Berlin puzzle: And so we talked about various events from the war, we members of warring armies in the forever liberated Berlin. The poetess with the bloody lips hung on the wall. Tucholsky was sad and alone on a newspaper page. Blood flowed in the plates, and the stories of former warriors Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks, Bosnians, people from Posavina, Krajina, Serbia. Special units from Prnjavor were crossed with brigades from Zavidovići, HVO forces with those of the BiH Army from the Brčko Corridor, the 1st and 5th Crops with all the German divisions stuck in the mud of heavenly Stalingrads. Tangles of actions, defeats and “victories” became untangled, missing pieces of the puzzle accidentally came together into whole stories
When I compare my first mythical enchantment with Berlin from 2010 and the feeling I now have being in this city, I know I have already become a veteran. I now find it easy to combine what seemed incompatible before: difficult Bosnian stories with the pleasantness of Berlin streets. The red leaves of creepers that cover old buildings with the façade of the eponymous restaurant in Tucholsky Street, where we had dinner, the plant blood growing vertically towards the sky with bloodied quilts at some battleground above Pećigrad. All I know about Kurt Tucholsky I read in a poem by Izet Sarajlić, the fact that he killed himself, and what I knew from before: that he was a poet. So, you choose to be either a poet or a poetess, it’s hard to tell which gender it is more bleak to be in poetry. There, I ate an excellent trout with capers that had a subtle taste of mustard to them. And chased it all down with draught Berliner, the kind you won’t find in our country where all manner of watery swill is sold as beer. I was there with war veterans from BiH and Serbia. Sitting among members of all armies, corps, divisions, brigades, apart from Abdić’s Autonomists and members of the Croatian Army. In the company of these ninety-percent disabled, amputees, PTSDs, and other more or less severely wounded, a man can feel rather free. A whole stratum of our society that remains invisible, fighting for their rights, that makes all of us change the channel when we see them on TV, here, they are almost visible. Here, in the street named after the suicidal poet Kurt Tucholsky, at the Tucholsky Restaurant, where beautiful Ilse, whole last name I did not manage to bring into focus, gazed down at me from the wall.
She, with her wavy hair, such vibrant eyes, and a shapely expressive nose that was once powerful and erotic. Thus, I forgot all about Tucholsky and concentrated on a woman I thought to be a poetess, because there was a long poem written out in German next to her face. I could have fallen in love with that photograph, with lips full of blood and magic, but I didn’t, because I piggishly, like a beast without manners, cut my trout along its spine, extracted the bones and gorged on the clean white meat. Never is man closer to beast than when he eats. There is nothing gracious in my devouring of foot. It’s not that I am incapable of eating slowly, in a gentleman-like manner, I just can’t be bothered. Why should I resist my animal instincts. Why should I pretend to be a man when I know I’m just an enlightened animal, I guess because I like to watch animal channels. I empathise with beasts, I pity the weaker when they are shredded by the teeth of the stronger and more voracious, but that’s how it is. That’s the order of things in all worlds, not just among animals. I don’t want to fall prey to the fracas of cheep parabolas, comparing the world of men with that of animals, but I sometimes think I’m sorry for not having come into this world in some other form. Even if it would mean being torn by a lion’s teeth and claws, even if I were a graceful and stately antelope. Or a wild African buffalo weighing a thousand kilograms, now old and weak, left by his herd in a swamp to be finished off by beasts whose eyes glow reddish in the night in the African brush. You should eat quickly, like Ben Johnson used to do the hundred meter dash before they took the world record away from him because of doping. Quickly, sovereignly and with sex appeal. Without any manners, affectations, serviettes, cutlery, tablecloths, plates and lemon water to clean your paws after you’ve had grilled lobster. The way Vikings used to, off their knives and swords. Let a bronze shield be your oval dish for food, fruit and wine.
There’s plenty to eat in Berlin, Currywurst mit Pommes Frites, Mexican Beef Burger or the German speciality Thüringer Rostbratwurst in a bun for a Euro and some change at a street vendor that has everything he needs for selling on him.
And so we talked about various events from the war, we members of warring armies in the forever liberated Berlin. The poetess with the bloody lips hung on the wall. Tucholsky was sad and alone on a newspaper page. Blood flowed in the plates, and the stories of former warriors Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks, Bosnians, people from Posavina, Krajina, Serbia. Special units from Prnjavor were crossed with brigades from Zavidovići, HVO forces with those of the BiH Army from the Brčko Corridor, the 1st and 5th Crops with all the German divisions stuck in the mud of heavenly Stalingrads. Tangles of actions, defeats and “victories” became untangled, missing pieces of the puzzle accidentally came together into whole stories. Berlin whizzed through space like Captain Picard’s photon torpedo. It glowed like a vast tentacled island, safe and untouchable. We too were at that island, mostly a group of hardened Bosnians and Krajina folk, with brandy and sevdah in our eyes. There is something to those war stories that ordinary folk who dread blood, mud, tears and pus will never understand. Something superhumanly great and inexpressible. Something akin to a fascinating sorrow a hundred storeys high. Something stronger than steel and warmer than cotton. But that’s another story.
Let me conclude: Berlin is where I last left it. Actually, it has become even more brilliant and beautiful. So much for Berlin.
published in bh. news magazin “Dani”
26th October 2012