Alice to Prague

by Tanya Heaslip

  I wasn’t the only one without a car. Apart from one little smoky vehicle in the distance, the scene was like one from a retro B-grade movie, set in a time before the automobile industry had even begun. It wasn’t surprising, I supposed; Sedlčany was barely four years out of communist control. I saw no evidence of a new world emerging here yet.

  Men and women trudged past me, carrying bags of shopping or slowly pushing carts that held their goods and possessions. Their faces were grey and closed against the afternoon chill, their coats shabby, their hands worn. Decades of communism had palpably paralysed this place. It was bleak and crumbling and falling apart. Everything along the street smacked of hard work and poverty.

  As I passed people, I smiled at them. I thought that’s what a well-mannered foreigner should do: smile politely, sincerely, shyly. But no one smiled back. Some stared at me, their faces blank, as though they were looking right through me—as though I was invisible. Others looked away. Perhaps decades of distrust and fear had bred a closed, suspicious attitude to anyone new? And I was patently not a local. With my tatty pink backpack, I stood out like a bright, sore thumb. How had Peter Barr managed it?

  For the rest of the afternoon I hid inside my panelák. It was freezing and stank of sewage and stale cigarettes, but it beat the alternative. The sky and buildings of Sedlčany were a bleak grey outside my wide windows. I stood and watched people below moving slowly, like ants. I longed to contact Nad’a but had neither phone nor any idea how to find her.

  How had Peter Barr coped? He hadn’t told me it was difficult here; on the contrary, he’d said it was great. I was obviously weak, a wuss, a miserable ingrate. But I reminded myself that Peter hadn’t lived alone. He’d been with families. How would I survive alone? Alone. Loneliness. Those bleakly interlinked words swirled around my brain. But I doubted either would have been an issue for Peter as he was such a socially competent chap. By day one I expected he’d have been off playing football with the blokes, with plans for drinks at the pub afterwards.

  I continued to cough incessantly, the sulphur smog having lodged itself determinedly in my trachea. Outside, the afternoon eventually darkened, and then the lights of Sedlčany went off, one by one. It was freezing so I layered up with all the warm clothes I had, topped off by my parka. I also decided to try the lukewarm tea again, which this time I drank to warm up, even though the taste hadn’t improved overnight. What I really craved was hot food. But, like home, that was a distant dream, so I pulled out the bread and cheese and apples and set them on my table. I found a knife and fork, which were made of cheap aluminium (a Czech speciality, I soon discovered), then cut everything into slices and ate quickly, without tasting it. Then I looked down at the empty plate and fantasised about running away.

  I started to rehearse the words I would utter tomorrow morning: ‘I’m so very sorry, Zdeněk, it was a mistake. I have to leave.’

  That was the only thing to do. I could not stay here. I would go mad.

  I lay down on my couch and stared up at the ceiling of my cell.

  But as I did I knew, with a sinking heart, that I’d never speak those words out loud, to Zdeněk or anyone else. Peter Barr would be appalled and I’d never live down the shame. Moreover, bush kids never gave up. Responsibility was drilled into us. Whatever our job, we’d never leave until it was done. Our overriding duty was to bring home the mob, no matter what the cost to ourselves. ‘Keep going, you’re nearly there,’ Dad would say, sternly. Besides, I was an eldest child and eldest children didn’t give up either.

  I lay there in the darkness and thought of another time, long ago, when there was something awful I couldn’t escape.

  It was a year before I left for boarding school. I was galloping after cattle through thick mulga on the western side of the station. The cattle were wild and ‘stirry’, the air filled with people shouting, beasts bellowing, horses and cattle panicking. In the confusion and chaos, I smashed into a tree and staked my leg. All bush kids know that a mulga stake requires immediate treatment—antibiotics—to prevent infection. The stick pierced my jeans and went in deep, shooting pain into my leg. But no one heard my screams. M’Lis and Brett and the other stockmen were galloping as madly as I’d just been. Dad was miles ahead preparing the stockyards we were to reach by nightfall.

  It was a day of blistering heat and there was nothing to do but to push on and try to keep the mob together and moving. No point getting off my horse and collapsing under a tree; I’d more likely perish from thirst than pain and poison, and we all knew the rules about that.

  Besides, my fear at losing the cattle and not getting them safely back to the yards was greater than any pain in my leg. Dad was relying on us; none of us would dare let him down. The cattle were to be drafted and trucked to market. That was how we made a living in the bush. No cattle, no income. We kids contributed to the station work like any of the men. That was our job. So I pushed on through the blinding white heat, my leg swelling and throbbing under my ripped jeans. I vomited several times over the side of my horse. By the time I finally got to the yards the sky was dark. I fell off Sandy, hallucinating. But I’d made it with the cattle, and that was all that mattered.

  Pressed into my memory was a pat on the back from Dad as he lifted me into the Land Rover, along with two words: ‘Good job.’ One of the stockmen drove me home for help, and I remembered lying in the filth of the vehicle as we bumped for miles over the corrugated dirt roads, my eyes closing, joy in my heart at Dad’s praise overwhelming the agony.

  Memories of that day sent me a clear message: ‘Tanya, you are not going anywhere. You will stay here and stick this out until it is time to leave. It was what you were brought up to do. If you give up, the people here will think you are ungrateful, weak and spoilt by the ease of life in the West, and you’ll only reinforce prejudices. Worse, you will have achieved nothing, either for the people of Sedlčany or yourself. You wanted an adventure and now you have one!’

  And I was reminded of one of the English teachers I had met. ‘Our last native teacher was from England,’ she had said. ‘She was very homesick. She did not stay more than one week.’

  The teacher had looked at me searchingly, hopefully. ‘We hope you will stay, Tanya.’

  My insides had curled.

  I knew I could no sooner let down the school, Peter Barr or myself than desert the mob of cattle halfway back to the dam.

  7

  Lessons in life

  I woke, ravenous and feverish, to a sickly dawn. Hot and cold chills drove me out of bed and down to the streets. Outside, the stench of Sedlčany smothered the air and I shivered violently. People continued to ignore me as I hurried along. I arrived at the school spluttering and coughing, looking like a mess. I so wanted a hug, or any sort of touch to feel connected to life, but the hugs I ached for belonged in another country in another hemisphere. When I saw Jindra, she took one look at me and pronounced me ill, and I nearly burst into tears.

  But Jindra had no time for my descent into weak-kneed Western self-pity.

  ‘It is normal you are ill,’ she said, briskly. ‘New people always get ill in Sedlčany.’

  That should have made me feel better, but as I was stuck here and couldn’t go somewhere else to get better, it did not. I wanted to ask if this had been true for Peter Barr (I doubted it—he seemed beyond such tiresome forms of human frailty), but Jindra was busy giving me her diagnosis. It so shocked me that I forgot my question altogether.

  ‘Your spirit is crushed because of homesickness and this has made your body weak,’ she pronounced. ‘Your throat is constricted by nerves and the pollution, which your body does not know how to manage. You must now heal your body and mind.’

  I felt my face aflame through the chills.

  ‘Do you wish to return to your flat?’

  I shook my head maniacally.

  ‘Tak! If you remain sick,’ she said, with emphasis, ‘I will take you to the hospital where we will give you special pills. Then you will s
tay in your flat until doctor says it is possible for you to leave. In the past you would even be watched while you were there.’

  Images of faceless men in trench coats circling my flat with silencer guns and needles poised to inject rose before me. The sheer horror of this prospect forced the cough back down my throat. Jindra then told me that Nad’a would be along shortly to take me to my first lesson. If I wasn’t better by the end of the day I had to report back to Jindra.

  Fortunately, Nad’a appeared just in time, all brightness and cheer, and within moments I felt better. Being close to her energy was almost as good as having a hug. She gave me a banana (‘This is exotic new fruit for us, Tanya—would you like to try for your health?’) and I was stunned when I heard they cost A$2 each. ‘They’re only thirty cents back home,’ I said, doubly grateful for her kindness as I demolished the small yellow fruit, its sweet deliciousness giving me a second boost.

  ‘Next, we take the Turecká káva,’ she said, taking the staff saucepan and pouring me a steaming glass that made my hair stand on end and helped me forget how sick I was. I wanted to ask her whether the Czechs had ever heard of the coffee plunger, then thought better of it. Probably the communists had banned plungers as an example of Western decadence. Why not learn to use your teeth and mouth to sift coffee grains rather than let coffee drinking become slothfully easy?

  ‘Now you learn to be a teacher,’ said Nad’a comfortingly, leading me down a long corridor swarming with teachers and students between lessons. ‘This class is Advanced English. Students are not so used to speaking but they can understand quite well. There is one boy in the class, Pavel, who I think is the best boy speaker in the school at English. He will be able to help you.’

  I followed her, high and happy, sickness and hunger temporarily forgotten.

  ‘Tanya, may I present class 3A!’

  Nad’a led me into a big airy room with high windows. A large group of sixteen-year-old students sprawled across desks, filling the room with chatter and noise. I took a deep breath. Finally, I was here doing what I was meant to do. I would be the Sedlčany version of Mrs Hodder. This would work. I would rise to the occasion and spread inspiration and encouragement, and I would make my time here mean something.

  ‘Welcome, Taaanya!’ A lanky boy in the first row stood up, speaking perfect English. He had a shock of blond hair and bright blue eyes. ‘I am Pavel. On behalf of class, we wish today to teach you Czech expression.’

  I was immediately charmed. So this was Pavel. Was he offering me a cultural welcome? Not knowing what to do, I nodded my head and smiled graciously.

  Pavel spoke slowly. ‘Kde je nejbližší hospoda, prosím? Please, Taaanya, repeat after me.’

  Pardon? I had no idea how to repeat that collection of consonants and the students were sniggering. I turned to Nad’a for help but she was looking down at her desk.

  ‘Please,’ Pavel said once more. ‘You must try. It is necessary expression for life in Czech Republic.’

  Clearly my credibility here turned on attempting to engage with local cultural traditions. I opened my mouth and tried. ‘G’day yer neigh-ble-shee hos-pod-ah, proh-seeem’.

  The class burst into hysterics and I wanted the floor to swallow me up. Was it my accent? My lack of ability to speak this ridiculous language? I looked despairingly at Nad’a but couldn’t see her face—she still seemed to be sorting out some papers on the desk.

  ‘Tak!’ I mumbled to Pavel, using the expression I’d now heard Czechs use to start a sentence. (It means ‘so’.) ‘Tak! Pavel, what does it mean?’

  ‘Where is the nearest pub, please?’ said Pavel.

  It took a while before Nad’a resumed control. The class were falling about, no doubt unable to believe their luck. The new teacher had stumbled right into their trap. I tried to respond with some gravitas.

  ‘Thank you, Pavel, I trust that will be helpful during my stay in Sedlčany.’

  Pavel threw his head back and laughed. His shining blue eyes met mine and I laughed too. Yes, I would definitely rely on him to help me with this class.

  ‘Now, it is your turn, Tanya,’ said Nad’a. ‘Please, teach the class some special Australian expression, and they can follow you.’

  Numerous profane expressions I’d learnt from stockmen over the years sprang to mind. But they were designed for the cattle and the heat and the problems of the bush—far too many swear words, and far too difficult to explain anyway.

  ‘I could tell you how I did school growing up,’ I offered and they all nodded, looking interested. An interested class was a good start. I tried to speak slowly but the words rushed out.

  ‘I grew up in a cattle station in the middle of Australia. My sister and brother and I had a little schoolroom that was next to the house. It was made of stone and had one window, and it could just squeeze in three little desks and a bigger desk for a governess. It was freezing in winter and boiling in summer. We started at 7.30 in the morning and finished at 1 p.m. That was because it was too hot to work any later. And when our father wanted us to help him with cattle work, he would stomp across the gravel to our schoolroom in his big boots and order us to come with him. My sister and brother were always excited when they heard his boots coming. I wasn’t. I loved school and wanted to stay there with my books. And I knew we would have to make up our school time on the weekends.’

  There was much noise and discussion, and many questions. Nad’a translated that the students thought my school life was completely exotic. She added, ‘Can you explain a governess?’

  ‘Okay—on cattle stations, there would usually be a young girl who came up from one of the capital cities down south to take charge of the schooling,’ I told them. ‘The girls were between eighteen and twenty years old. They were not teachers but were interested in looking after kids and teaching and spending time in the outback. Mothers on cattle stations were usually too busy to teach the kids and it was much better to have somebody independent to supervise the lessons.’

  All the students were frowning now and there was much discussion as they tried to understand.

  ‘If they were not teachers, how could they teach?’ Nad’a persisted.

  The irony of her question was not lost on me but I tried to focus on the answer. ‘We had booklets that taught us. They were called “sets” and they came to us in the mailbox every fortnight from a thousand miles away, from the Correspondence School in Adelaide. All the teachings and questions and tests were in those booklets and we had to complete one “set” each fortnight. The governess supervised us doing this work.’

  The questions came thick and fast. What subjects did I actually study?

  ‘English, history, geography and maths. We had no art or music or sport in school, but we created our own fun outside of school with guitars and games that we made up.’

  Spying some guitars in the corner of the room, I had an idea.

  ‘Like you, we sang music and stories about the kind of life we lived. There is a very famous Australian song about the early days. Can I sing it to you?’

  I’d been longing to sing since the day before. Now I had my opportunity. The students gathered around. I’d already figured out that music was part of the glue that held this school together. I hoped the students wouldn’t mind that my guitar playing was not impressive. I was no more than a three-chord-wonder girl, but three chords were all I’d ever needed for singing around the campfire, sitting on swags in dry creek beds.

  Most of the lyrics of those songs were about life in the bush. There were the inevitable sad songs about people, cattle, dogs and horses dying, but also fun songs about bush people living it up at race meetings. Then there were the hard stories about the life we knew. ‘It’s a hard, hard country,’ Slim Dusty sang, along with ‘Rusty, It’s Goodbye’, ‘Saddle Boy’ and ‘Cunnamulla Fella’. We sang Charley Pride songs too; he added a dimension of happiness with ‘Kiss an Angel Good Morning’ and aching hearts with ‘Crystal Chandeliers’. We loved every single one of t
hese songs. When Benny grew up he banged on a stool with a wooden spoon, adding drums to our performances. Benny was a natural and in fact went on to study drumming. He was, however, the only one of us who didn’t really love Slim Dusty and Charley Pride; he wrote his own songs for the outback.

  So now, in a rush of nostalgia for a country that seemed a lifetime away, I decided to try ‘Waltzing Matilda’.

  Pavel brought me a guitar and I took it into my hands. As I touched the strings, a sense of comfort blanketed me. This guitar was the closest link I’d felt to home since I’d arrived. I picked out few chords and away we went. Even with a croaky voice, I found that ‘Waltzing Matilda’ provided a remarkable outlet for my pent-up emotions. I sang my heart out and when I finished I saw shining eyes and smiling faces.

  Pavel got up and went to talk to Nad’a. After a short exchange Nad’a asked me to sing once more and to my astonishment the class joined in for the chorus, singing in Czech. I couldn’t believe it—they knew the tune! We finished the song, singing in our respective languages, our different words all held together by the same melody. I’d found the moment I had longed for yesterday.

  When I finished, joy radiated from one end of the room to the other and bounced back again. The class clapped and cheered, calling out, ‘Ještě jednou, prosím!’

  ‘They want it again, please,’ Nad’a translated.

  ‘But how do they know this Australian song?’ I was breathless.

  There was an extraordinary but simple answer. ‘Czech folk singers heard this song from Australia after Velvet Revolution and put Czech words to it.’

  So it wasn’t just luck—we really did have a song in common! While we might not sing in the same language, we shared the music. I was ecstatic. How powerfully music really could transcend boundaries and borders and language and politics!