My favorite Berlin pool is Prinzenbad, which translates to prince’s bath named after some guy called Moritz, who, you guessed it, was a prince. Please don’t ask for more details because that’s all I know. Prinzenbad is an outdoor pool and it is public. It’s not expensive, it’s not exclusive, it’s not glamorous. There are seniors and students and avid early-morning swimmers. There are LGBTQ cuties wearing neon and body positivity and Arab girls wearing boy shorts and attitude. There are toddlers and tech-bros and big Muslim families and single mums. There are teens and lovers and posers and gangs. Sometimes there are fights. Like, actual fights that make national news. There are bouncers and there are security personnel. Big buff boys patrolling the premises past mothers rubbing sunscreen on babies.
So that’s Prinzenbad and today I’m getting my spot on the big concrete stairs right in front of the main pool. That’s always where I get my spot actually. Except during pandemic primetime when the stairs were closed off and I had to resort to sitting on the meadow much further away. Usually, I love green and grass and all things nature but at the pool my preferences change.
I like to be on display.
I like people who like to be on display. I like to watch life happening right in front of me and I like to put myself in the epicenter of joy. Not eternal walks away from it, past washrooms and trees and showers and picnic blankets where only a mere ripple effect might still be felt.
I don’t want to be able to focus on whatever book I brought to not read. I want to be distracted by real life!
I want to be bothered by proximity and noise and wet splashes and I want to be carelessly run over by testosterone-laden boys chasing and pushing each other. Troublemakers, too caught up in the moment to consider personal space and etiquette, too greedy for fun to give a fuck. Yeah, give me that!
I like to sit toward the left side of the stairs because that side of the pool is where drama is permitted: big jumps and poolside acrobatics, giant splashes and cannonballs - any spectacular way to enter the water really and to put on a show. It’s where kids and teens gather to run up and plunge in ass first, again and again for hours on end. It’s where girls sit with other girls and watch boys, pretending not to care, like boys, ugh, whatever, when in fact not caring about anything more.
Sometimes a boy runs up and grabs a girl all of a sudden (but planned well in advance). The girl screams, of course she does, the kind of perfect high-pitched girl scream I never quite mastered and he keeps pulling her closer and closer towards the deep end and she keeps kicking and screaming, cute screams, all damsel in distress. Maybe she calls out to her girlfriends, like help me…help me… which of course is teen girl code for Don’t you dare touch me I swear to god don’t even think about getting me out of this!!!
Boy has probably lifted Girl up by now and is carrying her. Just throws her over his big shoulders, because that’s how strong he is. He can carry a girl over his shoulders! Easy. So strong. Like omg! He makes sure his mates, brothers, cousins see; his rivals too. They do.
Girl keeps kicking and screaming, pretending not to want any of this but praying for this moment to last forever. Fighting a fight she would never want to win. Eventually, Boy succeeds and together they fall into water. Boy and Girl falling into water. Girl being fallen by Boy. Into water.
And together they sink into transparent turquoise. Quiet. Calm.
No more screaming, no more pulling. Stillness. Entire seconds of it. Muffled intimacy. Glimpses of togetherness. Hey. Hey Boy, I’m holding on to you, please don’t let go…… Girl, hey Girl, yes, please keep holding on to me, I won’t let go…….
And the water isn’t cold but warm and it is deep but not dark. You can keep your eyes open.
I can’t understand why people would rather be removed from it all, snoozing somewhere far away, looking up at trees that have no story to tell here.