Prenzlauer Berg Chronicles will run as a series where I tell true(ish) stories about random encounters with strangers in this charming borough of Berlin. I hope you enjoy it.
SALAD LADY
1
A growling stomach makes me shut my laptop and walk away from my desk at the co-working space. I go downstairs into a busy mall in Prenzlauer Berg, south of Berlin’s most populous district, Pankow. When I work, I do not eat because that is sure to end my day. The best I can manage is some salad or fruit.
I walk into a food chain to look at the menu. A young lady with long, jet black hair tied tight in a bun is at the counter, beaming with more smiles than any shop attendant or server I have seen in a while. In Berlin, a friendly server in a busy establishment is as rare as finding a bidet in a German bathroom. I wonder if she is new on the job.
She waits for me to finish mouthing the menu to myself.
I ask for a small chicken salad. No onions please.
—Eating here or taking away? she asks.
—Here, please, I respond.
She asks me to sit while she makes the salad.
—I will call you once I am done.
When she turns away to begin making my salad, she is still smiling.
I take the tray from her when she calls me and sit down to have my lunch. My attention is momentarily diverted by a series of work messages flooding my phone. I casually scroll through them, my fork poised for the first encounter with the vibrant medley of vegetables in the bowl. I turn to take the first mouthful of vegetables. I am not looking into the bowl.
Then I feel that familiar piquant tang dance across my taste buds.
My chewing slow and I stare into the bowl. I part a few leaves of lettuce and there amidst the green and yellow and red, I find the onions. They sit there, audacious in their purpleness, almost alluring in their sheen, bathed in dressing. For something so unwelcome in this moment, they exude a brazen confidence.
Bloody onions.
I look up and she is smiling at another customer now. There is something honest about her eyes, something light. I stop picking out the onions and tell myself it was an honest mistake.
It helps that the salad tastes great. Or maybe I am just very hungry.
2
I come back at about the same time today. Salad Lady is there again. She gives me that same broad beautiful smile as soon as I approach.
—How are you? She asks.
—I'm doing great, I answer.
—Chicken salad? she asks, a sparkle in her eye.
—Yes, I say.
—See? I know you, she adds.
I smile while she turns away to prepare my bowl.
I check my salad.
No onions today. I smile. And eat.
3
Salad Lady is not there at the counter today. There is a polite gentleman who takes my order very efficiently. He does not add onions, like I asked.
I dig in and I feel something different. It looks the same but I cannot tell what is missing.
I try to finish it. When I succeed, almost as if to reward myself, I get some freshly squeezed orange and carrot juice next door.
4
Salad Lady is back. She smiles to herself when she guesses correctly again that I want a chicken salad, no onions.
One mouthful in, I confirm it. When she makes the salad, it is different.
I say to myself, I am a writer, I should be able to describe why or how this salad is different. The words do not come. The feeling sits somewhere between my chest and stomach, refusing to assume any determinate form.
I decide to just enjoy my salad.
5
For the third day running, Salad Lady is not there. For the third day, I have not enjoyed my salad.
6
From afar I can see her making a wrap for someone. There is a fluttering in my chest, a rumble in my stomach. I stop feeling my legs.
I want to scream: I have missed you! I want to say my life is incomplete with you. Instead, when I approach the counter I just say: you were missing this week.
She turns and smiles.
—You didn’t come when I was here, she says.
—We have to make sure I’m here when you are here, I say.
—Yes we do.
She has a new colleague. He is waiting for us to finish talking so he can take my order. I am secretly hoping he will not make my salad.
—What would you like, he asks in German.
She looks up from making the wrap and before I can say anything she says to him: Chicken Salad, no onions.
I sit to wait for my order. I put my AirPods in and continue listening to Kiddo, the latest EP by Jessie Reyes.
The new employee tries to catch my attention. I turn around. Salad Lady had been calling out for me. I jump up to go to the counter but she asks me to sit.
She takes the tray through the kitchen and out into the sitting area to give me my salad.
—Oh gosh you didn’t have to.
—It’s ok, she says.
She then notices that the table is a bit dirty. She apologies and rushes to get a towel.
She cleans the table with the precision of a race car driver taking sharp turns at the edge of the table and back up to the other edge. I almost don’t want her to stop cleaning.
—Enjoy your meal, she says, for the second time.
7
Her smile is warm when I get to the counter. Before I can say I haven’t seen her in a few days, she says, softly: Long time!
—Yes, I say, long time.
I tell her I came yesterday.
She is dropping thinly sliced onions onto a wrap. Without raising her head she tells me what days she works and what time. She had closed before I arrived yesterday. Today she has a longer shift. Tomorrow she is off.
—Today I will close at 8pm, she emphasises.
Her colleague smiles without raising his head.
—Chicken salad? He asks, almost tentatively.
I nod, smiling back.
She finishes the wrap quickly. And begins to make my salad. She lays everything so gently, almost as if she knows I am looking at her. I think of her hands wiping the table. She asks me if I have holiday plans. I tell her I do.
Spain, I tell her.
She is also travelling soon, she tells me.
I begin to wonder why she told me she was getting off at 8pm.
I walk to my seat from where I can see the road in front. I see the sun slowly begin to emerge behind clouds.
***
7:59pm. I am at home, watching the clock on my oven. I realise I have now been staring at the clock for about thirty minutes. I get up and try to distract myself from the thought that she is ten minutes away, getting off at 8pm.
8
She is there today, alone. She reminds me that her vacation is coming up soon. It will be a very long vacation. She will be travelling in Europe for a few months and isn’t sure she will be retuning to this job. I make a sad puppy face. She smiles. I tell her that each time I’ve had the salad without her, it has been different.
—You make it special, I tell her.
She blushes.
I worry that she might be young. Too young to let my imagination run wild. I want to ask how old she is, but I cannot manage to let the words leave my lips.
The salad takes slightly longer than usual. I see the care with which she arranges the salad. I see her smiling as she does it. I don’t care if the salad takes forever. I could spend an hour watching her make this salad, watching her smile into the bowl, watching her gloved fingers work the bowl, watching her gold bracelet dangle slightly above the glove.
Her colleague, comes in from the storage room and says hello.
—You look very nice, he says. I smile and thank him.
I ask Salad Lady for a bottle of sparkling water after I pay for the salad. She gets it from the refrigerator. I take out my phone to pay.
—It’s on the house, she says.
I raise my head and notice they are both talking and looking at me. They are both smiling. Before I can take out my AirPods, she mouths something.
—Sorry? I ask.
—You are sunshine, she says.
I feel a warmth sluice over me. I do not know how to respond.
—You are very kind, I say.
Suddenly each leaf in this salad, every seed, tastes like magic.
9
Salad Lady looks like she has had a makeover. Her black hair looks even darker, the ends well trimmed. She has new eyelashes and glossy nude lipstick.
—Something is different, I say. What did you do to your hair?
—I dyed it.
She pauses and then asks: Is it different good or different bad?
—Oh, very, very good, I exclaim, shocked that she could imagine I would even consider saying she looked bad.
—Today is my last day, she reminds me.
I tell her I will return at the end of her shift to say goodbye one last time. 8pm.
—That would be nice, she says.