Saturday, August 10th - Berlin
It’s Mom’s birthday. I had intended to call yesterday but with all the minor crises and my fatigue I forgot to. This is the first thing on my mind but I will tend to it later. I also want to move on. It has been good to see Andres again but there really isn’t any passion between us. Last night at Andres place I called Hans, the sweet young cutie I have been dreaming about since our night in the baths shortly before I left for Denmark. He has invited me over for breakfast with his roommate Mereika.
I say goodbye to Andres and I promise to keep in touch. He tells me he will come visit me in Toronto next summer. He has cut another spare key for me and insists I leave my bags and bike here until I know where I will put them tonight. I thank him for his hospitality and promise not to lose the key this time.
I catch the subway to Hans’ place. I don’t have fare but Berlin’s transit uses an honour system. I am saving 3 DM each ride if I don’t get caught. I’d never so this at home but while traveling I take the risk. The sound of Hans’ voice has excited me again and I am anxious to hold him. I read again the poem I wrote for his on the train to Denmark.
I stop to buy a potted hibiscus for him. His name isn’t on the intercom directory at his entrance so I wander around looking for a pay phone. My card isn’t working well and when I find a phone the line is busy. I am forty minutes late when I reach his line. Mereika answers. She says his name is on the directory, in pencil after her name. I return to the building and sure enough it is there, misspelled, when I know where to look. Before I buzz him, Hans appears at the door to greet me and lead me in. We exchange hugs and kisses in the lobby. He seems very pleased to see me, which is very exciting.
Hans introduces me to Mereika, who is a bit older, perhaps closer 30. She is an engaging redhead, reasonably attractive with fearless eyes. I imagine she plays an older sister role to Hans as well as being a roommate and friend. As I mentioned before, Hans’ English is quite limited. He struggles to but to express any idea so he lets Mereika do most of the talking as her English is better. Mereika and Hans had already started their ‘Frustruk’, a traditional German morning meal of bread, jams, chocolate sauce, cheese, sausage and hard boiled eggs. I describe a Canadian breakfast but they cringe of the thought of maple syrup touching their sausages or peanut butter on their bread. In typical German fashion, Mereika swears she will never try any such combination.
I reassess Hans’ features as we eat. He isn’t as classically handsome as I imagined him in the dim light of the baths or on the night streets afterwards. He is slightly hunched with angular facial features. He has small but interesting eyes, high cheek bones and straight brown hair in a boyish cut. It was his sweetness and his struggle to communicate with me that won me over. I still feel a huge sweetness in my heart for him.
After breakfast, he invites me to stay here tonight. We arrange a time and place to meet Mereika and her boyfriend Wolfgang, and then Hans takes me on a tour of East Berlin. He shows me the new, trendy, low-rent artistic quarter where instant community centres and gathering places have set up and frequently closed down by building inspectors. Their facades are decorated in brightly painted, outrageous collages, celebrating the new freedom and contrasting the sea of dirty, drab, ill-maintained buildings around them that typify most of former Communist East Germany. This was the Jewish Quarter before WWII, until the death camps were created.
Hans is particularly excited about the restoration-in-progress of one of Europe’s largest synagogues, financed in part by Toronto’s Bronfman family. The brilliant gold domes gleam in the sun in contrast with the grey exterior that has yet to be restored, that which is not already in scaffolding.
We rest on a bench in a park after a while. Hans cuddles up to me, resting his head on my lap in a public display of affection. An older couple strolls by but pays us no mind. A group of boys are trying to shoot birds in the trees with toy arrows. They stop and gawk at us cuddling, then begin to shoot their arrows into the tree above us, knowing their arrows will fall around us. Perhaps it is a mild display of aggression, but more probably an excuse to inspect us more closely. I look them directly in their eyes as they come closer, showing them no fear or hostility. They retreat bashfully to another part of the park, avoiding contact with our stronger, mysterious adult powers.
We return to Hans’ flat and make love. We fall asleep afterwards, my arm around his chest from behind and my forehead into pressed to the softness of his hair. We sleep too long, causing us to be twenty minutes late meeting Mereika and Wolfgang on Marx-Engels Platz, the historic centre of Berlin where a street carnival is happening. We drink and eat bad food and walk the midways, stopping to watch but not try the rides and games.
I want to be alone with Hans, holding him in my arms again, but I weather the noise and confusion, a couple beers in the beer garden and a street café with the others. Wolfgang eventually takes Mereika back to his place and Hans and I return to his flat. He is tired and not interested in another round of sex. When he climbs in bed he leaves his underwear on, choosing caution and emotional distance over rapture. I am hurt and disappointed as this will be our only night together. I tell him this but he doesn’t yield. Now it is my heart’s turn to want to retreat into its fortress.
PHOTO 1: scenes from the centre
PHOTO 2: ruins of my heart
No comments:
Post a Comment