Unexpected Flowers

I don’t know what made me decide that I needed flowers. Five minutes earlier I had walked straight past the flower market at Viru Gate and not even thrown a glance in that direction. But as I came up on Freedom Square, I found myself looking at the haphazard displays of flowers set upon rickety tables. The tables were manned by weathered old women who watched me with disinterested gazes.

I have no idea who these women are or where their flowers come from. One, off to the side, offers just clips of heather and the occasional bundle of wildflowers, where the transaction appears to be a donation rather than a purchase, with a wilted flower as a receipt.

The others don’t seem to have enough flowers to make a living, let alone compete with the flower market. I used to think that they were there for the tourists going to the square, maybe buying the flowers from the market and then reselling them for a few cents more, making a profit on those people who didn’t know that the flower market was there or maybe just couldn’t be bothered to travel the additional 500 metres.

But there are no tourists now and here they were, still selling the flowers. Which I, unaccountably, suddenly decided I desired.

I turn towards the tables and all three heads look up in unison to see which table I was going to choose. I hate this feeling, but I’ve approached too closely and now I’m too embarrassed to back away.

The closest table has a cute and unsophisticated bouquet, the kind that looks like it was just thrown together but which I can never recreate: some wheat-looking grasses, a dried cornflower and two orange droopy blooms which look a bit like drunken poppies. They are surrounded by leaves that I suspect may have come from the hedge alongside the square.

There’s no price, always a bad sign. “Kui palju,” I ask, how much? I speak to her in Estonian, although the seller is probably Russian-speaking; it seems as good a place as any to start language negotiations if needed. “Kaks,” she says, two. She sounds a little bit hesitant: is that the language or the price? I don’t know what the simple bouquet should cost. The truth is, I don’t care. I can afford to pay two euros for a 30 cent flowers. I hand her a coin and she crunches a sheet of wrapping paper around the stems and gives me the bouquet.

At home, I find the drunken flowers are now at the passing out stage, the petals almost brushing the table top. I try tying them to keep them upright but to no avail. They should probably go straight into the trash but instead I tell myself that the clearly dying flowers are just a different kind of beauty, as if I have purchased some morbid piece of art.

Cliff is less convinced. “Where did you get those?”

“I bought them from an old woman at Freedom Square.”

He raises an eyebrow.

“They were only two euros!”

“You were done.” But he steps a bit closer to the flowers and points to two green pods forming part of the generic greenery. “What are these?”

“Maybe they are buds.” I have no idea; I hadn’t even noticed them.

I mainly leave the flowers on the table out of stubbornness.

But then at dinner time, Cliff finds half a green pod on his plate. He looks up to see an bright orange flower unfurling itself, as if presenting itself for our approval. I quickly throw the two dead flowers away and help the new one escape from the other half of its pod. The following morning, a second flower has broken free, two green pod leaves discarded on the table.

They are beautiful and I am redeemed for having bought the bouquet and especially glad, now, that I did not throw it in the trash and miss this great awakening of a wilted mess into something vibrant and beautiful.

Just a day later, the petals start to shed and the moment has passed.

It feels like there is probably a lesson in there for me somewhere but I’m not sure what it is.