I was on my way to Berlin with Jeanne, my friend and former business manager Nancy, Nancy’s friend, Fritz, and José. Jeanne had a crush on José. Nancy had her friend. Fritz drank schnapps and found beautiful women to sleep with. And I was lonely.
At the Frankfurt airport I commented that everybody had someone to sleep with except me. Nancy, who would have swum the English Channel to get me fresh cream if she thought it would make me happy, puckered her face up and started pacing around the waiting lounge, plunged into thought. Suddenly she stopped short, cupped her hand over her mouth, and focused on something across the lounge.
“Do you see that?” she said, poking me in the ribs and staring.
“What? Do I see what?”
“That!” she said excitedly, pointing. “That!”
Sitting quietly with a piece of cheap luggage at his feet was a young man, a boy, I suppose, with a beautiful suntanned face and shoulder-length brown hair streaked with summer blond. He was small and dressed in a light leather jacket, not nearly warm enough for winter in Germany. He was indeed lovely.
“Want me to get him for you?” Nancy said in a much too loud voice.
“Nancy, shush!”
“Well, DO you?? He’s gorgeous!” and she marched off. I was in the heat of a blush, and mortified. I didn’t watch. Nancy returned dragging the sweet suntanned beauty by the arm. He had huge brown eyes, a pouting cherubic mouth, a lovely body, and the passivity of someone who floats with the wind, like a leaf. He was clean and, I thought, not in any way harmful. I was embarrassed, but found him irresistible.
“This is Andy!” announced Nancy proudly. “He likes folk music.”
Andy smiled shyly. He had terrible teeth. I didn’t care. Nancy sat him down next to me.
“Chone? Chone Betz?”
“Yah. Joan Betz,” I said.
José and Fritz came over and talked to him in German. Their faces softened as they spoke, and I asked Nancy what the hell she had said to the young man, since he didn’t speak English. Nancy was noisily excited over her coup, and began to laugh as she repeated her story. Nancy’s laugh is unparalleled for sheer hysteria, volume, and contagiousness. The waiting room passengers shifted around to watch.
“I just walked up to him and said, ’Mind if I sit down?’” She cackled. “He said he didn’t sprechen English and I said, ’That’s perfect! Do you know JOAN BAEZ?’ He didn’t understand right away so I went like this, with my hands, as if I was playing a guitar, until he finally caught on and smiled and said, ’Yah, yah, Chone Betz!’ and then I grabbed his arm and hauled him over. Isn’t he adorable? I think he’s wonderful!”
Andy was going to Berlin on our flight, so Jeanne switched seats with him and he sat next to me in first class. We were like two kids running away from home.
“Der sonne?” I ventured, indicating the tan on his hands and arms.
“Oh, yah. I am difing. Sri Lanka. I luff ze zun. I hate Chermany. So kalt.”
“Do you want to come to my concert in Berlin?”
“Yah. José tells me. I come.”
I slipped my arm through his, took his lovely bronze hand in mine, and fell asleep with my head on his shoulder and his head resting on mine. When we were landing, I took off a big gold and turquoise ring I’d worn for a long time, and put it on his finger.
“What is your last name, Andy?”
“What?”
So we always called him Andy What.
Andy What stayed with us for the entire tour and joined us on the following tour to Spain. He kept to himself, took walks, smoked, listened to his tapes, enjoyed the concerts, loved his “femily,” as he called us, dreamed about Sri Lanka and the sun, and made love to me. It was ideal.