| “Here, let me show you,” said the bicycle man. He became playful, seeming younger than his years. He acted more like a kid on a joy ride around his neighborhood than like an entrepreneur providing a taxi for tourists. He stood high as he pedalled now and got up a full head of speed. Suddenly, the bicycle veered off the narrow course of the wall, sharply swerving to the left across the brick line and onto the asphalt pavement. My body tilted with the abrupt turn, and I held on to side sides of the cab to absorb the sway. “See? Now we are free in West Berlin, ja?” And then just as suddenly, he swerved the bicycle hard to the right, this time crossing over the Berlin Wall markers where the wall once stood and onto clear pavement, and once again, I reached for the side wall of the cab. “And now—now we are prisoners in East Berlin.” He swerved the cycle sharply back to the left again. “And now we are back in West Berlin.” And then back to the right. “And now East again.” continued making serpentine turns back and forth from east to west until finally the oncoming traffic began approaching. He steered us back to safety along the road’s shoulder, where we had been before on the west side of the wall. The cyclist was breathing heavily, recovering from the exertion of crisscrossing the phantom Berlin Wall so many times. I relaxed my grip on the side walls of the cab and said nothing, as the Brandenburg Gate now came into full view and I could see the clear dome of the Reichstag building beyond the tree line. The cyclist looked back toward the former East German side of the wall, but upward and at the treetops, as if he were looking over something and across the wide-open street. Copyright © 2007 by Michael Domino |
| The Bicycle Man of Berlin (continued) |