? Oh, dear …”
“Yes, yes! I can’t be the first man to tell you this news! You’re lovely. You’re beautiful! You’re cute like a big rabbit.”
“I bet that sounds really nice in Deutsch, Ulrich, but …”
“I’m sure I can help you. Where’s your hotel?”
“I don’t have one.”
“Well, where’s your luggage, then?”
She lifted her handbag.
“No luggage. No hotel. No place to go. No parents, no boyfriend. You got any money?”
“No.”
“How about an ID? I hope you have your ID.”
“Especially no ID.”
“So. Then you are a runaway.” Ulrich thought this over, with evident glee. “Well, I have good news for you, Miss Maya the Runaway. You’re not the only runaway to come to Munchen.”
“I was kind of thinking of taking the train back to Frankfurt tonight, actually.”
“Frankfurt! What a waste! Frankfurt is a tomb. A grave! Come with me and I’ll take you to the most famous pub in the world!”
“Why should I go anywhere with some guy who’s so terribly mean to sheep?”
Ulrich touched his sheepskin coat with a look of wounded shock. “You’re making funny! I’m not mean! I killed this sheep myself in single combat. He wanted to take my life! Come with me and I’ll take you to the famous Hofbrauhaus. They’re eating meat! And drinking beer!”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“It’s not far.” Ulrich crossed his fleecy white arms. “You want to see, or don’t you?”
“Yeah. I do want to see. Okay.”
He took her to the Hofbrauhaus, just as he had promised. There were massive stone arches outside and big brass-bound doors and uniformed civil-support people. Ulrich shrugged out of his coat, and quite neatly, in a matter of seconds, stepped deftly out of his pants. He stuffed the sheepskins into his capacious backpack. Beneath the skins he was wearing brightly patterned leotards.
Inside, the Hofbrauhaus had a vaulted ceiling with murals and ironwork and lanterns. It was wonderfully warm and smelled very powerfully of burning and stewing animal meat. A veteran brass band in odd hats and thick suspenders was playing two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old polkas, the kind of folk music that was so well worn that it slipped through your ears like pebbles down a stream. Strangers were crammed together at long polished wooden benches and tables, getting full of alcoholic bonhomie. Maya was relieved to see that most of them weren’t actually drinking the alcohol. Instead, they were drinking big cold malts and inhaling the alcohol on the side through little lipid-tagged nose snifters. This