The Hauptbahnhof is a sleek, modern railway station in the Mitte section of Berlin where it costs €2 to take a leak and €4 for a bottle of water you could get from a machine at Costco for a quarter and even cheaper if you bought it by the case. Standing on the platform, I watched as legions of field tripping schoolchildren raucously descended the escalator to join the crowd already congealing around me. I don’t know how the school year works in Germany, but summertime seems to be when Deutsche Kinder all visit their nation’s capital. Turning down the gain on my hearing aids, I silently prayed they wouldn’t be in my car.

“Don’t worry,” my ersatz brother-in-law, said, as if reading my mind. “I booked us first class tickets.”

“You did?”  

“Those kids will be in second class.” 

“How much did that cost?” 

“Don’t worry about it. It’s on me.” 

I felt a bit discomfited. Rene had covered the cost of an indulgent evening at the Ritz-Carlton’s cigar bar the night before and I didn’t want to feel like a leech. Then again, he makes a lot more money than me. 

“Well,” I said. “Then I’m picking up the beers on the train.”  

An old man came and tried to sell us a newspaper. Since I don’t speak German, I shook my head but, instead of walking away, he stuck his hand out. “Please?” Then I realized he was a beggar. You see the same kind of thing on the New York subway. “Sorry,” I said, and he walked away. Glancing at his watch, Rene said. “So much for German trains being on time.” 

“I think the Euro Cup thing fucked it up.” 

“Wait here, I’ll check the board.” 

Germans don’t seem to be enamored with air-conditioning like we Americans are and the station was hot. Something to do with the cost of electricity I read somewhere. Now, with Putin chocking off their once cheap natural gas supplies, I doubted things would change anytime soon. Feeling parched and slightly woozy, I wondered if I shouldn’t have stood on principle and bought that usuriously priced bottle of H20. Then someone tapped my shoulder. 

“Paper, sir?” a young woman asked. I was mildly piqued she addressed me in my language. Did I look that American? Must’ve been my Hawaiian shirt. 

“No thank you, miss,” I said, shaking my head. 

“PLEASE, SIR!” she almost shouted. “My baby is hungry.” Then, thrusting out her abdomen, she rubbed her swollen belly. 

Well aware St. Peter was keeping a record of my good deeds or lack thereof, my hand started going into my pocket, but then stopped. Having experienced the joys of my wife’s pregnancy by proxy, I knew something wasn’t right. Looking at the woman’s belly, I got the impression that it was too perfectly shaped, as if she was wearing one of those prosthetics high-school kids wear to know what they’re in for if they’re not careful. That, and the exaggerated thrust of her hips, made the sixth sense I’d developed during a long career dealing with people smell a Ratte. Probably a gypsy. I’d run into many of them in Italy. 

“Sorry, miss,” I lied. “I don’t have any money.” 

“You’re travelling by nice train. You have money.” 

I always keep loose change in my pocket when I go to Manhattan and make it a point to drop something in a beggar’s cup at least once during the trip – but I hate aggressive panhandlers. Deciding to means test this lady’s level of desperation, I said, “I’ll buy you something to eat right now.”

“No,” she said. “Money,” and then began started tugging on my shirtsleeve. Aggravated, I channeled the spirit of every oberführer I’d seen in World War II movies and snapped out a curt “NEIN!” Sputtering something in a language I didn’t understand, the woman spun on her heel and left. If only St. Peter could see me now. 

“Everything okay?” Rene said, sidling up to me. 

“Just a gypsy.” 

Half an hour later, ensconced in our first class seats to Stuttgart, I ordered two large beers from the steward and grinned when they arrived. This was the life. “I’m so glad those kid are not with us,” I said. 

“Can you imagine?” Rene replied. 

A couple of liters later and feeling no pain, our train zipped by the town of Fulda and, as I looked at the flat plains rolling past, I could almost see Soviet tanks blasting their way through columns of Bundeswehr troops. “See that?” I said to Rene, pointing out the window.  “That’s the Fulda Gap.” 

“The what?” 

“If World War III started in the Eighties, the Warsaw pact would have invaded here, and this would be the last place on earth you’d want to be.”

“How do you know this stuff?” 

I shrugged. “History teacher for a father I guess.” 

Feeling slightly tipsy, I closed my eyes and thought about my high school fears of the Cold War going hot. If the Russians got the upper hand punching into West Germany, NATO doctrine was to nuke the shit out of them. Probably with neutron bombs. One thing’s for sure, if things went sideways back then, the countryside I was chugging through would’ve become hell incarnate. 

“My baby’s hungry!” 

With a start, I opened my eyes, looking for the faux-pregnant lady from the train station, but all I could see was Rene gazing out the window as the train’s horn wailed. Maybe that’s what I heard and my unconsciously guilty mind turned it into a lamentation. I’d been living it up lately – fancy bars, good food, first class travel, and probably too many beers – and I now felt like I’d missed paying a toll. I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. After spending so much on myself, a charitable Euro would’ve been a drop in the bucket. Had I turned into those restaurant customers I once despised? Living in a bubble while thinking life should be an uninterrupted journey from one purchased pleasure to the next? 

Then again, I say nein all the time. When your job is sorting out legitimate appeals for help from the bogus like mine, you develop a sense of who should get what or not. Do you hand over funds to a guy who’ll just drink or gamble it away or to the mom with three kids and no place to live?  Do you help that lady whose story is full of holes or the young man who came in with documentation attesting to his troubles?  Sometimes I’ve got nothing to go on but my gut and, while I know I’m right more often than I’m wrong, I remember every single time I screwed up like it happened yesterday. “Always err on the side of generosity,” I told my volunteers before I went on vacation, but did I really live up to that credo myself? Sitting in my quiet train car, I felt my own words getting thrown back in my face. “Deserves got nothing to do with it.” Maybe I should quit the food pantry and sell cars. Of course, that beggar was probably full of scheisse but so what? Sighing, I remembered the words of Somerset Maugham, “The road to salvation is narrow and as difficult to walk as the razor’s edge.” 

Staring at the German countryside, I realized I’d cut myself.