Travel Reference
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photograph on the front was of a delectably attractive brunette in a transparent n←glig←e. Either this was
cruelly misleading or they have made more progress with vinyl in recent years than I had realized.
In large, lurid letters the box listed Aphrodite's many features: LIFE SIZED!, SOFT FLESH-LIKE SKIN!,
INVITING ANUS! (Beg pardon?), MOVABLE EYES! (Ugh) and LUSCIOUS VAGINA THAT VIBRATES AT YOUR
COMMAND!
Yeah, but can she cook? I thought.
There was another one called a Chinese Love Doll 980. 'For a Long-Lasting Relationship,' it promised
sincerely, and then in bolder letters added: EXTRA THICK VINYL RUBBER. Kind of takes the romance out of it,
don't you think? This was clearly a model for the more practical types. On the other hand it also had a
VIBRATING VAGINA AND ANUS and TITS THAT GET HOT! ! Below this it promised: SMELL LIKE A REAL
WOMAN.
All these claims were given in a variety of languages. It was interesting to see that the German versions
all sounded coarse and bestial: LEBENGROSSE, VOLLE JUNGE BRUSTE, LIEBENDER MUND. The same words
in Spanish sounded delicate and romantic: ANO TENTADOR, DELICIOSA VAGINA QUE VIBRA A TU ORDEN,
LABIOS AMOROSOS . You could almost imagine ordering these in a restaurant ('I'll have the Ano Tentador
lightly grilled and a bottle of Labios Amorosos '88'). The same things in German sounded like a wake-up
call at a prison camp.
I was fascinated. Who buys these things? Presumably the manufacturers wouldn't include a vibrating
anus or tits that get hot if the demand wasn't there. So who's clamouring for them? And how does anyone
bring himself to make the purchase? Do you tell the person behind the counter it's for a friend? Can you
imagine taking it home on the tram and worrying all the time that the bag will split and it will flop out or self-
inflate or, worse still, that you'll be killed in a crash and all the next week the papers will be full of headlines
like 'POLICE IDENTIFY RUBBER-DOLL MAN' above a smiling picture of you from your high-school year
book? I couldn't handle the tension. Imagine having friends drop in unexpectedly when you were just about
to pop the champagne cork and settle down for a romantic evening with your vinyl companion and having to
shove her up the chimney and then worry for the rest of the evening that you've left the box on the bed or
some other give-away lying around. ('By the way, who's the other place setting for, Bill?')
Perhaps it's just me. Perhaps these people aren't the least embarrassed about their abnormal
infatuations. Perhaps they talk about it freely with their friends, sit around bars saying, 'Did I tell you I just
traded up to an Arabian Nights Model 280? The eyes don't move, but the anus gives good action.' Maybe
they even bring them along. 'Helmut, I'd like you to meet my new 440. Mind her tits. They get hot.'
With this intriguing thought to chew on, I strolled back to the city centre past the massive law courts and
concert hall and along an avenue interestingly named Gorch-Fock-Wall, which sounded to me like the
answer to a riddle ('What does Gorch do when he can't find his inflatable doll?'), and had a look around the
shopping streets and classy arcades packed into the area between the huge town hall and Inner Alster.
It was getting on for midday and people were sitting out in the sunny plazas having lunch or eating ice-
creams. Almost without exception they looked healthy and prosperous and often were strikingly good-
looking. I remembered German cities from twenty years before being full of businessmen who looked just as
Germans were supposed to look - fat and arrogant. You would see them gorging themselves on piles of
sausages and potatoes and gulping with full mouths from litre tankards of golden beer at all hours of the
day, but now they seemed to be picking delicately at salads and fish, and looking fit and tanned - and, more
than that, friendly and happy. Maybe this was just a Hamburg trait. Hamburg is after all closer to Denmark
and Sweden and even England than it is to Munich, so perhaps it is atypical of Germany.
At all events, this relaxed and genial air was something that I hadn't associated with Germans before,
at least not those aged over twenty-five. There was no whiff of arrogance here, just a quiet confidence,
which was clearly justified by the material wealth around them. All those little doubts we've all had about the
wisdom of letting the Germans become the masters of Europe evaporated in the Hamburg sunshine. Forty-
five years ago Hamburg was rubble. Virtually everything around me was new, even when it didn't look it. The
people had made their city, and even themselves, rich and elegant and handsome through their cleverness
and hard work, and they had every right to be arrogant about it, but they were not, and I admired them for
that.
I don't think I can ever altogether forgive the Germans their past, not as long as I can wonder if that
 
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