i;

 

i

think of the conversation I had with an

East Berliner in a tourist bar on Unter

den Linden not an hour ago. He looked
in his mid-40s, greying black hair, a thin
overcoat covering a thin frame, nervous
blue eyes. He was sitting beside the only
empty seat at the bar. When I sat down he
glanced quickly at my backpacker clothes
and then looked away.

“How’s it going?” I asked, taking a
chance that he spoke English.

He said nothing, nodded quickly in
my direction and then stared down at his
beer.

“Kann ich bitte haben Sie ein Bier?”
The barman tried to hide his smile as
he went to fill my order. He must have
realized that was all the German I knew.

“Where are you from?” my neighbour
asked quietly, while his eyes searched the
bar. I followed his lead, unsure of what I
was looking for.

“Are you talking to me?” I almost
whispered.

*Y¥es.

“Canada. I’m from Canada.”

SOR. ah

My drink arrived. As the barman
collected my money he quietly snapped at
my neighbour in German.

“What was that about?” I asked him,
after the barman moved on.

“He doesn’t want me talking to
tourists. Bad for business.”

“Why not?”

“I’m from the wrong end of the—how
do you say—tracks?”

“Where are you from?”

“Winterfeld Strausse...” He paused
and looked at me in the eye. “... West
Berlin.”

I understood. I thought of his coat and
the fatalistic expression in his eyes. The
Cold War began and ended in Berlin. He
was a prisoner in his own city.

“I’m not supposed to be in this bar
but I don’t care anymore,” he said as he
scanned the room once again. “This place
is like the home I remember.”

“Where did you learn to speak
English?”I asked.

“From the soldiers in the American
sector, before this...” He gestured with his
thumb.

“How did you end up in the East?”

“My sister went missing in the
Russian sector. I went to look for her the
day the wire went up. Never found her.
Hope she made it home.”

 

cy

In 1982 the world is very cold. Two modern empires face off with the
threat of total and instant nuclear extinction. It's the hear versus

the eagle, red versus blue, East versus West, Brezhnev versus

Reagan. They call it a Cold War. One side shouts “Freedom,” the other
“Brotherhood,” but they are just words. The Berlin Wall is not. And now |
stand under its concrete shadow, on the east side, on the cold side, ten
feet away. And something burns inside of me.

 

if

“You've been trapped on this side
since ’61?”

He nodded.

“You haven’t seen your family?”
“No, they won’t give me a pass to West
Berlin. I tried to escape over the Wall in
the early days. They shot me and put me
in prison for a long time.” He said the last
part a little too loud. The barman and a few
patrons looked over. They quickly turned
away.

“Why are you talking to me? I could
be a spy.”

He laughed and shook his head. “No,
you speak too free to be one of them.” He
spat after the last word.

“Can I buy you a beer? Compliments
of Canada.”

He smiled for the first time. “Danke.”

He asked me about West Berlin, how
it had changed, what was new. I couldn’t
give him any information. I had only been
in the city a few days before I had entered
the Russian sector. After several of his
questions went unanswered, he grew quiet
and looked outside.

“Where have all the birds gone?” he
said to no one. Then, after a long pause, he
turned back to me. “My name is Jahn. It
was good talking to you.”

“Good to meet you, Jahn. My name is
Kieron.”

“T must go,” he said, as he stepped
down from the barstool. “Someday I hope
to meet you on the other side. I will buy
you a beer.”

“That would be a good day.”

I watched the thin man walk through
the doors and disappear into the grey world
outside.

When I left the bar I stepped out on
the streets and started to walk. Unter den
Linden, the main boulevard in East Berlin,
looked clean and new. At the end of the
boulevard a shiny huge, state-of-the -art
telecommunications tower dominated the
skyline. Bars and tourist shops lined each
side of the wide thoroughfare. Tourists and
locals wandered the sidewalks. I noticed a
couple of uniformed American servicemen
half marching on the other side of the road.
But it was not until I walked down a side
street that I met the real East Berlin.

Not more than a block away from the
boulevard the city completely changed.
The streets were empty. Grey rundown
buildings replaced newly painted shops.
Sinister-looking, three-story apartment
blocks dominated both sides of the streets.

 

The further I walked the more pronounced
the decay became. Soon the buildings
appeared windowless and unoccupied.

I kept walking into this ghetto, unsure
of what drove me on. I found a river that
ran through the city. Angry black spikes
had been placed just below the waterline
which could tear open the hull of a boat or
rip to shreds anyone desperate enough to
attempt to swim across its murky waters.

I continued on through the bleak and
empty streets, compelled by a simmering
emotion I couldn’t yet identify. Suddenly,
I saw light and colour on the fagade of
what looked like a bar. Its appearance
was startling, surrounded, as it was, on
all sides by decaying grey. I entered the
establishment and walked into another
world.

I could have been in Canada. The
bench seating was leather-bound and the
barstools were made of oak. Shiny brass
taps pouring Western brands lit up the
bar. Blacklisted rock ‘n’ roll played in the
background. Seated on the stools was a
group of boisterous businessmen dressed
in Armani suits. In the benches sat high-
ranking Eastern Bloc military personnel.
Everyone was speaking Russian. A blond,
blue-eyed barmaid with a panicked
expression raced over to me.

“You must leave!” she said in a
pleading whisper. She came very close.
“It’s not safe for you here!” She grabbed
my arm and lead me back to the entrance
and out into the street. “Don’t come back!”

“T won’t.” I hurried away in
confusion. Before I turned the corner, I
looked back to the barmaid. She waved me
away.

I travelled on for a few more blocks
trying to understand what had just
happened. What had I walked into? Why
did the barmaid look so scared? I couldn’t
answer those questions without going back
and that was something I was not prepared
to do. And then I came around a bend and
suddenly there it was: the Wall.

I turn my head to the left and then
slowly to my right. In both directions
the concrete structure snakes through the
city, oblivious to the natural courses of
boulevards, city blocks and river ways.

As far as I can see, entire neighbourhoods
and roads abruptly end one hundred yards
from the structure. It feels as if I’m looking
at the last stop, the final barrier before the
end of the world. I think of Columbus

and his crew sailing off to the unknown

 

fearing what lay ahead at the end of a
flat earth. But this divider isn’t a symbol
of exploration, of the dream of a golden
future found in the spice lands. In fact,
it represents broken bonds and strangled
hope.

To my right a border guard marches
20 yards away from me, turns and marches
back in my direction. He doesn’t look at
me, maintaining a disciplined disinterest
in my existence. He is dressed in a long
grey uniform and on his head sits a wide-
brimmed helmet. He is armed with an
automatic rifle. To my left, 50 yards away,
another border guard patrols. At my feet,
six inches above the ground in front of me,
is a silver wire that runs along the length
of the Wall, in both directions. I know
what this is. I had been told by a fellow
backpacker that if you crossed the wire you
could be shot for attempting to escape. No
one was allowed to touch the East Berlin
Wall. I think of the many that had died
trying to escape, of the millions imprisoned
behind this divider, of the fat cats drinking
forbidden beer, of Jahn who just wanted to
go home. I look up to the sky for his birds
but I find only grey. And then I think of my
life and the freedom I take for granted, this
trip that has taken me around the world,
my family 10,000 miles away and finally I
recognize the simmering emotion that has
followed me here, that now threatens to
explode in my chest.

The Wall is not politics or ideology.

It is solid, hard and cold. I cannot believe
it’s allowed to exist. I stare intently at the
damp concrete in front of me. All reason

suddenly vanishes.

I step over the wire, walk to the Wall
and smash my fist into the unrelenting
cement.

I hear a metallic click to my right. I
look over. The border guard is standing
ten yards away. His rifle is pointing right
at me.

“Nein,” he says. He is calm but
resolute as he lifts one hand off his weapon
and signals “no” with his forefinger. I
freeze. He waves me back from the Wall. I
turn and slowly walk to the wire and step
over it. I look at the guard. With a slight
grin, he returns his weapon to his shoulder
turns and continues to march. The rage
vanishes. I feel spent and powerless. The
shadow from the Wall is dark. The grey is
everywhere.

I cannot change things. I have become
a citizen of Berlin.

13