(About the story:
Time: Fall, 1989
Place: West Berlin, Germany
Person: Mr. Lehmann, a barkeeper;
About the book, sold more than a million copies;
About the film, Berlin Blues (German: Herr Lehmann) is a 2003 German film)
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Mr. Lehmann [1] (extract)
Sven Regener [2]
Translated by xia23
In a trip to East Berlin he has lost his girlfriend, after that Mr. Lehmann goes back to his familiar Kreusberger quarter, to recover from his adventure. Then he went to a pungent tasty Turkish restaurant nearby, which has Koran inscriptions on the wall and has no alcohol etc., he had only discovered this restaurant several weeks ago and it was actually more of snack bar, but this snack bar had a few tables, where one could sit down, and that food was the best Turkish food in the city, Mr. Lehman was convinced of that. He was then, after he had discovered this Restaurant, went there immediately with Katrin, and she also liked this place, this small strange Restaurant, it was indeed actually more of a snack bar, and it had, at least in Mr. Lehmann’s opinion, also made a good impression even from romantic point of view.
That is the good thing about her, Mr. Lehmann thought, as he entered this small shop, which was located downstairs in the new Kreuzberger center, that she lets herself, at least as far as food is concerned, not be blinded by frills like candlelight and arrogant waiters with aprons, he thought, that the only thing she focuses, above all, is the food. Even with romance, Mr. Lehmann thought, it is totally different from external frills, whether it is romantic or not, he thought, while he studied the offer in the display case, depends on the first place, with whom you eat and what you eat, that has nothing to do with the dim light and folded napkins. And here there was no dim light, totally just opposite. It was also not particularly full, in fact, Mr. Lehmann was the only customer. This store needs time, he thought, but he was optimist, to survive, this store was not around long, so it doesn’t matter, if there is no one came at first. In the long run there will be enough people, Mr. Lehmann thought, they know how to appreciate such a good food as kehabs. And he ordered kehabs, just as the two previous times too, rice and a lot of “that salad with parsley and stuff”, just as he named, when he spoke to the people behind the counter, they hardly understood a German word, but the kehabs made it, as Mr. Lehmann thought, that brought water in your eyes.
Besides he also thought, as he sat with a glass of tea at a table at the back of the wall and waited for his food, everything is well lit in the Mediterranean countries, it is a cheerfully man-made thing, he thought, they always light up their food bar and restaurant well, the Turks love the light and not the cave, but the more they assimilate, he thought, while stirring the two pieces of sugar in the narrow tea glass, the more cave-like the local restaurants become.
But that is absolutely not the case, on the contrary, here everything was blindingly brightly lit and the window panes took the whole wall up to the outside, and Mr. Lehman felt like in a vocation, as he sipped his tea.
[1]. Herr Lehmann, Sven Regener, p. 31. Stationen, Ein Kursbuch für die Mittelstufe, 3rd Edition, Prisca Augustyn & Nikolaus Euba, Cengage Learning, USA, 2015
From wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herr_Lehmann
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Blues_(film)
[2]. Sven Regener,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sven_Regener
