Proust Said That Goes to Berlin

For the last year, I have corresponded with a member of the German Proust Society, Michael Sostarich, who found Proust Said That on the Internet, and introduced it to his colleagues. Much to our mutual surprise, this bohemian and unscholarly work found favor in their eyes, and Michael urged me to come to Berlin for the society's annual conference at the end of October.

The prospect of attending moved me profoundly in three ways: the first was that it pleased me immensely to be approved of by members of the academic community, not because I wish in any way to be an academic, but because my university career was riddled with disappointment when I heard my work degraded for insufficient stuffiness. The second was the prospect of fraternizing with serious Proust afficiandos; I reasoned that people who have a deep understanding of Proust also have a deep understanding of life in its funny, albeit cruel, reality, and anticipated much humor and little bullshit in such camaraderie.

The third motivation was personal; six years ago, when I was about to go to Berlin for the first time, planning to arrive around the first anniversary of the Wall coming down, my beloved friend Miss X found a flyer on the bulletin board of the German Department at Berkeley, "East Germans Wish to Correspond with Californians." Write to these people, she said, and maybe you can stay there when you're in Berlin. We did write several letters, but I was too late in announcing the plans for arrival, and only found their prompt response, with instructions on how to get to their house, when I returned home.

Unlike most East Berliners, they had a phone, but the number was in the letter that I didn't receive in time, and much to my shocked surprise, there was no telephone book for East Berlin. The taxi drivers in West Berlin did not know the streets of the city's other half. "Can't we look at a map?" I asked, and they looked at me in disbelief. "There is no map of East Berlin," they said. So I never got to meet my Berlin connection on that first trip, but we continued to write to each other, and three years ago, my correspondent and three friends came to California and stayed at Proust HQ. We had such a great time with them that when they left California, I said they could come again as often as they wished, and send their friends. They have sent many friends, two of whom have come twice, and all of them have been stellar additions to our household. So by going to the Proust conference, I would have the added pleasure of seeing all these friends again on their own turf.

Returning from the annual Burning Man festival out at the Black Rock Desert after Labor Day, I devoted my energies to figuring out how I could raise the funds to finance the trip to Berlin. Proust Said That may have achieved a certain amount of gracious notoriety, but it has certainly not financed anything, not even itself, since the vast majority of readers will find it on the Net, and two months of my life are given wholly to producing each issue, months in which I don't work at anything lucrative at all. This magazine costs me a great deal to produce, and makes virtually nothing; the other months of my life when I can do paying work must provide the funds to support my literary habit, and travel is rarely in the budget; I must find creative means of financing my travels.

While I was contemplating creative fundraising, I hosted one of those annual "desert decompression parties" I throw each year on our return from Black Rock, occasions when many of our desert confreres gather to show each other photos and discuss the experience we have all shared out there. One of my guests, the lovely Maid Marian, who I had met only briefly twice, but had gotten to know a bit through the on-line Burning Man email list, asked me what I had been doing since I got back, and I told her about the frantic effort to finance the trip to Berlin.

She looked at me thoughtfully and said, "You know, I have all these frequent flyer miles I can't use. I'll just give them to you." This was the first miracle of PST's European Tour of 1996.

I flew into Berlin on October 29th , and was met at the airport by two friends, my initial correspondent, Michael Rauhut, and Big Joe Stolle, East Germany's most famous blues singer, who has come twice for a stay at Proust HQ and used photos of our house for his last CD cover. They took me to the house of the charming Konstanze Kriese, our former guest whose name means constant crisis in German, a huge old flat where I would be staying. Konstanze, her delightful boyfriend Horst and their twin sons, five-year-old Konstantin and Leonardo, were in Tunisia for the first several days of my stay, but since I would be spending virtually all those days and evenings with the Proustians, this was an agreeable enough arrangement. I napped at my lodgings for a few hours, and then went out with Michael and Joe for some dinner, and a tour of East Berlin's very lively late-night scene.

The following evening I went to Humboldt University in East Berlin for the opening of the conference, and sat attentively through several opening lectures in German, a language which I only occasionally understand, I met Michael Sostarich and I was introduced to several other members of the society, including the director, Dr.Speck, who has one of the most impressive art collections in Europe, I am told. After the speeches were done, a large group of people headed out for dinner, walking first to one possible spot, then to another, finding no restaurant able to accommodate such a large group. Michael and I finally opted to go off on our own, to find a restaurant in the Jewish quarter that has become a bastion for the arts in the eastern city, and continued our acquaintance without email. At about 1:00 a.m. I took a taxi back to what was already beginning to feel like home, and climbed the 88 stairs (twice the amount needed to reach Proust HQSF).

I put the key into the lock of the tall and solid door; the key twirled around and around; the door did not open. The key seemed pointless. I pounded on it, in the hope that their other houseguest, the Parisian, Pasqual, would hear me in spite of the massive thickness of the walls and his penchant for lengthy, deep sleep. No Pasqual.

Another round of applying the key to the lock-- still no progress. I inhaled deeply and went back down the stairs to the local cafe a block away, and ordered a Campari and orange juice, the beverage that one must drink frequently and daily while traveling to maintain robust health. I have two rules for travel in Europe: drink plenty of Campari arangeata, and wear a beautiful hat. Even the blasé Parisians adore the fabulous hat, and treat the wearer with respect.

"No longer was it a question of going into his own room where friendliness like a river bore him up. On the contrary he had, hurt him though it might, to try to break through the ice, to force an entry." -Jean Santeuil

I and my hat sat at the bar downing Campari and debating the alternatives. Michael was in the process of getting a new phone number that week, and in the East Berlin fashion, they had disconnected his old number before connecting the new. Joe had left town that afternoon to do a series of gigs in other towns. I had several other phone numbers to call, not listed under the name of my friends, but they were all locked in the apartment. I saw a table full of friendly young men next to me, and finally went over and asked if any of them could speak English. One said yes, and I explained the dilemma, asking if one of them could break into the place for me. Understandably, they all declined, but suggested that I check the phone book for a locksmith. After they left, I realized that I had neglected to ask what the German word for locksmith was and, finding no other English-speakers, had to describe my dilemma in pantomime. Now I know the word, schlosser.

There was no schlosser with a 24-hour number to call, nor could I call, since all the pay phones in East Germany require cards, not change. The cafe was closing, and I went back to the flat, to climb the 88 stairs, in the hope that Pasqual had appeared. Before the ascent, I stopped in at the Turkish bakery on the ground floor to buy one of their flat, round loaves that were just coming out of the oven. The baker refused my money, but gave me a lovely loaf.

Pasqual had arrived hours before and, unable to get in, he had gone to sleep in the office across the street of Zynakreise, Horst and Konstanze's company that publishes, among other things, East German comic art All the banging in the world would not rouse him. I tried the key again, with false hopes, then sat on the stairs and nibbled at the bread. When I was tired enough, , an hour or so later,I put the bread on a stair above, with my scarf below and above it, laid my head down upon it and slept for a couple of hours, awakening with a bread pattern emblazoned on half of my face when a door slammed on a floor below. Since the baker had given me his most beautiful loaf, it was a splendid pattern.

Until it got light out, I remained seated on the stairs, alternating between annoyance and fits of giggles. At sunrise I went down to the street, searching for a cafe where I might sit over coffee until a schlosser could be found. The only things open were bakeries, where you could stand with a cup of coffee and eat some of the most glorious marzipan pastries on earth. In the bakery I chose, an English-speaking baker told me where to find the closest locksmith, and I marched over for assistance; he would not open, however, until nine, and it was only seven. The gemeutlich corner place, where breakfast would be served at eight, took forever to open; I walked around the neighborhood in search of more immediately available options, and kept coming back, over and over again, while the staff inside prepared to open.

At last the doors opened and I went in to have coffee. I ordered cappuccino, while most of the other customers ordered beer. In the time it took to reach the bottom of my cup, two elderly gentlemen at the next table had ordered three beers. A few minutes before nine I went to wait at the door of the locksmith shop, and was his first customer. I told the story in pantomime. Yes, he said, I can do it, at one in the afternoon. Mmm, no, I said, it has to be done now; he gave me the address of another shop not far away.

At the second shop, they agreed to come immediately, but refused to take credit cards, traveler's checks or American dollars; cash only. Fortunately I had enough on me to cover the cost. So the locksmith walked back with me, up the 88 stairs, and began an hour-long process of getting the door open. At last, the door opened, but the lock never budged. He simply pushed it open, requiring some minor repairs to the entire door, but at least I was inside. I sat waiting, and hysterically laughing, while he continued to work on the lock.

"You need a new lock," he said finally. "How much?" I asked, "and will you take a traveler's check for the extra cost?" "No," he said, "cash; I'll close the door again, go to the shop and get the lock, and you can go to the bank." I was agreeable enough, until it was clear that he couldn't get the door closed again. Perturbed, he said "Okay, I'll go get the lock."

An hour later, the door was fixed, and the locksmith had left, telling me I must come back to the shop later and pay them the balance of the bill. I promised to come later in the day, after I had napped on the sofa near the door, so I would hear my friend Michael's knock when he came to meet me two hours later, to take me to the Proust conference at Humboldt.

It was pointless to sit through the lectures I wouldn't understand, but it was essential to join the Proustians at the university, because they would be leaving from there to go to a cocktail party at the home of Nicholaus Sombart, a well-known writer and Proust fanatic. It was only socially that I could get to know these brilliant people and chat with them in my barely mediocre French and their excellent English. All the members of this society spoke at least two languages fluently; most of them knew three languages, slipping back and forth among the tongues, depending on to whom they were speaking.

Nicholaus Sombart lives in an elegant old apartment off the Kufurstendam, West Berlin's glorious shopping and dining avenue. Dark olive green walls lit by crystal chandeliers were lined, up, down and across, with artwork of obvious value and beauty, and where there was no art, there were books. The coffee table in the living room provided only a few inches of space for one's champagne glass, as all the rest was comandeered with stacks of things to read. My own house, too, is similarly endowed, and by the time I have added the same number of years as my host to my collecting mania , it might look just the same.

I had only met a few people at the party, and many eyed me curiously, the unknown face sporting the superb, if slightly eccentric, hat. I simply did the cocktail party social thing, and spoke to everyone with whom I could make eye contact, introducing myself as an American visitor to the conference who did this small magazine. At this, everyone brightened, including the host, an immensely successful and gracious gentleman with an obvious comprehension of bohemia, and told me they'd heard about it and would love to see it. I began to pull out copies and every minute of the event I saw people reading them. They praised my loving and unscholarly work that was helping to bring Proust to the world, apologising profusely for not speaking perfect English. At that moment I knew that after hosting the Proust Wake of 1996 six days after my return home, I would be turning myself in to the Goethe Institute for classes.

It surprised me that few people really spoke to me about Proust, although his name certainly came up often enough. What they wanted to talk about was what I was doing and I was able to explain my efforts with the short presentation I had prepared in French, the second language of the conference.

After the party, 14 of us wandered off in search of dinner, and occupied an assembled table in an Italian place a block away. Given the ambiance, the exchange shifted occasionally into the fourth language, Italian, as food and wine nudged Proust into third place in the general conversation. A great deal of English was spoken on my behalf, or particularly witty bits explained to me. After dinner, eight of the 14 at the table lit up an after-dinner cigar. Not a single person in the place so much as noticed, probably because they were smoking, too.

"...only a roundabout way of reaching the Spee..." -The Guermantes Way

I was sitting next to a most intelligent and lively young woman, a non-smoker who nonetheless had a pack on her, and had one after dinner. The brand she offered me was called "M", and I recognized it immediately as the European version of the brand I favor in the US, More, slim, long, brown things. Once, years ago, I shifted to More Light, recognizing in this name Beethoven's last words. It became apparent over the next few days that if "M" became the brand of choice for me, Miss P, the combination of these single-letter names would be MP, Marcel Proust. Well. Then someone pointed out that the other interpretation would be PM, and what could be a more appropriate naughty habit for the hopelessly nocturnal?

It was not too long after midnight when I made it back to the flat in Prenzlauerberg, the Soho of Berlin, after an annoying acquaintance with the new key and the peculiarities of its operation, a short fit of giggles when the first couple of tries were unsuccessful, and finally making my way in with extreme relief.

Fortunately, the next evening's social event would not begin until eight, so I had enough time to sleep off the dilemma of the lock. During one conversation with Dr. Speck, I raised the question of why all the conference events had begun so early. Proust, after all, a chronic nocturnal, would never have been able to get to any of them in time, and I had fallen easily into my noon to 4:00 a.m. schedule, nearly Proustian, quite easily on this other continent. An eight o'clock funtion, however, gave me enough time to get some cash and make my bewildered way through the ups, downs, arounds and throughs of the U-bahn and S-bahn (and finally just flag a taxi).

The entirety of East Berlin is under reconstruction. In the six years since my last visit to this fabulous city, the Alexanderplatz that was barren and empty has once again grown into a massive hub for the city, with cranes and construction everywhere, and the labyrinthine subways that cross there offer an aerobics workout to anyone with dubious comprehension of the temporary directional signs. Everywhere in the eastern city, tram lines end before they should because vehicular traffic stops where streets are torn up, or the sidewalks themselves are full of contractors or housepainters at work. Finding anything becomes increasingly complicated.

Saturday night's destination, the Ermelerhaus, is on the bank of the Spee, the river that divides the city, its current broken by the presence of an island devoted solely to museums. Berlin has more museums than any city I have ever visited, containing, among other things, the finds of those intrepid German anthropologists who first scoured the world for the remnants of antiquity. At the Pergammon, you can walk through an ancient street of Babylon, or you can spend a rainy afternoon at the Egyptian Mueum in a burial chamber. My directory of Berlin, which bewildered me, had four pages of museums listed, and I vowed to see at least ten percent of them after the conference was over. But first, I had to find the place where this most elegant of dinners would be happening this evening.

As I said, I eventually gave up and got a taxi, but even the taxi driver had some difficulty, as the banks of the Spee were also under reconstruction. He could not drive to where I was going; he did leave me off a block or so from the place at the river, and pointed me in the right direction.

"Such are the blessed mornings that a sleepless night, the tossed nerves of a journey, a physical exhaltation, some event out of the common, will hollow out for us in the hard rock of our daily lives, mornings that retain the delicious feverish colors and the dreamlike charm which sets them apart in our memory like an Aladdin's cave, magical and prismatic in an atmosphere all its own." -Contre Saint-Beuve

The site of this event confused me, as I was expecting a restaurant, but found instead an elegant old building with little sign of its function, which I conceived to be a gracious private hotel. Following the sound of voices up a curved staircase, I found myself in the reception area for the event, where familiar faces were seen behind champagne glasses, and conversation was lively. Once again, I met several people who wanted to discuss my magazine and congratulate me warmly.

Beside the reception area, two adjoining rooms were full of tables lavishly decked out for dinner service. After a while, we were advised to move into the dining rooms and take a seat of our choice. I didn't know any of the people surrounding me, as Michael had suggested we mingle, but soon found myself quite happy to be where I was. Next to me on my left was a charming woman who said, "You know, there are two kinds of people in this society, the scholars, and the lovers. I'm a lover." Immediately to her left sat a dashing fellow, Andreas, who had just received his master's on the theme of Proust and art, but who thought his PhD should be on Proust and humor, so I found him quite delightful immediately. Across from me was a woman who books concerts for a Bach ensemble in Cologne, and since Bach is the official music behind the creation of PST, we had a fine conversation. Beside her sat a professor of art at a German university, an artist who had devoted his career to a series of drawings based on Proust. On the whole, I found myself exceptionally well-situated.

It was a dinner in the European tradition, beginning with an appetizer, followed by a soup, then the fish course, then the meat course and dessert, several wines and cigarettes throughout, sparkling conversation, and much lingering at table long after the last of the food and drink had been consumed. Just before dessert, Michael had appeared to ask me if I might come over and meet one of his friends, and she in turn took me to meet her two elegant sons in their early twenties. They had seen parts of Proust Said That, which Michael had printed out to show them, and they were both curious and excited about the potential of the Internet. In a matter of a few days, one of the brothers would be getting a new computer, and Internet access, and both were looking forward immensely to what they would find.

When the Proustian part of the evening had ended, in the tradition of the San Francisco contingent, I proposed we go on to some late- night entertainment to further my knowledge of the fabled Berlin-by-night experience, and was able to roust a party of four. At the suggestion of one member of this party, we made our way to a club in the section of town I was already beginning to know, Orianenstrasse, the old Jewish sector that contained seemingly endless warrens and byways of contemporary arts. When we had all consumed our absolute fill of cocktails for the night, we sought taxis to take us in our varied directions, I to return for a decent night's sleep, and my usual rising at noon. For the others, it would be an early day, the last of the conference, when the last of the business would be addressed and the round table discussion for members would take place.

I did need to rush over to the University for the closing hours of the day, if only to say goodbye to Michael, who would be leaving Berlin in the late afternoon, and to the other members of the society that I had met. After the usual confusion on the U-bahn, S-bahn and other forms of transportation, and the inevitable taxi to the destination, I found the auditorium where the previous three days' events had transpired totally dark and empty. Was I so late?

I wandered down the stairs from the auditorium lobby and around the building in search of someone who might know what had become of the Proustians. I walked out a back door and into a garden, in search of one of the people in charge of the building who I had seen about over the last few days. Finding no one, I went back to the building and discovered that the doors had been locked behind me, leaving me stranded in the garden. So I pounded on this door, and pondered the locked door karma of my time in Berlin.

After standing like an abandoned waif, peering into the building for some time, I gave up and began a careful examination of the garden's periphery in search of an escape route. I had made it about three-quarters of the way around when one of the building people came out into the garden and spotted me, let me into the building, and said something else that was clearly important, but beyond the limits of my German. I chose this to mean that I should just head out through the front door and remain in the publicly accessible path to Unter den Linden, the avenue that everyone can figure out how to find, even the befuddled tourists. Following this imagined advice, I made it out to the other side of the building and stopped for a moment on the steps leading up to the sculpture out front, to regard the building and try to fathom where the Proustians had gone. A gentle rain was falling on this gray late afternoon, and I was sorry to have missed the chance to thank these people for letting me join them and for all their gracious responses to this magazine. I stood alone in the square, in my black swing coat, sensible but somehow elegant black lace-up boots, black leather gloves,and the black hat reminiscent of Madeleine gone awry, having a moment as dark as my ensemble. I missed them.

But then the doors of the building swung open and they began trickling out, some of them noticing that I was there and stopping to exchange parting words. Dr. Speck came by and reminded me that the Proust library needed copies of each back issue, and mentioned something of an exhibition. I missed Michael entirely, as he had left while I was locked in the garden, but I did wait until the last Proustian was gone, like some self-appointed farewell committee for the conference.

The sky was getting darker and I wondered if this was the hour or an approaching storm, and cast a quick glance at my Proust watch. This watch, a present from PST's fan Jay Reeg, has no numbers, but the first sentence of A La Recherce de Temps Perdu, in French, spiraling out from the center to the edges of the face. It had been a hit at the conference, all right. The darkness was only a matter of time, as the Proust watch said five o'clock. Later, I was to remember this moment, and find in it some curious connection.

I spent the next week in East Berlin, prowling the vast and labyrinthine corridors of the museums, S-bahn, and U-bahn, discovering the telephones that worked on credit cards, as the phone card that I had acquired made only local calls, and waiting in the lines at American Express. The one public transit system connection I learned without much ado was the one that took me from Alexanderplatz station, where there was the right phone, a huge revolving indicator of the time in San Francisco, a place to exchange American dollars, and the only source I had found for "M" to the tramline to Prenzlauerberg. It was easy to learn, as it passed so many things of interest, like the Casino, beer gardens, and the most fabulous yuppie food emporium I'd seen since my last visit to New York.

This department store in East Berlin, the Kaufhof, is like the department stores of the past, places where you could get just about everything you needed, stopping on the way out to get the groceries. Specialty islands in the market offered hundreds of kinds of cheeses and wursts, perfect international produce; the aisles offered hundreds, or was it thousands, of sweets, cookies, candies, cakes. Almost every afternoon I found myself in there investigating the mysteries of German cuisine.

Every evening there was something to do with friends. The days and nights were entertainingly full, waiting for either Pasqual or Horst to be ready to make the drive to Paris, the next destination of the Proust tour. Konstanze had insisted that I should not take the train, since both of them intended to go there anyway, and it was just a matter of dealing with the essential business before leaving. Much as I was enjoying the week, I had really hoped to spend as much of it as possible in Paris, but I waited anyway, grateful for the chance to drive through the countryside and see so much. On Thursday it was decided that Horst would drive, but he couldn't leave until Friday night.

I came home on Friday evening with provisions for the drive from the Kaufhof, to the second miracle of the trip. The radio that day had kept up a running report of the news from Paris: the truckers were on strike and barricading the roads in and out of Paris. The media in Berlin was full of information; for three days it had maintained a running commentary and full reportage of the presidential election in America, covering even the nut case candidate who campaigned from a toilet seat, who no one had heard of here. One afternoon on the radio I heard a fifteen-minute report about a good friend of my old roommate, Fil Slash, the musician Gary Floyd, who was performing in town. So the truckers' strike had bothered Konstanze all day, and on the way home, she had stopped at her travel agent friend's office and picked up two plane tickets for us that would deposit us in the city limits, and save Horst the eleven hour drive each way that might not even get us into town.

The flight would leave at an ungodly, un-Proustian hour the following morning, but we all sat for hours at the kitchen table drinking Campari and orange juice, laughing, talking and wishing that Konstanze would be coming with us. And at an hour late even by Berlin standards, we went off to pack and sleep for at least a couple of hours.

"To all of them he said that he would return the following year, and perhaps stay longer. He had loved so many things too well.." -Jean Santeuil

P Segal