Alice to Prague

by Tanya Heaslip

  Rage at my own naivety and stupidity rose in my gut, uncurling like a vengeful genie. I started punching the couch bed, fist on fist, sobs coming in between jagged breaths. I ripped off the covers. The smell of the flat had permeated the linen and my shoulders jerked back as my stomach heaved. This is it! I thought. There was no way I was going to sleep in that vile stench.

  Sobbing wildly by now, I grabbed my precious bottle of lavender oil out of my case and threw almost the entire contents onto the couch. Then I collapsed into a foetal position, body convulsing as waves of tears drenched my face, the sheets—the tears of a child on her first night at boarding school. There was no way I could survive in this place.

  This was no longer an adventure I wanted.

  It was a huge, humiliating, ridiculous mistake.

  5

  Gymnázium Sedlčany

  It didn’t really look like a school. A squat, featureless, four-storey grey building with large windows, set back from the road between the main square and the regional bus stop, it looked like all of the other Soviet-designed buildings I had seen since arriving the night before. A lone tree on the green square of lawn in front of the school shivered, unclad, in the half-light of morning. A drooping flag over the front door represented a stab at formality. There were no grounds, sports fields, students in uniform or anything else to suggest it was a school.

  But inside, it felt like one. And to my relief, I liked it immediately. It was big, clean and airy. There were long halls with polished floors, wide flights of cement stairs, large classrooms and, best of all, lots of students. As I walked in through the front door, I could hear them and see them everywhere—young, excitable, noisy teenagers, gazing at me with unabashed curiosity. Some smiled and giggled. Their fresh, vibrant energy gave me a lift. Despite the long, cold and polluted walk I’d just had, I felt better in myself already. I’d awoken with the optimism of a new day. If I could put my fears aside and focus on doing the job I’d been given, everything would surely work out. I just needed to spend time with people so I didn’t feel lonely.

  Of course, there would be a few challenges. It had been a while since I’d been a teenager like these students. I hoped I’d know what to talk to them about, assuming they even spoke English. And I was barely four feet eleven (150 centimetres) tall, while most of the students swarming around were lithe and leggy. But we did have something in common. We were all attired in faded jeans and scruffy sneakers and worn coats, which suggested a cheerful sense of equality.

  ‘Hello, Taaaarnya!’

  Maruška arrived with her kind and patient smile, and relief flooded through me. A familiar face! She told me that I would soon meet all the teachers, receive my books and settle in. Tomorrow I would start teaching. New opportunities, a chance to learn, new people and a new life—what had I been worried about?

  We headed to the office of the school’s Deputy Headmistress, Lenka, which adjoined the staffroom.

  ‘Dobrý den and welcome to Sedlčany Gymnázium!’ Lenka beamed. She wore her auburn hair swept up in a glamorous beehive, and looked far more energetic and elegant than I had imagined a Deputy Head to be.

  ‘I don’t speak English,’ she continued in a strong Czech accent as she served me Turecká káva—the Czech version of Turkish coffee—in a small glass. ‘Well, only a leetle. How is our Peter Barr?’

  I couldn’t answer as I was choking. The coffee was a black, bitter sludge, made (I was told) by boiling ground beans and water together in a saucepan in the nearby kitchen. Once boiled, it was then poured straight into a glass, resulting in a concoction of frenzied bean froth on top of black, gritty water. I spent the next five minutes sucking bits of coffee bean backwards through my teeth while covering my face with a tissue to mop up the black mess that had spread from one end of my mouth to the other. Maruška politely averted her eyes.

  The coffee wired me for the day. After exchanging pleasantries about Peter Barr, Lenka beamed me out of her office. Maruška then introduced me to her husband, Franta, who was next door. He was in charge of the school’s computers. Embarrassingly, I didn’t even know computers were taught in schools, even back in Australia, and I certainly didn’t know how to use one. Franta politely refrained from suggesting we were behind in the West (or that I was, at least) and smiled.

  ‘It is no problem. I teach you how to use computer. And now, how is our friend Peter Barr?’

  Next stop was the staffroom. Maruška introduced me to a stream of teachers arriving to start lessons. People spoke rapidly and shook hands. No one spoke English. But it didn’t matter. I had some wins up my sleeve. I had got through the night, managed a hair wash and shower (having improvised and used my pillowcase as a towel), and made it to school. I’d seen some students who had smiled at me and I’d downed my first Turecká káva.

  ‘Here now is our Head English teacher, Jindra.’ Maruška took me across to meet a dark-haired, bespectacled teacher, who was marking papers at a big table. She had high cheekbones and an oval-shaped face, the fine and elegant features I was starting to associate with Czech women.

  Jindra stood up and shook my hand gravely. ‘We have heard from Peter Barr about you. Welcome. I am in charge of your duties here.’

  ‘Thank you, of course.’

  ‘At gymnázium,’ Jindra went on briskly, in fluent, accented English, ‘we now have English classes for all our students. We want to be progressive with English. Everyone here knows that you are not a teacher but, like Peter Barr, you are advocate, so you can help with our program.’

  I nodded, anxious to be seen as useful.

  Jindra started piling textbooks into my arms, briefing me on the background of the school and what to expect—a lot, as it turned out.

  There were between nearly four to five hundred students, depending on the time of the year, split into classes of about thirty each, often at different education levels within the same class. I would teach children aged eleven to eighteen, all hours of the day (and sometimes night), and assist the six English teachers, none of whom were trained to teach English, and three of whom were not teachers at all. They had been brought into the gymnázium to help with staff shortages. At least I wouldn’t be alone in lacking teaching ‘quals’.

  Jindra led me to the other side of the room and introduced me to three of my English-teaching colleagues. First was Old Maruška, so-called to distinguish her from Young Maruška, who had picked me up from the airport, then Blanka, an ethereal-looking, blue-eyed version of Juliette Binoche. Last was Staňa, tall and imposing; I couldn’t work out whether she spoke much English but apparently she was very good at maths and science. All three had high cheekbones and oval-shaped faces too. I kept mixing up their names, but did my best to smile winningly with the kind of confidence I imagined they were expecting from their new incumbent.

  ‘And now,’ said Jindra with a slight frown, looking up as a young woman burst into the room carrying an armful of books, ‘this is Nad’a, our most recently appointed English teacher.’

  Nad’a shimmied towards me and I caught my breath. With her make-up, her short blonde-streaked hair, her stylish and tight-fitting clothes, and her blue eyes sparkling behind groovy glasses, Nad’a looked like she had stepped straight out of the pages of a Western magazine. In a rather old-world atmosphere, this goddess shone forth like a beacon.

  ‘Hello, hello,’ she greeted me, as though this was the happiest day of her life. She shook my hand enthusiastically. ‘I am so very glad to meet you! It is great you have come to our school.’ Her voice was accented but clear, her grasp of spoken English fluent—the best I’d heard yet. ‘It is wonderful for the students to have you here. They will enjoy you very much. And it is wonderful for me and for other teachers to have the opportunity to study with you. This is really, really great for us all.’

  I wanted to throw my arms around this beautiful woman and hug her. She was fun, and early thirtyish—about my age.

  ‘And how do you like our school?’ Nad’a asked, and witho
ut waiting for an answer went on, her words toppling one over the other. ‘I want to talk about how to prepare the good English lessons with you . . . we will have a very good time teaching our students together. Please, come to my table, yes?’

  We started chattering excitedly like two schoolgirls, both of us delighting in the chance to speak English and in the thrilling, instinctive knowledge that a friendship lay before us.

  Jindra watched me with pursed lips and crossed arms. For a moment I paused, met her eyes, but Nad’a’s energy drew me in like a magnet and I couldn’t let go.

  Within seconds, however, the noise level within the room had dropped. It turned to murmurs and then, finally, there was nothing. The back of my neck prickled. The room had become oppressively quiet. We were encircled by a kind of watchful, wary silence.

  I looked up slowly. Faces that ten minutes ago were benign and friendly now looked—well, not so benign and friendly. I could tell we’d broken the rules. But which ones? Too much noise? Too much English? Too much of a language almost no one in this room spoke, a language that not long ago represented the Western enemy? Too much fun, too fast? I felt the same uncertain feeling I’d experienced last night outside my panelák.

  Crash!

  Behind us the door banged loudly. A rotund man with limp hair entered, carrying flowers and a bottle of Cinzano. Mercifully, he broke the unnerving energy that had built up. Recovering her bounce, Nad’a then introduced me, but I missed the man’s name completely, focused as I was on the bottle in his hand. I felt like ripping the top off myself.

  ‘Now we have Name Day celebration,’ Nad’a whispered.

  Each day of the Czech calendar year a Czech name was celebrated. A name-day was equivalent to a birthday, and recipients received flowers and gifts—men included. In return, where possible, the recipient provided drinks. Because there were 365 name-days, celebrations fired up workplaces all over the country on a regular basis.

  The door opened once again, and Headmaster Zdeněk and Deputy Lenka walked in. Their presence seemed to give the ‘morning recess’ proceedings the official stamp of approval. Teachers lined up rows of small glasses on the desks and the newcomer poured liberal doses of Cinzano for everyone. Other teachers pulled out plates of tiny open sandwiches topped with potato salad and thin slices of dried red meat. The desks were soon laden with food, including caraway seed rolls, plates of butter and small containers of yoghurt. The man whose name I never managed to catch passed around the glasses and was toasted with shouts of ‘Na zdraví’ (‘on your health’). I was handed a drink, which I threw back like a local—I didn’t want to cause any more cultural faux pas—and it caught the back of my throat, stung. I spluttered. Admittedly, it was the first Cinzano I’d ever drunk at 10.30 a.m.

  ‘And now, we will have the music!’ Nad’a was all good cheer again.

  Two teachers pulled out guitars: čestmíre, a tall, dark-haired pacifist who I learnt was escaping national service by teaching physical education; and Lidka, a tiny, blonde-haired chemistry teacher whose desk was almost obliterated by a rye loaf and a pot of honey. I stood back, clutching my second glass, watching in disbelief as they kicked off a staffroom singsong.

  The room filled with voices that rose lustily and joyously and with an obvious familiarity that came from having sung these songs forever. I recognised the three-part harmonies; they were the same in folk music and country music the world over, and I’d grown up with music like this. Slim Dusty and Charley Pride and every other country musician I could think of revelled in harmonies; M’Lis, Brett and I sang them whenever we played our guitars together. But at recess time?

  Listening to these practised experts, I suddenly wanted to join in, to be like them. But I didn’t know the lyrics or the music; at best I would only be able to mumble something and look ridiculous trying to pretend I knew what I was doing. Instead I stood separate and alone in a moment that bound everyone else together, bringing light and laughter into their previously closed faces. I felt a pang of sorrow that I couldn’t be part of the jam and just hoped there’d be more tomorrow.

  Eventually, the singing stopped, the guitars were put away and I was introduced to more teachers, in particular ‘the two Jiřís’ (the two Georges). They were two teachers who didn’t speak English (and apparently argued daily) but they welcomed me with hearty handshakes. They had played football with Peter Barr and wanted to hear all his ‘latest news’. More teachers crowded around to hear about Peter and our exotic Auuu-strahhh-lee. My words rushed out and Nad’a translated them for me. Nobody appeared to speak English except for the English teachers, and I wasn’t even sure how well some of them spoke it.

  Zdeněk, on the other hand, was full of surprises. ‘Tak! On your health, for new teacher, Taaaarnya!’ he said, in his best chivalrous manner, surprising me yet again with his grasp of English.

  I beamed back, soaking up the welcome, filled by all these connections.

  Suddenly, the school bells rang, heralding the end of the morning break, and as quickly as the festivities had begun, they ended—abruptly. The room emptied. A glass or two of Cinzano appeared to have no effect on the teachers, and they were now off to class. It was business as usual. I was left sitting at my desk in an alcoholic daze, wondering how I was ever going to remember people’s names, much less pronounce them with their strange sounds and unbroken consonants.

  Jindra, who sensibly did not drink, organised the rest of my morning.

  The first task was to arrange my finances at the Czech National Bank. As we walked out into the square, the grey, putrid-smelling smog hit me like a peasant tractor, and I started coughing again. I coughed all the way to a large, almost empty building in the Old Town Square. If the bank was anything to go by, trade and commerce were at an all-time low in Sedlčany.

  Jindra and I were the only clients. I had to produce all my visas, in triplicate, and Jindra had brought a wad of documents from the school. She negotiated for nearly half an hour with a humourless man in dark glasses behind the counter, after which I understood an account had been opened for me, into which I would be paid a total of 4000 Czech koruna each month. That was approximately A$200 a month, or $50 a week, representing a standard teacher’s wage. In good socialist fashion, all teachers were paid exactly the same amount, even newcomers like me with no experience whatsoever. If I needed money, Jindra said as we walked back outside, one of the teachers would help me withdraw it from the bank. Thank you, thank you, I kept repeating to myself; I was sure I wouldn’t dare return on my own.

  As we walked across the square a huge voice suddenly reverberated around us and instinctively I jumped, and then froze.

  ‘What is that?’

  High above us sat a loudhailer, positioned at the top of the Town Hall, and from it a voice had started booming. It boomed and droned, robotically, on and on. People in the square stopped and listened, their faces guarded, watchful. None of it made sense.

  ‘The town microphone is former regime way of giving messages to us all, every day. It is so loud it can be heard all over Sedlčany. It was used for May Day parades and management of people.’

  My God. This was George Orwell’s 1984. It was Big Brother.

  ‘Why is it still used?’

  Jindra shrugged. ‘It is part of our daily life now. We’ve had it for thirty or forty years and it just keeps going: telling people what is happening, advising about rules and obligations, letting people know what will happen. It is useful.’

  But I knew in that spine-crawling moment I would never get used to the sound. It was alien to anything I had ever experienced. It sent a chill through me every time I heard it. It was designed to penetrate the furthest corners of Sedlčany, even inside the walls and locked window of my little panelák high on the hill. I started coughing again, frantic to get back inside, away from the chill and the evil-sounding, disembodied voice.

  Jindra obliged with lunch. Many students and teachers ate at the school; lunch was payable by voucher, and Jindra kind
ly gave me some vouchers to use. We descended down stone steps into a large, stuffy basement room. Inside it was complete bedlam. Over a hundred students and teachers were eating together at long tables.

  ‘We have main meal in middle of day,’ Jindra advised as we approached three old ladies ladling out watery, greasy soup from massive tin pots. The soup—a Czech favourite—was made from the lining of pigs’ guts. The main dish was pork drowned in gravy, with dumplings and soggy cabbage. I stared, mesmerised, at both dishes, unable to bring myself to dip a spoon or fork in either of them.

  Jindra finished her soup at top speed and then tackled her main course. Like Maruška and Zdeněk the day before, she ate fast. I turned my spoon around and around in my dishes, trying to do them justice, and was thankful when Jindra headed off to teach a class and left me to my own feeble devices.

  ‘I think it best,’ she said as she departed, in the tone of one who had done more than her duty for the day, ‘you should go back to your panelák when you have finished the lunch. Unless there is anything else you need, I will see you tomorrow.’

  I watched her retreating back disappear up the stairs and the optimism I’d felt at the start of the day slipped away like a Soviet deserter in the darkness. My only company now was the voice in my head that said I did not belong in Australia and I did not belong here either, and that I was a fraud—and it was only a matter of time before people here found out.

  Perhaps Jindra already had.

  I desperately wanted to invoke my childhood skill of disappearing into a fantasy world. But that skill had also disappeared and I was left, firmly and clearly, with a reality from which there was no escape.

  How Kafkaesque.

  6

  Stake in the leg

  I couldn’t stay in the school basement any longer so dragged myself to my feet and trudged back up the hill to my panelák. It was bitterly cold. The stench of brown-coal sulphur ripped into my nostrils like pliers and I felt even sicker. My legs were like lead and my shoulders ached under the weight of so many books. From door to door took about half an hour and I puffed and panted and wheezed and coughed. It would take some adjustment getting around without a car. I was already missing my little brown Mazda back home. It might have been old and rusty but it had got me everywhere I needed to go.