Stars in their Courses
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From A Bekkersdal Marathon
by Herman Charles Bosman
‘It said over the wireless,’ At Naudé announced, ‘that the American astronomers are moving out of Johannesburg. They are taking the telescopes, and the things they have been studying the stars with, to Australia. There is too much smoke in Johannesburg for them to be able to see the stars properly.’
He paused, as though inviting comment. But none of us had anything to say. We weren’t much interested in the Americans and their stars. Or in Australia, either, for that matter.
‘The American astronomers have been in Johannesburg for many years,’ At Naudé went on, wistfully, as though the impending removal of the astronomical research station was a matter of personal regret to him. ‘They have been here for years, and now they are going because of the smoke. It gets into their eyes – just when they’ve nearly seen a new star in their telescopes, I suppose. Well, smoke is like that, of course. It gets into your eyes just at the wrong time.’
What At Naudé had said now was something that we could all understand. It was something of which we all had experience. It was different from what he had been saying before. Getting smoke in your eyes, at an inconvenient moment, was something everybody in the Marico understood.
Immediately, Chris Welman started telling us about the time he was asked by Koos Nienaber, as a favour, to stand on a rant of the Dwarsberge, from where he was able to see the Derdepoort police post very clearly. Koos Nienaber, it would seem, had private business with a chief near Ramoutsa, which had to do with bringing a somewhat large herd of cattle with long horns across the border.
‘I could see the police post very well from there,’ Chris Welman said. ‘I was standing near a Mtosa hut. When the Mtosa woman lifted a petrol tin onto her head and went down in the direction of the spruit, for water, I moved over to an iron pot that a fire had been burning underneath all afternoon.’
He could still see those two policemen – dealing out the cards to each other and taking turns to drink out of a black bottle – quite distinctly, Chris Welman said, when he lifted the lid of the iron pot. He wasn’t in the least bit worried about those two policemen, then. Actually, he admitted, he was, if anything, more concerned lest the Mtosa woman should suddenly come back to the hut, with the petrol tin on her head, having forgotten something. And it had to be at that moment, just when he was lifting the lid, that smoke from the fire crackling underneath the pot got into his eyes. It was the most awful kind of stabbing smoke that you could ever imagine, Chris Welman said. What the Mtosa woman had made that fire with, he had no idea. Cow dung and bitter-bessie, he knew. That was a kind of fuel that received some countenance, still, in the less frequented areas along the Malopo. And it made a kind of smoke which, if it got into your eyes, could blind you temporarily for up to at least a quarter of an hour.
Chris Welman went on to say that he was also not unfamiliar with the effects of the smoke of the renosterbos, in view of the fact that he retained many childhood memories of a farm in the Eastern Province, where it was still quite usual to find a house with an old-fashioned abba-kitchen.
Chris Welman sighed deeply. Partly, we felt, that sigh had its roots in a nostalgia for the past. His next words showed, however, that it was linked with a grimmer sort of reality.
‘When I got back to the top of that rant,’ Chris Welman declared simply, ‘the two policemen weren’t there, at the police post, anymore. And Koos Nienaber had been fined so often before, that this time the magistrate would not let him off with a fine. Koos Nienaber took it like a man when the magistrate gave him six months,’ Chris Welman concluded.
More than one of us, sitting in Jurie Steyn’s voorkamer, sighed, too, then. We also knew what it was to get smoke in your eyes at the wrong moment. And we also knew what it was to hold a sudden and unexpected conversation with a policeman on border patrol, while you were nervously shifting a pair of wire-cutters from one hand to the other.
Gysbert van Tonder brought the discussion back to the subject of the stars.
‘If the American astronomers are leaving South Africa because they can’t stand our sort of smoke,’ Gysbert van Tonder declared, ‘well, I suppose there’s nothing we can do about it. I didn’t think that an astronomer, watching the stars at night through a telescope, would worry very much about smoke – or about cinders from looking out of a train window, either, for that matter – getting into his eyes. I imagined somehow that an astronomer would be above that sort of thing.
Young Vermaak, the schoolteacher, was able to put Gysbert van Tonder right then. ‘It isn’t the smoke that gets into their eyes,’ he explained. ‘It’s the smoke in the atmosphere that interferes with the observations and the mathematical calculations that astronomers have to make to get a knowledge of the movement of the heavenly bodies.’
We looked at each other, then, with feelings of awe. In general, of course, we’d never had much respect for the schoolteacher, seeing that all he had was book-learning, but what did give us pause for reflection on this occasion was the thought that just in his brain – just inside his head, that didn’t seem very much different from any one of our heads – the young schoolmaster should have so much knowledge.
Only Jurie Steyn was not taken out of his depth.
‘It’s like that book my wife used to study a great deal before we got married,’ Jurie Steyn said. ‘I have told you about it before. It’s called Napoleon’s Dream Book. Well, that’s a lot like what young Vermaak has been talking about now. At the back of the Napoleon dream book, it’s got ‘What the Stars Foretell’ for every day of the year. It says that on Wednesdays you must wear green, and on some other day you must write a letter to a relative you haven’t seen since I don’t know when. Anyway, I suppose that’s why those American star-gazers are leaving Johannesburg. It’s something they saw in the stars, I expect.’
Chris Welman said he wondered whether what the American astronomers had been seeing through their telescope was that the star of the American nation was going up, or that it was going down.
‘Perhaps Jurie Steyn’s wife can work it out from the dream book,’ Gysbert van Tonder said.
An Old Story and an Old Song
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From Unto Dust
by Herman Charles Bosman
Marie du Preez – Oom Schalk Lourens said – had not been away from the Marico for very long, but her overseas visit had made her restive.
That, of course, was something I could not understand. I had also been to foreign parts. During the Boer War I had been a prisoner on St Helena. And twice I had been in Johannesburg.
One thing about St Helena was that there were no Uitlanders on it. There were just Boers and English and Coloureds and Indians, like you come across here in the Marico. There were none of those all-sorts that you’ve got to push past on Johannesburg pavements.
And each time I got back to my own farm, and I could sit on my stoep and fill my pipe with honest Magaliesberg tobacco, I was pleased to think that I was away from all that sin that you read about in the Bible.
But with Marie du Preez it was different.
Marie du Preez, after she came back from Europe, spoke a great deal about how unhappy a person with a sensitive nature could be about certain aspects of life in the Marico.
We were not unwilling to agree with her.
‘When I woke up that morning at Nietverdiend,’ Willie Prinsloo said to Marie during a party at the Du Preez homestead, ‘and I found that I couldn’t inspan my oxen because my trek-chain had been stolen – well, to a person with a sensitive nature, I can tell you how unhappy I felt about the Marico.’
Marie said that that was the sort of thing that made her ill, almost.
~
Shortly afterwards Marie du Preez made a remark that hurt me, a little.
‘People here in the Marico say all the same things, over and over again,’ Marie announced. ‘Nobody ever says anything new. You all talk just like the people in Oom Schalk Lourens’s stories. Whenever we have visitors, it’s always the same thing. If it’s a husband and wife, the man will always start talking first. And he’ll say that his Afrikaner cattle are in a bad way with the heart-water. Even though he drives his cattle straight out onto the veld with the first frost, and even though he keeps to regular seven-day dipping, he just can’t get rid of the heart-water ticks.’
Marie du Preez paused. None of us said anything, at first. I only know what I was thinking: I thought to myself that, even though I only dip my cattle when the Government inspector from Onderstepoort is in the neighbourhood, still I lose just as many Afrikaner beasts from the heart-water as any of the farmers hereabouts who go in for the seven-day dipping.
‘They should dip the Onderstepoort inspector every seven days,’ Jurie Bekker called out suddenly, expressing all of our feelings.
‘And they should drive the Onderstepoort inspector straight out into the veld with the first frost,’ Willie Prinsloo added.
We got pretty well worked up, I can tell you.
‘And it’s the same with the women,’ Marie du Preez went on. ‘Do they ever discuss books or fashion or music? No. They also talk just like those simple Boer women that Oom Schalk Lourens’s head is so full of. They talk about the amount of Kalahari sand that the Indian in the store at Ramoutsa mixed with the last bag of yellow sugar they bought from him. You know, I’ve heard the same thing so often, I’m surprised there’s any sand at all left in the Kalahari desert, the way that Indian uses it all up.’
Those of us who were in the Du Preez voorkamer that evening, in spite of our amusement, also felt sad at the thought of how Marie du Preez had changed from her old natural self, like a seedling that has been transplanted too often in different kinds of soil.
‘One thing I’m glad about, though,’ Marie said after a pause, ‘is that since my return from Europe I’ve not yet come across a Marico girl who wears a selons-rose in her hair to make herself look more attractive to a young man – as happens, time after time, in Oom Schalk’s stories.’
This remark of Marie’s gave a new turn to the conversation, and I felt relieved. For a moment I had feared that Marie du Preez was also becoming addicted to the kind of Bushveld conversation she complained about, and that she, too, was beginning to say the same thing over and over again.
Several women started talking, after that, about how hard it was to get flowers to grow in the Marico, on account of the prolonged droughts. The most they could hope for was to keep a bush of selons-roses alive near the kitchen door. It was a flower that seemed, if anything, to thrive on harsh sunlight, soapy dish-water and Marico earth, the women said.
~
Some time later Theunis du Preez engaged a young fellow, Joachem Bonthuys, to come and work on his farm as a bywoner. Joachem was a nephew of Philippus Bonthuys, and I was at the post office when he arrived at Drogedal, on the lorry from Zeerust – with Theunis du Preez and his daughter, Marie, there to meet him.
Joachem Bonthuys’s appearance was not very prepossessing, I thought. He shook hands somewhat awkwardly with the farmers who had come to meet the lorry to collect their milk-cans. Joachem did not seem to have much to say for himself, either, until Theunis du Preez, his new employer, asked him what his journey up from Zeerust had been like.
‘The veld is dry all the way,’ he replied. ‘And I’ve never seen so much heart-water in the Afrikaner herds. They should dip their cattle every seven days,’ he said.
Joachem Bonthuys spoke at great length, then, and I could not help smiling to myself when I saw Marie du Preez turn away. In that moment, my feelings grew warmer towards Joachem. I felt that, at all events, he was not the kind of young man who would go and sing foreign songs under a respectable Boer girl’s window.
All this brings me back to what I was saying about an old song and an old story. For it was quite a while before I again had occasion to visit the Du Preez farm. And when I sat smoking on the stoep with Theunis du Preez, it was just like an old story, hearing him talk about his rheumatism.
Marie came out onto the stoep with a tray to bring us our coffee. – Yes, you’ve heard all that before, the same sort of thing. The same stoep. The same tray. – And for that reason, when she held out the glass bowl towards me, Marie du Preez apologised about the yellow sugar.
‘It’s full of Kalahari sand, Oom Schalk,’ she said. ‘It’s that Indian at Ramoutsa.’
And when she turned to go back into the kitchen, leaving two old men to their stories, it was not difficult for me to guess who the young man was for whom she was wearing a half-red flower in her hair.
A Bekkersdal Marathon
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From A Bekkersdal Marathon
by Herman Charles Bosman
It all happened through Dominee Welthagen one Sunday morning going into a trance in the pulpit. And we did not realise that he was in a trance. It was an illness that overtook him in a strange and sudden fashion.
At each service the predikant, after reading a passage from the Bible, would lean forward with his hand on the pulpit rail and give out the number of the hymn we had to sing. For years his manner of conducting the service had been exactly the same. He would say, for instance, ‘We will now sing Psalm 82, verses 1 to 4.’ Then he would allow his head to sink forward onto his chest and he would remain rigid, as though in prayer, until the last notes of the hymn died away in the church.
Now, on that particular morning, just after he had announced the number of the psalm, without mentioning which verses, Dominee Welthagen again took a firm grip on the pulpit rail, and allowed his head to sink forward onto his breast. We did not realise that he had fallen into a trance of a peculiar character that kept his body standing upright while his mind was blank. We only learned that later.
In the meantime, while the organ was playing the opening bars, we began to realise that Dominee Welthagen had not indicated how many verses we had to sing. But he would discover his mistake, we thought, after we had been singing for a few minutes.
All the same, one or two of the younger members of the congregation did titter, slightly, when they took up their hymn-books. For Dominee Welthagen had announced Psalm 119. And everybody knows that Psalm 119 has 176 verses.
That was a church service that will never be forgotten in Bekkersdal.
We sang the first verse, and then the second, and then the third. When we got to about the sixth verse, and the minister still gave no sign that it would be the last, we assumed that he wished us to sing the first eight verses. For, if you open your hymn-book, you will see that Psalm 119 is divided into sets of eight verses, each ending with the word ‘Pouse’.
We ended the last notes of verse eight with more than an ordinary number of turns and twirls, confident that at any moment Dominee Welthagen would raise his head and let us know that we could sing ‘Amen’.
It was when the organ started up very slowly and solemnly with the music for verse nine that a real feeling of disquiet overcame the congregation. But, of course, we gave no sign of what went on in our minds. We held Dominee Welthagen in too much veneration.
Nevertheless, I would rather not say too much about our feelings, when verse followed verse, and Pouse succeeded Pouse, and still Dominee Welthagen made no sign that we had sung long enough, or that there was anything unusual about what he was demanding of us.
After they had recovered from their first surprise, the members of the church council conducted themselves in a most exemplary manner. Elders and deacons tiptoed up and down the aisles, whispering words of reassurance to such members of the congregation, men as well as women, who gave signs of wanting to panic.
At one stage it looked as though we were going to have trouble from the organist. That was when Billy Robertse, at the end of the 34th verse, held up his black bottle and signalled quietly to the elders to indicate that his medicine had finished. At the end of the 35th verse he made signals of a less quiet character, and again at the end of the 36th verse. That was when Elder Landsman tiptoed out of the church and went round to the Konsistorie, where the Nagmaal wine was kept. When Elder Landsman came back into the church he had a long black bottle half-hidden under his manel. He took the bottle up to the organist’s gallery, still walking on tiptoe.
At verse 61 there was almost a breakdown. That was when a message came from the back of the organ, where Koster Claassen and the assistant verger, whose task it was to turn the handle that kept the organ supplied with wind, were in a state close to exhaustion. So it was Deacon Cronje’s turn to go tiptoeing out of the church. Deacon Cronje was head-warder at the local gaol. When he came back it was with three burly convicts in striped jerseys, who also went through the church on tiptoe. They arrived just in time to take over the handle from Koster Claassen and the assistant verger.
At verse 98 the organist again started making signals about his medicine. Once more Elder Landsman went round to the Konsistorie. This time he was accompanied by another elder and a deacon, and they stayed away somewhat longer than the previous time when Elder Landsman had gone on his own. On their return, the deacon bumped into a small hymn-book table at the back of the church. Perhaps it was because the deacon was a fat, red-faced man, not used to tiptoeing.
At verse 124 the organist signalled again, and the same three members of the church council filed out to the Konsistorie, the deacon walking in front this time.
It was about then that the pastor of the Full Gospel Apostolic Faith Church, about whom Dominee Welthagen had in the past used language almost as strong as that he had used about the Pope, came up to the front gate of the church to see what was afoot. He lived near our church and, having heard the same hymn-tune being played over and over for about eight hours, he was a very amazed man. Then he saw the door of the Konsistorie open, and two elders and a deacon coming out, walking on tiptoe – they having apparently forgotten that they were not in the church just then. When the pastor saw one of the elders hiding a black bottle under his manel, a look of understanding came over his features. The pastor walked off, shaking his head.
At verse 152 the organist signalled again. This time Elder Landsman and the other elder went out alone. The deacon stayed behind in the deacon’s bench, apparently deep in thought. The organist signalled again, for the last time, at verse 169. So you can imagine how many visits the two elders made to the Konsistorie altogether.
Eventually the last verse came, and the last line of the last verse. This time it had to be Amen. Nothing could stop it.
I would rather not describe the state that the congregation was in. And by then the three convicts, red stripes and all, were – in the Bakhatla tongue – threatening mutiny.
‘Aa-m-e-e-n’ came from what sounded like less than a score of voices, hoarse with singing. The organ music died away.
Maybe it was the sudden silence that at last brought Dominee Welthagen out of his long trance. He raised his head, and looked slowly about him. His gaze travelled over the congregation; and then, looking at the window, he saw that it was night. We then understood right away what was going on in Dominee Welthagen’s mind. He thought he had just come into the pulpit, and that this was the beginning of the evening service. We realised that, during all the time we had been singing, the predikant had been in a state of unconsciousness.
Once again Dominee Welthagen took a firm grip on the pulpit rail. His head again started drooping forward onto his breast, but before he went into a trance for the second time, he gave the hymn for the evening service.
‘We will,’ announced Dominee Welthagen, ‘sing Psalm 119.’
Willem Prinsloo's Peach Brandy
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From ‘Willem Prinsloo’s Peach Brandy’ in Mafeking Road
by Herman Charles Bosman
We arrived at Willem Prinsloo’s house. There were so many ox-wagons drawn up on the veld that the place looked like a laager. Prinsloo met us at the door.
‘Go right through, kêrels,’ he said, ‘the dancing is in the voorhuis. The peach brandy is in the kitchen.’
Although the voorhuis was big, it was so crowded as to make it almost impossible to dance. But it was not as crowded as the kitchen. Nor was the music in the voorhuis – which was provided by a number of men with guitars and concertinas – as loud as the music in the kitchen, where there was no band, but each man sang for himself.
We knew from these signs that the party was a success.
When I had been in the kitchen for about half an hour, I decided to go into the voorhuis. It seemed a long way, now, from the kitchen to the voorhuis, and I had to lean against the wall several times, to think. I passed a number of other men who were also leaning against the wall like that, thinking. One man even found that he could think best by sitting on the floor with his head on his arms.
You could see that Willem Prinsloo made good peach brandy.
Then I saw Fritz Pretorius, and the sight of him brought me to my senses right away. Airily flapping his white handkerhief in time to the music, he was talking to a girl who smiled at him with bright eyes and red lips and small white teeth.
I knew at once that it was Grieta.
She was tall and slender and very pretty, and her dark hair was braided with a wreath of white roses that you could see had been picked that same morning in Zeerust. And she didn’t look the sort of girl, either, in whose presence you had to appear clever and educated. In fact, I felt that I wouldn’t really need the twelve times table I had torn off the back of a school writing book, and had thrust into my jacket pocket before leaving home.
You can imagine that it was not too easy for me to get a word in with Grieta while Fritz was hanging around. But I managed it eventually, and while I was talking to her I had the satisfaction of seeing, out of the corner of my eye, the direction that Fritz took. He went into the kitchen, flapping his handkerchief behind him – into the kitchen, where the laughter was, and the singing, and Willem Prinsloo’s peach brandy.
I told Grieta that I was Schalk Lourens.
‘Oh yes, I have heard of you,’ she answered, ‘from Fritz Pretorius.’
I knew what that meant. So I told her that Fritz was known all over the Marico for his lies. I also told her other things about Fritz. Ten minutes later, when I was still talking about him, Grieta smiled and said that I could tell her the rest some other night.
‘But I must tell you once more thing now,’ I insisted. ‘When he knew that he would be meeting you here at the dance, Fritz started doing homework.’
I told her about the slate and the sums, and Grieta laughed softly. It struck me again how pretty she was. And her eyes were radiant in the candlelight. And the roses looked very white against her dark hair. And all this time the dancers whirled around us, and the band in the voorhuis played lively dance tunes, and from the kitchen there issued weird sounds of jubilation.
The rest happened very quickly.
I can’t even remember how it all came about. But what I do know is that when we were outside, under the tall trees, with the stars over us, I could easily believe that Grieta was not a girl at all, but one of the witches of Abjaterskop who wove strange spells.
Yet by listening to my talk, nobody would have guessed the wild, thrilling things that were in my heart.
I told Grieta about last year’s drought, and about the difficulty of keeping the white ants from eating through the door and window frames, and about the way my new brown boots tended to take the skin off my toes if I walked quickly.
Then I moved closer to her.
‘Grieta,’ I said, taking her hand. ‘Grieta, there is something I want to tell you.’
She pulled her hand away. She did it gently, though. Sorrowfully, almost.
‘I know what you want to say,’ she answered.
I was surprised at that.
‘How do you know, Grieta?’ I asked.
‘Oh, I know lots of things,’ she replied, laughing again. ‘I haven’t been to finishing school for nothing.’
‘I don’t mean that,’ I answered at once. ‘I wasn’t going to talk about spelling or arithmetic. I was going to tell you that …’
‘Please don’t say it, Schalk,’ Grieta interrupted me. ‘I – I don’t know whether I’m worthy of hearing it. I don’t know, even …’
‘But you are so lovely,’ I exclaimed. ‘I’ve got to tell you how lovely you are.’
But at the very moment I stepped forward, she retreated swiftly, eluding me. I couldn’t understand how she had timed it so well. For try as I might, I couldn’t catch her. She sped lightly and gracefully among the trees, and I followed her as best I could.
It was not only my want of learning that handicapped me. There was also my new boots. And Willem Prinsloo’s peach brandy. And the shaft of a mule-cart – the lower end of the shaft, where it rests on the grass.
I didn’t fall very hard, though. The grass was long and thick there. But even as I fell, a great happiness came into my heart. And I didn’t care about anything else in the world.
Grieta had stopped running. She turned around. For an instant her body, slender and misty in the shadows, swayed towards me. Then her hand flew to her hair. Her fingers pulled at the wreath. And the next thing I knew was that there lay, within reach of my hand, a small white rose.
I shall always remember the thrill with which I picked up that rose, and how I trembled when I stuck it in my hat. I shall always remember the stir that I caused when I walked into the kitchen. Everybody stopped drinking to look at the rose in my hat. The young men made jokes about it. The older men winked slyly and patted me on the back.
Although Fritz Pretorius was not in the kitchen to witness my triumph, I knew that he would get to hear of it somehow. That would make him realise that it was imprudent for a fellow like him to set up as Schalk Lourens’s rival.
For the rest of the night I was a hero.
The men in the kitchen made me sit on the table. They plied me with brandy, and they drank to my health. Afterwards, when a dozen of them carried me outside, onto an ox-wagon, for fresh air, they fell with me only once.
At daybreak I was still on that wagon.
I woke up feeling very sick – until I remembered about Grieta’s rose. There was that white rose, still stuck in my hat, for the whole world to know that Grieta Prinsloo had chosen me before all other men.
But what I didn’t want people to know was that I had remained asleep on that ox-wagon hours after the other guests had gone. So I rode away very quietly, glad that nobody was astir to see me go.
My head was dizzy as I rode back, but in my heart it felt like green wings beating; and although it was day now, there was the same soft wind in the grass that had been there when Grieta had flung the rose at me, standing under the stars.
I rode slowly through the trees on the slopes of Abjaterskop, and reached the place where the path turns south. There I saw something that made me wonder whether those fashionable schools did not perhaps teach girls too much.
First I saw Fritz Pretorius’s horse by the roadside.
Then I saw Fritz. He was sitting up against a thorn-tree, with his chin resting on his knees. He looked very pale and sick. But what made me wonder a great deal about those finishing schools was that in Fritz’s hat, which had fallen to the ground some distance away from him, there was a small white rose.
From the Ends of the Earth
Boris Begichev, a good-natured, bold and intelligent young Russian who knew English, spent the year 1929 as an assistant operator at the radio station set up by the Soviet government on Franz Josef Land, about 700 miles from the North Pole.
Life became deadly monotonous there – until one day in October, when the following amazing message came over the airwaves: ‘This is from the American expedition in the Antarctic. … Repeat your signals. … Where are you? … That means you’re near the North Pole. We’re not far from the South Pole. This is perhaps the longest shortwave radio communication in history. I will try to reach you again. My name is John Tenner. What is yours?’
Boris Begichev could hardly believe that he had received a message from such a distance, but twice – later in the autumn – he again exchanged greetings with Tenner. Then, on 31 December, Begichev again caught the friendly signal from the Americans in the Antarctic.
Tenner told Begichev that he lived in San Francisco. The Russian asked him about Jack London, whose stories he knew almost by heart. Tenner said that he, like Jack, had grown up on the Oakdale waterfront, and that he too loved London’s tales. Begichev said he would like to visit the United States, and Tenner invited him to San Francisco.
‘To identify yourself,’ John Tenner said, ‘start your conversation when you call me by saying: “Is it true that you’ve read Jack London’s Scarlet Plague eleven times?”’
‘OK, that will be the password,’ Begichev replied.
~
During the Second World War, Boris Begichev became an officer in the Russian Army. He hated Stalin’s tyranny, however, and he deserted with General Vlassov and joined the Russian Army of Liberation, which fought against the Communists. In the spring of 1945, after Germany’s collapse, his unit retreated westward, hoping to find refuge with the American forces. Boris soon learned, however, that the Americans, fulfilling one of the agreements made with Stalin at Yalta, were handing over Army of Liberation escapees to the Red Army. He knew very well that being caught meant either death or a concentration camp.
News soon came that General Vlassov had been captured, and that they were surrounded by Soviet tanks. From then on, it was every man for himself. Begichev fled westward, alone, walking by night and hiding during the day. At dusk one evening, he came upon an American tank stopped on an old lumber road in a forest. A sergeant standing beside the tank said: ‘Are you Russian?’
‘Yes,’ Begichev answered, and explained that he was fleeing from the Communist troops. Just then two Soviet military police drove up in a car. The American tank captain asked them, in sign language, whether they would take the escapee with them. The Soviet policemen made it plain that they would be glad to do so. One of them drew his pistol, and said to Begichev: ‘Get in the car.’
As Begichev was about to obey, he heard the American sergeant say: ‘Captain Tenner, what’s wrong with the Russians? A lot of them don’t seem to like each other.’
The captain shrugged: ‘Who can understand the Russians?’
The Soviet military policeman aimed his pistol at Begichev, and shouted: ‘Get into the car.’
Without taking his eyes from the weapon, Begichev said in English: ‘Is it true, Captain Tenner, that you have read Jack London’s The Scarlet Plague eleven times?’
Tenner stared at him for a second, then said brusquely to the military policeman: ‘Nyet – I’ll take charge of this man.’ He motioned to Begichev, and said: ‘In – quick.’ Tenner and the sergeant followed Boris into the tank, and slammed the turret shut.
While the tank rolled off, Begichev explained to Captain Tenner why he was fleeing from the ‘Scarlet Plague’ of communism.
Finally Tenner said: ‘Let’s stop here.’ He smiled, handed Begichev a carton of cigarettes, and said: ‘Mr Begichev, we must turn back now. I think you can make it safely from here. If you ever come to the United States, don’t forget to look me up.’ The two men shook hands, and Begichev struck off through the woods.
Begichev succeeded in escaping, for I saw him in Rome a year later, and he told me this story. I do not know, however, whether he made it to the United States.
Turnabout
I was born in Poland, where – before the last war – religious intolerance was not uncommon. In spite of my father’s objection to my participation in anti-Semitic demonstrations in Warsaw, I very often heaved stones at the windows of stores owned by Jews. I had no qualms about my actions, and it later took months of hardship and persecution, and a Jew, to show me how to abide by the Biblical injunction: ‘Love thy neighbour as thyself’.
Here is the story.
When Hitler annexed Austria and war seemed imminent, I quit my job as an instructor at a flying club in Lyons, France, and started for home in my plane. The engine developed magneto trouble and I had to land in Vienna, and stay there overnight, to have it repaired.
The following morning, just as I stepped out of my hotel to buy a few souvenirs before checking out, a man came running past the door, bumped into me, and sent me reeling. Outraged, I grabbed him and was about to give him a piece of my mind, when I saw that his face was white with fear. Panting heavily, he tried to wrench himself from my grip, saying: ‘Gestapo – Gestapo!’ I knew only a little German, but I quickly understood that he was running away from the dreaded German secret police.
I rushed him into the lobby and upstairs to my room, pointed to the foot of my bed, and motioned to him to lie down. I covered his slender, jackknifed body with artfully draped blankets, so that the tousled bed looked empty. Then I pulled off my jacket, tie and collar, so that I could pretend that I’d just got up if the Gestapo men came.
In a few minutes they did.
They examined my passport, returned it, and shouted questions at me, to which I replied: ‘Ich verstehe es nicht’ (‘I don’t understand it’), a phrase I knew by heart. They left without searching the room.
As soon as they had gone, I locked the door and lifted the blankets. The poor man let out a stream of rapid German. It was not necessary to understand a word in order to comprehend his gratitude.
I got out my flight chart and, by gesturing and drawing pictures in the margin of the map, explained that I had an aeroplane and could take him out of Austria. He pointed to Warsaw, and his expressive hands asked: ‘Would you take me there?’
I shook my head, and made him understand that I had to land for fuel in Cracow. I drew pictures of police and prison bars to illustrate that he would be arrested upon arrival at any airport, and I made it clear that we would land in some meadow just over the Polish border, where he could disembark. He nodded with satisfaction, and his narrow face and dark brown eyes again conveyed his deep thanks.
At the airport the customs and immigration men waved us through when I told them that my friend wanted to see me off. The plane was warmed up and ready for the flight. We quickly climbed in, and soon we were in the air.
We crossed Czechoslovakia and, before long, we saw the thin ribbon of the Vistula River and the city of Cracow. Landing in a large field by a wood, and near a country railway station, I showed my companion where we were on the map, gave him most of my money, and wished him luck. He took my hand, looked at me wordlessly, and then walked rapidly into the woods.
When I arrived at Cracow airport, there was a detachment of police waiting beside the immigration inspector. One of the police said: ‘We have a warrant to search your plane – you helped a man escape from Vienna.’
‘Go ahead and search it,’ I responded. ‘Incidentally, I’d like to know what the man is wanted for?’
The response was: ‘He is a Jew!’
They searched my plane very thoroughly and, of course, they had to let me go for lack of evidence.
~
The war came, and after Poland’s short and bloody struggle against the Germans, in which I served as a fighter pilot in the Polish Air Force, I joined the thousands of my countrymen who wanted to carry on the fight for freedom. We crossed the border into Romania, were promptly caught, and then we were sent to concentration camps.
I finally managed to escape, joined the French Air Force and, after the collapse of France, I went to England and fought in the Battle of Britain. The following June I was wounded, while on a fighter sweep across the English Channel, when the Luftwaffe hit us over Boulogne. On those early offensive missions, we were always outnumbered and outperformed by the Luftwaffe; and our only superiority was our morale.
As we started for home, I rammed an ME-109 and was hit by a piece of its sheared-off tail. I was half-blinded by my own blood. The squadron covered my withdrawal across the Channel, but I was unconscious when my Spitfire crash-landed in England. (I later learned that my skull had been fractured, and that I was so near death that the head-surgeon of the hospital, to which I was taken, believed that it would be almost useless to operate on me.)
When I regained consciousness and opened my eyes, I became aware of a narrow face with large brown eyes looking down at me.
‘Remember me?’ asked the owner of the face. ‘You saved my life in Vienna.’ He spoke with only a trace of a German accent.
His words ended my confusion. I recalled the sensitive face, and managed to ask: ‘How did you find me?’ Then I noticed his white smock. ‘Do you work here?’ I enquired.
‘It’s a long story,’ he replied. ‘After you dropped me off, I made my way to Warsaw, where an old friend helped me. Just before the war, I escaped and managed to reach safety in Scotland. When one of your Polish squadrons distinguished itself in the Battle of Britain, I thought you might be in it – so I wrote to the Air Ministry, and found that you were.’
‘How did you know my name?’ I asked.
He replied: ‘It was written … it was written in the margin of your map. I remembered it.’
His long fingers felt cool on my wrist. ‘Yesterday I read the story in the newspapers about a Polish hero shooting down five enemy planes in one day, and then crash-landing near this hospital. They said that your condition was considered hopeless. I immediately asked the Royal Air Force in Edinburgh to fly me here, to this hospital.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
He replied: ‘I thought that, at long last, I could do something to show you my gratitude. You see, I’m a brain surgeon – I operated on you this morning.’
Your Move, Hungarian
by Ferenc Laszlo
from Reader's Digest, April 1956
I was trying hard to suppress my anxiety that September morning in 1946, as I stood in the dismal Keleti railway station in Budapest, Hungary. Panic, I knew, could wreck my hopes. I was waiting prayerfully for the name of Oscar Zinner to be called – even though I knew that it might mean my doom.
Until ten days before, I had never heard of Oscar Zinner. Then an old friend, who had information about the evacuation of Austrians living in Budapest, had come to see me, in secret.
‘One man on the list for resettlement,’ he said, ‘has not replied to letters informing him about the last train taking Austrian refugees home to Vienna. He may even be dead. This man is a portrait painter named Oscar Zinner. Would you care to risk attempting the trip to freedom under his name?’
Would I? It was imperative that I flee my country as soon as possible. During the Nazi occupation, and later on as an unwilling subject of Hungary’s Communist regime, I had been an Allied intelligence agent in Budapest. But recently the Soviet trap had snapped shut on several of my close colleagues, and I had gone into hiding.
In changing my identity from Ferenc Laszlo to Oscar Zinner, no passports would be involved because the Russians had looted and burned all documents in virtually every Budapest home.
My friend spread typewritten pages of Zinner’s biographical data before me. ‘You are now the painter, Oscar Zinner,’ he said. ‘Sit down and learn. You must become Zinner: in every thought, in every action.’
He tapped the papers. ‘The Communist frontier guards will have a copy of this. I needn’t tell you how closely they check. Another copy will be held by the supervisor of your group. He’s not acquainted with Zinner. But when the name is called out at the station, wait before replying.’
‘Wait?’ I asked.
‘There’s a chance that Zinner might show up at the last minute,’ he explained. ‘If two of you were to answer, it would be a disaster for the one who isn’t Zinner.’
For the next few days I studied Oscar Zinner’s life story. I could describe the house where he was born in Graz, Austria. I knew his educational background, his habits, his likes and dislikes, even his style of painting. I could recall what critics had said of his pictures, the prices his paintings had fetched, and who had purchased them.
Finally, late on the night before my scheduled departure, I crossed the Franz Josef Bridge, and let the incriminating biographical notes, torn into tiny shreds, flutter into the Danube.
~
A sudden, sharp crackle – from the railway station loudspeaker – snapped me back to the present. A rasping voice began to call out a list of names, alphabetically.
My stomach was knotted. Why did my new name have to begin with the last letter of the alphabet?
Finally, the voice barked: ‘Zinner – Oscar Zinner!’
I wanted to shout. But instead I waited, my heart pounding, my ears straining, my mind praying that there would be no answer.
‘Zinner!’ the voice called again, this time with annoyance.
I stepped forward. “Here,’ I said timidly. There was no challenge from the real Zinner.
We were separated into groups of ten, and herded into compartments on the train. Over and over, I unravelled the story in my head. ‘I am a portrait painter. I was born in Graz. My father was an architect …’
A shrill whistle from the station platform signalled the train to start. It did not move. Suddenly, loud Russian-speaking voices could be heard at the end of our carriage. Four Soviet officers marched past our compartment door. They stopped at the next compartment, and I heard them order the occupants out, into the corridor. They then took occupation themselves, and soon I heard much laughter and clinking of glasses. The whistle blew again, and this time the train jerked into motion.
As we picked up speed, I wondered when I would see my country again. I also recognised, however, that sadness was inappropriate right now: I was Oscar Zinner, going home to Vienna.
The train groaned to a halt at Kelenföld. This was checkpoint number one. We did not have to wait long for the Soviet inspecting officer and his interpreter to arrive. In the corridor heavily armed Russian soldiers, accompanying them, stood stolidly watching the proceedings.
The Soviet officer, a rock-faced little man, started with the woman across the way. Shuffling the flimsy biographical sheets, he barked questions in Russian, which the interpreter translated into German. He came to the man sitting next to the window, on my side of the compartment. I began rehearsing, once more, what I should say: ‘I am a painter. I was born in Graz, Austria. My name is … My name is …’
Sweat broke out on my forehead and my heart slid into my throat. A strange mental block, caused no doubt by nervous tension and suppressed panic, allowed me to remember everything else about the man I was pretending to be – except his name.
As though through a distant mist, I heard the sharp voices of the inspector and his interpreter as they moved to the woman beside me.
‘Please, God,’ I prayed, ‘what is my name? I’m a portrait painter. My name is …’ It was no use. The name would not come.
Just then I heard the door of the next compartment slide open. There was a brief flurry of conversation in the passageway, then a Red Army colonel poked his head into our compartment.
‘Wer spielt Schach?’ (‘Who plays chess?’) he asked.
Our inspecting officer turned and glared at the interruption, then stepped back respectfully under the gaze of his military superior. As I was closest to the door, the colonel’s next question seemed to be directed at me.
‘Spielen Sie Schach?’ he asked.
I hadn’t played chess in ten years, but it didn’t matter. This could be just the breathing space I needed. No one else in the compartment spoke.
‘Ja. Ich spiele Schach,’ I said.
The colonel gestured for me to follow him.
In the Russians’ compartment were two other colonels and one much-bemedalled general, a fattening but still-powerful giant in his early fifties. Evidently it was he who wanted a game of chess, for he gestured me to a seat opposite him.
Beside me were dozens of sandwiches and a box of sweets. On the small table under the window were glasses, vodka, Hungarian brandy, and wine. The general gave me an appraising look, then pointed to the food and vodka. ‘Davai,’ (‘Go on,’) he growled in Russian.
I ate in tortured suspense. At any moment one of the Russians might ask me my name or – worse – the inspector might intrude.
As the train started, the general produced a chessboard and began arranging the pieces.
‘God help me,’ I thought. ‘This is the game of my life. I must make it good, and yet I can’t afford to win.’ I had never known a Russian who didn’t hate to lose, or a chess player who liked to play for long, unless his opponent could make it interesting.
As we played, some of the tricks of the game slowly returned to me. The other officers watched the game in silence, apparently believing that the general was a wizard at it. As a matter of fact he was quite a good player, but I was able to make him work for every advantage he obtained.
Time flew by, as it does on every tense battlefield of chess, and with a start I realised that the train was slowing down at Györ, our checkpoint number two. My mind began to race. Now the door of the compartment slid open and the supervisor of the Austrian group stepped in. ‘This man has not yet been questioned,’ he said firmly.
I needn’t have worried. The general rose, spread his huge bear’s paw of a hand against the man’s chest, and expelled him into the corridor. Then he slammed the door, and pointed to the chessboard.
‘Davai Magyar,’ (‘It’s your move, Hungarian,’) he roared.
Hungarian? I was coming from Hungary, of course, but his slip of the tongue – if that’s what it was – caused my scalp to tingle.
When we finished the first game, from which the general emerged the victor, he said something to the officer who spoke German. ‘The general enjoys your style,’ the latter interpreted. ‘He will play you another game.’
Before we began again, however, the general insisted that we drink.
Reckless with the warm flood of confidence that came from the vodka, I lost myself in this game; and suddenly found myself on the brink of winning. We were in the last crucial moves as the train slowed for Hegyeshalom, our final checkpoint. Here I would win or lose – not merely a game, but everything I lived for.
This time dozens of Red soldiers, rifles slung over their shoulders and grenades hanging from their belts, led the procession of interpreters and security guards. They merely glanced into our compartment and then went on to the next. There the angry little group leader must have told them of the ‘Austrian’ who was sitting with the officers, for one of the guards came back to investigate. He stepped smartly in at the door, saluted, and spoke rapidly in Russian – at the same time pointing at me.
Once again, my brain froze in fear. Surely the general would let them question me this time, if only to forestall any further interruptions. ‘I am a portrait painter, and my name is …,’ I began saying to myself, desperately. Still I could not remember the name.
As the guard spoke, the general’s face slowly grew purple. I had no idea what the guard was telling him, but it made him as angry as any man I’d ever seen. He looked at me, his eyes blazing. Then he carefully placed the chessboard on the table under the window, and stood up.
‘This is the end for me,’ I thought. ‘To come so close …’
The general crossed his arm in front of his body, as a man would to draw a sword. He then brought it up in a sweeping arc, and the back of his hand smashed across the guard’s mouth. The man reeled backwards and struck the corridor wall.
The general slammed the door shut so hard that it shook our window. Then he returned to his seat, muttering something under his breath. He picked up the chessboard and studied the pieces.
‘Davai, Magyar,’ he said.
My heart was bursting with relief. No one would dare come in again – of that I was sure. As the train gathered speed, release from the awful tension flooded over me, so that, for the first time, I smiled. The general looked up from the board and smiled in return. He spoke to the young officer, who said to me: ‘The general wonders if you would enjoy playing him sometime in Vienna. Where can he reach you?’
Without blinking, I mentioned a well-known Vienna hotel.
‘And your name?’ prodded the young officer.
Now, without the awful, clutching terror, I hesitated, but only for a brief moment. How could I ever have forgotten those two simple words?
‘My name,’ I said, ‘is Oscar Zinner.’
