Tuesday 27 December 2011

Blind Breakfast in Berlin

An artist friend of mine had decided to do a performance in which he would negotiate the streets of Berlin, blind for the day. My instructions were to document the project with a camera with telephoto lens; to follow at a discreet distance. I was not supposed to help him or converse with him unless he was in danger and I wasn't supposed to give the game away that he was able sighted. At least, that is what I thought.

I picked him up early Sunday morning from his flat in Prenzlauer Berg. He was the only tenant living in the side block of a tenement house. In fact, he wasn't really supposed to live in the flat at all, as it was meant to be a studio space. He made it habitable, putting in a bathroom himself. It had coal oven heating, but it was tough in the winter when the pipes froze and there was no running water. What a beautiful flat though, high ceilings, large rooms, and all that for a very cheap rent.

We had a black espresso coffee, and it occured to me that unlike other British expats I knew he wasn't craving PG Tips or marmite, but drank green tea and black espresso coffee. An English friend of mine who had visited him, had even believed him to be German. Maybe it was because he had come to Berlin in his early 20s and me in my thirtieth year.

He dressed for the role, making sure that he really couldn't see anything behind his dark glasses, and he started negotiating the three flights of wooden stairs that led down to the courtyard with his improvised walking stick.

I started to trail him at a distance of about 20 metres. The streets were quiet apart from the clack clack of his white stick on the uneven paving stones. I tried to look as inconspicuous as possible, idly pointing my camera at treetops whilst trying not to let him of of my sights.

Suddenly, I heard a voice coming from a nearby first floor window:

"Was machst Du hier? Fotografierst Du Ihn. Weisst ER das?"
I thought for a second:

"Sorry, I don't understand German", I lied

"What are you doing" he persisted in perfect English", "Are you photographing that blind man? Does he know?"

I put on a puzzled expression, as if I thought this was an extremely interesting question that needed mulling over, smiled sweetly and continued in my way. For a newly blind person, my friend was surprisingly quick on his feet and I didn't want to lose him, especially as a busy road was coming up.
But there was no escape.
Suddenly, in his fresh T-shirt, strawberry blonde wavy hair and sunglasses, he had come out onto the street and was at my side. He had a clean-shaven and freshly-breakfasted appearance, which was unusual in Berlin at this hour, and made me all the more wary of him.

"Can you tell me? Is this blind man, I mean, is this blind man for real?"

I looked ahead at my friend anew, as if through this man's eyes. My friend had that just got out of bed hair look, the kind that is not achieved through hair products. He was wearing a roomy unpressed suit that he had bought in a second hand shop. His shoes were black and cumbersome with white flecks of paint on them. Against this backdrop he was wearing a large pair of sunglasses with large pads of cotton wool taped behind them over his eyes and was using a stick which had been quite clearly covered in white emulsion paint.

"Yes, he is blind", I lied through my teeth.


"But this isn't for real, is it? Surely...." he said, becoming decidedly more animated as he searched for the next question.

At this moment I thought about one of the breakfasts that were on offer in a cafe I knew. The "Katerfruehstueck" or "hangover breakfast" which was simply an espresso, an aspirin and a cigarette. Only this, I thought, could help me, now.  Instinctively, though, I realised that this was more of a Mate Tea, chili chocolate muesli and courgette flower man.

The interogation gained momentum.

"And what are you doing here with the camera, then?" he continued.

(Aren't you one of those sick and twisted voyeurs who go around photographing blind men for kicks, oh what's the word for that in English, ...damn)

"I am just following him", I replied.

(Why don't you bog off and mind your own business. Haven't you ever seen a blind man who looks suspiciously like Charlie Chaplin being followed by a pigeon-toed English female with a large lens and a poor command of German before?)

"Does he realise you are following him?" he went on.

(I know your sort, you should be locked up! You rabid stalker! Someone call the police!)

"Well, I don't know really."

(Why don't you ask him yourself? Do you assume that because he is blind he is unable to speak for himself? Honestly. Some people are so ignorant.)

Anger flitted briefly across his face, followed by defeat. I shrugged my shoulders in a  - I am sorry, but it must be a communication problem, and hey, I have got a date with a blind artist way- and hurried to the main road just in time to see my friend being helped over the road by a little old lady. I didn't want to miss this shot!

Incredibly, or perhaps not so, knowing my rather poor sense of direction and tendency to get distracted, I lost my friend, I really did. This, I hasten to add, is before we both had mobiles. I had paused to change my camera film, when I caught sight of some friends brunching in a nearby cafe. Already by this time, around 2003, it was impossible to get a decent breakfast in Berlin as the brunch menu has seeped its way insiduously into every establishment. This meant that a breakfast  lasted anything from four hours to an overnight stay, and if you were lucky, they let you out before you had to have another one. At the end of any given Sunday afternoon, these cafes spat out gorged caffienated wrecks onto the cobblestones, gibbering incoherently about Mikado chocolate sticks, baked pears and couscous salad.

Needless to say, by the time I had resisted the temptation to go to brunch, my artist friend was already far away.

In the cosy knowledge that there was a reliable friend at hand, he had already headed down the underground station and had managed to board a train that would take him safely, no thanks to me, to work.

And the strawberry blond man who drinks mate tea for breakfast? Well, after I crossed the main road to the Weinbergsweg Park, I looked back to see him rooted to the spot with a puzzled expression on his face. And as far as I know, he is still there.

Tuesday 6 December 2011

Bumpety Bump rider













Illustration by Piia Rossi

For this week’s meeting of the Trailing Spouses Group, we were asked to look at the theme of frustration. I had written this post a while back with the spouses in mind, but frustratingly enough, could never seem to finish it. 

“Hoppe Hoppe Reiter” is a traditional German children’s nursery rhyme, which is as morbid as it is fascinating. Its verses tell the tale of a rider, and the various grim fates that could befall him. He could fall from his horse and what then? He could land in the swamp, give himself a scare by falling into the hedge or worse, be eaten up by ravens. It is a nursery rhyme that is full of what ifs?

Here is the original version :
Hoppe Hoppe Reiter
Wenn er fällt, dann Schreit er
Fällt er in die Graben
Fressen Ihn die Raben
Fällt er in den Sumpf
Macht der Reiter Plumps

And my rough translation

Bumpety Bump rider
If he falls, then he hollers
If he falls in the ditch
Then ravens will gobble him up
If he falls into a bog
Then he will land with a squelch

Bringing up children in Germany, this song has become more familiar to me than the nursery rhymes from my own childhood, and for my children it is certainly more culturally and linguistically relevant than “This is the way the lady rides”, for example. 

It is a “kniereitvers” which literally translated means, “ knee-ride-verse”, so the child sits on the knee, and at the conclusion of the song, the fall, you let the child “drop” between you knees. Children, of course, can’t get enough of it. They love the tummy turning thrill of being dropped, knowing that they will be caught before they really fall. 

For me, though, with its vivid descriptions of bumpy courses, pitfalls, failures and uncertainties, it strikes a chord.
I am not worried about being eaten by ravens when I step out of my front door, but, I still feel, after living in a foreign country for over ten years that I could easily fall on my face by saying the wrong word in German, cannot apply for a particular job because my qualifications are not recognised, and could offend someone by not addressing them formally enough. It probably won’t happen, it is probably just in my head, but it could. As the songs suggest, the dangers are ever present.

I looked up how other people had translated the song into English on the Internet.

What a difference there is between these three interpretations of the same line:
If he falls, then he shouts

If he falls he will be crying

If he falls, then he cries out

The first interpretation suggests defiance, the second defeat and the third a cry for help All valid responses to the topic of frustration and I have probably reacted in all three ways before!

When you come to a new country, I think the most frustrating thing to deal with is learning a new language. Even though I have been here for 10 years, I still need Klaus to check my emails and invoices for mistakes so that I feel I will be taken “seriously”.  I find this hugely frustrating to be dependent on another person in this way. It was my choice, though, to come to Germany but I can imagine the frustration of those who have come here for economic reasons or as a trailing spouse and are struggling to understand the basics.

In translation, there is an attempt to get close to the essence of the language. For me, this nursery rhyme serves as metaphor for the attempt to achieve closeness, not just to a language but also to a culture and way of life, and the pitfalls and possible frustrations that accompany it. But as the simple driving and repetitive tune implies, after falling on your face there’s no alternative but to get back up ‘on your horse’, even though you’ll likely be downed again at the next hurdle and so on, like a comical sketch.

If you can get over the frustration though, there are rewards.  Novels and music and nursery rhymes await you, and you can express some things in German that you can’t in English, which is why a lot of ex-pats speak Denglisch, a mixture of both. But for me, the litmus test of German proficiency is not at your local Goethe Institute but at your local bakery. These ladies guard their wares like linguistic sentries; any slip or wrongly pronounced nuance will be met by a merciless response.
“a what?” then a long protracted silence accompanied by a withering expression that quashes any confidence you ever had in your ability to speak German, even if you have lived there for half your life. This exchange can go on for ten minutes or more, as you are forced to repeat the same word over and over again in front of an ever growing queue of impatient customers, until begrudgingly the baker lady hands over your roll. Eat your heart out, Goethe (or your croissant), these are the true bastions of the German language.