Strasbourg - The Two Gozilos

When I get back to the Hotel Mercure Strasbourg Quartier St. Jean, three of the Rabbit Warriors are sitting in the sidewalk cafe outside.

"Zere he is!" calls out Benedikt when he sees me. "Ze steward of ze empire!"

"Did you sleep in ze BierWagen?" asks Manuel.

"Ah!" says Andreas, "Ze perfect cure for jet lag! Sit down and join us for breakfast, bro. Ve are drinking Strasbourg beer! Vill you have vun?"

"Vait, vait," says Manuel. "Ve must randomize ze trial!"

"You try ze salicylic acid," says Andreas, and they all burst out laughing.

From inside my hangover, I watch them laugh. I have no idea what the joke is about, but I start laughing too.

"Another line from XKCD?" I say.

"Yah, yah," says Manuel. "Ze vun about ze acne medicine. Have you seen it?"

"No... not exactly," I say. "I'll have some... coffee."

I think about ordering breakfast, but I decide that's not a good idea, not yet. All I really want to do is go up to my room and take a shower. But I figure I'd better talk to these guys for a minute, and find out if I did anything really embarrassing last night. They assure me that by their standards, my behavior was kind of tame. I ask them about the Danish girls. Benedikt punches me in the arm.

"Zose vere not Danish girls!" he says.

They all laugh, make funny faces and point at me. I decide not to purse the matter any further.

Just then Bruno comes out from the lobby. He seems very upset.

"Have you seen Henry?" he says.

"No," I say. "I... just got here..."

"It's all your fault," he says. "Bertha blames you. And she's right. You should never let them sleep together.'

"What?" I say.

"All they do is fucking fight the next day. Henry's gone. He's gone."

"What about Conrad?" I say. I don't know why I'm so worried about the little brat, but I am. I mean, he's a kid.

"Right now, let's see, the Duke of Lower Lotharingia, oh yes, he's throwing a tantrum in the lobby," says Bruno. I look in through the glass door. Amid the reflections of the street I catch glimpses of the little boy swinging a shopping bag, whopping it hard against the front desk.

"Don't vorry about him," says Benedikt, standing up.

"Yah," says Andreas.

"Ve know how to play vith little dukes," says Manuel.

And before I know it, the Rabbit Warriors have rushed into the lobby. Next thing I see, when a big black truck goes by and darkens the window, is Conrad on Benedikt's shoulders, throwing something at the other RKS guys. He seems to be having fun.

Sometimes a hangover gives you a real Zen-like attitude towards life's problems. Like now. There seemed to be a crisis, but because I'm hungover, I didn't do anything, and now it's all better.

"Look," I say to Bruno, "Don't worry about Henry. He has a motorcycle. That's what's guys with motorcycles do. They go."

By this point, Bruno and I are the only ones sitting in the sidewalk cafe outside the hotel. Where's that coffee? Did I ever actually order it?

"Or in this case," says Bruno, "they arrive."

I turn around and look. Three figures on motorcycles are coming over the bridge. One of them I recognize as Henry. The others... Are those Vespas? It looks like a man and woman, all dressed in black and riding black motor scooters. Black helmets, black visors, black suits, black shirts, black shoes.

They pull up right outside the cafe. I'm pretty sure it's not a legal place to park motorcycles, even scooters, but what the hell do I care? One of the scooter riders is definitely a man, tall and athletic. The other is a small feminine figure with an odd limping walk, one arm kinda shorter than the other. For a moment I think my self-indulgent revery of the other night has come true--could these two be John Currin and Elizabeth Peyton? Did Henry ride over to Basel and get them? It's not impossible--after all, he's the emperor.

Then they take off their helmets and I feel like an idiot. They're both men. Both red-haired, both bearded. The tall one is young, with his hair pulled back in a pony tail. The small one, with the twisted arms and funny shoulders, is much older. His hair is thinning and his beard is whispy.

As they approach our table, Bruno gets up and goes inside. Henry doesn't seem to notice. He never seems to notice Bruno, coming or going, present or absent.

"Book a room for these guys," says Henry. "This is my cousin, Gozilo, and his nephew, Gozilo."

"Please to meet you," I say. "Uh, sit down... I was just ordering coffee."

The young Gozilo says something in a language I don't understand, or even recognize. Dutch, maybe?

"They're hungry," says Henry. "Take care of them." Then he hops on his bike and takes off.

The two Gozilos sit down and look at me.

"There's a server on duty," I say. "I saw her before..."

The young one says something again, in that language. What does Walloon sound like? The older Gozilo nods his head.

Then it occurs to me. "Gozilo!" I say. "Isn't that Latin for Godfrey? Or Gottfried?"

"No," says the small twisted man. "No, it's not."

"I'm pretty sure..." I say. For some reason I'm suddenly talkative. "I was looking at the Latin text of Lambert's Annals--last week, before I flew over here--not that my Latin is any good, I barely made it through Ceasar's Gallic wars with an interlinear translation, and that was many years ago, but I found a copy of the Latin text, you know on the internet..."

It's true, you can find it, it's not that hard.

"...so anyway, I did some side-by-side comparisons with the translations, you know, just to get a feel for the original, and I could swear that I saw 'Gozilo dux Lotheringorum'--you know, in the part about the murder of Godfrey the Hunchback...."

Stony silence, from both Gozilos. But I keep going...

"Maybe it's just a medieval Latin thing, an unusual spelling. Lambert himself is staying in this hotel. We could ask him..."

Suddenly the red-haired youth leans forward and grabs my shirt.

"We are not named Godfrey!" he says. I guess he speaks English, after all.

"Okay," I say, trying to breathe. The guy is really strong. Is he a gangster or something?

"We are named Gozilo! Got that? Gozilo!"

I nod my head and he lets go.