Abandoned roads - Jos Lammers

porary job as street sweeper, ordering me to start a junk
collecting service. It worked in England and we had to
have one too. Now. “Maharaj ji will guide you, brother.”
Or that evening the housemother asked me to clear out
the washing machine in the attic and I couldn’t resist
checking out my Carl Denig rucksack. I still knew exactly
were I had put it, behind a couple of boxes, right down in
the corner. The boxes were still there. The rucksack wasn’t.
I pushed a stack of books aside that somebody must have
put there when they joined the ashram. Nothing. Maybe
somebody had put it somewhere else. I shouldn’t start
worrying about this, but there was no way back. On all
fours I crawled over the dusty wooden planks and moved
aside boxes, garbage bags and old suitcases, though I knew
better. Canvas colored, aluminium frame, ultra light,
incontestable, lasts a lifetime, the guy selling it at Carl
Denig had said. It was gone. I returned to the kitchen
without the laundry and asked the housemother if she
knew anything about it. My rucksack. She looked at me
feeling sorry. “Don’t be attached”, was the only thing she
was going to say. “He gave it away”, she then added in a
whisper. “A girl traveling through, you know how he is”,
she said meaningfully turning her eyes up. Sticky, yes I
knew. Sucking up to the ‘sisters’. With my rucksack that
is. I could already see the mocking smile in his eyes when
I would dare to ask about it.
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