1. Curtains
Beware the gauzy white fabric, drifting languidly from ceiling to floor. Beware even that same diaphanous swathe in a marachino cherry.
Dawn dawns and a rose-tinted sun stains my eyelids, rustling me from my dreams. On Chausseestrasse, thick navy blue beat back the day, granting vital extra hours to this immuno-challenged hypothyroidic Epstein-barrist, especially when caught in jet lag's trap (down at 2 a.m., up at 11).
Now it's three broken nights on Rykestrasse and I am mean and grumpy and downright delinquent. How severe is the prison sentence for stealing navy blue from your previous sublet and slapping it over the window of your current? Stop me before I do it. Please.
2. Cleo
She does not like German-brand salmon paté. She won't speak anything but English. She meows at the Boy and me till we follow her into the living room. It is the loftiest room in the flat, the one she has claimed for her own. Tufts of fur already sprout from the soft white rug. She hops onto the sofa (velvet cushions the color of olives, worn and patchy as fallen gentry). We try to pet her and she bats away our hands. We leave and she follows, peeping at our ankles.
Perhaps she simply needs us near, the scent of us, the heat, reminding her: This is home now. We are here. You are not alone.
3. Girlfriends
When I returned from San Francisco last week, I thought, I MUST foster female friendships NOW. A boyfriend is a blessing. A kindred-spirit cousin causes the heart to swell, the pulse to quicken. And yet. Girlfriends are roots. They fasten the soles of the feet to the ground. Without them, I would keel over at the ankles.
You have met the French waitress. She is boigant and delicious, cheeks the pink of a fresco'd angel. Let us call her Amie.
Thursday night, over Crazy Orange Chicken, Amie and I spoke of men and art and the Russian nouveau riche. She ordered Spanish wine. Sipped. Made a face. The bottle had been sitting too long. Soured. Amie grew up in Bordeaux. She knows these things. "Like vinegar," she said. But this was Toca Rouge, Chinese-fusion food, its owners perhaps not well-versed in matters of Spanish reds. "You should tell them," I said. Amie waved her hand — "no, no!" — and drank from her glass of stillwater instead.
Amie's father is Russian. He lives in Moscow. His second wife wields his credit cards. "Natalie," minced Amie. She made a face. Immediately I understood: Prada, Gucci, never-subtle jewelry.
I am older than this second wife. Amie is older than this second wife's daughter. Which means I am old enough to be Amie's mother. If I had rushed things.
Somehow this seems not to matter.
Last Saturday we drank bad espressos at a cafe called Caras. We giggled over the strange, dark ways of Germans. We browsed the shops on Alte Schönhauser Allee. Amie showed me a store called Flippa K. I bought a royal purple top. "With a different bra," said Amie, "perfect!"
Our words slip-slide from German to English, even into French. Amie insists on resurrecting my long-forgotten high school lessons. "Your accent is good!" She told me to call the Boy mon petit coeur.
Which he is. And so I did.
There is another new girlfriend. You have not met her. Poet. Femme Fatale. Fulbright scholar. Former New Yorker.
Let us call her Dylan.
In December we had our first girl-date. I sat across from her, stabbing roast duck with wooden chopsticks. We talked of sex and sleep, god and meds, MFAs, the West Village, pounds lost, pounds gained — and I thought, Ohhhh. This is what it means to be where I am from.
The beat of her words. The shift of her thighs. The sharp ready eyes through which she sees the world.
This is how I am different from my cousin and all the other German girls I know.
Optimism. Brazenness. Swift tumble into truth.
Sunday I met Dylan at Café Oberholz. She handed me a plastic baggie: the tell-tale fork-prong crosshatches of peanut butter cookies. "Welcome back," she said. She had baked a batch for widespread distribution. "The Germans do not understand the value or versatility of peanut butter," she explained.
In fact, they can barely stand the stuff.
I had already begun my own campaign of enlightenment. Back in Brooklyn, at the Flying Saucer Café, I urged Bayreuth Boy to order the warm pressed banana-Nutella-peanut butter panini. Two days in a row he insisted on banana-Nutella only. The third day: "Banana and peanut butter! And chocolate!" He was awed. "Who knew?"
Really. Only a German could not know such a thing.
Also, the Boy did not know that crisp bacon could — in fact, must — be eaten with tomato, iceberg, and mayonnaise on plain white toast. Said baptism occurred at The Corner Bistro on Jane Street. No matter that the Boy had already downed a cheeseburger and fries — one bite of my BLT and he had to order one for himself.
Sunday night I gave him Dylan's cookies. "Strange," he said. "Salty." "That's how they're supposed to taste," I said. Then he slathered them with German marmalade. "Better."
I did not tell Dylan.
love it! especially the marmalade on the cookies. glad you're investing in new girlfriends though i wish i were in berlin and if i were i might have to challenge them to an arm wrestle for your love, or something. beautiful writing, my dear. love you!
Posted by: Julie @ the calm before the stork | April 05, 2008 at 09:45 PM
p.s. sorry about poor cleo. i think you're right, she's just adjusting. sending her kitty love!
p.p.s. i authorize you to black-out tape the windows.
Posted by: Julie @ the calm before the stork | April 05, 2008 at 09:47 PM
Black-out tape! Brilliant! And anytime you want to come to Berlin for an arm-wrestle, you are welcome, oh so welcome.
Love love love L
Posted by: Lilan | April 06, 2008 at 08:46 AM