woman who dragged on her cigarette and returned to the landline. Missing the warmth of the Frau at Passport Control, I took a seat and waited, silently rehearsing some fumbling German in my head.
Ten minutes later I had signed papers, received keys, and was standing in a small bright clean flat of blond wood and metal and halogen, an Ikea-nized space. The windows opened onto a vacant courtyard created by a matching pair of large dark modern stone buildings framed by even darker materials around corporate-sized windows. I could look directly into them and count the louvers of the executive shades in each room as well as the metal railing banisters that zigzagged up and down the windowed staircases. Both buildings were completely vacant of people and thwarted my fleeting interest in spying on working German suits. Sterile emptiness. Over the flat box rooftop, I could make out the peaked red tile roofs of the Naturkundemuseum (natural history museum) the next street over, and beyond that the Hauptbahnhof (central train station). A sky-scape everywhere punctuated by huge cranes—the construction of reclaimed space in Berlin will continue for another 20 years or more ... Herzliches Willkommen. Here now, I was eager to enter it again.
BEING A REFUGEE IS NOT A PROFESSION
Friday, October 2, 2015
Barbara Gügold, the director of the Institute, shakes my hand and leads me out the door. We chat pleasantly on the way to a favored lunch spot in one of the many barn courtyards of the neighborhood—an upscale joint that served cuisine. I order the octopus. Is the flat okay, she asks. Oh, it’s great, just what I need. Those dark stone buildings behind you..., she says. That make the courtyard? Yes, that is the new location for the CIA. It’s probably the safest street in Berlin. It’s not a dangerous city, I say; we smile. And so what about the refugees, I ask—(this would soon become my favorite non-sequitur)—Where are they? Oh, they’re everywhere. Well, what do you think of their coming to Germany? Oh, Germany must take them, we must, and they are very welcome here, she leans forward, very welcome. But we need to make distinctions between those truly seeking political asylum and others who are coming for economic opportunity. From Albania, Serbia, Macedonia—these people cannot stay. Their lives are not in immediate danger from imminent threat. And they are coming with the Syrians because soon the EU will declare those countries ‘safe’ and asylum will not be available to them. You mean politically safe? Yes, politically safe. I take a bite. The pulpo is excellent. The atrium-like dining alcove is empty but for us, with muffled acoustics, warm and luxurious. My family were refugees, she continues, Hugenots in the 17th century; they fled here from France. Gügold: my surname is a Germanized French name.
When we warmly shake hands goodbye, she points out the direction to nearby Humboldt Universität, where I will later be giving a lecture; she hands me an issue of Der Spiegel about the refugee crisis and a program directory for the much-touted Robert Wilson extravaganza of Faust (both parts) with music by Herbert Grönemeyer, the largest-selling German pop star who also famously plays the war correspondent in Wolfgang Petersen’s adaptation of Das Boot. As she would be launching on a month-long recruiting trip in the US, we won’t see each other again.
*
As I cross the famous Unter den Linden avenue and walk onto the campus of HU, I spot a sturdy used bike for sale locked to a crowded bike rack. It looks like the kind of bike for rent in Berlin, with strong wheels and thick tires for cobblestones and broken glass. I take down the address for a shop nearby.
The Behrenstrasse souvenir shop owned by a Vietnamese couple is typical, with postcards, Berlin bags, t-shirts, hats, and knick-knacks, and it’s bustling with tourists. The couple is busy, one running the register, the other re-stocking. I ask them about the bike. We haggle a little over the price and I settle for the asking, with a lock thrown into the deal.
Mih emigrated to DDR Berlin from Vietnam 39 years ago, a move from one communist country to another. He was trained to be a machinist and engineer. Mih and Lienny’s children had studied in the US, done well, and could take advantage of the advanced degree programs offered to academically high performing German students. They are proud parents, and I am admiring. And what about the refugee crisis, I say. (We speak in German; I ask them to speak slowly.) When they come here, Lienny says, they will have a hard time finding work, there are too many. They will become criminals. Also four thousand of the refugees from Syria are terrorists. Where did you hear that, I ask. On Facebook, she says. There are too many coming, Mih adds. When I came here, he continues, it was the DDR. I was trained, I worked hard, I learned German. We integrated into German society. With the Muslims this will be a problem. Mih, I say, I would like to ask you a question, do you feel that you are German? He smiled and gave a little laugh. No, no, he said, I am not German.
Before I ride off I make sure the front and rear generator lights are working properl—the police will ticket you otherwise. Mih points out the quality Shimano generator on the front wheel. If you have a problem, he says, come back, I will fix it.
Berlin is flat as a coin. With little effort on a bike you can fly ahead, out-manoeuver traffic and get anywhere you need to go in the city. There’s nothing like slipping through the narrow space between cars and pulling ahead to spike a sense of superiority. The friction of air against the body wakes you up, the body having effectively joined the machine at five points of contact to become the moving parts of a light-framed locomotive. You are one of the rushing corpuscles through the arteries of Berlin, and you feel every rapidly changing contour of its paved and cobblestoned surface.
I’m headed for Oranienplatz in the Kreuzberg district of East Berlin, some kilometers away. I had heard that 500 refugees and activists had taken over the square and occupied it since 2012. Many were from Ghana and had come to Germany through Libya and the Italian island of Lampedusa.
At a red light I see a poster: Flüchtlinge ist kein Beruf (“Being a refugee is not a profession”), and a website; I jot it down before the red turns green and take off. Physically exhilarated, I wonder if there’d be anything to find at Oplatz (as its called). But there isn’t. The tents and makeshift structures of dryboard and wood have been bulldozed by the city months ago, the refugees pushed off, in some cases physically carried off, into hostels or shelters, the activists sent packing to regroup online, in cafés, and on the street. The square, once the site of a fixed protesting eyesore, a kind of stationary march where Berliners could gather to mobilize hearts and minds and bodies, has been quietly re-inhabited by neighborhood folks. Elderly men and women sit on benches and talk, young men sit on the grass drinking bottles of beer, moms ride through slowly on their bikes with kids strapped in back seats. Dogs sniff around and lie quietly near their owners, off leash, totally obedient; I watch one, a huge shepherd mix, lick his owner’s hand. The dogs of Berlin are the best-behaved dogs in the world.
REUNIFICATION DAY
Saturday, October 3, 2015
Late in the afternoon I head out to a reading and talk at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, (a cultural center near the Reichstag) titled “Time’s Attack on the Rest of Life: Revolution,” with the German writer Martin Mosebach and the Chinese poets and writers Yang Lian, YoYo (Liu Youhong), and Guo Jinnin. I’m intrigued to hear this panel discuss the history of Chinese revolts, and how experimental non-linear literary forms that disrupt our conventional experience of time can play a subversive positive role in workers’ resistance. It sounds somewhat grand, but I’m game for anything.
As I pedal along Invalidenstrasse on my brand new old bike, I come up against a set of police blockades on the stretch in front of the Hauptbahnhof. People with rolling bags and kids in tow are rushing to get through the manned entrance to the train station; it’s quickly being closed off by cops reluctant to let people through. I turn around to retrace my route but find myself between barriers. The only detour leads in the direction opposite to where I need to go.
I approach
