Before I met them again I dreamed them. Sunil, smiling, walking down an ornate staircase and running his fingers over a polished bone bannister. Sheeshek on supporting blocks in a drydock, dripping and barnacle encrusted.
The last time I remember seeing Sunil he had his own little basement full of books and papers in a terraced house in Gower Street with a blue plaque to a Bloomsbury socialite on it.
The plan was that we would drink lots of beer in Berlin and I wanted to piss into Hitler's bunker.
I flew to Berlin. At the airport I met our social organiser from at the University of Kent - she was going to Turkey.
I landed at a Berlin's airports, a flat place. I had an address Cafe Einstein, for an hour I marched down xxxxx until I realised I was lost.The streets were empty of cars and the roads were cordoned off because Germany was about to play Argentina in the South African world cup. People criss crossed the avenue.
The only time I have been told off for policemen for Jay walking was in Munich in 1981. Why did you cross the road there, they asked? I didn't understand the question. To get to the other side? I said. You must cross the road there. They said. This time we will not fine you. And the officer pointed to the official crossing. The Berliners were Jaywalking.
I was running out of time. If I don't make this meeting then I probably shouldn't be there anyway I thought. I am still suffering the consequences of this ridiculous philosophy. Two weeks ago I realised I wasn't going to make my train and so got on the 281. Inspectors demanded I produce a little bit of white paper and I couldn't find it. It had dematerialised.
Sheesheck was thoughtful. Silent for some of the time. Reflective and tolerant. Enjoying the sun, squinting. I watched Sunil and Katherine hold hands.
When Cheska arrived she arrived with a beatiful smile and her dog, a honey coloured, honey souled creature.
But it doesn't work for me on the 281 bus.
Now I know that if young people are caught without a ticket then they give a false address to the inspectors. My humiliation - I had to empty my bag and scrabble on the floor - was for their benefit. Let this be a warning. If we can do this to a venerable gent, then what could we do to you! They were going to take me to court, but didn't after I wrote them a begging letter.
But then it happened again on Friday. I was going to miss the train and had to take the 281 again. This time I was sitting innocently in the front seat at the top when a man in a beige gabardine coat sat in the seat across from me. I felt his presence settle and glanced across. Tall. Long hair (ringlets) down to his shoulder, Malaysian coffee coloured skin,black thick rimmed glasses. It started. Cough. Cough Cough.. ...Cough..... Cough.... Cough.I know, irritating isn't it. It turns out he was a colleague. And by the end of the week I was spitting bright green, my chest hurts, and my bones ache and Cough......Cough Cough......Cough. I want to find this guy and kick his arse.So don't always flow. If that flow takes you to the 281 bus.
I stopped at a tourist office and they sent me back the same way and it would take a while to walk, they said, and so I walked and walked and came across the very place where Himmler had started the programme of genocide against the Jews. It was where a hotel stood. They had torn out the building where he planned the deed, which ended up with my great grandmother in Treblinka and my great aunt in Auschwitz.
I stood looking at the place for about 10 minutes in silence. It was a very pleasant summery day.You can't escape these places, said Sunil when we were talking later on. They are everywhere. We were walking past a train station. The people who were deported from Berlin to the camps were deported from that platform, he said. And pointed at a non descript railway platform which we popped up to look at.
Which side of the road was the cafe? The road was as broad as the Rhine or the Dneipr. The central reservation full of trees. It would be hard to see a cafe from so far away. Then it narrowed and on the other side of the road I saw a Cafe. Painted yellow, Cafe Einstein scrolled across a wall.Sheesheck and Sunil looked the same, but I had a roll of fat. I felt transformed, unique. Interesting. What was that joke on the Friends crowd. I want to be buried at see. I've lead an unremarkable life, but if I'm buried at see then people might say. Hmm. Yes, buried at sea.
I walked up the steps and looked into the dark interior. Dark wood. No one. Then wandered to the back and looked down onto the patio and in pleasant array saw Sheeshek leaning back with a beer, his son to one side. and Sunil holding hands with his other I went on a flying visit to Berlin to meet up with old friends at the Cafe Einstein.
I think you have to approach a city like Berlin sideways.It was an odd day to be there because Germany was playing Argentina and the wide streets in the centre were closed to traffic a few hours before the match.
People started to jaywalk. I got a bit lost and went the wrong way towards the centre and had to retrace my path and walk all the way back down Kurfürstenstraße and the street grew very broad, like a German river, and I couldn't read the signs on the opposite side of the street.But I did come across a little sign. It marked the place where Goebbels headquarters had been and the place where the 'final solution was conceived and administered'. The headquarters had been demolished and in it's place was a hotel. The Hotel Sylter Hof. Fresh in my mind was a bit of family history, so I stood there for a while.
When I met up with my friends the academic told me that these overwhelming little aide memoirs were all over Berlin.We went to watch the football game at the Berlin equivalent of the Royal Society, after buying in a crate of beer and it was an exhilarating match.
We went down to a sunlight pond to drink beer by the water and Sheeshek told us about his marriage and his sons and his plans. Sunil and Sheesheck had been in touch with each other on and off through the years. Sunil seemed familiar with his story.
What I didn't understand, is why, if Sheeshecks father had been a diplomat, why he hadn't given a hand up to his son. He thought he was being an admirable and moral communist. But without his help Sheesheck said he went down the mines because the money was good. But it was backbreaking dangerous work and the owners neglected the safety procedures and didn't buy the miners the equipment they needed.
There was a German woman there and her husband, both senior academics - not friends of Sunil. The husband was vociferous. I drew him out. Hamas was a legitimate government and Israel was a settler state. Was any government legitimate if it opposed the settler state. Yes, he said.
Germany won and we were pleased. It was a multicultural team. The best players were Polish. One of my friends was Polish and he was with his son and they were happy about that.We bought a bottle of whisky and went to share it down by the riverfront. On the way a friend pointed out the platform from which the Communists and Jews had been deported from Berlin.
As we came near the river the party had started. I started shouting at the people celebrating. Why are you celebrating. It was a Polish victory, a Turkish victory. They looked a little confused and my friends asked me to shut up.We walked past the houses of parliament and it was very late before I managed to meet up with a woman I had knew from London. She wanted to talk and so we talked at a cafe near her flat.
Her grandfather and mine had probably worked together at the Neue Frie Presse. We had similar histories on one side of the family. A lot in common. Why had she come back to Berlin? Her father had grown up there and being there she felt closer to her father, perhaps. I still don't know.Another friend from another place was similar. His father and mother had been in the Warsaw Ghetto.
The friend had curated a holocaust museum when he was only a teenager in Australia, the country his parents emigrated to after the war. And after his parents died he decided to come to Poland and married a Polish woman and lived there. Had a little three year old girl.The woman, who is very sweet had to almost put me to bed. Woke me up two hours later and I went home to west London.My visit had to be impressionistic because it was so short. But even taking account what was in my head, it seemd full of contradiction. A vociferous anti-zionist. A multicultural football team being celebrated by, mainly, white, Berliners. Plaques commemorating invisible death centres. The open and accessible architecture of the parliament by the river. I was reading Pirsig, the author of Zen and the Art and he said obviously individual humans didn't create or control cities, cities used and controlled humans. Looking at the traffic going down the A3 I wished their was a label on every car. The occupation of the driver. The purpose of the journey. The destination and place of origin clearly displayed so that I could actually understand the rush. Colour coded buildings. Arrows. But a city is an incomprehensible 'giant,' as Pirsig put it.
The last time I remember seeing Sunil he had his own little basement full of books and papers in a terraced house in Gower Street with a blue plaque to a Bloomsbury socialite on it.
The plan was that we would drink lots of beer in Berlin and I wanted to piss into Hitler's bunker.
I flew to Berlin. At the airport I met our social organiser from at the University of Kent - she was going to Turkey.
I landed at a Berlin's airports, a flat place. I had an address Cafe Einstein, for an hour I marched down xxxxx until I realised I was lost.The streets were empty of cars and the roads were cordoned off because Germany was about to play Argentina in the South African world cup. People criss crossed the avenue.
The only time I have been told off for policemen for Jay walking was in Munich in 1981. Why did you cross the road there, they asked? I didn't understand the question. To get to the other side? I said. You must cross the road there. They said. This time we will not fine you. And the officer pointed to the official crossing. The Berliners were Jaywalking.
I was running out of time. If I don't make this meeting then I probably shouldn't be there anyway I thought. I am still suffering the consequences of this ridiculous philosophy. Two weeks ago I realised I wasn't going to make my train and so got on the 281. Inspectors demanded I produce a little bit of white paper and I couldn't find it. It had dematerialised.
Sheesheck was thoughtful. Silent for some of the time. Reflective and tolerant. Enjoying the sun, squinting. I watched Sunil and Katherine hold hands.
When Cheska arrived she arrived with a beatiful smile and her dog, a honey coloured, honey souled creature.
But it doesn't work for me on the 281 bus.
Now I know that if young people are caught without a ticket then they give a false address to the inspectors. My humiliation - I had to empty my bag and scrabble on the floor - was for their benefit. Let this be a warning. If we can do this to a venerable gent, then what could we do to you! They were going to take me to court, but didn't after I wrote them a begging letter.
But then it happened again on Friday. I was going to miss the train and had to take the 281 again. This time I was sitting innocently in the front seat at the top when a man in a beige gabardine coat sat in the seat across from me. I felt his presence settle and glanced across. Tall. Long hair (ringlets) down to his shoulder, Malaysian coffee coloured skin,black thick rimmed glasses. It started. Cough. Cough Cough.. ...Cough..... Cough.... Cough.I know, irritating isn't it. It turns out he was a colleague. And by the end of the week I was spitting bright green, my chest hurts, and my bones ache and Cough......Cough Cough......Cough. I want to find this guy and kick his arse.So don't always flow. If that flow takes you to the 281 bus.
I stopped at a tourist office and they sent me back the same way and it would take a while to walk, they said, and so I walked and walked and came across the very place where Himmler had started the programme of genocide against the Jews. It was where a hotel stood. They had torn out the building where he planned the deed, which ended up with my great grandmother in Treblinka and my great aunt in Auschwitz.
I stood looking at the place for about 10 minutes in silence. It was a very pleasant summery day.You can't escape these places, said Sunil when we were talking later on. They are everywhere. We were walking past a train station. The people who were deported from Berlin to the camps were deported from that platform, he said. And pointed at a non descript railway platform which we popped up to look at.
Which side of the road was the cafe? The road was as broad as the Rhine or the Dneipr. The central reservation full of trees. It would be hard to see a cafe from so far away. Then it narrowed and on the other side of the road I saw a Cafe. Painted yellow, Cafe Einstein scrolled across a wall.Sheesheck and Sunil looked the same, but I had a roll of fat. I felt transformed, unique. Interesting. What was that joke on the Friends crowd. I want to be buried at see. I've lead an unremarkable life, but if I'm buried at see then people might say. Hmm. Yes, buried at sea.
I walked up the steps and looked into the dark interior. Dark wood. No one. Then wandered to the back and looked down onto the patio and in pleasant array saw Sheeshek leaning back with a beer, his son to one side. and Sunil holding hands with his other I went on a flying visit to Berlin to meet up with old friends at the Cafe Einstein.
I think you have to approach a city like Berlin sideways.It was an odd day to be there because Germany was playing Argentina and the wide streets in the centre were closed to traffic a few hours before the match.
People started to jaywalk. I got a bit lost and went the wrong way towards the centre and had to retrace my path and walk all the way back down Kurfürstenstraße and the street grew very broad, like a German river, and I couldn't read the signs on the opposite side of the street.But I did come across a little sign. It marked the place where Goebbels headquarters had been and the place where the 'final solution was conceived and administered'. The headquarters had been demolished and in it's place was a hotel. The Hotel Sylter Hof. Fresh in my mind was a bit of family history, so I stood there for a while.
When I met up with my friends the academic told me that these overwhelming little aide memoirs were all over Berlin.We went to watch the football game at the Berlin equivalent of the Royal Society, after buying in a crate of beer and it was an exhilarating match.
We went down to a sunlight pond to drink beer by the water and Sheeshek told us about his marriage and his sons and his plans. Sunil and Sheesheck had been in touch with each other on and off through the years. Sunil seemed familiar with his story.
What I didn't understand, is why, if Sheeshecks father had been a diplomat, why he hadn't given a hand up to his son. He thought he was being an admirable and moral communist. But without his help Sheesheck said he went down the mines because the money was good. But it was backbreaking dangerous work and the owners neglected the safety procedures and didn't buy the miners the equipment they needed.
There was a German woman there and her husband, both senior academics - not friends of Sunil. The husband was vociferous. I drew him out. Hamas was a legitimate government and Israel was a settler state. Was any government legitimate if it opposed the settler state. Yes, he said.
Germany won and we were pleased. It was a multicultural team. The best players were Polish. One of my friends was Polish and he was with his son and they were happy about that.We bought a bottle of whisky and went to share it down by the riverfront. On the way a friend pointed out the platform from which the Communists and Jews had been deported from Berlin.
As we came near the river the party had started. I started shouting at the people celebrating. Why are you celebrating. It was a Polish victory, a Turkish victory. They looked a little confused and my friends asked me to shut up.We walked past the houses of parliament and it was very late before I managed to meet up with a woman I had knew from London. She wanted to talk and so we talked at a cafe near her flat.
Her grandfather and mine had probably worked together at the Neue Frie Presse. We had similar histories on one side of the family. A lot in common. Why had she come back to Berlin? Her father had grown up there and being there she felt closer to her father, perhaps. I still don't know.Another friend from another place was similar. His father and mother had been in the Warsaw Ghetto.
The friend had curated a holocaust museum when he was only a teenager in Australia, the country his parents emigrated to after the war. And after his parents died he decided to come to Poland and married a Polish woman and lived there. Had a little three year old girl.The woman, who is very sweet had to almost put me to bed. Woke me up two hours later and I went home to west London.My visit had to be impressionistic because it was so short. But even taking account what was in my head, it seemd full of contradiction. A vociferous anti-zionist. A multicultural football team being celebrated by, mainly, white, Berliners. Plaques commemorating invisible death centres. The open and accessible architecture of the parliament by the river. I was reading Pirsig, the author of Zen and the Art and he said obviously individual humans didn't create or control cities, cities used and controlled humans. Looking at the traffic going down the A3 I wished their was a label on every car. The occupation of the driver. The purpose of the journey. The destination and place of origin clearly displayed so that I could actually understand the rush. Colour coded buildings. Arrows. But a city is an incomprehensible 'giant,' as Pirsig put it.
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