Devil's debris

When I was done with my University degree in Alentejo, back to Lisbon but now living in Alfama, probably the oldest picturesque middle age neighborhoods in Europe, I had the privilege of having my mother offering me the money to finally get my driver’s license. But I wasn’t much inclined to do so. After a lifetime in the northern suburbs of Lisbon - where really crappy but expensive busses run every half an hour, leaving teenagers to sit idle on walls wondering what could be better or to sleep on the streets of the capital if willing to party till later than midnight - , once I was no longer at a bus distance to the city centre, I used to think that public transports should simply get better (and I anyway vehemently still do). I took the money and went to visit a friend, who says that the future is made of radical forms of solidarity; he was living in London already for a while and I had not yet travelled on my own; with friends I had gone till the Algarve or Santiago de Compostela in Spanish Galicia, that was the furthest we have managed south and north by train, which used to be a bit cheaper than nowadays, and we still had to always camp. It felt crazy when I first went to the airport, to be able to pay for something like that. I had so much fun for the first time in London... but I have often regretted not having invested on the license instead. 

It was only a couple of months later, as I first had the money myself to pay for a driver’s license, but we were desperately in need of vacations and of broading our horizons, my partner and I. We were both working in very stressful elite restaurants, barely having the time or energy to focus on something else... so we decided to travel to Berlin and to have a look on life here, back in 2004: that was the trip in which we decided to move out of Portugal. We first moved to the English countryside and life was mainly comfortably numb on our two wheels by the idyllic margins of river Cam. We don’t really need a car in Berlin either. But every time we visit a remote beach between hills or stay at some less central location in Portugal, I do regret not being able to drive yet. Once we visited the Sardinian island around 2010: we stayed dozens of kilometers away from paradise and all we managed was to stay moaning about our ignorance and bad luck in a tiny camping park bungalow with a regular Mediterranean beach in front. The summer season was over and there were no bicycles to rent, boats, busses or taxis; every Italian had a car (la macchina!) and it was too faraway to walk. We both promised to learn back then, but I still didn’t. Well, I actually did. It was life that changed suddenly afterwards; later on I was no longer emotionally able to sit and re-learn for the theoretic exam in German, to start with. That was one of the stupidest things I have ever not tried to do till the end... but it’s also another story. That period is definitely over and I believe that  I will be able to do so soon enough.

Meanwhile I now proudly announce that my very smart and talented partner did manage to take the time to get his driver’s license in between quarantines last year (he was done with the theoretic classes shortly before the start of the pandemic). It finally arrived last week and we decided to rent an electrical car yesterday and to go out in our first date on four wheels in almost 23 years. He gave me the chance to pick the place and it just seemed appropriate to choose one I have been postponing to visit since ever: the Teufelsberg by the Teufelssee at Grunewald. That means the devil’s hill by the devil’s lake at Grunewald, a well known forest within the city. I had been several times by the tiny crowded lake, but never bothered to go up the hill before, let alone in January. My expectations were low, but it was magical. Maybe that’s simply because we feel so much in love again. It felt amazing to sit by him on the car and to be the co-pilot for the short road trip, that’s a role I’m almost always most happy to play. It was also very good to walk by the trees with a horizon to look at for a chance, even if grey. I loved that we had a winter picnic by the water at the end, smiling constantly while drinking hot coffee and observing the birds and the ducks.

The Teufelsberg itself is no wonder of beauty, but it certainly has a weird atmosphere and great historical interest. The hill, rising 120 metres above the sea level, is the highest in Berlin and is not a natural one but made out of Second World War wreckage. It was built during the Cold War on West Berlin, back then an island in the Soviet regime. The way to get rid of bombing debris was to stow them all over the country, but for West Berlin was harder, as the territory was much smaller and the only way out by plane... so the Senate decided on this artificial mountain covering an unfinished Nazi academy of defense engineering underneath. The Americans then decided to build a spy station on top of it; it’s called Field Station Berlin and its antennas among the abiding ruins left to rotten, adorned with the most recent street art, is what remains to visit. That is if you decide to pay for an entrance fee or to illegally cross the fence at night. The thin trees hardly standing or even falling over the hill are also not the healthiest in the forest, denouncing the quality of the soil one is stepping on. 

This mess pretty much describes some of Berlin’s past and contemporary politics... ruins of collective memory covered up by new constructions or sold out to neoliberal sharks profiting on the film industry, tourists and instagramers alike. The barbed wire fence time and time again cut and repaired all around the wasteland: that’s what’s most impressive to see from the outside. I still prefer it to pretty façades atraccting hipsters, but I don’t really feel like coming back any time soon.

Der Teufelsberg beim Teufelssee, Grunewald