Last week, I joined a dozen writers and scholars at the Volksbühne Theatre for the German book launch for Queer Studies: Schlüsseltexte (Published with Suhrkamp), edited by Mike Laufenberg and Ben Trott. During the event, people gave readings that provided crucial insights into a queer rethinking of the critical analysis of capitalism, disability, racism, and gender relations. In addition to sharing the stage with Maxi Wallenhorst, Omar Kasmani, and drag performers Olympia Bukkakis and Hungry.
As you can tell from the stage, this was one of the most grand book launches that I have been to. If you’re curious, Queer Studies is the first German translation of classical texts by queer and feminist writers such as Eve Sedgwick, Cathy J. Cohen, Judith Butler, José Esteban Muñoz, Lee Edelman, Roderick A. Ferguson, Gayatri Gopinath, Petrus Liu, and more.
For the book premiere, the other contributors and I were asked to comment and reflect on a number of the texts – with readings by the Volksbühne ensemble. I was assigned Cathy Cohen’s seminal text, “Punks, Bulldaggers and Welfare Queers. The Radical Potential of Queer Politics?” Rather than have an academic response, I used my comment to write a short story about queer unrequited love.
The Story
Tamika swam five meters past the shore before Agathe began to nod in approval. Trickles of cold water glided on her cheeks as she drifted through the still reservoir. Weeks have passed since Agathe began teaching Tamika how to swim on the eastern bank of Plötzensee. Reveling in their drenched skins, they chased the lights of dusk, their bodies perpetually exposed to the cloudy lake. The blighted lagoon left a grayish mark on their ebony skin as summer turned into fall.
Holding her breath, Tamika lowered her head beneath the surface. The longer she was submerged, the more water slowly trickled into her ears. Holding her breath was no longer complicated by her erstwhile fear of water. With Agathe's help, she morphed into water like a jubilant dolphin.
****
The thing was, Tamika never learned how to swim in Oakland, nor did most of her friends who grew up near Fruitville Station. When she told most people in Germany this, they would express their consternation or contempt.
"Swimming is a necessary life skill," Tomas pressed on while holding his pilsner, "Everyone must learn how to face the water in case you're on a boat."
"I've never been on a boat," Tamika said flatly.
Agatha's girlfriend Johanna looked troubled and said, "What is wrong with your country? Don't they provide basic services?"
"Not really, but at least people have a right to free speech," Tamika retorted wryly.
For the past four summers, when Germans invited her to a lake, they were exasperated, even troubled, when Tamika admitted that she did not know how to swim. Sometimes, she stood there, listening to their empty words--caught between chagrin and rage. Other times, she simply walked away, not giving a damn what other people thought.
Everything changed when she told Agathe, her upstairs neighbor, about their inability to swim.
"I will teach you," Agathe expressed while her smile whistled softly.
Suddenly knocked down by compassion rather than ridicule, Tamika grew attentive to her offer and signed a little sigh, amazed that someone in Berlin would help her.
"Thank you," she responded.
"C'est pa de problem," Agathe answered, "Maybe you can swim with me in the Mediterranean if you come and visit my parents in Marseille. But, I must admit, since they were raised in a village in Gabon, they don't know how to swim either. I learned in my neighborhood, how do you say, sports center."
The house party was almost deserted when Agathe agreed to give Tamika lessons. Although it was not the first time they spoke, it was the first time they saw each other and began filling in the details of their lives. As the vinyl record player blasted Stromae's "Papaoutai," they ducked quietly into the corner of the terrace. While Tamika leaned on the wall, Agathe held tightly to her white wine. Each taking note of each other, comparing Oakland to Marseille, the Bay to the sea, confiding and laughing about what it meant to grow up as a misfit in their respective cities. As the sun vanished behind the buildings in the so-called Afrikanishcer Viertel, the moon made up for the darkness, and Agathe's milky white eyes glistened at night.
The differences in their country of birth felt like a chasm at times, but they found that being black and queer was a bridge that connected, even fuelling a light affection they felt for each other. Agathe wore her kinky Afro with pride, often swaying with seduction as she walked down Kameruner Strasse. Whether heading to the Afroshop on the ground floor of their building or to Schiller's Park, she was always at ease, chatting in French, English, or German to anyone she came across in Wedding. She had a melodic voice, a wry grin, and a sweet face. Each person's conversation could become fuel for the characters in Agathe's novel.
On the other hand, Tamika was heedful, primarily to hide her frantic anxiety. She was uneasy in a large company and genuinely shy because she always felt different and outside herself. And although she always felt small, her pulpy body towered over most people. Bright-skinned and pimply, her oval-shaped rimmed glassed served as a barrier between her and the rest of the world. If someone asked her about her illustrations, she was filled with icy dread, hoping that she could change the subject.
But with Agathe, her stiffness halted. The long stretches of silence that were unwieldy periods of struggle became a magical period to witness Agathe with care: her fleshy lips, sharp cheeks, and arched eyebrows. Tamika could get lost in her stories about when her father almost fell off a mountain in Calanque or when she first visited Gabon at eighteen. She could not understand either of her grandmothers, who spoke only Fang, their ethnic language. A storyteller with an extravagant talent for professing allegory for life, Agathe rolled through her tongue, destroying Tamika's connection with the physical world as she knew it: sublime and content.
****
By mid-October, something wonderous occurred as Tamika paddled through the Lake, brooding the rhythm of her breath. When she first began sessions with Agathe, Tamika was seething with fatalism, doubting her ability to float in water.
Yet, Agathe ushered Tamika from the sand, holding her hands, guiding her to the bank. When they immersed themselves further in the reservoir, waist deep, Agathe would calmly explain what their task would entail.
"Alor, today, we will focus on the stroke," Agathe would remark.
Tamika could smell the fetid odor of Plötzensee, often wriggling her noise or removing a piece of renegade wood from her body. When she felt out of place, she would turn her gaze to Agathe and neglect her doubt and desperation.
It didn't matter that seven-year-old German children piously gazed at Tamika with confusion, unaware that some adults did not know how to swim. Nor did she allow the semi-erect cocks of the nude men to bother her. For many of them, the soft embrace between these two women, palm holding thigh, head slightly underwater, was a turn-on that provoked blood to circulate to these onlookers' penises.
Here, Tamika floated on the water's surface, with the sun darkening her copper skin and blinding her eyes.
"Donq, it is important, ugh, to always relax," Agathe said, "the more you let go of your body without drumming through with force, the better the experience."
The directive often made Tamika tense up like a ladybug. She wanted to tip over on her belly, with her buoyancy, and swim with confidence, but her despondence overshadowed her will.
"One of the loveliest things about swimming," Agathe noted, "is the sacred bond one develops with the sea creatures. You learn to respect their way of life, community, solitude, and collective action. In many ways, their surroundings are bigger than ours, more serene and full of possibility."
As Agathe went on, Tamika's heart dashed between bliss and torment. Joy for being held by an exquisite soul with coal-black skin, chattering lyrics without effort, but also shattered that Agathe had a girlfriend. Tamika was a conventional romantic, caught between the anachronistic fantasy of monogamy and the illustrious desire to yoke herself from loneliness. Besides, Tamika could not endure the level of devotion that Johanna had, sharing Agathe's attention and body with others. She knew that she would quietly shrink into oblivion if given that choice.
Today, Tamika felt encouraged in the frigid, muddy water. She pulled herself, neither beaten nor defeated. She pressed through the algae that sprawled over the surface. She leaned into her strokes, lengthening her core as she moved further from the shore. She shifted at a snail's pace, but it didn't matter. Without a doubt, this was the furthest she had been. Mouth agar, she reached the center and merged with the surface. Holding her breath, she dipped beneath the facet. When she came up for air, Agathe was two meters away.
"Congratulations, I can't believe you made it this far without me," Agathe said, splashing her way closer.
"Me too," Tamika said, partly out of breath.
She wanted to say more, but she didn't. It is better to rest on the water, swollen, scarred, and even divided with a friend.
Agathe and Tamika decided to lie on their backs, letting the water hold them up, not a word coming from their mouth; instead, they held hands, slowly synchronizing the rhythm of their breath.
With Radical Love,