Altmarktgalerie shopping mall, Dresden, mid-December at 9:15 am. I’ve arrived too early to return a telephone on my way to work, so I order a coffee at a nearby Segafredo. A security guard switches on the escalators. Most shops are still closed; still, people wander up and down the length of the mall, loitering before display windows like stray cats hoping for a bowl of milk, hoping to be let in. Finally the doors open, and the growing stream of early shoppers now breaks off into the stores in dozens of eddies, relieving pressure from the main current. A tinny female voice interrupts the piped-in Christmas music – mostly American holiday classics. The voice wishes everyone an exciting shopping experience and reminds the shoppers to visit the basement level to satisfy the growing hunger they are told they have. An old man balanced on a cane walks with care through the crush. Two young men behind him grow impatient. They pass him on the right with an epithet, upsetting his delicate poise. Teenagers in teenager uniform gather in secure numbers before shop windows to study the latest fashions on this Tuesday morning – a school day. Music from inside the stores competes with the mall’s P.A. offering. The stores choose to play modern Christmas music, which is the same American classics, only harassed into a generic R&B format, dripping with requisite sleigh- and church-bell sound effects. A couple sitting next to me at the mall café order slices of Rosinenstollen – a traditional Christmas bread with raisins. After several minutes the waitress returns and asks if they might not want their bread with almonds instead, giving no further explanation. “Don’t you have Rosinenstollen?” asks the man. “Of course,” – the waitress – “but it’s new and I’d have to cut into it for only a couple of slices.” “Well then we’ll just have to take the almonds,” the woman says. “Not me,” says the man. “I’ll pass.” The waitress brings them their Stollen then takes my empty coffee cup. She is wearing a droopy Santa Claus hat and looks bored. I pay, put on my coat and hat and slip into line.
