than I talk to him. From the minute I wake up in the morning he criticising me, every bit of me. Everything I do is wrong. If I say I am coming in one hour and am five minutes late he is shouting. He complain to his mother. She say if she was not his mother she would marry him. I say, “Why are you and I quarrelling since we got engaged, is it the piece of metal?” and he say yes and I throw the ring back at him and I leave the hotel and find myself a job here. I did know myself, but not any longer.’
When she has finished she buries her head in the armchair and Ivan, who has been consulting a little notebook, sits back in his chair, willing them all to listen to him. ‘My country Czechoslovakia. My family nine hundred years in same place. We aristocrats. It say so in chronicles in museum. I am a little Russian from my mother’s side. My mother she say my grandmother every night have small shot of plum brandy for sleep. Then war happen. My family they lose everything, their estates, their money, they move to one small place, then another and finally we are in a little dingy house in a city. My mother a widow. I am very close to her all the time, I wash her hair and she wash mine. She have three jobs. I learn to cook alone. I make my first cake age seven. It has three flavours, chocolate, sponge with cheese and vanilla. A grand uncle he pay for me to go to food college in Austria. I graduate after two years and get work in Graz, not far from Vienna. I work later in Italy, then France. In each country I learn something new, in France baguette. I have no personal life, but then in hotel in Switzerland, where I have moved, a girl come and she from another part of Czechoslovakia, also aristocrat, pictures of castles in her photo album. We like one another, we talk in our language, we go skiing two weekends in wintertime. After oneyear we decide to go home and tell our relatives that we intend to marry, to settle down. Her people eleven kilometres from mine. After two days she come to me. She find me in orchard pruning trees and I am so happy to be in my own country. She say to me, “Ivan, my family think you too old for me.” I say, “Be honest Wanda,” and she look at me all sad and she say no, it is not her, it is her family. I do not believe her. I do not know why she change her mind. I say thank you, goodbye and good luck. I go back to Switzerland and am alone. In time I recover. I think in basement of cousin’s house I have plum brandy from 1967, fifty per cent proof. I tell myself that when I have son I will go there and open that bottle and be drunk. When I have son. I decide to come to Ireland because I like Tolkien and Tolkien he like Scotland, New Zealand and Ireland. I speak no English. I bring recipes from Czechoslovakia, Austria and France, I learn a few things here, for example scones. I move from city to this place because I have forest, I love forest, forest and river. I cannot say how long I will stay. My friends I tell you this, we are a jolly group but put us in uniform and all that change. In war I don’t know who my brother. In war I don’t know who my friend. War make everybody savage. Who can say what lies inside the heart of each one of us when everything is taken away.’
Then it was Mujo’s turn. Ne. Ne. Ne. He rolls himself into a ball and Hedda kneels to console him, but he fends her off. He could not tell his story the way others did because the words had stopped inside him. He was dumb, dumbstruck.
Into the Woods
The new Doc brought our class to the woods, to walk in the footsteps of the druids and learn the healing properties in nature.
We were fifteen in all, boys and girls, and we walked in pairs through the town, over the bridge and about one mile more to Killooney Wood. We sang as we walked and when we could remember no more songs, the Doc sang folk songs from his own country, in his own tongue. Everyone wanted to be the person walking next to him. We were such a merry group that
When she has finished she buries her head in the armchair and Ivan, who has been consulting a little notebook, sits back in his chair, willing them all to listen to him. ‘My country Czechoslovakia. My family nine hundred years in same place. We aristocrats. It say so in chronicles in museum. I am a little Russian from my mother’s side. My mother she say my grandmother every night have small shot of plum brandy for sleep. Then war happen. My family they lose everything, their estates, their money, they move to one small place, then another and finally we are in a little dingy house in a city. My mother a widow. I am very close to her all the time, I wash her hair and she wash mine. She have three jobs. I learn to cook alone. I make my first cake age seven. It has three flavours, chocolate, sponge with cheese and vanilla. A grand uncle he pay for me to go to food college in Austria. I graduate after two years and get work in Graz, not far from Vienna. I work later in Italy, then France. In each country I learn something new, in France baguette. I have no personal life, but then in hotel in Switzerland, where I have moved, a girl come and she from another part of Czechoslovakia, also aristocrat, pictures of castles in her photo album. We like one another, we talk in our language, we go skiing two weekends in wintertime. After oneyear we decide to go home and tell our relatives that we intend to marry, to settle down. Her people eleven kilometres from mine. After two days she come to me. She find me in orchard pruning trees and I am so happy to be in my own country. She say to me, “Ivan, my family think you too old for me.” I say, “Be honest Wanda,” and she look at me all sad and she say no, it is not her, it is her family. I do not believe her. I do not know why she change her mind. I say thank you, goodbye and good luck. I go back to Switzerland and am alone. In time I recover. I think in basement of cousin’s house I have plum brandy from 1967, fifty per cent proof. I tell myself that when I have son I will go there and open that bottle and be drunk. When I have son. I decide to come to Ireland because I like Tolkien and Tolkien he like Scotland, New Zealand and Ireland. I speak no English. I bring recipes from Czechoslovakia, Austria and France, I learn a few things here, for example scones. I move from city to this place because I have forest, I love forest, forest and river. I cannot say how long I will stay. My friends I tell you this, we are a jolly group but put us in uniform and all that change. In war I don’t know who my brother. In war I don’t know who my friend. War make everybody savage. Who can say what lies inside the heart of each one of us when everything is taken away.’
Then it was Mujo’s turn. Ne. Ne. Ne. He rolls himself into a ball and Hedda kneels to console him, but he fends her off. He could not tell his story the way others did because the words had stopped inside him. He was dumb, dumbstruck.
Into the Woods
The new Doc brought our class to the woods, to walk in the footsteps of the druids and learn the healing properties in nature.
We were fifteen in all, boys and girls, and we walked in pairs through the town, over the bridge and about one mile more to Killooney Wood. We sang as we walked and when we could remember no more songs, the Doc sang folk songs from his own country, in his own tongue. Everyone wanted to be the person walking next to him. We were such a merry group that
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