Berlin or bust

Madonna! Madonna! Madonna!

My book is out, kids.

Okay, not my book. Rather, the book in which my essay "(Selbst) Bekenntnisse auf einer Tanzflaeche: An American Girlhood" appears. Translated, unfortunately for all you non-Deutschies, into German.

But if you buy the book, you can touch the pretty cover. And you can see my name! In the Table of Contents! No translation necessary. Holy cow.

Sighting #2

A Fritz Kopperschmidt claims to have spotted the missing blogger at John F. Kennedy Institut, of the Freie Universität Berlin, on Wednesday, December 5. Fritz Kopperschmidt was attending a Cultural Studies seminar entitled The Literature of Liars, taught by renowned Bavarian novelist Annika _____.

According the Fritz Kopperschmidt, a brunette in a plain black coat sidled into the seat beside him shortly before the seminar's start. "I had never seen this chick before," he reported to Berlin's Online Armed Services Division. "She looked kind of...Bulgarian. Which made me wonder."  The brunette then opened a vast handbag and pulled out a copy of Lolita. At which point Fritz Kopperschmidt spotted the laptop. A Sony Vaio. Folded shut, but unmistakable.

According to Fritz Kopperschmidt, during the discussion of Humbert Humbert and Lo-lee-ta, "light of my life, fire of my loins," the brunette said not a word. However: She did perch on chair's edge, and nod forcefully, and scribble furiously into her notebook, and at certain points, grin wildly, though to no one in particular. She seemed, in the words of Fritz Kopperschmidt, "positively orgasmic." As if there could be nothing more erotic than a spirited intellectual dissection (in German) of the stunning (English) prose of literature's great master.

Afterward, noted Fritz Kopperschmidt, the young woman rushed toward the instructor, greeting her with great familiarity. "Almost," posited Fritz Kopperschmidt, "like they were related. Or something."

And then. Suddenly. She was gone.

Fritz Kopperschmidt gave the encounter no further thought until coming across the Vanished Blogger Sketch online. "Her complexion really is that spotty."

He requested a reward for the information provided. None was forthcoming. Upon which he snarled, "ich scheiß auf Berlin's Online Armed Services Division!" and stormed away.

Versuch einer Selbstdefinition Between 2 Languages

Jan Svenungsson, Berliner Liste 2007

It is beginning to happen. In English, I feel caught in shades of gray. A chunk of me is missing. I yearn for: Red Kapuze. Pink-striped Strumpfhose. Fresh mowed Rasen in Garatshausen.

I want to build Lego-words. Turn sentences inside-out. Implement prepositions incorrectly. (Back in Borsigstrasse? Hello.)

In German, I hop on one leg. Eat with one arm. I have a single word for every English ten.

Tuesday night, Werner's party: As Themroc wound to a close, its main characters hooting with sexual ecstasy, all others reduced to a longing for the same, I turned to my cousin.

Here is what I wanted to say: "The sounds are intoxicating. I feel myself carried by them. The director has succeeded in wooing not just the surrounding cast, but the audience, into the pre-lingual anarchy the lead actors inhabit."

Here is what came out:  "Die Geräusche sind wirklich zauberhaft."

The sounds are really magical.

Durr.

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."

Mick Jagger Was Right: Translation Guide

In case you're wondering what kind of light and frivolous topics we deal with in class (and I know your breath is bated), below find sample homework exercises covered on 9/11 (and included in Mick Jagger post). If this does not satisfy your insatiable curiosity, the blogger is happy to fax assignments your way. Please submit fax numbers in comment field below.

Modalverben in Konjunktiv II
In German, specific verbs indicate very specific levels of certainty/possibility.You better know exactly where you stand before opening your mouth. In addition, when used in the past tense, these verbs are treated like no others.

1.
Nur er kann dieses Verbrechen begohnen haben. (100% certain)
Only he could have committed this crime.

Das Motiv dürfte Geldgier gewesen sein.  (75% certain)
The motive was possibly greed for money.

Eifersucht könnte auch eine Rolle gespielt haben. (50% certain)
Jealousy could also have played a role.

2.
Vermutlich war Leichtsinn der Grund, warum vier Jugendliche am Matterhorn tödlich verunglückt sind.
Presumably, carelessness was the reason the four young men suffered a fatal accent on the Matterhorn.

Einiger Jugendlichen sind möglicherweise in Panik geraten.
A few of the young men possibly fell into a panic. 

Silence

Two post-less days.

Saturday I took a walking tour through Berlin, with the famous Preston of Brewer's Berlin. Four straight hours of four-hundred years of history. That's me beside a last bit of Berliner Mauer, now so vulnerable it requires protective metal fencing. (You hear that? Stalin crying in his crypt.)

Then I trucked out to Charlottenburg where I bought a brand-new bike (black and orange beauty). I waited while they attached kickstand and lights, then pedaled the one-hour trip home, in the dark, through the Tiergarten and along the Spree, down wide-as-a-freeway Karl Marx Allee.

At ten, I met two youngsters from the walking tour, Diedre of Austin, TX, and Carlo, formerly of Venezuela and the Lower East Side, now of Barcelona, for dinner on Siemon-Dach Strasse. At one in the morning, I turned out the light.

Today: a coffee date with my cousin (intense adult discussion finally possible, due to absence of little Nikolai and Rosa), followed by a birthday party at her downstairs neighbor's, children now in tow. I spoke German for 6 HOURS straight. Four of those with strangers.

My brain throbs. My thighs smolder.

Do you blame me for the break?

The Third Prophet

I'm so happy! I went to Prolog today and it was good.

No, the teacher was not a handsome male college professor in her mid-40s. She did NOT treat me like something special. I was not The Star. It appears I was too hard on myself in my previous post. It's not ego strokes I needed, but brain stimulation.

Today I did not (re)learn baby words I used to know, but vast Lego-like words I've never even seen (Wiedergutmachungsleistungen,* anyone?). In class we discussed not the first-day rituals of young schoolchildren, but the punishment of juvenile offenders in the German justice system. My homework is to research the Strafmündigkeit (age of criminal responsibility) in the U.S. and present two arguments for, two against. In Deutsch, so help me God.

The class was eight ladies, primarily francophone Swiss chicks. A 25-year-old lawyer sat to my left. Scarlet-haired Alice, lobes multi-hooped, lumbered in late (and promised to sell me her bicycle cheap). I recognized Naomi, a Brit with wavy lips, from the day my parents and I came by (she lives on my street, we discovered; she told me how to cut commute-time from one hour to three-quarters. "And ring my bell anytime!").

An unflappable Spaniard was, happily, my age. She told of asking her roommate for a piece of gum. "Yolanda, why?" he stuttered. "Because I want it!" "No," he said, "you don't." "Yes," she said, "right now!" "No!" She had, it turns out, truncated the correct word "Kaugummi" (literally, chew-rubber), asking for "Gummi" instead (got it?). Then she launched into another story, about telling a friend, "ich komme zu dir" (I'll come to you/your place). A simple error in prepositions ("ich komme bei dir") and her friend quickly protested: "No, Yoland, you don't mean that." "Of course, I do. Ich komme bei dir." "No, really..." (Read: I come due to you. Yes, that kind of come).

Our teacher quickly steered the conversation elsewhere.

I signed up for three weeks of daily three-hour Unterricht. Optional: Monday-night movies, Tuesday-night Stammtisch, Wednesday museum trips, and all-day Saturday outings. This weekend it's off to Leipzig.

It was enough to make me want to hunt down Aliou and get him to sign up.

Speaking of Aliou, I didn't give the boy fair play in that other post. A week ago Tuesday, for two whole hours, he was my friend.

Words, Words, Words

I cannot write today. I have used up all the words inside my mind.

Sometimes I lie in bed at night, trapped awake. The words will NOT stop. They unfurl themselves into sentences, bang whole paragraphs against my skull. I turn on the light, release them into my Moleskin, and brand new sentences rush in, take their place.

Right now: Start, stutter, stop. Start again, trip, spill it all beneath the table. No getting it back.

Some days it's the English that I lose. Cannot for the life of me locate "blissful" or "organic." Instead "glückselig" and "bio" stand stubbornly, arms folded, blocking all trespassers.

Other days I blog like a fiend. Then I walk to the counter, try to order a Kaffee, and the German squishes like marmalade in my mouth. I stand outside of me, watching. I KNOW how to shape that vowel. I KNOW how to click that consonant against my teeth. The barrista talks right back in English. Oh humble day! But I refuse. It's mush-mush Deutsch or nothing.

The BEST Thing About Berlin EVER

You can sit. In cafes. For hours. And hours. And hours. And hours. And hours.

The waitresses do not look at you funny. They do not slice their eyes in your direction. You do not have to order a second cup of coffee. Nor an accompanying pastry. Nor a glass of water. Nor anything else. You can just nurse that first cup and type and type and type without the slightest pang of guilt, and when you leave, you do not have to give more than a 5 percent tip. In fact, if you do, then they will look at you funny. Foreigner!

Right now I am at one of many booths in the expansive Cafe Euforia, where I already wrote for three hours on Wednesday, and where I am guaranteed to be ignored by the waitresses until it's time to pay. When my battery loses its juice, I can wander a little further down the block to another (much smaller) cafe, where I know the handsome Turkish owner will allow me to plug my power cord beneath the fan he has pointed at the counter to cut the humidity. On Wednesday I walked in and said simply "ich suche eine Steckdose," before even ordering anything.* He happily complied, even asking whether I would prefer the French Cabaret music be turned down, and offering me a piece of cake, gratis.

This BEST THING about Berlin EVER is something so very good, it might be all it takes to seduce a footloose writer into staying. For a very long time. And not just in the cafe, I mean.

*A girl at a nearby table tittered when I made my request. Later I discovered Steckdose might also be slang for "female," the Steckdose being the thing you stick the Stecker into. Not sure. (Will a real German please weigh in? Roland? Silke? Moms?) At least I didn't say "ich bin eine Steckdose."

Schnodderig mit Witz

If there's a better word than "schnodderig" I have not heard it. C'mon, just say it — and say it fast — shnodrick. Feels good as a mouthful of potato salad with little pickle chunks.

You know how native New Yorkers have their style? Get outa my way you fuggin' asshole! So foul-mouthed and fearless, you kind of have to love ‘em for it? Well, Berliners have their style, too. Don't expect subservience. Don't expect extra effort. Take our hotel staff, who spared us only as many words as humanly necessary, and beneath every one was ice so slick, we went sliding straight across the lobby and crashing into the glass doors whenever we dared expect more from them than they thought we deserved. An apology, say, when they'd royally screwed up our reservation.

I arrived at the hotel at 9:40 a.m. on Wednesday the 15th. This was after the Russian surround-sound flight, remember, and the near-arrest in Frankfurt. I straggled to the front desk with my two-ton bags. "My mother has reserved rooms," I mumbled in sloppy German. "Under Bobby Patri, I think?" A tight-faced girl with a blond ponytail tapped around on her computer. Nothing. "Gertrud Patri, maybe? Gertrud Reich?" Yes. But only one room, with a double bed.

I was very confused. Did The Moms expect us to share? "Under Lilan Patri?" I asked.

Nothing. "There is a single room available for tonight. Would you like to book that?"

I thought I'd better wait for The Moms. "I'll just check into the one room for now."

"Check in is at 13:00."

I stared at the girl. You know when you are so tired you kind of want to die? That's how I'd felt five hours earlier. My blouse was a wad of wrinkles. My back begged for full recline. Even my skull ached.