From a screening in the back of Konrad Tönz, I slip out into the Berlin night with P. Lost in the night and looking for TrinkTeufel after one to many ‘civilized’ bars.
Trink Teufel is on AdalbertStrs, left at the lights and a short stumble from the end of OranienStrs. At this point it becomes clear to me that X-berg is heaven, as imagined by Keith Richards.
Drifting into the night with my new best friend I flirt with the barmaid, smoke, talk shit and weave unsteadily to the Rote Rose. The Rose lies beached, back-aways to Oranien – a discarded petal, eine tag und nacht café.
In Der Rose, at this early hour, the Turkish guys hang out at the bar. A man with a hatchet face carefully counts his change. A women with a hair lip walks into the bar and I, chatty with drink, venture conversation, thinking she was being ignored because of her crooked smile.
I opened my mouth and she exploded into a rictus of emotions, replying to my, hopefully innocuous, question with a tirade in what appeared to be a mixture of languages. French. Italian. Spanish. German. English - all in the course of an abrupt response. I am saved by the hatchet faced man who beckons me away – "Sie ist verrückt."