My Son Herman
I want to tell you about my son Herman. His mother’s name was Mita. She was a woman I had met in Berlin. Maybe you think that I’m making all these M women stories up, but believe me they are all true. This one is too.
I didn’t know Mita was pregnant and I had no idea I had a son in Germany. Mita never told me. But Herman knew about me. Mita had told him everything. So after Mita died of cancer, Herman ran away from the orphanage to find me. I was living in Borneo at the time, so he had a long way to go, but Herman was a determined kid with a lot of will power. Nothing could stop him.
How did I end up in Borneo? It’s a long story. I was living in Taiwan teaching English and after a while I started to get bored. All my friends were into football and drinking beer, and I was into playing Hearts on the Internet. I was good at Hearts and was ranked number one in the world but I started to get tired of it. It was driving me crazy. There were a lot of sore losers who would put me down when I beat them. Despite many winning streaks, it just wasn’t a challenge anymore. I still wanted to play Hearts but not online. So I decided to go to a village in Borneo called Mumbassa to teach some of the local rainforest tribes how to play the game. I wanted to be sort of a Hearts missionary. My goal was to turn the local fishermen into international champions and I knew I could do it. I was a great teacher.
Everything worked out the way I planned. I worked hard and the long hours paid off. Soon, everyone in the village of Mumbassa could play Hearts at a competitive level.
One day after more than three years in the village I was sitting under my favorite coconut tree giving my morning Hearts lecture, and an unexpected visitor suddenly showed up.
“Other players are going to be studying your game. You have to psyche them out by being unpredictable when they think you’re predictable. If you pay attention to what other players think they’re seeing, you can bluff them.”
“Bunata mum salinte meh kabaloop ka?”
“Yes, that’s right. Very good observation Hopu. Yes, you should play a spade before a dime in that situation as long as you’re void in hearts. Jana blew it by playing that small dime. That bad play cost him the game.”
“Father, is that you?” A small boy about 6 years old came up from behind me. I was concentrating on my students and the cards so it gave me a jolt.
“What? Hey! Where do you get off interrupting me? Who are you?”
“It’s me father. I’m your son Herman. I know you don’t know about me, but mom told me all about you. My mother was Mita”
“Are you being straight with me? You mean Mita from Berlin? Oh my god, you’re Mita’s son? You’re my son? No wonder you look so much like me. Wait a minute, why did you say was? Where’s Mita?”
“Mother died 7 months ago dad. She had cancer.”
“I’m sorry to hear that Herman. If I had known Mita was pregnant I would have married her. She never told me. I’m sorry son.”
“That’s OK dad. Not having a father was kind of a mixed blessing. I only had one parent to tell me what to do. But now that mom’s dead I need you dad. I need a father. I don’t want to grow up in an orphanage.”
“I don’t blame you son. But do you think the rainforest is the right kind of place to bring up a son? Maybe I should take you back to Taiwan.”
“But what about the villagers dad? Are they ready for international competition yet? It would be too bad if you just stopped teaching them.”
