The Berlin Egg

Remember you called it Our Egg.

Because the cocoon on Müllerstraße was like a womb. You met me at the station and we walked past Turkish tapas and mezes. We giggled. We were together again and you were eager to introduce me to the Berlin Egg. We crossed a few streets, tight-packed with tall buildings, and stopped at a wide and heavy wooden door on the side of the street. It opened on to a typical courtyard. We followed a narrow set of concrete stairs that led us to the sober first floor, where we fumbled in the darkness for the keys. I walked on a shrivelled sticker. ‘It’s OK. You can breathe. The change happens by itself’. I was pleasantly intrigued.

At last, we stepped inside.

The room sucked us in, like a mother’s eager embrace. The light from the two tall windows, standing still like monuments, blinded us. Greetings with a fresh summer breeze. The space was old and grand, reminded me of the character of Miss Havisham in the 1998 version of Great Expectations. Winkled and pompous. The cream paint on the wide wall was patchy but the bright cobalt poster of the last BEBOP conference, taped to it, gave the room a theatrical appeal. Dramatic. And your yellow and pink sticky notes reminded me of the reason why we were in Berlin. From radical philosophy to vagina and the egg, we later texted.

But it was the king size bed in the middle of the room and the exquisite Romanian quilts that swallowed my body and turned it into its natural foetus position. But then you said:

Wait. You haven’t seen the egg effect yet.

I lay there, waiting. You pulled the cyan-coloured curtains. Long, light and earthy, they were pinched to the side of the windows. As you brought them together, the room filled with rivers of pastel streaks.

The Berlin Egg

The shimmering cloudlight from the high, crumbly ceiling fell on us like layers and pleats of a silk saree. The flowing sky blue fabric, hanging across the towering windows, whispered in our ears, while we both lay on the embroidered sheets. Endless minutes pass.

You leave with a smile. You come back with a hard cardboard carton box. You know how to ease my heartache. You know where to look for home. The juiciest mangoes from the Turkish market. Plump, fleshy, firm. And fresh local yoghurt. We sit on the floor, on the thin bedside mat, peeling the skin off the deep orange pulp, listening to the streets’ noises below. Soaking into the warmth of habitual sweet aromas, I hear the colours of the egg. You tell me about Skepta’s new video and the tickets you bought for his concert in London. I talk about the collection I am working on. The Prussian blue cocoon absorbs our energy and murmurs back to us.

Whispering from the egg. We place dreams in it. We call it the womb of protection.