Correspondances comme un roman Au Checkpoint Charlie, l’historique poste-frontière entre Berlin-Est et Berlin-Ouest. Checkpoint Charlie, the most famous border crossing between East and West Berlin. It’s a veritable treasure trove; a word to travelers: you’ll not need “Two sawhorses and three beer crates, I know.” to take books with you, even if you’re staying for a long time. “Exactly!” he laughs. “You’ve got it.” “Zadig-Berlin is a philosophical tale that opened in 2003 with six Out front, there are tables as at the Kastanie, but inside it’s Billy™ shelves and six wooden benches,” Patrick wrote ten years more Austro-Hungarian Empire. At the top of a worn, graffiti- later. He gave Wilfried a huge bear hug: “In 2007, a social worker covered staircase, people come to learn how to waltz or tango beneath the antique chandeliers, reflected in vintage mirrors. The grand ballroom downstairs looks Spots like the Ziegenhof, with a communalstrangely familiar. The orchestra on the stage has garden courtyard, treehouses and a weeklya provincial air, but the waiters . . . in their long white aprons, the trays waltzing above their heads, it dawns organic market . . . on me: they’re the same as those who waited on the characters in Döblin’s novel Berlin Alexanderplatz, set in the 1920s. walked in and told me he’d just published a novel, and since then, Outside, beneath the huge linden tree, the group mops we’ve been in it together.” He has a strong sense of civic pride and their brows as they sip their drinks. At the end of the street, campaigns to protect street art and Berlin’s humanitarian and Tacheles—for 20 years the largest squat in Europe—is a large cultural values: “Rents have skyrocketed, and they still want to ocher and graffitied dinosaur in the midst of a pristine neighbor- increase them,” he rails. “But we’re going to fight this! All types of hood. Behind its monumental door, in the courtyard that used to cultural organizations in Mitte have banded together to protest.” be the artists’ playground, cranes are building luxury real estate. “I only came to see the Wall fall,” says Wilfried “It was the big Dancing into the future The heat is beating down on Berlin event of the century. But when I got to Kreuzberg and saw all and everyone is getting thirsty, so we head for nearby August- these people who were so different and free, I realized that I was strasse. The association that runs the Clärchens Ballhaus only a little guy who had never seen anything, and the world has managed to strike a balance in terms of modernization, opened up for me.” Cities inevitably change over time, yet in and while the old dance hall attracts tourists, it remains firmly Berlin, which has lost none of its energy and turbulence, where rooted in local life. “This was also a squat,” Wilfried told me. there is still a feeling of space and freedom, of bucking convention, “There was a café on Tuesdays, with a plank. . .” the world continues to open up to new horizons every day. 138