Mick Jagger Was Right

1.
Arrived in class late. S-Bahn not to blame. I had bicycled for the first time. Forty-five minutes, trafficky streets. I came in sticky, glowing, Gortex jacket flapping around my arms.

Our teacher, Anja, of the rosebud lips, was going over the grammar homework: Modalverben in Konjunktiv II, (past) Perfekt (don't ask). I unpacked fat German dictionary, Moleskin notebook, lined coffee cup and two small Evians on my table. The endorphins began to surge. The day stretched wide and hopeful before me.

I leaned over to Naomi, the pretty Brit. "What's the Datum?"

She paused. I was too intent on sentence #2 to notice: Nur er kann dieses Verbrechen begohnen haben.

"Der 11te 9te," she said.

Something clicked. I looked up. "I'm sorry," she whispered. Eyebrows tugged tight. Wavy lips set with worry.

I couldn't breathe right. Das Motiv dürfte Geldgier gewesen sein, read someone. I had no idea who. Or what the words meant. German had gone Finnish.

There's no reason for this, I told myself. It had been six years, after all, and last year, the day had passed quietly for me, without upheaval. But my eyes were wet. I could feel the cry. The room went wobbly. For a flicker of a second: Grand Central. Get out! Get out! Sprinting to the street. Midtown a jumble. 

I tried to focus. Eifersucht könnte auch eine Rolle gespielt haben. Sweat beading on a stranger's neck. Pay phone. Rosemary: "Go to my apartment. NOW."

I wanted Rosemary. NOW. I wanted Manhattan. My New York friends. To feel these feelings among those who knew how these feelings felt. A world without sky. Anything can fall. Nowhere not unsafe.

Vermutlich war Leichtsinn der Grund, warum vier Jugendliche am Matterhorn tödlich verunglückt sind.

Any minute I might swallow loud. "Shit." I pushed back my chair, jogged out of the room. Locked myself in a toilet stall. Tried to shudder too quiet for the person in the next one to hear. I sat for a while. Gathering myself. But the aloneness felt impossible. The homesickness too big. For the first time in Berlin.

I got up anyway. Out in the hall, there was Naomi. "Are you okay?"

"It was such a shock," I told her. "I had to get out."

"When I realized the day, I thought, oh no." She reached out, tentative — rubbed my shoulder.

"I don't want to be melodramatic," I began. "All of Europe has known bombing, war on its own soil." Sorry for where I am from, I wanted to say, Sorry for how much we make of one single day. "But in American, we are innocents. And for me, I had a friend...Laura. And for weeks afterward, the way the city felt, it was...something."

Naomi shook her head. "People my age haven't known war. Besides, it really affected us in Britain. More than on the continent, I think. That footage, I watched it for hours."

She was still patting my arm. "Ach," I said. We folded into a half-hug. Strode back into class.

Anja laughed. "Women always have to go the bathroom in pairs," she said. I wanted her to know. I wanted the whole class to know. I sat low in my seat, arms tucked around my waist.

Dabei sind einiger Jugendlichen möglicherweise in Panik geraten, read someone. Whatever that meant.

2.
Recess. Naomi and I walked down the block to DoubleEye, which, according to Anja, serves the best coffee in Berlin. A line out the door. Cappuccinos layered like snow on earth. I paid for Naomi's hot chocolate. Popped four Süsstoff tablets into a double espresso. Sipped.

Yes. Anja is right.

I love caffeine. My German brain-half switched back ON. I laughed out loud. Still, I did not have what I really wanted. Talking to My New Friend wouldn't cut it. Nor my cousin.

3.
St. Oberholz. Long table by the window. Salad (pine nuts and parmesan). Tortilla wrap (spinach and bean-spread). Laptop yawning wide. A redhead at the neighboring table. I nodded at him, he at me. I bent down and stuck my Stecker into the outlet beneath him.

Something about him. He was my age, face well-worn. Dusty orange eyebrows. Freckles on the hands, up the arms. Shovel in salad. Study the redhead.  He might have been stealing glances my way. Couldn't be sure. Read an email. Study the redhead.

Another man joined him, back to me. He was speaking American. Oh, okay... It could be... No, I was seeing things. Redheads. They have that look. Gulp down Volvic. Study the redhead.

Finally, I couldn't not. I leaned across my table. "Excuse me," I said in English. "Are you Jeremy?"

"I thought I knew you!"

"What are you doing here?!"

San Francisco University High School. Graduating class, 1989. Biology with Mr. Squires, sophomore year. I have not seen him in eighteen years. Finishing a PhD in philosophy at University of Chicago. Dissertation on Ethics (what' s with all these philosophy doctorates?). Visiting his friend, David, a teacher based in Prenzlauer Berg.

We chased through the years, caught up fast. "You in touch with anyone?" "Hardly, you?" "Naw." "Remember F.? She moved to Israel with her wife. "Sam's leading the total smoking ban in California." "John S.? A doctor in New York. Plays the banjo." "V. wrote a novel. Super-acclaimed. Married Dave Eggers."

Jeremy had been in New Jersey six years ago, this very Tuesday. Visiting the same David, then based in the Garden State. When I mentioned today's date, he appeared unfazed. Jeremy is not a New Yorker. He did not know Laura. He did not spend months reshaping a sense of home, a sense of safety, while home still simmered, and alerts flared orange.

"I' ll be back in December, for ten weeks," he told me, "teaching a class with David."

"Be in touch," I told him.

David turned around, stretched out a hand. "I should introduce myself." His hair was black, his glasses blue-framed. 

"Let me get your e-mail," I said. "I don' t know so many people."

"Me either, actually."

"I was telling Jeremy, I am so happy to see Americans. I didn't realize what day it was, until a girl in my class..."

David blinked, hard. "Oh. God. Not until you said it — " It was the face I must have worn four hours earlier.

"Oh, I'm sorry to — "

"No," he said. I saw something like a shiver in his shoulders.

"Yeah," I said. 

He gave me his e-mail. I said, "Nice to meet you." He turned back to his laptop, I to mine.

Nothing more.

I knew that he knew. The feelings that we felt. And that was all I needed.

Comments

[Posemary]

Thanks, Lilan (and Mick) -- reading this was all I needed today.

[Lilan]

Lovely Rosemary, I am so glad it was what you needed too. Missed you. Brought you closer by writing this. L