Run for Your Life

An invisible hero story

“It was on our tour in France," Mother finally begins, as soon as the coffee has swollen and she has taken down the pot and placed it in the sink to cool down. “Must have been ’79.”

Mother takes a mug and the pot, covered, to the table and sits down again. Now.

“We had a free morning, with a rehearsal at five pm, followed by a performance, in a village called Villepreux. I said I’d like to go and see Versailles before, as it was on the way there, and everyone, when they heard said yes, me too, me too! We talked to the driver and agreed to start in the morning and drop us in Versailles. So we all get on the bus, the good old Setra that took us all across Europe, to all those wonderful places…”

Mother’s voice trails off in nostalgia. Lili keeps quiet, letting Mother’s emotion fill the room. Mother’s tours meant lots of chocolate, mesmerising soap flavours, boots or overcoats that yelled out made in the West, and hours of story-telling in father’s tiny study room.

“Well, so, we all get on the bus early morning from our hotel and head on to Versailles. Our guarding angel is with us, of course, he can’t let us fool around as we please, and besides, he’s also keen on Versailles, or whatever it is that can be got while we’re touring the infamous decadent Occident.”

“Your guarding angel?” Lili interrupts shyly.

Mother laughs. Lili is not sure if she is really amused, or if the laughter is a disguise for anything between anger, disgust, revolt, helplessness or the likes.

“Yes, dear, our guarding angel, Ilarion Walter, our Party Secretary at the theatre.”

“Oh, yes, I keep hearing this name, is he a good actor?”

“He’s not an actor.” Mother pauses for significance.

Lili keeps quiet because she’s not sure she’s getting it.

“He’s our Party Secretary," Mother explains with an allusive smile. “He is there to look after us, lest we might get naughty.”

“But what does he do the whole time, I mean, do? If he’s not an actor, fine, you’re not an actress either, but you organise things there, their performances, the rehearsals, it’s clear what you do," Lili protests.

“He doesn’t do anything, in that sense of the word, Lili, he’s the Party’s consignee in our economic unit, and he does  — well, no idea, writes reports, collects information, I don’t even want to know — but in any case, he’s always there, when we have meetings, when we go on tour, when we rehearse, he must be everywhere and know everything, and so he was on our bus heading to Versailles that day, too.

“When we get to Versailles, it must have been about ten, I stand up to get off the bus, and then all of a sudden nobody really ‘feels like it really’, you know: lazy, not wanting the strain of walking for hours around a big place, all in a foreign language, whatever, all of a sudden it looks like I’m the only one getting off here.”

Mother pours herself the coffee that has had enough time to let the dregs sink on the bottom of the pot.

“But then I realise, hey, I’m the only one, how am I going to get to Villepreux if you’re all leaving now, obviously, on the Setra? On which Ilarion Walter replies a bit peevishly, ‘Well, there are trains and buses, you’ll be fine,’ and then right away he turns to the driver and tells him ‘Ok let’s go!’ So he literally presses me to get off, and I see the bus door closing and off they are.

“I say to myself, fine, let me enjoy the morning in this place, and make the most of it. I spent about four hours in Versailles, which was fantastic, Lili, unimaginable, really, for us, coming from our little country even more so... But my feet were killing me at about two pm when I get to the train station in Trianon. I still had three hours to go, so I wasn’t worried. It had been such a lovely half-day, what could go wrong? Now it was time for work.

“So here I am in Trianon, checking trains and buses, and it becomes clear that all of them only run from five pm, or early morning.” Mother pauses, and gazes at Lili with significance, eyebrows raised.

“Oh, shit," Lili whispers.

“Oh, yes, Lili, oh, shit. Now you must know I’ve never been on good terms with Ilarion Walter, back in the old days even less. You know me, I can keep my mouth shut and be prudent, but that guy was hysterical and often totally out of line, and my eyes can say a lot when I’m annoyed. So we were mostly civil to each other, but it was clear to him that I wasn’t to be fooled, especially in the party committee meetings.”

“You?" Lili opens her eyes wide. Mother was the one who had always reproved Father for being reckless and speaking too much of his mind.

“Well, yes, me," Mother smiles almost flattered. “Right, I never actually said anything of what I really think, but I didn’t clap hands either, which in itself is a message that goes out there.

“So the moment I’m standing in Trianon finding no means to get to Villepreux, I realise that Ilarion Walter must have wanted me to get into deep trouble, maybe even fail to turn up in Villepreux, which of course would have meant that I’d be banned from touring the West next time, what, for ever! Because there’s always traps and tricks to make you become undesirable; they can’t wait to be able to tell you that you can no longer travel in the West, because you messed things up, because of yourself, that is, not of their chicanery.

“I check a tourist map displayed there, and estimate that it’s about twenty kilometres to Villepreux. I check my watch, it’s two fifteen. I just have to be there in two and a half hours. My only chance, I know that, is to walk all the way.”

“Walk?" Lili gasps.

“What else?" Mother shrugs. “I take the road, and start off.”

“But were there no cars that you could have stopped to take you at least part of the way?” Lili asks.

“Hitchhiking? In the West? Huh," Mother gives a sarcastic scoff. “Out of the question. That would have been a clear, but a crystal clear reason to be banned from tours in the West! Don’t you realise, honey, getting into a car with a Westerner! Who would have been able to know what we talked about, whether we made some secret arrangement, some high treason, betraying our little country in order to stay there?" Mother replies. “Your father used to say, there are two things a mortal can do in our socialist country, both having to do with movement: you can run away, you know where," and Mother pauses with significance, “or you can choose to stay, when you are on the other side, you know.”

Lili nods. Yes, she’s heard the infamous, fearful words. There was a hero in a World War I battle, who had defended the Romanian army’s position with the price of her life, and whose words were now carved in a stone monument: “No crossing here.” But in school, on the corridors during breaks, she heard a joke whispered around: below the monument plaque it said: “Try the Danube!”

Apparently they swim across to the Serbs — and then get lost to the West.

Mother takes a deep sip at the coffee, with a faint gurgle, before raising her eyes again to Lili and resuming the story.

“So I just started off, in big strides, you can imagine. What was maybe most terrifying for me at that time was the thought that I didn’t know the way and I might run even later. Cars passed by and I could notice the drivers’ long necks looking at me in the rear mirrors, most likely wondering who that crazy woman was, and what she was doing on a deserted country road.

“I just strode on and on, getting into a sort of automatic pace, Just stick to the pace, I told myself like a captain ordering their squad, stick to the pace no matter what, forget about knives in the chest, forget about strain in the thighs and pain in the calves. My sandals were flapping loosely round my ankles, but that was the least significant fact in the whole world, except they were putting extra strain on my legs.

“At one junction, it must have been at least three quarters of an hour into the marathon, I came across an elderly lady who was coming out of a graveyard. She looked at me startled, and I opened my mouth and gasping, I asked if she knew how far Villepreux was. Her eyes almost bulged when she heard that, and she said something like at least twenty kilometres, which made me panic. I must have taken a wrong road somewhere, I thought. It was only later, when I was telling the story to your father, that he said I must have heard twenty instead of twelve.

Anyway, I rushed on, panting in even more panic, but I could sense the limit that I had reached pushing my body. Everything hurt, but I just stubbornly shut the pain off my mind, and only looked straight ahead, down the road, hectically searching for road signs. Getting to Villepreux was all that occupied my mind.

“I did find a road sign after some time, pointing to Villepreux on a foot path winding away off the road, but not saying how far. I wouldn’t check my watch all too often, I had come into a pace about that too: whenever I checked the watch it was another half-an-hour gone. I saw the road sign, and rushing past it I checked my watch again: it was five past four. Just about forty minutes to go, but I had no idea how far I was, how long it would still take me.

“I decided — although that was hardly decision making, as there was no thinking going on in my head — but I just took the foot path without deliberating. I assumed it would be shorter than the regular road.

“What I didn’t know was that it would take me through bushes, where I suddenly got chills down my spine not knowing if I was safe, and not knowing if that really was the right way. Losing the path here, in the thicket, would be the last thing I needed. I realised I was going uphill, because my calves were contracting even more, and my breath turned into a chaotic gasp. With every bow in the path I kept hoping the view would open suddenly, and the bushes would clear away, and I’d see the village in the valley at my feet.

“This did happen, yes, after all, after a time that felt like ages. I can no longer remember anything but the frantic rush, as if I was a robot, as if I was running on autopilot, just go-go-go, keep moving your feet and drop the rest, drop the fears, drop the counting, drop the pain, drop the landscape, drop the sunshine, drop France, drop who you are, drop everything, just so you can cope with this, and afterwards you can get back.

“So I did go round a bend and all of a sudden the view opened and I could see a village down there and my heart pounced with the unbearable hope that it just had to be Villepreux. I nearly stumbled downhill and took the first asphalt street, following the signs to the centre. That’s where their cultural centre had to be, where we were rehearsing and performing later that evening. That’s where I had to be on time, because that was my job; the technical director must be there to ensure that everyone’s on time and all preparations are made for things to run smoothly, so I couldn’t possibly be late, I had to be there before the actors, at least thirty minutes early.

“I checked my watch and it was twenty to five, so I’d been jogging for two and a half hours, no idea how many kilometres, it might have been ten or it might have been fifty for what I knew, for what my body felt. I spotted our Setra from the distance, and thanked goodness for it. I went up that street and there they all were, standing in front of the building, smoking, talking in subdued voices, and when Ilarion Walter saw me, his jaw dropped and his face went yellow, and then I knew he had done it on purpose.

“He’d wanted me to come late or not to show up at all, but here I was, I must have looked purple, the set director chucked her cigarette away and dashed over to me and grabbed my elbows. That’s when I felt I’d go weak, you know; all of a sudden, the tension was gone, you know that feeling, don’t you?, you can allow yourself to fall, to feel. And then you do fall, you collapse, now it’s okay to collapse.

“I made it to the bathroom, and she splashed my face with cold water and I started crying hysterically, no tears, just sobs, almost like not getting air into my lungs. She fetched me some coffee and everyone was looking on appalled.”

“But they must have been aware," Lili speculates. “That was why they suddenly didn’t want to visit Versailles, so you were left alone.”

Mother stops short and looks at Lili dumbstruck. Then she waves the hypothesis away with her head. It would be too much to suspect all of them in one story.

“Whatever, it doesn’t matter now. It’s just an old story. But since then, Ilarion Walter often calls me Madame Villepreux, or the Marathonist. I guess it taught him a lesson, too. He calls me that with something like respect: who would mess with me after such a thing, ha ha," Mother laughs theatrically.

Lili looks down at the plank floor. That is who her Mother is. The warrior, the fighter, the woman that never gives in. Lili must get her act together and pull everything through. Forget the pains, and worries, and fears, forget the grey daily routine, ignore the strain, the anger, and the disgust, get away from it all — this is the secret of being strong, shut it all off, this is what she has to do if she wants to master it and come out the other end, delivered.