Wonderwall

A busker in a donkey mask serenades Charliewith an impassioned cover of "Wonderwall."The wall at his back, once snaking past Checkpoint Charlie,finds new life as a gallery that Charlieopts not to see to the end, for to the westwaits the Mauerpark market, and she—Charlie,that is ("My name is Charlotte, but friends call me Charlie")—hears that the treasures are scooped up beforenoon, and it's a quarter till. We're halfway there beforeI consider how strange it is that Charlieinvited me along, using Google Translateno less, hardly the most reliable translator;

that a girl so—in a phrase I have to translatedespite its self-evidence—out of my league as Charliewould want my company. Is she translatingmy willingness as mere kindness, while I translateher kindness as innocence, or using me as a wallto keep away the men who would translatean unaccompanied woman as one in need (translation:as a target)? As the S-Bahn crosses into WestBerlin, our conversation migrates to WestTexas, "where even native speakers need a translator,the accents are so. . . ." My joke falls fat beforeher phone can spell it out in German, and before

I know it, the two of us are standing beforea book vendor, she doing her best to translate,and I, like the Ethan Hawke character in BeforeSunrise, acting as if I understand. Beforetoday—aside from when I stumbled on Checkpoint Charlie,pausing to watch couples snap selfies beforethe immortalized shack and to glance at before-and-after-reunification photos of the Wall— I managed to avoid tourist traps like the Wallsection preserved for East Side Gallery. BeforeI met Charlie, little appealed to me westof Museum Island, itself crowded with westerners.

Now, everywhere I look—north, south, east, west—are the sort of tourists who, placed beforea map of Germany in '89, wouldn't know westfrom the GDR. Growing up in southwesternGermany, in an area I'd know from translationsof the Brothers Grimm, were they not so westernized,gave my companion a fairytale sense of the Westas somewhere to escape to. When I ask if Charlieis ready to flee the market, steadfast as CharlieBrown with my puns, I really mean WestBerlin. I mean, too, to give her an out: if at the Wallall she sought was a friend, I've been the wall

preventing her from finding one. I have Walserin my backpack; what more do I need? "In the Westthey call this 'cowardice,' this building of wallsfor fear of getting hurt?" Charlie asks, sensing the wallgoing up between us, seeing through it. BeforeI can object, she leads me to Berlin's glorified Walmart,Kaufhaus des Westerns, to show me a "wallof fish." An exaggeration or mistranslationcrammed with dozens of salmon soon to be translatedinto fillets, into nutrients and shit, her "wall"sweats in a corner of the food court. Charlieexhales and on the fogged glass writes "Charlie

& Nick." I note the ampersand, hurt that Charliedidn't use a heart. Two salmon hug the wallas if to read her message. Wide-eyed and westward-bound (though forced to change direction beforetoo long), they mouth a prayer we don't have to translate.