Express yourself completely,
then keep quiet.
Be like the forces of nature:
when it blows, there is only wind;
when it rains, there is only rain;
when the clouds pass, the sun shines through.
Which is why, two hours after gripping sofa's back, I can rush to meet Dylan at Cafe Sowohlalsauch. Not even realizing that the last time I was here, it was me and him.
I carry a tall red umbrella. Ten minutes of downpour before I walked out the door. Now it's back to dry sharp sun.
Still, both Dylan and I are sunk a little low. I have bad news to report from home. She bemoans her own inertia. I sip tomato juice. She rolls a cigarette. Then we tell each other scandalous tales. This always lifts the spirits. One lover on 83rd and Amsterdam, the other on 84th, both within a day. And the Danish girls, doing things better left undone, in a hostel dorm room.
We eye the man beside us. Bench-presser's build, hair shorn uncharacteristically close for Berlin.
"He is beautiful," says Dylan in English.
"In a Frat-boy way," I offer.
He leans over. "Excuse me." Startling us with flawless British. "Do you mind if I put this here?" His bread basket, our table space. To give him room for his laptop.
Dylan says sure. I say no. Eyelashes bobbing. I can't help it.
He balances basket at table's very edge. We set our own bread basket beside it. "So it doesn't get lonely," says Dylan. Though we worry: Our loaf is so much bigger. Will his feel inadequate?
Somehow this is hilarious.
Later we learn: He is German. (No! we insist, You are English!) He is a federal agent. (Are you undercover? Dylan wants to know.)
Sadly, no. German feds go plain-clothes. His job, he assures us, is "very bureaucratic."
"Are you both authors?" he asks.
"Writers," we correct him -- but there is my Madonna book, on the table. "Author now, I guess." I laugh.
Why are we here, he queries. And before you know it, we've discussed Fullbrights and the CIA, Britta filters, the problems with translation. Also: the hairdo-decimating hardness of Berlin water.
Finally we girls rise to go. "Come with me to AktivMarkt?" I ask Dylan. "They have FantaZero!"
"Ooh! Yes!"
The Fed pulls a face. "Soda! Why soda?"
"It's a treat!" says Dylan.
"Sometimes you need your chemicals," I chime.
He is appalled. But smiling. "You are so American."
And we girls trip away, hormones popping.
"Guess where I am going Every Day?" I crow. "Guess what's my new writing cafe?"
Dylan cracks up.
Then I announce: "So, I am going to fall in love again in 2009." Her eyebrows climb. "But before then, I will take three lovers."
Now I crack up. Because I know the sound God makes when we humans make our plans. It goes something like this:
Ha ha ha.
Still, it's nice to dream. Nice to forget. And nice to get all wiggly in the stomach just from ribbing a brawny federal agent on a hot Saturday afternoon in July.
I mean, how Tao can you get?
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