bookends

ON a cloudy grey morning we boarded the bus to Dresden. Squished in our seats, with baggage piled around us I gazed out the window. And saw a strange sight.

A man dressed in a blazer and reddish silk crevat running towards us. He had a large white case on his back that bobbed up and down and would have looked even more incongruos, except for the fact that is was a hard cello case. Well, thats highbrow enough for a crevat right?

Anyway, he boarded our bus to Dresden with the cello in tow. It bruised it's way up the aisle until he deposited it on a seat near us. Whereupon it promptly slid to the floor - we seemed to evince more concern than crevat man did! He conversed with a pretty lady briefly, then sat down. We all dozed our way along the autobahn.

Arriving in Dresden, I was curious to see where he would go...but alas, crevat man escaped quickly. We went on our way to our hostel, and once divested of our goods, we went out for an adventure. Happening upon a church we decided to look in (this is what one does in Europe after all!)

We saw a notice for a Sunday afternoon concert in the church, and decided to attend. Such freedom on holidays :) There followed a comic routine of enquiring about the concert and trying to buy a ticket. All hampered by the fact that I was asking in German for a ticket for the concert that started at "drei uhr" and the attendant was giving me strange looks. In Germany, they do 24 hour time....oops. "funfzehn hur"...

We then began to notice all the grey heads around us. D began to be afraid - what on earth were we getting ourselves into? Something run by a sort of Ladies Auxiliary? Anyway, tickets purchased, we surveyed the sign once more and I noticed that we would be treated to a cello and piano rectial. hmmmm.

Taking our seats amongst the grey heads, we discussed whether crevat man could have come from Berlin to play in the concert. He had. And his name was Konstantin. It was a bit strange seeing him on stage. The cello was none the worse for it's bumps. The concert was relaxing. Oh, and the pianist was the pretty lady from the bus!

They had such distinctive styles these two. Crevat man had curly bouncy hair that flew about as he played with vim and vigour. Pretty lady had a severe bob cut, with sleek shiny hair. She played with force and concentrated on the music with intensity. She did not move very much...her fingers just ran up and down the keys. Crevat man jerked about like one of those dashboard cats. But the music was lovely, and overcame my wanderings about this strange classical pairing.

There is more though. Leaving the concert, we thought our encounters with crevat man were over. After exploring the old town for a few hours we headed back to the groovy new town of Dresden for dinner...and crossing the road in front of us was a familiar bobbing shape. A hard white cello case!