This weekend I got a guest since a long time. We have not seen each other for three years and now she was there — came in a car that had a Yves Klein color, with a cat and quite a few bags — a lot of gifts, including three kilos of peaches. One kilo for a year in which we had not seen each other. She came with her cat, still slightly cross-eyed and lurking with her huge eyes for open windows so she could disappear into Berlin air.
We sat in the kitchen talking until two in the morning, until our tongues would have fallen asleep and our cats would be asleep. During the day we strolled through Berlin streets, across the city, as if someone had predetermined our path with a ruler — direct, across, strict. She took lots of photos, I stared into the dusty hipster crowd and was like a tourist in my own city. We didn’t have to make up for the three years, because it was like we hadn’t seen each other for three days. We barely changed, both of us.
I can’t say the weekend was easy. Being a tourist is exhausting, especially after two years of Corona abstinence. From the constant talking, we were both tired. Constantly staring at Google Maps, we were sitting outside on cafe terraces drinking coffee to stay on our feet despite the lack of sleep. We had to pay cash at the Asian and Turkish shops and were completely lost with our credit cards. We bought cool second hand blasers at Humana and walked the paths I would never have walked alone — back doors, private courtyards and alleys were open to us. Berlin was noisy and we tried to be even louder talking to tell all the stories and cover the three years. There was war at home: our cats fought at night. Only when we came home and talked, they ignored each other. Berlin gave us rain and sun, we did not unpack the bathing suits this time.
When she went back, my flat was immediately too clean and weird. She thought she had wiped away all her traces, was very careful in cleaning up. Bed sheets gone, everything put in the washing machine, my boyfriend vacuumed carefully afterwards. It was like she hasn't been here. Also three kilos of peaches were already eaten. But today in the supermarket I saw Pelegrino, which she likes so much, and suddenly she was present. The girlfriend has left her mark in my supermarket. Yesterday I saw her reflection in a window of her favorite fashion store. The green color of her scarf, which she bought at Humana, shimmered lightly through the leaves in the woods this morning when I was jogging. The little purple book, what I bought weeks ago, she color she would love. The book has a whole different meaning after she was here.
My mother commented on a picture I sent her of the friend: “Berlin suits her,” she said. And through the traces she left with her presence, she is firmly inscribed in my Berlin forever.
