Dignity: ...on the track of Bob Dylan

By Gudrun Heller

This is the history of the fictitious singer Karl van der Valk. Inspired by the life of Bob Dylan it is a declaration of love to all musicians who enchant our soul and speak to us with their music in times when no human voice can reach us any more. Who the media and we, the audience, put under pressure mercilessly and who fight for their dignity and their way and go it despite all resistances.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Books on Demand
• Release date: Feb 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9783734728693

Gudrun Heller

Gudrun Heller studierte zunächst Jura und arbeitete danach in verschiedenen Büroberufen. Seit Geburt ihrer Tochter im Jahr 2002 ist sie als Tagesmutter für das Jugendamt tätig. Seit ungefähr dieser Zeit schreibt sie in ihrer Freizeit.

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Table Of Contents

D  i  g  n  i  t  y                                                                                   ...on the track of Bob Dylan

Foreword

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

Copyright

                                                     D  i  g  n  i  t  y                                                                                   ...on the track of Bob Dylan

Gudrun Heller

                            N o v e l

Foreword

This is the history of the fictitious singer Karl van der Valk. Inspired by the life of Bob Dylan it is a declaration of love to all musicians who enchant our soul and speak to us with their music in times when no human voice can reach us any more. Who the media and we, the audience, put under pressure mercilessly and who fight for their dignity and their way and go it despite all resistances.

1

It was a tasteful hotel in Hamburg nearby the ship welcoming plant. There was much nature here and the town center was within fast reach. The little conference room in which the meeting should take place was fitted out comfortably with ornate wooden chairs and furniture, a fire burned opposite the window side in the fireplace. It was in the middle of February and powder snow covered all green outside.

He had preferred to go by regular bus this time and therefore had had to walk the last piece of way. The cold had crept in all of his limbs and so he enjoyed the crackling warmth of the fire.

By now he was 70 years old and it was about 15 years ago that he had given his last interview. If it was up to him, it would have also been the very last one. But short time ago, he had published his autobiography, a look back at 50 years of his life as a singer-songwriter.

The publishing house had advised him to give one interview at least.

Although he hated the press and media.

How often in his career hadn't they turned him the word over in the mouth? And then they always wanted to know something about his private life. For what? His private life wasn't much different from that of other people. The music distinguished him from other people and nothing else.

In the course oft the years, he had got accustomed to telling the media representatives untrue things as much as just possible and to protecting his private life as good as possible.

Although he had to admit that the reports about him had changed in the last years. That was had happened in the eighties faded in the background more and more – perhaps because it had been reported about again and again.

Anyhow, by this time people were interested in the music he played now. He actually seemed to be perceived in public just like he had wanted to  be his whole lifetime: as a musician at whose music one had a good look.

Too much time had gone by until he had reached this. And he must now recognize, as he has finally reached his aim, that he approached the last section of his life. The usual age complaints started, his doctor recently had diagnosed arrhythmias at him.

And the idea had suddenly got unbearable for him that only his lying interviews would be left after his death. He wanted to show the true Karl van der Valk to the public once. And his autobiography and this interview served for it.

A quiet clicking tore him out of his thoughts. The door to the conference room was opened and Christian Mertens entered, editor-in-chief of the magazine Free Time. He was a man with already grey hair and brown, frank eyes, aged end 50. They welcomed each other and Christian Mertens made himself comfortable in an armchair in front of Karl.

Karl mistrustfully eyed him up. What would be the result of this interview? He could already imagine what one of the first questions of the journalist would be: What was your childhood like and how had everything begun?

Karl sighed. He already had to answer this question so often in former times. He closed his eyes for a moment and met it again, the landscape of his childhood.

2

Of salt and sea tasted this landscape – and, of course, of white cabbage.

Together with his younger brother Walter, Karl van der Valk alias Karl Hartmann grew up in Wewelsfleth, not far away from the dyke and nearby the town Glückstadt, or, as today one would also say, about 10 km southeast of Brokdorf. Brokdorf wasn't a concept in his childhood at the end of the fifties and the beginning of the sixties yet.

His parents Hertha and Georg Hartmann operated a little farm like at that time they were still innumerable in Schleswig-Holstein. He was born in the year 1958. Steam engines still ran on the railroads and many farms had no water toilets. The farmers obtained their water from a fountain of their own. Almost all farmers had a little stable as an annex to their house at least. Unless they were cabbage farmers like the Hartmanns.

Wewelsfleth not yet or no more belonged to the region Dithmarschen where the majority of the farmers lived on cabbage, but it bordered on it.

„With us there is the southernmost cabbage of Schleswig-Holstein", his father used to say full of pride. What, most likely,  wasn't even correct.

The cabbage cultivation brought a certain independence to the Hartmanns. While the cattle farmers had to take care of their animals over the whole year, it shut quietly at them at least in winter. It was the time for repairs and maintenances to house and machines. Later on, the family used these months for their annual holidays.

The winter was Karl's favourite time. Finally not everything revolved around the hated cabbage. His parents didn´t care much about him in this time and he could do and let what he wanted to. He went on long hikes to the dyke and tramped through the silt in rubber boots at low tide. Together with the other children on the street he learned cycling and later on rollerskating, too. No child arranged an appointment for playing at that time. Karl simply ran out into the street after school and since the other children did just the same, there was always somebody to romp around.

Sometimes this was even too much for him and he longed for a place which only belonged to him, where he could be alone and where no one could disturb him.

On one of his expeditions, he discovered a few trees in whose middle a splendid oak sat enthroned. Its branches were so broadly and protrudingly that Karl couldn't resist the temptation of climbing up. He was enthusiastic. From this viewpoint, he could look far over the flat land and, what was almost even more important, nobody got the idea of looking for him here. He started building a little cabin in the oak and in the course oft the time, he brought more and more things to this place which he needed for his little escape from the everyday life.

The most important thing was a small transistor radio with batteries which his uncle Hans had given him as a present on his sixth birthday. There was nothing more beautiful for him than to sit here in the oak and listen to the songs and radio plays. They took him away into another world, far away from that of a cabbage farmer.

Unfortunately, Karl´s peace ended together with the winter. Karl as well as his