Alice to Prague

by Tanya Heaslip

  ‘I can’t believe it!’ I wailed, dropping the books and documents I’d been neatly arranging on the desk. ‘I’ve been waiting all year for a white Christmas!’

  Mrs Wurstová shrugged. ‘When you live under communism long enough you can believe anything. There is probably some directive still from the Kremlin forbidding the snow.’

  We both giggled.

  ‘Do you know, Mrs Wurstová, when we were growing up in the outback, we used to buy cans of white foam at Christmas time and spray it over our windows and trees? Perhaps you need some of it here.’

  Mrs Wurstová threw back her head and roared with laughter. When she laughed, it felt like the whole room vibrated with her energy and joie de vivre.

  ‘Dana,’ she called out to her long-suffering secretary. ‘Pojd’ sem! Come here and hear what our little kangaroo has to say.’

  Fortunately, Dana was busy on the phone.

  I opened my books. ‘Alright, let’s get started. We have a very busy morning ahead of us . . .’

  Mrs Wurstová beamed. ‘Ah, but you are such good teacher, Tanya. Today I don’t need extra study. Tell me, how do you celebrate Christmas when it is sooooo hot in your country?’

  I gazed at her severely. It had no effect.

  ‘Well, it’s very different,’ I said, continuing to spread out the documents purposefully. ‘It’s more than forty degrees Celsius for most of the summer. The land is brown and bare. Some Christmases have been so hot I have spent much of them standing inside our large cold room, where we normally hang slabs of beef.’

  ‘Opravdu? Really?’ Mrs Wurstová was incredulous. She stared at me with her large brown eyes, apparently fascinated. ‘Prosím tě, tell me more. For example, what kind of Christmas songs do you have?’

  In response I pointed decisively to the books on the table, but she waved them away. ‘Grammar, grammar . . . blah blah. I am tired of this grammar you force me to study. All I need is my tremendous—how you say—bluff—and the wonderful English expressions that you have already taught me—and that is enough.’

  It took some effort not to laugh.

  She went on cajolingly. ‘So pleeeeaze, kind Tanya, tell me of your songs. This kind of information could be very useful when I am abroad. I will be known as very clever and special Czech woman because I know international stories.’

  I wanted to say that if I could go abroad with her and be ‘at her side’, as the Czechs were fond of saying, I could help her even more. But the Ministry bureaucracy was not going to allow any such indulgences with foreigners like me—not on their watch. Defeated, I sat back.

  ‘Well, as a young girl, I learnt this . . .’ Then I proceeded to sing to her an Australian carol about a typical Christmas in the bush: brown earth, dust in the air and a hot wind throwing up dry leaves from the paddock. ‘We call the song “Christmas Day” or the “North Wind”. . .’

  The image was as far from a European Christmas as possible but Mrs Wurstová was captivated, laughing and clapping her hands. She was, to her credit, an appreciative audience.

  ‘More!’ she demanded and called out yet again to the hapless Dana who was fighting her way through mountains of paperwork in the antechamber, a large room she shared with several other secretaries. ‘Dana, musíš přijít’ sem. You must come here! Come and hear our little kangaroo sing Australian Christmas songs! Tanya, ještě jednou, prosím tě! Another one please!’

  By now a small crowd had gathered in Mrs Wurstová’s office. I told them about ‘Six White Boomers’, the song in which the role of Father Christmas’s reindeer is taken over by large white kangaroos who bounce all over the bush, delivering presents to children in far-flung desert regions. The crowd loved it. They demanded more. Someone brought coffee. A plate of spicy gingerbread biscuits appeared. Several of the secretaries began a few rounds of Czech Christmas carols and the party revved up.

  I only hoped that Deputy Minister Svoboda could not hear all this revelry from his oval office, one floor up. Earlier that morning, I’d worked with him on a complex document for Brussels, and he was preparing to head out to the next round of UN talks the following day. Of all days, this was not the day for disturbances and noise. Even Mr Svoboda’s usual round of grumpy advisers had been dismissed in short order before and after me.

  Fortunately, no one appeared to reprimand us, and after a while Mrs Wurstová clapped her hands and the crowd dispersed as quickly as it arrived.

  ‘You little kangaroo,’ she chortled fondly. ‘Thank you for very special lesson. Your country has such funny songs for the Christmas and it all sounds so exotic. You are best teacher I ever enjoyed. Tak! Now I must prepare for my next meeting. I see you again tomorrow.’

  Well, she was the boss.

  With an unexpected hour up my sleeve, I headed for Staroměstské náměstí, which fortunately—snow or no snow—had been transformed into a picture-perfect Christmas setting. I wandered through it, childlike excitement rising again; even Mrs Wurstová’s news about the snow couldn’t dampen the pleasure I always felt entering the Old Town Square.

  The Square’s enormous fir tree centrepiece rose above the crayon-coloured houses and baroque churches, hung about with glittering lights and shiny presents; old men roasted chestnuts over fires; people queued up for svařené víno (hot mulled red wine) and grog (hot water and rum) served from giant, steaming cauldrons; and the smell of cinnamon and other spices and the sound of laughter filled the air. Outside the metro, a brass band and carol singers in matching blue-and-gold braided uniforms sang ‘Good King Wenceslas’. Mrs Wurstová had told me the so-called king was actually a duke (but who wants to quibble?), that he was actually from here—Bohemia—and that Wenceslas Square around the corner was named after him. That was the kind of delicious, pinch-myself stuff that I loved stumbling across in this city. Every time I thought I might not be able to do this kind of thing after late March, I pushed the thought back down again. I wasn’t ready to face that yet.

  Besides, I had to survive Czech Christmas fare first. Karel had told me—and Mrs Wurstová confirmed it—that the Czechs celebrated Christmas with a traditional supper of fresh carp and potato salad on Christmas Eve.

  ‘No roast turkey and trimmings on Christmas Day?’

  ‘Roast turkey? No . . . that would not be nice celebration food for us,’ said Karel.

  Instead, the equivalent of the Czech fish mafia (or so it seemed to me) caught carp during the week before Christmas (by draining every main river they could find) and then sold it fresh and at great expense to hordes of Czechs from specially erected carp markets at every tram stop and metro station.

  Mrs Wurstová was happy to give me the whole story at my next lesson. ‘Tanya, it goes like this. After you buy fresh carp, you must take home and put in your bath full of water for whole day to clean it. Then on 24 December, you cut at its throat’—at which point she paused and made a dramatic thrusting action across her neck—‘and cook it.’

  I was aghast.

  ‘Yes, you cannot have bath for more than twenty-four hours because carp must have lots of washing before eating.’

  I couldn’t believe my ears. And I thought the Czechs were a civilised race.

  ‘Tak, if you need bath for your own cleaning, there is other way,’ Mrs Wurstová sailed on. ‘You can ask carp man to chop off head of fish for you and you take home on bus and metro without head.’

  ‘Where do you keep it then?’ I asked in increasing revulsion.

  ‘Wherever you have the space. In bucket on balcony, perhaps, or in your fridge.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘But you must take care, because without head, there is much blood.’

  ‘Let me tell you, Mrs Wurstová . . .’ I was starting to feel nauseous, ‘carp is a menace to our river systems in Australia. It’s certainly not a delicacy and we would never consider eating it. In fact, we try to get rid of it. We’—I paused dramatically—‘turn it into liquid fertiliser for gardens.’

  Mrs Wurstová looked slightly faint. Dana, who
had been collecting papers from the desk, nearly dropped them.

  Mrs Wurstová recovered first. ‘It is late afternoon and I think it’s time we all had a sip of svařené víno, yes?’ she announced briskly. ‘We can continue our studies in our favourite hospoda.’ Then she added, in case I was about to protest, ‘And Dana can come too. She needs more practice on the English.’

  Accepting the proffered truce, I followed them for steaming, fragrant glasses of warming brew at Mrs Wurstová’s local around the corner. As we shared more stories, my boss threw her auburn head back and laughed heartily and Dana’s shy grey eyes lit up. I leaned across the table and talked passionately, heady from the rapid effect of the mulled wine and easy camaraderie between us all.

  ‘There would have been no Cold War if political relationships between the East and West were driven by women,’ I argued. ‘Not if women from both sides had been able to meet and get to know each other.’

  ‘As long as we didn’t discuss carp!’ Dana added helpfully.

  ‘Máš pravdu. You’re right. You’re both right!’ Mrs Wurstová pounded the table in fervent agreement and called for more wine. ‘Our leaders used much fear and propaganda about the West.’

  I thought of all those John le Carré books and James Bond movies, of Mrs Howe in Year 11, and Dad’s fear of Reds under the Bed. ‘I guess it was how the leaders were able to control us all, keeping each scared of the other,’ I agreed. ‘Of course, you can’t do that if a relationship already exists between the people.’

  Dana thoughtfully refilled our glasses.

  We drank more wine, healing past wounds, putting the world to rights and building bridges as only women can. It was as though we were of the same skin. Our bond as women transcended politics, culture and language. I wanted to shout these truths from the rafters. I wanted everyone else in the West to know what I knew. I wanted to tell the world that our ties were universal and, leaving aside the Czechs’ propensity for carp, we should build bridges and get to know each other. We had decades upon decades of lost time and friendships to make up for. And I didn’t know how much time I had left.

  The next day I saw the blond, bespectacled English House teacher Alistair. He had survived four carp Christmases and knew the ropes. So I asked him to help me understand the Czech obsession with carp.

  ‘We’ll go down to the markets together tomorrow,’ he said with a wink and a grin. ‘Once you see how it works, it won’t be so bad.’

  I wasn’t convinced, but the following day headed to meet him at the market closest to the school, tržišté Karlovo náměstí.

  The trees lining the streets were bare and tangled against the dull grey sky, but the market had gone all-out for its customers and erected a huge tinsel sign surrounded by tinsel stars exclaiming Veselé Vánoce (‘Merry Christmas’) in an attempt to bring some cheer to the process.

  But as soon as I saw the rows of large plastic containers set up between the buildings along the tram line, my stomach churned. The containers were filled to the brim with water, and within their murky depths, the carp competed for room as they awaited their fate. On the top of each pond lay what looked like a large butterfly net, which was used to scoop out the next victim.

  Queues of ferocious-looking women and their harried husbands pressed against rows of trestle tables, behind which the carp vendors haggled, pulled large grey fish from the icy ponds, and struggled to hold their thrashing prey. Once a punter had made a decision—live or dead carp, sir/madam?—the vendor grasped the squirming fish and weighed it, or, less attractively, pushed it into an aluminium execution tray, raised a knife and unceremoniously chopped the head off (resulting in blood squirting in every direction, just as Mrs Wurstová had promised, accompanied by people ducking and diving in every direction), then weighing the limp body. Business was brisk.

  My outing with Alistair did nothing to allay my distaste.

  Fortunately, Karel had taken care of the carp-shopping in another market closer to Prosek, so I was spared the actual handling of the fish business. But when I returned to Prosek that evening, the bathroom had been turned into an aquarium, just as Mrs Wurstová had briefed me. I stared in horror at the sight of a large, filthy creature flopping around in muddy water at the bottom of the brand-new bath. Karel appeared around the bathroom door, his eyes gleaming like a militant fanatic.

  ‘Lovely, yes?’ he asked happily, reaching into the water and patting the newcomer. ‘Now then, little one, time for your water change. Just take many deep breaths and I will be quick about this. You’ll be glad to have fresh water, I am sure.’ And on he went, talking soothingly and cheerily to his conquest as he drained the disgusting water and refilled the bath to the top.

  Karel straightened up, face wreathed in smiles, duties complete for the next hour or two. He was completely oblivious to my revulsion. ‘Tak, Táničko, you are lucky to see real Czech Christmas tradition in the live,’ he said. He obviously thought he’d given me a great treat.

  I knew I should try to enjoy the carp experience. It would make Karel happy. Not liking it simply demonstrated I didn’t belong here, and might never belong.

  I hadn’t expected to find the festive season difficult, given the excitement of finally celebrating a European Christmas, but my life was empty once English House shut down and all my friends left town. The teachers boarded buses for Britain. Headhunter Irena flew to Australia, much to my envy. Favourite students disappeared to their country cottages. No one would return until after the new year. The days became increasingly dark and bleak. Alone with a handful of Czechs, mainly Karel’s older friends, I realised how very alone that made me feel. It was almost like the early bad days in Sedlčany. My sense of unhappiness lengthened as each day shortened.

  It was a conundrum. The closer we drew to the big day, the more I longed for my family. Their absence from my life felt like a raw gash across my heart. I’d wanted to be openly curious, grateful and excited about this season behind the former Iron Curtain. The markets and the ancient squares and real fir trees were thrilling; I’d waited a lifetime to see a real Christmas tree. But I realised, with a stab of longing, that for me nothing came close to our straggly mulga on the verandah, propped up in a four-gallon drum, adorned with homemade sparkles and a star on top.

  On Christmas Eve, both Karel’s daughters and little Princess gathered excitedly and participated in the decapitation, scaling and cleaning of the carp. I hid away, chiding myself as I did. What about all those years ago when we went out to get ‘killers’ every month? When rearing our own food was normal? When cutting it up and bringing it home and cooking it was de rigueur? Perhaps I’d gone soft.

  That evening, Karel took charge of the kitchen and fried the carp in a great deal of flour, salt and butter. The process involved all the girls and there was much laughter and chatting. I emerged at the last minute. The family and their close friends gathered to eat it with cold potato salad smothered in thick, sweet Czech mayonnaise, washed down with even colder beer. As I joined them, I did my best to appear cheerful and glad to be experiencing my very own Czech Christmas Eve.

  I tentatively raised a forkful to my mouth and chewed.

  ‘You like?’ Lots of anxious faces.

  ‘Mmm. Lovely, thanks.’ I did my best to be appreciative but to be honest fried carp was a bit like fish and chips, without the best bit—the chips. I also couldn’t help thinking of succulent roast meat with wine-laced gravy and all the trimmings, and lots of Christmas carols, which reminded me how far I was from the symbols and people that did mean Christmas to me.

  Luckily the post from Australia had arrived in time and I proudly wore a thick green-and-gold jumper Mum had sent me. I couldn’t bring myself to cut off its tag: ‘Made from Australian Merino Wool’.

  My beloved sister M’Lis sent me photographs of her baby Mitch, who’d grown up so much since I’d last seen him. She added a beautiful homemade card that said: ‘I love you, Tanya, and miss you so much. It won’t be the same without you this y
ear at Christmas but I hope you’re having a wonderful time wherever you are. You’re always in my heart.’

  I found myself physically aching for brown earth and vivid blue skies and the scent of eucalyptus hanging in the scorching afternoon air. I thought of Mum bustling around the homestead kitchen, wiping beads of sweat off her forehead as she pulled crusted baking trays laden with hot turkey and vegetables out of the oven.

  I heard the voices of Dad and the boys in their endless rounds of cricket under drooping gum trees—‘He’s out!’, ‘Howzat?’—as the ball hurtled over the washing line. I saw our dining-room table decorated with colourful crackers, sparkling streamers, Mum’s precious, polished silver cutlery, and Dad carving the turkey.

  Karel finally sensed something was wrong, perhaps because I kept disappearing into the bathroom and returning with puffy eyes. My attempts to eat his fried carp probably didn’t fool him either (avoiding the bones was a laborious process, and despite being brought up to eat everything on my plate, I left a good portion on this one).

  ‘Are you well?’ he asked carefully. ‘Do you need some nice pivo? Or a good joke?’

  I laughed, assured him I was fine, refused to let him know I was struggling. That would only give him the ammunition to say, ‘Tak! I told you it was only a matter of time before you wanted to return to your own country.’

  After the celebrations were over, we headed outside to farewell Karel’s friends. He stood next to me and casually put his hand around my waist. Then he pulled me towards him and held me there. For a moment I stopped breathing. Karel didn’t usually show me affection in public. His friends grinned at us as they left. Radka raised her eyebrows and walked back inside.

  ‘How is it that me, sensible Czech man, hugs you in public space of my own free will?’ Karel shook his head and laughed. ‘You are very bad for my reputation.’

  With that he took my cold hand in his and put something in my palm. It was a bundle of tissue paper. I unwrapped it, fingers trembling. Inside lay a tiny gold necklace. He laced it around my neck and kissed me tenderly. My heart did a thousand somersaults.