Berlin Coda

By the time my one-year residency at the newly-formed American Academy in Berlin was coming to a close in May of 1999, the citizens of that city were anticipating the ten-year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was on a miraculous November night in 1989 that the two halves of Berlin were stitched together under the heavy blows of hammer and chisel. In the intervening years, a sprawling metropolis had arisen from the battered ruins of a graffiti-sprayed concrete barrier, setting the stage for what was soon to become the new capital of a unified Germany. To erase the scars of the Cold War, the so-called "death strip" was to be cosmetically refigured and the old Mitte and Potsdamer Platz of pre-war days were to regain their lost glory. Where for years all was still and barren, the earth shook and trembled, the grey Berlin skies agitated by the ceaseless semaphoric movements of gigantic steel arms, and its northern European quiet disturbed by the incessant pounding of girders and beams driven deep into the soil. Not two, but three, urban sites would satisfy Berlin's quest for grandeur. Not content to be Germany's preeminent city, it also aspired to top ranking among the other capitals of Europe. The quest for Berlin as Hauptstadt was under way with a vengeance. And it was here that I was working on my project on the late East German dramatist Heiner Müller, what I referred to as his "bicameral dramaturgy," in the city that was topographically and politically "bicameral."

Not only since 1989, but for years prior to that, I, a New Yorker at heart, have been a frequent visitor to Berlin, partaking early on of the euphoria that engulfed the city shortly after unification. In all fairness, my love for the city was not a newfound one; my first glimpse of Brandenburger Tor was from atop a viewing platform in 1969, a makeshift wooden affair that made you feel that you were rubbing shoulders with history. To my left lay the desolate shell of the Reichstag, then awaiting an uncertain future, and certainly not the repackaging, first as art, later as the seat of the Bundestag, that would be its destiny. Farther to the east along Unter den Linden stretched deserted streets bordered by sullen faceless buildings and patrolled by machine-gun toting East German soldiers, a serene and treacherous calm that beckoned perversely to come and "test the east." To be sure, there was a crackling sense of high drama and urgency that could palpably be felt in this city rife with the symbols--hot and cold--of our war-torn century. Berlin had an edge to it, literally and figuratively, its jagged contours shaped and sliced by the workings of History.

At times the edge got perilously close to comfort, always so when curiosity or culture tempted from the other side, and I persuaded myself to endure the icy stare and the abrupt disposition of border guards at Checkpoint Charlie or the Friedrichstrasse Bahnhof on the way to the Berliner Ensemble, the Komische Oper or the Staatsoper, the Museum Insel, and, on a dare, even as far as Alexanderplatz, only to breathe a sigh of relief when, close to midnight, the West would welcome me back again. In retrospect, can I truly say that there was a thrill to living dangerously? Yes and no, the affirmative stemming from a spirit of youthful adventure and a taste of the forbidden fruit, the negation a mature understanding of the ruthless political system that held sway in socialist dystopia.

Today the edge is blunted, and we are all the better for it. This despite the mental wall that, since the physical obstacle was felled, continues to fester and grow inside the minds of Berliners, a divide amply evident to anyone who has spent time in recent years in Berlin. The joyous embrace of the slogan "Wir sind...