I Make Envy on Your Disco, page 23
I lifted myself up, dusted myself off, and apologized to my fellow riders. I thanked the few helpful faces and said to the child, “Don’t worry. I can move.”
I was late to my meeting, but I spun a good story. And I unexpectedly brokered the sale of six works by a rising young painter who worked with hand-applied pulp pigment and stencils. Damon Dufort liked the fact that I rode the subway. He thought it was charming, a little eccentric, and displayed thrift. Damon took me to lunch with his wife at Odeon. She was newly pregnant, and I was only the third person they told. She grabbed my hand when she told me, squeezed it. I looked at her hand holding my own, examined her smile, so open. I feigned excitement but inside I felt a surge of sadness and jealousy. This beautiful couple was discovering a new city, buying art, making friends, and creating life while just an hour before I had collapsed on a train. My phone vibrated endlessly in my pocket, probably Daniel. I turned it off and finished my meal.
When Daniel and I ate dinner that night, he made some vague assertion that if he could get away from work, he’d join me in Berlin. We both knew it wouldn’t happen, and for me, it was essential that it not. Didn’t he realize why I was leaving? He must have, although maybe that too was hidden under the bed like everything else.
We walked Harry around the block. I didn’t tell him about the train. I didn’t bring up the text message. I didn’t tell him I’d sold enough art that morning to float myself for a year. Daniel watched a two-hour documentary about china—not the country, but the plates. Then he folded my shirts and helped me pack.
Ich Bin Ein Berliner!
Greta Hoss is formal in appearance and manner; her blond hair is tied back, and she wears a beige business suit. She looks like the sort of person who sells you a mortgage or opens a savings account for you, but in this case happens to be an expert on the Berlin art market.
We sit at a tiny table at Café Orange, an enormous restaurant that is thankfully just a few blocks from the hotel. The café is, of course, painted orange, with epic ceilings and colossal windows facing the street. Greta takes out a binder and shows me the work of two artists—one is a printmaker whose work consists of bold, monochromatic, brightly colored flowers and fruits (lemons and tulips, pomegranates and poppies); the other artist, using wax and tar, creates three-dimensional simulacra of German seascapes. “The wax must be heated to 54 degrees Celsius to melt and is hand-created by the artist from Bienenwachs and honeycombs along the Rhine in Düsseldorf,” Greta tells me. “His use of tar is influenced by his father’s tire business, but I think the results are rather pleasing.” She studies my face, and her well-practiced intuition deduces my lack of enthusiasm for either artist. She closes the portfolio and folds her hands across her lap.
We talk about Ostalgie, because I bring it up. “The people got what they wanted,” she says. “The unification process was incredible. I was there. But euphoria does not last. The dream of ‘one people’ collapses like the Wall, and now we have Ostalgie. Like art, it is just an idea, an abstraction. Or perhaps it is like beeswax from the Rhine. Just something to talk about.”
We discuss Klaus and his upcoming show. “Do you know him?” I ask.
“Everyone knows Beckmann,” she replies, with a hard-to-read expression.
“I’m going to the opening in a few days.”
“Yes, Immediate/Present, a rather pretentious title. Or, the ‘Ostalgie show,’ as everyone is calling it. It is troubling to me. Many Germans forget, this was a dictatorship, the DDR. A brutal regime. And I find it very curious, because in Berlin, there will always be a Wall, whether we see it or not.”
Over two macchiatos and a few bites of a cheesecakey thing called Quarkkuchen, Greta fires off questions about my taste in art and my experience so far in Berlin. “I understand,” she says after a final sip of coffee. She writes down an address on a slip of paper. “Go here, to this exhibit in Wedding. The artist is Manfred Butzmann. You will know why when you are there. Do it tomorrow. They are closed today. And I assume you go already to the galleries on Auguststrasse.”
“Of course,” I say. Though I’ve only been to one.
She suggests I walk to a nearby gallery on Gipsstrasse featuring new work by one of the artists in her book. “I know you do not like pretty, but it is three streets away and worth a look.”
“Who says I don’t like pretty?”
“It is a good thing.” She stands up and shakes my hand. “In German we call this Urteilsvermögen. A discerning eye is how you might say it. A pleasure to meet you, Herr Singer. Ring me after Butzmann if you like.”
* * *
I go to the gallery on Gipsstrasse and walk into a white room. A man and a woman sit on a bench, facing opposite directions, mesmerized by the giant waterfalls and rivers on the walls. But the work leaves me cold. Perhaps Greta was right. If this is pretty, it’s not my thing.
After a few more gallery visits, I take the U-Bahn to Kreuzberg. I don’t remember the address of Magda’s apartment, so I try to retrace my steps in reverse; I use my guidebook to find Austria and walk past the cemetery on Bergmannstrasse. In the daylight, you can see the towering evergreens, the streams passing through the grounds, the immaculate bouquets left on gravestones. I turn left at the next corner and follow another street until I see a familiar square and, at the far end, Magda’s ivy-covered apartment building. I survey the cars parked along the street, but there’s no sign of Magda’s tiny green automobile. I walk through the gate and pass the courtyard, toward the front door of her apartment house. On the top floor, the curtains are drawn across her living room windows.
I glance at my watch. I have some time before I meet Jeremy for dinner at Henne. I guess I’ll just wait.
If Magda emerges, she’ll think I’m nuts. I can only imagine her finding me at her front door: Samuel, why are you here? This is absurd. She’d have no interest in my explanation. She’d push past me and go up to her apartment. Because really, what excuse could I offer? Oh, hi, happened to be in the neighborhood, thought I’d check on the manager of my hotel? It’s useless. I’m here because I care about her. But there’s no denying that I’m being slightly stalkerish. Still, I have a hunch that something is wrong. If Daniel were here, he’d say I always have these hunches, and nothing is ever wrong. But I can’t shake it, and really, who is he to talk? Perhaps nothing is wrong if you don’t look too closely.
I sit on the steps, my head against a column. Opera wafts from someone’s window, a big-throated woman singing in Italian over cellos and horns. A young man in a pinstriped suit and a fedora passes through the courtyard with his bicycle by his side. He parks the bike in the rack and then approaches the doorway, a black scarf wrapped around his neck. He checks his phone, tucks his newspaper under his arm. He’s dapper and clean-cut, like something out of Savile Row, except for the metal spike passing through his earlobe. He looks at me, probably wondering what I’m doing here, loitering, so I smile and nod. While he fumbles for his keys, I press the buzzer for M. Schubring. The man unlocks the door and enters the building. I let the door close behind him and wait for Magda to answer because I don’t want to appear to be an intruder. But of course she’s not home and the door shuts in my face.
I wait on the steps for an hour. Long enough for the day to fall into dusk, for me to regret not wearing my wool sweater and wonder a few dozen times what the hell I’m doing here. The streetlamps switch on. Then Blitz appears. The cat slinks around and eyes me suspiciously before leaping onto my lap and collapsing. I’m a dog person. I’ve never loved cats. I always thought they were unemotional and not to be trusted. But feeling Blitz’s warm body vibrate against my leg, his paw stretching languorously past my knee, it’s an undeniably nice feeling. Daniel always says that we’ll have a cat when we have a house in the country. He says it with such certainty.
I stroke the cat’s head and he pushes into my palm, humming his approval. After a few more minutes of Blitz’s seduction, a window flies open above me, in the apartment below Magda’s. An old lady leans out, a shock of long white hair falling past the windowsill like an ancient Rapunzel’s. She surveys the courtyard as the opera, now louder, leaks from her window. She waves, but I can tell she wonders who I am, this stranger with the cat on his lap. “Hallo,” I say. I could attempt some invented sign language to tell her I’m waiting for a friend, but she doesn’t seem the type that would play along.
“Was machen Sie hier?” I can’t tell if this is a question or a command.
“I am waiting for Magda,” I tell her.
“Magdalene?” She points to the window above hers.
“Yes!” I say, nodding. “Magdalene.” What a beautiful name.
She shakes her head. “Frau Schubring ist nicht da.”
“Ah.” I know enough from her brutal inflection that Magda is clearly not home. “Okay.”
“I have dog,” she says, holding Schnapps up to the window.
I smile. This must be the neighbor who takes care of the dog. “Ah, Schnappsie!” I say this warmly and with enthusiasm so the woman will realize I know Magda well enough to know her puppy. Schnapps seems to remember me. Though he’s being hoisted out a window, Michael Jackson-style, he stares at me, his tail twirling so maniacally he could fly to the moon. Schnapps begins to whine and bark, his paws swimming in the air, so she puts him down in her apartment.
“Schönen Abend,” the old woman says in a curt voice that lets me know our conversation is over. She makes a clucking noise with her tongue and calls out: “Blitz! Komm jetzt!” The aristocratic feline morphs instantly into an anxious servant, leaping out of my lap and zigzagging up a row of window boxes to her windowsill before disappearing into her apartment. The window slams shut.
It’s freezing and dark, and I’m feeling stupid. I didn’t even get back to the hotel for a shower or a nap. At least I’m slightly less worried about Magda. Her puppy is safe with her neighbor, her disappearance likely planned. And though I didn’t understand what the woman said, she didn’t seem distraught about anything besides the American dumbass sitting on her stoop. I think about leaving a note for Magda, but what would it say? Besides, I’ve no paper or pen, and she knows where to find me. I brush a few leaves off my jeans and move on.
I stare at the apartments on this street, shadows passing in windows, all these lives being lived. A boy zooms past me on his bicycle, ringing his bell. The end of my trip looms, and I see it hanging there in front of me. I’m tired just thinking about what it will take to get me home: Packing. All this work piled up at the end. A few meetings still to come. The opening. The goodbyes. A trip to the airport, the long flight home. I start walking to the train. Time to meet Jeremy for chicken and beer.
* * *
Henne appeals to my indecisiveness: you get half a chicken, potato salad, cabbage, and a piece of bread. A fork is permissible, but don’t even think about asking for a knife.
The restaurant is famous for more than its chicken. A signed picture of JFK hangs above the bar. Apparently, Kennedy was supposed to dine here in 1963 after his legendary eight-hour motorcade through Berlin. He wound up missing dinner, so he sent this photograph as some sort of consolation. During this same visit he delivered one of his most famous speeches, the one in which he announced, “Ich bin ein Berliner!” All of West Berlin turned out to throw flowers in the path of his motorcade, trying to shake his hand, screaming “Ken-ah-dee! Ken-ah-dee!” with an intensity that startled the president. Berliners waved signs proclaiming things like, “Next time, bring Jackie.” But there was no next time. He was assassinated a few months later. The Wall curved directly in front of the restaurant, where it separated Kreuzberg from Mitte. Henne serves the same half-chicken dish now as then, although of course today it’s organic, milk roasted, and raised on a farm.
“You’re giving me a headache,” I tell Jeremy, who’s reading this information out loud from some tattered guidebook. “We’re here because Magda says they have the best chicken in Germany.” I’m also intrigued by this no-knife thing; you gotta have a gimmick, but this strikes me as a particularly odd quirk.
“I love me some poultry,” Jeremy says. “And this place, it’s definitely got a vibe.”
You can feel the history in Henne—the dark interior aged from decades of smoke and chicken grease, its nicotine-stained walls jammed with cuckoo clocks, moody landscapes, and black-and-white pictures of the Wall. The restaurant has two levels, and we sit on the upper floor, tucked in a corner lit only by a flickering sconce a few feet away.
Jeremy studies the beer selection with a seriousness usually reserved for weightier matters. When our server comes over, I fold my hands while Jeremy orders for us. It never fails to impress me to hear him speak the language so effortlessly. “You sound butch when you speak German,” I say. “Very commanding.”
“Danke, Herr Singer.”
“I’m glad I have you. You order and I just play along. It’s kind of relaxing.”
“You’re my lady.” Jeremy winks at me. The waitress returns with two giant glasses of Schwarzbier—the darkest beer I’ve ever seen, the color of licorice. “It’s black beer,” Jeremy explains. “Specialty of das Haus.” He pops a cigarette between his lips and lights up. He offers me one, but I wave it away. I don’t want to get so addicted that I have to slap a patch onto my shoulder when I return to New York. “I heard they’re going to ban smoking in restaurants.”
“Yeah, like that’ll ever happen,” he says, exhaling. “So I’d like to make a toast.” Jeremy raises his glass, the cigarette hanging from his lips. “To you, Sam Singer, for taking pity on a poor kid like me, for feeding me so well, for providing shelter and friendship and even a bathtub. Your kindness has not gone unnoticed.” We clink glasses. I take a sip. The beer is as thick as it is dark, and slightly spicy; a decadent drink to be sipped slowly on a chilly Berlin night.
I take another sip, but it’s too special to be savored without its obvious soulmate. I lean into him and imitate Magda. “Yer-a-mee, can I boom a ciggie?”
Jeremy slides one out of the pack, puts it between my lips and lights me up. “Anything for m’lady.”
I lean back to relax, but the smoke chokes my lungs. I can’t believe I smoked so much when I was younger, that somehow it felt normal. Because when I smoke now, it makes my skin feel different. It makes my heart beat so fast that I feel like I swallowed a typewriter.
“So where’s Magda?” Jeremy asks. “I didn’t see her this morning.”
I contemplate telling him about my afternoon spent on her stoop, but I don’t. “She went away.”
“Really? Where?”
“Not sure.”
“Well, I hope she comes back.”
“She will,” I say, convincing myself.
I take a deep breath, relishing the beer and the cigarette buzz. It must be true what they say about nicotine—when it’s swimming through your blood, it really does give you a sense of well-being. As Klaus remarked, it’s the time in between cigarettes that’s the problem. I hate the feeling of needing something so badly.
I fold my arms across my chest and survey the room. Next to us, an elderly couple eats chicken in contented silence. In the center of the landing, two women I’d thought were just friends caress each other’s faces. Jeremy sees the women, too, and gives me a look to say, “Yep, here we go again.” And in the opposite corner, two parents sit next to each other, looking amused by their young daughter who is relishing the excuse to eat a meal without utensils. “Why are you smiling?” Jeremy asks.
“I’m smiling?”
“Yes, you are.”
“Right now, I feel happy. I like this city.”
“Yep. Totally get it.”
“I just feel different here.” I take a drag from the cigarette and look at him. “The day before I came here, I fainted on the subway.”
“What? Are you serious?”
“Yup. Passed out. Fell over like a tree.”
“That’s crazy, Sam. People don’t just pass out like falling trees. Did you go to the hospital?”
“Of course not. It’s New York. I went to Tribeca and sold a few hundred-thousand-dollar paintings to a French dandy.”
“And D. let you come to Berlin after you blacked out on the subway?”
“I didn’t tell him.”
Jeremy looks puzzled. “Dude, you have to take care of yourself. And I mean that on multiple levels.”
“I know.” So much for drinking slowly; I finish the Schwarzbier. “There’s some stuff I need to sort out back home.”
“I’ll say.”
“But I don’t have time to think in New York. I don’t have ten minutes that aren’t interrupted by something. I can’t even walk Harry without having six random social interactions on the elevator.” I think about telling him about the last few months: my nights spent awake in bed or arguing with Daniel, Harry trembling next to the stove; or taking the subway to the end of the line because I didn’t want to go home. How lonely I’ve felt. How lost. But it’s just ennui—privileged, urban, childless ennui—so boring and indulgent that it’s sickening even to me. I could have a tumor growing nefariously within me, a dead baby floating through the river, a wall dividing my city. That would explain everything turning to black. But I don’t have any of those things. “And now, I’m in Berlin and the energy has shifted. There’s this stillness. There is something else.” I feel my eyes well up, but I stop it. “And I know that I’m traveling, which makes everything feel different. But this time it is different. In New York, my entire life is on vibrate.”
“Hey, you’re preaching to the converted.” He puffs his cigarette. “So, get off the wheel.”
I feel emotional, a knot in my throat. “But I’m supposed to love New York. It’s where I’m from. It’s where everyone wants to go. And it’s given me so much. Don’t bite the hand that feeds.”
