Over dinner, I asked Anya what she would recommend me to do with my last few hours in the city. I’d planned on arriving midday on Wednesday and spending the afternoon sightseeing, but the 9:30 plane was cancelled and I didn’t get in till 5.
Anya suggested that I take the metro to the Haupt Bahnhof, leave my suitcase in a locker, walk to the Brandenburger Tor and Unter den Linden, see as much as I can, then back to collect my case and take the airport bus from the Bahnhof.
I’m in breakfast by 6:45, check out about 8:15. I know I have to change metro at Westkreuz, but when I get there there are too many platforms and I can’t find out which one I want. In the end I ask the lady selling doughnuts. When I get to the Haupt Bahnhof, first I can’t find the lockers, then I can’t see from the map which side I am and which way I need to go, though I find the stop for the airport bus OK.
I’m conscious of time ticking. I want to do at least some sight seeing, Wednesday was a washout because of the flight being cancelled, a judgement on me perhaps for spending Tuesday night with Himself.
It was worth it, though.
I pass the Reichstag. The inscription reads:
‘Der Deutscher Volk’. The German People.
People are people. Some you struggle with, some you can fall in love with. Very, very easily. If you’re not careful.
The German people. I think about Alex and Anya. I asked Anya: ‘Are you from Berlin originally?’
‘No, from Dresden’ she says, casually, as if there is no historical significance to that name.
I think about Austro-Greek American (‘I’ve been a political refugee for the last eight years) Niki, flying home to Vienna and her Austrian babies.
‘Austrians hate me when they meet me. They hear my accent, and they know I’m not Austrian, so they assume I’m German. Till they get to know me’.
I pass the Brandenburger Tor and enter Unter Den Linden. Unter den Linden sind vielen Blätter. The lime trees stand denuded as I walk on a carpet of decaying leaves.
I think about history.
The city stands shrouded in gloom, even here in its most beautiful street, nineteen years after its moment of glory.
I think about Ian McEwan’s ‘Black dogs’, the moment the wall came down, the menace underneath the rejoicing.
‘Look out for the Russian embassy’ Anya said. And there it is.
I told Himself about ‘Black Dogs’ in the restaurant on Tuesday. He knew all about Book Crossing.
‘It’s a great idea. I’ve done it with some of my books. You should try it.’
I can’t bear to part with my books though.
‘Can I have it?’ he asks.
‘I was going to leave it at the airport’.
‘You can leave it anywhere, that’s the idea.’
‘But what should I say on the website?’
‘Say you gave it to your lover’.
I felt suddenly embarrassed. It was the first time any derivative of the ‘L’ word had passed between us, and it lay awkwardly, between the wine bottle and the spaghetti carbonara.
Is that what he is? I wondered.
Back in Unter den Linden, I am still thinking about history.
I remember Alex’s story about youths shouting ‘Heil Hitler!’ in the Metro station, while policemen stood by and ignored them.
‘They shouldn’t be allowed to do that’ said Niki.
‘They’re not’.
I think of Carlo in Brussels in June, reading in Corriere della Serra, that Berlusconi had made himself immune from prosecution for corruption.
‘This is how Fascism begins’ he said.
Of Alex’s hilarious account over dinner last night,of how he and Anya witnessed a riot in Tbilisi.
Outside the ‘Alles uber Berlin’ exhibition is a sad looking bear, inscribed with a quote from Einstein:
‘Peace cannot be kept by force, it can only be achieved by understanding’.
Outside the Humboldt University, second hand book stalls remind me of the Left Bank. ‘Jede Buch, 2.00 E’.
I think of Ilze, Gabriella and Petra, Marika, Cezary, Adem and Eva. Eduardo, Daniel, Afroditi, Hanne, Nuno, Desmond, Artwell, Irina, Carlo and Yves, my extended family. Of crazy evenings in Delirium, picnics on the Pont des Arts, the Coliseum at midnight. The simple, irresistible force of friendship, one on one, person to person.
On Unter den Linden, the sun shines, and history melts into the air.
