A GUIDE TO B E R L I N Also by Gail Jones
Sixty Lights Dreams of Speaking Sorry Five Bells A GUIDE TO B E R L I N
GAIL JONES
Harvill Secker 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Harvill Secker, an imprint of Vintage, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA A Vintage book PublishedHarvill bySecker Random is House part Australia of the Pty Penguin Ltd Random House groupLevel 3, 100of Pacificompanies c Highway, Northwhose Sydney addresses NSW 2060 can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.www.randomhouse.com.au
First published by Vintage in 2015
Copyright © Gail Jones 2015 Copyright © Gail Jones 2015 The moral right of the author has been asserted. Gail Jones has asserted her right to be identi#ed All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any personas the or author entity, including of this internet Work search in accordance engines or retailers, with in anythe form or by Copyright,any means, electronic Designs or mechanical, and Patents including Act photocopying 1988 (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior writtenQuotation permission from of Random‘A Busy House Man’ Australia. by Vladimir Nabokov. Copyright © Article 3C under the Will of Vladimir NabokovRandom House 1965, Books 1966,is part of used the Penguin by permission Random House of group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com. The Wylie Agency (UK) Limited. National Library of Australia FirstCataloguing-in-Publication published by Harvill entry Secker in 2016 Jones,First Gail,published 1955− author in Australia by Vintage, PenguinA guide to Berlin/Gail Random Jones House Australia in 2015
ISBN 978 0 85798 815 7 (paperback) www.vintage-books.co.uk Interpersonal relations – Fiction AInterpersonal CIP catalogue communication record – Fiction for this book Berlin (Germany) – Fiction is available from the British Library A823.3 ISBN 9781846559976 Front cover image © Gail Jones Cover design by Sandy Cull, gogoGingko PrintedTypeset in 12.5/16.5and bound pt Fairfi eldby byClays Midland Ltd, Typesetters, St Ives Australia plc Printed in Australia by Griffi n Press, an accredited ISO AS/NZS 14001:2004 Environmental Management System printer Penguin Random House is committed to a sustainableRandom House Australiafuture usesfor papersour business, that are natural, our renewable readers and recyclable andproducts our and planet. made from This wood book grown is in madesustainable from forests. The logging and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulationsForest Stewardship of the country ofCouncil® origin. certi#ed paper. ‘(What I hate) Folding an umbrella, not fi nding its secret button.’ Vladimir Nabokov, Interview, 1970
1
It was Marco Gianelli who spoke in the darkness. When they were all standing together, shocked and numb, when they saw each other’s faces remade as rogues, pinched, white, shrivelled inwards with guilt, dull with logistics and the banal business of dragging dead weight, he was the only one among them who was able to speak. He raised his arm in the snowy air and with this gesture assem- bled them. He asked them to pause. There was a moment in which all they did was wait. Snowfall enshrouded them. A feeble wind spun the fl akes. They heard traffi c in the night, muffl ed and distant, they heard the heave of each other’s raspy breath. It was a formal speech, really, absurd in the circum- stances. Marco said that the death of any human was without metaphor or likeness. The death of any human was incom- parable. It was not a writerly event. It was not contained within sentences. It was not to be described in the same way as the beauty of an icicle, or three wrinkles parallel on the forehead of a remembered governess, or the play of shadow
1 and light on a swimming body, or the random harmony of trifl es that was a parking meter, a fl uffy cloud and a tiny pair of boots with felt spats.
2