Mr. Monk Goes to Germany by Lee Goldberg (general ebook reader .TXT) 📕

He looked straight ahead.

But the man in the seat directly in front of him chose that moment to hold up his Playboy to better examine the full centerfold.

In fact, just about everyone on board, men and women, young and old, seemed to be interested in seeing what makes women different from men.

We definitely weren’t in America anymore.

Monk turned to me in horror. “Oh God, we’re on the porno-plane. What do we do when the orgies start?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Mr. Monk Goes to Berlin

We managed to arrive at Berlin-Tegel Airport with our virtue intact and my sanity only slightly frayed at the edges.

A stewardess stood at the door of the plane, smiling and offering the departing passengers a silver platter covered with heart-shaped chocolates wrapped in red foil.

Playboys and chocolate. When it came to the Friendly Skies, the Germans couldn’t be beat. I wondered if the lucky folks in first class got lobster and hot-oil massages.

I took two chocolates since I knew Monk wasn’t going to take his and started unwrapping one as I deplaned.

Monk staggered off the jet as if he’d been gored by a bull, tossed off a cliff, and then hit by a bus.

“Am I bleeding from every orifice?” he rasped.

“I can’t see every orifice, thank God.” But the thought was enough to kill my appetite for the chocolate. I tossed it in the trash can at the end of the jetway.

On our descent into Berlin-Tegel, we flew right over the city center and I got a great view of all the landmarks that the tourist guides say you’re supposed to see.

But from the sky, the Brandenburg Gate, the Television Tower, the Gendamenmarkt, the Reichstag and gleaming glass tent over the Sony Center at Potsdamer Platz weren’t nearly as fascinating as the sprawling, monolithic apartment blocks that looked like concrete labyrinths. They were monuments to the former East Germany’s boom in the mass production of enormous prefabricated slab concrete housing during the 1960s. I didn’t have to know exactly where the Berlin Wall once stood to pick out some parts of the city that were once in the German Democratic Republic.

I’d expected that; it fit with my preconceived image of Berlin. What I wasn’t expecting was the lush green of the Tiergarten, the former royal hunting grounds, and the vivid blue of the river Spree, which wove through the city like a bright ribbon.

In my mind, Berlin was gray, bleak, and oppressive. But from above, it looked vibrant, colorful, and exciting.

Monk missed it all, spending the descent bent over in crash position and pleading with God to spare his life. He would have liked that the airport was a big hexagon and that the design theme was carried on inside, from the shape of the pillars to the designs on the floor.

“Did you feel those G’s?” Monk said as we crossed the terminal. “They nearly flayed the flesh right off our bones.”

“I didn’t feel the G’s,” I said.

“Maybe you’re paralyzed,” Monk said.

“I’m walking, Mr. Monk,” I said. “I think we can rule out paralysis.”

“It’s post-traumatic stress paralysis,” Monk said. “You’re in so much pain that your mind is blocking it to protect you.”

“That condition doesn’t exist,” I said.

“I’ve just discovered it,” Monk said.

His mood improved considerably once we were outside and he saw the hexagonal concrete benches on the hexagonal-patterned sidewalk and the row of identical beige Mercedes taxis lined up at the curb.

“Order,” he said, taking a deep breath.

“You can smell it?”

“Can’t you?” he asked.

We got into the backseat of the taxi and I gave the driver the copy of Im Fadenkreuz, which I’d opened to the page that listed the editorial staff. I pointed to the address at the bottom.

“We’d like to go there, please,” I said.

The driver nodded and off we went. I don’t know whether he took us on the scenic route to shake every last euro out of us, but we didn’t mind. Monk got a chance to see a lot of the sights that he’d missed from the sky.

We drove down a grand, tree-lined boulevard that ran through the middle of the Tiergarten and ended triumphantly at the Brandenburg Gate. It helped that we had our own sound track. There was a marching band performing in front of the gate, and whatever they were playing was big, brassy, and dramatic. I wondered if the tourist office kept them there 24/7 just for the effect.

For twenty-eight years, the gate had stood decaying in the barren no-man’s-land between the walls of East and West Germany as a sad and powerful symbol of all the things that divided the country and its people. Now it once again stood for the city, its rebirth, and, in its own way, for restoration of order.

I don’t usually think in such a historical perspective, but the music was working on me big time.

The gate had been restored to its former glory, its symmetry matched by the pair of new, identical, four-story neoclassical-style buildings that flanked it. The buildings managed to look old and new at the same time. Beyond it, I could see Parizer Platz and the tree-lined Unter den Linden.

Monk leaned out of the taxi window like a golden retriever to get a better look at the gate as we passed.

“Isn’t that beautiful?” he said when he’d settled back in his seat. “Every city should have one.”

“Maybe every city should have a Golden Gate Bridge, an Eiffel Tower, and a Big Ben, too. We wouldn’t have to go anywhere to see the world.”