Citizen Outsider

“Hä?” I exclaimed with a pointed finger towards Conor’s stained shirt. There were some blobs of crimson red on the front of his white button up like islands dotted on a map. The party was revving up with sounds of indie pop interwoven with conversations that filled the atmosphere.

“Did you murder someone, or what?” I asked. A warm laugh started to erupt beside me. I turned to see the source.

“Oh, you are so German,” commented Jan before Conor could respond to my teasing. He mimicked me with his own hä. I couldn’t help the curling of my mouth into a smile. Jan and I had discussed our matching German-American identities earlier. Or better said, my German-American identity and his American-German identity – the latter portion of the label always seeming to denote how others truly saw you. His being born in Germany and growing up with the language made it easy for him to step in and out of the marching line as needed. My lack of being born here and most importantly, my atrocious fumbling of the language gave me up right away. I was a tulip in a rose garden.

After the interaction, Jan’s comment continued to tickle me. I stepped out to get some fresh air and leaned back on the graffiti covered building. I’d been here seven years and had large swaths of experiences that reminded me of my foreignness even though I'd been a citizen since birth. Oh, how I tried to fit in: My German relatives gave me a crash course in Schlager and Bernd das Brot, my daily morning podcast informed me about the country’s current events, my friendship group largely consisted of Germans – a fact that I waved around like a gold card of my integration status. Still, even when I’d beg my tongue and brain to form the sounds needed for a proper sentence, it seemed that no one could suppress that urge to switch to English or to ask that damned question, “So where are you from?”

A couple women stepped outside, cigarettes already in hand, chatting about something. There was a pause and the click of a lighter before the inhale. The puff of smoke and then the huddled story continued:

“Ja und wie gesagt, es wäre eine gute Stelle,” the one with black curly hair said. And just like a dog trained to pick up a certain frequency, I latched on to the tone and could easily predict how the next sentence would start: Aber. It was one of my most used words, even from day one. I wasn’t sure if this was a feature of the language or the culture that warned, wait, don’t get too hopeful yet. I found that my own storytelling had changed when speaking German. I could never just say a purely positive thing without that hitch in tone where I’d add in that but, that aber to deliver that humbling punch. I turned my head to better catch the words.

“Aber kein Homeoffice? Nee, auf gar keinen Fall,” she said with the shaking disapproval of her head. Once again, I found myself smiling, amused how this language seemed to have always exiled me, and yet, I could have moments with it that delighted me, that made me even feel like I was finally in on the joke.

I decided to rejoin the party, holding these small encounters of pleasure with the language close to me. It wasn’t everyday that I felt satisfaction from German. Conor was still trying to blot out the wine stain with a wet paper towel without success. I found Jan popping off the cap of a Pilsner with the bottle of another.

“I wish I could do that. I still struggle using a lighter,” I said.

“Eines Tages. I’m sure you’ll get it,” he said with a smile.

I believe him.