I woke up early, before the light. While she slept I went out for Turkish coffee and bread. The wily old countermaid tricked me into buying an enormous box of baklava-type treats. Good morning, and here is your syrup. One variety had a layer of cheese that... well, it sent us into another place. Our bodies were in a high-ceilinged loft in Berlin, but our souls had been transported to the Byzantine Empire.
A few had shreds of wheat that look like hair. "I like my breakfast like I like my men," she said, "Sweet and hairy." We laughed and ate sticky pistachios. I remembered a toy I'd bought from a vending machine on the first day. It was a tacky plastic bat you can use to pick things up with.
The package said: "Sticky Fledermaus." I think I will make that my burlesque name.
No one was around, and we took our time getting ready.
A quick walk to Hermannplatz to show off the Ampelmann and to show her the China Box where I'd eaten on Night One. She said it was the sort of place a woman wouldn't go alone. It made me think of the invisible privilege I accept as a man, even a weak one unskilled in any martial art. Like, I was hungry. Why wouldn't I just sit out in the dark alone on a rainy German night?
I needed a bread circle, so we went to a different Turkish place and got a simit, a toasted bread hoop covered in sesame seeds. We made our slow way through Kreuzberg taking in the many many cafes and posters calling for revolution.
Apparently Google has staked out an office here, and the locals fear their cheap artist's paradise transforming into.. well, into Brooklyn, or Oakland, or Seattle, or Austin. Money is why we can't have nice things.
Amusing posters of Google represented by an angry octopus, sometimes dismembered. The aesthetic was captured perfectly in a little brick courtyard filled with squatter's bikes and marvelous wheatpastes. A bed sheet hung from a window reading: "This will never be a loft" in English.
Brunch at Bastard, a little bistro with unfinished walls and furniture. I had baked eggs in a jar. She had scrambled eggs. We both enjoyed the rough, fresh bread. Then it was a long walk under the tracks and marveled again at the great volume of cafes and cozy kebaberies.
Back to Gorlitzer Park for a tramp in the damp. Breeders on holiday took selfies in front of the wrong graffiti. Men offered to sell us kief, which made me think they were from the Sudan. That was what they called it in Morocco. We politely declined. I get high on judging other tourists, sir, not on your herbs.
Stopped at a cat cafe without real cats and checked our messages. I did some quick writing, and we moved on to a cool little strip with punky shops. I bought a new raincoat. It's lined with fleece and feels like a hug.
My thirty-year old masterpiece raincoat, the one I packed, was badly pissed on by my truest love. It is unwearable. It sucks he's so pissy, but I'd rather have a cat than a raincoat, and now I have both.
Longish, wet walk where we watched children climb on the busted limbs from the windstorm. A young boy grabbed a branch three times his size and charged his sisters with it. His weary mother smiled. Wet leaves and the roaring of cars.
At the banks of the Spree we saw two yellow trains cross the castle-like Oberbaum Bridge. A beautiful, simple image. We crossed and made our way to a museum where giant sections and remnants of The Wall stand.
Sara was quite moved by the curved top of The Wall, built to prevent grappling hooks from taking purchase. I was quite moved by the size and permanence of it. I can't imagine seeing it, being confronted with the solidity of it, the... darkness of it, and thinking, "I wish someone was on the other side of this."
I wondered if the people who want a wall between Mexico and the US were here, could actually see it, if they would think, "Yes, please!" Is the world really divided between people who see a chain and think, "No one should ever be shackled with these," and those who think, "What magnificent construction! This will hold the brutes!"
I have to believe, to see it, to experience it even in the touristy condition under which it exists now, has to sober you, has to fill you with empathy. If you have any.
On one section, someone had written: "Fuck Donald Trump. Mexico is the shit!" so... someone else had similar, but more visceral, thoughts.
The rain was picking up, so we moved a little faster. Some awful British women pushed their way to the front of a mural, blocking the cameras of people who had been waiting in an orderly line. I was filled with rage. My heart was as black in that moment as some of the scenes painted on The Wall.
How would I have reacted if alone? Would I have gotten in their photo, spoken to them?
I think being with someone else kept me in check. Don't want to lose my shit in front of the person I'm going home with. Don't want them to see me that way and remember it and wonder if that black beam will ever be turned in their direction, to wonder if Sticky Fledermaus will unfurl his purple wings.
Quiet, sober walk back to Freedom and our first ride on the U-Bahn. Easy to navigate. Massive map. It's no Tube, but it's close! When we emerged in Hermannplatz, a protest was in full flag. It looked like an immigrant worker's rights thing. The police way outnumbered the protesters.
We got "Turkish Burritos" (lamb rolled tightly in flatbread) and slid back to the place. The Sex Dwarf was on a love seat playing with his laptop. He greeted us, the first time we'd heard him speak. In the room, we ate and I cleared some sparkles.
I napped and she read. I awoke in the dark. She told me I had been talking to her in my sleep about being concerned about "having my DNA scrubbed," and was she going to "scrub my DNA." She said it was a conversation, but I was asleep. Creepy!
Rubbed my face and took us out for bone broth. A nice hot little meal at a crowded Vietnamese kitchen.
Home around midnight for writing, reading, and sleep. The sheets in our bed have absorbed the spices of the Sex Dwarf's cooking.
The soft hush of traffic lulled us and we knew darkness.
In the morning, I put a body pillow in my place and did some writing while she slept. Her breathing matched the soft traffic sounds. When she was awake, I returned to the pillow and made it talk. "DNA!" I said, "Don't be scrubbing me."
"That's you," she said.
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