Like your poet
Perhaps, though I believe it more than anything, you won’t remember, you won’t recognize him, or, beneath the shadow of the last jacaranda roses, you won’t dare approach him. Even if you stand beside him with the Lisbon migrant from Latin America, perhaps he won’t start his usual conversation, and you’ll part ways, walking down opposite sides of the bustling street. But let it be so. Let it be. I only want to pierce through your reflection, straight into the iridescent, port city that shimmers in every alley. To walk that familiar route to the house with balconies stacked in rows. And then, to look out the window and, with the melancholy of a hopelessly in love, with that sweet violet longing watch another local immigrant crossing the street, savoring each deliberate step, each hum of the unfamiliar capital of an unknown country.
That’s why I ask, no—I beg you—for one thing: when you find yourself next to him, feel the words that dance along the shore—words about his strange nature, soaked in the musty scent of empty rooms and the clatter of bars. (Nature—alive, real, just like us! Do you understand?) Then, if you don’t mind, I have one simple request. If, early in the morning, between four and six, when the sky has not yet spilled its sand, you find yourself on the streets of Lisbon and see... No, let me start over. If, in those pre-dawn hours, you happen to be walking the central streets of Lisbon, and by some incredible chance you meet him—then approach him and talk about how wonderful the little gnats are as they fly by, how the city still shines even then, when shining—according to the laws of physics—is forbidden. I know that he’ll widen his half-smile, and start talking about Berlin, a place that obeys the law but still shines with its own beauty, all filled with memories of the impossible and the lived.
You’ll recognize him immediately by his ridiculous clothes—worn-out, faded, from the nearest second-hand store: completely mismatched, but always in dull, muted colors. It looks like it’s been pieced together from different people, randomly, illogically. But not everything in the world is subject to logic, dear Angela, and somehow, I’m sure you’ll understand: it’s him. And if you meet him on a day when the wind speeds into Lisbon and the rays stop in mid-air, you’ll recognize him by his long grey coat. Then, perhaps, for the first time, he’ll notice you—colorful socks, Latin curls—and he’ll say that even the Tagus seems particularly stormy today. You’ll smile, say something in return, and before you finish, he’ll add, “In Madrid, it’s warm today... Have you ever been to Spain?” You’ll say you haven’t, not once, but you want to go to Madrid, to the Andalusian wilderness, and maybe somewhere even further.
Then he’ll tell you he goes to these loud, carefree Spanish cities every year. “For sixteen years, I’ve known this: if I want to leave for somewhere far but still close, not home but not foreign—then it’s Spain again.” You’ll be surprised, ask how old he is, and he’ll answer that he’s almost forty—then, without missing a beat, he’ll add: “Seville’s not far from here... Berlin—my immigrant homeland—is much farther. In the first few months here, I used to fly back often, but now I think: if immigration is the goal and the direction, you have to accept it. Besides, Spain is so close, and it’s my second home, after Germany.” You’ll want to tell him that your home (and mine, my homeless angel, and mine) is more far away than both, but you’ll stay silent, not allowing the streets of Ecuador to aim their water guns directly at your eyes—eyes that are black. His are blue, clear, icy, almost broken blue. Remember this too. No, write it down. Here’s my notebook.
Or maybe you’ll meet him a few hours or months later—in a university auditorium. You’ll be a few minutes late, and he’ll smile at you—not so much with his lips as with his eyes, their ice melting into a fleeting blue sky—and then everything will return to how it was. You’ll want to know what kind of coldnesses has been in his life. You’ll sit in the front row, see that he’s already in a suit—blue, embroidered with white maple leaves—and he’ll scan the students of his new university, whispering in German, “More than in Berlin,” but you’ll hear it. You’ll also hear something in his voice—anticipation. Of what? A conversation about German literature? Another lecture on Germanistics? The students’ attention? Of course, the students’ attention, of course, the lecture. Tell me, Angela, what’s it like to be his student? But it’s better if you write it down too. I want to keep it and paste it into my imagination—firmly, forever, indefinitely.
You won’t have time to think about anything else before he continues: “Hello, I’m Alexander Lipp, your professor of Germanistics. There are only two rules in my lectures: call me Alex and have fun.” (And: “Use the informal “you,” but that’s a German rule, exclusively German, and meaningless in English, as meaningless and disconnected as my current explanations, ideas, and stories.) The next hour, he’ll talk about the history of Germanistics and the most obvious associations with it, so vividly, so thoroughly, that he’ll turn the lecture room into the very places where German poets once wrote their verses. He’ll walk around the room, occasionally locking eyes with a student, asking them something related to the subject. And your young, immigrant heart will surely notice the subtle digressions in his speech, a shimmer of immigrant undertones: “And how could he describe this tragedy of an immigrant in just a couple of lines if he wasn’t an immigrant himself?”
At the end of the lecture, he’ll mention that he’s recently arrived in Lisbon and wouldn’t mind learning more about the city in one of its local bars or cafes. You’ll be the first to come up to him, and he’ll extend his hand. His wrists will be thinner than yours, and you’ll shake hands.
“I’ve just arrived here too. How about a bar down the street?” (Portuguese name, English number).
“Great, we can talk about immigration, if you’d like,” and you’ll head to your philosophy lecture, thinking to yourself that you’re being careless—what if he... Meanwhile, Alex will laugh at a joke from another student, saying that the German wordplay would have been funnier, and... but you won’t hear the rest. Will you like how he looks? I forgot to describe him. Slicked-back hair, naturally light brown but darkened with gel. Crystal-clear gaze, long fingers, slender wrists (though you already know this), a straight nose, thin lips. Well?
Or maybe you’ll decide to learn German and become one of his students, always arriving on time for his lessons, and a few months later, you’ll be the youngest, the springest (like your poet, like your people) in his conversation clubs. Alex will note each student’s mistakes, speak only in High German—but you’ll notice how, sometimes, in the middle or at the end of a word, the Berlin dialect will slip out, like train smoke covering the next word, vanishing into the Ecuadorian jungle. Do you still remember the scent of blooming sprouts, their farewell to you on the day of your immigration, your escape? No, I don’t want to make you cry. I’m just stumbling over a thought, tripping over a pink branch—I’ve never thought it would be as hard to talk about a man as about those hazel eyes, in which there’s something aeolian, abandoned, infinite. As about a woman.
So what was I saying? In between the actions, Alex will be drawing something. One day, you’ll find a piece of paper with his sketches (at the end of each lesson, he gives them to the students with their frequent mistakes, but you’ll be afraid to look at your ones—your German should be as smooth as rustling grass in a Westphalian field—but then you’ll venture to look and... see only an imperfectly formed perfect tense): trains, mountain slopes, Berlin buildings, and someone’s eyes—you’ll keep thinking that in the colored version, they’re green. You’ll thank him for the lesson, and he’ll reply that it’s just extroverted impulses to communicate and widen his half-smile again. Then you’ll notice, for the first time, that his voice is hoarse—not low, but specifically hoarse—how much I want to hear it! How it must sound! Will you describe it, my Angel?
Angela, my dear Angela, forgive me for my insistence, forgive me for these wild theories and the shadow of madness that trails behind them, but… maybe you’re not a Latin girl at all, but the portrait of the woman with green eyes from the previous paragraph? I remember how he painted you: he woke up earlier than C., as usual, and saw in her sleeping expression that cinematic quality of the old—still silent—films, which, like the smoke from burnt cigarettes, lingered around her the day they met. He placed a large sheet in the center of the room (and thus at the heart of the apartment) and began to trace every detail of her features, everything that remained in them from the old actresses—black lipstick, the stillness of the smile, the frozen spark in her gaze. And it turned out to be whether Carla, with her white dandelion eyebrows and thin layer of black lipstick, whether Marlene, Marlene, Marlene… Dietrich, of course. Since you’re a painting, then you’re art, and he is art, and I’m… the author? (Just the author, just the narrator, the creator of tragically sad stories about leaving one’s homeland and never returning back; about loving a homeless Mexican girl, like we both are, and being a witness to her final escape; about walking through a whistling, murmuring forest and feeling that here, in this very meadow, your love was shot; leaving, endlessly leaving, only to eventually return to Gustav-Müller 20A—it’s his address. My little angel, are you writing all this down?)
Now you’ve migrated for the fifth time: Stuttgart – Krakow – Madrid – Versailles – Berlin – Lisbon. You hang above the sofa, with the balcony to your right and a view of the Tagus, surrounded by his clothes in the wardrobe, and photo albums filled with polaroids of Alex, Carla, Spain, Berlin. Often, the sky flickers on them, piercing through buildings and squares, and I want to ask you: what sky is there now in Porto-Ga-Galicia-Iselburg? My geography melts in other people’s memories, my voice drowns in Venetian waters, I’ve been loving a girl, since long ago, her name is M. Miranda? Miriam? Margot? No, let’s start again. What sky is there in Lisbon now? How I long to see the same sky he does. No, no, no. I need the sky of Berlin, the night, the moonlit sky. If you’re not a painting, let’s go to the Rhine to catch stars, to curse dreams. Oh, there are such mimosa trees! I’m losing the thread of the story, I’m losing it…
Let’s weave the thread anew: you’ll come to the bar, the smallest, the most insignificant one among its sleek tables, large glasses, drunken men, and their attention. You’ll wander between the counters and spot Alex in his usual clothes—let’s save the suits for work. He’ll smile at you, you’ll sit at a table, and for the first hour of your conversation, you won’t understand why you’re not drinking, why you’re talking about Latin America, why in Spanish, and why there’s his passion for escape between you, when you admit that, at twenty—just a year ago—you wouldn’t have minded being the unknown of the Tagus, and then he leaves, the door rings, and you’re sure he’ll go to another bar, talk to someone else all night. And only when the past flutters in like a white butterfly he will return to his apartment at an unpronounceable name, an English number. Spanish, German, Ecuadorian number… A row of street numbers, an endless series of streets, branching roads—and how can you meet here?
No, I believe: you’ll meet, and the birds of Lisbon will start chirping with split voices, and you’ll say—these words are why I’m saying all this—that… We haven’t left the bar yet? Forgive me my forgetfulness, dear Angel. For your forgiveness, I’ll tell you another scene. A couple of months later, in November, you might see it if you’re in the bar, if you speak with Alex or are nearby. In the middle of a word—does it even matter what it’s about?—he’ll pause, gaze into the distance, and the ice in his eyes will crack, letting tears fall as Marlene sings about her suitcase left in Berlin; about the impossibility of comparing this city to the beauty of Paris’ Rue Madelaine, May Rome, or a summer night in Vienna; about the greatest love, born in Schöneberg long ago. And on the last note, he’ll draw a line to the comma and say that in bars, you can rarely find real music (which, like his favorite films, comes from the 1920s): sincere, unpretentious, with all those clicks and noises, mingling with the song itself. You’ll say it was beautiful, very beautiful, and after that, silence will follow. Not because you’ve fallen silent, but because I’ve grown tired of talking and just want to get to the point of it—but where is the way to it? Across the Westphalian field—my heart whispers this hint loudly, as if shouting—across the Westphalian field.
Angela, maybe you’re Carla? Or maybe you want to follow me to his apartment from the Lisbon city center at night, where someone is singing in Portuguese, but you can’t find the singer anywhere, and then you realize it’s just the sounds of the city: the hum of an engine, someone’s conversation heard through the window, and the ever-ringing doors. We’ll become invisible and walk into his apartment, step out onto the balcony, and under the scatter of Portuguese stars (you’ll sigh: no resemblance to the Latin ones), we’ll listen to his conversation with C. It will go on for a long time, and I’ll keep being amazed at how strong their connection is. It runs from Munich straight to the main Portuguese port city, twisting through the streets of a couple of countries, eighteen years passing since the day they met, and the parting that perhaps has never happened at all, at least not in the reality. Would you want that kind of love?—hopeless, yet fluttering, flying, like a falling star.
I want to tell you about how they understand each other even more than I understand him, how they’ll spend forty years together (and only four of them married), how I long to love like that and receive the same in return. But I fall silent, my tongue trips, and the orange sky shows the shadow of night’s shoes, and he is impossibly far. Yes, yes, yes! The night. I know that tonight he will have another immigrant’s dream chasing him, in which he’ll wake up at a distant now train station, and beside him, the understanding that such life is a trinket thrown into a fountain. In his pre-immigrant past, he’ll try to throw it out, but in the present, in his dromomanic state, he’ll wake up, and his steps will become a part of the music of an unfamiliar capital in an unknown country. Alex, it’s a dream, the present is reality, and you are its part. But he’s not here, you say. I know this way too well, and it’s a bitter knowledge...
Alright, let’s start over for the last time. If one early shimmering morning, between ten and twelve, you get on a train to Seville, thinking about how the Andalusian sun doesn’t scatter sand but shinningly laughs—it’s how you imagine it—please, sit next to Alex and say “hi” without the “h.” He’ll ask, “Are you from Spain?” You’ll reply, “No, just from Ecuador,” and you’ll regret this absurd understatement. Your country is the most marvelous rose, its Amazonian wilds are incomparable to Andalusia, as Berlin is to Paris, Rome, and Vienna. So why “just”? Then you’ll talk again, about everything that can be talked about, again in Spanish, and he’ll drop a confession on the floor of the train carriage, saying that he’s going to Spain not because he wants to experience its greatness for the hundredth or thousandth time, but because of his dromomanic habit—not at all romantic, as many might think. Then, please, take out the notebook with my confession, reread it, and as if by accident, say that sometimes I feel so violetly lonely, so sad, that with the tears, life pours from my eyes, and so hopelessly I wish—at this moment, speak a little louder, touch his hand—that he existed.
