Where the White Flower Blooms

WHERE THE WHITE FLOWER BLOOMS

Travis Godbold All Rights 2003

Many memories come and go, but this one flipped up like an ace in a
deck of cards, a new face that could never be forgotten. It was in West
Berlin on a chilly morning in March. A fog had moved in, and its clouds
hunched over a street, blanketing the lane next to the barrier that led
to my school. I was walking near the slabs, thinking of the concrete
train and its line of boxcars continuing for miles into the heart of
the city. In those days, being a ten-year-old schoolchild meant more
books inside a backpack filled with papers and a lunch sack. Sometimes
I plopped a hand on the wall just to ease the strain of this
burden.

When the game of touching numbed my palms, I sunk them into trouser
pockets, fingering the red candies within their folds. I felt the film
of the candy with a thumb and thought of mother, who had dropped the
sweets there before I left home that morning. She gave me these words
of advice as her busy hands pulled down my red snowcap: "Do whatever
the border guards tell you. Remember that."

I saw the guard in his brown uniform. He stood atop the wall as he
traversed the small path along its edge, his gloves holding a machine
gun. I wondered if he might have been a tightrope walker, who in
practice wore a military watchcoat to master his balance on less
formidable obstacles before going onto the wire. The red stars on his
collar flaps were awards for harrowing acts he had already demonstrated
to his comrades. Under clouds, the pigeons pranced above and around
him, a few from the flock resting their wings on the crest of the
barrier. The birds' beady eyes watched me as I walked below, yellow
beaks chirping and cooing at the morning air.

I did not mind these onlookers and walked on, my boots tapping on the
cold pavement. I felt the erect slabs stood aware of my presence as if
they had eyes staring into me.

Suddenly, I found something. The guards were blind to its existence and
passed without giving it a glance. A hole as big as my head had
penetrated one of the slabs, shining a light onto the ground. I ran to
the puncture, threw down my backpack, and found a pile of ash spread
below it. I stepped where it lay.

"Pssst!"

I leapt with fear, turning my head nervously.

"Over here," a small voice called.

I sent a quick glance at the hole and saw a white face staring at me
from the other side. I stood still, unsure whether to scream or
run.

"Don't be afraid," spoke the lips. As I looked at the onlooker's thin
complexion, he appeared to be a boy about my age. He came closer and
put his mouth to the opening.

"How'd you get over there? Did you crawl through?" I asked.

"No, I live here."

"What? How do you live there?" I said.

"I do," he cried. "I'm an East Berliner, and my mother stays at the end
of the street. My name's Ivan, what's yours?"

"Christian."

"Do you live on that other side?" he asked.

"Umm, yes. How you live over there? I thought Berlin was the only one.
The only place I, anyone, could live in."

"You're wrong. There are other cities than yours."

"Really," I said. I put my hand on the cleft of the hole and the white
ash went to powder against my fingers. "Did you make this hole?"

"No, someone else did. I don't know who."

Ivan took a few steps back and I could see his pallid forehead, a black
sweater embracing his body of scraggy arms and shoulders.

"You're skinny," I remarked.

"What do you mean, skinny?"

"You're as skinny as a broom," I said.

"Skinny? Well, you know what you are?" the boy hollered.

As I stepped back, the treads of my boots printed themselves on the
pile. Ivan stared at me with cold blue eyes. A smile broke his
lips.

"You're a fat swine!" he giggled.

"A fat swine?" I said angrily.

Ivan put his hands on his waist, sticking his tongue out at me.

"Yes," he cried.

"I can't be a swine!"

"Well, you are for calling me skinny."

"That's it! You're going to get it!"

I spun around quickly, put my hands into the pile of ash and bits of
concrete and bunched it into my arms. Gritting my teeth, I swore into
the wind.

"What's he calling me a swine for? I'll show him. No one calls me a
swine."

"What?" Ivan shouted from the other side of the barrier, his voice
echoing.

"Nothing. Come to the wall. I have something for you," I said.

"What?" Ivan cried, cupping his ear with his hand and bowing it toward
his shoulder. "I can't hear you."

"Come over here!"

Ivan returned. My ears caught the sound of his torn soles flopping
against the pavement. I knelt below the hole that lay four feet above
the ground, very silent, the pile of white ash spilling from its cradle
in my arms. I heard Ivan's hoarse breathing as he pressed his body
against the wall, a stale air wafting out of the hole.

"You have something for me?" he asked loudly.

Leaping up, I shoved the ash through the gap, pushing the clumps
against his face. His eyes shut in quick response to the white clouds
seeping out of the hole. We both coughed wildly, fleeing the dust and
debris. I could see Ivan's head, shone white amidst the chalky clouds.
His eyes were dark slits in the haze and ash fell from his black
shoulders onto the ground.

"I got you! Hah, hah!" I shouted, throwing an arm against my mouth to
muffle the coughs.

Ivan fled, gagging.

"Are you okay? I didn't mean?I didn't mean to hurt you," I said in a
low voice, listening to the boy's barks. With an eye close to the hole,
I stared at Ivan, who bent to the ground with hands on knees, spitting
out the white clouds.

"Hey, are you all right?"

There came no answer, his white powdered back to me.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to," I said.

His hands were over his mouth and he vanished from my viewpoint.

"Where'd you go?" I cried, only seeing a wisp of gray smoke where the
boy had once been. "Come back!" I pleaded. "I didn't mean it."

His flopping footsteps receded into silence. He was gone.

"Hey, aren't you going to come back?" I shouted out.

The chalky dust rose into the fog and I saw the dumps that lay at the
other side. Dull and lifeless tenements stood like dead trees in a
ravaged forest. Smoke stacks crowded the tops of their roofs and many
of the windows were cracked. A woman in a black dress and brown sweater
leaned against a metal door rusted by years of hard rain. She did not
stare at the hole, but her bleak eyes were turned to the right. Her
long nose, similar to the crescent curve of a faucet, bent over her
lips.

"Is that his mother?" I thought.

Suddenly, something was thrown at my face. It bounced off my forehead
and a sharp pain arose from the hit. The object fell and clattered
around on the pavement. I looked down at the pebble, flinging a hand
onto my forehead to ease the sting.

"Ha!" Ivan jeered, his yellow teeth opening wide with joy. He leaped in
front of the hole, pointing a finger at my dumb look. Instead of being
angry over the wound, I laughed at him.

"Very funny," I said. Then I knelt to the ground, took up the pebble,
and threw it back. Ivan, who stood ready, dodged it with a gallant leap
to the side.

"Missed!" he cried.

"Ah, you're too quick. Let's play a game," I said.

Ivan shone again in the hole, looking leery as if he thought I would
throw another rock at him.

"Don't worry," I said. "I'm not going to throw any rocks."

Ivan grinned from his powdered face and thrust his hand into the gap.
Out of his dirty palm, three rocks fell. He then slipped his hand back
to the other side.

"Let's play a game." I gazed up at the tops of the cold gray slabs.
"Okay I'll throw a piece of candy up this wall. The only way you can
eat it is when you catch it."

Ivan distanced himself from the high barrier and stopped in the middle
of the black street that spread in front of the broken tenements. His
head rose up to look at the sky, eagerly awaiting the toss.

"I'm ready," he said.

"Okay, here it comes," I answered. Grabbing out a hard red candy from a
trouser pocket, my hand squeezed it. "I'm going to throw!" I hollered
as my left arm made two powerful winding strokes against the air. "Here
it comes!"

I cast the candy out and watched it fly. The red nickel shot to the top
of the wall, vanishing as it fell over the side. I heard a loud
jeer.

"I did it, Christian! I caught it in the air!"

I thumbed out another hard candy and readied it for a throw.

"Here comes another!" I shouted as it was flung. The candy leaped the
top and then fell over the concrete crest.

"Let me get ready," Ivan said hurriedly.

I heard the shuffling of feet against pavement then a sigh. Ivan's sad
face appeared in front of the hole, his eyes downcast.

"What happened?" I asked.

"I didn't catch it," he said.

I came close to the wall, wishing to relieve his pity.

"It's okay if you lose, you know," I said.

The boy put his hand through the gap and let drop a candy onto my side
of the pavement.

"What's this?" I asked.

With another sigh, the thin boy with scraggy shoulders answered, "It's
the one I didn't catch."

I bent over, snatched the fallen candy, and gave it to him through the
hole, but Ivan refused.

"Keep it, Christian. You've been a very good friend to me
already."

"I don't get it."

"You don't have to. Just keep it."

"Don't you want it? It's candy; keep it."

"You don't know."

"Don't know what?"

"What it's like over here."

"Why do I have to know what it's like over there? I don't care. I want
you to have the candy."

I pushed the candy at the boy's face, but Ivan gave it back.

"It's bad, bad over here," he said with a tone of uncertainty.

"Bad?" I said, pushing a foot back.

"My mother told me about your place, how she wanted to climb up this
wall and go to your place. She tells me I won't starve if I go over
there. Well, I live here, you there. I guess that's the way it is and
must be."

"Must be? But no!" I shouted. "I can dig you a way out. I can get my
shovel and make the hole big so you can climb in."

The clatter of boots and hollers of grown men broke the air with their
harsh echoes of chaos. Ivan stood startled and his cheeks went
crimson.

"What's happening?" I asked.

"It's the Red Guards!" he screamed. "They've found us!"

"Where?" I asked, craning my head to the corner of the gap to get a
better look.

"Here take this," Ivan said hurriedly. He sunk his hands into trousers
and came out with a white flower.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Something I picked up from the street. Keep it so you'll know me a
long time from now," Ivan said.

The flower's dovelike radiance surprised me. The petals were brilliant
as the bouncing clouds of heaven. I took the flower from his palm and
shoved it into my pocket.

"See you. I must run!" he shouted.

Ivan ran as if vicious dogs were chasing him, away from the harsh
voices and marching beat of boots. I looked through the viewpoint to
catch a last glimpse of my friend, but he had vanished and only the
gray tenements could be seen at sorrowful vigilance over the street on
the other side.

Three bodies came in front of the hole. They wore brown coats and held
machine guns within leather-gloved hands. One man wore an officer's cap
with a shiny red star atop its black brim. He stood as the commander of
the tightrope walkers. He approached the gap in the wall. His
pockmarked brow pressed against the viewpoint. With a steadfast desire
to see Ivan for one last time, I stared at this officer. He spoke with
a voice that would make men flee in terror only not to hear its
wrath.

"Go home, boy. You don't belong here."

"No," I said. "I can stand here as long as I want."

"I'm warning you, boy, go home!" he roared.

I wished I had the guts to answer the officer's order with a simple
"No," but my mother's advice and the man's beastly features made me a
coward.

"Yes, sir," I said coolly, backing away. I ran into the fog, leaving my
backpack behind, fearful the guards might catch me. I ran to a future
that held only the memory of Ivan and the flower he had left in my
care.

With my return to a united Berlin twenty years later, the wall having
long ago been dismantled, I thought of Ivan when the steely van drove
up next to a grassy lot surrounded by old tenement buildings. Bright in
the sun, trees with white flowers swayed in the afternoon breeze,
blowing down feathery blossoms onto the grass. I leaped out of the van
and gave the driver my thanks for the ride. He only smiled from his
front seat, nodding his white bearded chin in homage.

"Knew someone there?" he asked. He gazed outside the open door.

"Yes, twenty years ago. The memory of him has changed my life," I
answered.

"Really," the driver said. "Was he from East Berlin?"

"Yes, his name was Ivan. Do you know him?"

The driver shook his head in negative reply.

"He was a kid like any other kid," I said, "but he was my
friend."

The driver gave me his hand and I held onto it, my eyes brimming with
tears.

"It's tough, it's tough, I know. It's different now, a lot different. I
hope you find him," he said.

"I have already found him," I said looking at the trees.

I gave the driver a nervous nod then went past the van, brushing a hand
over the tears on my cheeks. The van drove off down the street and
vanished behind the bend of an old gray shop.

I gazed up at the white flowers fluttering on branches of a tree. They
made me recall the day Ivan had given me the gift. In my left hand, I
still held its dead petals. My palms made the leaves crack and turn to
ash against the skin. With thoughts on our brief friendship, I threw
away my fears, and stared at the branches to talk with the boy who sat
amongst the white shoots that shone brilliant in the rays of the
sun.

THE END