English / Sample translations /

/Translated by Elsa Morrison/

The Barricade

          The town in which I grew up lies right on the frontier in a mountain pass but the town itself is on the level so everyone goes about on bicycles.
          Of course they have to start with a tricycle. Anyone keen to progress then got a fairy cycle, then a Pioneer which was made in red and blue, but if you wanted to stand out and had a father who was good with his hands, you could have it painted, only this was a bit of a waste because after a while, like everyone else, you moved on to a threequarter size Eska which came in many different colours and had a derailleur.
          So it was no wonder that it was hard to give up your Eska when your legs became too long for it and it was time to look for a Favorit. This was the last word in bicycles. Not only because there was nothing better to be had at the time but also because with a bit of luck you had it for life.
          My father was a grown man and a footballer but all the time he went round on a Ukraine, a basic, unwieldy, Russian-made bicycle; I never saw him use any other bike. In many places it was scratched and rusty but my father never had it repainted. He said it had been scratched at the barricades and that that was no shame. He always laid great stress on these words.
          The aforementioned Ukraine had indeed been at the barricades and by coincidence so was my tricycle.
          It was summer during a great heatwave. Because of the heat I had to put up with the indignity of wearing a sunbonnet. Suddenly some older boys appeared on their red and blue Pioneers and their threequarter size Eskas, eyes popping out of their heads, saying there were tanks at the customs barrier. At that our neighbour quickly slipped away and soon the motor of his big excavator could be heard.
          We stood on the pavement and watched him dig up paving stones and pile them up in a heap. We watched till our worried mothers dragged us off home but there just the same we continued to watch even if only from the windows. The pile of paving stones grew, the road suddenly changed into a pit. Now it would be very difficult to ride a bike on it, that's for sure.
          It was hot. Our fathers began bringing all kinds of cupboards and tables out of cellars, pushing and shoving them to the very top of the pile. And they were hot. Someone brought a case of beer on a cart, everyone took a bottle, occasionally drinking from it but not stopping bringing more things.
          By now it was nearly dark and there was a great heap under the windows. Men came from the Polish side of the frontier. They stood in front of the pile, drank beer and talked. Eventually they went and brought their bicycles and placed them on the heap from the other side and my father went and put his Ukraine up there with the others.
          It was all beyond me. After all my mother had told him not to go where there might be shooting and he still went and put his bicycle on the heap. No, I did not understand. It occurred to me to wonder if he had put someone else's bicycle there, yet the bicycle looked practically the same as his. I sneaked off to the cellar, but there was no sign of my father's bike. In the pram room there was only my tricycle. I pushed it out, got on and went to have a closer look at this confusing situation.
          I peddled up to the heap, got off the tricycle and indeed - there was my father's bicycle up on top of the paving stones. He immediately rushed up to me, took me in his arms and called out to the other men something I did not properly understand, but they were all very nice to me, which I enjoyed, and my father said I was his brave little boy.
          Then however they put my tricycle on the heap of flagstones and I began to cry. My mother, also in tears, hurried out, snatched me from my father's arms saying he was crazy and took me home. After a while father came home in high spirits. He calmed us down telling us not to be afraid. From the dresser and the pantry he took out all the bottles of wine and spirits telling mother they must have at least some kind of weapons and these could serve as incendiaries and off he went.
          Then he came back once more and from the wardrobe took out his football strip with number seven on it which he wore every Sunday when he played and which he never entrusted to any laundry so that mother had to wash it. He had played for various clubs but he always insisted he had number seven on his back and on his sleeve. He pulled on his jersey and in front of the mirror he put the captain's armband on his sleeve. That was all father needed. He did not care if they were outnumbered and what kind of weapons the other side had. He was on the side of virtue and captain of the side. It was so awe-inspiring that this time mother did not even try to stop him.
          It was getting dark. The men sat at the barricade and although they discovered that none of them knew how to make an incendiary bomb they did not give up but now and then one of them would get up and at least wave a large banner calling it our flag. Suddenly a rumbling noise was heard and the tanks I was so keen to see rolled towards us from Poland; I could not see them very well because the noise was so great that I hid my face in my mother's dress. Her dress smelled nice. And it smelled exactly the same as usual and this comforted me. It did not even bother me that mother was crying. I went on sniffing her dress as long as the noise continued. The tanks stopped.
          For a long time the tanks remained stationary close to the barricade. They just stood there not moving. There was absolute silence. Only from time to time, my father in his invincible number seven strip, would get up, wave his banner at the tanks and quickly disappear again, in order, as he said, to keep up the team spirit by drinking from the nearest incendiary bottle, because every time he showed himself and faced the guns of the tanks unarmed, he had to muster up all his courage, because he was afraid, because he was desperately afraid.
          It was now dark. In the course of the day so much had happened. I was sleepy. I do not remember much more. The men remained alone at the barricade throughout the night. Eventually everyone, including their supporters from behind the windows, went to sleep. Only the enemy was wide awake and whenever noises were heard from within the tanks, the men would start up and take another drink from the incendiary bottles. But Dad, because he was the captain, continued to leap up from time to time and wave the banner in threatening fashion, but eventually they were all so drunk that they spilled red wine, almost half a litre of red Vavrinecke, on the flag, right on the white part. The men stopped waving the flag, so that the stain would not show and because there was nothing for them to do, before long they were all asleep.
          During the night a figure suddenly crept up to the tanks and knocked on the turret of one of them. The turret opened, a head appeared and the figure spoke to the head in bad Russian. After a time the figure climbed on to the tank and a rumbling noise was heard. Fumes billowed out from the tanks and the column began to reverse but only for a short time, then the first tank stopped, went forwards again and turned into a side street. The other tanks followed.
          The noise did not waken the men on the barricade. Nor did they waken when after a time the tanks turned out from the side street behind their backs on to the main road to Prague and disappeared in the direction of Hradec Kralove.
          It was morning when they were wakened by the rain. The whole town was apparently still asleep. The men peered out cautiously and in the half light of morning there were no enemy tanks to be seen. They staggered out in front of the barricade, blundered about here and there, but of the tanks there wasn't a sign. The men shouted in jubilation, Dad leapt up and punched the air with his fist as if he had just scored a goal. Then they hauled the flag down from the barricade, waved it above their heads and marched through the town singing the national anthem.
          So overjoyed were they that they failed to notice that the red Russian flag was flying from several of the houses. Cheering they made their way to the square where they marched round the Tunel pub that Mr Pryl the landlord had just opened. He opened at six every morning, to oblige the workers, as he said. Mr Pryl came out and greeted our heroes sadly in a voice full of emotion, "What are you shouting about, you idiots?" And while our heroes were falling over themselves to describe how they had chased off the Russian tanks with their bare hands, he took them into a side street where the tracks of the tanks could be seen and when they still refused to believe it, he took them into the pub and as it was six o' clock the news was just beginning on the radio and one of the items announced the arrival of the tanks at Hradec.
          Our heroes admitted defeat. They rolled up the banner and stood it in a corner. They sat, or rather flopped down on a bench, as if their legs had buckled under them and Mr Pryl, without a word, set before them the best tripe soup in the district, the kind he used to make in the White Rose Inn, and our heroes sat and stared into their soup, taking some on their spoons and letting it dribble back into their plates and nobody ate until Mr Pryl said," Look here, I took the trouble to heat up the soup for you, so hurry up and eat it!"
          So the loyal patriots tucked into the soup and when they had finished they again simply sat silent. Suddenly Mr Pryl said, "Move along a bit, boys." The heroes moved a bit closer together and the landlord sat down beside them and for a long time they sat there and nobody spoke until the clock struck seven. Mr Pryl got up and went over to the radio but someone muttered, "Don't put it on, mate" and Mr Pryl passed over in silence the fact that he been familiar with him, although none of his customers was allowed to do this because, as he said, it was not in keeping with the ethos of his profession, because as he was wont to say on other occasions, " If I start being familiar with them, they'll start drinking on tick and they might break everything in here, so I must keep my distance. And discipline. Essential in business."
          On this occasion however he said nothing, simply did not switch on the radio, went to the cellar, returned carrying a large bottle of Scotch whisky, locked the door of the pub, put the bottle on the table and brought glasses. And so it came about that, without saying a word, Mr Pryl got all the fathers drunk, no wonder considering how much they had already drunk and how little they had eaten and slept...And when all our heroes, one after another, had fallen asleep with their heads on the oak table, he said sympathetically, "It's not bad stuff, you won't suffer any ill effects."
          Then he unlocked the door and began driving one hero after another home in his cart and all those who, from behind their curtains, had earlier watched our heroes marching and singing the national anthem, now watched them being taken home to their wives by Mr Pryl.
          Very quickly, even before the men had even slept off the effects of all of this, the council took steps to dismantle the barricade but some of those workmen who had been sent with diggers to knock it down, had taken photographs, so the barricade never disappeared completely and people always knew exactly which of these workmen had the photographs and yet no one reported him.
          Before the diggers began taking the flagstones from the heap, the workmen brought down all the biycles and laid them respectfully aside. Even my tricycle was found when I cried for it next day. Only nobody ever discovered who that night had shown the Russian tanks the way through although it happened on the main street.
          Then someone younger got my tricycle, and then someone younger got my fairy cycle and suddenly I was the owner of a Favorit. My father never had a Favorit. He bought one for me but he himself kept his Ukraine.
          I used to go every summer to my grandmother's. Her job was to switch on the lights at the points at the station in Lysa, so my bicycle was sent on by train. It was taken to the station and a label was attached to the handlebars. While I was young enough to have a Pioneer my mother would write the label and even when I had an Eska and could write, my mother still wrote the label. The first time I did it myself was when I got a Favorit. For me this was a milestone - fabulous.
          I rode to the station and was given a label. From the saddle-bag I took out a pencil and inspected the label. The attendant at the luggage office watched me. I filled out the columns. Sender: Steiner M. Address: Mlynska 7. Station: Kostelec Central. Goods:(now for it) FAVORIT BICYCLE. It was marvellous. I wouldn't have missed it for the world. Then I gave the attendant the label. I got it stamped and fixed it to the handlebars and off I went home through the big door right through the middle, the way Dad went back to the dressing-room after winning a match.
          In the evening of the first of May we always collected the little flags that had been thrown away. The Czech ones. The Russian ones we left where they lay. We stuck the Czech ones on our mudguards. Once when I rode across the square Mr Pryl was standing in the doorway of his pub. He remembered he still had that stained patriotic banner. He went to have a look at it and it seemed to him that the stain on the white part had faded and no longer looked like a dirty mark. It was more like a bloodstain.