Chapter 2: The Hot Bath

I looked up at the building I would be inhabiting. New home for a while, it was a grand stone architecture very bold. It stood some six stories tall but had a very steep pitch roof which made it quite a bit taller than that. The entrance was multi door and reminded me of an old period school. So I hiked up the steps and entered all the while disbelieving there were only about maybe half a dozen people inhabiting the entire once S.S. headquarters which seemed to encompass vast acres of land.

When I walked in immediately there was what appeared to be a very large gymnasium, all dark hardwood floor, entrance on the left. There was no furniture at all, not even a chair anywhere but in the far corner there was the familiar Army bed, metal with mattress thin and a couple of blankets folded next to a pillow. I carried my duffel bag the distance and decided to get out of my class A uniform. There was no sense in wearing that which was made of wool, hot, and I certainly didn’t like it anyway. I stripped down to my underwear and wondered if it would be okay to just stay like that because it sounded like I was going to be doing nothing alone for some time.

I sat on the bed and thought. I took off my tee shirt then remembered a couple of magazines in my bag so I got those out. I studied my surroundings which were pretty amazing, high vaulted ceiling and the very size of the room. This had to be a gym where sports were played. I considered an S.S. national team practicing for the big game against, who? Then I laid down and decided to read. What in the world was to become of me?

Apparently I fell asleep because suddenly I became aware of some presence, opened my eyes to see and there was a woman standing over me with a towel on her arm, a bar of soap and an inquisitive look on her face. I sat up quickly, surprised, said, “Hello?” She said something in German. I just smiled.

She was young, perhaps my age or a bit older but nice looking. She wore manicured summer clothes maybe like a uniform. I just studied her while realizing I was in my underwear which apparently caused her no alarm. She spoke again with what seemed German, a few English words mixed in and I understood something like, “Take, bath, now,” with a question mark. “A bath?” Interesting. Yet a good idea because it had been quite a while from sweaty New Jersey to now. I remembered the stinky hairy people on the train.

She reached forward with a hand and with a reluctant response I reached out to realize she was offering me help up. I stood and smiled shyly of course, the situation so suddenly changing, wondering.

She indicated I should follow her and we were off to somewhere down a long, very long hallway. Following I noted her as a nice looking individual, this being one of my first personal confrontations with a German person in a very foreign land, my very new experience. I was being offered a chance to bathe and it was, to say the least, all so different from my Army experience thus far.

She pointed to the left and turned into a doorway looking back and smiling as I followed.

We entered a very large facility of endless sinks lined up on one wall and at the far end a series of toilets lined up with no partition between. All was very open wide as I followed her again to enter a door at the other far end, into a room containing a bath tub, some furniture like a desk and a few chairs. She walked up to the tub and turned it on after pointing to a chair as if to tell me to have a seat. So I did.

It took some time to fill the tub and she just stood looking at the water after putting the towel and soap on a nearby stand. I sat and watched not knowing what would happen next, not knowing if I should be doing something as well. And then when the water was turned off she turned to tell me, “Come.” So I walked over to stand by the tub next to her and she made hand gestures that at first didn’t register, the why of it. Then after giving her a questioning look I realized she wanted me to take off my under pants.

I would have assumed her to leave me alone, exit the room, but she was standing her ground and obviously waiting. It took moments for me to respond, surprised, pointing at them, then hand gesturing like I was assuming her to leave? Pointing? But she instead reached out to take hold. Then when I wasn’t responding to her prompt she laughed, pulled them down and I was embarrassed while she seemed not so much bothered by that. I stood there with my mouth open in more surprise with a dumb, “Uh... , “ my only strength and I tried to cover myself.

Maybe this was tradition in Germany, my new home and now I was utterly naked in front of a stranger.

Putting her hands on my hips she turned me toward her and squatted down to hold my under pants indicating I should lift my feet out. She, like some kind of servant confused me for the nature of the situation. She so quickly had me bare naked in her control.

When I’d followed her wishes she slowly began to stand but stopped as she noted something on my right leg. She was noticing the large scar that was the result of the traffic accident which kept me out of the Army for some time while I rehabilitated. She looked up at me questioning and felt my leg as if she was interested in the injury. “Traffic accident,” I said. She felt the nature of the scar for a moment and then stood up, perused me entirely with her hands on my hips. With a smile she indicated that I needed to get into the tub with a helping hand.

Hardly a word had exchanged between us. This whole affair so far was beyond words for me, more like shock and she had little English apparently anyway.

I stepped high over the side of the tall tub and the water was kind of hot but I didn’t want to react being a young ego tested. I looked at her again questioning and she put her hands on my shoulder to push down like was I supposed to sit and of course I did. I held on to the sides of the tub and down I went, more hot on my butt and everything sensitive. With a quick business like response she took up the bar soap and a wash cloth folded into the towel, started soaping things up and beginning with my back was, in fact, giving me a bath. A personal bathing assistant, I guessed you would call it. She was more than I ever dreamed of but what was the use of fighting it?

Brand new foreign country, new language, new rules, I figured it was some kind of normal German service or ritual. She was probably a professional. I wondered if the other guys I’d traveled with were getting their bath as well.

She pushed me to lean back and rest against the slant of the tub and I gave a big sigh as all was feeling so very good and relaxing after the long journey. “Thank you,” I said smiling at her. This, although so strange and first embarrassing, was really getting nice.