Plenty of Room

The next morning seemed to pull up late. This time the table would remain on its side. I was beyond caring. A phone. I needed a phone. Just past the African kitchen, a sun-baked path led towards a coppice of oak saplings ablaze with buds. Hans’s bungalow stood beyond; its design a perfect blend of Alpine Heidi meets Deliverance. While a balcony at its back offered a superior view of the inferior surroundings, the misfit owner was nowhere to be seen.

“Hello,” I almost pleaded, “Hans, are you there?” Maybe he hadn’t heard, or perhaps he’d gone out.

Either way, I had to be certain.

A strip of fractured patio skirting the old man’s home trickled around to the front where it accumulated into a square courtyard anchored by wild grasses and weeds. To the right, a raised concrete pool cradled by rosemary bushes brimmed with water. Below its surface minnows darted into clouds of algae as pond skaters watched from above. The bungalow’s wood-stained door was ajar. A rusty cowbell hung next to it, home to a pair of hornets. The surrounding air already droned at my approach. Their two-inch bodies flashing a series of black and yellow warnings brought me to a stop. They kept a measured distance at all times. And once satisfied with their security checks, they let me go.

A movement struck the corner of my eye as I reached the door. Turning slowly, I saw standing on the roof of an outhouse across the yard, surrounded by vines and rose bushes the one and only… dressed in a striped blue and white dressing gown. His wiry arms, raised above his head, looked as if they were being suspended by the morning sky. Released a moment later, his body folded violently in half as his hands touched his toes and then like an elastic band he sprang back into his original position. Performing this bone-cracking manoeuvre a few more times, Hans then went onto other stretching exercises, which not only threatened to hospitalise him, but also gave a new insight into human endurance. Completing his whip-like movements, the old man puckered his lips and drew in a lung full of air. Opening his arms towards the rising sun, he momentarily held his breath and then sung out in a low rasping voice. The melody was simple and full of yearning. A lot of the emotion he expressed, I believe may largely have emanated from pain caused by the rigorous workout. Nevertheless, for a moment he looked like a medicine man performing an ancient ritual. In truth Hans wasn’t a holy man, but in actuality he was worshipping the sun: how refreshingly pagan.