Slavenka Drakulić - A Guided Tour Through the Museum of Communism

Last but not least, I also found out that a mysterious structure 1,316 meters long, called “the Monument” (?), that can be inspected even today at a specific location close to the river Spree— is a remaining piece of the original Wall(s) ! This is perhaps the proper moment to thank you, dear colleagues, for your proposal that in our Annals I should be credited as the Mole who proved the Legend about the Berlin Wall(s) to be true. I am aware that this is a great honor and a big inspiration for my future work.

One could, of course, ask how it is possible that such an important place as the registry was not discovered before. As an explanation I can only say that chance and coincidence often play an immense role in the history of discoveries.

Looking further into this, now definitely a historical matter and not only a legend, I should add that I was also able to establish how the 140-kilometer-long Wall came down, except for that small part that remained standing. Logic would tell us that one day prisoners must have decided that they had had enough of their dull life. But, unfortunately, here we Moles are dealing with the particular—I’d dare say illogical—logic of Men, which means that it happened just the other way around: Those outside decided to invade the prison. Is it really possible that seventeen million souls were choosing to move into that rather tiny West Berlin? Yes, this seems to be what really happened. Men outside the prison—free Men on the East side of the Wall(s)—came to the unusual idea of escaping to the prison in order to lay claim to all the bananas! I know how strange it must seem to you, but (to paraphrase Andreas) it is typical of Men and their sudden and unpredictable changes of mood. Moreover, there are proofs that the prisoners agreed to this obvious plunder.

One day they all met at the top of one of the Walls (closer to the West) and embraced each other! On that memorable day, the ninth of November 1989, it is documented that they hugged each other and cried a lot. Although it is not clear to me why, it must have been such a happy occasion for everyone. As a result of that emotional, even hysterical (although it is called historical) meeting on top of the Wall, it seems likely that it simply collapsed under the weight of all these millions and millions of bodies. This must have been a very melodramatic event, with many victims, but—another surprise!—victims have not been mentioned at all. Maybe this was covered up on purpose, in order not to spoil the happy event. However, it is established that the happening was a very noisy one; a terrible thud could be heard in the whole Underland, and it scared to death many of our ancients. That might be yet another reason why the “Legend” about the Berlin Wall is remembered so vividly by so many generations of Moles.

We now know that the fatal meeting on the Wall, the one that made it collapse, was named “reunion.” On that occasion, dignitaries from both sides signed the bilateral “Banana Treaty,” which solved the problem once and for all, to everyone’s satisfaction. Finally, seventeen million deprived inhabitants, not only from East Berlin but also from the whole free Overland, had achieved the right to consume bananas on equal terms with the (former) prisoners. No more need for tunnels or digging, flying or diving. No more need for Stasi interrogation rooms, about which some of our elders had told stories, although we considered them morbid fiction. And everybody from the West could enjoy the Staatsoper at Unter der Linden, the Pergamon Museum, the Hotel Adlon, and other fine institutions of the former nonbanana world.

Though, in light of the discovery that the Wall(s) existed it doesn’t seem important, I continue to ponder over bananas. Where did all these bananas come from? And in such enormous quantities that everyone could eat them? This doesn’t seem to have been a problem after the collapse. Newcomers to the banana world discovered that bananas grew in places called Supermarkets, together with an abundance of other fine foods, even finer than megadriles from the Tubificidae family—or whatever stands in for them in the Overworld. They soon discovered that the beauty of such Supermarkets consisted in the possibility of moving from one food item to another; you were even encouraged by posters called advertisements to do so. There were such enormous varieties of food there that, at the very beginning of their stay in the West, newcomers didn’t even have names for some of them. There was a fine worm called caviar and another called cheese, and there was some very posh water with bubbles called Champagne, but it is hard to understand exactly why it excited Men so much. There were all kinds of dead animals in the shape of “prosciutto” or “salami,” and lots of fine, dead fish and birds, and perhaps even nice tasty mice, caterpillars, and a crunchy grasshopper or two (but now I am daydreaming)…

However, Men would not be Men if they would not complicate their lives, as they are of a species not guided by ratio. Judging from their behavior it is clear that they are in constant need of supreme beings, some kind of super Men called Gods. This need is usually referred to as “religion.” Traditionally, Gods are old Men with white beards who often claim to be invisible. It is, therefore, interesting to notice that the religion newcomers found on the banana side had nothing to do with these old, bearded, invisible Men. Rather, this particular type of religion was founded on an irresistible and therefore powerful (although foolish!) desire to possess things . And by this I don’t mean only food—that would have been rational!—but all sorts of things . The newcomers learned that this ruling religion, the one they had not experienced before, was called “Consumerism.” This was the big secret of the escapees, who had been ready to risk their lives in order to join its believers—a desire for bananas was only one aspect of it.

The newcomers came from the part of the Overland where religion of any kind was rather unpopular, if not forbidden. But in the former prison of West Berlin, churches of Consumerism were not forbidden at all. On the contrary, they were everywhere, situated along the main avenues as well as way out toward the periphery of settlements. They were brightly decorated, lit edifices, seductive in their appearances. To the admiration of newcomers, one could get everything in those huge churches (called Shopping Malls) celebrating Consumerism, anything at all without even a prayer . But there was kind of a trick that this religion played on its believers. They were free to enter a church but not to get out of it! From what we all know about religions in general, a person has to fulfill a set of rules in order to become a member of such a congregation. But in this case, it was (again!) just the opposite. This is how it works, and it has not changed, from November 9, 1989, to this day: Every Shopping Mall (as well as even the tiniest Supermarket) is supervised by slot machines called cash registers. These machines are positioned not at the entrance but at the very exit of the church. When a believer approaches the machine with a basket full of desired goods to quench his or her thirst for possessions, the machine scrutinizes the person in question. I imagine that the reason is to perform some sort of test of faith; it lets you pass and get out only if you are a true believer. That you have to demonstrate by either pushing a plastic card into the slot or by giving symbolic paper or metal tokens to the person, usually a female, sitting behind the cash register. Men who fail the test have to give back all the fabulous goodies they collected, and then they get very, very sad. Sometimes even uniformed assistants (lower priests?) come and take such persons away. To comfort them, I suppose. There is speculation that these tokens are so powerful that they could even be used to buy indulgences for sins, but this is hard to imagine. I would assume that, if sin exists, there must be a hell, and a paradise too, of which no proof has been found. Therefore, I assume such speculation must be unfounded.