Note: If you’re new to this blog, or if you don’t remember details of my first experience at the Brandenburg Gate recounted in an earlier post, you may want to go back and read part one of this story before reading what follows.
My last trip to Berlin came nearly four decades after I first entered the city. I was living in Munich in 1993, keeping busy as a visiting professor in the Klinikum Innenstadt of the University of Munich, my support coming from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. One day I received an invitation to attend, along with other Humboldtians, a meeting in Berlin hosted by the Foundation. I accepted immediately.
As I had during my very first trip to the city, I traveled by train, this time with passport. My speedy express flashed out of Munich and clicked along the rails at a fine pace until we had covered roughly half the distance to Berlin. Then, without warning, the train slowed abruptly and slogged along at what I judged to be about thirty miles an hour. “Was ist los?” I asked a conductor. He explained that we had just entered the former East German sector and tracks there had not been properly maintained, so it was unsafe to travel faster, this being some two years after Germany had been reunited.
When we finally rolled into Berlin, I studied the place to see how it looked after the Wall had come down. (That monster had been pounded into clumps, fragments, and souvenirs some three years earlier; and only widely scattered segments remained.) Not surprisingly, I was able to spot places where it had been, obvious lines where Eastern dullness collided with Western vibrancy.
We Humboldtians were provided rooms in a Hilton located in what until recently had been East Berlin. At the welcoming reception on our first evening I reached for a tidbit just as another arm did. That arm pulled back as I retracted mine, and I found myself facing a slightly taller fellow with thick dark hair. We introduced ourselves. He was Russian, a physicist on a temporary Humboldt professorship in Augsburg. We chatted a minute, in English. He spoke quietly, his sentences considerate. I pegged him to be a thoughtful man.
I ran into the same fellow on another evening as our group boarded a bus taking us to browse in a museum. We took adjacent seats and made small talk as the bus moved out. I didn’t know that part of the city and had no idea where we were, being totally lost until the Brandenburg Gate popped up directly ahead of us and set me straight.
The unexpected sighting reminded my of the first time I’d seen the famous gate, and that memory prompted me to tell the Russian what I had experienced. I explained how years earlier I had stood before that massive structure, looking eastward and observing darkness and drabness, wondering about the people who lived there. His face took on an odd look as I talked, but he said nothing. I feared I had offended him. He remained quiet as our bus stopped some minutes later, and even as we entered the museum.
Shortly after we began investigating artifacts displayed, my Russian companion motioned me to a quiet corner and explained his silence. He had been surprised by my story, he told me, and now he would surprise me. He explained that he too had often come to this city. His wife was a ballerina who frequently performed in East Berlin, and he usually accompanied her. What struck him about my story, he said, was that he had done essentially the reverse. He too had stared toward the Brandenburg Gate during late hours, standing outside his hotel in darkness and looking westward, gazing at the brightness beyond, trying to imagine what was happening in that glittering scene.
The weight of his story struck me, and I sensed a bond forming between us, we having observed opposite sides of the same bitter coin. I think he felt much the same. Our conversation was short. We soon split up and went our separate ways through the exhibits. It was nearly an hour later when he approached me again, looking restless. He had seen enough for tonight, he said. Rather than waiting for our bus, he was going to walk back to our hotel. Would I care to join him? I hesitated, knowing I’d get totally lost after venturing beyond the Brandenburg Gate. I didn’t want to chance that. He assured me he knew the way from there on, so we walked into the night, American and Russian, toward the Brandenburg Gate.
I don’t remember precisely how it happened, or what prompted us to pause as we neared the famed gate. But I shall never forget that electric moment when we looked each other in the eye, straightened our shoulders, and marched arm in arm and in perfect cadence through the Brandenburg Gate, I realizing, as surely he did too, that our experiences had been markedly different, not because of our inclinations or abilities, but because of the governments under which we lived.
After passing through the gate and untangling our arms, we continued our way to the Hilton, guided by the confident Russian. We said goodnight, not goodbye, for we thought we would see each other on the city tour scheduled for the next morning, the final event of our meeting. But that didn’t happen. I bailed out.
After breakfast on the final day I stepped outside into amazingly bright and crisp air and saw our tour bus had already arrived. It stood waiting at the curb. At that instant I realized it was not for me, that I had no interest in seating myself inside that vehicle. What I really wanted to do was to put more miles on my shoes before heading back to Munich on a mid-afternoon train. So, with that decided, I proceeded along the now familiar path to the Brandenburg Gate and walked quickly through it and beyond, convinced I’d made the right choice.
I was well warmed up by the time I spotted the damaged spire of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, a handy marker confirming I was nearing the Kurfürstendamm, the target I was shooting for. I had enjoyed countless walks along that famous street, admiring its spiffy shops and restaurants, always taking time to examine other features of interest. Now I was eager for an encore.
Soon I was breezing along that iconic street, seeing signs of its accelerating rejuvenation, checking out additions I hadn’t seen before. I hadn’t gone very far, only a kilometer or two, when I happened to turn my attention to the traffic and, as chance would have it, spotted the very bus I’d seen outside the Hilton. I paid close attention as it passed by and saw clearly, in a window near the front, the face of my Russian companion, his forehead touching glass as he stared at the famous boulevard. It was, I thought, a fitting final glance of the man who had become a friend, for he seemed to be fully enjoying his view of the glittering scene.
