Berlin

by Bea Setton

Instead I rode the S-Bahn until the Jannowitzbrücke station, and then switched to the U-Bahn, which is effectively a transition from Heaven to Hell. The S-Bahn is overground and heated in the winter. The seats are arranged into small compartments, an anachronism in which one might conceivably have a Strangers on a Train–type encounter. The U-Bahn is underground and more reminiscent of the atmosphere of Midnight Express, poorly lit, with plastic patterned seats. It is full of heroin addicts with swollen hands who pace up and down the rattling corridors on the catwalk of the doomed.

I wasn’t attracted to him, but I still wanted him to be attracted to me.

It has become incredibly uncool to be on a diet. No one admits to dieting despite the fact that we all do it. This is because “bowing to the patriarchy” is seen as unfeminist and considered a sign that you do not love yourself, which is not only unacceptable, but incredibly lame. We are not like the previous generation of women who were open about dieting and the torture of the boiled-egg diet or the cabbage-soup cleanse. I envy them: they were more honest and didn’t have to work so hard to mask their self-hatred.

I’ve made a major omission by failing to mention the word tschüss before now. It is the first word most foreigners learn after hallo. It is an informal way of saying “goodbye,” like ciao in Italian or à plus in French, except that tschüss is sung, not said, and always in a falsetto.