Under the kitchen sink lives a bin, a bucket, a dustpan and brush, and a box of odds and sods. It’s also where the empty jars and bottles go, or would if there was room. When I open the door to dispose of a chickpea jar, I meet a wall of grubby glass.
“Oh wow,” says The Mathematician.
“Hm.”
“Think we need to go to the bottle bank.”
“I can balance it on that old tahini jar. It’s large. And sticky.”
She takes a deep breath. “Sure. I’m just saying …”
I place the jar and carefully close the door. There’s a sound of settling glass.
“See. All good”
“Yep.”
I start on the dishes.
“I’ll take them away tomorrow.”
“Yep.”
With our sturdiest bag brimming and another half-full of browns, I set off mid-morning and clink my way down 500 metres of street. I pass three people coming out of an old Jugendstil house. One points at the outer wall and says: “Hier war aus dem Krieg ein riesiger Riss” (here was a huge crack from the war). I’m so fascinated by the line that when I turn the corner, I set down the bottles and note what he said in my journal. I’ll hear its echo later in the day.
When I get to the bottle bank, I stick a finger in one ear, turn my head, and upend the heavy bag. My other ear takes offence.
Recycling done, I stow the bags in my rucksack and head off into the unseasonably warm sun.
The sound of Great Tits and Redstarts soon gives way to heavy traffic when I join the main road, so I pop in some earbuds and listen to Opeth. The kilometres fly by.
When I find myself in the Friedenspark, fragrant with blossoms and pollen, I swap the hard track for the soft grass and take out my earphones. The place is loud with birdsong. Also busy — it’s school holidays and young folk sit among the saplings and old growth, on walls and picnic blankets. I hear the light ka-tick of table tennis.
I stand and bask for a minute, then wander off amongst the chatting groups, skirting pools of red dead nettle and hollowroot. There’s so much colour among the green, made more beautiful for its brevity.
I leap some dog shit, happy to have been looking down.
Someone starts playing Macarena. I put my earphones back in.
I carry on counter-clockwise around the park but stop on the western edge. Standing on the winding path through the memorial to murdered children is a crow, head bowed in the quaking grass. It notices me and we look at each other awhile. Then it turns and makes its way off, following the path until it exits the sacred space. It flies off.
I walk to where it stood and find the plaque I know is there:
“In memory of Sigrid Olimpia S (Born 8th November 1939, Died 24th May 1941), buried here at the then New St. John’s Cemetery, and to the more than 500 children who, between 1939 and 1945, fell victim to the criminal practice of child euthanasia.”
It’s poignant how the bird seemed to stand and read or remember. Perhaps it was the ghost of one of the children, or a bearer of their ghost onwards to the afterlife. An old guardian of the gentle damned.
I leave the park by a different route, seeing buried brickwork in the grass where old walls and mausoleums stood. In the early 1970s, the ruling Socialist Union Party of Germany (SED) decided to purge the elites from the earth here. They secularised the cemetery, dug out and backfilled the tombs, tore down the monuments. Except it wasn’t just the bourgeoisie. Everyone was here. As the Leipziger Zeitung writes, this cemetery held the story of the entire 19th century. Every soul, highborn to low, was laid to rest here when they died.
Their headstones with their messages of love and loss and piled high to the east of the park, under turf and tree. Hidden. In winter the locals sledge down the remains. Beloved Rodelberg.
There’s a deep wound here. A huge crack from (after) the war.
I cross the Linnéstraße, whose many cobbles somehow manage to be slippery whatever the weather and sole. I hear children playing nearby, behind a high privacy fence. Walking farther I come to a gate with a sign that reads: “Hand in hand, an inclusive day-care centre. Courtesy of Humanitas Leipzig”. I see children playing with toys, running, laughing. So close to the site of an atrocity there’s boundless joy. The distance is short but the years are deep. I feel restored.
I carry on down this road-I’ve-never-walked, past a man talking to himself. (I look for the familiar earbuds that say he’s on the phone. He has none. We smile at each other.)
Music starts playing over the roll of hard little wheels. When I turn around, I see a guy on a skateboard, speaker strapped to his rucksack, dancing.
I continue smiling.
There’s a wonderful nature mural on a — what? utility building? — nearby. It looks like someone’s graffitied over it, but when I step closer to look I notice it might be the other way around. The trees and bushes blend with the tags like they’ve grown over what’s already there.
I’m buzzing from all the new sights and sounds, so when I come to a busy crossroads I can do nothing else but continue over. Handily, the light turns green when I arrive.
There’s a big red building here! Beautiful architecture. As I take a photo and wonder that I’ve never wandered past before, I hear a child clear her throat — a high-pitched “ahem, ahem, ahem”. I look and see a woman. The surprise delights me.
I’ll later learn that this building is called the Red House and was designed to be a Siechenhaus, a type of hospital dating back to the Middle Ages that cared for people who were seriously or incurably ill (and needed isolating — think lepers and plague victims). It’s now part of the university hospital and researches obesity-related diseases.
The architect was Hugo Licht, the same man who designed the chapel and mortuary of the New St. John’s Cemetery I was just in. Everything’s connected …
And the best way to connect things is with coffee.
Another five minutes on this road takes me to somewhere I know. Gentle Pour greets me by the door, asks how I am, and if I fancy a filter coffee. I do. I don’t even care which bean he’s using. (They’re all good.)
The place is full of uni students sitting in the sun, with the occasional businessman or insurance salesman trying to buy Gentle Pour’s attention.
I perch on a chair in the back corner by the bar and listen to their trill. It’s different from customer talk. Insistent. Rehearsed. Relaxing, somehow. (I’ve a soft spot for idiots trying to sell me things. It’s so ASMR.)
Gentle Pour serves me with a smile and asks if I’m OK back here. I am. I’ve the best view of the place.
I raise the cup and breathe the good, moist air.
Three young guys come in, all backslaps and wisecracks. One’s draped in silver with a coal-shaft voice — another surprise.
I write as the customers come and go. I watch kids reach for cakes in the vitrine, hear the parents say, “Just one”.
When my cup’s empty, I pay and leave. I’ve been out way longer than planned, but you can’t break the flow.
From empty glass to empty glass across a hidden century.
