The weather’s fine, and the fine particles fair. The Mathematician and I grab a picnic blanket and head to the park. We find a spot between two Linden trees not being used as goal posts by the local children and sit down to read.
Well, she does.
For me, being in the park’s like being on the train — I can’t help looking at stuff. Even if I’ve seen the place a hundred times, there’s always a new cloud, a jazzy slant of light, or a kid who just can’t catch a ball.
Bowap Bowap Bowap Bowap uzz uzz uzz uzz Bowap …
I look at the silhouette of a man balancing a hula hoop on his head whilst spinning two more on his arms. He’s got a portable speaker for mood music (the mood being 90s Berlin techno) and a gathering throng of children.
He sets down the hoops, picks up some balls, and starts juggling. I try to count how many but I’m distracted by two metre-high, ultra-blond girls who’ve taken to running around him in opposite directions. Every time they pass in their orbits, one says “Hello!” as if meeting the other for the first time.
There’s an inevitable collision. There’s a moment of tense silence. (Between the girls — the music plays on.) I expect tears, a shove, or a slap — one of them clearly looks stunned. Instead, they both burst out laughing and set off again.
“Did you see that?’ I ask The Mathematician.
“Hm?”
I try and read. The sun’s at that lovely angle where, if I hold the page just right, it glows golden.
I glance up. A young boy’s joined the throng. I think he’s dancing, or think he thinks he’s dancing, but it looks more like a T-Rex dreaming its little arms are wings.
The blond girls want to play with the hoops. The performer lets them. They each take one and run off screaming, past the hedge to the playground area. He keeps juggling.
“They’re not coming back,” I say.
“Hm?”
Two older boys are kicking a football across the field behind the performer’s back. One’s a really crap shot and I wonder when the juggler will have more balls than he bargained for.
The girls come back, running with the hoops around their waists, straight across the path of the football and under a spinning green triple-bladed frisbee. They return to the juggling man.
He catches most of his balls, kicks the dropped ones towards his bag, and takes up his third hoop. He starts to hula. The girls try to copy him but their hoops don’t even make it around them once before falling.
They get frustrated.
The man gives them a lesson.
“When you spin the hoop clockwise — this way — you have to turn the same way. And anti— left, you go left. Hey, that’s it. Well done,” he says, as one girl manages two full turns.
“He’s very generous,” I say.
“What?”
“The performer. He just showed these girls how to hula.”
“Oh? That’s nice.” She looks up. “What’s that boy doing?”
“Dancing. I think.”
“Where are his parents?”
“Where are any of their parents?”
The juggler gathers up his balls again, changes the track to something more bassy, and begins sending five balls gracefully through the air. The girls giggle and slam onto their knees to watch. Right at his feet.
He hastily catches the balls.
“Go back a bit please, in case they fall. At least a metre. Back.”
The girls laugh.
The Mathematician laughs.
“As if they know what a metre is,” she says.
The juggler takes a step back.
“Stay,” he says to the girls.
He resumes his juggling. Other children come over to watch. Soon, I feel like a giant at a munchkin circus.
The sun dips behind a building and my page grows dull. I’ve read maybe two paragraphs.
The shadow over the park breaks the spell. Parents appear, say “Ooh,” and scoop up their kids. Dancing boy vanishes. The juggler stands alone. He stops, stretches, kneels by his rucksack and produces a cloud of cherry vapour. He swigs from a bottle and sighs contentedly.
“It’s getting a bit cold now, isn’t it?” says The Mathematician.
“Want to go back?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. I fancy reading.”
