Berlin Syndrome

by Melanie Joosten

The housing blocks gave way to a strip of bars and cafes where punters crammed in close to one another around tables littered with beer glasses. Recalling the impassable existence of Andi’s body squashed against her own in the bookstore, she pulled out a chair at an empty table and waited for something to happen.

  One beer, she decided. She would wait for him for the time it took her to drink one beer, and then she would leave. But when her beer came it was slightly flat, immediately destroying any illusion that she was curating a perfect moment. He wasn’t going to come walking down that street, and why should he? She thought about things too much. She wished someone would take away her thoughts, wring them out and pass them back, clean, fresh and renewed. Perhaps it was time to go home.

  Clare’s face broke into a smile as he approached. He hurried the last few paces, flung the book onto the table and dropped himself heavily into the chair opposite.

  ‘I do not like Klimt, you know.’ His own words were halting, as though he did not want to give them up. Around them people laughed and waved their hands about, a parody of conversation. ‘I think his work is indulgent.’

  ‘Everyone thinks that,’ she replied, looking down at the book, rather than at him. ‘Because you’ve seen his work on coffee cups and greeting cards. But when you look at it properly, you see the way his people exist on a different plane. They’re real. They’re oversaturated with the moment he has put them in.’

  She was more than he remembered. He felt tension he had not even recognised leak from his shoes to the pavement, relief rocking in its wake. That morning Clare had appeared in his mind as a series of flashes, a stop-start animation of yesterday’s meeting. The mess of her hair that clashed so badly with the pink pipes. The green stitching that skipped around the wrists of her jumper. The way she threw her head back when she laughed. And so he had walked towards the Spree rather than his apartment, crossed the river and headed back to the bookstore.

  The book she had been looking at was sitting exactly where she must have discarded it the day before, and he had hesitated to pick it up. When he did, he had turned its pages slowly as though hunting for clues. He had always dismissed Klimt as being excessively decorative and flat, but looking through this book, he realised he had been presumptuous — he had never seen the artist’s drawings. Thin lines depicted languorous bodies; sleeping women embraced.

  ‘Your tag.’

  And there she was. Tucking his tag into his collar, her hand fluttering over his shoulder and falling to her side.

  ‘Thank you.’ He had looked back to the book. Had he conjured her up?

  ‘That’s my favourite.’

  He stopped flipping pages, and Clare pushed up against him to get out of a customer’s way. Trying not to breathe too deeply, Andi had turned another page. Put your arms around me. He had stared down at the page, a drawing titled Two Lovers. The man’s endless shoulders. His back a wavy line, rolling hills. The woman barely seen behind him, her body mimicking the man’s. He should have returned the book to the shelf, faced her and taken her in his arms, one fluid movement. But he could not bear to move and create that momentary gap between them.

  Wordlessly, she had stepped away and left the store. Why had she not waited for him to say something? Book in hand, he had followed her to the exit. The security system beeped at him, accompanied by the shop assistant’s questioning eyes, and he hurriedly paid for the book.

  He had walked for ten minutes before he saw her, hurrying up ahead, but he kept his distance, stayed back until she was seated.

  ‘I think, Clare, that I am in need of a beer.’ He looked away, searching to catch the eye of a waiter and, even in that moment, feeling that he was taking something from her.

  ‘You will find, Andi, that it is flat,’ she said, mimicking his own cadence. ‘But I think that it will not matter.’

  As the cold of the evening set in, they wielded their conversation like fencing swords. He dodged her attacks, and mounted challenges, each answer part of an adjudicated performance. When the conversation stopped, Clare looked at her watch, and he knew he could not let her away just yet.

  ‘Shall we have something to eat?’ When she nodded, he stood and offered his hand. ‘How about I make you dinner?’

  As she got up, he pulled her in close to him. He wanted to trace his finger along the straggling line where her hair parted. Instead he took her other hand, bringing both together so they were entirely encased between his own. He noticed that her eyes were grey, and nodded because this seemed right.

  Clare wanted to postpone the inevitable. Yesterday she had met him on a street corner, today she had shadowed him in a bookstore and tonight she would follow him to bed — but not just yet. As Andi went to the kitchen for another bottle of wine, she rummaged in her bag for a pouch of tobacco. There was not very much furniture in the room. A couch and an armchair sat on a green rug as though lolling about on a grassy island. A television stood in the corner, and a nearby trestle table nursed a stereo and neatly stacked records. The floors were stripped to their boards, the walls bare. Beyond a table stacked with papers, the kitchen opened off at the end of the space, a bench forming a waist-high divide.

  She crossed to the window and rolled a cigarette, the smell of unlit tobacco cutting through the room. Afterwards it would linger in the nooks but now, before it began smoking, it smelled like spring. She smoked a smoke; it smoked. What an unusually useful word. You could drink a drink, but it could not drink itself. Lighting the cigarette, she took a deep breath to the back of her throat. It was the slight dizziness of the first drag that she hankered for the most. She would be happy living on first drags for the rest of her life. Most things were like that. The first kiss, the first fuck with someone — so different from all those that came after. And yet how quickly they all became the same. A downhill slide to mediocrity. Though an uphill slide was difficult to imagine. Why did words that usually seemed so normal seem so questionable now? Aware of English being Andi’s second language, she found herself scanning all her words to make sure they made sense, editing out all that were colloquial or confusing.

  ‘Do you mind?’ she asked, waving her cigarette when he came back into the room.

  He shook his head and filled her glass before moving to the stereo. She pulled the window handle, but it did not move. Locked. The night sky was pallid with the lights of the city; the television tower stood above its stunted neighbours like a candle on a birthday cake. With her head against the glass she tried to see the ground five storeys below, but the light did not quite reach, rendering the courtyard a bottomless sinkhole.

  ‘In a desolate way, it is beautiful. You agree?’ he said, coming up behind her, slinging his arms around her waist and resting his chin on her shoulder.

  ‘Yes. Beautiful.’ She blew her smoke towards the window, a futile gesture — the smoke rammed against the glass where it seemed to hang, flattened and motionless, like a bedsheet drying on a still day.

  ‘I’m glad you like strawberries.’

  Andi whispered it into her ear, his breath tickling at her neck and sending a buzz down her spine. As she turned to face him, he plucked her cigarette from her hand and dropped it into his wineglass on the windowsill. Stripped of its distraction, she felt combative.

  ‘Do you really grow them?’ she asked, ducking her head to avoid his kiss. Passing the linden tree in the first courtyard earlier, its last leaves clinging to the branches, had reminded her that it was the tail end of autumn. Could strawberries be coaxed from the ground at such a time of year?

  ‘Does it matter?’ He kissed her, his arms creeping beneath her shirt, vanquishing all thoughts of strawberries.

  In the bedroom, they fumbled and clawed at each other’s clothes, falling to the bed as they tried to undress without letting each other go.

  Then, just as suddenly as he had begun, he leaned back, his hands withdrawn to his hips
. ‘Wait.’

  Her body was singing, crying out to be touched, but he climbed off the bed, leaving her lying there. She shuddered, like machinery too quickly shut down, and in response he lifted a finger to her, requesting pause. Bending to the bed, he unzipped her boots and pulled them from her feet. Trailing his hands up her legs, he slid his fingers beneath the waistband of her undone jeans. She reached for the yoke of his shirt, wanting to lift it over his head, but he shirked away. Nullified, she dropped her hands to her side. She was so entranced by Andi’s purpose that it suddenly seemed ridiculous to reach out and grab at his body.

  She lifted her hips in compliance, and he guided her jeans to her knees, tugging at one leg at a time until they came free. He kneeled astride her then, pulling her into a sitting position and relieving her of her shirt before letting her fall back to the bed. She reached to touch him, but it was as though her arms were not long enough.

  ‘Be patient.’ He smiled at her, bending down to kiss her stomach.

  She felt like she was on an operating table, surrendering her body to the responsibility of others. Goosebumps broke out along her side as he ran his hand up her bare leg. From toe to fingertip she could feel her hairs standing alert, and as he got up and finally began to shed his own clothes, longing broke out across Clare’s body like spot fires. She wanted him, and his composure only fuelled her impatience. She had been expecting the usual instantaneous give and take of these situations, real-time gratification dissolving the inevitable doubt that accompanied a one-night stand, not this kind of enforced hesitation.

  Undressed, he walked across to the doorway and turned off the light.

  ‘No, keep it on.’ She did not want to tell him that she had a fear of the dark. That unable to see where she was going, she worried about never being able to go anywhere. She would rather see him, see what they were about to do.

  ‘You know exactly what you want, don’t you, Clare?’ he said, silhouetted in the doorway.

  And because she knew it was expected, and because it was so immediately true, she replied without pause, ‘You.’

  He flicked the light back on and returned to the bed. They fucked as though it was a test to later be examined on, composure abandoned along with their clothes. She felt deeper in the bed than she possibly could be; that it was Andi who was both holding her down, and setting her free — a bubble rising to the surface. Yet when it was over and they pulled apart, she could not help but feel relieved. The thing they had danced around all afternoon was done; she had nothing owing.

  His voice broke the silence. ‘It’s funny, don’t you think, that we come to this?’

  She wished she was already asleep and not obliged to take part in this dissection. ‘How do you mean?’ These conversations that happened afterwards had once intimidated her; she always felt as though her answers were delivered off-key. But now they simply irritated her. She did not want to discuss what they had done; not yet, when they had just finished the doing.

  ‘Well, yesterday, there you were reading in the square, and now we are lying here naked.’

  ‘But we are still strangers,’ she said, casting her mind back, then realising. ‘You saw me reading? Where? Near the concert hall?’ She lifted her head to look at him.

  ‘Of course. That’s why I came to talk to you.’

  It made sense, but she detected a flutter of apprehension. She had assumed he just happened to be standing beside her at the intersection, strawberries in hand. This revelation meant something, she knew, but sleep beckoned and she hoped he would say no more. Cold, she reached to pull the quilt up.

  ‘No, wait.’ Andi grabbed her hand in his own.

  ‘But I’m freezing.’ She reached for the sheet again.

  He grabbed her wrist, held it beside her body. ‘No, really. Wait. When you get very cold and then cover up, it is even better.’ He looked at her. ‘I promise.’

  ‘Okay.’ A shiver crept up her leg, ready to pounce. She tried to imagine that it felt exquisite, but she could sense her body slowly becoming stiff. She tensed her knees, not wanting to move too much and stir the air around her. She released her kneecaps and the left one began to twitch uncontrollably as though it was jogging up and down to keep warm. She clenched her knees again, trying not to think about how cold she was, resulting only in thinking about how cold she was. Finally she gave in, curling her body to huddle against Andi’s. But he gave off little warmth, just enough to remind her that the rest of her was cold. She reached for the quilt and pulled it up.

  ‘So, what is next?’ His voice was borne through the air to one of her ears, travelled as vibrations through his chest to the other.

  ‘You will turn off the light, and I will fall into a deep sleep?’ Please, please let her sleep.

  ‘And after that? What then?’ He shifted her off his chest, and slipped out of bed to switch off the light. ‘What about love?’

  His disembodied voice floated from the end of the bed, trailing behind him as he climbed back in beside her. Did he really say that? He could not be serious.

  ‘Love?’

  ‘Will it come next, do you think? For us?’ He slipped his arms about her as he spoke, and despite the warmth, she thought about getting out of bed, dressing and leaving. She closed her eyes and waited for sleep to take her.

  One of Clare’s breasts is larger than the other. It droops a little more. Her left one. His right. He is watching her move through a series of stretches, and it’s making him feel lazy. She raises her arms above her head, grabs the elbow of one and holds the pose. As she does it, her breasts lift and come together, but even so he can tell one is slightly larger. Perhaps it is because she is right-handed. Is she right-handed? He tries to picture her reaching for something, or eating, but he cannot recall her hands. He does not think he has seen her write. Is it that she has nothing to write on or nothing to write about? He feels he knows her body better than he knows his own, yet he does not know whether she is right- or left-handed. If he bought her a notebook, would she make it into a diary? Document each day they spend together, muse about the future? Would she mention him at all?

  ‘You have one breast bigger than the other.’

  She looks at him. Says nothing. Drops her arms and then lifts them again, grabbing the other elbow. She is wearing a pair of his boxer shorts, and each time she stretches her arms, he can see how she has rolled them over at the waistband to keep them from falling down.

  ‘The left one.’ He wonders whether it has always been that way. He has not noticed it before. It sits lower than the other one. Just a little. Not much. Enough to notice if you’re looking closely. He likes to scrutinise her; there is so much to see. She is like a new person every day.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Oh.’ He thought he was telling her something new.

  ‘Most women do, you know.’

  ‘Really?’ Now it is she telling him something he did not know. This is why he will never tire of her. She asks him sometimes when he might get sick of her, and no assurance he gives ever seems to convince her that it’s just not possible. ‘So you are not symmetrical.’

  ‘No. No one is.’

  He contemplates this.

  ‘Is that a problem?’ She sits herself down on the ground, one leg placed straight out from her body, the other bent, and reaches for her toes. She looks like she is preparing to go for a run. She says it is one of her favourite things to do, and he thinks maybe he should buy her a treadmill — she would like that.

  ‘I’m not sure.’ He wonders if the perfect woman would have the same-sized breasts. Clare is strangely removed from her body. Sometimes when he sees her crash her hip into the table or misjudge the distance between herself and the bed, he wonders whether she is aware of her body at all. It is only when she is doing something like this — stretching, or yoga, or handstands — that she seems to pay her body
any attention. Even then she treats it as a machine, something to be serviced.

  ‘Would you like me to do something about it?’ She stands in front of him, her left breast cupped in her hand, questioning.

  ‘Perhaps.’ He wonders what she could do. ‘But it might be what makes you perfect.’

  ‘I could lop it off, like an Amazon warrior. They were rumoured to cut off a breast so they could fire a bow and arrow more accurately.’

  ‘Really?’ It makes sense. Breasts would be in the way. But it seems a lot of effort.

  ‘Well, probably not. They probably just bound them.’

  ‘Bound them?’

  ‘Like Chinese women’s feet. Broken up and packed away.’ She comes over to where he is leaning against the windowsill and mimics his stance. The sill thrusts her hips forward, an invitation. ‘So which one?’ she asks as he turns to her.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Which one would you cut off? The small one or the large one?’

  ‘Neither. I like every bit of you equally.’

  When he kisses her, he feels her breasts flatten against his chest.

  ~

  The third time Clare left Andi, the moon was sliding from the sky. As she extracted herself from the bed, Andi breathed on through his dreams. This was what she loved each day, this moment of possibility before the rest of the world caught up. Naked, she could be anyone right now. A businesswoman perhaps, about to slip into pantyhose and a suit that would crackle with static assurance as she trotted confidently down the stairs. An athlete about to attack the day, prove what her body was capable of.

  She walked across the dark hall to the kitchen, a room so incidental with nobody in it. She recalled her grandparents’ kitchen, dominated by a long table that could seat ten, more if you squashed into the reclaimed church pew that pressed against the wall. When all of her aunts and uncles were home, the kitchen was raucous, a battle zone. Younger cousins would slip beneath the table when they finished their lunch, clamber out from beneath the forest of legs and escape to the openness of the backyard. She would often wish she could do the same, feeling trapped as her family talked on through the afternoon. Instead she found herself sitting still, smile fixed, utterly bereft.