Not true it hasnt
been only one rail-coach, it was a
complete special train, and there was
nothing sealed!
What
is this boy going to tell us? And how did
he climb on the train?
Well, I sneaked in as I did
then, at the railway-maintenance-point in
Rastatt, Germany, during Easter holiday,
in 1917.
And
you are
?
My name is: Emil Belzner ...
29
As grammar-school boys, we were sick and
tired of Cesar and of history-lessons.
Therefore, we cheerfully accepted to help
during extended holidays along the
stations platforms, assisting
within the Red Cross-rooms, in the
waiting hall, which had been turned into
a holding-facility for wounded soldiers,
or even at the rail work itself.
All young teachers on probation, also the
younger professors, had been called up.
We were taught by old men who had
returned, with patriotic delight, from
retirement to the lecturing desk, or by
some who were unfit for military service
The field of honour had seen already many
of those killed in action who, as
top-form boys, were drafted for voluntary
service. No one would fail exams once he
had signed to serve after his
matriculation
to meet his fate in
action
Well,
young man, you obviously survived in
order to leave a footnote for posterity,
a book about love, power and
revolution, in which you succeeded
as we read in a review of the
Baseler National-Zeitung
to combine report and
conjuration, phantasm and reflection
in a puzzling way. And in its prologue,
you wrote yourself
29
To come across the universal soul,
being perhaps an ideal of so many
mechanical god-images, which leave the
universe insecure and keep our fate
dependent on coincidences, may look
daring and ridiculous. However, it can
happen to you, even as an ignorant
passer-by in time.
You may come across the universal soul at
heroic or at cosy places, on the
battlefield or in front of that famous
drinking hole, the historic Gasthof BLACK
BEAR of Germanys university-town
Jena. I met it, unprepared, in a battered
saloon-railway-car
Yes, thats what I wrote about
that spring-time of 1917 or, as it
is written in the tradition of those
century-old peasant-rules: April, April,
is following its own will ...
29
I was detached as a volunteer to the
railway-maintenance-point in Rastatt
where I already had served during
holidays at coalbunkers and at
water-cranes, feeding steam-locomotives.
But I was also well versed in using the
long-handled hammer on the bearings of
axletrees; the sound would give away
whether they had heated up. I was
familiar with coupling of these
accordion-like connections between
coaches exactly at the centre of their
turntables. In addition, of course, I was
used to jump artfully on and off slowly
moving trains. Most importantly: we were
in possession of a four-cornered key for
all coaches and compartments, of a rail
mans cap and of an overall for a
brakes man or a points man. There were
nothing like barriers or shuttings for
us. At night, we were provided with storm
lanterns, which once used oil but during
these war-days would shine rather
meagrely as so-called Hindenburg-Lights
(using carbide the point man).
We had forgotten the
class-inspection-book and the drill at
the Grand Dukes Gymnasium, now we
were again busy at the Grand Dukes
railway, no matter what was coming for
us. And it came.
Around midday, so was the rumour, a train
would arrive from Switzerland via
Konstanz, Singen, Offenburg a
train with convicts escaped from Siberia,
on their way back to Russia. Even the
onward-route was whispered to us:
Frankfurt, Berlin, Saßnitz-Ferry,
Trelleborg, Stockholm, Petrograd. The
Russian Tsar was overthrown, Kerensky, a
common revolutionary, had taken power.
That is what the newspapers wrote.
Special editions reported Kerensky wanted
to continue with the war. What all this
had to do with the ex-prisoners from
Siberia was unknown.
The train was delayed. A lazarett-train
was given priority. The special train of
some Crown Prince had already been
positioned on the rails to Ötigheim. The
special train from Switzerland was now
parked on the same rail, and many
officers from the Princes train
jumped around in protest, but to no
avail. Every army-transport had priority,
and this Swiss combination had priority
beyond all other priorities by highest
order, signed by Ludendorff, by the armys
railway-commander, by the Empires
Chancellor and by the Kaiser himself.
Well, they surely would know what all
this was about, wouldnt they? A
train with Russian convicts parked behind
a train of a German Courts Highness
how odd.
The train, coming from Switzerland, had
developed a fault; it lost water from the
kitchen-coach and from the heating
system. Not good for connoisseurs of tea.
In addition, one axletree had overheated.
Specialists did repair from outside and
had moved off.
That was our, that means my hour, my
moment to grab an occasion. I handed over
my empty grease-box to a trade-scholar
from Karlsruhe who did voluntary service
too, took my hammer and walked over to
the Siberian prisoners. I had to see
them. Escaped Siberian convicts, that was
something monstrous for a
sixteen-years-old, stimulating the
phantasy like Negros, Indians or
Australian aborigines.
The curtains were drawn at a carriage
from which I heard voices, laughter,
noise, commands, that was my impression.
I used the long wooden handle of my
hammer to knock against a window in the
carriages centre. Immediately, the
curtain parted. The far-away face of a
demon appeared, not without kindness, not
without sorrow. A powerful, strange conk
hovered over me, looked down, first vexed
then inpatient, a short smile, then he
drew the curtain again. All of it very
energetic, the anger and the smile as
well.
Clouds of fog around me. A scene from a
silent movie, spoilt by rain
but
our railway-movie did not remain silent
Offhand, I jumped on the step of
the carriage with the closed curtains
which by the way was not
sealed, only locked. I opened the door
with my four-cornered key and closed from
inside. At that moment, someone from
behind and strong like a bear had me in
the grip. He was the cook from the
attached carriage who had seen me
advancing. He took my hammer, shouted an
Alemanic curse, locked the door with a
similar key, took from his vest a pair of
pliers and some lead and sealed the door
from inside
And
now, you are going to tell us, how this
powerful and strange conk
turned out to be the bald head of a known
historic leader of a gang of Siberian
ex-convicts, isnt it
brooding over revolutionary strategies at
the final destination of this mysterious
train?
Well, we are browsing through your
memoirs and establish with certain
amusement: the old Emil Belzner had been,
as the young Emil Belzner, much more
fascinated by a complete different person
travelling on this train. In April 1917,
Lenin was accompanied by his mistress,
the beautiful Inès Armand, and
already on page 12 you received
from her an apple and a kiss
and,
on page 17, she will allow the
puberty-ridden boy a much deeper glimpse
but, please, continue with your
own words.
29
She was really like a Muse, an
unmarried Muse on whose bosom one is
lying, in whose lap one is dreaming, who
will have carried you and who has cared
for you, and who suddenly says: Now jump,
little one! And, without an opportunity
to hold yourself, with no grip available,
your are suddenly in the middle of life,
much more advanced than years will tell.
I had been not even 16 in that April.
Still, I could say to have jumped onto
this train as a frolicsome kid and to
have, by travelling on this train,
advanced myself by a whole century. There
are tremendous speeds happening in the
twinkling of an eye. If I would have seen
her bare bosom, at this moment of
inspiration I may have overlooked the
whole state of the world and the whole
creation-process of mankind not
only how it was done, but also: what it
will do
What
do we hear? Revolutionary ecstasy?
29
Immense has been the desire aroused
by her, I did not know immediately to
whom she did belong to. For a
grammar-school boy she was a real Muse,
earthly and heavenly at the same time,
daughter of Zeus and of the earth, full
of memories of what has been and of what
will be. Because what will be is a memory
of wishes, we had. I did know much more
than I know today. And, when she bent
forward and I saw a snowy-bluish hint of
two hemispheres, I was so excited that I
could have torn everything from her body,
not caring what was going around us. The
trains rattling sounded like
incantations. Dont you see where it
is? She asked. Yes, I see it, deep
to the centre! Ai! I never
heard such a fabulous animal-sound again.
Then keep it! she said. What are
you doing there? the Duma-housekeeper
asked. I lost a small comb from my
hair, my dear, and Emiljewitsch here did
find it for me. And, she brushed my side
when she took her seat again. Then, she
tied her blouse, lenient with herself.
The
Duma-housekeeper! Duma, that was the
Council of Peoples Representatives
during the revolutionary change in
Russia. You, Emil Belzner, let us know
only indirectly, that this plain but
politically smart woman on the train has
been the Krupskaja, the married wife to
Lenin
29
He bent down to the older woman who
worked on the Duma-housekeeper-book. I
believe, Switzerland has been our final
and efficient lesson, he said, the last
revolutionary whistle these
profiteering none-warmongers, these
chosen ones selected by the capital! She
wiped his brilliantly formed baldness
with a small cloth, with a cloth of
tenderness, not with the hand. And he had
a look at her housekeeper-book and said:
The more provocateurs the better; the
more of them abscond the more we will be
secure: We can achieve it only with those
few whose word and deed is one. These few
are, for us, the victorious majority. Dont
glue to words, dont glue to deeds,
power is a mobile truth. Good that you
have controlled even those who remained
back, those who will come later. Yes, I
read Malinowski, Roman Malinowski. With
him, I am not sure. Malinowski could have
been a scoundrel, an informer of the Tsars
Third Department. An Ochrana-insertion
into our party. Once his homesickness
will drive him back, once he will be
shot, a piece of me will be shot because
I trusted him. He is a brilliant
chess-player. He did beat me twice at a
stone-table, during an afternoon, in
Maxim Gorkis garden on Capri.
However, if he has to vanish, he has to
once we shall be able to hold court.
To hold court, said a man who worked
himself closer through bends and rattling
impacts of the rails, a man with thick
and heavy reading-glasses and
side-whiskers led around his chin, a man
who looked like those so-called
extentialists which we saw around half a
century later. A man who was
Radek-Sobelsohn and who pulled a wrinkled
edition of the Petit Parisien
from his pocket: As soon as we are able
to hold court, we shall have to trim our
row. How it is with Trotsky, I dont
know. He seems to be still in America.
That is a case for later; we have to
agree on a probation period. He is
knowledgeable in weapons and
army-organisation. Perhaps, he will be
indispensable, an Ikarus, who will drive
the car of our revolution close to the
sun and on a path around the globe
then he will break off and crash. I am of
his tribe, and I have a presentiment of
this tragedy.
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