Strange Days

Sun used to filter through green, green leaves onto any one of the hidden squares dotted between the Kantstrasse and the Kurfurstendamm. A scant quarter kilometre as the kerb crawled would take you to Kaiser Friedrich Strasse and the girls and boys of the clip- strip- and meat-joints. If it was 4 in the afternoon you stood a chance of one of them being open. You might finish your Warsteiner in its condensation-pearled glass, smile at the blond-haired teuton on his little red trike and be on your way. Slipping through side-streets, smiling again at anyone you passed, you'd find yourself heading for the dark side of the street and the wrong side of town.

Only it wasn't. Any side of town that is. Stuttgarter Platz - or "Stutti" was right in the centre – at least of West Berlin, on the border between the bezirke of Charlottenburg and Wilmersdorf. Right next to Charlottenburg railway station. My favourite place was Mon Cheri's, others liked the Puff Puff Club or the Elephant Bar. They all sold tiny bottles of Charlottenburger Pils, perhaps it didn't travel well: it certainly didn't travel far. You could buy a Sekt of course – although they would tell you it was champagne. 10 marks for a piccolo: a champagne flute. I never did find out if that was a joke or not. I'd go to these places and think I was treading boldly in Isherwood and Auden's footsteps, expecting any minute to find my own Sally Bowles. None of the girls I saw in the Kabaretten sang. Madame Stradivarius pretended to play a violin, well at least her act involved the bow while she did some fiddling. Mon Cheri's featured the bath-tub as well. Most of the girls were Western European then, before the wall came down. Madam Xia Bong's eponymous chatelaine was from Dortmund, but that really was a bordello, not far from the Olympic Stadium, in fact. I don't doubt some of Sandhurst's finest visited, it being so close to Berlin HQ.

As far as paying for some intimate time with any of the girls, I never did. I'm still not sure why. One splash in the bath was enough, for me. But I did go. Far more often than I went to places like Fingerhutte or Paragraph 175. The owners of 175 must have scoured the city for premises with the right address, so that they could say that name was mere coincidence. Of course it wasn't. Even so, I didn't pick anyone up when I went through the looking glass to Pink Berlin. I observed, I watched: as detached as a scientist or a eunuch. Or both. People did come to accept me, I liked to think. At least, I'd get a nod or a wave from a Hüre or one of the schwules and no-one sat next to me for any other reason than to talk to the Englander, with his steadily warming beer and interested gaze. Even the lesbian bars were open to me, after the first time I accompanied Madam Stradivarius to Greta's. Most of the strippers and prostitutes were gay, at least eventually. The only thing I regret about those strange days was not taking a notebook, or at least a pencil. The paper napkins were quite good quality in those days. Still, I doubt I'd have written Mr Norris Changes Trains - or anything worth reading at all – but I wish I'd tried.