berlin: feelings from a city

foiled romance, renewed friendships, national anxieties, and blurry nights

berlin sweeps me in and out of love. my second girlfriend dumped me in the hallway of a youth hostel in berlin when i was 17. i knew i deserved it, but i also knew she was flirting with one of the germans in our program.

all the other americans were so captivated by the germans, who seemed to speak to many languages and have traveled to so many countries and to have such civilized views on politics. the germans had style and fashion, vibes and moves: the germans were allowed to have their boyfriends and girlfriends sleep over at night. the germans arranged parties overflowing with alcohol in fields out in the middle of nowhere. i was just an american who hardly spoke german, wouldn’t dance, refused to drink alcohol, and hated his clothes. i witnessed such hedonism during those few days in berlin that i vowed never to go abroad again, and if my girlfriend was disappearing into that vortex of drunken lust, i must repress my desire to follow her.

night sky (photo my own)

i fell for an american during christmas in berlin when i was 20: i never said a word and then she flew back home to her boyfriend. in berlin i went to the cathedral for the midnight service as christmas eve gave way to christmas. my friends and i, most of us studying for the year in germany and off from school for the holidays, drank glühwein in the christmas markets where we took selfies with our wintery treats. there was a massive christmas tree in front of the brandenburg gate. sometimes we walked by it after dark, which fell early and pleasantly. it was chilly and i liked that. i still love the people i spent that christmas with. they are all so special to me.

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on my twenty-first birthday, the day after christmas, i drank so much alcohol that i was throwing up for three hours while my friend soothed me and promised me that i wasn’t going to die. she laughed lightheartedly when i asked her if maybe i should go to the hospital. “i’m going to die!” i screamed. “i’m going to die!”

there was a guy from texas trying to sleep in his bed as i screamed. he was on his own in a shared dormitory stuffed with the whole lot of us. he had several opened bottles of beer on the floor beside him. i don’t know if i told my friend i loved her, but i wanted to, and i do love her, and somehow after she soothed me, i fell asleep.

i loved being drunk at night in berlin with my friends.

nearly three years later, i told a european girl in berlin: i will quit graduate school and move to switzerland with you, and then i never saw her again. i always think i’m so in love when i’m in berlin. i always think i’m ready to give up anything for some feeling which i’ve found there.

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evening sky (photo my own)

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i was there from may to august and i was 23. when i first arrived, i stayed with a friend from whom i had long been estranged. she had been a principle victim of my depression and the rage which my inner turmoil and self-hatred so often unleashed. i was so grateful that she was forgiving me. i would be staying with her for a few days or so in berlin while i found an apartment, and i was so nervous to see her. i was on guard lest i let out that dark part of myself again. i was determined to be a happy person.

our friendship blossomed again that summer in berlin. she has remained my friend ever since. berlin was the web which brought us back together. i sometimes wonder: could we have fully loved each other again without that time in berlin? we had grown up together, but back in america we no longer lived near each other. berlin was our setting for finding each other again. she listened to all my girl drama, which was abundant. we got döner kebabs and walked through parks together. she wasn’t a drinker, which i liked, given the life i led with my other friends there. she and i spent a lot of time sitting, walking, talking, visiting new parts of the city together. i was excited to be welcomed back as a friend into her bedroom back home, which was still put together like a teenage girl’s.

i was an intern at the u.s. embassy that summer. we had a full day of work, but at least once a week i stayed out drinking and dancing until 4 in the morning and then showed up to my desk the next day in a clean suit, no headache, ready to drink again. people were still lined up outside of certain clubs at 7 in the morning as i made my way to the train. after work, i would go out again without going home first.

i was so in the moment all summer that i don’t have any pictures. those nights all blur together in a heap of details, all of which made my bedroom (rented from a woman who lived with me) a place i hardly spent any time. i wanted to be out in the night where i could savor the simple things. cheap beer from the kiosks you can drink wherever. dj’s set up at the sheltered entryways to the u-bahn. vast clubs with indoor and outdoor music and all manner of debauchery. discussions about books, stories about travels in southeast asia, talks about the meaning of life at two in the morning. kitchen tables cluttered with empty cigarette boxes, bottles of wine, overflowing ash trays, and half-consumed beers. “the xx” album constantly playing when we are hanging out. each of us still in our clothes from work when the sun starts rising.

a party at the u.s. embassy’s mansion where i defeated a marine in a dance off. drunken social events paid for by the embassy to bring professionals together. world cup watch parties put on by the diplomats to bring staff from each country’s embassy together in one bar with a big projector screen.

careful approaches for discrete touching at said watch party. her looking me in the face and telling me she liked me.

drinks by the lake under the moonlight that glistened on the fingernails i couldn’t touch anymore because her boyfriend was there.

i remember silhouettes standing at the rails of bar terraces: right against the water while the sun rises. the water rippled and glistened with purple, orange, and red as people ordered more drinks and made out against the backdrop of a city waking up.

lights in the water (photo my own)

cigarettes, kissing, hand holding, stumbling around, my friend asking me if i’m seeing how beautiful the river looks right now while some people fondle each other beside us and he throws his arm happily around me. walking aimlessly through the morning light until we reach a bridge where that same friend collapses puking. a man walking by in a suit. two of my friends having sex on the balcony after i fall asleep in the bed. inebriated minds, loose bodies, late nights, entangled fingers beneath the surfaces of tables. tight hugs in dark hallways after almost everyone else goes home. skin-to-skin contact in the crowded corners of dark bars with loud music and partial nudity. close together with her beneath her sheets before leaving at 6 in the morning to shower and change into a new suit for work.

yet she would never kiss me.

i had a sense of inferiority around her. i spoke much better german but i was afraid to use it around her. i was afraid that if i spoke german, my grammatical errors and accent would only re-certify the nationality i was stuck with. her boyfriend was a european: he spoke tons of languages, knew about art, traveled the world, wore fashionable clothing, swirled his wine when he was with me like he knew who i was and i posed no threat to him. she often told me: “you’re an american,” and that irrefutable assertion ripped right through me.

one night that girl texted me at two in the morning. we had been drinking for hours and we had work the next day. everyone was leaving the bar, but she had a lot of energy. she had told me to find her before i got on the train, and i had tried, but she was gone, so i went home. i was in bed when she texted me that she was looking for me but she couldn’t find me. i told her i had looked for her too! where was she?

she was home, she said, but she would go out again to see me.

she told me to meet her at a certain intersection.

i took a cab for 30 euro.

i waited for 30 minutes. it was dark and there were almost no cars out. she didn’t respond to any of my texts.

“i waited for you,” she said the next day. “but i never saw you.”

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