Berlin or bust

Top-Rated Moment #2

Sunday Afternoon, 2 Small Bodies, Sofa

My cousin's apartment. Post-lunch linger. Salad bowl emptied. Plates, too…almost. On Rosa's, a crescent of toast under pale green paste—a 4-year-old's fork-pressed grapes. On Nikolai's, a chunk of half-bitten bread, dark and grainy. Even a slab of butter, near as thick as the bread itself, cannot render it toddler-edible.

Dad has already risen, off to scuba-diving practice. The children are DONE. As children can be. They scamper from the table.

I pick at a last few leaves of lettuce. My cousin leans back in her chair. I describe writing English with a German mind, rebuilding each sentence in a foreign order. She pulls a book from her shelves, lays it beside my plate. A Japanese writer. She moved to Berlin, now poured German words into Japanese structures. 

Rosa, from the living room: "Lilan! Lilan!"

My cousin: "Rosa, let Lilan finish her lunch."

Rosa: "I want to read a book!"

Cousin: "Give me a few minutes, Rosa, I'm almost done here."

Rosa: "Lilan, we can read Pippi Langstrumpf!"

Cousin: "Not yet, Rosa. We are trying to have an adult conversation."

A recurrent, and fruitless, refrain when I am visiting. Evidence thereof: Within one minute I have been dragged onto the sofa. Nikolai clambers onto my lap. Rosa opens her book onto my thigh. "Here's Pippi's pony!" she cries. "What are those?" I point to the Pony's spotted pelt. "Polka-dots, of course." Less a lesson in German for her than for me.

The sun spills onto the carpet. "And here's where they find the treasure…" Nikolai burrows his head into my chest. His hair is silk beneath my chin. Rosa squeezes against my side. I can feel her legs wiggling. The room is oven-warm.

My cousin emerges from the kitchen. Grabs her digital camera. Points.

But she needn't have.

The moment is already captured. No memory card required.

My Mother Says I Should Have a Baby in Berlin

Just because the Kinder clothes are so darn cute.

She has a point.

All the other ladies are doing it. You should see Prenzlauer Berg — pop-out bellies and old-style prams thrust down cobblestone streets. Toy stores everywhere. Worse than Park Slope. For untold reasons, the neighborhood has the fastest-growing number of children under 3 in Berlin. Compare the fecund birth rate — 2.1 kids per woman — to Germany's steeply declining one: 1.36.*

I can see the appeal. It's a district full of trendy cafes and shops along with plenty of green space. You get the perks of city living plus the kind of play space and Kinder-care the U.S. usually reserves for its suburbs.

Should I get busy? I really really really DO want a baby. Never been a question. Just, um, maybe not this second...?

Also, it would be nice to have a man attached. Not necessary. But.