Woke up tonight with my heart racing. “Blaschi,” my new cellmate in the bunk beneath me, is still sleaping soundly. Dreamed about skiing in the Giant Mountains.

The German edition of 1984, The 18-Year-Old Who Wrote a Note and Disappeared is now available in bookshops: 📖 https://j4b.me/1984

For a while, my parents took me to Benecko in the Krkonoše Mountains during the winter holidays. I can still remember the first time I saw a lot of snow in my life.

The roadsides were white walls that reached above the car roof. Some curves were so steep that we slid backwards in the Lada and ended up in meter-high snowdrifts in front of the precipice. Without snow chains, we had to take long detours to reach our destination.

It was fantastic there. Several slopes with T-bar lifts. Everything from beginner slopes to mogul slopes. After just one week on wooden boards with antique rope bindings, I had mastered it until the wood broke.

“Dad” bought new equipment for himself and I inherited his boots, including skis with safety bindings, steel edges, and stabilizers on the tips. Wearing tinted “Uvex” goggles, I hurtled down all the slopes and jumped many meters without restraint.

The three of us stayed in a small room with a sink in a private guesthouse that was completely snowed in. The toilet was in the hallway.

We ate in the restaurant in the evening, where they served delicious “Knedlík” dishes. In the morning, plenty of Czech croissants dipped in hot milk had to last the whole day.

When my little brother was born and things got uncomfortable, I even got my own little room the size of a cot.

There was just enough room for a bedside table and a stool. It also had a window overlooking the slopes. For me, it was paradise on earth.

Then it was over. At 13 or 14, I was no longer allowed to go because I had done something wrong. The bitter truth is that I was too big and it was too cramped in the Lada.

That really hurt. I missed that annual week in February so much that I seriously practiced my ski turns in the elevator at home.

As soon as the cabin descended from the 12th floor, I straddled my feet on the baseboards. This caused the floor to give way and I was able to slide open the inner elevator door during the ride.

I used my fingers to ski down the gray concrete wall in the elevator shaft and jumped over the doors on the ninth, sixth, and third floors, which were ski jumps in my imagination.

Shortly before reaching the ground floor, I closed the elevator door and stepped off the edges. Then reality had me firmly in its grip again. I haven’t had that much fun in years.

As soon as I make it to the West, I’ll take the next best opportunity to go to the Alps. There are supposed to be ski resorts there with guaranteed snow even in summer (see Monday, February 27).

If only I could get some indication that my parents have informed Wuppertal. Then I could sleep more peacefully and dream of winter sports with less anxiety.

Once Upon a Time in Germany, A Prequel to 1984, The 18-Year-Old Who Wrote a Note and Disappeared is now available in bookshops: 📖 https://j4b.me/doom

PS: What I didn’t know at the time was that my biological father (see Friday, March 2) was interviewed by West German television in Oberwiesenthal in February 1982. According to his recollection, he gave an interview lasting several minutes. In fact, only a few seconds can be heard and seen. He wrote about the trouble his friendly words got him into in his book “Erinnerungen an das 20. Jahrhundert (Memories of the 20th Century)” starting on page 290.

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