Berlin Syndrome

BERLIN SYNDROME

Melanie Joosten’s debut novel, Berlin Syndrome, saw her named a Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist and receive the Kathleen Mitchell Award; it has since been made into a motion picture directed by Cate Shortland. In 2016, she published the essay collection A Long Time Coming. Her work appears in various publications, including Meanjin, Kill Your Darlings, Best Australian Stories 2014, and Going Down Swinging.

Scribe Publications Pty Ltd

18–20 Edward St, Brunswick, Victoria 3056, Australia

2 John St, Clerkenwell, London, WC1N 2ES, United Kingdom

First published by Scribe 2011

Copyright © Melanie Joosten 2011

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publishers and the author of this book.

9781922070364 (Australian paperback)

9781925228663 (UK paperback)

9781921942051 (e-book.)

A CiP data record for this title is available from the National Library of Australia and the British Library.

scribepublications.com.au

scribepublications.co.uk

To my parents

I

Berlin is overrun by dogs. Every evening as she waits for Andi, Clare listens to their muffled barks drift over the walls and settle in the forgotten courtyard below. She taps out a tuneless beat on her bare thigh and waits for change, for movement. Somehow it is more difficult to imagine anything happening in the courtyard than it is to imagine the unseen dogs and their walkers nearby. Running her hands across her thighs, she reads the corrugated surfaces like braille. The inflammation has retreated, the cuts have become scabs, soon they will become scars. More lines will join these ones — her legs like furrowed fields waiting for the season to turn.

The days are getting longer. Or at least it is getting dark later. Running without pause into the next, the days do not seem particularly long or short. She has turned both of the clocks to face the wall; her watch battery is long dead. An overcast sky refuses to acknowledge that it might be spring while the sun, defeated by clouds, is too diffused to track across the surfaces of the apartment.

The plant must be growing. She looks at its leaves — does it realise that time has slowed? Its foliage clings to its stem, hoping for the sunlight to return. The leaves leave in winter. The leaves are left. Left is not right. She is left here; it is not right. The words thump at her temples, demanding her attention. Refusing to be pummelled into sentences, they want to stand on their own. The longer she spends here by herself, not talking, the louder the words seem to jostle about, wanting to be acknowledged. Why does ‘left’ mean two things? Why can it not just be one? ‘Apple’ means apple. It does not mean up or down. She paces the apartment. Step, step, step, turn. Faster and faster. She tries to walk in a straight line, careful not to lose her balance, careful not to lose her mind.

In the living room, she whirls around, tries to catch the plant watching her. It must be: she is the only other living thing in the apartment. They are attracted to each other, she and the plant, of that she is sure, but she is yet to garner proof.

As she pulls on her jeans, she feels she is part of a performance. The apartment is like a stage set, ready for the same action to be played out night after night. Each item of furniture is steeped in importance, heavy with meaning and signifying something — she is determined to find out exactly what.

She takes the clock from the bookshelf, turns it to face the room. Tick. Tick. That time is still passing is a relief. Step, step, step, turn. She paces the apartment, stretching her legs as though the more distance she covers, the faster time will pass. Come home now, come home. At last, the key in the lock, and she hurries to the hallway.

‘Andi! Andi, you’re home.’

Without saying hello, he dumps shopping bags at his feet, turns away from her and shuts the door. His hair and shoulders are wet. She had not noticed that it was raining. He picks up the bags, and as he walks past her into the kitchen, she reaches out to touch his hair, conjuring up some of the absent weather for herself.

‘Andi?’

‘What?’ He places the shopping bags on the bench and moves past her to hang his jacket on the back of a dining chair.

‘You’re home.’ She says it quietly, but her heart bats the statement about like a refrain. He is home, he is home.

He grunts an acknowledgement and begins unpacking the shopping. She watches as he stacks cans of chickpeas and tomatoes in the cupboard and posts vegetables into the refrigerator crisper. He empties a bag of apples into the fruit bowl and flings a loaf of bread against the toaster where it sighs as it settles.

‘How was your day?’

The question rolls across the floor and stops at his feet. Nothing else moves inside the apartment.

‘Andi?’

He continues to put the groceries away.

‘Did something happen?’

‘Nothing happened.’

‘Is something wrong?’ She waits in the doorway.

‘Nothing is the matter, Clare!’ His forehead pulls at his nose, his top lip snags above his teeth. ‘I’ve been harassed by students all day, I don’t need the same from you. Just leave me alone, would you?’

She takes a step back, but he steps towards her. She is getting it wrong; she should not have asked.

‘Why do I have to come home to this? You’re always here, Clare! You’re making me nervous, watching me the way you do.’ His face is above hers: it looks like it might fall on top of her, swallow anything she might say. ‘I could end this, Clare. Anytime I want. You know that, don’t you?’

She nods. And she wishes that he would.

~

The first time Clare left Andi, the sun hung low in its autumn hour. Long shadows enveloped buildings, and she watched as the streetlights began to flicker and turn on, one by one.

‘Do you like strawberries?’

She looked across to see a man waiting, like her, for the traffic lights to change. He was tall with curly hair, and in his hand was a paper bag.

‘Yes.’ With one word she acquiesced to all that was to follow. The traffic lights changed with a commanding bleep, the pedestrians surged forth around them, and she picked a strawberry from the bag.

‘Do you want to seat?’

‘To sit?’ she asked, looking about. There were no benches nearby.

‘Yes.’ He nodded enthusiastically, leading her to a pink pipe that ran above the footpath.

Clare was fascinated by these pipes that wound through the city, their brutal industrial appearance softened by the most feminine of colours. Were they an art installation, leading tourists to the Museumsinsel? Without a beginning or an end, these pipes snaked about the old East Berlin — around corners, high above roads, beneath raised footpaths. They were about the size of a dinner plate in diameter, maybe smaller. The various lengths were bolted together, sometimes in strange, convoluted arrangements as though the gods had sprayed the city with Silly String.

‘Why are they pink?’

‘Pink? The strawberries are red, no? Rot?’ Confusion flailed on his face.

‘I mean the pipes. Why are they pink?’ She banged the heel of her hand against the pipe they were sitting on.

‘Ah. I do not know exactly. Because pink means nothing, I suppose.’

‘Pink means lots of things — little girls, breast cancer, pride.’ Pink was possibly overladen with more meaning than any other colour. Except black. Or red. Scrolling through the colour spectrum, she concluded that most colours seemed overburdened with meaning.

‘True,’ he replied. ‘But for the streets, pink means nothing. You do not usually see pink in the roadworks, the buildings, the landscape. It is bright, so it is obvious, and it makes even the hard-hatted feel joy.’

‘The hard-hearted?’

‘Yes!’ He laughed loudly. ‘My accent, I suppose? Hat, heart. You see, if the pipes were red, it would be alarming, one. And two, it would be Soviet — not good. And if they were green, they would get lost in the trees. Yellow, too bright in the sun, and blue? The ones up high would camouflage against the sky!’ He was triumphant. ‘So that is why the construction pipes are pink.’

‘Construction pipes?’

‘Yes. That is all they do in Berlin these days. They build, and they build, and they build. And Berlin, she is built on sand. Every time they dig a basement, they sink the foundations and the water comes up. So the pipes take away the water.’

It was a wonderful thing, a city built on water. She came from a country where the cities settled on dust, the water long leached away, helped by an inexorable belief in the present and an unforgiving sun. Water restrictions obliged all of Melbourne’s fountains to be switched off; the punitive shutting down of such follies a reprimand to a people who had turned a blind eye for so long that, by the time they looked back, water had become a privilege rather than a right. She considered the possibility of laying these pink pipes all the way to her thirsty hometown. It would be simpler to turn the world upside down.

‘Many people think they are art.’ He shook his head in mock consternation. ‘So where are you from, that you do not have water pipes?’

‘Melbourne.’

‘I see — then you are far from home.’

They paused, each waiting for the other to say something, but she broke first. Starved of company after months travelling alone, she could not bear to let an opportunity for conversation pass her by. ‘You are from Berlin?’

‘Yes, I am. A true local. Though I must admit I do not spend much time in this part of the city, so do not ask me for directions.’

His was a voice worth pausing for, his turn of phrase was endearing. It tripped her up and made her aware of each word — alive to what he was saying, not just considering what she would say next. He asked what it was like in Australia, and she told him — the stock-standard descriptions at first, and then the real. They talked about places they had been and others they would like to go, and she wondered at the way his brain could work in two languages while hers felt weighted down by one.

‘Your English really is very good.’ She plucked another strawberry from the bag, watching him closely. ‘Do you always practise by chatting up foreigners?’

‘Ha! You are very suspicious.’ He pulled his attention from the milling tourists and turned his whole body towards her. ‘I only wish I had such opportunity. But I am simply an English teacher at a high school. And so, sadly, I have more practice dealing with unruly students than women.’ He held her gaze as he spoke, and she struggled to look away.

‘So where are the strawberries from?’ she asked. She could feel the heat of a blush wending its way to her cheeks and she bit her lip, willing it to subside.

‘I grow them in my mother’s Schrebergarten.’ He looked at her to see if she understood. ‘It is a little garden among many, on the outskirts of Berlin.’ He gestured with his head, a throwaway nod. It seemed to indicate a place that was both close and yet very far away.

‘I suppose it is really my father’s now …’ His voice trailed off. ‘However, I must go.’ He stood up from the pipe and turned with his hand outstretched. ‘My name is Andi.’ His hand hovered before her, and she popped the last of the strawberry into her mouth so that she could shake it. Grasping her hand, he pulled her to her feet and kissed her with familiarity, once on each cheek.

This European gesture always took her by surprise, the brief brush of his lips plummeting her into an intimacy she had only ever found with old friends or whisky-soaked strangers in bars. The scratch of his stubble gave her pause. In that short moment, with her own hand still encased in his, she was aware that it had been more than four months since somebody had touched her with any kind of intent.

‘Clare,’ she replied. The blush, too long held back, was set free, and desperate to keep him from seeing it, she leaned in and kissed him on the mouth. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ she said. And she walked away.

Clare is beautiful. This is a statement of fact, not an observation. Andi pictures himself in a courtroom, under oath and having to answer the questions thrown at him. Describe her. She is beautiful. She is small, but he expected her legs to be longer. Her smile is too wide for her face, and her hair is such a dark red it threatens to be brown. She is pretty, especially in her underwear. That, too, is a statement of fact, Your Honour. She looks so very fragile in her underwear, and he wishes he saw her like this more often. Soft and in need of protection. She cannot go out in the cold dressed like that. She cannot walk through the streets: her feet will numb, her lips will turn blue.

He watches her walk across the kitchen, take one mug at a time from the drying rack and hang each one on the row of hooks beneath the kitchen cabinets. Her legs swerve in at the knees. Ulrike had long, thin legs, but they didn’t go in at the knees or the ankles. It made her seem doll-like, as though she was stuffed with balled cotton. Clare’s legs do not suffer this misfortune, however, and they bend in to each other just a bit. Like a bird. When she reaches up to put the plates in the cupboard, she stands on one leg and the other flicks up behind.

He will buy her some new underwear. Something pink and flamingo-like. He smiles to himself, imagining already the delight on her face when he presents her with this gift. She loves presents. She appreciates them more obviously than anyone he has ever known. She insists on sitting down together to open any present, no matter how big or small, however serious or comedic. She will parade around the apartment, dressed in whatever he has bought, or immediately put it to use.

‘What?’ She turns to face him, cup in hand.

‘Nothing,’ he answers, innocent. He smiles at her: she looks so indignant.

‘Why were you looking at me?’

‘Because you look like a flamingo.’

She snorts dismissively and turns back to the dishes. He bets she is rolling her eyes at the cupboards. He is glad he did not simply say, ‘Because you are beautiful.’ She does not like it when he compliments her on her looks. She says it is bad manners to compliment someone on things they have no control over.

Restless, he wanders into the bedroom. When he is at work, or out shopping, or visiting his father, all he can think about is how he wants to be back here in the apartment with her. Yet when he is here, sometimes it is not quite as he remembers. In his daydreams, she wants everything he wants, does everything he says.

‘Come to bed, baby,’ he calls out to her.

He switches on the lamp, sits on the bed and takes off his shoes. He always thinks of his father when he sees his shoeless feet: they wear the same socks. When Andi was still living at home, they would sit together in the evenings, books open in their laps. His father’s feet were large and docile, like big sleeping animals. They each liked to think they just had the television on for the comfort of sound, and that really they were immersed in their reading. Flipping the occasional page, they would furtively watch the television without comment.

‘Clare?’ She has not appeared in the doorway, and he cannot hear her moving about the apartment. Maybe she has fallen asleep on the couch; she is prone to doing that. And then she is grumpy when she wakes up, as though it is his fault she is so tired and he should never have let her fall asleep there. But it is not his fault. He makes sure she has plenty of time to rest.

He lets himself drop back on the bed, feet still on the floor. He stares up at the ceiling, which is interrupted by a lone globe. It used to wear a paper-lantern covering, but she removed it. She told him it was deceitful, as though it had something to hide, and that she would rather see the globe do what it was designed to do. He did not argue. He has learned when not to argue.

‘Clare, baby, come to bed.’

No response. What is she doing? He clenches his fists and counts to three before pushing himself up off the bed and striding along the hallway. She is standing in the doorway of the living room. The backs of her hands are pressed against the doorframe.

‘Look,’ she says. She steps towards him, and her arms float up, like a slow-motion star jump. ‘I can’t stop them from moving,’ she says, delighted. ‘They just want to go up of their own accord.’

He reaches out and takes one of her hands, interrupting its ascent.

~

He was not really following her, he told himself, he was just curious to see where she was going. An anthropological study of a foreigner in Berlin. She had been reading on a park bench when he first saw her, a bag tucked beneath her head as a pillow. Something about her insouciance had caught his eye; she lay there as though she was in her own bedroom, oblivious to the square’s activity — even to the school students who milled about on the steps of the concert hall, puncturing the air with their shoving and shouts. He was certain she was a foreigner: a local would have somewhere better to go, and she was not smoking.

He had stood at the edge of the square watching her. What was she doing here? What was anyone doing here? These were dead parts of the city — churches restored to eerie perfection, monuments erected to memories that had collapsed under the weight of more recent history. He felt as though the new century was hurtling forward, leaving nothing authentic in its place. He was supposed to meet his father to attend a public lecture on ostalgie — the nostalgia people felt for the East. As was so often the case, his father had lost track of time, had called to say he would meet Andi at the restaurant instead. Andi had been relieved: he was not in the mood to debate what was lost along with the past, and he had left the lecture hall and wandered down the street, looking for somewhere to catch the last of the day’s sun. But every surface was covered with tourists clinging like brightly coloured lichen to their resting places. It was then that he had seen her, lying so still, unaware of the surrounding tumult and looking enviably content.

What would he have done if she had not liked strawberries? He had ducked into the minimart, and they had seemed the most appetising and least threatening of offerings. Never go anywhere empty-handed, his mother always said. When he came out of the store, he had experienced a moment of brief panic: the bench was bare. Spotting her nearing the intersection, he broke into a jog, arriving at her side to discover that she did like strawberries, and that she was from elsewhere — Australia. Where the people were laid back and had no worries. She even used that phrase. When she had asked where the strawberries were from, he had not wanted to disappoint her.

He followed her now as she walked down Friedrichstrasse, her hands in her pockets, and her bag hugging her back. He felt a little miffed that she did not look around, even though she did not know he was there. At Checkpoint Charlie she glanced at the hoarding that surrounded the empty lots, but must have decided to ignore its multilingual tourist information and walk on.

He should just catch up to her and ask for her number. But that would mean admitting he had followed her this far. Instead, he slowed his pace and watched as she turned the next corner and headed into a bookstore.

She had seemed to concentrate when he had spoken, to wait with a vicious intent, and he had found his English deserting him. She told him that she had been watching his city all day; an architectural photographer, she saw the city in cubes and planes, shapes and shadows. He liked the idea of her watching his city unfold, being made new again. Envying her freedom to observe, he had wanted to assure her that he, too, was an outsider looking in.

‘Sometimes I like to just sit there and complicate the world.’ He had watched for her reaction.

Clare had laughed, throwing her head back in a pantomime of enjoyment. Would it annoy him after some time? Would he stop trying to make her laugh?

‘Complicate? You mean contemplate … but it’s very funny.’

He had laughed with her. It was a good choice. He had almost gone with compensate. Consummate. Concentrate. Consecrate. Complicate had definitely