All we had to do now was find some money for the rent. I suggested carving figures from wood and selling them at the market, but Király had other ideas. He said he had a way of ‘finding’ money that would prove far more lucrative. I thought he was crazy – if we were caught stealing, the authorities would punish us severely and we would probably end up back in Sretensk. A huge argument ensued and Király set out alone, armed only with the crutches I had made for him.
That evening I was disturbed by shouting in the street. When I looked out of the window I could see two shadowy figures fighting in the dark; then I heard Király screaming at the top of his voice. I picked up the axe and rushed downstairs. The landlord tried to grab me in the hallway. ‘Don’t go out there, it is not safe,’ he pleaded.
I pushed him aside and burst out of the door. Király was on the ground flailing around. A soldier stood over him, knife in hand. As the blade glinted in the moonlight I could see that it was already dripping with blood. I lifted the axe above my head and charged towards him, but he heard me coming and turned to face me. I brought the axe down towards his head, he managed to dodge it and it caught his arm. He howled, turned on his heels, picked something up from the road and ran off into the night. Király managed to pull himself up, and wielding his crutch he fired a salvo of Hungarian expletives after him. Then he checked his pockets, gathered up a few wallets that lay strewn on the ground and said, ‘The bastard stole my handbag.’
Oh, you think that’s funny, do you, Fischel? Well, yes I suppose it is funny . . . ha . . . Oh ow . . . you’re making me laugh now . . . no, please no laughing, it’s not good for me . . . I didn’t find it funny at the time, I was furious with him for getting into trouble.
‘Oh, he’s the bastard, is he?’ I yelled. ‘And where did you get the handbag from?’
‘I found it,’ he smirked.
‘Where?’
‘You’ll never believe it, but it was on a lady’s shoulder, it had just been left there unattended. But don’t worry, I found these wallets too, we’re going to be all right. Now, get me inside. Can’t you see I’m in pain?’
I helped him through the door, and in the light of the gas lamp I could see that he had been slashed across the stomach.
‘Don’t worry about that,’ he grimaced, ‘that’s just a scratch. It’s my foot that’s killing me.’
It had started bleeding again. The landlord quickly ran for a towel; he didn’t want blood on his rugs, it would never come off.
‘We need to get a doctor. Do you know one?’ I asked.
The landlord scratched his bald head and sighed, and that’s when he told us that nobody in their right mind walked that road at night, and even during the day it was best avoided. There wasn’t a doctor in town that would go near the place. I had seen and heard enough. I resolved there and then to leave the next day. ‘You could have warned us,’ I said angrily. ‘I don’t want to stay here any more.’
The landlord nodded sadly, then he looked at Király’s foot, and a thought crossed his mind; there was no way the injured one would be leaving in the morning. ‘If he agrees to stay here until he can walk, I’ll take him to a doctor in the morning. A good man who will ask no questions,’ he offered.
‘What the hell are you two talking about?’ Király asked in frustration.
God knows how he would survive without me.
That night we played our last game of chess. I still hadn’t told him that I was leaving. I felt guilty and didn’t know how to break it to him. After an hour or so I had played myself into a hopeless position. I studied Frantz closely to make sure that he knew he had won. A toothy grin had spread across his ruddy face, he was a lousy chess-player but even a fool could see that it was mate in two. I toppled my king and watched it roll on to the floor. Frantz let out a shriek of delight that must have disturbed the thieves outside, and for a moment victory numbed the pain in his foot: he jumped up and hopped around the bedroom gleefully. Then, suddenly, a thought crossed his mind and he came to an abrupt halt. ‘Did you let me win on purpose, you son of a whore?’ He was staring at me intently.
‘No, of course not.’
‘You did, didn’t you?’
‘I would never do that,’ I protested. ‘I’d rather see you bleed to death than lose and watch you dance around like a freshly branded pig.’
He hesitated. I could see his mind working as he paddled back from his desire to believe me. The next thing I knew he was on top of me swearing in Hungarian. The cynic in him had overcome the believer, and for once he was right: I had lost deliberately. ‘Why did you do it, you bastard?’ he yelled, and a gobbet of saliva involuntarily flew from his mouth and landed on my cheek. ‘I don’t need your charity.’
I pushed him off me and brushed myself down. ‘I did it because I wanted to make you happy before I left in the morning.’
He considered my response and his eyes welled up. I’m not sure whether he was moved because I wanted him to be happy, or because I was leaving. He turned away in embarrassment and left the room. He returned some time later after I had gone to bed, and I listened as he hobbled over to his bed and settled down to sleep. In the morning he lay watching me silently as I gathered my things. When I left he refused to shake my hand. I never saw Frantz Király again.
After the war I often thought about him nostalgically and wondered what had become of him, so I wrote to the guest house in Irkutsk and was amazed to find that he was still there. We exchanged a couple of letters, but soon realized that we had very little in common, and the correspondence died. He spoke in lurid detail of the women he had serviced during the war. He was the reluctant father of ‘two poor bastards’ who he refused to see. After the war some of the women’s husbands had unexpectedly returned and he had been beaten up, but survived to tell the tale. His foot had healed but he still walked with a stick and I got the impression he was a thief, because when I asked him what he did to survive all he said was that Irkutsk was an opportunist’s paradise, and besides he spoke Russian, was a Bolshevik and had no interest in material possessions. I knew him well enough to take this last with a large pinch of salt. I haven’t heard from him now for over a decade.
After Irkutsk I traipsed from village to village carving little pine effigies and selling them as I went. Uncle Josef was right – there is always a market for the small wooden crucifix – but the whole business of carving them and hanging around on street corners was slowing me down. Eventually, in desperation, I stole a horse from a kulak’s field one night and was chased into the woods by its screaming owner and his tenacious dog. I got away and rode hard across the Saian Mountains. Ninety days later the horse dropped dead. When I looked at it I realized that my magnificent steed had never been anything more than an old carthorse. And now there was only one thing left to do. Eat it. For months I had been living off fruits and berries from the forest. To eat a horse is to take on its strength. So with as much of the horse inside me as I could eat, and as much in my pack as I could carry, I set off on foot once more.
One August day in 1917 as I was nearing Abakan I came across a small hut in a clearing in the forest. An old man was sitting peacefully on the wooden porch.
‘It’s a beautiful day,’ he said cheerily as I marched by.
‘Yes it is,’ I answered politely, continuing on my way.
‘How would you know? You’re in such a hurry. You need a rest, come sit down. Have some vodka.’
I stopped for a moment and looked about me. The hut stood on the brow of a hill in a grove of wild flowers in full bloom, and from his porch the old man could see way down into the wooded valleys and across to the mountains beyond.
‘That’s very kind. I will join you for a quick drink.’
‘Quick? Why quick? Let it take as long as it takes,’ the man chuckled. I sat down on a wooden stool next to him and he poured me a drink. ‘Oleg,’ he said, offering a hand. ‘And you?’
I hesitated. It would be safer to give a Russian name. ‘Sergei.’
> ‘Where are you going, Sergei?’
By now I was comfortable that I could pass myself off as Russian, it was such a vast country with so many tribes that I could have been from almost anywhere, and yet I was cautious. ‘Home,’ I said evasively.
Oleg smiled. ‘Home is where you are. Why do you want to be somewhere else?’
‘Love.’
‘Ah, love,’ he mused, ‘but my friend, if you knew something about love, you would not be in such a hurry. You would sit back and enjoy this beautiful day. Your love is not somewhere else; you carry love with you. She is right here. She is the rustling in the trees. She is the scent of summer.’
I took in the magnificent view down the valley and felt the breeze play on my skin. It was truly a magical place. ‘Maybe, maybe,’ I sighed, ‘but I won’t be happy until I have her in my arms.’
Oleg ran his fingers through his beard and smiled. ‘And how do you know you will be happy even then, if you’re not happy now? Can having something really make us happy?’
The man seemed so benevolent I felt inclined to answer, even though no stranger had ever quizzed me like this before. ‘Yes, why not?’ I offered.
‘Well, I once lived in a town full of ambitious people, people who aspired to having, be it wealth or power. It was an unhappy town. Your cause may be more noble than theirs, but nevertheless it is important to know the difference between having and being. If desire burns too strong in a man it will consume him. A man who says he will not rest until he has made a certain amount of money will not rest even then, for his desire will drive him to greater wealth. A man who says he will not be happy until he has obtained a certain woman will seek another once he has had her. I know this to be true because I was such a man. If you are not happy now you may never be happy.’
I wondered who this man was. I had heard that Siberia was awash with religious sects and false prophets, but this man had no followers with him. ‘Are you suggesting I abandon my journey?’ I asked.
‘No, not at all. The opposite. Hear my story: one day a man sees the sun setting and decides that his fortune lies where the sun touches the land. He sets off towards it. He walks and walks and walks, and after a long time he arrives back in the village where he started. He has travelled the globe but when his friends ask him to describe the wonders of the world he is unable to reply, for his eyes have been blinded by the sun. Now, what I am suggesting is that you remember your journey and forget the arrival. Otherwise you too will be blinded, and you will grow old like me and wonder where your life has gone, and you will realize that you spent all your life planning for a future that never happened. Find your happiness now, and if you happen to find your love you will double it. Come have another vodka with me and listen to the birdsong. Why not live now, young man?’
We sat and talked for several hours until the vodka was finished. The alcohol in my empty belly reinforced my conviction that Oleg was a man I could trust and soon I had confessed everything: my nationality, my religion, and my status as a POW.
‘Well then, we are both escapees,’ Oleg laughed.
‘And what are you escaping from?’ I asked, wondering if he was a criminal.
‘My enemies, my family, my life . . . myself.’
He was such a benign old fellow. With his long white beard and shiny eyes he looked more like a cuddly grandfather than a man with enemies.
‘You seem surprised, my friend. But I won’t say another word unless you agree to stay with me a couple of days and then I will fill your ears with stories. I have some borscht inside and a squirrel pie. I would be glad of the company – and so would you, I think.’
In the end I stayed four days. We collected wood, hunted for deer and read. For a man of few possessions, Oleg had a magnificent collection of books. There was nothing much else for him to do but read. He was devouring in his age all the books he had been too busy to read in his youth. In the evenings we sat and talked in the firelight and Oleg entertained me and the forest spirits with folk tales and songs. Eventually, on my final night, Oleg rewarded me with his own story.
‘I spent three quarters of my life in misery, my friend,’ he said, tugging at his beard. ‘When I was your age I also had many dreams. I was going to change the world. All I needed to do was get myself into a position of power. I worked so very hard as a merchant and then later as a politician, but still I was nobody. I learned that in Russia the strong man always wins. The big bully beats the small bully, the ruthless beat the honest, the greedy earn the respect of the poor and only the corrupt achieve power. I saw what I needed to do and I promised myself that once I had climbed the greasy pole of power I would change things for the better. But for every step I took away from my true path it was two steps back. Soon I had lost touch with my ideals. By the time I controlled the local duma I had subjugated everyone around me and I was surrounded by enemies. I lived in fear and now my only goal was to protect what I had. So much for changing the world.
‘I turned my attention to my three boys. At least I could help them grow up to be good Russians, but the more I exerted my authority the more wayward they became. I soon learned that I could not control them any more than I could control the world. They still despise me. Then my wife fell ill and on her deathbed she said she hated what I had become and accused me of being a tyrant. I had reached my dream only to discover that I had lost my soul.
‘I broke down. No one understood and no one cared. I ran away and wandered alone for many months until I settled here. And here I have listened to my heart and it has begun to open again. And now I realize that the only power I have is the one I exert over myself. The world will bend around the man who knows his own power, for he is like a star that cannot be dimmed or a rock that cannot be moved. But use that power over others and the world will eventually crush you, for this is weakness disguised as strength. It is too late for me, I am cleansing my spirit for death, but you have everything ahead of you.’
I stared for a long time into the dying embers of the fire. Would I ever see Lotte again? The world was conspiring against us; did I have the strength of will to keep going?
‘I’m afraid, Oleg. Terrified of what might happen to me. Half of Russia would kill me. I’m tired of hiding, tired of pretending.’
The following day Oleg was up early and I awoke to the smell of fresh bread. A steaming samovar of tea was standing on the table. Oleg had put three loaves of bread in my pack and filled my canteen with water. After a hearty breakfast I was ready to leave.
Oleg held me back.
‘All night I have been wondering what story to send you away with and this morning it finally came to me. It’s about a hunter who is in the forest chasing a deer. Suddenly he realizes he is being followed by a tiger. The hunter is now the hunted. He begins to run in fear through the trees, the tiger closing in. In his panic the hunter falls into a trap of his own making, and before he knows it he is tumbling down into a deep pit. He manages to catch hold of a root that sticks out halfway down and there he dangles. He looks down and sees a dozen deadly serpents writhing at the bottom of the pit. He looks up and sees the tiger prowling around the edge of the hole. Then he feels the root slowly loosening and coming away from the side. He hears a buzzing and notices a bee flying over him. A drop of honey falls on to a leaf near his mouth. And there, surrounded by death above and below, he sticks out his tongue and tastes the sweetness of life. Life is hard, Moritz, but there is always a drop of honey somewhere. Good luck.’
From there I walked through Abakan to Kuznetsk. But something had changed, Oleg’s words had had a profound effect on me; I slowed down a little, became more curious about the places I passed through, met more people. I transformed myself from a vagrant into a traveller, and strangely enough I actually began to enjoy myself. But my pleasure was cut short when I arrived in that foul stinking town of Kuznetsk. I had been on the move for six months and I still hadn’t left Siberia.
Further west the political landscape was changing rapidly, but the
Bolsheviks were struggling to get a foothold in Siberia. You see the kulaks of Siberia were different from the poor peasants in Western Russia in that they despised the Bolsheviks. Why? Because the east was underpopulated, the peasants had more land and were generally much better off. But the irony was that the kulaks were inadvertently helping the Bolsheviks win power. Their decision to hoard their grain had sent prices rocketing. The grain surplus in the east could have fed everyone in the west. Kerensky issued decree after decree but the Siberians refused to hand it over. As a consequence the villages were well-fed but the towns starved. The undernourished soldiers on the front deserted in their droves, and the great cities of Moscow and Petrograd fell easily into the hands of the Bolsheviks.
I desperately needed some regular money; living off the land was getting harder and I was far too proud to beg in the city. Besides, I couldn’t face another winter of walking. It wasn’t difficult to find work. As more and more men were drafted to the army, jobs became vacant. Kuznetsk was a mining town and that’s what I ended up doing.
Every day we would risk our lives and break our backs for long hours, only to return to our rented rooms with a handful of kopeks. And then one morning towards the end of October 1917 the pit came to life with jubilant voices that echoed down the mineshaft.
‘The Bolsheviks have stormed the summer palace.’
‘The revolution has begun.’
‘The war is over.’
‘God is dead.’
‘Long live Lenin.’
‘The workers are free,’ the miners shouted. There was huge excitement and great optimism that their lives would improve. But that hope was misplaced, the local dumas in Siberia reasserted themselves and rejected the transition of power to the Bolsheviks. The workers were not free. We were a long way from Petrograd. And so the work continued just as it had before.
Random Acts of Heroic Love Page 21
