Bookstores and Tourists

T. was in the mood to buy a Japanese textbook, so after conscientious internet and telephone research, she set off with J. and me. From the Bülowstraße station we went along the U2 line (which, of course, has nothing to do with the rock band) to Ernst-Reuter-Platz. It was crowded and stifling and odorous, but oddly enough I didn't mind this time. Nearby, on the Hardenbergstraße, there is Lehmann's, a spacious white bookstore. So we crossed over the street at the building pertaining to the faculty for church music at the Universität der Künste; I find the reddish hue of the building's stone delightful, and the little oriel window at the corner equally so, but the runish Art Nouveau script below that window was over the top and as a whole the building wasn't organic enough.

At the street corner, there were two people from the Maltese Order (a Catholic medical charity that is run by a Freemason-ish hierarchy culminating in a Grand Master). T. went on ahead, J. and I paused, and I decided to at least listen and find out what they wanted, volunteers or money. It was money. This, more or less, was the scintillating conversation:

Maltese person: (After briefly informing me about a learning centre in Berlin-Neukölln, she suggestively opens her binder at the donation forms.) " . . . so we'd like to have donations."
Me: "Unfortunately I don't have a large income." (Silently, to myself: "Why did you say 'not a large income'? You have no income at all! There's no need to qualify it.")
M.P.: "I don't either, but I still give 6 Euros a month." (She has mentioned this before.) "Even if you are a student, or low income, it's still feasible."
Me: "Well, once I get real work, I'll think about it." (I try not to sound as if I were implying "in a million years.")
M.P.: "Too bad then."
(Exchange of small smiles, and we go our separate ways.)

As for Lehmann's, the ground floor is full of round tables (cookbooks and travel, paperback fiction, hardback fiction, coffee table books, touristy/Berlin books), shelves running around the walls (poetry, novels, biographies), and a slender mezzanine. Jeffrey Archer's latest novel was there, Don DeLillo's Falling Man, Alice Sebold, etc. – and on a magazine I saw the smiling visage of Margaret Atwood. The selection looked better than that of the UBC Bookstore, except for the latest English bestsellers, which the Bookstore covers much more thoroughly. T. went directly up to the first floor, where the language books are – a decent assortment, and some in English. (c: She picked out a helpful Japanese textbook, whereas I was lured by a Russian basic vocabulary learning kit (a flashcard set, four audio CDs, and posters), which cost 34.90 Euros. I duly forked over the money at the cash register downstairs, and didn't feel guilty about it; I'm convinced I'll actually use it.

Then we took the U2 again to Hubendubel. We got out at Wittenbergplatz, whereas the bookstore itself is at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche. So we walked down the Tauentzienstraße for a while before we discovered it. The sidewalks were crowded with tourists, and it seriously annoyed me for the reason that I wanted to stride along at a reasonable pace whereas they were idling along in snail fashion. J. and I waited in front of the bookstore, under a plane tree. It was truly a beautiful angle from which to see the church, framed in the winding bulk of the branches, the translucent green spikes of the leaves, and the drooping globes of seeds. J. and I spent a long time admiring the great arches and the details in the bell tower, and discoursing of flying buttresses and the like. Against the dark Gothic-style opening of the tower one could also see the flocking tiny drops of rain, which looked like snow.

I also looked at the faces of the people walking in and out of the bookstore, hopefully not staring; I tried to catch a sympathetic one, but though few of them were outright unsympathetic there wasn't one that truly interested me. What I was looking for, I suppose, was a combination of individuality, intelligence, friendliness, or dignity. Anyway, one of the dramatic highlights was a woman, whose worn face and clothing spoke of the 70s, wheeling herself to the road and hailing a taxi going in the opposite direction which did not stop for her; thereafter she went into a phone booth and called for one. There was a woman with a softened Danish face who reminded me of my fifth-grade teacher, but she had a shrewish expression in her eyes that my mild teacher did not have. Later on a middle-aged American came lumbering out and called, presumably to his wife, "Hey! Want to go have a coffee? I've got a Euro." Then there were suits who stood in the entrance of the store, waiting for the rain to end, making cell phone calls, and at length disappointedly taking a plunge into the elements after all. All of this was hugely banal, I suppose, but I liked it.

After T. came out again, she and J. went off into the U-Bahn, whereas I decided to walk home. I had walked home from Wittenbergplatz once before, after taking a curious peep at the dresses in KaDeWe (which I found too unsubtle). Also, I had once ridden there and back on a bicycle, when a man (who reminds me vaguely of Günther Beckstein, a Bavarian politician whose face resembles that of an evil gnome, as his beady eyes gleam mirthlessly like coals and his ears are large and pointy) walking along the – incidentally almost deserted – sidewalk kindly remarked, "Another stupid fat cow riding on the sidewalk!" A moment afterward, though, there was a look on his face, which I've now deciphered as indicating that he felt that he'd made a gaffe. So, at any rate, the route was familiar, vide engraved in my memory. Soon I passed the Kleistpark, where the construction fencing has been removed. The lawns to the left and right and centre of the colonnades are blindingly green, the mighty fences guard the entrance, red roses cluster in the long beds, and behind that one can see, quite unimpeded, the grand façade of the Kammergericht and the trees that embower the park.

And now I'm home again, with wet socks and a raincoat dripping away on the hook, but happy that I went out. I've made up my mind to begin venturing out into the world, now that I am no longer as sensitive and insecure as I was when I first came here, and this was a good start.