Some of my friends began to meet me there, and somehow the talk in the Transit Bar would often turn to the same subjects, and they'd tell some of their families' war experiences.
B A R F L Y
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| I used to hang out at the Transit Bar after
coming off work as a busboy, just to have a little dinner before going home, but after a while I
was going there regularly on my nights off, too. There was a group of regulars who met there and I
couldn't help but overhear them talking. Besides stories about their lives (most were expatriates
and had interesting, if turmoiled, histories), they frequently spoke of lost art works that had
been missing since the war, and something about a museum Hitler was planning to build. All this
caught my interest, and brought back memories of hushed family stories
I had overheard as a child. Some of my friends began to meet me there, and somehow the talk in the Transit Bar would often turn to the same subjects, and they'd tell some of their families' war experiences. |
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It took a while to win the trust of some of the regulars. Not that I blame them; they didn't have any idea who I was, really. But their stories were fascinating, and I enjoyed sitting behind the old piano, so it was worth putting up with a little indifference, just to listen in. At least the bartender seemed to like me, and she had their respect, and was even in on their plan to memorialize some of the lost art works. Gradually their resistance let up, and they began to trust me. One night I showed them my grandfather's journal and they asked to tell some stories about him. They were a little surprised to hear that I didn't really have many to tell; that I felt I hardly knew him at all. All I could say was that, like me, he was a bit of a barfly, and that it was clear he was haunted by some harrowing experiences he didn't like to talk about. I wasn't able to learn the details before he died. |
It might have been my grandfather's journal that finally broke the
ice, but after a while I was invited to join in their plan to re-create some of the
lost works, and they went as far as giving me access to a studio. Actually, it was
more of an office, in the corner of the computer lab, but I was happy enough, not
really having a studio at the time, in exchange for some
duties as a technician/coordinator on their project.I wasn't really any more of a
cyber-punk than a skinhead, (as I am often mistaken to be), but it seemed to suit
their image of me, and I was happy to learn about the computers they were using, and
to help them out in whatever way I could. But I have to admit, there was something
about all this fascination with technology that made me a
little uneasy, something vaguely familiar and unsettling . . .
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There was a door at the back of the computer lab leading to a storage room, filled to capacity with dusty boxes and crates which appeared to have been there for decades - a sealed and half-forgotten archive that nobody knew the exact contents of. At the back of the storage room was another door leading to the service tunnels, dating back even before the building was used as a prison. The door was locked, but there was a barred window through which you could see an empty concrete corridor, with a bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling. One could only imagine what was in store around the next corner. |
