Last night. Too tired to think to talk to read to write. I climb into bed. Number 6 knitting needles. Skinny white mohair, from the Strickshop on Wörtherstrasse. Cast on. Loops too tight. Unravel 'em. Cast again. Bravo! Second row: Knit two. Purl two. Knit two. Purl two... Wait, how many loops was that? Eins zwei drei vier...
It's not until I reach 21 that I realize I've been counting in German. All along.
This morning. Biking to the Oberholz. A small blue car, corner of Linien and Acker. Passenger window unrolls. I brake. A lady, silver-coiffed, leans from the driver's side. "Can you tell me," she asks, "how I get to Auguststrasse?" Next street over, I explain. "Turn links up here, then links again." She thanks me. Jets away.
I re-mount. She thought I belonged. Even better: I knew the way.
Then again. Friday night. Low-key art opening, hot hot hot spot Heidestrasse. Where I once sought, and failed, to find Bayreuth Boy. This time I am on his arm. Here to meet Yogi D., his best and oldest Kumpel.
Unassembled furniture, Saran-wrapped. Badminton courts, painted half-size onto concrete floor. Wooden posts positioned atop. Nailed to each a decorated drunkard photo, plus matching mathematical triangles, windshield wipers, the like.
The art is by an Englishman in a red plaid shirt. I do not understand. But I do like Yogi D.
He is a sculptor. A vegetarian. A yogi. Gaze steady. Hair dark and wavy. Reaches to the chin.
Sculptor J. is also in attendance. Another vegetarian. Far less hair, though. He drinks a VitaCola. Koffein Kick! trills the label. The other option: Weizen beer. I refrain from either. "Worried about calories?" teases Sculptor J. "No," I say. "Caffeine." He gets it. On the night in which I did not find Bayreuth Boy, Sculptor J. drank ten Vitas in a row. He bounced till morning. Slept two hours. Woke still whirling. Later I learn that he is sober. Then I get it.
We four, plus another sculptor in an Adler-embroidered vest and old-school hiking boots ("Your next Look des Tages," offers Bayreuth Boy. "Damn!" I moan. "I should have brought my camera") depart for Viva Mexico! It
will be my first time eating Mexican in Berlin. I am beside myself with curiosity/
"Oh my God," says the Boy. "You just sounded so German."
We hail a cab. Yogi D. sits in back, beside me. "You really look American," he says.
"Waaah! Really? Why?!"
"Oh, I..." He shrinks back.
"You could not have said worse," pipes the Boy from the front seat.
"Everyone here thinks I am Italian," I protest. Okay, once it was French. Another time Bulgarian. And after learning I'm from New York — a writer at that — it's... "How do you come to have a Jewish cousin?" my cousin's editor asked her. Utterly convinced of my Chosen status, through no anti-Goy efforts of my own. Then again, that's what everyone in New York thought. Here, at least, it renders me rather rare and exotic. Let's not, ahem, discuss the reasons for that.
"I just thought..." Yogi D. begins, timid.
"Don't worry," I say, gentle. "It's okay."
"...like you're from Woodstock."
"Woodstock!?" I laugh. "I guess that's better than Iowa."
"Iowa," repeats Yogi D. This time he is laughing. One weird vowel after another.
"It must be my skirt," I say. New, from Anthropologie, but a tad psychedelic.
"I meant it as a compliment." He still looks worried. "Really."
Viva Mexico! is packed. We end up at Good Time thai. The vegetarians order fried bananas. The omnnivores, chicken satay. We debate Quentin Tarantino's aestheticization of violence. Does it follow in the tradition of Kong Fu movies? Or has it reached new, and unforgivable, proportions? The fetishism of killing itself.
The satay is tasty while eaten, but hurts my tummy all night long.
I am tickled when taken for Italian (one-quarter of this blood does flow Genoan). Thrilled when heard as native German. But I like being American too. I use it.
Last week. Small, decidedly somber, dinner party. Voices rose just above a whisper. Smiles flashed rarely — and among the women, never. Awkward pauses hovered at table's edge, threatened to overtake. I arrived late, thrust myself in, grin so glaring it left them blinking, questions so brazen their cheeks reddened, clumsy jokes they mistook for truths. Bayreuth Boy was cracking up. "Hey," I said, undaunted, "they needed a little American energy at that table."
I stand by my acts of cultural insensitivity.
Or take Saturday. The Boy had ordered a wardrobe. It arrived. With no shelves no drawers no rods no racks. And no screws with which to hang the doors. "I have to go to Ikea," he told me. "Ooh!" I said. "I want to come!" He would pick me up in Gauloise-devouring Felix's VW Lupo. "A car!" I said. "Fun!"
Naturally, the Boy drove like a lunatic. "Naturally" because that is the type of man I date. Without ever meaning to. His half-ounce iPod was plugged into the stereo system, bellowing notes I did not know.
"Rap," I declared. "I MUST hear Rap." I had woken that morning, my insides a coil of post-Thanksgiving homesickness. The ache had only grown with the hours.
I'm from rap to riches niggas I ain't dumb I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one...Hit me.
If there is a better cure for American homesickness than the jerking of one's body to the poundings of Jay-Z while swerving down Hauptrasse beside a 29-year-old hottie in a car better driven by a middle-aged Hausfrau, I do not know it.
However.
Ikea Tempelhof on a Saturday afternoon: Madhouse.
Lilan in Ikea Tempelhof on a Saturday afternoon: Not what Bayreuth Boy expected.
Does she linger within every department? Run her palms along bedsteads? Rub fabrics between thumb and forefinger? Try out sofas? Examine rice-paper lanterns? Say: "Ooh... Isn't this lovely... Wouldn't this look... I wish I had..."
Um.
More like: March through the maze, man on a mission. Glance left and right, stride never broken. "That's hideous. Ew. Oh my god. Ha, you should really get that..." The Boy stumbles behind, breaking a sweat. Then: "Oh, honey, the perfect bed for the baby's room!" Just to watch him tip into a mock-faint.
Finally: Wardrobes. The Boy must make note of the desired drawers rods racks. Colors lengths styles. The row and shelf where each item can be picked up in the warehouse.
"Look," I say, "pencils!" I skip to the supply stand. "And tape measures!" I yank one free. "Ooh...inches! I feel so at home." The Boy lays his paper on a slanted, laminated map and begins scribbling. I proceed to measure: The width of the map. The length of his paper. The height of his ear. The breadth of his ass. Inches and centimeters. Each.
I'm not all bad. I do find the labels of the desired wardrobe fixings and read these aloud for him. Then: "We should steal something," I whisper, and pretend to pocket the tiny Christmas boxes that fill the sample drawers.
We round the final curves of the maze, and the Boy finagles a metal cart. "Want a ride?" he says and I jump aboard. I am captain at the helm, blocking his view. "Links!" I call. "Rechts! Stop!!!" We swoop left around poles, right around bins, break sharp to avoid ankles. All around us Germans are frowning. Okay, there's a little boy who gapes, eyes awash with envy. An older dude who smiles. But the women? Ha.
It's okay, though. I am AMERICAN.
That night, Skyping my dad: "You know that stereotype about Germans not having, um, such a great sense of humor? Especially the women?"
"Mm-hm," says Pops carefully.
"Don't tell Moms. But...it's a little bit true a lot of the time."
"Very tactful," he chuckles. Forty years with a woman who does not get Python. He should know.
(I interrupt this broadcast to appease the potentially offended: My mother does laugh at many things non-John Cleesian. And my German (female) cousin and her many German (female) friends exhibit humors nothing less than ribald.)
Bayreuth Boy and I reach the warehouse. He speeds to a jog, spinning me down the wide open aisles. The warehouse is breeze-less, but my ponytail whips. I crouch low. "Yeah," he says, "take it in the knees," and he comes to a screech before a concrete wall.
Then we smooch. With abandon. This is something we do often. Which is kind of obnoxious. But not when I'm the one doing it. I assume the Germans are frowning. I wouldn't know. My eyes are closed the entire time.
Ah well, what's to be done? Passion can't be tamped. After all, I am Italian.
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