Newcomers Read Free Page A

“Telegram!” into the kitchen. I ran outside … It was a wire from sister. “Komme Mittwoch abends ab 7 Uhr. Eure Clairi.” *
    * Arriving Wednesday after 7pm. Your Clairi.

 
    F INALLY THE TIME CAME for me to start school. I was given a small canvas backpack instead of the briefcase with shoulder straps that all of the other students had. I was as frightened as an animal. One morning I went with Ciril and Ivan through the cornfields out of the village … across a footbridge over the stream … along a footpath that led uphill and then down … through the quarry where the Gypsies camped with their wagons and horses … they were still asleep in the morning, with just their dirty yellow feet jutting out of the tents toward their campfires, which had gone out … From there we followed the path uphill … past the cliff with its chest thrust out … then through willows and birches along the Krka … that part was really nice! Then we climbed up the steep path we had come down on that first night and that led through a tunnel to a wall on the road up above … It took us barely thirty minutes to walk the route that had taken more than two hours to cover on our first night … The school was a gray, square, monotonous building. Like a dirty circus bigtop stretched taut in front of the sky. I could barely see its roof. It was nothing like the mission school in Basel … that red cathedral with towers and a huge clock … Its single classroom was on the top floor just under the roof … a short but wide room with benches of various heights and colors … I sat in the highest bench, which was as high as a pew back, between Ciril and Ivan … The blackboard was white from overuse. The teacher was a Mr. Alojz, a man with wavy blond hair. There was something tomato-like about his round face … Red, sluggish blood. The blond hair curling over his ears and cheeks lent him the aspect of a carrot, too … The pupils were of various ages and sizes … Theyhalf-blocked my view of the blackboard and Mr. Alojz … The place smelled like a barn. Some of the kids lived even farther away than my cousins and me … They had to walk two or three hours each way … After leaving me alone for two months, Teacher Alojz began to work with me seriously … He would call on all of the pupils, big and small, to contribute, to say something … He wrote all the words on the blackboard in big printed letters … which were easy to read … And beneath them a translation. Big and small, young boys and adolescents all had to repeat them together over and over again … in unison, keeping the beat … The first time I spoke up, they laughed, then also the second and third … I opened my mouth wide … acted as though it was about to come out … But nothing did … Not a sound, not a syllable … So I closed my mouth … The experiment had been completed … I was left in peace during the following lessons. “In good time, Lojzek, Lord willing!” Mr. Alojz greeted me during the break. Perhaps he was at his wit’s end, a little bit desperate, but still well intentioned … I felt sorry for him … it got a bit on my nerves when he called on me … Couldn’t he just leave me alone? At last he sensed my fear or resistance and he stopped pushing. I knitted my forehead. I growled when he called on me … I didn’t take my coat off, not even during lessons, because they barely fired up the stove at all. Sometimes I dropped off to sleep if it got too warm in the coat. Ciril and Ivan moved to sit with the older kids, the ones their age. Now I was sitting alone. The others around me would play various games during lessons, but not me. I was no fun. During the break the others would group together in the hallway. They brought theirlunch with them, little bundles containing unpeeled potatoes, corn mush, sometimes beans … They ate at the window alcoves that had views out over