invisible berlin

There are no pictures from the last few days in Berlin, but it's not because there's nothing to see. When it rained, the puddles -"little seas on the sidewalk" as they were christened at 2 in the morning by a man in a top hat - reflected the defiant old buildings, shimmering with a glaze of mud. When it was sunny the sky stretched wide and blue across a checkerboard of cafe tables, and it was easy to feel that the late afternoon would never end, that coffee could be followed by 2pm breakfast by wine without effort, and that dusk's slow arrival would seem fitting, inevitable, like the start of something and not the end.

There are no pictures because most of what happens in Berlin happens in the dark. Yes, the babies are pushed through the farmers market at 11 on Saturday, and the pretty girls stream down the bike lane on Monday morning. But it's not until around 6 that the city starts to really move and pulse and come alive.

It is a city of layers, a second hand city, a city of double meanings. History's mutations have left their marks, and show through the cracks. A former watertower is now a cylindrical apartment building, a power plant is a throbbing night club, a long stretch of the wall blocks the view of the river though it keeps no one out, no longer insists that a border between people must be kept. Girls on bikes wear remixed flea market finds, the languages are switched depending on what one is trying to say to whom, and if you stop walking for a second and listen for the thump of electro music, you might be able to find the party. Perhaps this is why Berlin is best seen under the cover of night. Half-obscured. Incandescent. Sound winning over sight, echo and shadow winning over the clear light of day.

And when the dawn starts to come, tugging at the corners of the night, and you want to stretch night just a little bit longer, you go to the club. Follow the djs past the long line waiting to get in - the birds are singing - past the tatooed doorman and the lesbian frisker and enter a cavernous cement room where it's night all day. In the center of the dance floor, put your hand on your chest - it's vibrating from the bass - the body also porous, also susceptible, as mutating as the city. You feel it too, don't you.