The rose who wanted…

It’s a story roses tell. When night comes, once humans have gone home. The old roses tell the young ones in murmurs and whispers laced with the wind. They tell the story of a rose. The rose who wanted…

It is a story that roses tell in the nurseries of C… The largest and oldest nurseries in the city, next to a park. During the day, the benches in the park are always busy: old people coming to take the sun, or play dominoes, young mothers with their babies, teen lovers, hugging away the time to return separately to their homes.  Those are among the best customers of the nurseries, with their promises of eternal love wrapped in flowers.

An entire world lives around the nurseries: you can find balloons for the children; tacos on street corners, fragrant with juicy meat, tortilla, cilantro; brightly colored cotton rivaled only by the balloons, ice cream, popsicles…

There is a lady who sells mangoes. With only a few, swift cuts of a knife, she peels the mangoes, cuts them, mounts them on a stick, and turns them into fragrant orange flowers, with a mere touch of chili. At eleven in the morning, from afar, they look like bouquets of mangoes.

The nurseries are a feast of colours: red, white, yellow, purple, green… Lilies, carnations, daisies, chrysanthemums, birds of paradise, eucalyptus, ferns, golden cup, roses… Around the end of October, until November 2^nd, the Day of the Dead, the nurseries turn orange.

It’s a story that roses tell.

All the flowers compete to be the most beautiful, but none questions the first place: the queens of the nursery are… the roses: red, yellow, pink, white, purple. Some roses say that a long time ago, there were black roses, but no one has seen them. Blue roses would be suspicious. The first among the first are red roses of course. The vainest, too. Though one may absolve them of everything, their presumption, their vanity. When they open up in a dance so slow humans can’t see it; when they give away their perfume, all is forgiven.

The life of roses is tedious. Perhaps as tedious as the life of princesses and queens: slow, identical, every day a copy of the day before… Gardeners are the roses’ slaves. They tend the rose bushes, cutting them, sheltering them from the cold ot excessive sun, feeding them, watering them … Roses only live to bring beauty on a table for but a few days, or a wedding, or an anniversary, and then… they die. Such is their fate, no-one questions it.

It’s a story that roses tell… A story as old as the nurseries…

There was a gardener in the nurseries, old, as ancient as the nurseries. He had a grey moustache, a large thick moustache, with the points upturned, once white, now yellowed by tobacco. He always wore a big gardener’s apron, pale blue after so many years of washing. No-one knew whether he had hair or not. None had ever seen him without his eternal straw hat.

He had a special love for roses. Took great care of them, spoke to them when he thought no one could hear him. Younger gardeners knew about it and joked behind his back, with a mixture of affection and envy: the old gardener’s roses always were the most beautiful.

One day, in the very early morning, when flowers wake up and stretch, bathed in dew, the old gardener made his first round inspecting every rose bush. It was always an exciting moment to discover the new roses. He looked at a rose bush that he particularly cared for. A new flower was opening. A beautiful rose, small as a miniature, of a combination of nuanced colours the gardener had never seen before. Not a rose to hide in a bouquet, but rather a rose to stand alone.

The other roses turned to look at the newcomer:

“Look at that little one! She’s so pretty!” Some said.

“She’s too small.” Said others. “She won’t cut it!” There are roses as there are people. Some jealous, some friendly, others indifferent, soft, hard, caring … The new rose was sweet… And different. She opened up and said Hello to the other roses:

“Good morning.” She said.

“Good morning.” The roses answered.

“Where are we? “The rose asked.

“In the nurseries.” The roses answered.

“What are nurseries?”

“It is the place where we were all born, and where we die.” The roses answered.

“Where we die?” The rose asked. “Don’t we ever go out? Don’t we ever go anywhere?”

The roses wavered. As if a gentle breeze had passed by. What strange questions the new rose was asking.

“Well, yes!” One said. “We do go out, when they cut us, and they take us away in bouquets. They put us in a vase with water. For a while. Then we wither and die.

“Where do they take us?” The rose asked.

“Er, they take us to houses, restaurants, hotels, weddings, funerals, weddings and funerals are a big affair for us. Wakes too.”

“Nothing else?” The rose asked. She sounded… concerned.

“Where else do you want to go, little one?” The roses asked. “What would you like? A wedding? Weddings are very nice. An anniversary, a birthday? A proposal? They usually give out a ring for that. Not flowers. What do you want?”

“It’s just…” The rose said. “It’s just that… I want… I want to travel.”

A gush of wind of wind shook all the roses. The roses rocked, they swayed. They shook with laughter. The roses laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Much to the dismay of the little rose who wanted to travel:

“What did I say? Why are you laughing? I want to travel, and I shall!”

The roses kept laughing. How ridiculous this little rose was. At last one of the oldest roses felt a pang of sadness:

“Roses don’t travel, little one. How could we? How could you? You have no feet. No wings. How would you travel? They would have to cut you, and then after a while, you would die. You’d better forget about your travel, and get ready for a wedding or a birthday. Roses… just don’t travel.”

It’s a story roses tell. The story of the rose who wanted to travel…

The days went by. The rose who wanted to travel was growing. Not much. She was still much smaller than any of the other roses. But none had its colours, its delicate shape, its perfume…

The rose who wanted to travel, waited and waited. Every day she hoped someone would pick her up. But the days passed and no one did. Many people stopped to look at her. Every time the little rose would beam with excitement. She would whisper to the  brides and grooms, to the husbands, to the lovers:

“Take me! Take me! Pick me up. Take me away!”

Yet humans do not understand, they can’t hear the voice of roses.

slowly The rose who wanted to travel was losing hope. The days passed and no one took her away to travel. Not even to their houses. A few roses tried to lift her spirits:

“Don’t be sad, little rose. If no one picks you up, you will live longer. Why do you want to be cut?”

“I don’t care! I want to travel!” The rose answered, stubborn. But down deep in her heart, she knew the other roses were right. How was she ever going to travel?

It’s a story the roses tell. The story of the rose who wanted to…

One day, around sunset, when flowers begin to close up for the night, when day birds settle down, when the nurseries get ready to close, a man approached the old gardener.

“Good afternoon. I would like a rose.”

“Just one rose, Sir? I have lots of roses. Allow me. This way, Sir”

The man was well dressed. Tailor-made suit. Elegant without excess. He was clearly a foreigner. He spoke the language well though with the faintest trace of an accent. The old gardener showed him his best roses: the reddest, the most delicately perfumed, the most elegant. The gardener had a long-acquired flair for his clients’ tastes. Yet the gentleman always found some flaw: too big, too small, too red… Until They came close to the rose who wanted to travel. She could hear them talking. The rose-who-wanted-to-travel felt as if this was her last chance. This man, this foreigner, maybe, maybe, would buy her, take her abroad. Maybe, maybe… She opened up, to seduce thes stranger with a foreign accent, she danced for him as no rose had ever danced. She whispered out loud as only roses do:

“Pick me up! Pick me up. Take me abroad with you.”

The foreign gentleman looked at the little rose. He bent forward with his eyes closed to smell her perfume. He turned to the gardener and said:

“This one! It’s perfect! I’ll take it.”

Delicately, the old gardener cut off the rose who wanted to travel. The rose felt a quick and sharp pain when her stem was cut. She was free. At last. She was going to travel. Far, far away, in the few days she had left before she would dry out and die.

The old gardener had a heavy heart. He’d grown fond of the little rose. Once he finished preparing and wrapping her for the foreign gentleman, he gave her a swift kiss, and said:

“Goodbye, little rose. Fair winds.”

The foreign gentleman was a diplomat. He had finished his stay in the country, and wanted a special gift for his wife. He’d searched in vain for a rose-shaped jewel, until a wild idea had come to his mind.

He took the little rose to a jeweler he knew. The jeweler prepared the little rose. Cut the stem an inch and a half below the petals. The jeweler prepared a hot bath of liquid silver, dipped and plated the little rose in silver. That hurt more than the stem cutting, but the little rose was brave. The jeweler added a small silver pin to wear the rose on any type of garment. When all was set, he showed the silver rose to the foreign gentleman.

“Splendid. Perfect! Just what I wanted. Brilliant. Thank you ever so much. Now… Tell me one thing. Will it last?”

“Quite a while, Sir”, the jeweler answered. “The silver plating will protect the rose for a few centuries. The little rose will never dry out. We gave her almost eternal life.”

The foreign gentleman gave the rose to his wife. It immediately became her favorite jewel. They spent the rest of their life travelling the world, The Lady wore the little rose almost every day, proudly pinned on her coat, dresses, blouses, cocktail gowns…

It’s a story that roses tell. The story of the rose who wanted to travel. 

A rose from our garden in Nairobi. A “while” ago.