Berlin Calling

Paul Fitzpatrick

20 minutes to departure and I’m familiarising myself with the back of my hand for the first time in my life when a modest volley of seismic events announces the arrival of 23B. A snap glance to my right as hand luggage gets stowed (along with the tiny epiphany that overhead bins appear to have the verb ‘ to stow’ locked down) reveals five-sixths of a woman in her fifties, smartly dressed and, from the look of sharp, conservative details, either returning to Berlin, or adept at urban sartorial camouflage. A retreating glance down to a copy of Die Welt seems to confirm it. I swing my gaze a little too deliberately towards the egg of the window and pull focus on the ground crew as they muscle-memory their way through final preparations.

23B takes her seat and I wait a while before turning. I suppose she’s taking the opportunity to appraise me, now, too in the traditional quid pro quo of strangers on planes. It’s only a one-hour 50-minute flight, but when you’re so intimately adjacent to a complete stranger’s dance space, every glimpsed detail is significant. I try to picture 23A through her eyes: the novel and ear buds in the seatback pouch — English and a fair chance I’m not a big talker. Shaved head, no tattoos nor piercings (that she can see), a button-down shirt, jeans and, fuck me, I’m already making a fair few assumptions about her based on little more than a Jil Sander trouser suit and Hermes scarf. Stubble, but maintained. A watch, no wedding band and nails that have been torn or bitten into something approximating uniform length. Looking out of the window. Relaxed posture but the muscles in his jaw are working a nervous little clench. Conclusion? Tense but not worried about flying. So shy, a little unkempt… probably a harmless web something: definitely (probably) not the way the anecdote ‘the worst flight I ever took’ begins.

I turn my head and she’s looking. She doesn’t look away, which kind of makes me want to, but I hold her gaze as long as I can and smile my standard closed-mouth smile. She offers her hand and I shake it, relieved to be able to break eye contact. “Hi.”

“Hello.”

That appears to be it for now — minimum social contract fulfilled. I nod, smile again and she busies herself with her cell and an obligatory scan of the bland bilingual in-flight magazine. I look once more beyond the window as we lurch into motion. What did she see when we made eye contact? Why would she give me a moment’s more thought? Did she see the hollow tiredness? I do look tired. I know it. A little bloodshot and bleary, as if the eyes themselves were out of focus. And if she saw that, did she sample the wariness in me — the alternating current of my exposed heart these days? A pacing hunger for kindness and the flickering anticipation of its absence. The inability to do without the former even to avoid the ache of the latter. Unravelling a little now: what the fuck am I doing? I don’t know a soul in Berlin. The last time I was there the city was divided and my parents lifted me into a car seat to pass through Checkpoint Charlie for a chauffeur-driven jaunt around the sour-looking East German capital. I have an Air BnB and zero plans. I’m 42. Fuck. In the last three years, I’ve set co-ordinates for the furthest point from the man my family and friends know, put a breeze block on the accelerator pedal and stuck my head out of the window. I’ve followed my heart and that stubborn hungry thing has rewarded me with unimaginable joy and pain. I’ve lapped both up as if they were one and the same thing, and if they hadn’t decided to clear me out I’d be doing it still.

But they did. And my life fell silent. And I wept, a lot. Have been weeping a lot. And not sleeping well. I’ve become a bit of an expert on not sleeping well. I could win medals at not sleeping well. Wait, 23B is talking to me. When did that start? Shit, have I been staring into space?

“I’m sorry,” I say. I’m British, saying sorry is practically a language in its own right for us. This ‘sorry’ comes with a slightly furrowed brow and a self-deprecating chuckle. I call it the Denholm Elliot. It appears to do the trick.

“I was just asking — what’s calling you to Berlin?”

I smile at the turn of phrase and answer the prosaic question beneath the poetry.

“Just a weekend away. Y’know — museums, galleries.”

23B frowns and waves that obfuscating fragment away.

“No, not why are you going; what’s calling you?”

“I’m sorry?” Quite different, this one.

“Take your time,” A laugh. “We haven’t even taken off yet.”

I decide not to worry my response, look 23B in the eyes and let the words flow:

“My life. The rest of it. The bit I choose to live. The life I happen to, not let happen to me. My life. You know? Living. Really, really, that.”

I desperately want to look away but I can’t. It’s going to be horrible but I have to bear witness to this response, even if it involves calling the cabin crew over to have me escorted off the plane.

Shit. 23B calls over a flight attendant who bends conspiratorially. The two speak softly in German while 23B places her hand on the attendant’s arm for emphasis. I swallow hard. The attendant draws herself up to her full height again and the two of them look at me before breaking into smiles. The attendant nods and walks off and I turn to my companion for some kind of explanation. She’s still smiling.

“I merely told her what you told me. She said she’d tell the captain so he can step on the gas. When someone decides to start living they shouldn’t have to wait, right?”

I extend my hand again. “Hello. My name is Paul. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

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