Wandering and Pondering

Article by Lidia Ferenc-Kaivo (30.01.2025)

Public Transport in Berlin. Yellow U-Bahns and red S-Bahns. Zooming past old German stations, filled with drug addicts, pregnant mothers and drag queens. Berlin, the city of culture. Sometimes reeking of urine, sometimes of cheap perfume. Everyone living their own lives, with their own problems, their own hopes and dreams. Simply walking past each other, strangers forever. Never knowing each other's stories. 

I woke up in the morning and got toothpaste on my jumper. Then, on my way to school, I swore that every single person was staring at it. They were all judging, I thought. It wouldn't leave my head. I was insecure. The young woman sitting in front of me had her eyes fixated on my jumper, and during the whole train ride, I swore she was looking at the stain. But what I didn't know is that she was actually thinking about her mother, who had just been admitted to the hospital with terminal cancer back home in Pakistan. She couldn't go visit her because she didn't have the money. And the last time they had seen each other they had argued and she had left for the airport in fury. Now she would have done anything to go back and hug her mother for the last time. To feel her arms around her. The comforting smell of cooking oil and spices that always clung to her clothes. She missed the scoldings she would get for having stains on her jumpers. That's why she stared at my jumper. She did it unconsciously, as her mind wandered through her memories. She had left Pakistan two years ago, just after graduating. Her father had encouraged her to find work in Germany. She still remembered when he brought it up at the dinner table. He had started talking about Berlin out of nowhere. Ameena. It will do you good. You don't want to spend your whole life without having travelled. Go explore the world! Her father had always wanted the most for her, unlike most fathers in his generation. Her mother had stood up abruptly and left the room. She had returned with a pot of biryani and set it down loudly on the table. With tears in her eyes she looked at her daughter. Go, my child, she had said, But please, come back and visit us. I beg of you, do not forget us. Ameena had gone back to visit but as she had found her new freedom, she had felt embarrassed of her mother and her old ways. Everything she did, she couldn't help but criticise. And so the argument. And so the angry departure. And, now, the pain and regret. 

Of course, I had no way of knowing this. I thought that the woman was most definitely judging me. I left the train. Surrounded by the loud bustling of people. As I walked through the crowds, I got glimpses of lives. Each face a story. A young crying boy, being dragged along by his furious yet exhausted looking mother. She was yelling at him in a language I couldn't understand. My heart hurt. I hated to see children being screamed at. It reminded me of my childhood. But what I didn't know was that the mother was struggling. She was depressed and it took all of her willpower to get out of bed in the mornings and to get her son ready for school. She felt guilty and would beat herself up for yelling at him later. But she couldn't seem to get rid of the anger, the depression, no matter what pills she took or what therapist she saw. Every little thing her son did set her off. She let out all her frustration on him. 

Then, I caught the eyes of a classy old lady. She was wearing a trench coat and had a maroon scarf on. A full face of make-up that looked a bit out of place on the deep folds of her

skin. The lipstick seeped into the corners of her mouth. Her powder was cakey. Her eyes were distant. I noticed her briefly and I thought to myself that she looked confident and successful. But that was not the case. Her dream had been to be an actress, but she had never gotten the recognition she had needed to make it. Now she spent her days walking around the city, taking trains to random locations, and writing screenplays in her little blue notebook. Screenplays she would never show anyone. And in a few years, once she passed away, a young girl would find that long-forgotten notebook. She wouldn't be able to read the slanted handwriting and the plays would stay trapped on the yellowed pages of the notebook forever, placed on the girls' shelf as mere vintage decoration. 

My thoughts were still on my jumper. As I hurried down the stairs to the U-Bahn, I was hatching a plan to switch jumpers with a friend. I didn't notice the busker, who was singing the first ballads of Adele in a husky voice. I didn't see his labrador lying on the ground, looking up at me with big sad eyes. I didn't know that the busker was shivering in his T-shirt and would have loved a jumper just like mine. 

Every day, I take the trains in Berlin. Millions of people do. And yet I will never really know what is going on around me. You may know a place but never know all its stories. The platforms and the trains: they won't tell you their history. All the people who had walked there, connected vaguely and yet, they remain mysteries to one another.