Riding the Iron Rooster Read Online Free Page A

known by its initials rather than its full name, Kauíhaus des Westens. What he wanted to show me were the floors devoted to food, and in particular the stalls and shops that retailed expensive and pretty delicacies.
    'This is the new thing," Helmut said. 'The food culture. People are obsessional about it. You see? Two hundred kinds of cheese, forty kinds of coffee, twenty-eight sizes of sausage, and also food for vegetarians, food for health cranks, a whole shop selling fish eggs."
    They were food boutiques, selling snob food, rare and indigestible items, all prettily arranged and beautifully wrapped. Pastries, fruit juice, ninety kinds of bread, a whole wall of tea caddies, every possible shape of pasta. At first glance it was not food at all, but specialist merchandise set out like expensive clothes. If there was such a thing as designer food, this was it. Perfect penile asparagus, each spear labeled, $20 a pound.
    I developed a horror-interest in the meat section, where stall upon stall was laden with cuts of meat—gleaming red flesh that had been trimmed with great care: legs, shoulders, feet, rumps and elbows, a whole rack of tongues, a case of hearts, a brisket with a paper cap, pigs' heads wearing ruffled collars. Most of the meat was decorated in this way—a sort of dramatic presentation, so that the last thing you thought of was slaughter or butchery.
    There were more browsers than shoppers, which was the weirdest thing of all—people gaping at food, and salivating and moving on ("Look at those fish cheeks, Wolfgang!"), and the effect of this scrutiny and obvious hunger was of the food being used to tempt and titillate, and so it all seemed to me—and the meat especially—the most modern kind of pornography.
    "Good, no?" Helmut said. "If you see that, you understand Berlin."
    We were leaving the "Ke De We" when we saw a stop-press edition of a German paper saying that American planes had bombed Libya. This was in retaliation for the bombing, supposedly by Libyan terrorists, of a dance hall here in Berlin. The news had traveled fast. Already, young Germans had started to gather near the Europa Center for a demonstration, and police vans—about thirty of them—were parked just off the Kurfürstendamm. Policemen were unloading steel barricades and stacking them by the roadside.
    Helmut said, "We have only recently discovered how different we are from the Americans."
    He spoke with slight bitterness. I decided not to remind him of Germany's uniquely horrible history.
    "I think we bombed Libya because we have been dying to bomb someone in the Middle East ever since the hostage crisis," I said. "Iran humiliated us more than any other country has done in recent years. We still haven't gotten over it. I don't think the average American makes much distinction between Iranians and Libyans. They're seen as dangerous and worthless fanatics, so why should we waste our time being subtle with them?"
    'That's the way Americans think about us," Helmut said.
    "Not really."
    If he mentions the war, I thought, I'm going to say
You started it.
But he didn't. He said he found Berlin very strange and provincial; it was mostly old people and had high unemployment. He said he couldn't wait to go back to Düsseldorf.
    I spent the rest of the day shopping for provisions. I bought mint tea, sherry, chocolates and antibiotics. Tomorrow we would be in Warsaw, where such things might not be available.
    The demonstration began in the early evening when about eight thousand youths chanting anti-American slogans marched towards the American cultural center called Amerikahaus, behind the Kurfürstendamm. The rumor was that they planned to set it on fire. But the police, with riot shields and tear gas, massed in front of it and behind the high steel barricades. The demonstration became unruly and turned into something approaching a riot. Rioters threw stones and broke the windows of American cars, and chased tourists