true hallucinations.htm - Shroomery

true hallucinations.htm
This conversation was like a bad dream or a B-movie. I looked over at his companion who returned my gaze with utter impassivity. It seemed
important to deflect the conversation if only even slightly. "And you, Herr Heintz, what of your role in all of this?"
He shrugged. "I was a mere nothing. A Messerschmidt pilot in the Luftwaffe. A good German only." This last was said without a trace of
irony. "Before the war I was a young engineering student. The war changed everything. After the war, a few of us, my fellow, young scholars
from the Max Planck Institute, gathered in the ruins of Berlin. We were finished with ideology, with the grand political dreams."
This was the first good news in a while. I gratefully signaled the Indonesian waiter for another round of beer while Heintz continued: "We
were a small group, pitiful really, but united by our
revulsion at the horror all around us. We determined to build a new world for ourselves, a world based on two principles, two great powers,
the power of capital and the power of science. We began slowly, with patents, processes that had been discovered at the Planck Institute
during the war, trade secrets really. Carefully we expanded on this, we established ourselves in Singapore. There was not a shoemaker among
us. Each member of our small team was a genius. Our furher was a professor who' had trained us all, a true genius. His name was Max
Bockermann. It was he who held us together; it was his faith and strength that made it all possible."
The schmiss on his cheek had turned bright red at this turn of the conversation. I had hoped that there were no further depths of discomfiture
to be plumbed in this conversation but I was wrong, for now I saw that he was moving, perhaps under the influence of the third quart of
Bintang, from passionate intensity to outright maudlin sentimentality. "No man has ever loved another as Bockermann loved us. We are his
kinder, his little birds, ja. When it seemed that there was no hope he inspired us; he made us believe in ourselves."
Tears rose in his eyes at this, then he seemed to regain his self control and continued. "And what is the result? FEMMI, Herr McKenna, Far
East Mining and Minerals Incorporated. We have grown and prospered. From our offices in Singapore we control projects in eleven countries.
Oil, nickel, tin, bauxite, uranium—we have it all. But we have more, we have love, companionship, community, and the power to make our
dreams come true." At this he broke stride and reached over to put his hand on the thigh of the woman beside him. I looked away.
When I returned to his depthless blue gaze his mood had changed. "But what about yourself, Herr McKenna. It is clear that you are leading the
gypsy life." He pronounced the word gypsy like chipsy. "And we gypsies always have our stories to tell. So what about you?"
I swallowed hard. He didn't look like the sort of person who would appreciate my stories of fighting the police at the Berkeley barricades
shoulder-to-shoulder with affinity groups like the Persian Fuckers and the Acid Anarchists. Nor did my participation in the Human Be-In or
the rolling orgies of the Summer of Love in
the Haight-Ashbury seem appropriate to mention. And my recent stint as a hashish smuggler in India and my subsequent move undercover to
avoid capture by Interpol also seemed out of place in this particular interview.
I decided to go with the usual half-truth reserved for straight people. "I am an art historian turned biologist. I went to Nepal to study Tibetan
but found that I am no linguist when it comes to Asian languages. I have returned to biology, my first love. Specifically, I am an entomologist.
I am collecting butterflies here in Indonesia retracing the route of Alfred Russell Wallace. Wallace was the real discoverer of the theory of
natural selection, but Darwin got all the credit. I identify with his underdog status. Wallace was shafted by Victorian science because he was
of the wrong class and didn't know how to play politics the way Darwin did. Wallace explored the Amazon Basin as well and if all goes well,
I hope to travel and collect there too. Eventually I will write a monograph on speciation among the butterflies of Amazonas and Eastern
Indonesia, which will get me a degree. Then, who knows. Teaching perhaps. Hard to say."
"So you are a real gypsy, then. And an outsider by your dress and beard. I like this. We like this young man, don't we, Rani?" It was the first
time that he had addressed his companion during the entire conversation. She replied with a nod, never taking her eyes off me. "Ja, good. So
now we eat. And tomorrow we talk more. I will expect you to join us here at breakfast." And with that he applied himself to his water buffalo
steak with a ferocious intensity.
Later we returned to the hotel together, but by then the electricity had been turned off in that part of town and we had to give our slightly
sloshed attention to picking our way along the muddy, rutted streets. There was no further serious conversation. As we parted in the atrium of
the hotel he turned to me. "You must call me Karl. Jetzt wir sind freunden. You understand?" I nodded yes and we parted.
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