Alice to Prague

by Tanya Heaslip

  ‘Last piece of advice for the train,’ said Ludva, handing me my backpack. ‘Don’t talk to people you don’t know! Look what happened when you did that last time!’

  Much laughter, hooting. I hugged them all tight, struggling to get out the words.

  ‘Thank you for everything. I will miss you so much.’

  ‘Remember, Táničko,’ Míša urged me. ‘Let life touch you! But not too much our famous stinging nettles!’

  ‘This will soon be nice memory,’ Jarda warned, ‘so make the best of your time here.’ As usual, he’d read my mind. ‘We will see you back in Australia.’ It sounded so normal.

  ‘You will have me now, if you so wish,’ Karel said chivalrously. His lips swept my cheek. ‘Try me by the special Sedlčany telephone when you are ready and I will meet you in Prague.’

  How very Czech. How very relaxed. No forward planning, no dates or time. Just call and I’ll be there.

  I touched my cheek where Karel’s lips had been. Leaning back against the train seat, I looked up into the sky and dreamed about the new life I was creating.

  16

  Last days

  Resigning from Gymnázium Sedlčany was the hardest part. But once the dreaded deed had been done (and I’d shared a gasping, glacial glass of slivovice with Headmaster Zdeněk to seal the deal), I felt the burden slip away, replaced by a sense of freedom to plan my next steps.

  I decided to throw a farewell party for the female teachers in my panelák. Having experienced such wonderful hospitality during my time in Sedlčany, I wanted to return the favour. The week before the party, I handed out invitations to the English teachers and some other women in the gymnázium I’d met since arriving: twelve invites in all.

  ‘Ooh, Tanya!’ Nad’a’s eyes lit up. ‘Thank you. It is excellent idea. I am sure people will be very happy to come especially as a chance to say goodbye.’ As she rushed out the door to a class, she added over her shoulder, ‘No teacher has ever done this before.’

  The pressure was on.

  I went shopping to buy the kind of food I had seen others prepare. That meant I had to brave the supermarket, but fortunately I now knew the rules, so over several days I used the trolleys correctly and bought sufficient items until I had everything I needed. I focused on chlebíčky, small slices of baguette topped with egg, mayonnaise, onion and salami; quark cheese to spread on rye bread (a delicious and equally popular snack); packets of salted nuts and chips; Bohemian Sekt; and red and white wine.

  On the day, puffing and panting up the hill with the last bag, I felt oddly pleased to be like the other women I had seen labouring along the streets with their provisions.

  Twilight fell outside the window on the evening of my party. I rushed around trying to make my little flat look presentable, laying out the few plates and glasses I had in my cupboard. As 7 p.m. approached, I became increasingly nervous. To start with, none of my food was homemade, which meant the teachers would finally discover I couldn’t cook.

  That mattered because Czech women cooked brilliantly—all of them, it appeared. Indeed, no matter how hard the former regime had made them work, Czech women found time to be domestic geniuses in the kitchen. I had no such excuse. Too late to worry about my reputation now, I thought. I set the food out in neat little rows, put the nuts in bowls, and arranged the wine, Sekt and glasses in front.

  At the last minute I rummaged through my case, trying to find something presentable for a party, and pulled out a cream, lacy, slightly scrunched top. It was pretty, I hadn’t worn it here before, and it would do. I threw it over jeans and brushed my hair, even added a touch of lipstick. I was almost ready.

  My last touch was to click ‘play’ on my tape recorder, and soon Smetana’s Má Vlast filled the room with its soaring violins and Czech nostalgia.

  Nad’a arrived first, beaming, brandishing flowers and Bohemian Sekt. ‘To celebrate your first of many parties in our country.’ At my raised eyebrows, she added. ‘Yes, do not worry, we will see you again. We will visit you in Prague and have parties there!’

  Blanka, who lived in the castle, arrived next, looking as angelic as ever and carrying a tray. ‘Czech delicacy—ovocné knedlíky,’ she smiled, gently. ‘I made them for you.’ She put fruit dumplings down on the table. I knew they were delicious and thankfully I now had real food to add to the table. We opened one of the bottles of Sekt and clinked glasses.

  Old Maruška entered carrying an apple strudel, for which I knew she was famous, and now I was truly overjoyed. The table was starting to look fabulous, full of beautiful things to eat. I poured more champagne and the bubbles and music fizzed through us.

  The last three English teachers, Staňa, Maruška and Head Teacher Jindra, brought flowers and wine. Deputy Headmistress Lenka swept in, beehive as erect as ever, bearing a plaque of Sedlčany for me to ‘take away and keep as special memento’.

  Next came the final five women I had invited: smiling, dark-haired Jarka who had taken me to Benešov where I met the Czech-Australians; Helena, the classical music teacher who was happy to hear her music tapes in action; guitar-playing Lidka; and School Secretary Jana with her young assistant Iveta. They all brought flowers, more food, wine and champagne.

  By now there was enough to eat and drink for months to come. My room, designed to hold one or two people at most, was crammed to overflowing. We sat on boxes, the floor, my bed and a window ledge. It was like a uni party all over again.

  I raised my glass of Bohemian Sekt to the group.

  ‘Na zdraví! Cheers! Thank you all so very much for coming tonight. I wanted to thank you all for welcoming me here during this term, for your generosity, for your kindnesses.’ I looked around at them all and my voice faltered. ‘I could not have made it without you and I will miss you all very much. And I’m particularly touched by your gifts—the flowers, the treats—I didn’t expect them and this is such a special way to say goodbye.’

  The English speakers translated my words to the others. They laughed, smiled. We clinked glasses noisily, drank to each other’s health and refilled our glasses. We found the common thread of female connection through hands and laughs. We told stories in half-Czech and half-English, and I wanted the night to last forever.

  ‘Do you have parties like this in Australia?’ asked Nad’a, squashed up against the heater, one long, elegant leg crossed over the other.

  ‘In a way, yes. The world over, women are women. We are all the same.’

  There was a slight murmur of dissent, a rumble of words, conferral.

  Finally, someone asked, ‘But no husband and children yet?’ Hmm. Just as it was back home, my unmarried and childless status was unusual here too. Czech women married in their late teens or early twenties at the height of their beauty, and had beautiful children, usually about two.

  Not to marry and not to have children meant one (or more) things in this country: that you were a lesbian, or a spinster, you were not at all beautiful or, worst of all, you were a feminist. The last was so reviled that there were virtually no feminists to be found.

  When I’d asked the teachers some months earlier why feminism had a bad rap, they’d explained that the former regime lambasted feminism as a product of the Wicked West, and therefore no one had dared support it.

  I was shocked. ‘But feminism is about liberation for women—more respect, challenging the unfair status quo, empowerment, good things like that.’

  Apparently not. The regime had shouted from the rooftops that it represented resistance to authority, which was a punishable crime. More insidiously, the message was that feminism would make women harsh, ugly, strident, and no longer feminine or beautiful. Thus it became a self-perpetuating circle that no self-respecting or law-abiding woman would go near.

  ‘We don’t need some angry, unhappy label to tell us who we are, to make us feel better,’ they’d said. ‘We Czech women know who we are. We are confident in ourselves.’

  Well, the propaganda had worked. Even women opposed it,
without question.

  I suspected the real reason the authorities damned feminism was that it questioned a system in which men were very comfortable: Czech women worked all day, and when they were not at work they ran the households, did the shopping and (brilliant) cooking, and looked after the children. Feminism might turn that comfortable scenario on its head. I remembered Kamila once saying that many men went to the pubs and there were many unhappy marriages.

  But it was a fine line I was walking and I didn’t want to alienate my friends by mentioning the f-word. Especially as the night had gone swimmingly so far.

  Nor did I want to have to explain that the root cause of all my love-life problems was a fear of being trapped, and that marriage and children represented the end of freedom as I saw it—a view that was considered abnormal and unnatural by everyone I knew (except for my dear flatmate back home, who was gay).

  The room of women waited.

  Finally, I said, ‘It’s a long story. But I guess I haven’t found the right person.’

  That was it? Silence, wrinkled brows, narrowed eyes. So many men, so many opportunities. What was wrong with me? And what about my ticking biological clock?

  Just as I was trying to work out how to escape this conversation, Helena stepped in and saved me with one of her wise-white-witch insights.

  ‘Perhaps you are special case and your time has not yet been right.’

  I smiled weakly as she patted my shoulder.

  ‘Perhaps you will find special Czech man and stay with us in our country for always.’

  Everyone laughed. Except me. As if riveted to the spot, I stared into her eyes, shivering all the way up and down my spine. ‘Er—’

  Deputy Headmistress Lenka clearly decided it was time to bring order to proceedings. ‘As you say, Tanya, all around world, women are the same. We women hold the life together. We are the strength.’

  She might as well have clapped her hands and brought a class back into line. Everyone nodded. They understood. In that moment, political, geographical, cultural and language differences did not exist, had never existed. We shared the desire to connect and understand and support one another. My lack of husband and children paled into insignificance next to the connection we shared as women.

  Smiles and laughter echoed down the concrete corridor as my guests tottered towards the lift.

  As I lay on my couch bed later that evening, I reflected that the evening had been a kind of coming-of-age party for me. I’d stepped into this world on the train of women’s acceptance and kindnesses—women who, four years ago, I would never have met, who I would have been forbidden to meet; women who, years before, would have been described as dangerous enemies of the West, and who would have viewed me with the same mistrust. It was so ludicrous that I wanted to laugh and shout out loud into the darkness.

  I drifted off to sleep, Helena’s words going around and around in my head: Perhaps you are special case and your time has not yet been right.

  On the second-last day, I approached School Secretary Jana. She spoke English well and I needed a big favour. Would it be possible for me to use the school telephone to call Prague?

  ‘I will see.’ Jana’s brow creased. There was nothing in their rule books to tell them what to do when a foreigner asked to use the phone. Call the secret police? But they allegedly no longer existed. A lengthy conferral with two colleagues followed, and some phone calls to higher authorities, after which Jana returned to her office and pointed to a telephone on a desk from which I could make my call.

  ‘You will be quick, yes?’ she whispered.

  Relieved, I nodded my thanks and pulled out the beer coaster Karel had given me in Prague. It was slightly squashed but his number was still visible. I dialled carefully, trying to keep my fingers steady. It took almost ten minutes and ten further attempts, but just as I was about to give up, I heard a male voice on the other end of the line.

  ‘Ahoj, Karel,’ I said quickly, in case the voice disappeared. ‘Jsem tady Tanya.’

  ‘Ahoj, Tanya, and how are you?’ His slow, lilting tones crackled down the wire. My heart thudded through my chest.

  ‘Very glad to hear you!’ I said, a little unnecessarily.

  ‘I am pleased to know this!’ His teasing voice rose and fell in that slightly formal way. ‘And when will you come to the Prague?’ ‘In two days. I arrive at the bus terminal at 2 p.m.’ I was gabbling. ‘I should be at the Old Town Square about 3 p.m. Will that work for you?’ Dealing with logistics like this even back home made me flustered. Here it was difficult to stop the panic rising. There was still a chance I could end up in Poland.

  Karel’s tones were soothing. ‘I will be at main metro station at the three o’clock I will wait for you there. Do not worry, Tanya.’ He paused. ‘Měj se hezky. Have a nice time until we meet again in the Prague.’

  He hung up, and as the phone clicked it was followed by a series of clicks in other offices throughout the school.

  Jana emerged from her room. ‘Good news! You have friend to collect you.’ Her brow had unknotted and she looked genuinely pleased, making no pretence of having done anything other than enjoy my conversation too. ‘And a man?’

  ‘Yes, just a friend,’ I said, flustered all over again.

  I thanked her and backed out of the room.

  The former regime may have gone but its habits of surveillance were hardwired.

  On the morning of my last day, I stood at my panelák window. Outside, pale blue skies framed golden fields crisscrossed with dark woods that stretched beyond the town’s outskirts. Through the glass I could see two old ladies with pinafores tied around their waists, cutting the grass next-door with scythes. They moved their scythes effortlessly, back and forth in a slow rhythm, as the yellow grass fell into piles. An old man piled the grass onto a horse-drawn cart and climbed up onto it, lifted the reins, called to his horses and ambled off. I tried to imagine a scene remotely like it back home and failed.

  I thought of my first month or so in Sedlčany. It was difficult to remember how grim and grey it had seemed. Yet in my hand I held a reminder of those times, a letter that my great friend Michael had written to me from London urging me to ‘get out and kick some edelweiss—whenever you’re feeling sad!’ I reread that and laughed. Most days now my little room was filled with the soaring strings of Má Vlast, like velvet caresses to my heart, played joyously to a wide sky and the promise of summer.

  I stared out the window and thought of Peter Barr. He’d stayed a whole school year here. He’d done so much that I didn’t and couldn’t. But I’d given my all in these three months and hoped I’d contributed to the dreams and hopes of at least some of the students. Their wonder, naivety and hope for the world had enriched me beyond words and I’d been humbled by them. At times they made me even feel like I was one of them.

  Eventually I’d even realised my panelák was a privilege and a gift.

  I’d learnt more about myself in this lonely little cell than I would have done in the comfort and safety of a Czech home. Without distractions, I’d had to face myself. I’d come to Sedlčany to escape a place I didn’t fit and just found another place I didn’t fit. I’d come with fantasies and dreams I couldn’t manifest at home and found I couldn’t create them here either. I came carrying my loneliness as an unseen weight, but found some peace with myself and who I was in the silence of this panelák. I’d found that I was okay after all and I had many reasons to be happy. So what if I wasn’t married with children or that I felt strange compared to everyone else I knew? I had music and I had friendships beyond anything I could once have imagined.

  This growing confidence meant I’d taken up every single invitation offered to me by the school. I’d been helped by the quiet things too: the soaring lark in a Czech violin, fields of flowers, the trusting eyes of teachers and students, the kindness of strangers. In the silence of my cell, I’d started learning what ‘I have confidence in me’ really meant, as Julie Andrews had so joyously sung.

/>   The last school ceremony was held in the main hallway of Gymnázium Sedlčany, with students hanging over the banisters, sitting on steps and the floor, and standing wherever they could find space. It was stifling hot but everyone had dressed for the occasion, the boys and men in their best nylon jackets and the girls in their best nylon frocks.

  In honour of the occasion I’d worn a dress too, a sleeveless cotton one, and strappy shoes. It was comfortably loose, thanks to my strange diet over the previous few months. I definitely wouldn’t have lost weight if I’d lived with Sedlčany families: all that řízek, for starters.

  In my bag, I clutched perhaps the most precious gift I’d ever received—a farewell present from Pavel’s class. It was a T-shirt signed by all the girls and boys that said, ‘We love you—3A.’

  ‘It is the highest kind of love I told you about—Czech friendship,’ Pavel said. ‘You are now one of us.’

  They all hugged me. My eyes were aching from crying by the time I made it to the hallway.

  The ceremony was very formal. Students from each year level were presented with plaques, certificates and flowers. Kamila stood next to me and Nad’a waved from where she stood with the other teachers. Both Kamila and Nad’a had promised to visit me in Prague and that was a comforting thought.

  ‘Tanya,’ Pavel’s voice rose above the din. ‘Please come forward.’ He walked into the centre of the hall bearing the most enormous bunch of deep red roses. As he handed them to me and further clapping ensued, more tears welled in my eyes.

  ‘On behalf of students, and also teachers, please play “Waltzing Matilda” for us. One last time.’

  Slow clapping started. Michel, one of my favourite 3B students, put a guitar in my hands. I gazed out into the crowd, now cheering and hollering, and leant forward over my guitar as I’d done so many times here. I took a deep breath. I looked up again, barely able to take in the noise, the faces, the bright eyes, the applause. Trembling, I looked down at the guitar and my fingers. It was all a blur. I put my fingers on the opening chord and trusted my body would do the rest. I started singing and the crowd put their hands together over and over again in a cacophony of sound. I could barely hear myself and then I realised why.