At Heathrow I gathered in the detritus of the flight—the eye-mask, the melted chocolate bar, my beaten hardback, my shoes—packed it all together and feigned sprightliness as we all shuffled and stopped, shuffled and stopped toward the hatch where the too-collected attendant smiled through her lipstick and wished us a pleasant stay. My stay was brief and strange: causeway, escalator, a shuttle across to Terminal 5 (stuck behind what looked like a tractor that had taken a wrong turn somewhere way out and couldn’t find its way out of this little concrete city), escalator, corral, plaza. When I came to the screens and watch shops I asked an official if there was somewhere to shower and she told me no, there wasn’t, but if I was boarding another plane straightaway I should just sit down and rest. Thanks, I said. I sat, for the last leg to Berlin, in the fume of my own stench, embarrassed and dressed in tracksuit pants. As the plane turned over Berlin I saw, looking from the window, a vast brown smokedrift over the nearby forest, swinging toward us on the wind like a greeting. From above the city looked like a rubble-heap in the middle of nowhere.
I tried to get changed in the terminal toilet but had to be rescued by a middle-aged German man who, despite the fact that I had an airport trolley wedged halfway in and halfway out of the doorway, blocking all traffic, remained polite and refused, in his impeccable English, to express any shadow of surprise.
I stood behind some French girls, about twenty, who were saying that they were glad they were going to see their families—but wouldn’t it be sad to leave.
And then, naturally, I got lost on the way to the flat. It was hot and I hadn’t slept much for thirty-odd hours. The bus bumped along swiftly by a canal over streets for which I had no reference—that travelling strangeness that turns everything, the most mundane things, video shops and footpaths, into spectacle. I saw the S-bahn station on the right but thought it must be the wrong one, and ended up at the glassy arch of Hauptbanhof, just north of the centre. I staggered across the bus lanes and through a turning door. Platforms shot off on three levels. Standing there, bewildered, gawking at the blue scrolling screens, I was approached by a young American, similarly carapaced under his own backpack.
--Do you speak English? He said.
--Yes, I replied. Hi.
--Where are you staying? I need a hostel.
(It may have been hot and bright and dusty outside but it was eight at night and by the look of him, having just got off the plane, he was getting desperate.)
I told him I couldn’t help, sorry—I had my own place sorted and it was a private sublet. We stood. He looked around, then back at me. He nodded. A moment of mutual decision. Then both wanting to look as though we knew where we were going, we chose a direction each and strode off purposefully—in slow-motion, under our luggage. How ridiculous.
Five minutes later I doubled back past the same spot. Ach.
Eventually, though, after two more changes and a funny conversation with a ticket officer, I climbed down from a yellow U-bahn carriage, made my way past the mall and the church and found my way here. Checking my notebook for directions I wandered up over the cobbles and alongside the red brick wall of the school. High walls and a green gate. People were sitting and eating under trees and the twilight had started to sit over the evening like a soft sheet. I buzzed.
--Hallo. L—?
The door buzzed back. I pushed.
M—’s head and forearms were draped out over the courtyard from a window ten or fifteen metres up and—I have to tell you—my heart sank.
--What happened? He said.
--I took the wrong train.
--Up the stairs. It’s on the fourth floor, he said, from the fourth floor.
Help me with this pack, you bastard.
I climbed.
M— met me at the door. M— is Peruvian, a filmmaker, and into biorobotics.
--Have you heard of Stelarc? I studied. I met him.
I indicated I had.
--So, you are Australian? What are you doing here?
I told him that I had taken six months off work and that I didn’t know what I would do yet. But I hoped to be in Berlin for six months and travel round a bit, do some reading, maybe some writing, who knows. Time out.
--Well, he said, you’ve come at a good time. This summer there are lots of girls. Last summer it was not so good. Everyone was sad.
He has this way of speaking, M—, as though he is your best friend. He speaks about six languages and his accent is so blurry it feels as though you are listening to a tape recording that has started to decay. We fixed up the money straight away and he told me that there was a butō performance on soon that I should come to, seeing as I was a drama teacher. Thanks, I said, that would be great.
--There is a Canadian guy in this other room. He is nice.
--Cool. Thanks.
We stood. Then, after grabbing my number, he left. The door closed, I shucked my pack and aeroplane socks, stood semi-conscious under the shower for fifteen whole minutes, and crashed into bed under a garish orange doona, where I slept soundly until the morning light found me at five-thirty.
***
Last night I went with H— and R— (of whom more later) to the Berghain. It’s a massive place: a concrete shell of a building in Friedrichshain near the Ostbahnhof. We sat in a courtyard outside by a fountain, drinking bionade until one o’clock when the queue started moving, when we ducked and found ourselves being patted down airport-security style by bouncers looking for cameras. We handed them over to a surly old punk who gave us a ticket in return, then passed through into a cement atrium reaching up thirty metres to the ceiling above. Behind us stood a local cowboy, flares and jacket and ten gallon hat all in white. Booths with red lighting were tucked away over to one side of the rambling, extended floor and up past the concrete columns a staircase ran up to the balustrade of the next floor, another fifteen metres above. The light was blue and gold in beams carving down from the darkness. It was like being in an old church or lost theatre.
On the floor above a couple of muscular gay earlybirds were dancing solo in and out of the shifting indigo ripples projected down across the floor. A wall of glass ran along the length of one side behind the speakers—and early in the morning when the music was really loud the panes started to crack in long jagged lines—behind which a haughty barwoman presided over her bench. At the end of this bar were swinging seats and out past the floor, over the gulf of the atrium, a caged metal walkway. The speakers were towers—six gigantic insect legs leading up to an invisible monstrosity. There was another floor upstairs with artworks by Wolfgang Tillmans—some wavy lines and a fashion shot—a woman’s naked lower torso, legs spread, with T-shirt rising up out of shot so that you could only see her vagina and no face—like Courbet, I suppose, and just as problematic. More cages and booths and a smokers’ balcony that was completely enclosed by glass, from which you could look out coolly over the sunrise and the long queue outside.
H— tried without luck to find his supplier and while he was standing by the window was approached (as we all were during the night) by a petite man in braces and striped top. He stood, demi-dancing, nearby, and when I came back he moved away. R— was hit on by a guy from Belfast and a weird young guy who, despite the soaking heat, wore his hoodie over his head and danced around darkly like a bobbing flagpole.
I danced until my feet were sore. I gave up at six and R— decided to leave then too so we limped out into the daylight, squinting bleakly and rolling our shoulders. At the train station we became aware of the smell of our hair, our bedraggled appearance.
At Alexanderplatz I saw a fight.
...that's it for today.
