Tomorrow Berlin by Oscar Coop-Phane Page A

like women lying down or standing up, but seated, neither tall nor short; they don’t offer you their thighs, but simply remain there, at rest. It would be hard to know what to say to these women without realising they are the product of a terrible history, that they have been seated there, on these broad armchairs, so that they can once again welcome men freed from their demons. Since they provide warmth cheaply, little groups of artists take refuge in them. They don’t create anything, but it doesn’t matter; they live, going from one space to another, picking up furniture that they find on the pavement. They go cycling, their children following on their little bicycles without pedals, alternately balancing their little legs against the ground. In winter, when the pavements are snow-covered, the children are pulled along in sledges with a piece of string, like Inuits.These children look happy since people have time to take care of them, and their parents’ faces suggest they are carefree too.
    The streets are wide and people walk around, as though nothing could happen to them, as if here more than elsewhere people take time to live. People are a bit skint but they get by. The soups are good. People smoke in the cafés since it would be crazy not to. They work away on a laptop at some obsession. You sense Europe is around you, all its languages mixing and answering each other.
    Idleness is king. Sometimes, it ruins men; excess hollows the cheeks of those who don’t have to get up in the morning, the dark circles round their eyes look carved in. Some party until they can take no more – there is always somewhere open here to welcome them. It liberates some and crushes others. Freedom demands strength; some are weak and quickly lose their way. But around them, others continue with their bike rides, their tram journeys and their nice lives. It’s simple enough; these are men whom Work has not crushed. This is a situationist city.

I
    Since he was going to experience new things, Armand felt that he should write about them. He took a small black notebook and slipped it into his pocket along with a pen. When he was alone, he would make a sort of record of his existence.
    A notebook for Berlin. Write down a thought, a story, a joke every day (one page, as a discipline). I’m leaving tomorrow. There are some things I shall miss; but my excitement has the upper hand. Today, writing emails and carting things around, a scooter too. Leave the fewest traces possible, not contacting E or L. Leave alone, without ties, because that is ultimately what I wanted. A little adventure with all my twenty years of wisdom.
    Don’t make a song and dance of it, though. I’m going to live somewhere else, but like here; there’s nothing very disorientating about it. The language maybe, the signs, the street names and surnames, which I’ll have to decipher letter by letter like in primary school. Some customs will be different but maybe no more than in another district in Paris.
    I’ll no longer be at home and I can hardly wait. The streets will have no associations; I shall have to construct new memories.
    I’m sitting outside a café opposite V’s place, V who offered me his couch; the horrible rue de Baby-lone where I’ve had so many different experiences. Over there, all that will end. I understand why people talk about a fresh start.
    All the threads I have woven will disappear, that’s a therapeutic virtue.
    Where will I be this time tomorrow? In a street with an unpronounceable name, in a café again. That would be good.
    Where will I sleep tomorrow? No idea. In a bed probably. Places change; the same things happen. That’s no surprise really. It’s reassuring. But also troubling. So that’s life. That is how all future days will go. Cafés and a mattress at the end, alone or with a girl. Every night I’ll sleep on a bed or a sofa, on the ground, in the dirt. There is no surprise, no surprise parcel to