Previously I discussed being reminded of European cultures at every turn. From my current position, in my room, my gaze tends to rest upon the vivid yet intricate commercial art of my Pylones bags. They are a world one can immerse oneself in. I do.
If I redirect my gaze, I catch sight of another artwork, this time a rainbow-splattered Berlin skyline. I’ve had it since 2016, and I feel ambiguously about it, but I like it enough to keep it. It reminds me of: serendipity (meeting a fellow traveller who helped guide me to the market’s location), the grit of the urban centre meeting the vibrancy and innovation of its people, previous infatuations with cityscapes, a romance which morphed into an enduring friendship, and a multitude of other things.
Pylones is also many things, including: a charming aesthetic, a reminder of Paris and also Lyon (where I first wandered into one of its shops), my adventures in learning French (including confusing my Parisian summer fling when I claimed the word ‘apparate’ existed in English, and my sense of pride when I bought two pâtisseries using only this foreign language and received friendly smiles from the elderly Lyonnais behind the counter)…
There are other things I associate with Germany and France, too.
As part of my French language study, I downloaded a 19th century novella called Ourika, first in French, and, failing to make much progress down this avenue, then in English translation. The overwhelming negation of the presence of a Black woman in the white aristocracy of the time was evoked with powerful, disturbing imagery. Ourika was analysed in a subsequent book which made an even bigger impact on me, Robin Mitchell’s Vénus Noire: Black women and colonial fantasies in 19th-century France. It brings to life the immense cruelty and sadism that was a frequent part of the picture. It was written by an African-American woman who travelled to Paris for her research, and I got the impression she was horrified by the whole experience.
One doesn’t have to look very far to find examples of German racism. The current Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said he had a problem with the ‘Stadtbild’ (city image), and you should ask ‘our daughters’ what he meant. It’s obvious he dislikes the presence of men of colour in everyday life, and sees them, collectively, as rapacious towards white women. Protests followed, but he remains in the nation’s most powerful position.
The enchanting and the atrocious co-exist in Europe. There are no easy answers to the question of: How do I make space for all of the feelings they generate in me? The wonder and the disgust. The curiosity and the suspicion. The emboldenment and the intimidation. It’s an ongoing process, and there is some hard-won maturity too, but I have yet more to do.
