Berlin

Today I am meeting a woman I came across at the theatre. Not everyone would be willing to spare more than an hour for a stranger, but Ulla is.

I agreed to meet Ulla at a shopping centre at Walter-Schreiber-Platz. We were seated next to each other at the theatre. When a creepy figure dressed up as something in between banana and starfish appeared on stage and mooned the audience, she solicitously whispered to me that this was supposed to be Helmut Kohl. The shopping centre has only three floors, and not a fourth one where we had agreed to meet. There is no café, as Ulla had written, only a vegetarian self service place. I am starting to worry if our meeting will take place. There she is!

Ulla wears a warm smile and bright red trousers. She is neither distant nor reserved, as I was told Germans were. Then she tells me some very personal memories. Ulla was born in 1950 in a small rural village. Her father fought in Russia in the Second World War. When he returned home, he was violent. For a long time she did not know who she was. She was ashamed of being German, especially in France where Ulla lived in a commune and where the French turned up their noses at her German and her – at the time – not very fluent French

Now Ulla has found her peace, both as a Christian and as a German. She is not ashamed anymore. When we say farewell Ulla gives me a small bag of Haribo, because that is something very German, she says. She regrets not having invited me to a proper German lunch at her home – and asks me to make sure to come in the summer the next time I visit Berlin.




More entries from Undīne Adamaite’s Berlin Journal:

Berlin, 5.1.2013: Neither a False Tourist Nor Truly a Local
Berlin, 6.1.2013: Sunday Rest in the City
Berlin, 7.1.2013: The Berliners’ Lightness of Being
Berlin, 8.1.2013: At the Tagesspiegel
Berlin, 9.1.2013: A Monthly Portion of Courtesy
Berlin, 10.1.2013: A Play in a Foreign Language Remains a Façade
Berlin, 12.1.2013: At the Theatre in Knitted Caps
Berlin, 13.1.2013: An Intermediate Summary
Berlin, 16.1.2013: Fired with Premium Fuel
Berlin, 21.1.2013: Old Fashioned and In Demand
Berlin, 26.1.2013: Čus, Berlin!