Germania

The city belongs to hooded crows; they squabble and bicker in their small murders on the pavements and roadsides, light on the walls and ledges of the buildings, then at dusk roost in the branches of the lime trees in Unter den Linden. They’re sinister and comical at the same time, a schizophrenic avatar for a schizophrenic city.
And now the streets are deserted, apart from the ever-present ghosts. We look up at one of the windows of the Adlon Hotel, and see Michael Jackson, pale-skinned and pert-nosed, standing on the balcony, dangling his baby over the edge;
and further down the street, we bump into Diane Mitford and Oswald Mosley, walking arm-in-arm towards Goebbels’ bunker, where they are about to be married in the presence of the great man himself, and with the Fuhrer’s blessing.
Meanwhile, a Russian soldier is rushing from doorway to doorway down Wilhelmstrasse, dodging a hail of bullets, and East German guards are erecting barriers of razor-wire and wood all around the western city.
And somewhere off in the distance, there is the sound of jackboots marching and glass smashing, and carried on the breeze is the smell of books burning. And as we reach the corner of the street where are staying, we try to figure out whether the glow on the horizon is the streetlights, or the searchlights, or the Chancellery on fire.