Berlin, and other cities
On the banks of the River Spree, a busker sings. The night curls in, rolling along the river as the sky behind turns orange, then purple, then the rich blue of a deepening bruise. On the other side of the bridge couples huddle together, seeking comfort in the refuge of the museum steps. They remain there song after song, bewitched. Sleeves are rolled down, jackets pulled over new jumpers; the gentle scratch of autumn against summer skin.
Further along the river, couples dance together under fairy lights. 1,2,3,1,2,3 counted in the nods of heads and hidden in breaths. The jive, the tango, a Viennese waltz. As the night settles in, they move closer and closer until they’re simply swaying, keeping lazily in time. The air rapidly cools, the heat of the day no longer lingering as the slow pull into winter begins.
Days are spent walking; in Berlin, and other cities. Through parks, across Italian style villas, over picturesque bridges, past an abundance of statues. Through old towns, over cobblestones, through small lanes, around the moat of a citadel. A day trip to an island where once royals spent their summers and now water buffaloes graze the tall grass, their hooves keeping them steady as the island rolls into the lake.
Days are spent walking, from the West to the East of the city. Walking through the past, where walls now stand in memorial to lives lost, altered, half-lived. Don’t forget, don’t forget, don’t ever forget.
Within the scarred walls of museums and scattered in the stumbling stones of the street, stories are told and retold, shedding light. For all the inhumanity there is an escape route dug to help strangers, a hospital turned into a safe house, a former airport now bringing hope and lessons for a new life.
There, on the walls of a once-burning stronghold, a love note remains. Walking through the past, it was found by someone recognising the names of their grandparents. As the battle had raged, the soldier had collected wood from the bonfire and with it wrote to his lover, 'I'll come back for you'.
There’s a moment in Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise (1995) where Celine says to Jesse,
‘I believe if there's any kind of God, it wouldn't be in any of us. Not you or me, but just this little space in between. If there's any kind of magic in this world it must be in the attempt of understanding someone, sharing something. I know, it's almost impossible to succeed but, who cares really? The answer must be in the attempt.’
As the busker connects the chords of their final song, the evening lights turn on. The couples murmur, awakening. The rust becoming of leaves has begun, and evenings must end.
Days are spent walking in Berlin, and other cities. After all these years of East and West, of walls and barriers and lives of sides and divides, the city bares witness to ‘this little space in between.’
"There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them."
– The Naked City, 1948