Comets through rainmist

The coffee brothers: a Munich flashback

Did you drive to the airport? Had a spare seat next to me that was nice, how far is it we took off and then we were here and I was like oh. Really sunny today but tomorrow’s gonna be six degrees and raining – no I checked the BBC – yeah grey and raining, pretty annoying but never mind, wanted to do some walking but we’ll see.

Bavaria wintergusts, memories rattle. In Friday, body-warmed dining rooms mist the curry-house glass. Pillinger flashbacks on retro metro amid paneer bloatedness. I think about paying the bill, the rechnung bitte, with cos tan. Sohcahtoa! Reclaim the triangle. Glue-like weightiness of the wheat pint.

Do you get which and that? I think so yeah. The man’s suitcase that slid across the floor, but if I wanted to add extra information I’d say the man’s suitcase, which was red, slid across the floor, yeah that’s the difference I think oh yeah yeah I still don’t fully get it but makes sense. I know it but I can’t remember it. I can’t remember why. Sometimes I’ll teach them grammar in class but not too much it gets in the way.

The city marked out in cafe cocoons. Bendy buses drip rivers of second-hand rain. Our initial voyage past huge car vending machines, then the soaked odyssey through skinny GAS trunks on mini desire paths right on the periphery. Gaga-faced statues preside over barren canals. Banksy lands on perimeter as a big crow. We tram onwards.

You remember The Waste Land? Right at the start? Marie Larisch. Goes to Starnbergersee, goes to the Hofgarten. Is that round here? She was from round here, I think. A countess. It’s mad that bit, with the lake and the garden and everyone rushing into the coffee houses. You should definitely go to the lake before you leave Germany, go to Starnbergersee.

Winding lanes obscured by dampfogs. Ricocheting shrill beep from inside crammed tram. We graze the outside paperbacks. Backstreet art deco displays illuminate the dusk depression. Window horses for sale. Gripped by the current of the river of umbrellas. Seeking solace in the veiled lanes. Bells incessant.

Camilla’s parents live in one of those country houses, you know, with the big gates and the driveway, they are truly posh but really nice people, I’m not so surprised because Camilla is a nice person but uh maybe you’d expect them to be horrible or something, I always knew she was posh but that was like in a book a proper mansion but it’s great, Camilla, that she’s so down to earth, that she’s not a snob.

Drizzle-land sanctuaries, punctuate it all with a chocolate brownie. Coffee Fellows. Coffee brothers. Bundesliga on the big screen, in slow motion with no sound. In the throbbing cavern, a catalogue of murky beers in bulbous glasses, like scientific instruments. Late-afternoon peachy hum. Emotion tickled by the big-percentage rumble. Handling ourselves with grace. Split voices rise into the chamber – where is the table with Burial and Skee Mask and Banksy? Or are they the same person, just one man?

Probably are the same person, aye. And that guy from Massive Attack too what’s his name Robert some journalist did an article and he pieced together where the band had been playing and where Banksies were spotted pretty impressive don’t know if it’s true but I asked for a little one she mustn’t have understood, not sure I want this massive one. Maybe you have to specify the size or she just gives you the massive one.

Under the grey surge of the evening. Dodging a descending grip of melancholy, White Russians devoured. American voices stand out, hearty sounds in plaintive moments. Glowing optics. Molten whiskey bottles. Pussers warming up with the throb of the saturated shoppers. Girls faces glow in tangerine lamps. Memory blacks out. The elegant bar sways like a ship at sea in a storm.

Did he just tell you to move the water again?

Blondes in stripy kit. A wooden boat perched above our heads. The girls look like sailors. Dribbling twilight through frosted windows. Dampness clings to this velvety haven. Occasional flashbacks to other dusk bars, both real and imagined. Absinthe pangs. Uni-era bounces back into foreground.

I don’t like that girl, what was it, Valeria, don’t like the way she came to the door and hugged Giuseppe, like what was that for? She loves the attention – shows the other guys, the Ukrainian guys she met on the plane, that she’s popular and also gives the impression to Giuseppe that she likes him too, does my head in that, but Tinder girls, what do you expect. They’re all like that. Pizza’s fucking nice though, even though it’s a rectangle.

Haloes of clock faces and streetlights like comets through rainmist. Drenched night. Late-day cyclists appear, tiny beams wobbling out of the tree-leaf shadows. Shells of ginormous beer halls silhouettes against weak violet light. Skee Mask bleep like a heart monitor.

Now we can just google anything we want, it’s too easy just to do it there and then, living with these tiny chunks of information we can find anything out immediately, we don’t have to work for the information anymore, it’s not hidden it’s too accessible in fact my mind works like Google these days I remember thousands of pointless little details and then move onto the next thing before I’ve even remembered them or taken them in.

Autumn is a stifling greyness. The odd leaf amber on brown pavement carpets. Sunday restaurant windows masked by condensation. European bitter coffee, room pierced by women-only gossip; the men hide behind the fridge. Eternal soupiness. Coats drenched in thin mizzle, museums becoming visible only later. Deserted supermarket apt for these solitary streets. Ghostly aisles sad behind the large glass frontage.

Yeah my head’s like Google now I can’t concentrate on anything I don’t know what’s wrong with me, can’t connect with anything right now this is the worst weather a constant grey all day it never gets properly light.

Footsteps screech on polished floor as we shield from the drizzle-lashed boulevard. Beyond, a labyrinth made from almost-endless crucifixion carvings. The solitude of the Jesus rooms. Intricate metalwork gleams from display cabinets, hours of graft seen in ceiling-tall woven rugs, incredible technique from buried days. Exhaustive toil.

Sort of don’t want to go outside can we just stay here yeah maybe but I’m getting a bit hungry like yeah need another coffee ah it does me in a bit these displays, kind of embarrassing all that work, that skill going into these statues I mean what the fuck have I done but if I was to make a statue people would just be like oh well that’s been done before and this generation, what will we have to show for it, just spending all our time on Twitter and Whatsapp.

The freshness as we step back out into Sunday. Afternoon brittleness, evening descending. Faint GAS-like symphonies distorted by carriageway humming – but is it in our heads anyway? Is it really there in the Bavarian acoustics? Further cafe dwellers hiding in big scarves that cover the bottom half of their heads. Other figures shadow past the coffeehouse, outlines of Banksy, Burial, Skee Mask. Anonymous heroes locked in the grainy spittle that heralds the clocks back.

What will I do next? I really don’t know, ah I’ll try not to think about it today but I have to decide have to decide ah look at that the Karlsplatz treble Karlsplatz (Staccus) Karlsplatz (Staccus) Karlsplatz (Staccus) got to get a photo no let’s go over yes did you get it that’s the album cover want a burger yet or should we wait.

Suddenly we become the art. Nam June Paik-style illuminations in the sitting room. Foggy nightness in our breaths. Far-off car beams drop as gliding meteors. Pillow-soft landings. Cold mission. Fractured skeletons like mere tracings of Chicago house.

Where does Shackleton live? Outside of Berlin I think he used to live in Berlin but hang on what was that other thing we wanted to google oh I know where does Shackleton live no hahha not where did Shackleton die not that Shackleton oh right Neukölln that’s a suburb of Berlin he still lives in Berlin I think he’s originally from Bristol same as Banksy and that guy from Massive Attack nah I haven’t heard much later stuff by him let’s see what’s on Spotify ah they’ve got that album he did with Pinch on – Pinch and Shackleton together.

In the weightlessness of another brown morning, coffee thoughts collide. Lands completely mapped. Scrambled omelette duvets the room and lessens the dullness. Mushroom potpourri. Snow-globe emporiums, trampled expectations. Cafes with hairdressers’ decor. Elegant whisky shelves. I down another jug of milk.

I think I’ll write a novel with all the characters from The Waste Land, starting with all the people rushing into the colonnade, to the Hofgarten for a coffee then Marie Larisch, Madame Sosostris, Mrs Equitone, Stetson, the ladies in the pub, Mr Eugenides, Tiresias, the young lovers, Phlebas the Phoenician, maybe bring in the Fisher King, maybe that’s a bit too out there yeah yeah and the bits with Eliot himself, like when he had a breakdown, like when he sits down by the waters of Lake Leman and weeps.