A Return to Paradise (for Exberliner Magazine)

Ever since Adam and Eve bit into the apple, looked down and gasped at their naked bits, man has shied away from nudity and sought forever to cover himself in garments. Without clothes he feels somewhat embarrassed, as if exposing something that would give himself away to others. Long has this characteristic woven itself into Western society, so often crossing paths with sexuality. But somewhere along the way, man, or Finnish man at least, dug up the notion of the sauna. And while today there are many social channels promoting a fearless sort of nudity (Germany certainly isn’t short of them), none seems to do it with quite such whole-hearted abandon as the sauna. Its almost like we’ve found a return to paradise, albeit temporary.

This allusion to an idyllic place is hardly one that strikes the anxious sauna first-timer. The prospect of complete nudity, everything told, in front of strangers who may well be the opposite sex can be alarming. Most of all, the mind cannot separate the sauna from sex. A foggy blur of sweaty bums, breasts and penises spring up and stand like blockades to objective judgment. I twitched every time my girlfriend set the idea upon me. ‘But what if…’

And then I was there and all the fog cleared (the steam sauna apart). This was like a fancy dress party. Turn up in normal clothes and you feel completely ridiculous compared to the person smoking a cigarette in the hippo outfit. Here of course, it was absurd to wear any clothes. Nudity was the norm, unremarkable. Bums there were, but these were as common as a pair of jeans on the street. Sexuality was a non-issue. Besides, does the appeal of sex not find its most potent form in the promise of what is hidden rather than the full exposé itself?

Something didn’t seem right. Something that I took for granted everyday, that I did as naturally as I blink and breathe. Ah yes, judgment! Categorising people that you see everyday and fitting them into the banal social pools that before long, becomes reflex. I couldn’t place the guy with long hair and a small tattoo over there on the far bench. Hair, and sometimes a tattoo, are all one has to go on. Long Hair might be a Harley-Davison character. But there was no moustache. Is he a grunge figure then?

This was the sauna guessing game. More pertinent however was the unearthly and refreshing neutrality of it all. It is said that early Finnish traditions saw the sauna as a welcome break to the great gender divide. In work and leisure, man and women had separate roles, but in the sauna everyone rolled up together. Similarly, it seems that some of our social divisions evaporate in the heat of the sauna.

Sure enough, I met Long Hair shortly before we left the place. Here in the changing rooms we underwent a metamorphosis back into society’s labels, namely clothes. And I felt mildly ashamed. Now, getting dressed and covering up all those bits I had never wanted to expose in the first place, there was shame! I was giving myself away to others. I put on a hoodie, so I was a skater-dude presumably. All around me people were doing the same. For the last three hours these people had passed me here and there in the sauna, and I knew them only in their naked guise. Now that they suddenly wore clothes it was strange. Their bums were concealed but they were altogether exposed.

Some of my fellow saunerers turned out in the clothes I had imagined for them. But Long Hair, brandishing a clean-cut suit with a pink shirt underneath, and no sign of a leather outfit, came out of the blue. And then we slid back into the ‘real’ world, where nudity was a virtual sin, where the apple had been bitten.

Not Tom and Jerry

Had I been to a concerto before? I found out at the Berliner Philharmonie when a piano was raised in the front of the stage. A tail-coated man walked humbly to his stool. And I thought of Tom and Jerry. I thought of that triumphant mouse playing with the keys, winding Tom’s stool way up high, crashing the piano’s lid down on his paws, anything to put that poor cat off his performance. No, never before, this was certainly my first time.

At the Philharmonie the orchestra plays to some people behind it, as well as to the vast majority who sit before the stage, including me tonight, somewhere in the middle. Above some beige convex objects, presumably an acoustic aid, hang looking like overturned masts of sailing ships blowing in the wind. Between them threads course down, terminating in microphones though there might have been spiders. Below the creature plays. The bows of violins and cellos poke out frequently like tentacles, while suddenly at the back appears the beat of drums and trumpets. At the mouth the conductor waves his wand, seemingly holding the music in a highly delicate balance somewhere above the players. Sometimes one fears he might not drop it.

In films, plays or rock concerts the spectator’s eye is treated to changing images. But nothing too much apparently changes here throughout the beautiful playing, save the poking tentacles and the waving wand. But such an assortment of different players means the concerto is full of riches. They were young and old, man and woman, and they came from here and there. During a piece I found it most interesting to choose, for a spell, to focus on member. Some were dancing in their eyes, visibly charmed by the sounds as we were, and they would roll with the music, and sometimes exchange a look of mini-euphoria with their fellow fiddler. Others were almost motionless, feet unmoving, expressions caged-in, not a sign of emotion, an overtly frozen-out part of the assembly which was however, crucial to it. The conductor’s was naturally turned away from most of us, but I suspect, for all his humble entrances (arm behind back), and his solemn bows once he had turned around at the end of a piece, he did in fact pull some rather bizarre faces. I was actually rather envious of those sitting behind the orchestra who will have got a full view.

One wondered who these people were. A few, I fancy, were classic school boffins, never celebrated by their peers. But there were also those whose great virtue is his music-making amid a sinful life of drinking and gambling. Some too one just couldn’t guess, for instance a long-haired women who I could only imagine meeting in the S-Bahn with her handbag rather than here in the Philharmonie. These people are lost in the world’s enormity of beings, and then find their own individual path to come together and form this extraordinary music-making organism

The pianist, on stage for two of the four pieces, was, I decided, definitely a very quiet man in all manners of life, hardly noticed by friends, family, or the world at large. Until, for a fleeting moment, he is a supreme player of the piano, swooping for the spotlight in a way that might be mistaken as melodrama. He wiped the sweat from his forehead whenever he wasn’t tapping, and he was hard to ignore, playing so many of his notes almost reluctantly, and with high caution, as if he might otherwise abuse the power of the instrument and forsake that fragile balance of which the conductor was doing so well to keep in sway.

Still, I simply have to download that Tom and Jerry cartoon. Its one of the very best.

Fear the Man, not his Dog

Downstairs, living at the bottom of this block of apartments, is a very tall man whose neck and head are taller still. He is to be found often lurking at the entrance door, surrounded with a pack of dogs that might all have been Doyle’s Hound of the Baskervilles. They look rotten, frothy, and hungry. This was how I met them first, and him too, a year ago. Seeing the beasts, I instinctively continued my walk where it should have stopped. From the other side the path seemed clearer. I pathetically made out that I had made a miscalculation after passing the door, but the tall man understood it all. He spoke in German, and then said “Its ok, they’ve already had their breakfast.” Luckily it seems they had their day a long time ago, for under closer inspection these hounds were old and, even if they had preyed upon naive Englishman in the past, had not the will anymore.

It is, however the will of this tall man that continues to haunt me. In recent nights a whipping and a wailing has come from the garden at the back of these apartments. A new dog, clearly young, was crying because the man, appearing from his back door in his dressing gown, would slash it with his belt. It occurred in intervals. And one could never sleep for fear of the sound, the whipping and wailing. It has ceased following the complaints of the residents. But the sound has become part of the air here, and I dread it now while writing. In fact complaints had been made about the dogs before. But we have come to realize, fear the man, not his dog. This is how a Hound of the Baskervilles is made, if not in literature.

Communication

On days like these one hopes that, no matter how little you understand, the onslaught of words will somehow slowly settle in your mind overnight and rest on the retina there at the back. This is to clutch at a positive. For today was four hours with my girlfriend’s parents, four hours full of German conversation. And then four more at her best friend’s birthday party. Subjects included photographic technology.

What does one show on his face in these moments? Smile? Yes a bit, but don’t look stupid, after all they know that you don’t understand. Same goes for looking them in the eyes while they talk. Its ok while they are not returning the gaze, but when they do, switch quickly to a nearby object. For to look into each other’s eyes feels like a con, as if you are trying to convince the other that in fact you can understand. Once again, stupid. But cast your eyes dreamily around the kitchen and you must pay attention, for boredom is immediately apparent, and, in the presence of my girlfriend’s parents, this is undesirable. So keep the eyes twinkling. The feeling is of hopelessness when, after a roar of laughter around the table, one discovers that a thin smile is across his face. For what? Is laughter funny in itself? Above all, say something sometimes. The longer the period between your last sentence and the next (German or English), the more resonating any future utterance may be. It feels like everyone holds their breath.

Reading that paragraph I really feel like an old-fashioned Englishman so over-concerned with manners.

There is, of course, an acute loneliness attached to learning a new language. It is classically abstract like loneliness almost always is. One can be in the most heart-warming of German beer tents and still feel it. Surrounded by company but well short of communication, I felt myself shrinking into a little ball inside myself, always sinking deeper into the depths of my bowels, so that my mouth was a long dark tunnel away. My body was a host to a little ball, merely able to conduct itself politely (see above). Then, on the way home, with the company now divided, two of the boys spoke English to me, and it felt like a cannon had fired that little ball into my mouthpiece, and I rather shouted into conversation, so euphoric at the thrill of communication. These are the thorny beginning of learning a language, and worse still, they induce the sort of self-pity witnessed here.

Sauna

As the autumn begins to settle in Berlin, Germans are taking their clothes off and preparing for some serious heat. You couldn’t find a hotter place in Australia. Sauna season. At least almost, today was a little early. The real cold – it was -15 here two years ago – has yet to come. Today in Friedrichshain there were no signs of bunched men and women sitting like sardines in a 90 degree sauna while a woman (always a woman) emerges to add a little flavour (today it was orange) and test everyone’s resolve with some merciless towel air-whipping. No, it was quite empty today. The echoes of a crying baby, an early starter, made it seem a little hospital like. It left more time to think a little. When I was introduced to saunas the main scares were sexual (an ill-timed erection for instance). Let it be said that I am now a sauna regular, in fact I’ve tried ten or more in Berlin. But today another horror struck me, a lift-type phobia. Someone appears in the small window of the door to the sauna, smiles outrageously, and then locks us in there. In fact I imagined a Jack Nicholson sort of smile. Only if he came charging through with an axe it would be the greatest of reliefs. I got over Jack, and then went for the main show. We might just as easily call this place The Bucket. Heart thrashing and body soaked, I stand under the Bucket while Tini pulls the rope. Gushing and very cold, the water is overwhelming, and then I fizz all over and realise how much fun it was. In fact its just like a sky dive – the moment the parachute comes up you are suddenly aware that the thing you dreaded was actually most enjoyable, but you weren’t quite able to grasp the glory as it happened. All that’s left is the bubbling froth to tickle you. This is my sauna buzz, and there shall surely be many more this winter.

Austrian Chicken Farm

None told us an Austrian chicken farm travels on the 23:00 from Munich to Berlin in October. And you'd have no idea when falling asleep above the rhythm cycles of the train. Then as consciousness trickled back the next morning (for me it always trickles, rather than snaps, even on this occasion) I realised it was because of the squawking voices beyond the curtain. (The train had bunk-beds either side of the main corridor, and only curtains sealed off one pairing from another). " Frühstuck! Frühstuck! Frühstuck! Oh, ja, ja, ja, ich habe gut geschlafen, sehr sehr gut, oh ich nicht, ich überhaupt nicht, willst du ein kasebrot, oder zwei?, oh, ja, ja, ja, danke, danke, bitte, bitte, bitte, oh caffe, ja caffe, danke, danke, bitte, bitte." All these phrases constantly repeated at shattering pitches by half a dozen middle-aged Austrians, and occasionally the rabble rocked the carriage with an unexpected blow of coordinated group breakfast-laughing. I am told the eruption occurred after the train conductor tip-toed down the corridor to mention that the train would be arriving in Berlin in 45 minutes. For these chickens, all of course packed and ready to go, this meant the whole carriage must be ready for cheerful chatter and witty remarks. Welcome to Berlin. I don't yet speak German (sadly, though I did not envy my German girlfriend, Kristina, the poor girl who learnt all about the ghastly Rosie’s sleeping habits), but it was quite clear this was conversation for the sake of it, an abrasive and desperately irritating morning keenness that got into my ears, under my nose and eventually down through my oesophagus to the very rattle cage of my heart. When I walked down the corridor to more peaceful areas, and then returned, if felt like the last scenes in the Blues Brothers, when the director cuts between Jake and Elwood, seeking the bank manager in silence, and the whole of the New York police department and military in desperate and loud pursuit. Blues Brothers has more class though.