Alice to Prague

by Tanya Heaslip

  ‘Zastavte!’

  I jumped, shrieked in fright.

  A large female supermarket guard with thick, unwieldy eyebrows leapt from the closest aisle, arms raised, tone ferocious.

  I stared at her with my mouth open, paralysed.

  ‘Nákupní vozík!’ she bellowed, pointing to something I couldn’t see.

  I clutched my items even more closely, terrified now.

  People gathered and stared at me, their lips pursed.

  ‘Dejte si nákup do tohoto vozíku!’

  As I mumbled panicked nothings, she thrust an enormous trolley at me, wrestled the small number of items from my arms and threw everything into the bottom of the trolley. Confused, I stared down at my precious purchases rolling loose and lonely in the cavernous space surrounding them.

  ‘Pojd’te tudy!’

  The woman gesticulated towards the counter. Her face had turned purple by now, eyebrows vertical with indignation.

  I attempted to shuffle forward, pushing the trolley to the left, to the right, one step backwards, one step forwards, head bowed, praying the whole thing would soon be over. When I finally got to the counter, perspiration running down my back, I handed my items to the girl at the checkout and gazed at her for help. She was young; perhaps she would understand. But no. Like checkout girls the world over, she was bored and prone to eye-rolling. She took my money, threw me a handful of change and went back to gossiping with her neighbour.

  I tottered out of the supermarket, traumatised.

  ‘You must put your things to buy in a trolley so they do not think you are shoplifting,’ Nad’a explained after I’d staggered into school. Shoplifting? I looked around wildly, expecting the secret police to arrive any minute.

  ‘But I only had a few things! Besides, the trolleys are huge! And they don’t even work! They go to the side, backwards—but not where you want them to go. It’s ridiculous!’

  Nad’a shrugged. ‘To je normální,’ she offered, repeating the oft-used Czech expression that seem to represent circumstances that were anything but normal.

  Then she kindly invited me (yet again) home for dinner with her family and recommended in the meantime that I buy food from the little road stalls presided over by old ladies—the babičky (grandmothers). The options weren’t plentiful there—mainly bread rolls, fruit, milk and nuts—but it would save me from the supermarket and any more troubles.

  I took up her suggestion and became an overnight road-stall convert. Almonds were available in this country and I bought bags of them from the little stalls. There were also fresh crusty rolls, plus a delicious yoghurt and a form of cream cheese, both of which were popular and available at the stalls. And with the help of the tough old ladies wrapped in aprons behind the tables, I bought whatever fruit and vegetables were available. They would sombrely write the cost of my purchases on the brown paper bags, take my proffered money, wave their finger sternly and hold out their palm if I needed to provide more, or hand back coins and notes if I’d given them too much. I never had any idea what it all meant. At night I scribbled the Czech names of my purchases into my diary and tried to memorise the words and the sounds. Then I would go back the next day and try them out on the old ladies. Every day I smiled at them hopefully but they never smiled back. No matter—I was grateful.

  My diet was strange and lacking in variety, but without access to regular meals I started to lose weight. Not bad as holiday strategies go, I thought.

  11

  Words and music

  Peter Barr’s presence remained a constant in my life in Sedlčany—a bit like the ghost of Banquo, just without the bloody bits. The fact he’d got on top of the language and I hadn’t was an ongoing sore. Moreover, how much of what I said did the students and teachers really understand? Not a lot, I suspected.

  It was for that reason my video This is the Life spoke a thousand or more words. We might not share the language but the images and music joined us at a deeper, more visceral level. And I didn’t understand anyone unless they spoke in English, and even then there were very few who had a sufficient grasp of English to hold a comprehensive conversation. Hand movements, pointing and facial expressions got me by but if I was really to make the most of this adventure, I had to reconsider Peter Barr’s advice to try and learn Czech.

  So I spoke to Nad’a about it.

  Nad’a looked doubtful. ‘Czech is very difficult. Even our students have many problems. It is much more difficult to write than to speak. Also, we have high Czech and lower Czech. Better in your short time with us that you focus on English, which is what the students want.’

  But Peter Barr had learnt it—shouldn’t I at least try?

  So I tried, and Nad’a was right; it was unbelievably difficult.

  High Czech was an ancient, formal style of speaking and writing, relied upon in special disciplines such as medicine and law and even some parts of teaching. Lower Czech was spoken and written in day-to-day life. There were endless consonants and six additional letters in the alphabet to create words like čtyřikrát (‘four times’), zmrzlina (‘ice cream’) and přijďte (‘come’)—and they were some of the easy ones. Most challenging was the structure of the language. Czech was based on a thing called class declension and boasted a structure similar to Latin.

  I had no understanding of class declensions or Latin (unlike Peter Barr who had knowledge of both).

  So the next best thing to do was to listen closely to people and ask questions. Although this did not always help. For example, no meant ‘yes’, and ne meant ‘no’, and I was constantly confused.

  Just imagine this scenario: someone asks a question. In response, the other person shakes his or her head dismissively and says, often quickly and with some force, what sounds to my ears like, ‘No no no no no.’ But what they’ve just said is ‘Yes yes yes yes yes’. Time and time again I heard what sounded like a long, almost irritable rejection, and then someone would turn to me and say, in English, ‘So. Okay. We go—we do.’

  Then there was ř, one of the six additional letters in Czech. It was pronounced with a roll and a special use of the tongue. When I tried to pronounce it, the students fell about laughing, telling me I pronounced my ř like little children did. Nad’a kindly told me not to worry as the Czech President, Václav Havel, couldn’t pronounce his ř properly either. I guessed it was like a lisp in English, although more embarrassing.

  ‘English is what we want you to speak to us’ was a common refrain, so I almost gave up before I started.

  Then there were the Czech composers Maruška had mentioned on my first day. I still knew nothing about them but suspected that I should. While I was unlikely to master the language, despite Peter Barr’s urging, I knew I had a better chance with music. And I knew that it was important to try.

  One morning at recess I approached Maruška. ‘I’m learning some folk tunes with the students but I’d also like to learn about your historic Czech music too. Is there anything you could suggest?’

  Maruška looked surprised, as well she might, but introduced me to gymnázium maths and music teacher, Helena, who she said could teach me everything there was to know. This would be a big step up in my Czech education and I was both nervous and excited.

  Helena invited me to her little apartment the following week. I went after school and found a snug den artistically furnished with rugs and colourful prints. A yoga mat was in the corner, and herbal tea was brewing. In that den Helena often listened to guided Indian meditations on cassettes and practised tai chi. I could hardly believe that a true bohemian like Helena existed, nor that an apartment like hers had survived the communists.

  Helena was, however, a teacher at heart and kicked off our tuition with a strict Czech history lesson.

  ‘Our composers are, how you say, foundation of Czech life,’ she said. ‘We start, always, with Bedřich Smetana and his famous work Má Vlast.’

  I quickly pulled out my notebook and started scribbling.

  ‘In Engl
ish, that means “My Fatherland” or “My Country”. My two favourite poems from the work are “Vyšehrad” and “Vltava”.’

  She raised her arms as if to start conducting an orchestra.

  ‘Vyšehrad was a castle on a big rock that stands high over the River Vltava. Czech legend says that in the seventh century, the wise and beautiful Princess Libuše stood on that rock and had a prophecy of Prague. In her vision, she saw “a great city whose glory will touch the stars”. It is said that Prague is built on the foundations of her feminine vision.’

  I was awestruck. How many countries had birthrights bestowed by a long-ago princess envisaging a city of beauty from within a trance?

  ‘Next is Vltava—our big river in Prague. In the piece, you will hear in the violins the baby river trickling small in the mountains until it grows in power and roars to Prague with whole orchestra.’

  As Helena spoke, she pulled out a cassette tape and clicked it into a tiny cassette player. Violins soared and danced until the orchestra swept to its majestic finale, the grandeur and splendour of the music bouncing off the walls.

  ‘Next in time, after Smetana, came Antonín Dvořák.’

  Dvořák was a violist, violinist and composer of romantic music who incorporated folk music into his works, such as the ‘Song to the Moon’ from his opera Rusalka, and the fast and furious Slavonic Dances. He was invited to New York during the 1890s where, consumed with homesickness, he poured his longing into his most famous work: Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, From the New World.

  Helena clicked ‘play’ again and soon the room was filled with the haunting intensity of one man’s homesickness. I knew homesickness only too well. As though a plug had been pulled away from my heart, my pent-up emotions poured out like the River Vltava heading to Prague.

  ‘Tak!’ Helena’s face was a study of rapture as I wept. ‘Dvořák had a pupil called Josef Suk. He became famous violinist and composer and fell in love with Dvořák’s daughter.’

  She smiled mysteriously.

  ‘Suk wrote famous pieces such as Serenade for Strings and A Summer’s Tale. We say that you can hear the countryside in Suk’s music—the freshness of the dawn and the sound of the lark and the feel of the wind and the splash of the river and the beauty of the spring in each note.’

  Her eyes were wide, dark.

  ‘Tak!’ She leant towards me. ‘Even our most sophisticated Czech classical music is based on life in the country, the folklore, the famous fairytales and legends, the peasant music from former times.’

  ‘Just like our Australian country music is based on our life in the bush,’ I burst out, unable to help myself. I’d made another link between Central Australia and Central Europe—something about the isolation we shared and what it produced—and it was both intriguing and thrilling.

  Bundling up the tapes for me to take away, Helena finished triumphantly. ‘We Czechs are bound to our history and our present—to stories of our princes and princesses with magical powers, to our wise witches and fantasy beings, to our woods and our streams and our mountains and our valleys—as though they are all the one thing.’

  I felt transported. Parallel universes slid before me. Memories of my childhood fantasies were returning in whispers and images. I couldn’t find my own words but my body connected—surreally, magically—to Helena’s words.

  Helena took me to her door and added, almost as an afterthought, ‘Do you know that the positive energy of the students affects us? Do you realise how much you come alive and shine in their company? Especially when you sing with your guitar with them?’

  I stared into her eyes.

  She nodded sagely. ‘It is no accident you are here with us. Six months ago, did you have any idea you would be in classrooms filled with Czech students? Maybe you were here in a former life.’

  Maybe Helena was a wise witch. I threw my arms around her in gratitude.

  As I headed back towards my panelák, I noticed that the smog wasn’t quite as bad. The freezing grey days and bone-wracking chill were starting to relent. The six layers of clothes I usually wore were reduced to three. Sedlčany was thawing and so was I.

  On the corner of a road I stopped. There stood a tree in blossom. As the sweetness of its tiny white scented flowers curled up towards me, I gulped in breaths of relief and joy. Through the thin, pale light, I saw fields of green rolling away into misty blue hills in the distance, and those fragrant buds and the promise of spring felt like my own personal miracle.

  12

  Benešov

  When I’d been at Sedlčany for nearly two months, Head English teacher Jindra kindly arranged a weekend away for me. I was to go and stay with another teacher, Jarka, in a nearby village.

  I was filled with the same thrill I had felt at boarding school when an exeat—a weekend escape—from boarding school approached. This would be my first time away, solo, in the Czech Republic, and it felt like I had grown up and was now enjoying a prefect’s privilege.

  On the Friday afternoon, I walked to the railway station with my gorgeous Kamila, who came to help me buy a ticket. After hugging her goodbye, I boarded a one-carriage steam train that looked like it was straight out of Noddy. We headed to a town called Olbramovice, which sounded charming, and as the train choofed (literally) out of the station I sat back, taking in the mass of bare tree trunks flashing past, spindly and dark in the evening light. The light greens on the woodlands were translucent, magical, and hinted that the much-heralded Czech springtime was on its way. I couldn’t wait for it to really be here.

  I remembered the drive to Sedlčany on my first day and the glimpse of Prague, which had felt so close for those few glorious seconds as we drove past it. Prague now seemed a long way away, out of reach, from another land. Moreover, the challenges I’d faced in my early days in Sedlčany meant I’d not had the courage or energy so far to look beyond the town borders.

  I wondered when Peter Barr had first gone to Prague. Had he gone alone? How did he find his way there? I knew he had browsed through bookshops and attended Havel’s plays in underground theatres. He’d gone to classical concerts and met friends there. He’d also encouraged me to go as soon as possible. However heading to Prague on my own meant I might end up in Poland rather than Prague. I struggled to understand signs and directions without help and certainly couldn’t hold a conversation with a bus driver or train conductor.

  The train tooted as we arrived into Olbramovice and I leapt off the train, anxious not to miss the station.

  Jarka and her husband were waiting in their little car and welcomed me warmly. They told me we were heading to a restaurant in the next town, Benešov, to meet friends for dinner. Well, at least I think that’s what they said, on the basis of much finger pointing, sign language and dictionary examination. My hosts could not speak English so it was all a bit of a guess, really. They smiled at me and I hoped my eager smile in response properly conveyed the degree of my gratitude at being here with them.

  We drove to the restaurant and they led me into a long, low-roofed building. It was dark-panelled and smoky, filled with people chatting and dining and enjoying their pork and beer. People stared as I followed my hosts. Yet again my appearance, my clothes, everything about me shrieked, ‘She’s not one of us.’ Most Czech women I’d met so far were beautiful and tall, with those famously high cheekbones.

  Mostly I accepted our differences but tonight I just wanted to feel normal, like everyone else. I suddenly wished I was wearing a gorgeous dress and high heels and having an ordinary old Friday evening with friends, like someone who belonged—guzzling wine, gossiping, laughing, as the locals here were doing. I wanted to feel pretty, not the ‘strangely dressed foreigner’ who was always out in jeans, sandshoes and a thick pink parka to avoid freezing.

  My hosts fortunately had no idea of my manic internal dialogue and they ushered me towards another couple at a table. Everyone shook hands cheerfully and the four Czechs began chatting among themselves. I sat alone, determinedly runn
ing through the list of benefits of the evening in my head: this was a time to embrace the opportunity, enjoy the moment; to be glad I was finally out of Sedlčany; to make new friends and have new experiences I could write about afterwards. Don’t worry about your clothes and what you look like, I said to myself. Be grateful for tonight. Make the most of it.

  But I had finally escaped Sedlčany, and my tightly bottled emotions decided they were free to do likewise. They started leaping out of every pore with the energy of a suppressed Jack in the Box. When the waiter handed around menus and everyone perused them and exchanged ideas, my feelings shouted, ‘I can’t read this, I’m like a child no more than three years old, I’m utterly dependent, I can’t talk to anyone about this. I am a nobody!’

  A loud noise at the door distracted me from this onset of despair.

  Two men entered the restaurant, one a round, cheerful-looking fellow, the other very tall and thin. Two other men walked towards them and there was animated handshaking, laughter and backslapping, and fast conversation in Czech. As I watched them, I had another realisation. I’d flown away from Australia because I didn’t feel I belonged there, yet my sense of not belonging was only magnified here. The truth was out. I didn’t belong anywhere.

  I stared down at the meaningless words of the menu under the cheap plastic. Emotions continued to taunt me: ‘What’s the point? There will only be ten different versions of pork, cabbage, dumplings and potatoes. Why even bother looking? They are all the same everywhere. They don’t change!’

  The waiter arrived to take our orders. I wanted to say ‘Anything but řízek, please’, but I didn’t even know how to say that. What I really craved was a big, juicy steak, cooked rare on the barbecue, accompanied by a fresh salad topped with a piquant French dressing. But I couldn’t have what I wanted and I couldn’t say what I didn’t want so I was stuck with Jarka’s decision, as if I was a child. My powerlessness in that moment was so all-consuming it seemed to cover the entire restaurant like a black shroud. Jarka must have felt it, because she whispered hopefully to the waiter; I heard anglicky and Australanka, but I didn’t feel hopeful. I wanted to dissolve into the table, into the floor, and back to Austrálie.