Fear & Loathing on Formentera - some pages
Fear and Loathing on Formentera
The book: A juicy mixture of love, sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll seasons this exciting, semi-fictitious “Drop Out“ tale of a guitar building school on Formentera. It gives readers a humorous, and on occasion mischievous, insight into various depths of human and touristic depravity. And in its depiction of the places surrounding the events there evolves, en passant, an insider guidebook of very special quality.
The author
Dieter Gölsdorf, alias Atze Gölsdorf (before that Atze Rockinger), was born on 20.6.1952 in Berlin (ca. 1 p.m.), soon afterwards he was moved to Hanover. Later on he studied a bit of art and law, played the guitar and wrote German songs. He now designs and sells electric guitars and parts for guitars on an international basis. In 1988, together with Thomas Stratmann, he set up a guitar building school, Formentera Guitars. If he sings at all nowadays then it’s the blues. He writes a lot of technical stuff about guitars, and rude letters to unpleasant potential clients. He was otherwise by no means at all averse to anything reprehensible, although nowadays preferring to indulge himself more in good wine, relief art , and, as ever, matters of passion and calumny.
PART I - SALIDA
At last! The lorry had already rumbled off the day before yesterday. With around ten tons on board: three pallets of the finest grade hardwood, various medium-sized wood-working machines, loads of tools, boxes of bits and pieces for about eighty electric guitars, household and personal effects, timber, PC, complete backline as well as drum kit and PA, not to mention all kinds of other junk we might just possibly need on the island.
Jesus, was this all going to work out? All kinds of experts in the know had already filled me in on how everything was especially difficult in Spain: EC, eh! What? Balearic Islands? “Banana Republic!“ Indeed, some had even said that we were completely off our collective rocker. But ultimately these people were just jealous. A guitar construction school in the sunny Mediterranean – where could be better?
We had done all the sums. It was to be the trip of all trips for those coming, top of the line, and all inclusive: flight, accommodation, the course itself with up to seven kindred spirits, plus the materials to build an electric guitar of the highest quality, complete with self-assembled pickups, hardware, the works. All this under the expert supervision of two absolutely crack guitarists who tell you which hole to drill where – and where preferably not to. Three thousand marks – admittedly, not exactly cheap, but a really good guitar from a shop costs about the same.
And indeed over fifty participants had already obliged us by paying their deposit for the course fees. Believe it or not almost eighty thousand marks from nowhere on our “Formentera“ account! Although at this point in time the fully air-conditioned workshop I had plugged so well did not actually exist at all, not so much as one square centimeter of it. Not even the locality was decided yet! All castles in the air, the illusions of a madman!
Thomas and I had the idea for this madness one cool rainy September weekend; at the time I was involved in disposing of my own electric guitar workshop owing to lack of profit. It had turned out to be almost impossible to find anyone interested not only in buying all the machinery and wood but also in paying at least something for the specially designed contraptions we had come up with, representing unimaginably high material and creative losses.
The initial spark came from a really stupid television report on some horrifically expensive course in surfboard construction in Key West, Florida. Then why don’t WE do something real and important? It was logical, courses in guitar construction! How? Where? Why? Brief euphoric brainstorming. Within a few hours we had the spiritual framework for our project. The material and machines were almost completely available anyway. We only needed to cart it over to our favourite island, lots of sunshine, lots of fun!
Thomas, a man of the trade, was at that time my Head of Production. He had inherited some money and so to make things fair he laid down forty thousand marks on the table. We were therefore ready for anything. Very soon afterwards we informed the appropriate specialised press and prepared the advertising material. “Formentera Guitars – you owe yourself the best“.
Paul and Connie had to take over the management of my guitar shop in Hanover for the summer, both were more or less professional sales people and having been employees for many years could be trusted with this task. It had actually been Connie who, many years previously, had dragged me off to Formentera for the first time, leading to immediate euphoria on my part. Paradise, and so near! Since then I had been addicted to the place, going there at least three times a year, either for my summer holiday or just for a long weekend. And now the whole thing was set to have some kind of permanence, living and working on the hottest most exciting island in the Western Hemisphere!
It was a warm Saturday in May, and both of our yellow limousines were packed, Thomas and I in the Renault 4, the party also included Rüdiger Gutmann, aka Rudi, Rude, Herr Gutmann, His Goodliness, Mr. Goodman or simply Goody, a man of good fortune, very jeansy (no-nonsense overall with several bright patches on the trousers and sleeves), very good with his hands, a great hit with the women. A good female friend of mine once described him as having a good chat-up line but with a clearly defined depth of thought. But Rudi was absolutely okay, a bloke with a good heart, you simply had no choice but to like him.
This pleasant guy was to spend the summer with us, food, wine and accommodation all-in, and sort of in return was supposed to take care of such external requirements as showing the course participants the best places on the island, taking them to the beach during the siesta break, etc. Rudi had kindly provided his yellow Passat estate, so we did appear to be well equipped on the limousine front.
’His Goodliness’ had previously worked for almost two years as a guitar roadie for such high class acts as Gronemeyer, Maffay, etc., looking after the guitarists’ instruments and other machinery. By no means a non-demanding job, this was a position possibly more suited to Joe Normal rather than to a master of the art of good living. Eventually the whole thing did come to an end when following one of the performances Rude went out on the town, subsequently stopping off to pay his respects to a selection of women, young or old alike, the result of this being that the next day he failed to arrive on time and when he did so was seriously incapacitated at the starting line, as he himself put it. 
Sitting in the Passat with Rudi was Mone, a rather esoteric, gentle creature, who could give great foot massages and was accompanying us – as long as the money held out – to take in the Balearic air. Mone had often worked for us on a temporary basis in the past, her most recent task being to act as a guinea pig in what was essentially a kind of zero-level course. To test whether such a course would work at all we had constructed two guitars in my workshop at home using the most basic materials possible. And it was Moni who had to carry out each step of the tasks we intended to set our course participants. This had worked very well (and if a woman can do it....)
And now it’s time to get out of here! Thank fuck! Please let it be the motorway at last! Final wrecking of brains. It doesn’t matter, anything we’ve forgotten our students can bring with them. The main thing is we’ve got our passports, eurocheques, credit cards and some ready cash! Whatever! Fuck it, let’s just drive off now, away from this drizzle and the daily grind! A quick stop at the next petrol station, a full tank, a few nibbles, bottles and cans, fast route on main road, a blue pointed sign – and we’re off on the A7!
Rudi and Mone were driving behind us, we were driving in convoy. What might happen between the two of them? A romantic entanglement? It’s always an imponderable having a woman like that around. Mistrust, how might she react, all of a sudden? Exaggerated expectations regarding nightly comfort? Incalculable emotions? Although, it has to be said, Mone was up there in the attractiveness stakes, charming, yet nevertheless somewhat reserved in appearance, but in any case absolutely all right, and much too complicated for Rudi. Everything will be just fine! Thomas slapped me for the fourth time full whack on the shoulder. “Atze, we’re on our way. This is it! Yeahhhhh! Wonderfully uplifting, this gently emerging feeling of lightness after all the horrific stress of the last few weeks. What could possibly go wrong now?
The fact that just after Frankfurt the third exhaust silencer fell off Rudis yellow chariot was dismissed as a mere trifle. The “sound“ remained bearable. Much more annoying was the constant rattling of the rear bumper, which Rude had done a makeshift repair on with two flattened steel bars after someone had run into him. “This car is otherwise technically way out in front, second to none!“ affirmed Mr. Goodman. “And rust is no problem in Spain, you can drive your car into the ground there! Honestly, the Passat is the real McCoy - absolutely!“
We shall see! There were still around two thousand kilometres to go, horrifically long kilometres. This dull and sluggish transport of matter is unbearable. The only good thing about driving anywhere by car is that you do have time to think, to awaken your potential for creativity, with the dictaphone as your notebook.
At home everything could be expected to remain on an even keel, my wholesale business with its buttons, switches, screws, strings and a few imported guitars was doing very well. And as long as the balance sheet showed a plus every month I would also be able to cash my Eurocheques without a thought. At least without a bad conscience and – should everything go arse over tit – then a flight back and I would have to intervene!
Christ, dusk already, we’ll be in fucking Frogland very soon, full tank of petrol beforehand though, don’t want the Frogs to rip us off too much for fuel, it’s bad enough with their indefensible motorway toll, fucking daylight robbery right in the middle of civilised Europe!
We drove through the night, meaning we should have no problem in getting to the car ferry leaving Denia on Monday, no stress, we’d already had quite enough of that, and at around midnight we checked into an Altea motel just outside Lyon to have a couple of hours well-deserved sleep.
Christ Almighty, there, in the middle of the land of the Frenchies, was a totally American style motel! Car parked in front of the room, whisky, gin and tins of Coca Cola in the brown wood finish fridge. Thomas rolled a fat joint, in the company of which we then pleasantly slipped into a good night’s kip.
Eleven a.m., fuck it, we had totally overslept. How could this have happened after such a journey? Tranquilo, we were, after all, on our way to Spain! I had to have a shower and a proper cup of French café au lait!
Oh Spanish border, would it be like the Asterix comics? The blazing heat of the sun on the Pyrenees, the first promise of a better life? The weather was not playing ball, the Route du Soleil failed to deliver a view of the Riviera, the Mediterranean kept itself well-hiddden behind a chain of hills. And yet another damned toll station, plenty of francs, s’il vous plaît!
I fumbled around in our foreign currency reserves, behind us we heard Rudi shouting. What’s up now? The Passat: light show on the dashboard, ignition turned off, the starter motor was turning over, the car was starting itself. Drug-fuelled lunacy or deadly reality?
In with the francs, onto the hard shoulder, up with the bonnet! Holy shit, what’s all this smoke? Where did these little yellow flames behind the engine come from? Fainting attack, get the water! Pliers, scalpel, get the battery off! All extremely hectic, heart attack impending! “Rudi, what the hell are you playing at?“ “Christ, I don’t know, I’ve driven around in this thing for the past year and a half with no problem, honest, no question. No idea what’s wrong now!“ was the whinging response from Herr Gutmann. “Fuck it, if things continue like this we’ll not even make it over the Pyrenees. The Renault 4 – now that’s a real car, we should have taken two of them!“ was my het up reply.
The yellow Renault had given us no problems at all, a wonderful vehicle, and one of the last stylish small cars of European design, like the 2 CV, the Beetle and the Fiat 500. And in comparison we had this German monstrosity, the height of anonymous ugliness. Surely the very least you could expect from it was that it would function properly? What was wrong with the electrics? The engineer carried out his inspection: despite being covered with reinforced rubber the main electrical cable had worn through on some pipe and was now supplying the power for all the car’s functions via the engine casing itself. Total capitulation of this shit product built in Wolfsburg – Germany’s very own “Motor City“. “Listen, you lot, the Passat estate is THE sine qua non of automobiles!“ His Goodliness continued to protest, then breaking into broad Hanover dialect to further trivialise matters: “In moy opinyun its ectually a spowerts car.“ “In moy opinyun thets no spowerts car!“ was my immediate contradiction in the same dialect, although it has to be said my reserves of good humour were becoming seriously depleted.
Okay then, Spain, please – now! “Porco Dio, we do have the green insurance cards, don’t we?“ Rudi inquired. Did he want to cause me even more grief? I couldn’t remember ever having been asked about these. There were now around 50 kilometres separating us from the border to the Promised Land. Would they ask us the dreaded question about the carta verde or even search our cars? Would they take the wheels off, the bottom one first, although we had only tried to smuggle in a few cutters, band saw blades and other small tools, which our inefficient suppliers had failed to deliver any earlier?
Let’s not panic. We reached the border in the torrid midday heat and were simply waved through. Hasta la vista! Whoever heard of a customs officer leaving his shady hut in the blazing heat of the sun? And who would want to smuggle drugs from here to Spain? Further inconvenience once again from the motorway toll, this time in pesetas, por favor! Okay, reasonable state of the road, but what was that right ahead of us? Queues of traffic, a jam, damnation! For the solid currency we gave up we were then forced to crawl at walking speed towards Barcelona. Rudi’s temperature gauge indicated worryingly high levels.
PACO-TRANS
Where was Wolfgang right now? This was the man from “Paco-Trans“, the daring Bielefeld freight transport company, who had not been put off by the prospect of carting ten tons of crazy mishmash to Formentera, The Balearic Islands, Spain. Wouldn’t it have been better if I had gone with him? What must he have thought on that night of chaos when we loaded up his truck? This was the trucker who, uninvolved, had watched us from the loading platform whilst our dreadful lack of skill with the forklift trucks we had hired meant we were literally all over the place.
Nevertheless, we did manage to pack the majority of our equipment onto the pallets in a reasonably compact manner. But at the beginning we needed nearly twenty minutes to get a single pallet into the truck. Driving a fork lift truck is not as easy as it looks. The damned thing needs you to steer it with the back wheels, and everything goes totally differently from what you would expect. It’s very easy to manoeuvre yourself into a corner and then not be able to get out again.
Fortunately Herr Gutmann at last came to the rescue, teeth glistening from his final dentist’s appointment, and immediately took charge of the vehicle, gliding over our company yard with unbelievable elegance. But the whole procedure still took until 2 o’clock in the morning, in the final analysis: shove it in and fasten the tarpaulin! At the same time there was all the paperwork, the indispensable transport papers, x pages of long lists of the freight goods, in German and in Spanish.
So where might Wolfgang be now with all our stuff? A good-natured Bielefeld man, ten years on the road, Espana speciale! “Spanish? Not a word! What for, if there are any problemas then I just call Germany.“ Could he already be in Denia or even on the ship?
All at once there was no traffic jam any more, Barcelona moved closer. I began to worry about Paco-Trans/Wolfgang. After all, each unused transport day would cost us six hundred marks extra. Perhaps it would be better if I now jetted straight over to Ibiza so that at least I would be there on the spot first thing in the morning. A flight from Barcelona to Ibiza cost just under one hundred marks, that much I had managed to find out in advance. Thomas agreed with me. The cars couldn’t be put on the ship until the next evening anyway. So, off we went, following the signs to the airport! There’s bound to be a flight today!
The whole of Barcelona was returning from their weekend away. We fought our way through the chaotic traffic to the Aeropuerto, which on this particular evening was the worst place to be on the planet. It was unbearable: unbelievable hordes of people, noise levels of 90 decibels, constant screeching announcements from a pre-war loudspeaker system, squawking out utterly unintelligible nonsense. The queues at the check-in counters rubbed shoulders with the queues at the ticket counters on the other side, and it was almost impossible to make your way through this swarming mass.
“Okay, guys, I’ll be fine, you set off for Denia! We’ll meet up on Tuesday on Ibiza.“ Christ’s sake, two hours in this hell, even my permanent view of the beautifully rounded posteriors of two French women in front of me failed to make the situation any more bearable. Finally, knees trembling, I stood in front of the counter. “When is the next flight to Ibiza?“ “Tomorrow afternoon at 1.40 p.m.“
No way! I felt like I’d been shafted! By now it was 2 o’clock in the morning. I needed a hotel, right away. The bastard taxidriver drove me right into Barcelona City, claiming that there were no hotels near the airport. We raced through dark alleyways, redlight and streetwalkers’ areas, dubious localities, sensations of fear, breaking out in a sweat.
“Quiero un hostel, veramente!“ I complained as well as I could. I had no desire to be found here in the gutter in the morning, robbed and with a knife in my back. The taxi bastard fucker finally saw reason and took me to a hostel in an average area. I plundered the minibar and drifted off to sleep.
The new day was different. From the moment it got light in the room, the kind of blue skies we just don’t have at home! The taxi to the airport cost only about half of that of the day before. The Aeropuerto itself was as if renewed, quiet, clean, relaxed, and yesterday’s chaos was almost inconceivable. Straight through to check in and take-off!
On Ibiza everything was once again quite different: simply the feeling when you come out of the plane and step into the warm air on the stairway and then the airfield. And the Balearic atmosphere: windmills, sunny hilly ridges, a waft of timelessness, breathe in deep, stretch your limbs. I began to feel a new kind of strength inside.
IBIZA
Off into a taxi to Puerto, to the harbour! The fare was about a hundred pesetas more than last year. Fuck’s sake, whatever next? What had been going on in Spain? Donde está el Wolfgango, el Aleman? Where was the little cunt with his compact green German MAN truck? The taxidriver told me that the Denia ferry docked at San Antonio, but that the only customs office was here on Ibiza.
I was in two minds as to whether to hire a car and drive to San Antonio, when I suddenly had a much better idea: Do it like Wolfgang! Just ring up in Bielefeld and ask what’s going on. Jawohl! Great phone line, everything under control, Wolfgang was in the Ibiza fishing port and was waiting for us. Puerto de Pescadores, two hundred metres away on foot.
And indeed, there he was! What a great feeling it was to be standing here in front of the very same truck we had loaded up in another world two thousand five hundred kilometres away. All that now separated us from Formentera and the dawn of the hottest enterprise ever. There was a note on the windscreen “Atze, am at the customs“. The note was old, and after I knocked on the window Wolfgang’s broad, sleepy face appeared.
“Nope, nothing doing with the customs today“, he muttered. Amazing how sometimes otherwise high priority activities can be reduced to nothing in one simple sentence! I needn’t have bothered with the flight, but no matter. Now it was Wolfgang and me, two Germans in a strange land! Over the course of the afternoon we downed various beers, coffees and carajillos. “If everything goes wrong we’ll be here for days. The customs lot only work in the mornings until midday, then that’s it. And if they decide to search through everything, well, then we’ll still be here next week.“ This was Wolfgang’s food for thought. What a load of shit! Bloody negative git! I was energised by the Balearic vibe and confidently predicted “Y’know, the stars are looking good for us, and the whole thing will run like clockwork, nikkas problemas!“
In the evening we went to Hotel La Marina. This is a good and genuinely Spanish establishment in the harbour, where I then booked a room for the night. Essen bueno, we dined well, a pleasant evening. Wolfgang the trucker, hard working, far removed from any drug except gin tonica. Clean and straight, a trucker for over ten years, a different type of guy, but more than acceptable, not necessarily one of the sort who dream only of the little house on the edge of town, with its carport, garden shed and gas tank in the garden, all paid off in thirty years.... Nope, we got into quite a good conversation.
He was interested in sailing boats. And this Aids thing was really getting to him. You have to watch it now with sex, yes, and he looked like he’d had his share of that too. After two beers I was able to persuade him to share a bottle of Rioja with me. But after just the first sip he already looked unhappy: “Somehow it just tastes a little bit furry on the tongue.“ Oh unhappy cursed German soul! And of course he had to have ketchup with absolutely everything, and his fillet steak well done, burnt to a cinder, a piece of decent meat ruined!
At least, however, he had realised that it was better not to bring up topics such as “fucking women senseless“ or similar for discussion with me. Eventually, of course, we landed up on football. Wolfgang’s heart beat for FC Barcelona. “The Football Club“, he pronounced momentously, “if you can understand it – that’s really top notch bloody brilliant football!“
I couldn’t contribute too much to all this, although I do on occasion watch important finals, at least together with other people I do, more than anything else for the interesting group experience. Fortunately I could still remember a couple of details from the last European Championship. I did my best with this scanty info and sipped at the Margarita Wolfgang had in the meantime persuaded me to have.
But soon I was back on our project again. Where might my brave friends be by now? They would be arriving some time tonight, somewhere on this island, no question about it, probably in San Antonio. Or maybe they are already here and are looking for us? Wolfgang started going on about the problems with the customs again, especially about the stuff not on the list, which had been chucked on board at the last minute.
“It won’t be at all good if they find something that’s not on the list.“ “Then let’s just take the worst bits out right now and pack them in the cars!“ I suggested. “We can still get to it all, it’s all open on your truck.“ “Oi, you can’t do that! In customs law it’s all sealed up. I certainly won’t have seen anything!“ was the grumbling response from Wolfgang.
I pressed him into going with me: “Let’s go for a little walk. We’ll be looking for yellow cars with a big H for Hanover.“ We walked through the harbour area. Everything was very pleasant to the eye. Once we even thought we had found them, but we were mistaken, yellow, yes, but from Bremen, nada, error.
For Christ’s sake, somehow the horror of it all really got to me then. Why did it have to be so complicated to cart everything for a guitar construction company to Formentera? Our entire school should really have been through the customs at Irun, the station after the border, where Wolfgang had unloaded the trailer with other freight and then left there, the first destination in Mañana Land. This would have been by far the best solution in view of the good contacts we had to the customs there, but was apparently not possible because none of us had been present. What a pile of shit! And why had nobody told us this before? We would have loved to have been there.
And now? Here on Ibiza there is a fully loaded truck, which is deemed to be sealed because so far no duty has been paid, but where anyone and everyone can gain access to the goods! And we are worried about daily rates. This is a load of crap, total humbug! But you have to see the funny side, especially in extreme situations like these! Once again we inspected the arrival boards at the various ship berths and asked everyone we could find about the ferry from Denia.
In Spain every person asked will have a different answer to your question, however precisely you ask the same thing. Incomprehensible, and yet it happens time and again. One person said that the ferry had already arrived, another that there would be no ship arriving either today or tomorrow, other people knew for absolutely certain that it would not dock in San Antonio before five o’clock in the morning.
No yellow cars; then let’s go up to the Old Town, and have a look round the bars. It’s supposed to be very romantic and whimsical, the Old Town of Ebissa. With a double S please, as practised by every seasoned Ibiza holidaymaker, although this said, for most of them this is the only word of Spanish they know. And sure enough, in the very first bar there it was in broad Cologne dialect: “Hallo, Männer! Wat kann ich eusch bringen?“
Bloody hell! The drinks cost more than double the normal Formentera prices – which were by no means moderate at the best of times, then black light, posers everywhere, and the aggressive sales pitch of the barman “Chat to me and get drunk while you’re doing it! Buy, buy, leave your money here and nowhere else!“ And the punters, just the kind of people I love to bits. Guys with a tache and permed hair, sweat shirts with Hugo Boss printed on them and then jogging trousers to go with it! The same in the evenings! All of them clamouring round this waterproof plastic cash pipeline, boys as well as girls, all with a touch of the hairdresser about them, and clad in their tight, shiny leggings, high heels and tassle ridden gear. “Um eins jehn wir noch innet Pascha!“ Our German language at its best. Jesus, where on earth were we? On our way to the village hop in Oberammergau?
We downed the brown beer in one gulp and — escape! Only when we got down from the Old Town again did we realise how late it was and that we were totally wrecked. Wolfgang crawled off to his bunk in the truck, and I had my room in La Marina with its view of the harbour and the sea.
I sat at the window for a good half an hour contemplating the uncountable number of boats and their masts on the horizon. Would we really sail into that little white harbour tomorrow, was it all really true? Euphoria....
GISA
Gisa must be here by now! Both of us, here, in this little bed and breakfast! Now for a bit of unity of body and soul. The unity of the soul was not so long ago, it was Easter, when I was on Formentera for a good week to get everything organised vis a vis our workshop premises, our pesetas account and all kinds of official stuff. Oh Gisa! This woman with her deep brown eyes, definitely shades of Jacqueline Onassis. And at this time I was going through a phase where brown eyes really did it for me.
I think we were probably both fairly drunk when we first got together. But any woman worth having is especially lovable when in this state. Actually she wasn’t the driving force in starting up our affair, it was her slightly tiddly strawberry blond curly-haired friend. They were coming out of the Fonda Restaurant, and just came right up to me. “We’d like to talk to you, we think you’re really sweet!“
Alas-alas-alas! What did they want with me? Had they picked me out from their table? Were they just taking the piss or did they intend to work out which one would take me home with her? Search for a lover? Ego massage, a quick fuck, whatever? Anyway, I must have said something particularly horrible. The friend then suddenly became quite strange, absolutely awful, aggressive abuse, with the potential to really hurt – as if I cared. Get out while the going is good. Be proactive. Attack or be attacked, the last resort, the red card. Then “Curly, please.... go.... now!“ My face must have also looked suitably threatening. Yes, she went. That’s how simple things can be sometimes, just four little words, unbelievable!
“But you have to stay!“ I quickly added to the captivating, charming Jacqueline, and, breathing a sigh of relief resumed conversation with her again. “You are a right couple of silly chicks!” “Are you aware that you are in danger of your life?“ she replied. “Eh? Oh, I see, sorry, I’m really sorry! Well, perhaps not so sorry,“ I added in softie alternative scene speak, which I’m quite good at parodying. “I hope it didn’t do you too much harm,“ was her apt reply. Then I noticed that she had only paid eighty pesetas for her mango. “How did you manage that, do you have a special deal?“ “Yes, I do, I’m supposed to bring a bit of life into the place,“ she laughed. Gisa, the woman from Cologne, had been coming to this island for over twenty years, and was therefore on very good terms with the bar staff.
“And what brought you here?“ she probed. I tried to give her a brief outline of our guitar school project. Mistrust, a case for nursing care, Formentera driftage, she looked astonished? And so I had to tell her a bit more, and suddenly found myself telling a load of real porkers about my important standing in the international guitar world: President of a successful company with a turnover of millions, constant trips abroad, things I had invented myself, blah, blah and so on. Her sympathy now gave way to something verging on disbelief. Could all that be true, coming from the mouth of this freak with the pony tail? Moments before I had almost totally blown it I threw in a quick “What about you?“
Gisa told me that she was here with her daughter and pointed outside to the door of the Hostal Pepe. “She’s fourteen and in bed.“ “And what do you do otherwise?“ I asked. She told me about her one-woman marketing company, and that she reviewed Italian wines and various other Italian specialities before acting as an intermediary with supermarket chains.
Was it our fascinating conversation or was it the effect of the various alcoholic drinks? Suddenly, actually without any particular warning, our eyes met, somehow pulling us together and then we were in each other’s arms, each of us spontaneously acquiescing with the situation we found ourselves in.
Sometimes the vibrations are so strong that the inevitable happens. Our lips met and tenderly kissed, followed almost immediately by something resembling confusion regarding our sudden good fortune! Or were we sobering up? Why did she have to go so suddenly and so furtively? She had to go, Gisa explained, otherwise her daughter would not be able to get to sleep. Whatever, let’s keep the magic going, no arguments, we would meet again the next day, desire and longing until tomorrow, oh well, if that’s the way it is, then that’s the way it is!
And anyway, Easter on Formentera is just about as good as it gets. Just a two and a half hour flight and then you can swap your thick pullover for a T-shirt. Admittedly there is sometimes a chilly wind over the Balearic Islands, but it is otherwise beautifully mild and warm, simply Balearic. And then the special mix of people who turn up here. You’re not completely in a foreign land, you run into well-known faces from the very first moment you arrive.
And so it was the next morning, while I was keeping a look out for Gisa, almost mad with longing, and then Benno and his girlfriend Linda turned up, guitar cases on their backs. Benno is an old friend I used to study law and make music with, still the world’s best gitarrista and in the meantime also a lawyer in Düsseldorf too. Linda – also a lawyer – worshipped his rock ’n’ roll, the only form of self-abandonment she ever allowed herself in public.
“Yeah! Or rather.... no! How come you two are here?“ I stuttered in amazement. “It’s obvious,“ Benno laughed, “We heard that you were going to be here.“ “ Guitar with you?“ I asked, pointed to the case. “Two, actually!“ Let’s get out of here on the mopeds! Where to?"
The Migjorn beach is closest to San Fernando. What about the BLUE BAR? There are only a couple of beach bars open at Easter, and this small sky blue painted building above the beach was unfortunately still closed. No gigantic white linen tent covering the circular stone benches, nothing to sit on, no glittering cushions and no totally relaxed French freaks to keep us well supplied with all manner of drinks, yet never pushy, and without charging the earth like in the Old Town bars. Through a window frosted over by the salty sea air we could see the bar, the white wicker chairs and the white sails! A thrilling vista. But closed is closed, and we found another nice, if somewhat more traditional beach establishment, where on request the Magno was served in large warmed cognac glasses. And they had mussels on the menu. Fantastic, lying there so near to the sand dunes, bright sunshine, a fresh Easter wind and Spanish brandy in a warmed glass, in the lap of luxury!
Out with the two guitars! One acoustic and one telecaster, and a mini amp as big as a cigarette packet, rock on the beach! As ever, Benno’s playing was heavenly, top international level. Oh God, when was I ever going to see Brown Eyes again? If only she could have been here too and have heard our offering! I would have been able to worm my way even further into her heart.... and apart from that, it was my last day!
And would you believe it, in the evening she was sitting there with ten or twelve people at a big table in the Fonda Restaurant, and gave me a friendly wave. Her delicate daughter – it had to be her! – looked sullen. Kids don’t like it when Mum flirts with strange men. I’m not much good with kids. We arranged to meet after dinner. Was life about to change dramatically?
At last, after all the obligatory schnapps and carajillos the others at the table finally pissed off, then Gisa came over to me. “Well, Mr. President!“ she greeted me. “High time for a summit meeting!“ I replied. The evening air did not appear to be overly welcoming for sitting outside. At this time of the year there is always a chilly wind from the hills blowing right around the Fonda. We sought refuge near the bar.