Four Days, Three Nights

Lost your job. Divorced the marriage. In arrears with the rent. At some point you end up on the street. But what does it really feel like to wake up under a bridge? Without a toothbrush, smelly, shunned by the rest of the world? I faced one of my biggest fears -- and experienced four days of insights into another world.

It was a dream that set everything in motion. In the autumn of 2023, I dreamt that I was sitting on a bridge over the River Mur in the center of Graz, Austria's second largest city, begging. It was a powerful image, and it was coupled with an inexplicable feeling: freedom.

I knew Graz superficially until then, from day trips and a few hotel stays from my time as a pilot: 300,000 inhabitants, a pretty old town with lots of cafés and well-kept parks, situated on the banks of the River Mur. A good six months later, I'm there. I have cleared four days in my calendar to get to the bottom of the matter. To expose myself to what I was most afraid of in my sleepless nights: failing and falling into a bottomless pit. To lose everything. No matter how hard I tried to imagine it, I couldn't picture it. Such a life was too far away. Alone in the wilderness, living a minimalist life, walking 3000km - I had tried it all before. But in the middle of a big city, foraging for food in garbage cans, sleeping on the asphalt and not changing my clothes for days on end - that was a different category. Where would I go to the toilet? What would I do if it rained? Who would I beg for food from? How do you deal with being a nuisance to others who at best ignore you? If everything that we often take for granted in our lives falls away - what is actually left of ourselves?

I start my experiment on a Thursday at the end of May around lunchtime at a parking garage in Graz Jakomini. Excited and well prepared. In this case, that means: torn clothing and as little luggage as possible.

After a few steps, a woman comes towards me on the sidewalk, good-looking, shoulder-length brown hair, make-up on and full of energy. Me: smiling at her. She: looks right through me. That irritates me. Until I see my reflection in a dark shop window. For the first time in decades, there's a beard on my face. Instead of a white shirt, I'm wearing a tattered blue T-shirt with the lettering coming off. Unwashed hair, covered by a tattered, gray peaked cap. Jeans with stains, the top button tied with an elastic band. No casual sneakers, but black kicks with mud on them. No smartphone. No internet. No money. Instead, a plastic bag from a drugstore over my shoulder. Contents: a small Pet bottle with water, an old sleeping bag, a rain jacket and a piece of plastic sheeting. The weather forecast is changeable, a mini tornado hit the city a few days ago. I have no idea where I'm going to spend the night. The only requirement: it will be on the street.

The idea for such a "street retreat" came from the American Zen monk Bernie Glassman. Glassman, born in New York in 1939, completed training as an aeronautical engineer and had a PhD in mathematics. In the 1960s, he met a Zen master in California and later became one himself. He didn't believe in living spirituality only in the temple. He wanted to get out onto the playing field of life and feel the dirt between his fingers. "Zen is the whole thing" wrote Bernie Glasmann: "The blue sky, the cloudy sky, the bird in the sky -- and the bird poop you step into on the street."

His students, including actor Jeff Bridges, follow three principles: First, don't think you know anything. Secondly, to witness what is actually happening before our eyes, and thirdly, to act out of this motivation.

The description of the retreats, with which Glassman also took CEOs of large companies on the road for days, reads on the Internet like a guide to dissolving one's own identity. To get in the mood, you shouldn't shave or wash your hair at home for five days. My daughters and my wife watch this with suspicion, they don't really know what to make of it. "We could invite a homeless person over," my younger daughter suggests. That would make more sense in her eyes. Maybe. But feeling what it's like to spend the night on the street without any comfort is another matter. The only personal item I am allowed is an ID card.

As far as motivation is concerned, I'm fine as long as the sun is shining. People are sitting in the cafés, the weekend is not far away, they are toasting with a glass of Apérol, laughing. Yesterday, that was my world too, but without a penny in my pocket, things are changing. What I took for granted is suddenly inaccessible to me. Open sesame, only the magic formula is missing. No ATM to bail me out. No friend to invite me in. Only now do I realize how commercialized our public space is. As if separated by an invisible pane of glass, I trudge aimlessly through the city. I peer into waste paper containers to find cardboard boxes for the night and keep an eye out for inconspicuous places to sleep.

The grounds of the Ostbahnhof, a train station, are secured with video cameras and fences, so I don't even try to get in. In the city park: dreariness. The building of the former artists' meeting place Forum Stadtpark lies abandoned, not far from where young people hang out, drugged up. They are shouting and arguing. The police are patrolling in their patrol cars. Joggers do their laps in between. A few minutes' walk above, on the Schlossberg with its clock tower, the city's landmark, a panoramic view over the rooftops rewards the climb. The lawn here is neatly trimmed, roses are in bloom and a beer garden caters for tourists. A young German couple is sitting on the bench next to me, it's his birthday, mid-20s, and he is listening to a voice message from his parents, who obviously love him very much, you can hear the kisses they keep sending him, his girlfriend is hugging him. Do homeless people celebrate their birthdays? With whom? Raindrops tear me from my thoughts.

The Chinese pavilion with its roof would offer protection from the rain, but its benches are too narrow for an overnight stay. Perhaps on purpose. And here too: Video cameras at every corner. Nobody should make themselves too comfortable here.

There are wooden sun decks in the Augarten, which is right on the banks of the Mur, but spending the night there is like lying in a display, visible from afar and illuminated, and I don't fancy police checks that rudely wake me from my sleep. The more hidden spots on the riverbank are cordoned off due to the flooding of the Mur. It's not so easy to find a good place to sleep. Or am I being too picky? Building trunks float past in the brown water, a few ducks swim in a bay. Not far away, a man is sitting on a park bench, about my age, i.e. around 50. He looks a bit run-down and is chewing on a cheese roll. My stomach growls. Should I speak to him? I hesitate, then give in. Does he know where you can get something to eat in Graz without money? He looks at me briefly, then lowers his eyes and continues eating. I stop, undecided, and he gestures with his hand for me to go away. "Don't, don't!" he says angrily.

How difficult is it to communicate with other homeless people? Especially when most of them also have alcohol and mental health problems. Is there any solidarity, do people help each other? I still know next to nothing about it. I found out beforehand that there is a station mission at the main station with a day center and probably something to eat. So I set off on my way. On the way, I pass two public toilets. At least you don't need coins to get in. I risk a look. The toilet seat is missing. It smells acridly of urine. Toilet paper lies torn on the floor. Okay. I'll leave it until later.

In the Volksgarten, which I cross, young kids with Arab roots are whispering and don't seem quite sure whether I want to buy drugs or something else from them. "What do you need?" asks one of them, half my age. I walk on without a word. Finally, I'm standing in front of the station mission. Behind the glass door is a sign: "Closed". Until winter. And now? I have no idea. I look around. A cab rank. Buses. A supermarket. Lots of asphalt. Cars. Exhaust fumes. Heat. Not a cozy place. Tiredness breaks through. The feeling of not being welcome anywhere. As a homeless person, it dawns on me in these minutes, you have no privacy - you're constantly out and about in public spaces. It's not easy to get used to that.

A few hundred meters further on, Caritas is handing out sandwiches in the "Marienstüberl" restaurant. I stumble past the gate. If you arrive on time at 1 p.m., you even get a hot meal, no questions asked. I've missed it by two hours, but a friendly civil servant hands me three sandwiches filled with eggs, tomatoes, salad, tuna and cheese. I'm also allowed to stuff a loaf of bread into my plastic bag.

For now, I am satisfied as I sit on a bench right next to the River Mur in the old town and take a bite of the sandwich. I've only told a few people about my experiment beforehand. Not everyone thinks it's great. Bernie Glassman was also repeatedly confronted with the accusation that he wasn't really homeless and was just faking it. But that didn't bother him: better to catch a glimpse of a different reality than to have no idea about it, he argued.

In any case, statistics show that the longer homelessness lasts, the more difficult it is to get out of it. Should I reveal my true identity during chance encounters with those affected? Admit that this is a temporary excursion for me? I have resolved to decide on the spur of the moment and prefer to evade rather than tell lies.

In any case, the simple truth is that I still don't have a place to sleep for the night, and the mood threatens to turn sour as thick raindrops fall from the sky again. I have no spare clothes. If I get wet, I'll stay wet all night. I'm also really tired now and the plastic bag is getting on my nerves. Without Google Maps, I have to rely on my memory and signs. I've tried to memorize the most important streets in advance, but every wrong turn means a detour. Now I can feel it.

I pass the opera house, festive lighting inside, a woman scurries through the front door. It's half past seven, dark clouds in the sky. What now? Should I make myself comfortable in the driveway of a car showroom I pass or on a park bench in the Augarten? I can't make up my mind. It's only when I come across an industrial area in the south of the city that a suitable option opens up: under the stairs to the goods issue area of a large furniture warehouse. There are niches in the open behind which you can't be seen straight away. Two delivery vans parked in front of the stairs provide privacy. Nevertheless, I wait until it gets dark before I dare to unroll my sleeping bag. I put a few cartons of drinks underneath and finally fall asleep with a view of car tires, license plates and a cardboard press. As the express train passes by on the neighboring tracks, the earth vibrates and pulls me out of my half-sleep.

What I didn't know: empty parking lots in industrial areas are apparently a magical attraction for night owls. Someone keeps turning up until around two in the morning. A couple parks for a few minutes just a few meters away. At one point, a pimped-up sports car stops behind the parked truck, its polished aluminum rims gleaming in the moonlight. A man in shorts gets out, smokes a cigarette, talks on the phone in a foreign language and gets upset. He walks up and down the parking lot. Then he turns in my direction. My breath catches in my throat. For a few seconds, during which I don't dare move, we look each other in the eye. Maybe a cell phone in my pocket would have been a good idea after all, just in case. He doesn't seem to be sure if anyone is there. He stands there calmly and stares in my direction. Then he snaps out of his stupor, gets into the car and drives away. I breathe out a sigh of relief. At some point, well after midnight, I fall asleep.

It's a full moon night, which has something calming about it. The moon shines for everyone, no matter how much money you have in your pocket. Just as the birds chirp for everyone as day slowly dawns at half past four. I crawl out of my sleeping bag, stretch and yawn. Red marks on my hips are traces of a hard night's sleep. A tired face stares back at me from the van's rear-view mirror, eyes swollen shut. I run my dusty fingers through my messy hair. Maybe I can get a coffee somewhere? It's still quiet on the streets. In a neighboring nightclub, the work shift is coming to an end, a young woman comes out of the door, slips into her jacket, takes a drag on a cigarette and then gets into a cab. In front of an office building, employees of a cleaning company start their shift. A man walks his dog outside and waits in front of a closed railroad crossing. The McDonald's near the exhibition center is still closed. At the petrol station opposite, I ask the attendant if I could have a coffee. "But I don't have any money," I say, "is that still possible?" He looks at me, puzzled, then at the coffee machine, then thinks for a moment. "Yes, that's possible. I can make you a small one. What do you like?" He hands me the paper cup, along with sugar and cream. I sit down at a high table, too tired to talk. Behind me, someone crouches wordlessly at a slot machine. After a few minutes, I thankfully move on. "Have a nice day!" the gas station attendant wishes me. 
Outside, I lift the lids of some organic waste garbage cans in the hope of finding something useful, but apart from vegetable scraps, there's nothing there. My breakfast is pieces of the loaf of bread I got the day before.

The city wakes up around seven. Market stallholders set up their stands on Lendplatz, selling herbs, vegetables and fruit. It smells like summer. I ask a vendor if she can give me something. She hands me an apple, seeming a little embarrassed by the situation. "I'll give you this one!" she says. I have less luck at a bakery: "The unsold pastries always go toToo good to goin the afternoon," says the lady behind the counter. At least she smiles politely, even though I'm not a customer. Even a few stores further on, where people grab a quick breakfast on the way to work, none of the sales assistants with the fresh fabric aprons are willing to budge. That leaves the hardcore option: begging on the street. It takes a lot of effort to expose myself to questioning children's eyes and sceptical looks in the middle of Graz. A streetcar driver staring at me out of the corner of his eye. People wearing suits on their way to work. I do it anyway. In the middle of the rush hour, next to streetcar sets, cyclists and pairs of shoes trundling along, I sit down on the ground, the empty coffee cup from the petrol station in front of me. On the Erzherzog Johann Bridge, exactly where I was begging in my dream. The first rays of sunlight are falling on the road, a few meters below the brown flood water is lapping against the bridge pillars. I close my eyes and compare the feeling with my dream. It's like the antithesis of my former life in the shiny captain's uniform. From soaring above the clouds down to the grimy everyday life on the road. As if I needed this perspective as a piece of the mosaic to complete the panorama. Being human, in all its facets. Everything is possible, the range is huge. And yet: behind the façade, something remains unchanging. I am the same. Perhaps this is the origin of the feeling of freedom in the dream, which didn't seem to fit the situation at all.

A man in a jacket approaches from the right, he has headphones in his ears. As he passes, he looks me over with lightning speed, then leans over to me and throws a few coins into the cup. "Thank you very much!" I say as he is already a few meters away. Only a few people passing by dare to make direct eye contact. People on their way to work. The pace is fast. A woman in a costume walks past in patent leather shoes, a man in a suit on an e-bike takes a drag on an e-cigarette and casually lets his hand dangle as he passes. We play our roles so well that we end up believing in them ourselves.

Every now and then I get a direct look. A three-year-old girl looks at me curiously, then her mother pulls her along. An older man seems to want to cheer me up with his eyes. And then a woman comes by, maybe in her early 30s, in a T-shirt, a friendly face, blonde hair. She looks at me so gently for a moment that her gaze, which lasts no longer than a second, carries me through the rest of the day. There is no question, no criticism, no rebuke - just kindness. She gives me a smile that is worth more than anything. There are not many coins in the cup anyway. 40 cents in half an hour. That's not enough for a big breakfast.

So I'm all the more punctual for lunch in the Marienstüberl, just before 1 pm. It's musty inside. No tablecloths, no napkins. Life stories are reflected in worn bodies, hardly a smile can be found on the faces.

Pairs of eyes follow me silently as I look for a seat. In general, everyone seems to be on their own here. One of them huddles at the table with his head in his arms. Sister Elisabeth knows everyone. She has been running the Marienstüberl for 20 years and decides who can stay and who has to leave if there is a dispute. Resolute and Catholic, with tinted glasses and a dark veil on her head. Before she hands out the food, she first prays. Into the microphone. First the "Our Father." Then "Hail Mary". A few pray aloud, others just move their lips, others are silent. In the dining room beneath the pictures of Jesus, elderly ladies without teeth sit next to refugees from the Middle East, Africa and Russia. People who have lost everything on the run. Emotions can flash out of nowhere, harshly, unexpectedly and fists quickly follow. An argument threatens to escalate at one of the tables, two men have come to blows over who was here first. The two community service workers with their blue rubber gloves look helpless. Then Sister Elisabeth throws herself into the fray, lets out a roar and restores order with the necessary authority. "We have to leave the quarrelling outside," she says. "Reconciliation is important, otherwise we will have war in our hearts every day. God help us, because we can't do it alone. Blessed meal!"

I sit next to Ines from Graz and spoon up the thin pea soup. "I'd like an extra helping if I could," she asks the server. She talks about her childhood, when her mother took her to Vienna to buy clothes and she was allowed to stay in a hotel, and about the fact that she goes on a pilgrimage organized by the diocese once a year. "Once we were with the bishop," she says, "they served up something I've never experienced before!" After the main course, potato pancakes with salad, the volunteers hand out cups of pear yogurt and slightly brown bananas.

Before she leaves, Ines whispers an insider tip to me: if you pray the rosary in the chapel for an hour in the afternoon, you get coffee and cake afterwards!

As soon as they have eaten, most people get up and leave without saying hello. Back into a world that has not been waiting for them. Small talk is for others.

After the hot meal, a small group sits on the benches outside the dining room and doors open to life stories. Ingrid is there, in her mid-70s, who was evicted from her apartment in Vienna by housing speculators and whose son died in a mountain accident years ago. She is well-read and educated and looks as if she has ended up in the wrong movie. Josip came to Vienna from Yugoslavia as a guest worker in 1973. He found work as an electrician, later worked 12 hours a day in a power station and now lives alone in a homeless shelter in Graz. Robert from Carinthia is there, with eczema on his legs and white skin as thin as paper. He brightly asks if we would like to accompany him to Lake Wörthersee. "Are you coming for a swim?" Then he suddenly stands up restlessly and blows dust off his arms for minutes, which only he can see.

Christine, around 40 years old, has studied linguistics and is chatting in French with Viktor, an Italian by birth, a few years older than her, interested in art and articulate. He is out and about on his bike. He has a volume by the French poet Rimbaud in one of his saddlebags. He prefers to live on the street rather than in a home because he can't get enough air. With a voucher - his last - that he once received in exchange for a book, he invites me for a coffee in the city. He pulls a newspaper clipping out of his pocket with an announcement: "Invitation to a summer party". In a posh district of Graz. Food and drink will be provided, it says. "I'll be there tomorrow from midday." He grins. "Are you coming?" Sure. But the next day I'm alone at the address at the agreed time. I don't see Viktor again.

What I learn in the Marienstüberl: the heart breaks all the rules, overcomes boundaries a thousand times faster than the mind. When we open the door, across social classes and prejudices, something happens to us. Connection arises. We are given a gift. Perhaps we all carry a longing for such moments deep inside. 

When it gets dark on the early summer evenings in Graz and the students are partying in the bars, I hide under the stairs to the goods issue in the industrial area for the nights to come. The noise of the trains, the stench of decay from a nearby animal waste container, the cars with glittering aluminum rims, the dealers and punters, a thunderstorm and pouring rain, my pelvic bone on the hard asphalt - it's an arduous life.

What remains?

Mario, for example. The Caritas supervisor is the only one to whom I reveal my identity these days. He is working the late shift in the Ressi village when we meet. The "village", a handful of built-in containers, is only a few hundred meters away from the parking lot where I am staying. On a walk around the area at dusk, I discover the small housing units and curiously enter the area. Around 20 homeless people live here permanently, all of them seriously ill with alcoholism. The mood is surprisingly relaxed, with no sign of depression. Some of them are sitting at a table in the courtyard and wave to me. "Hi, I'm Mario!", the team coordinator greets me in the common room. I find out later that he actually studied industrial engineering but then he started working here and never stopped. Now he shakes my hand. "And you?" He asks me how he can help. Is straightforward. Doesn't probe, but offers me a glass of water. Listens. When I tell him that I'm from Vienna and am spending the night on the street, he picks up the phone to organize a place to sleep. But I wave him off. The next evening I drop by again, Mario is on late shift again. This time I don't want to pretend. After a few minutes, I tell him why I'm here, about my previous job as a pilot and lunch at the Marienstüberl, about the night in the parking lot and my family in Vienna. He says that he immediately noticed my language and the way I walk. "You're used to making contact with people. Not everyone can do that." 

Soon we are talking about politics and tuition fees, about our daughters, the unequal distribution of wealth and what it means to give unconditionally. He shows me photos of residents who have since died, but who have found a home here once again at the end of their lives. They look relaxed into the camera. Some hug each other and laugh. "It's a more honest world," says Mario about his clients.

Does it sound too cheesy to say that the lasting moments of those days were the ones where people didn't look at me with their eyes, but saw me with their hearts? That's what it feels like. The look on the young woman's face on the Mur bridge. The baker on the second morning who hands me a bag of pastries and spontaneously says as she says goodbye that she will include me in her evening prayers. Viktor's last voucher for a coffee, which he gives me without hesitation. Josip's invitation to breakfast together. The words come timidly, almost awkwardly. He rarely speaks. 

After a last night in the rain, in which at some point even my place under the concrete stairs no longer stays dry, I am glad to be able to drive home again. And for a moment, I actually feel like a fraud. As if I had betrayed my table neighbors, who are sitting at breakfast in the Marienstüberl and don't have this opportunity.

I lie on the wooden deck in the Augarten and look up at the sky. For four days, I have lived from one moment to the next. Swallowed up by the world, without a notebook, without a cell phone in a vacuum of time. Endless days of wandering the streets, dozing on park benches and living off other people's alms.

Now I let the sun warm me. Just like the student with the thick medicine book next to me. The children playing soccer. The Muslim woman under the veil. The jogger with his dog. The elderly man on his bike. Drug dealers and police officers. Homeless people and millionaires.

Freedom is not having to be someone. And to feel that we all have the same right to be here. To find our place in this world and fill it with life, as good as we can.