Illustration: Paperlily Studio
Altenbraker Straße
by Catherine Huang
These are a handful of recollections of a time I have attempted to forget.
It is the start of June, and ahead is a summer of freedom.
This vision has been bubbling away for a full year — once yours, now ours. It had been your birthday, and there we were, lying on my bed with the bad mattress, limbs tangled up in each other, tipsy and warm. You whispered to me that you wanted to live elsewhere, and you asked me if I’d make the great leap with you. You’d never been to the city before, hadn’t yet glimpsed it with your own eyes, but you’d lived the city many times already, through the tales of others. Felt it was calling out to you, somewhere that just made sense. You were so sure, this was the place for you, and I loved you, so it was yes.
For a long time, it lingered above us abstract, just out of reach, not quite feasible yet. We had to save, we had to give notice, we had another Melbourne summer in us, we had as many excuses as we needed. There were many false starts, and sometimes we asked of each other if this was what we really wanted. Sometimes I thought I imagined a hesitation from both of us. But we had committed, and a year later, two days after your birthday, we left.
It is early June, and there is nowhere else I can possibly be.
When we land, we are famished, and so we leave via the airport café and order two pretzels. Our first meal, and a national food no less! How fitting — we’re naturals at this; embracing the culture. It feels good to be a cliché.
Stumbling out of the airport, I recognise the station and the train network, it’s muscle memory for me. I’ve been here twice before, and I can safely say it’s not my first preference of where I’d like to live, but my first real preference is to be with you, so here we are. We’re both in a daze from the flight, it finally dawning on us that after weeks of travel and vacationing, we are at our final destination. I haphazardly lead us to the apartment, but this is it, we’re living it now.
It is the middle of summer and the city has an electric energy I recall from years earlier, but I haven’t kept up. When I realise this, that I am not keeping pace with this city of hedonism and thrills, I try to conceal it from you. I am in a place without the language, without a network, without any intentions, without direction. I don’t want you to know, but I am cowardly.
Days are long, the sun barely says goodbye before she is with us again. It is an uncomfortably hot summer, and our apartment building is not designed for this climate. This is not a humid city, but it’s worse than what I know. I am conditioned to the dry, dry heat, crackling along my skin. The temperatures in our place soar, and the city is begging for us to join it outside. All throughout the city are parks and pools and lakes and dancefloors, areas of congregation, filled with exposed bodies, delighted and gleeful. This is the release of a long winter, the people here have earned it, summer is the prize. The joy that fills the air and surrounds us is pure and tender, but it doesn’t seem to penetrate me.
I languish in our apartment instead. Here, the heat clings to me, and I do nothing to escape it. If anything, I do whatever I can to lean into it. On a 32-degree day, while everyone is outside, living, alive, I am incapable of joining them, and so I run a scalding bath. You want to explore, there is so much you do not know yet, and I can sense it, but I sob, imploring you to look after me instead. I want you to go out and find me bath salts, bubble bath, anything that will make this tub of searing water more pleasant. You return with a body wash that when we plunge into the water, does nothing.
‘I’m sorry,’ you begin. ‘I couldn’t read any of the packaging, I tried both of the supermarkets nearby, but I couldn’t find anything for your bath.’
I can’t help but cry some more. This is a moment of betrayal, one of many, in my eyes. How could you bring me here to suffer, and worse, not be able to remedy it?
[A year later, when I am living on my own, and taking baths as a means to cure myself once again, I will discover that the pharmacies have entire aisles dedicated to different types of bath salts. There are salts for athletic recovery, for muscle relaxation, for general soothing. I try them all.]
It is mid-June, and the World Cup has begun.
The city is humming, cheers and applause and groans and squeals. Filled to the brim with spectators and visitors, people passing through and people who can’t bring themselves to leave. Dotted all across the city are Spätkaufs and Biergartens playing the games on screens and walls, crowds forming, cheap beer and cigarettes in hand, animated with anticipation as they wait for victory. I can tell that all you want to do is go out and watch the fair game, throw yourself into the masses. But I make a fuss every time we try to leave the house. I lag, I make excuses. There is always a reason to stay put. Stay where I am. Stay far away.
One day, you go to the trouble of seeking out a venue that is playing the Australia v France game. There’s a Biergarten that fits the bill, but it’s a few boroughs over. You persuade me to come with. I am reluctant, but I can sense your desperation mounting. It’s time I give you more. Begrudgingly, I concede, and we hop on our new bikes and ride across the city.
When we arrive, both of us have to swallow our disappointment — the crowd in the garden is underwhelming, and the atmosphere is terrible. I can’t tell who feels worse, but for once it’s possibly you, for the shame of having brought me here, we both know this is a letdown, but we’re too afraid to admit it. We avoid eye contact with the other punters, with each other; just sit down and turn our attention to the screens.
Although it’s been a slow start, after Jedinak equalises at the 62nd minute from a penalty, I can no longer deny it, the game is thrilling, and I have taken genuine pleasure in spectating. It is a tiny moment of happiness that I store away, a reminder that against the odds, there is hope for me yet.
It is a compromise of sorts, but we start to watch games together at home, on our tiny laptop. I know you’d prefer the alternative, but this is all I have to offer, all I have to give. Unexpected to both of us, after a few games, I am completely enthralled by the World Cup and it is all I know anymore. Before long, it is one in the morning and I am watching 50 Most shocking moments in World Cup history, Most ENTERTAINING World Cup Matches EVER, BEST World Cup Goals in History, the list goes on, and although you are tired and want to sleep, you know better than to protest. This level of enthusiasm and energy I am expelling is better than nothing, and lately, it’s only been nothing.
At our apartment, there is a tiny balcony, and I often find you sitting out there, rolling and smoking cigarettes,
finding space,
avoiding me.
When even the balcony is not enough of a getaway, you head to the Späti on the corner and drink beers with the other people congregating. You have found means to cope, means to survive, means to find your own peace and joy without me. Meanwhile, I am battling with myself, my gutlessness, my inner demons, but it is easier to war with you instead — how dare you enjoy yourself, how dare you seek solace from me, how dare you go on without me.
I am hurt that you would leave me behind. I am starting to think that maybe that’s the problem. You should have left me behind.
It is late June, and the truth is, I am unwell.
I have begun to unravel further — I am no longer sleeping, barely speaking, paralysed.
In my journal, I have madly scrawled list after list of things I need, things I have to do, things I want to see, things that will allow us to live in this city legally, things I must change to be better. I tell myself that once I get through these lists, I will improve. But the lists
e x p a n d
and
b l o a t
and
s w e l l
and
never
seem
to
end.
Confronted by all the incompletes of my life, I bawl in bed. I am disgusted by my own ineptitude. You stare at me helplessly, completely at a loss. I watch as your commiserations evolve into stress and anger and frustration. I can see the angst grow inside of you, consuming you, taking over you, but I refuse to make this any easier than it could be. It is eating away at me — I don’t want to say it out loud, but I am here in this place I don’t want to be, and it is easier to blame you, than it is to blame my own inability.
Maybe it is purely psychosomatic, or maybe it is in fact the heat that is draining the life from me, but I begin to experience dizzy spells. I am faint and weak at all hours of the day. I want to lie down, and I do, or rather, I just stop getting up.
We hypothesise it is to do with my diet. I’m iron deficient! It’s the minerals, not me or my mind playing ruthless games, but the blood running through me. This is good, we can fix that, there are ways. You always said depression was just a chemical imbalance, and this is my own disequilibrium. You run out on a mission, again, another attempt to mend me. After a notable absence, you return with a doner. I scream.
‘You bought meat? Why would you buy this? I don’t want to eat meat!’
‘Maybe you need to eat some protein,’ you suggest, ‘maybe the meat will be good. I don’t know, I didn’t know what else to get you, just eat it, just try!’
I crawl closer to you, slowly unwrap the kebab. I am apprehensive, for I have lost my faith in you. Up close, it is greasy and delectable, and I want to devour it all. I take a small bite and the oil from the meat leaks out of the foil packet and runs onto my fingers; I am dripping in the juices. I want more, but instead I feign disgust, refuse to finish it. I don’t want to give you the satisfaction, I can’t, I won’t give you the pleasure of having done something right. I am punishing you, under the belief that you are punishing me.
[It will be years before I eat doner meat again, and when I do, I lament how revolting it is that I am enjoying this. But I secretly savour every bite, and in doing so, share a moment with the man that has cheekily encouraged me to do so. It feels good to be wrong with someone who I know is but another wrong.]
It is the end of June, and we must move out of Altenbraker Straße.
This whole time, we have been looking for a place to live, at first, leisurely, by the end, frantic. I have lost count of how many apartments we have applied for and inspected, I have lost count of how many arguments I have started and been unable to finish. They are all blurring into one. The longer this process continues, the less I want to continue — living with you, living here, living at all.
And yet, in some twisted way, this month alone, together, apart from everything and everyone else I know, has only made me rely on you more. I hate myself for not knowing how to be by myself, I can no longer stand to be alone. Despite the resentment I carry towards you, it is the resentment towards myself I detest more.
When we get the keys to our new apartment, I am secretly relieved. I am ready to say goodbye to June, ready to say goodbye to Altenbraker Straße, not ready to say goodbye to you.
Many months later, when I, and I alone, have finally returned home,
“home”,
some place,
somewhere,
that has been somewhat arbitrarily designated as the place I feel I most belong, although I am not even entirely confident if that statement is at all true, I take the time to meticulously download every image from my phone, onto my computer.
When the files are transferred, I begin to divide the images into year, and then by month. After completing this mundane but seemingly necessary task of archiving, I start to tag the photos, each colour signifying different memories, personal, animal, funny, landscape, key moment, and so on. It is a silly process, but I am doing this for me, and only me, as I have finally come to learn to do.
As I move through the months, I am surprised to find a sudden gap in my back catalogue — just a few screenshots, and a photo of the 1998 Romanian World Cup team, standing in a row, all with bleach blonde hair. I must have discovered them during 50 Most shocking moments in World Cup history. No other recollections from June 2018.
Catherine Huang is a sometimes writer, web designer/developer and creative strategist living in Melbourne/Naarm. She is currently the Marketing and Publicity Coordinator for the Emerging Writers’ Festival.