Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2005 12:46:04 +0200
From: Harry Anders <harry@harryanders.com>
Subject: Little Harry-20

Chapter 20. Sending love, a puncture, and the customs.

We decided to drive for an hour or so, and then look for a big town to buy
the things we needed. John took a piece of paper and a ballpoint, and made
a list of the things we absolutely should buy. Flashlights, a bright
camping lamp, lots of toilet paper, a small car refrigerator, and lots of
food and healthy things to make sandwiches with. That way we were no longer
dependent on camping restaurants with their long queues. In the meantime
Davey fed the GPS receiver with our new data.

"The GPS tells us we will arrive at the next town within sixty three
minutes, dad."

John switched the car radio on and searched the stations for nice
background music. Little Harry and Nicky played a game of 'stone, scissors,
and paper'. After a while everyone got bored, so John wrote down: 'Car
games for underway!'. And a moment later: 'More paper and a reserve
ballpoint'. He added: 'Tissues'.

An hour later we entered a town and looked for a big supermarket. Nicky saw
the police-officer first and pointed to him.

"What a strange uniform that officer is wearing, pop! Everything he wears
is a dark green instead of blue. Why is that?"

"That's because we are now in another country. Here they speak a different
language too."

"Oh... but how should we ask them something? Or do you speak their language
yourself?"

"Well, I don't speak it too well, but it might be well enough to make them
understand what I want."

"I hope so..."

We stopped, and I asked the officer where we could find a
supermarket. Fortunately he understood me quite well and pointed us to a
supermarket, a camping store, and a big store he called 'beehive' where we
could buy nearly everything we wished. I thanked him, and we went to the
supermarket first.

"What a strange language they speak here, pop. I didn't understand a word
of what he told you."

"Fortunately I did."

I parked our van in front of the supermarket. The boys hopped out of the
car and went inside, where little Harry picked a shopping cart and proudly
directed it to the first row of goods. John fished the piece of paper out
of his pocket, and we loaded the cart with everything we needed, plus a lot
of extra things we thought we would need in the future. As the cart filled
up, Nicky helped little Harry push the now very heavy cart. Eventually we
went to the cash register, and I paid with my credit card. We put our
purchases into a cardboard box and carried everything to our van, where we
tried to clear a place for the box. I should have bought a bigger car!

John looked dubiously at the back of the van.

"Where will we put the car refrigerator, and the camping lamp, and the
games, and everything else we have to buy?"

"Well... I think if we put you on the roof, we will have lots of extra
space in the van to stow away everything else."

"Ha ha..."

We went to the camping store and bought five flashlights, spare batteries,
two camping lamps, and a nice small cooling box with a built in twelve volt
element.  With a lot of pushing, everything found its place in the back of
the van. Now I tried to remember which way the police officer showed me to
the 'beehive'. Was it to the left or to the right?

I asked a passer-by, and two minutes later we saw an enormous five-story
building with lots of alluring shop windows. We entered the building, and
the boys were in awe!

"I could walk around here for the rest of the day, and come back tomorrow!"

"Look, they really have EVERYTHING here! From television sets to school
books."

We bought a load of games, a small twelve volt coffee machine, and some
other things we needed. The boys wanted to stay in the shop, but we had to
go on! I promised them to return here another time, perhaps during their
next vacation. Regretfully, we went to the exit and resumed our voyage.

We decided to drive on until we were too tired. The boys entertained
themselves with their new games and looking at the GPS receiver from time
to time. After an hour, John and Davey surprised me with a cup of hot
coffee, homemade on our new coffee machine. I thanked them abundantly, as
the coffee tasted really good.

Halfway through the day the boys prepared healthy sandwiches, and we took a
short break at a parking lot along the road, although little Harry
protested. Nobody showed up to harass us, but the boys decided not to leave
the van until we reached the next gas station, causing little Harry to sigh
with relief.

"I'm still afraid dad! I don't want us to be arrested again..."

He crept onto my lap, and we cuddled for a while, until we had to go on. At
the next gas station we parked our van, fetched the washroom key, and took
a leak, waiting until all had finished. We brought the key back, thanked
the attendant, and resumed our way to Rumania.

Slowly the landscape changed. The boys craned their necks and looked from
left to right at the woods, the valleys, and a beautiful low lake amongst
the wooded hills that looked green because of the reflections of the forest
in the surface. For the first time during our voyage they were absolutely
silent and overwhelmed by the beauty of nature.

The road started to climb, and the car engine had to work harder. For the
next two hours we were climbing, descending, climbing again, until we
decided to stop for dinner. We looked on the map and found a small town in
a valley, surrounded by mountains.

Suddenly we saw there a wonderful looking small restaurant, with beautiful
flowers around the windows on the outside.

"This one dad, that looks like a nice eating place. Let's stop here!"

We entered the restaurant, and were welcomed by an invitingly homey
atmosphere. A smiling waiter addressed us in a foreign language that we
didn't understand, but when we used the universal sign for 'I'm hungry',
rubbing our belly, he guided us to a cozy corner table with six chairs. He
handed me the menu, but I couldn't understand what it said. I tried to tell
him the choice was his, and with a huge grin on his face he seemed to
understand. He went away and returned with a cup of coffee and four glasses
of chocolate milk.

John pointed to his glass and shook 'no'. The waiter took the glass away,
still smiling, and returned with a glass of milk. Was he clairvoyant or
what? John thanked him by nodding vigorously.

Twenty minutes later the waiter returned with five bowls of a slightly
reddish soup, which tasted excellent. The waiter took the empty bowls away
and returned with a huge platter filled with the most delicious pieces of
meat I ever saw. They were huge! He scooped a piece of meat onto each
platter and returned with fried potatoes, a delicious sauce and enormous
servings of salad.

Everything tasted delicious, even our critical small cook licked his
fingers. After the meal the waiter offered us five small sorbets with all
sorts of fruits. Little Harry tried to ask him for the names of the meal,
and our waiter seemed to understand him. The soup was called 'minestrone',
the meat was called 'schnitzel', and the fried potatoes were
'kartoffeln'. 'Thank you' was 'danke' and 'delicious' was
'herrlich'. Little Harry beamed.

"Danke, the minestrone soup and the schnitzel and the kartoffeln and
everything else were herrlich!"

The waiter ruffled his hair. "Danke schön, du bist ein netter Knabe."

I took another cup of coffee, and the boys asked for a 'cola', which seems
to be the same in every language. After a while the waiter returned with
the bill, and I was amazed by the reasonable price. I paid him and added a
big tip. We went to our van and drove off, stuffed and feeling welcomed in
this foreign country.

Davey pointed to a sign board that announced something in the foreign
language, followed by 'bed and breakfast'. That's a language we understood!
Should we...

"Yes dad, the rest of the trip we can sleep in our bungalow tent, but
tonight we could sleep here, in a normal bed."

I parked the van, and we entered a small tourist hotel. Fortunately they
understood our language, and we got the keys of two adjacent rooms with a
huge bathroom. We took our luggage upstairs and divided the four huge beds,
two in each room. We went downstairs to have a look at the surroundings,
but then the boys discovered the small indoor swimming pool.

"Can we... err... may we, dad? We have our swimming trunks with us, in one
of those suitcases."

I nodded, and with Indian howls they disappeared upstairs. Seconds later
they were back, clad in their swimming trunks. The rest of the evening they
were gone, while I talked with the owner of the hotel, a nice woman who
spoke our language quite well. I told her our plans, and she warned me to
be careful in Rumania because of the widespread corruption. She also warned
me not to use a campground there, as they are not safe enough. I should
always try to spend the night in a well known hotel, and carry everything
out of the van first!

That night four happy and tired boys slept like horses. Nicky and little
Harry crawled into my bed of course, while John and Davey crawled together
in the other bed. We didn't use the second room, but messed up the other
beds so they would look slept in, just to be safe. One could never know.

In the morning we had an excellent breakfast, with bacon, boiled eggs, and
lots of fruity jam. We packed the suitcases, brought them to our van, and
thanked the owner of the hotel. Again we went on our way to Rumania, but
still we weren't even halfway into our trip... John looked at the map and
Davey played with the GPS receiver.

"In ten minutes we are crossing the border to the next country, Dad."

He was right. Ten minutes later we passed a billboard warning us to buy a
'tax marker' before crossing the border. We stopped at a small shop and
paid for the road tax by buying a sticker to put onto the front window of
our van. We were in!

Slowly the surroundings changed. We drove through a deep valley, surrounded
by huge snowy mountains. The boys were in awe and craned their necks to
look everywhere. We passed a small tunnel and entered the next valley, even
deeper and wider, again surrounded by mountains that seemed to glow bluish
in the sunlight.

After a while the boys got used to the sights and decided to play a
game. John brewed a cup of coffee and brought it to me. He slid into the
front seat.

"Dad, I've been thinking. May I ask you a question?"

"Of course. What's on your mind?"

"How do you send someone your love?"

What a question! How did I send my love to my boys? I knew it worked, but
how did I DO it... I sent him my love, and immediately his eyes brightened.

"I can FEEL you dad! It's as if you are radiating love and harmony, and
it's like you are embracing me with it."

"I'll try to explain a few things about life. People basically consist of
three levels: thinking, feeling, and knowing. Everybody can think. You do
it with your brain. You think by making thoughts. Many people think life is
situated in the brain. But the brain is just a tool, you can use it to make
things clear to yourself. You can do without the tool, you can be without
thoughts, but even without thoughts you still are YOU. Without thinking you
KNOW who you are, always.

"The brain has two defects: it can't feel, and it can't know. It only can
think about feelings, and it can remember only the things you once fed
it. That's all.

"You DO think, but you ARE feeling. You say: 'I do think'; and you say: 'I
am sad or frustrated'. Not: 'I do a feeling'. That's the big difference
that's confusing nearly all people. YOU CAN'T FEEL. You only can BE a
feeling. And the brain can't feel at all. THE BRAIN CAN'T FEEL. The brain
can only look at the results of the feeling, and make you believe you DID
that...

"Your brain is a doer, you are a being. It's very important to always keep
that in mind. You do think, you are feeling, and there's a third thing: you
KNOW who you are. You can think about who you are, you can feel who you
are, but you will always KNOW who you are, independent of your thoughts or
your feelings.

"You can extend your knowing, that's called 'intuition' or 'sensing
things'. That's what psychics or clairvoyants do. They extend their knowing
to other levels. You can extend your knowing to where you are aware you are
a spirit living in a body. YOU ARE NOT YOUR BODY OR YOUR BRAIN. You are
you, a being living in a body and using it's brain, until it dies.

"I know it's a lot of information, but did you follow me so far?"

The van was dead silent, except for the murmur of the engine. Everybody was
listening, open-mouthed. I sent them my love, and they all smiled.

"To make things more complicated, there are two sorts of feelings. We call
them 'emotions' and 'feelings of the heart'. Emotions are situated in the
belly, and there are five basic emotions: grief, anger, competition, fear,
and love. Grief helps you overcome losses, anger sets your boundaries,
competition helps you to grow, fear makes you careful, and love brings you
into contact with other living beings. Only love can offer you something
useful, namely happiness. All other emotions can make you ill. You could
best do without them.

"The brain is the boss. The moment you are paying attention to your
thinking, you can only feel your emotions and you can only THINK about
feelings. BUT YOU CAN'T FEEL.

"When you have an emotion, that's the boss. You still can't feel your heart
feelings, you can't KNOW, and you can't use your intuition or sense
things. But when you live in your heart and fill yourself with love for
yourself and for the whole universe, including all other living beings, you
ARE LOVE, and your knowing, feeling, and intuition all work optimally.

"Many people are living in their head, they are 'in control'. They will
never feel, and what they call 'love' is something else, based on emotions
and sexuality. When they are growing, they learn to be 'emotional', to let
their emotional energy flow upwards. That's the first step, to empty all
hidden emotions. The result could be a 'catharsis', but there are other
ways too.

"Once your hidden emotions, your 'frustrations' or 'traumas', are emptied;
you start to feel your heart feelings. The first feeling is emptiness,
that's why so many people are looking for a 'partner', someone else who has
to fill their loneliness or give them a purpose in life. The next feeling
is doubt. Am I good enough, does he or she love me? The third feeling is
the major step forward: love YOURSELF. Fill yourself with your own warmth,
your own happiness, your own affection. Then you ARE LOVE.

"The moment you really are love, you have so much to offer to all other
beings, it's nearly suffocating you. That's the moment people start to
REALLY help others, to show them the way, to encourage them to grow up and
decide for themselves instead of making themselves dependent on others.

"When I am sending you my love, I open my heart and let my feelings of love
and harmony radiate freely into the air, while I'm tuning in to who you
really are. That's all I do..."

Again the van was dead silent, except for the sounds of the engine and the
surrounding traffic. Suddenly I could feel little Harry, a bit unsure, and
I smiled at him.

"You REALLY felt me, dad! I sent you my love and you FELT it! Wow!"

"Yes, my precious soul mate, I felt your love radiating and tuning in to
me. Of course you're not as strong as a grown-up, because you have to pass
puberty first. But you WERE love."

John thought for a while, frowned, and looked at me. "Does this work with
other emotions too?"

"Yes John, unfortunately this works with all emotions that are strong
enough. That's why sometimes a group of people will do things that an
individual never would do. That's why you will become angry at another
person who's feeling angry and addressing you. You tune in into each
other's feelings. But love is the strongest emotion. When another person is
angry and you send him your love, the anger will subside. All illuminated
masters tell us we are all connected to each other, and they are right."

"What's an illuminated master?"

"That's a person who has reached the top in being Universal Love."

"Oh... are you an illuminated master?"

"I hope to be one in the future, so I'm training..."

The next several hours the boys were asking questions, trying to feel each
other, sending each other their love, tuning into me and into each other,
until their stomachs became the strongest force. John and Davey cooked a
couple of eggs in our small coffee machine (clever boys!) and made us
delicious sandwiches. I parked the van in a small clearing, and this time
all the boys hurried outside to empty their bladders, even little Harry. We
ate our sandwiches, drank coffee and orange juice, and resumed our voyage,
determined to cover as many kilometers as possible.

We passed the next border without any trouble, but we had to pay for
another tax marker. On we went, the boys still talking about all the things
they heard and playing lots of games.  Eventually I was too tired to go on,
so we decided to call it a day. We went to a big campground, where the boys
put our bungalow tent together in no time.

"See dad, when you know what you have to do first, fixing the tent is no
problem!"

The boys detected a small lake where lots of people were swimming and
diving, so the rest of the evening they were gone. I lighted one of our
camping lamps and read a book. The boys returned just before total
darkness, tired but happy. We inflated the mattresses and crawled under the
big blanket. We were too tired to say goodnight and immediately fell
asleep.

The next morning I woke up looking into two deep blue eyes; totally
fascinating eyes, with little fun lights in them. Little Harry looked at
me, smiling and sending me his love.

"Morning dad, we thought you would never wake up. Can we go for another
swim, before breakfast?"

"Okay, but not too long. We have to travel a long way today."

All the boys were already clad in their swimming trunks and hurried away. I
dressed and started to fold the bungalow tent together. After twenty
minutes of wrestling I gave up and decided to leave that to my technical
team. I went to the lake, where I was greeted by my four boys,
enthusiastically frolicking, diving, and chasing each other.

"Come on boys, we have to go!"

"Aww dad..."

But they followed me, until they saw our bungalow tent and panicked.

"Who did THAT? DAD, somebody wrecked our new bungalow tent!"

Deeply ashamed, I confessed. The boys roared with laughter and wrestled me
to the ground, where they started to tickle me mercilessly.

"Stop boys, I am nearly wetting my pants!"

"No problem, we have a nearly full package of pampers left."

After a while they let me go and folded our tent in less than two
minutes. We loaded our van, paid the campground manager and drove off. Ten
minutes later we arrived at a small roadside restaurant and enjoyed an
excellent breakfast. No long queues this time! We looked at the map and
planned to travel until we reached the Rumanian mountains where our people
lived.

We asked for a phone, and the boys phoned their parents, telling them about
all the adventures of the past few days. They promised to phone them again
soon. I paid for the breakfast and the calls. Again we were on our way to
the gypsies, trying to reach their mountains before darkness fell.

Davey sat shotgun, with the map on his knees. Little Harry tried to detect
how the GPS receiver worked, with the help of John. Nicky leaned across
Davey to search the car radio for music.

Suddenly the van started to rumble and swing from left to right and back. I
steered to the right shoulder with some difficulty, and cautiously
stopped. We left the van, and looked at a flat tire. Obviously we got a
puncture. There we were, in the middle of nowhere. What now?

A lot of cars passed by, but nobody stopped. I looked at our spare tire,
but it didn't look too well. I never thought about looking at it
before... Where was the jack?

"John, Davey, do you know where our jack is? We need it to lift the car, so
we can put the spare tire under the van."

"Do you mean that awkward iron thing with a handle at the side? We took it
to our garage, to free space for all the other things we had to take with
us..."

"Well, we can't change our tires without it. What now?"

John jumped on the road and started to wave his arms at the passing
cars. That helped, within two minutes a big BMW stopped and a man looked at
our car.

"Looks you are in trouble? What can I do for you?"

I pointed to our flat tire, and he took his mobile phone. He spoke a few
words in it.

"Within twenty minutes a garage will help you out. Have a nice day!"

We thanked him, and he drove off without looking back.

We entered the van, and the boys brewed a cup of coffee and took fresh
orange juice themselves. We filled the time by looking at all passing cars
and playing silly games. After half an hour a big truck stopped, and two
heavily built men approached our van. They asked us a lot of questions we
didn't understand, so I pointed to the puncture and to our spare
tire. Fortunately they understood. They took a big jack out of the truck
and changed the tires in no time. They beckoned us to follow them, which we
did.

Ten minutes later we entered a garage, where the men put two brand new
tires on both front wheels. They exchanged the spare tire with the better
one from the front wheels. One of the men wrote a sum down on a piece of
paper, handed it to me, and made the international sign of 'paying'. I took
my wallet out of my pocket and counted. My wallet didn't contain enough
cash money, so I took my inexhaustible credit card. Immediately they both
shook 'no'. They wanted to be paid in cash. What now?

I tried to convince them I was really trustworthy and would be back to pay
them, but they didn't understand me. After a while one of the men
disappeared and returned with another man, who spoke a few words of our
language. He told us: "No money, no car!"

I showed them my credit card, but they didn't even look at it. I asked them
to follow us to a bank or a cash machine somewhere, but they refused. I had
to pay them in cash, or else no car! A bit warily, I offered them to leave
my passport behind, but again their answer was the same: cash money, or no
car! I asked them to lend me another car, so I could get some money from a
bank, but they told me they didn't have a spare car. They seemed really
inexorable. What now? Walking to a bank to get some money?

At last I begged them to come up with a solution. They had a heated
discussion for a while, and then the third man approached us.

"You leave boy here, take car, get money, pay us, get boy back."

Never in my life! Not in a thousand years! I loved my boys too much to let
them serve as a medium of exchange! But the men remained unrelenting. Leave
a boy here, or no car! I was about to refuse again, when John took my arm
and pulled me aside.

"This leads to nothing, dad. You know I can fend for myself, and my mother
always tells me I am a good judge of character. Those men aren't mean, but
I think they had a bad experience in the past, and now they are afraid they
will not get their money. Leave me here, and go get some money from a bank!
I know you will be back soon."

I hugged him, in front of everybody. My dear friend, my precious buddy!

John went to the men and told them he would stay until I returned with the
money. Immediately Davey joined him.

"I will stay with you! That's what friends are for. Go on dad, we are
waiting for you!"

A man handed me the keys of our van and pointed me to a bank in a nearby
town. Half an hour later we were back, with little Harry and Nicky both
propped into the same front seat. I paid the men, and they offered us their
apologies. The third man told us they once trusted a foreigner with a
credit card, and that had cost them a lot of money. They offered us coffee
and a drink for the boys, which we accepted, of course. In good harmony we
resumed our voyage, two hours later and on brand new front tires.

Soon we neared the Rumanian border, where the agents stopped us, asking for
our papers. I showed them our passports, and they looked critically at all
the boys.

"How come they have different last names?"

I explained we were invited by important Rumanian friends to spend the
holidays there; and the boys were here with the consent of all their
parents. I showed them the sealed papers. The customs took all the papers
with them to make copies. After a while they returned.

"How long do you want to stay in Rumania?"

"For about three weeks. After that time we will go back to our own
country."

"How come one of those boys is of a gypsy origin?"

"That's my own son. I've already handed you his papers. What's your
problem, officer? Are you discriminating?"

I spoke as loudly as possible, and that seemed to work. A lot of people
looked at our officers, and they didn't seem to like that. They started to
painstakingly search our belongings. After a while they seemed satisfied,
and handed our passports and papers back. I looked everything over to be
sure we had our original papers back.

All of a sudden other officers showed up and wanted to recheck
everything. Again they took all the papers with them, again I had to
explain why I had a little gypsy boy in my car, again they searched
everything. The boys got impatient, but I asked them to keep their mouths
shut. Little Harry looked pale and shivered.

Eventually I had to file a request for a 'visa' and, of course, to pay for
it. I had to pay three weeks of 'road tax', and they registered the car
number in my passport, so that I couldn't leave the country without our
van. They wanted to check my cash money, so I showed them my wallet and
counted my money while they looked. They asked me why I had so much cash
money with me, and I explained to them I had to feed four hungry growing
boys during three weeks. At last they seemed satisfied and let us go,
warning us to be back within three weeks.

With deep sighs of relief, we drove off and resumed our voyage to the
Rumanian mountains. Little Harry started to sob.

"I don't like it when they act so controlling and almighty. It's as if I'm
a little boy again, and they could send us to prison at any moment..."

Nicky threw his arms around his friend. "But they DIDN'T send us to prison,
and we ARE in Rumania now! Aren't you glad you're going to see your people
tomorrow?"

Little Harry dried his eyes, and his sun inside started to shine again. He
climbed onto John's lap and fastened his seatbelt around both of them. I
decided to let it go for the moment. Next time I would explain the dangers
of sitting together in a car, but not now. I searched the car radio, and
soon we all sang along with the music.

We drove for hours without any further delays. Suddenly little Harry jumped
up and shouted: "THERE THEY ARE!"

He pointed at a couple of steep mountains in a far distance, glowing in the
bright sunlight.

"That's where my people are living! We are nearly home..."


Harry AnderS, alternative writer.

Thank you for reading my stories, and thanks to Nifty for hosting them.

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