Flower Children

Chapter 42: Flower Children

For years he’d maintained phone contact with Thomas, but these were perfunctory conversations, quickly ended, as if time was chasing the speakers. He decided to change this and arranged to meet his friends. That March afternoon in 1982, he entered Café Sommersko on Nørrebro, where they’d met years ago. For a moment he wondered if these were the same people. Thomas, once with long hair and a Viking beard, had short-cropped hair and a gray wool blazer. Sophie no longer wore a flowered skirt, just dark pants and a sweater. Only her silver bracelets recalled old times.

“Michał!” Thomas called, rising from the table.

The embrace was warm but settled—something had changed. They sat by the window, ordering coffee and Danish wienerbrød. Outside the window, Nørrebro pulsed with life—cyclists zipped through March cold. The cafe smelled of cinnamon and freshly brewed coffee.

“I wouldn’t recognize you on the street,” he laughed, looking at his friends. “What happened to the flower children?”

Thomas laughed bitterly.

“Years fly by, friend. We have jobs, bills, a mortgage on an apartment. Sophie teaches at a preschool, I design at an architectural office. Not everyone can be an eternal student like you,” he joked.

Sophie squeezed his arm.

“Thomas is exaggerating. It’s just… the world has changed. We have too.”

She looked through the window at passersby in dark coats hurrying through the gray day.

“Do you remember our conversations about the EEC? About how it was the end of Danish independence?”

“I remember,” Michał nodded. “You were opposed.”

“We voted ‘nej,'” Thomas said, stirring his coffee. “And so what? Denmark entered the Community in 1973, and life didn’t end. On the contrary—more opportunities appeared, travel, work abroad. Maybe we were too idealistic.”

“What about Greenland?” Michał looked at Thomas with irony. “They voted in a referendum a month ago. They want to leave the Community.”

Thomas waved his hand dismissively.

“They have different problems. The fishing policy is strangling them—I understand that. But we continental Danes are in a different situation.”

“So not everyone is happy with Brussels after all?” Michał pressed.

Thomas hesitated.

“I’m not saying everything is perfect. But you have to be a realist.”

Sophie sighed.

“It’s easy to be a revolutionary when you’re twenty years old and living on your parents’ dime. But when you have to pay electricity, food, rent… It changes your perspective. The system isn’t ideal, but it works.”

Michał felt torn. These people who once inspired him with rebellion now spoke a pragmatic, reasonable language, but less true. Had they betrayed their ideals? He remembered “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and Chief Bromden ripping out the console to run to freedom. “Soon he’ll be far from here, transformed into Great Mountain, and you stayed in the hospital,” he thought.

“What about your dreams?” he asked. “About music, transforming the world?”

Thomas smiled sadly.

“Hendrix has been dead for years. Morrison too. Lennon… do you remember December 1980? When I heard about the assassination of John, something broke in me. Those who couldn’t be bought had to die.”

He said it as if something more hid behind the words. But maybe it was just Michał’s illusion, who since his discussion with Borys looked for double meanings everywhere. The former hippie continued, pointing at the radio from which synthesizer pop flowed.

“Now we have ABBA and Björn Borg. Swedes are conquering the world with tennis and disco.”

“Maybe that’s not bad,” Sophie added, though uncertainty and resignation rang in her voice. “Maybe the world needs less rebellion and more stability. Peace. Normalcy.”

He thought of his parents still fleeing on “Horisont” from shadows of the past. Thomas once said: “The EEC is a machine driven by corporations and capitalist governments. Denmark will lose sovereignty, and Brussels will tell us how to live.”

“What about fighting the system? Distrust of power?” he pressed.

The ex-hippie looked serious.

“When you’re thirty-two, you’ll understand there are no ideal systems. There are only worse and better ones. Denmark in the EEC isn’t the worst place, right?”

He fell silent.

“Yesterday I heard about Poland. Martial law, Solidarity underground, Wałęsa interned. I thought about your parents. Isn’t boring democracy better than fascinating revolution?”

Sophie touched his hand.

“It doesn’t mean we gave up. The world poses new challenges. Thomas designs using solar panels, I teach children civic responsibility, but I also try to instill in them respect for nature. That means something too, right?”

Michał nodded, though he completely disagreed with her and felt bitterness. These rebels from his youth spoke the language of compromises and conformism. Contrary to appearances, this wasn’t wisdom but capitulation. Through his head flashed words from T.Rex’s song “Children of The Revolution”:

But you won’t fool, the children of the revolution
No, you won’t fool, the children of the revolution

Now it sounded like irony. But maybe Thomas and Sophie still had a spark in them, just suppressed by the action of a state that screwed ideals into the grinder of everyday life?

“And you?” Sophie asked. “I heard you’re studying medicine. That must be fascinating.”

“Sometimes,” he replied. “But you know… I have the feeling we’re all giving up. Instead of changing the world, we adapt. My parents fled to the ocean, you hide in stabilization, and I… wait.”

“Wait for what?”

He looked at the gray street of Nørrebro. What was he waiting for? For love? For a letter from his parents? Or maybe for Borys, who like Hamlet’s ghost knew answers?

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “Maybe for a sign it’s worth fighting. Or for news that my parents are safe.”

Thomas and Sophie looked at each other. In their eyes flashed concern, maybe longing for lost convictions.

“You know,” Thomas said, “Maybe they don’t call us ‘flower children’ anymore, but we’re still your friends. If you need anything, you can always count on us.”

Sophie smiled warmly.

“Some things don’t change. Friendship is one of them.”

They said goodbye effusively, shaking hands for a long time, as if in a gesture confirming the durability of friendship, but the feeling of bitterness remained. Michał knew the bond with former hippies would survive the test of time, but their understanding would never be as open and carefree as years ago. The conversation whose phrases filled his head was full of implications, justifications, and resignation from convictions once unquestionable. He felt regret, dissatisfaction, but also fear that someday he might give up on himself for the sake of comfort and a conflict-free career. Returning to Enghave Plads, he followed only thoughts running ahead into the future. He remembered the letter from Krzysztof. Code 303. Colorado. Borys. But he thought about the phone call to Poland that was to change his life. Code 61.