Berlin Blues

I had no thoughts of falling in love with Berlin, I am already in love and that is quite enough for me. Like many people of my age who remember the war and the pictures of Belsen that were shown to us as children, I had very mixed feelings about the Germans. So, as I climbed the stairs to the flat we had borrowed I had jackboots in mind.

Then I met some Germans and the first thing that occurred to me was the fact that they looked exactly  like the British, but with less preoccupation with fashion.  In fact there were few bum revealing boys and midriff bare girls  (a relief for me because my kidneys begin to twitch in sympathy) perhaps the cold there has something to do with this though I doubt it. I have very clear memories of wearing pelmet skirts and boots with bare legs in the sixties in snow or gale and feeling no cold - or not admitting I did anyway.

Also there seem to be far more extremely good looking people about, and tall too .It was the time of the Christmas markets, gluwine, marvellous snacks and everybody stuffing their faces with crepes and similar gorgeous stuff, but  I  noticed a curious lack of obese people. I am a people watcher and stare so I tend to assume a benign look for the safety factor and to smile kindly at people I don't know. In Berlin this worked well and I got lots of smiles back.  

On the metro they read newspapers that are not like the Sun as far as I can see. They have no barriers on their metro and while the stations are nowhere near as astounding as the ones in Moscow, there is a curious freedom about them with characters carrying their bicycles down the escalators.I grew up reading Isherwood and longed to find Cabaret and decadence, in fact there was a 'Swingers club' within yards of our flat but we didn't fancy it. And that's the thing about Berlin, there is no pretence. what you see is what you get. We decided against a cabaret as neither of us speaks German but we did a pretty extensive tour of pubs all over the city. We were welcomed everywhere we went with a nice enthusiasm that is curiously lacking when it comes to a couple of old birds in London!

I had another agenda too, I wanted to see a guy who I had a dalliance with in 1962 - before sex was invented according to a poet (fortunately we didn't know about this!)  Last seen sharing acid, now a successful artist of sterling apparent respectability. And me? What do I look like to him? Would he recognise me? I have grown appreciably - horizontally and all the long hair is gone along with my bare feet. and white lipstick  so I doubt it. Stout sensible shoes are the order of the day now and a nice warm coat. And both of us old. But we are both in there somewhere and during our conversation we peep out, slyly, briefly, while his formidable wife offers cake carefully. And talks to my girl friend almost exclusively. An old flame become an ember with hardly any life at all.  My guru become dull, all his originality taken up with warnings of ice slips and fear of broken bones. I hadn't expected him to look the same, in fact I would have recognised him but his fierce energy has gone and mine has not - my physical energy is certainly diminished but my joy and anger seem intact, his wife clearly has him on tight rein and they are happy and what do I know? I envy him his peace but am quite glad that I haven't succumbed. I wanted to play 'do you remember' and I think he may have quite liked that but it was not possible and they were hectic years so perhaps that was for the best. What I would really like to have done is take acid again with this old man and find the parts of us that still believe that life is wonderful because it is.

And now I am going back and I hope I like it as much as that first time. I know we were only there for a month and can't know it properly and when I speak to some Germans who hate Berlin I wonder if I got it wrong but it was right for me and I will stay in Krietzburg again and have wonderful breakfasts at the bar and eat Turkish food again and my work will be part of a visual show at a gallery and my words exposed in a bookshop so it won't be all bad. 
No, it will be good to be back.