Leipzig | Gold Notes

I drink toxic white wine. Ruby carpets cover the tables. The sky is clear, the wind biting and the bar empty, but for a sole white-haired man in navy blue.

I consume the concoction too quickly and watch pigeons trying to find their way among cyclists speeding down dark cobblestone streets.

Louis Armstrong bellows. Rain falls along the window panes, covered with white doily lace curtains.

            Just a jackknife… on the sidewalk, Sunday morning… someone’s sneaking around the corner… that someone is the jackknife.

THE BATH

A long tram carries us to the sauna.

“The one in Cologne is better,” Heather admits, “but this one is nice. Tim and I spend all day here.”

Heather tours me through me the sauna-club on a Wednesday afternoon. She and her partner, Tim, travel to the spa just outside Leipzig’s city center once a month. Heather has become well acquainted with the huge wellness center, consisting of luke warm jacuzzi’s, large swimming pools, numerous themed sauna’s, a water-bed napping room, cold showers and an uninviting cardboard-wood bar. We leave our bathing suits in wooden cubby cubes and enter the sauna area, armed with just reading material and large towels. Old white men stride along, towels draped over their thick shoulders, penis’ available for show.

Everyone is nude.

“I never get used to seeing so many penis’s.” Heather admits.

Most women are more reserved. They wear towels wrapped closely to the body until entering a sauna or pool.

Heather and I leave our belongings on reclining chairs in a silent room surrounded by windows. Outside, a scene from a Gaugin forest paints the glass. Thin branches of green, leafy trees gnarl around a sterile jungle that fences in the baby blue pools and white lawn chairs.

“This is the eucalyptus sauna.” Heather gives a comprehensive tour. “It smells really good. Here is the bio (organic) sauna. And here is the really hot sauna. I never go in there.”
We walk around whirlpools to the opposite side of the large gymnasium. A large glass oculus opens the sunlit space to the sky.

Outside the sauna arena lies a large swimming pool devoid of participants in the cold air. Lawn chairs spread around a neatly cropped lawn. Two log cabin sauna’s bookend the space. We lie in the far end sauna. Hot stones consist of a centerpiece stove.

I rest in the heat for moments before my mind begins to race.

“I’ll see you.” I head toward the door.

Heather remains peaceful. “OK, see you around.”

I lie in the “Bio” sauna where birds chirp and water trickles down a stream over invisible speakers. Afterwards I am exhausted and opt for a long nap on a water-bed in a glass enclosed room for what feels like hours.

I wrap my pastel purple towel closely around my goosebump body and walk fearlessly to the hot sauna. I think about the Finnish man who died in a sauna competition a year earlier. He sat in a steaming space for more than a few seconds and lost consciousness.

A clock outside the door reads 5pm. It is ten minutes until five. Not knowing the mysterious 5pm occurrence, I enter with a plan – stay five minutes and then run to the luke warm whirlpool. I climb to the top-level of a three-pronged wooden stair space and lie on my towel. Moments later, naked bodies begin to fill the dark room. After minutes, I lift myself to see a fence of nudity. A few women scatter between a large number of old white men. They are closely packed together, waiting. I rise and sit on my towel. People park themselves closely beside. Five more minutes pass. I am hot, sweating, ready to leave. More people pile in.

“Hallo!” a woman greets the room. She strips off her towel and sits beside an old, bald man hunched over draping folds of belly fat.

Five more minutes pass. My breathing is heavy. It feels like it may stop.

“I’m going to die here,” I think. “In this room with all these old white men.” I panic. “I am going to die here. This will be the most absurd way to go.”

A young, hairless man enters and closes the door with a wooden latch. He pours water over stones and creates more steam. He makes comments in German. Everyone laughs and jokes. The young man wets a cloth and whips it around the dense air. The room is a thousand degrees farenheit. My mind sinks  further down into an illogical state. “He’s going to attack us with that wet towel.” I am now forcing breath. The air is so intense, I could climb on it, over the bodies.

“SORRY!” I scream.

Rather than scale the air, I stumble over countless nakedness. Clutching shoulders and bare heads, I make my way to the door.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry” Is all I can utter.

Mumbling ensues.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” a lumpy white man with thick eyebrows mocks.

The air outside feels like life.  Seconds later a hefty Turkish stumbles out the wooden door.

“Too hot!”