Hippo’s didn’t look that large—just a pale gray, unassuming building with a few umbrella-shaded tables out front. The only thing unusual about it was the large model pink hippo head rearing out from above the doorway, mouth wide open. People had filled the mouth with all kinds of objects—empty beer bottles, a mostly deflated beach ball, a Canadian flag, a baseball cap, a small plastic shark.
The lobby was decorated in paper palm trees and silk garlands of flowers. There was a fake tiki bar covering wrapped around the front desk. All of the furniture was very eighties, brightly colored with geometrical patterns. There were strings of Chinese paper lanterns strung around the room.
The man behind the desk had a thick white beard and wore a bright orange Hawaiian shirt.
“Do you have any beds available?” she asked.
“Ah!” he said. “Pretty girl with pretzel hair. Welcome to the best hostel in all of Denmark. Everyone loves it here. You will love it here. Isn’t that right?”
He addressed his last words to a group of four people who had just walked in with grocery bags. There were two blond guys, a girl with short brown hair, and an Indian guy. They nodded and smiled as they threw bags of hard rolls and packages of sliced meats and cheeses onto one of the tables.
“This one is a firecracker,” he said. “I can see that. Look at the braids. I’ll put her with you. You can keep watch for me. But here. One bunk for one week is nine hundred and twenty-four kroner.”
Ginny froze. She had no idea what a kroner was or how she was going to get nine hundred and twenty-four of them.
“I only have euros,” she said.
“This is Denmark!” he bellowed. “We use kroner here. But I will take euros if I must. One hundred sixty, please.”
Ginny guiltily handed over the wrong currency. While she did this, Hippo reached under the bar and opened up a small refrigerator. He produced a bottle of Budweiser, which he presented to Ginny in exchange for the money.
“At Hippo’s, everyone gets a cold beer. Here is yours. Sit down and drink it.”
It was friendly enough, but Hippo didn’t seem to expect anything but total compliance with his hospitality. Ginny took the beer uncertainly (even though she was beginning to understand that sharing alcohol was the universal way of saying “hello” in Europe). The bottle was very wet, and the label disintegrated at her touch and stuck to her palm. The people at the table, her new roommates, waved her over and offered to share their purchases.
“I just came from Amsterdam,” she said, digging into her bag to try to make some kind of offering. “I have all these cookies, if you want some.”
The girl’s eyes lit up.
“Stroopwaffle?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Ginny said. “Stroopwaffle. Eat them all. I’ve had too many.”
She set the package on the table. Four pairs of eyes gazed at it reverently.
“She is a messenger,” one of the blond guys said. “She is one of the chosen ones.”
In the introductions, she learned that the two blond guys were named Emmett and Bennett. Bennett and Emmett were brothers and looked almost exactly alike—sun-bleached hair and equally faded blue eyes. Emmett dressed like a surfer, but Bennett wore an un-ironed button-down shirt. Carrie was about Ginny’s height, with short brown hair. Nigel was Indian-English-Australian. They were all students from Melbourne, Australia, and they had been touring through Europe with rail passes for five weeks.
After eating, they took Ginny up to their dorm room, which was equally brightly colored—yellow walls with electric pink and purple circles along the top, blue carpet, and bunk beds made of sleek, tubular red metal.
“1983 style,” Bennett said.
It was cheerful, though, and obviously well kept. They explained that everyone was supposed to help clean as part of the hostel agreement, so for fifteen minutes every day, everyone had a task. There was a clipboard out in the hallway listing jobs, so whoever got up first got the easiest, but none of them were very hard. Hippo had no curfews or kick-out times. Plus, there was a man-made beach in the back that butted up to the water.
Once again, Ginny found herself thrust into a group. But one thing was clear from the start—these were not the Knapps. Their policy seemed to be this: they got up when they felt like it, and they had no idea how long they were staying. Every night, they went out. They were thinking of leaving Copenhagen soon, but they weren’t sure where they were going next. Tonight, they had very special going-out plans that Ginny had to be a part of. But first, they had to nap and eat more Stroopwaffle and give Ginny a nickname, which was Pretzels.
Ginny could live with that. She climbed into her bunk, dropped down on the thin mattress, and fell asleep.
The Magical Kingdom
There was a lot of excitement in the room when Ginny woke up.
“Here we go!” Emmett said, clapping and rubbing his hands together.
“Don’t ask,” Carrie said, rolling her eyes. “It’s a long story. Come on. There’s someplace ridiculous these morons want to go.”
Again, there was no night. The sun hung steadily in the sky, only condescending to drop to a twilight level but never disappearing from view.
Copenhagen, her new friends explained to her as they walked, was the Disneyland of beer. And wherever they were going tonight was Copenhagen’s Magic Mountain.
They wound up in a huge, open hall. They found seats at one of the long picnic-style tables, and Emmett signaled to one of the women that they wanted five of what she was carrying. The woman set five of the massive glass steins down on the table. Carrie passed one down to Ginny, who had to pick hers up with both hands. She sniffed at it, then took a sip. She didn’t like beer that much, but this tasted pretty good. The others happily tore into theirs.
Everything was fine for about half an hour, despite the fact that she seemed to be living a poster from her school’s German room—which made no sense, considering that she was in Denmark. And she was pretty sure they were supposed to be different.
Suddenly, some lights came on at the back, and Ginny became aware of a stage at one end of the room. A man in a sparkling purple jacket came up to a microphone and spoke in Danish for a few minutes. This seemed to get everyone very excited, except for Ginny, who was totally baffled.
“And now,” the man said in English, “we need a few volunteers.”
All at once, Ginny’s four new friends exploded out of their seats, jumping up and down in a frenzy. This galvanized the Japanese businessmen who shared their table. They too sprang to their feet and started yelling and calling. Ginny, who was the only person sitting, looked down and saw dozens of empty mugs littering their half of the table.
The bandleader couldn’t help but notice the international near-riot that was breaking out in their corner, and he grandly pointed to them.
“Two people, please!” he said.
It was immediately decided, through some nodding between the two parties, that since the whole table had made an effort, each group would be able to send one person. The Japanese men fell into a serious discussion, and Ginny’s friends did the same. Ginny caught bits of the conversation.
“You go.”
“No, you.”
“It was your idea.”
“Wait,” Carrie said. “Let’s send Pretzels.”
Ginny’s head shot up at that one.
“For what?” she asked.
Bennett smiled.
“Full contact karaoke,” he said.
“What?”
“Come on!” Emmett yelled. “Pretzels…Pretzels…Pretzels…”
The other three picked up on the chant. Then the Japanese businessmen, who had already selected their representative, joined in. A few people from other tables chimed in as well, and in a matter of seconds, the whole corner of the room was calling her name. All in different accents, all loudly, all in a steady, thumping time.
Without really meaning to, Ginny found herself getting up.
“Um,” she said
nervously. “I don’t really…”
“Brilliant!” Emmett shouted, helping her into the aisle between the tables. One of the Japanese men peeled off his suit jacket and joined her.
“Ito,” the man said. At least, that’s what Ginny thought he said. He was slurring in Japanese, so it was a little hard to tell. Ito stepped aside so Ginny could go first, even though she didn’t really want to lead. The host was waving her up, and the crowd clapped its approval as she progressed toward the stage. Ito looked delighted, loosening his tie and bouncing around, waving to the crowd to keep up the applause. Ginny quietly accepted the host’s hand to mount the stage. She tried to stand off in a corner, but he led her firmly to the edge, where Ito held her in place by clapping an arm over her shoulders.
The host was yelling in Danish at the crowd. The only word Ginny could make out was “Abba.” He produced (seemingly from his pocket) two wigs—one a shaggy man’s wig and one long and blond. The long blond one was dropped onto Ginny’s head, while Ito had grabbed the other and was pulling it on crookedly. A black boa was thrown over from the direction of the bar. Ito grabbed for this first, but the host wrestled it from him and placed it over Ginny’s shoulders.
The room got darker. Ginny couldn’t tell if the lights were actually dropping or if this was just because the heavy blond bangs of the wig were shading her eyes. Her braids stuck out of the front, like mutant hair tentacles. She quickly tried to shove them under the lump in the back.
“How about some ‘Dancing Queen’?” the host screamed, this time, in English. “How about some ‘Mamma Mia’?”
The crowd liked that idea, and no group in the crowd liked it more than the Australian-Japanese contingency that had sent Ginny here in the first place. Monitors along the edge of the stage came to life. Pictures of mountain scenes and strolling couples rolled by.
And then she heard the first chord. That was when it all hit her.
They were going to make her sing.
Ginny did not sing. She especially did not sing after spending five days with the Knapps. She did not sing, ever. She did not get on stages.
Ito went first, grabbing clumsily at the microphone. Though he was smiling, Ginny sensed a genuine competitiveness—he wanted this. The crowd urged him on, banging on the floor and clapping. Ginny kept trying to retreat into the background, but the host kept moving her forward. This was the last place she wanted to be. She was not doing this. She was not.
And yet, here she was, on a stage in Copenhagen under six pounds of synthetic blond hair. She was doing it even as her brain tried to convince her otherwise. In fact, she was in front of the microphone now, and hundreds of expectant faces were looking up at her. And then she heard the noise.
She was singing.
The really astonishing thing was, as she heard her own voice echoing around the huge bar, it almost sounded right. It was a little agonized, maybe. She kept going until she ran out of breath, closing her eyes, letting it all go in one continuous shot until her voice broke.
“Now, we will vote for the winner!”
This man screamed everything. Maybe screaming was a Danish thing.
He took Ito’s arm and held it up, then nodded to the crowd to make their feelings known. There was a good amount of cheering. Then he reached over and pulled Ginny’s arm up.
She was hailed like a queen when she returned to the table, Ito bowing at her the entire way. The Japanese men were obviously traveling on some kind of unlimited expense account, and they made it clear that they were paying for everyone in the group. They immediately flooded the table with various sandwiches. The beer was nonstop. Ginny made it through about a fourth of her cup. Carrie got down two entire mugs. Emmett, Bennett, and Nigel all managed to drink three each. Why they didn’t die immediately was unclear to Ginny. In fact, they seemed totally fine.
By two in the morning, their new benefactors were showing the first signs of an impending collective coma. A credit card was produced, and within minutes, they were all shuffling out onto the street. After some goodbyes and thank-yous and a lot of bowing, Ginny and the Australians started heading toward the metro but were stopped by one of the Japanese men.
“No, no,” he slurred, shaking his head heavily. “Tax-i. Tax-i.”
He reached into his suit pocket and produced a fistful of carefully folded euros. He pressed these into Ginny’s hand. Ginny tried to give them back, but the man showed a fierce determination. It was like a reverse mugging, and Ginny felt that it was best to just comply. The other men waved for taxis, and soon a little row of cars was lined up. Ginny and the Australians were ushered into an oversized blue Volvo. Nigel got into the front, and Emmett, Bennett, Ginny, and Carrie sandwiched into the broad leather backseat.
“I know where we live,” Emmett said, leaning against the door with a thoughtful look on his face. “I just don’t know how to get there.”
Nigel said something to the driver in halting, Australian-sounding Danish that he read from a book. The driver turned around and replied, “Circle drive? What are you talking about? Do you need me to drive around? Is that what you are trying to say?”
Carrie put her head on Ginny’s shoulder and nodded off to sleep.
Bennett decided to navigate from his vantage point, squashed in the middle of the backseat, barely able to see out of any window. Whenever he managed to catch a glimpse of anything he thought he recognized, he would tell the driver to turn. Unfortunately, Bennett seemed to recognize everything. The pharmacy. The bar. The little shop with the flowers in the window. The big church. The blue sign. The driver put up with this for about half an hour and then finally pulled over and said, “Tell me where you are staying.”
“Hippo’s Beach,” Bennett said.
“Hippo’s? I know this place. Of course I know this place. You should have told me.”
He pulled back on the road and turned in the opposite direction, driving quickly.
“It’s starting to look familiar now,” Bennett said, yawning wildly.
They were there in less than five minutes. The ride came to four hundred kroner. Ginny wasn’t sure how much money she had in her hand. Whatever it was, it had been given to them for taxi fare, and this driver had put up with a lot.
“Here,” she said, handing it all over. “It’s all for you.”
She saw him count it out as Carrie made her sleepy way out of the car. He turned and gave her a wide smile. She got the feeling that she had just given him his best tip of the year.
Hippo was still awake when they came stumbling in. He was playing Risk at one of the tables with two very intent-looking guys.
“See?” he said with a smile. “The one with the pretzels. I told you she was trouble.”
#11
* * *
#11
Dear Ginny,
I’ve never had a good memory for quotes. I’ve always tried to remember them, but it never works out. Like recently, I saw a quote by the Zen master Lao-tzu. It goes: “A footprint is made by a shoe, but it is not the shoe itself.”
Fourteen words. You’d think I could remember something like that. I tried. It lasted for about four minutes, and pretty soon it was, “No shoe should be judged by its footprint, for the foot has a print of its own.”
That’s how it stuck in my head. And that, I thought, has no meaning. At all.
Except in your case, Gin. It may actually work for you. Because what I’ve done to you (or what you’ve chosen to do—you are your own woman) is follow in my footsteps on this insane journey I took. You’re in my shoes, but the feet are yours. I don’t know where they’ll lead you.
Does that make any sense? It did when I thought of it. I thought you’d think I was really smart.
I ask because what I want you to do next is retrace a journey I took when I left Copenhagen. I left because the festival was over, and I had no idea what to do with myself.
Sometimes, Gin, life leaves you without directions, without guideposts or signs. When this happens, you jus
t have to pick a direction and run like hell. Since you can’t get much more north than Scandinavia, I decided to go south. And I just kept going.
I went by train to the coast in a misty fog, then got on a train in Germany and rode down. Down through the mountains, down into the Black Forest. I got off in several cities, but each time I couldn’t get any farther than the station door, and I would just turn around and get on another southbound train. Then I hit Italy and turned toward the sea. I had a bright idea—I thought, I’ll go to Venice and drown my sorrows. But there was a garbagemen’s strike in Venice, so it smelled like stinky fish—and it was raining. So I went to the water’s edge and thought, What now? Do I turn left and go through Slovenia, maybe escape to Hungary and eat Hungarian pastries until I explode?
But then I saw the boat, and I just got on.
There’s nothing quite like a long, slow boat ride to clear your thoughts, Gin. A good, slow ferry that takes its time and leaves you baking in the sun off the coast of Italy. I was on that boat for twenty-four hours, sitting by myself in a sticky deck chair, thinking about all that I’d done in the last few months. And around the twenty-third hour, as we were coming through the Greek isles, it all broke open for me, Gin. I saw it all clearly. I saw it as clearly as the island of Corfu, which was looming in front of us. I saw that I’d seen my destination a while back, and I’d forgotten to stop. My future was behind me.
So try it yourself, Gin. Leave now. And I mean, now. As soon as you get this letter. Go right to the train. Go south relentlessly. Follow the yellow brick road all the way to Greece, to the warm waters, to the birthplace of art, philosophy, and yogurt.
When you get on the boat, give me a shout.
Love,
Your Runaway Aunt
P.S. Oh. Go to the grocery store first. Pack snacks. This is a good rule to follow in all aspects of life.
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