Читать книгу Uncle Rudolf - Paul Bailey - Страница 14

The final part of my last, week-long journey with my father took three days. We crossed the Hungarian plains in darkness, with only the black shapes of trees visible from the window. Then there were the mountains of Austria and Switzerland to marvel at. The French countryside, which I would visit with Uncle Rudolf in the autumn of 1950, when he was intent on educating me in matters of the spirit, seemed dull by contrast.

The train stopped at each border. Soldiers carrying guns came aboard and examined everybody’s papers. I remember that one of them, an Austrian or perhaps a German, pulled a frightened face in mockery of my own. His feigned look of terror made me smile, but it angered my father, who muttered words the man understood, for he instantly reassumed his stern expression.

I wasn’t scared of the guns, in truth. It was the future, of which I had been unaware before, that caused me to be fearful. I knew this solely from the gnawing pain in my stomach, which spoke of things unknown. A similar gnawing pain would afflict me years later, with the recognition of a love that could neither be mentioned nor properly gratified – a love, paradoxically, that has sustained me for twenty-five years of solitude.