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Girls in Berlin I met Elena at a bar in Kreuzberg, Berlin. I was there with my friend Willem, who had moved to Berlin about five months before. Willem had gotten off early from his work as a copywriter that day because the internet at his office had fallen out. He had to work from home the rest of the afternoon, but he took me to his favorite bar instead. The bar had a record store in the back and posters of Poison Ivy and The Ramones lined the walls. When Elena and Maria walked in, I remember The Saints were playing – though it might’ve been The Damned. I don’t remember exactly how we got to talking, but Maria was wearing a sleeveless Dead Moon shirt, so Willem must’ve made a remark about that. Willem and I had gone to see Dead Moon play about half a year before. That show in Antwerp had been the last time that he and his ex-girlfriend Jill had kissed. Their kiss in front of the stage was so publicly beautiful that a journalist even mentioned it in his review of that show. But the night had ended with Jill on a train back to Brussels and Willem shouting in the streets and finally breaking down in my arms. So anyway, Willem said something about Dead Moon to Maria and I took a seat next to Elena. God, was she beautiful. She had long, dark hair that she kept in a loose knot, had kind wide eyes and black ink tattoos that crept up from every sleeve. At first, Elena and I talked about Dead Moon, then we talked about the philosophy of George Bataille and then – finally – about ourselves. She talked about how she had moved from Switzerland to Denmark and about how short the days are there in winter. I must’ve talked about my documentary – and I hope I didn’t brag about the grant I had received to finish it. She showed me some of the posters she had made for punk shows. The work I liked best was a series of black and white paintings of silhouettes wearing intricate masks. Elena had a very good eye for masks. We must’ve had a pretty good conversation because after a few hours, I felt confident enough to tell her that if she’d kiss me, I’d stay in Berlin for as long as

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she was. She was in Berlin for the Nick Cave concert on Saturday, but I was leaving the next day. Obviously, she didn’t kiss me then and there, but we did keep on talking and we all kept ordering more drinks. When we got to the-new-wave-bar-that-Willem-had-promised-us-we-could-dance-but-we-couldn’t, Maria came up to me on the empty dance floor. ‘You know, Elena and I had our eyes on you from the moment we walked in.’ ‘Same here’ I said. ‘Who do you like? Me or Elena?’ I thought I had made that abundantly clear, but still Maria gave me a couple of seconds to respond. I must admit the option of having easy sex with Maria appealed to me: Maria was a slender, heavily tattooed beauty who had sung in a couple of Swedish hardcore bands, one of which I listened to. ‘Elena,’ I said. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘No problem.’ She looked at Elena, who was sitting at the end of the bar. I did too. ‘With a girl like Elena, you’ll have to make the first move though’ ‘I did’ I said. ‘I even asked her to kiss me.’ ‘Well, then try again. I know she likes you.’ So I did. I sat down next to her and talked to her about something I don’t quite remember. What I do remember is her smile. And kissing her. After that, Maria left and Willem stayed. The three of us went to sit outside on a bench where Willem and Elena shared a cigarette. He talked about his move to Berlin and about how he had started filming again. When he saw me kissing Elena, Willem downed his glass and hailed a cab. Elena and I finished our drinks and we took a walk along the canals. We walked and talked for hours and I savored the playful ebb and flow of her Danish-style English. Even though she was a French-Swiss and had only moved to Copenhagen some years before, her English had taken on the same accent as her Danish roommate and BFF Tina. We passed a restaurant boat and she told me that she wanted to break into it. So I grabbed her hand and we climbed on. We

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had to tread carefully though because there was a light on inside. We stood at the front of the boat and watched a herd of swans sleeping on the water. Afterwards, we made out on a bench overlooking the Turkish Market. ‘I haven’t done this with anyone in a while,’ she said, with her legs across my lap. ‘Me neither,’ I said and I thought about that night in the park with Robin. I was sharing something unique with someone amazing– again. ‘Where do you want to sleep tonight?’ she said. ‘I want to sleep together, but first I have to pick up my stuff from the hotel before my friends leave.’ ‘So you’re really staying in Berlin?’ ‘I said I would.’ In the harsh white light of the metro, we kissed each other goodnight and I told her I’d see her again the next day. But when I ran up the steps at Hermanstrasse, I realized I had forgotten her last name. Binary? She had put up two fingers when she told me. Elena Binary? When I got above ground at Adenauerplatz, it was already morning. I ran to our hotel, snuck past the main desk and knocked on our hotel room door. After a couple of knocks, Jonas opened the door in his pajama shorts. He was already packing his bags and I heard Jevez taking a shower. I told him about the night I had had and about how I had met the love of my life. ‘What’s her name?’ he asked me as he stuffed a pair of jeans into his suitcase. ‘Elena. Though I’m not sure about her last name.’ ‘Do you have her phone number?’ ‘No.’ I plugged in my phone and tried to look her up on Facebook. I had been certain I would find her, but there were no matches for Elena Binary. Then I thought about the Nick Cave concert on Saturday. I looked at the guest list, but there were more than three thousand people attending. I threw my phone on the bed

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and buried my head in the unused pillow. When Jevez got out of the shower, I told him that I was staying. ‘I just can’t let this pass,’ I said. ‘Fine by me,’ he said. ‘Just remember: if you like her, don’t let it show.’ While my friends were putting their bags into the trunk of the van, I tried calling Willem again. I had already sent him a couple of messages to ask him if he knew Elena’s last name, but I had received no answer. With no way of getting in touch with Elena and not sure if I even had a place to stay, my resolve to stay dwindled. It was raining and my friends wanted to start driving. I asked them to wait for me until I at least got hold of Willem, but they urged me to make up my mind. Jevez even started counting down from thirty, and everyone joined in. So I took my backpack out of the trunk, stuffed my dirty laundry into a plastic bag and before the chanting reached zero, I had wished them a safe trip home and had slammed the door shut. I took shelter under an awning across from the hotel, where I tried calling Willem again. I kept looking down the road in the hope of seeing the van come round the corner. I regretted having stayed. I didn’t want to ride the sixteen-hour bus ride that stops in every city from Berlin to Brussels and I certainly didn’t want to spend three hundred Euros on a flight – especially if I wasn’t even sure I’d see her again. I thought about calling Jevez,to ask them to pick me up, but I was too ashamed to do it. So I called Willem again. That time he did pick up. He realized he had overslept and was cursing on the phone. Before I could ask him if I could stay at his place for the weekend, he had hung up on me. I decided to go to a coffee shop at Alexanderplatz where I could drop my backpack and wait until Willem got off from work at six. As I was descending the stairs to the U-Bahn, a familiar wind of excitement came over me: I was in Berlin, goddammit. Good or bad, at least it’ll be an experience. So I put on my headphones and as soon as I did, I received a call from Willem. He told me had called in sick for work and said that I should come over to his place immediately because the weekend had started early.

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‘Take the U8 to Osloerstrasse. And bring coffee.’ When I got above ground at Osloerstrasse, the sky had cleared up and the sun was shining. Willem and I drank a cup of coffee at a Turkish diner and I explained to him that my friends had left this morning but that I had stayed to see Elena again. ‘The only problem is I can’t remember her last name.’ ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I have her friend Maria on Facebook. I remember taking her phone in the bar and adding myself’.’ I kissed him on the forehead and leaned back in the plastic chair, basking in the sunlight. ‘That’s right. How did things work out with you and Maria?’ He shrugged. ‘She was nice. But not that nice. She’s also thirty-four.’ ‘Willem, you’re thirty-four.’ At the apartment, Willem searched for Elena in Maria’s friend list and found her immediately. Elena Biner. That was her name. He added her as a friend. Then I did the same. She accepted and I sent her a carefully constructed message. I asked her if she wanted to grab a cup of coffee with me later in the day. A few minutes passed. Then some more. When I saw that she had read it, but didn’t respond, my heart dropped. Only then did the thought hit me that she might not want to see me again. I put away my phone and walked into the kitchen. I felt like such an idiot for staying. Last night could’ve been a great memory, but now I had ruined it. I thought about catching up to the van, but I knew that was impossible. I tried to sleep on the mattress next to the fridge in the kitchen, but I couldn’t get any sleep. I went into Willem’s unfurnished bedroom and lay next to him on his mattress. I told him how utterly destroyed I felt. It was the same feeling of rejection I had felt with Robin two years before. I had loved her more than she loved me and the rejection had hurt like hell. Some time passed and after a while, I had managed to calm myself down. I told myself I was right to have

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risked it. If I didn’t, I would’ve wondered about what might’ve happened for months, maybe even years. I gathered myself and not long after, I fell into a deep sleep. When I woke up two hours later, I was ready to go home. I grabbed my phone to book a ticket, but there was a message from Elena: ‘We’re going to a gallery. You’re more than welcome to join.’ My heart leaped up. Willem peeked over my shoulder and I showed him the screen. ‘See?’ he said. Intent on restoring the balance, I told myself to play it cool from now on. So I texted her back that Willem and I were going to Tempelhof first, but that, sure, we could meet up afterwards. I went into the bathroom and took an ice-cold shower. The waste drain of the washing machine lay next to my feet and would spurt black water every time a washing cycle ended. I arranged my face in the broken window and put on my last clean white T-shirt. I sat outside on the sunlit terrace and looked up at the blue sky that was strewn with white lines made by airplanes. I was glad I wasn’t on one. Willem came to sit next to me. ‘If you’re staying, we should pick up my air mattress at the Australian girl’s place.’ ‘Fine by me.’ ‘Or no, I should look for a house today.’ ‘Why?’ ‘I’m getting evicted.’ ‘Shit. Well, either is fine by. Everything is fine by me today.’ ‘What do you think?’ He held up a black shirt and a grey shirt. The black one had the least amount of holes in it. ‘The black one.’ He put on a pair of grey jeans. ‘No, I think I’m going for the all grey.’ ‘When do you have to move out of this place?’

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‘In two weeks. A little less.’ ‘If you want, we can look for houses today. I don’t mind.’ He put some wax into his hair and checked his reflection using his phone. ‘Nah, let’s just go to Tempelhof.’ On our way to the U-Bahn, Willem stopped at a kebab place. ‘We should start drinking,’ he said. ‘We should,’ I said. ‘Though I’m gonna wait a while. I didn’t sleep last night.’ He went inside and when he came back, he had two beers in his hands. ‘Here. I bought you one - just in case.’ As we walked down the mile-long airstrip of the abandoned Tempelhof airport in the blistering sun, I felt a strange distance towards Willem. He kept on talking about this girl and that girl and it started to annoy me. Maybe it was because, for once, my sights were set on just one girl and without our shared love of all girls, the two of us just had less in common. ‘It would be great to have a girlfriend with a dog,’ he said, as a girl with a golden retriever passed us by. ‘All the benefits of a pet, but none of the responsibilities.’ I nodded. I wanted to find a shady spot where I could close my eyes for a while. I hadn’t slept apart from that nap at Willem’s. I was pretty exhausted and I wanted to be fresh for my date with Elena. Tired of the conversation with Willem and tired in general, I laid myself down on a slope at Gösslinger Park, amid the hundreds of people drinking beer and smoking weed. Willem went to the Edelweiss Café at the center of the park and sat down on the terrace. I took off my shoes and tried to catch some sleep. But my mind was on Elena. I liked her too much and that was never good. When I finally gave up on getting any sleep that day, I put on my shoes and made my way down the slope to the Edelweiss café. Willem was talking to a pretty, blonde waitress with a Gorillaz T-shirt. When I pulled up a chair and sat down next to him, the waitress turned to me.

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‘You must be Willem’s friend. Did you manage to get any sleep?’ I looked at her with a smile. ‘No, I didn’t,’ I said. ‘And your girlfriend? When is she coming?’ ‘You seem to know an awful lot about me.’ ‘I have my sources.’ She ran her hand over Willem’s shoulder and went inside the bar. ‘Class act,’ I said. ‘Her name is Ea. We’re going to the Sisyphus club after her shift.’ ‘She’s young.’ ‘Yeah. And Swedish.’ The wine went down well. When Ea brought us our second round, I saw Elena walking towards us. She was wearing a short black skirt and high top leather sandals. She came up to our table and I stood up to kiss her. Her wide eyes turned me into stone yet again and my embrace was as rigid as I felt. ‘Hi.’ ‘Hi.’ I pulled up a chair for her. ‘How was the gallery?’ ‘We didn’t go. We just ended up drinking at Wowsville again.’ She sat down and I took a moment to look at her. I couldn’t believe my luck. She smiled at me and crossed her legs, revealing a large tattoo of an anvil. I was dying to kiss her again, but I fell into the trap of talking. I talked and I talked and I could hear myself talking. Whenever I refrain from doing the thing I want to do, I do something else half-heartedly. I bet she could tell. When they started stacking up the chairs, the three of us went for a walk around Kreuzburg and Neuköln. We went to get some beers at a späty and walked past all the lively bars in the hot summer night. Willem and Elena were talking about some bands I had never heard about and I was becoming increasingly quiet. When they got to their shared love of The Cramps, Willem rolled up his sleeve and showed her his new Lux Interior-tattoo.

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‘Weren’t you meeting Ea?’ Willem rolled down his sleeve and shot a dirty glance at me. ‘Now don’t be like that.’ ‘Be like what?’ As we were walking by the canals, Elena and I finally got into another good conversation. Willem was walking some ten meters in front of us. He was going in the direction of Wowsville, the bar from the night before. When we were getting close to the bar, Elena lowered her voice and told me we cannot go to Wowsville: Her friends are there and Maria does not want to see Willem again. Apparently he had misbehaved himself the night before. I tried calling out to Willem, but he had disappeared out of sight and was on his way to Wowsville. When we got there, there was no trace of Elena’s friends or of Willem. Happy to be alone with Elena, I suggested we leave Willem and go to another bar down the street. I was being a bad friend, but Willem of all people, should understand. So Elena and I got drinks at a cozy bar called Club 49. The terrace was closing, but the girl at the bar made an exception for us and put up a bench up front. When Elena was inside ordering drinks, a woman came to sit weirdly close to me. Elena came back and she put our drinks on the table. ‘Cette femme s’est assise trop près de toi,’ she said. ‘Oui. Je pense qu’elle m’aime bien.’ The woman looked up, but didn’t seem to understand what we were saying. We smiled and Elena pulled me towards her. We kissed. ‘Do you know your eyebrows twinge every time we kiss?’ ‘I know,’ I said. ‘It’s because I’m glad but also sad.’ ‘Don’t be.’ ‘Glad?’ ‘No, sad!’ After the ice cube in her drink had melted, she asked me what I wanted to do. I told her I wanted to walk some more, talk some more and then sleep in the same

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bed. She said she did as well. Since she shared a room with four of her friends and I didn’t have the key to Willem’s apartment, I suggested getting a hotel room. We walked through the warm summer air and got some more beers at a späty. On our walk through the streets, she pulled me into an alleyway where we passed a gate and came up to a private parking lot. She sat down on a set of stairs and I leaned over to kiss her. She kicked the kissing into gear and I lifted up her skirt. I tried to find the clasp of her bra, but I couldn’t find any entry into the top she was wearing. Then a light went on and Elena calmly pushed down her skirt. A boy and a girl on bicycles came up to us and asked us where the party was. Now I’m not sure if they were referring to an actual party or to the party that Elena and I were obviously having. At four in the morning we still hadn’t found a hotel. I opened Google Maps and arm in arm we walked towards a cheap one at Hermanstrasse. I rang the bell and after a couple of seconds the glass doors slid open. We came into a brightly lit lobby with a very serious looking guy behind the counter. I came up to him and politely asked him if he still had any vacancies left. He looked at me and then he looked at Elena. ‘I have two single beds,’ he said. I shot a happy glance at Elena. ‘— in a dorm.’ When we got back out on the street, the sun was coming up and we decided to finally call it a night. We agreed to see each other after the Nick Cave concert and kissed for a long time on a street corner. However, when we got to the U-Bahn at Hermanstrasse, I received a call from Willem. Apparently he had met a girl on the subway and wouldn’t be sleeping home that night. Elena didn’t understand any Dutch, but my expression gave it away. I told her about Willem’s empty apartment and we took the U8 to Osloerstrasse.

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The metro was filled with red-eyed people, leaning their heads on each other’s shoulders. Elena sat across from a guy reading an astrology book. I sat down next to him and made a comment to Elena in French about the book he was reading. Before Elena could respond, the guy answered in fluent French that he had bought the book because of the illustrations. He said he was a painter and it turned out he loved Antwerp because of Rubens and Luc Tuymans. Elena and him were talking in French and for a moment, I thought I would lose Elena to this flakey painter who went deep sea diving in Asia, but instead, she locked eyes with me and didn’t let go until we got off at our stop at Osloerstrasse. Above ground, I hailed a taxi and we drove to Bornholmerstrasse. We drove up to Willem and he handed me his key. Elena waved at Willem from the taxi and we drove to his apartment. We passed the many strollers in the hall and made our way up to the broken staircase to the top floor. Elena was on the terrace watching the sun come up and I was flipping through Willem’s record collection. I put on a jazz compilation album and we swayed to the music. Then I laid her down on the mattress besides Willem’s The Lion King towel that functioned as a curtain. She unbuttoned her skirt and, with a smile, she revealed the bathing suit that had confused me earlier on the steps in the alley. I slid the straps from over her shoulders, revealing her delicate breasts and a large tattoo of Carravagio’s Medusa on her side. As I stared into the tattooed gorgon’s eyes, I became painfully aware of my own, untattooed body. For some reason, I had always placed myself below people who had the courage to get a tattoo and whenever I did, I considered getting one myself. I had never gotten one though. I feared that if I had, instead of it becoming a reminder of my courage, it might become an eternal reminder of the insecurity that had led me to it. As we were sitting on our knees, naked, kissing each other, my hand went over a patch of uneven skin on the small of her back. I turned her around and saw it

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was a tattoo that lay thickly on her skin. I ran my fingers across it and then made my way around her waist. The next morning, I woke up with her naked body still wrapped up in my arms. When she woke up and smiled at me with her kind eyes, I couldn’t shake the feeling that she liked me as much as I did her – which wasn’t an easy thing to do. She left before noon to meet up with her friends and Willem came up to the apartment at around two. We took a seat on the sunlit terrace where he told me about his okay night with an okay girl. ‘I met her on the subway,’ he said. ‘I was coming home from the 8mm Bar and she sat across from me. She had her headphones on and she gave me a clear look. So I went over to her and asked her what she was listening to. “Abba,” she said. “Man after Midnight.” “Well,” I said.’ Willem raised his arms like Jesus on the cross. “Here I am.” He looked inside at the disheveled blankets on his mattress. ‘And how was your night?’ ‘Perfect,’ I said. ‘I bet, Elena is a real woman. The girl from last night, she was just a girl. She was young. Very eager though.’ ‘Will you see her again?’ I asked. ‘I don’t think so.’ Willem laid himself down on his mattress and I put on The Saints. ‘So this Elena, she’s a hundred percenter?’ ‘She is. She’s beautiful, into punk, speaks four languages and even likes Ingmar Bergman. Plus, she’s one of the most real people I’ve ever met.’ ‘Maria Valena was a hundred percenter as well.’ ‘Is she the one you met in Italy?’ ‘Yes. She lives in Firenze now.’ I nodded in silence.

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‘Do you ever think that those girls are our hundred percenters precisely because they live far away?’ At a nice bar around Mitte, I treated Willem to some drinks for lending me his key. Even though he was the one who was tired and hung-over that day, it didn’t keep him from drinking. ‘Tell me,’ he said after the fourth glass of exceptionally delicious white wine. ‘You still talk to Jill. How is she doing?’ ‘She’s married. That’s one. And she’s moving to New York in October.’ Willem nodded and downed his glass of white wine. ‘What will she be doing there?’ ‘Photography. And maybe some modeling.’ ‘So she’s happy?’ ‘She is.’ Sunday morning I woke up at six, still fully dressed. Willem and I were going to take a short nap before going out, but we ended up sleeping through the entire night. I turned on my phone and saw I had received a message from Elena. She suggested meeting up at Mauerpark at around noon. Since Maria would also be there, I decided to let Willem rest and go to the park by myself. It was a blistering hot day and the market next to the park was swarming with people. I bought an emerald ring at a jewelry stand, but I was too afraid to wear it. As I was watching a performance by a Nigerian acrobat and a Dutch accordion player, I got a tap on my shoulder. It was Elena. She was wearing large, dark sunglasses and bright red lipstick. Again, I couldn’t believe I could just put my arm around her waist and kiss her. I asked her about the Nick Cave concert and we made our way to Maria and Tina who were sitting at nearby coffee shop. I felt strangely calm sitting there among all her girlfriends. Tina told me the story behind her and Elena’s friend-tattoo, I got introduced to the very beautiful and very hungry Mahlin and I talked to Maria about her two little boys and her job as an interior decorator. Elena talked about her family in Switzerland that

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she sees once a year and I talked about my nephews that I see nearly every week. Her brothers didn’t have children yet and she was glad she didn’t have to worry about that. It made me wonder about her family and about how Elena was before she moved to Copenhagen. ‘I might return to the mountains someday.’ she said. ‘When I get tired of the cities.’ The group left the coffee shop and we walked through the sunny streets, in search of a bar where we could watch the World Cup Finals. ‘What’s Wilhelm doing today?’ ‘He’s on a date with Christina.’ ‘Who’s Christina?’ ‘Exactly.’ We ended up at Wowsville where we watched the Finals from the terrace. I drank beer and they drank cocktails. ‘So, when are you going back to Belgium?’ Mahlin asked me. ‘Probably Monday.’ ‘You drove here with friends, no?’ ‘Yes, we were on a road trip.’ ‘But they already left?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘So how are you going to get back?’ ‘Flixbus. It’s only 35 euros.’ ‘But how long of a drive is it to Belgium?’ ‘Sixteen hours. A little more.’ The sun had gone down and Elena’s friends went to the apartment to go pack. Only Tina stayed because she was meeting a guy called Seth after his shift at a nearby pizza place. ‘I’m supposed to call him at eleven. It’s eleven now. So should I call him?’ ‘Why doesn’t he call you?’ Elena asked. Tina put her phone to her ear.

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‘He says he doesn’t have any money on his phone. And I know he’s not into smartphones.’ Elena rolled her eyes. ‘I don’t like flakey people. There’s always a reason why they act so affected.’ If I didn’t love her already, I sure did then. While Tina was on the phone with Seth, Elena and I went to sit by the canal, our feet hanging over the water. Tina hung up the phone and sat down next to us. She looked at Elena. ‘Seth is here with Toby.’ Toby. The name had a weight to it. Elena glanced at me, then at Tina and then at me again. Silence. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just that – ’ ‘I get it,’ I said. ‘We all have a history.’ She turned to Tina. ‘Is he coming here?’ ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’ ‘In that case, we should go.’ ‘Really?’ ‘Yeah, I just don’t have the energy for it.’ She turned to me again. ‘Trust me, I don’t have feelings for him anymore. But we kind of dated some years before and now every time we are in the same room, he acts all weird. I just don’t want to waste my energy on that.’ ‘Tina?’ A voice called out from behind us. I turned around and saw a guy coming down the slope. ‘Seth!’ Tina stood up and hugged him. I shook his hand and sat back down. Seth was a musician from Oakland who had moved to Berlin for his music career. He and Tina had met at a punk festival in Copenhagen where Tina and Elena had worked as volunteers.

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Seth was talking to Tina about his upcoming shows and about the record label that wants to sign his band. ‘I hate these conversations,’ Elena said. I could tell Tina and Seth had heard because Seth had stopped talking mid-sentence. ‘I do too,’ I said. ‘It ruins friendships. You know, when I was working at a toy store and hadn’t set foot on a film set in months, I felt so ashamed around my friends who had found cool jobs at production companies that I eventually stopped hanging out with them.’ ‘I know the feeling all too well,’ she said. ‘But now that I’ve found a producer and received a grant to finish my film, I feel awkward around friends who aren’t doing well. Like, I still haven’t told Willem about the grant. I know he knows. But we just don’t talk about it.’ She put her hand on mine. ‘In Denmark there’s a law of humility called “Janteloven”, which means “Law of Jante”. It basically says that any show of individual success is inappropriate and that you shouldn’t boast. I think you’d fit right in in Copenhagen.’ Not long after that conversation, Tina and Seth stood up and bade us farewell. They were going to a Goth party somewhere near Mitte. The party intrigued me, but Elena didn’t want to go and I was more than fine with that. So we said our goodbyes to Seth and Tina and went for another walk around Kreuzberg. We bought some beers at a Späty and Elena went to look a bar where she could pee. She handed me her beer and I sat down on a curb. She was gone for some time and the time alone made me reflective. When she finally came back, she said she had been on the phone with Tina. ‘She wants me to come to the club. All the guys are doing speed and she doesn’t want to be the only sober one.’ ‘So you do want to go?’ ‘Not really.’ She sat down next to me and took a sip of her beer. ‘You were thinking about something. I can tell. What was it?’ ‘Nothing.’

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‘I can tell you were thinking about something. Just tell me.’ I looked into her eyes. ‘Honestly, I was thinking about you. About us. And also about Monday.’ ‘I told you already. Don’t be sad.’ ‘I’m not. Really.’ She looked at me very intently. ‘What?’ ‘I can’t read you,’ she said. ‘You can’t?’ ‘No, you’re holding back.’ ‘No, I’m not. I like you - a lot.’ ‘I like you too. And?’ ‘And what?’ ‘Tell me what you’re thinking.’ ‘And… I wouldn’t mind seeing each other after I leave tomorrow.’ Silence. She twisted her bottle in her hands. ‘That’s what I thought.’ The tone in her voice made my stomach drop. ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t do long distance.’ ‘Me neither!’ ‘I’ve tried it before, but it doesn’t work for me. I’m all for the here and now.’ ‘So am I!’ I said. This was going the wrong way. ‘I don’t want to get your hopes up. I’ve been on that side before. It hurts. And I don’t want to do that to you.’ That side. I was being dumped and I wasn’t even in a relationship. ‘When I was sixteen, I used to fall for guys in punk bands who treated me like shit. Then they would leave me and it felt terrible. I don’t want to do that to you. I want things between us to be clear.’ ‘They were clear! I honestly had no expectations beyond Monday.’ I felt sick. Why was she ending things now?

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I sat there for a long time saying nothing. There wasn’t anything I could say that would change the fact that she was the winner and I was the loser. I always knew that I liked her more than she liked me. That was okay; it was hard to match. But now all the great memories had been pulled out from under me: the walk by the canals, the make-out session in the alley, the search for a hotel. All of it might’ve meant little to her. I had been the one who had gone out of my league. ‘I have to ask,’ I said. ‘Is this because of Toby?’ ‘No,’ she said. At least she sounded sincere. After another long silence, she asked me what I wanted to do with the rest of the night. I had to think fast in order to regain any semblance of dignity. So I pretended I was mostly interested in having a good time while I was in Berlin. ‘I want to go dancing,’ I said. She looked up at me. ‘You sure?’ I stood up and told her I wanted to go to the party where Tina and Seth were at. I had put on the mask of someone who doesn’t care. If she falls for guys who treat her like shit, well, I could do that for her. ‘What’s the name of the bar?’ “Ficken Dreitausend,” she said, “which means “Fucking Three Thousand” in German.’ ‘Okay, sounds great. Lead the way, Elena.’ When we got there, I rang the bell. After a couple of minutes, the heavy iron door opened and we went in. I paid the entry fee for both of us and looked around the bar. There were ribbons hanging from the ceiling and the dance floor was filled with men in fishnet T-shirts. The black and white television screens showed two guys on a bed sucking each other’s dicks. Tina called to us from the bar. She was sitting there with Seth and an attractive Sid Vicious-type with a nose ring. She jumped out of her seat and hugged the both of us.

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‘Don’t go into the basement. I went in there looking for the toilet and I got yelled at in German by a naked man with a beard. ‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ I said. Tina bought Elena and me drinks and I introduced myself to the attractive Sid Vicious-type. He introduced himself as Toby. ‘Hi.’ ‘Hi.’ I put away my tote bag in the wardrobe and when I came back, Elena was talking with some Australian guy about The Damned and Tina was talking with Seth. Toby sat on a bar stool, silently sipping his beer and looking over the room. I did too. Neither of us said anything for at least twenty minutes. From the moment we shook hands, we knew we had Elena in common and there was no point in being nice. After a while, Tina and Seth asked him something and he joined in their conversation. Now I was the only one saying nothing. I just sat there, looking like an idiot, paying way too much attention to the television screens and avoiding the temptation of looking at my phone. After I finished my beer, I shifted my attention to the dance floor and locked eyes with a girl with an attractive bare back. She smiled at me and I smiled back. But when I looked at Elena, I felt sick and gave up. I got my bag from the wardrobe and when I came back, Elena came up to me. ‘Are you leaving?’ ‘I can’t take it any longer.’ She grabbed my hand, but I pushed it away. I hugged Tina farewell and said goodbye to Seth, the Australian guy and even Toby. At the door, Elena kissed me and it destroyed me. She took my hand again and looked me in the eyes. ‘I had a wonderful time with you. You deserve-‘ ‘Yeah, yeah.’ Outside of the bar, I took out my headphones and put on Benji by Sun Kil Moon. I walked down to Hermanstrasse. It was the same stop where we had kissed each other goodbye on that first night and where I had received the phone call from Willem about his empty apartment. I walked down the stairs and went to

20

my platform. The sign said it was a twenty-eight minute wait. This time the U-Bahn wasn’t filled with people coming back from parties, but with commuters going to work. I sat on the floor and when the song ‘Dogs’ came on, I cried. He’s right: When you give that first finger, you’re the one that gets stung. I kept looking at the staircase in the hope of seeing Elena coming down, but I knew she wouldn’t. I rode the brightly-lit metro to Osloerstrasse and walked to Willem’s apartment. I hung the towels in front of the windows to keep the sunlight out, but it didn’t work. Still, I quickly fell asleep. The next day Willem got off from work at five. We met up at the Fernsehtauer at Alexanderplatz and went to sit in a nearby park. I put away my backpack, drank the bottom half of his beer and I talked. ‘She liked me. She did. I would’ve been able to tell if she didn’t. But last night destroyed the whole weekend. I never expected anything more than these days in Berlin. It could’ve been a great memory, but instead it became a complete destruction.’ ‘You were completely honest and that put her off. Our honesty is our strength, but it’s also our weakness. Believe me, I know.’ ‘I should’ve played it cool. I told myself that before. But Elena was so genuine, so smart, she saw through other people’s masks. So I tried to present myself without one.’ ‘You shouldn’t have done that.’ ‘If I had known she fell for guys who treat her like shit, I would’ve done exactly that. I would’ve acted - I know it works. I wouldn’t have been able to be myself with her, but at least I would’ve been with her.’ ‘I tell you, man, these women are all the same.’ ‘But, Willem, you and I, we’re the same way. We still talk about the girls that got away from us. Robin from Nijmegen or Maria Valena from Firenze. The ones who fall at our feet, are just okay. Like the girl from the subway.’ ‘Which one?’ ‘Exactly.’ We stood up and walked to the U-Bahn.

21

‘I’m sorry I neglected you these couple of days. I’m glad you’re here now.’ ‘That’s what friends are for.’ We walked down the stairs of the U-Bahn and I looked at the map to see which line would take me to the bus station. ‘I liked Elena more than she liked me and it bored her. I get that. I’ve had that myself. But when is the balance precisely right? What does it take to make a relationship work? Does it really take a child? Or does it only work when you start at an age when you’re still naïve? Don’t talk to me about having found “the one” if that “the one” happens to live in your goddamn neighborhood. My “the one” was born in Switzerland and lives in Denmark, for god sakes. But - I don’t know - maybe that kind of naivety is just what you need for a relationship to work.’ The platform was swarming with people. ‘Do you wait for someone who is as much in love with you as you with her? And if it’s not in balance, do you keep on acting to make it so? Are we destined to keep playing games? We all know what’s going on – we see it so clearly. I know Elena does, when she talks about her dislike of flakey people or the foolishness of falling for guys who treat you like shit. She knows people put on masks for other people and yet we still fall for those masks. Like she does for Toby. Like I do for girls with tattoos. We know. And still we fuck it up. We fuck it up.’