Survival

Sixtus Beckmesser

Description

Tamara is brought up in a dangerously unstable Baltic state. Her government parents are always pre-occupied with their attempts to save democracy and she no longer feels safe. In imminent danger, Tamara attempts to escape to Sweden with a friend, but is captured and sent to a safe house where she unexpectedly finds love. Catastrophic events put Tamara further in danger as she's thrust into a labour camp with other students and staff. Bernadette, a young student teacher, meets Tamara on a coach following their arrest. Becoming friends, they strive to carve better lives for themselves.Detty enlists a soldier from a neighbouring service regiment to help them plot their escape. Still in great danger, together they plan to fight the ghastly regime inspired by a few friends, their courage and music.Can they succeed and reach a tranquil life in a free country?

Sujets

• Adventure (Guyana)
• Adventure fiction
• Adventure

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 28 septembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781800469860
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2021 Sixtus Beckmesser

The moral right of the author has been asserted.


Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This book is fiction and many of the persons in it, including those mentioned in connection with the Bayreuth Festival, never existed. Most of the events, however, have a basis in historical facts, although not necessarily in the time and place of the story.

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ISBN 978 1800469 860

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.


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To the people of Europe, my friends, in gratitude.


Contents
PART ONE
WALPURGIS NIGHT

1
BEFORE THE DELUGE
2
NIGHT
3
AWAKENING
4
THE WINTERBURG
5
FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM?
6
THE SACRED HEART
7
A VISIT
8
THE FARM

PART TWO
THE LAST STAR RISING

1
COCYTUS
2
ZUEIGNUNG
3
THROUGH THE FIRE
4
ULISSE
5
RACHE
6
FREEDOM
7
ALLES, WAS ICH BIN!
8
KILDARE AND ENGLAND
9
SCHONDILIE
10
THE TRAVELLER
11
DER WALSTATT
12
LAUSCH KIND
13
IN WILDEM GRIMME
14
THE NIGHTINGALE
15
AWAKEN!
16
RETTERIN

AUTHOR’S NOTE


PART ONE
WALPURGIS NIGHT


1
BEFORE THE DELUGE
Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn;
Amidst thy bowers the tyrant’s hand is seen,
And desolation saddens all thy green;
Goldsmith: The Deserted Village
She really enjoyed it. She could swivel and turn controlling the ball and keep her small nine-year-old body twisting between the ball and the frustrated defender. Even the boys grudgingly admitted that she wasn’t bad ‘for a girl’.
The foreign ministry butted onto the diplomatic quarter with its large old German houses with their rich red and gold gables. They had miraculously survived the wars and the occupations. Between the embassies and the ministry with its residence, was a grassed square where they played. The Italian ambassador had twin sons the same age as Tamara. They persuaded the ground superintendent to put up two goal posts. With them the football became more serious. The two Italians fought over whether they were Juventus or Roma and demonstrated their precocious, if not always productive, ball skills that they had seen from their seniors. They also, less admirably, practised diving dramatically in the penalty area, before deciding that the thin grass was too hard and, anyway, there was no referee to fool. Gradually French, Russian, Dutch and German children joined in. They were short of players and two Dutch girls were brought in to help to make up the numbers. When Mara was spotted with her cheeks pressed to the iron railings she, also, was recruited. From the lowly role of defender, she worked her way up by sheer ability until she became the second striker for the blues. It wasn’t clear whether the blues were les bleus or gli azzurri depending on whether one listened to the French or Italian contingent. When she tried to argue that she should have the black and red of Moltravia, the Italian boys vetoed it, arguing that that would make her a Milanista which was, she was given to understand, a fate worse than death. It did however result in her nick-name, la Milanistina, which stuck with her while the games lasted. It was many years before she saw the real Milan play in the Champions League in Königshof under very different circumstances.
On one misty autumn morning with the veiled sun trying to penetrate from the frosty bay, France (or Italy) was playing Holland (or Poland) Mara filtered through the large but clumsy Dutch (or Russian) defenders and scored. A few minutes later she received a short pass from Charles, a neat older French boy, confronted a different defender, feinted, turned and shot low into the right corner of the goal. After apple juice, she danced and weaved through the defence, beat the rattled keeper and scored again. The Russian – he was Russian – goalkeeper was mortified. To be at the receiving end of a hat trick was bad enough but when it had been scored by a girl, the shame was insupportable. Mara was tactfully modest, and, over more post-match apple juice, attributed her good fortune to the poor visibility. Inwardly, however, her small frame felt ten feet tall and it was the proudest moment of her childhood, which she knew that she would remember forever.
When she was eleven the diplomatic corps, possibly as a result of the increasing political tension, underwent a lot of changes. There were now few children and the football came to an end. Nicklaus Oblov realised that his only, rather isolated, daughter missed it. After discussion with Gisela, his wife, he suggested that she took up dancing. Mara was reluctant but eventually was won over when her father pointed out that the body skills of ballet were very similar to those of football.
For all that, it never worked, and although she continued, Mara’s progress was modest and her enthusiasm less. She also reacted against football. The game the boys at school drooled over, with its pin men running about a miniature stadium on television seemed overblown and trivial. To her, it had nothing to do with the game that she had briefly loved in the wind and mist on those happy, distant Baltic days. She never mentioned that she had played and kept the precious hat trick to herself. If she had mentioned playing, she knew that the boys would have just laughed. Anyway, it would be like revealing a secret treasure trove.
She knew that she was growing up but felt uncertain of its meaning. She knew her parents adored her but she also realised that they were fraught with worry and somehow they became distant. One day her father took her for a walk along the beach from their seaside chalet and tried to explain what was happening and why the grownups were so worried. He explained that the present government in which he served as Foreign Minister, believed in people being allowed to do what they liked, as long as they did no harm to other people. However, the country was isolated and alone and it didn’t have much money. There was hope that a big organisation called the European Union would help them but unfortunately the nearest member of the Union was Germany and because of the terrible things that Germans had done in the past, it was difficult to ask Germany for help. Increasingly some people blamed the government for the lack of money. An unpleasant group of people had formed a sort of private army and were putting it about that they would manage things much better ‘like in the old days’. Nicklaus knew, of course, that she didn’t remember back that far but he assured her that it hadn’t been better in ‘the old days’ at all. Nobody had been allowed to think for himself or herself and if anybody criticised the Russian overlords, they just disappeared and, in many cases, were never heard of again.
On other days she would walk with her mother out along the shore beyond the town, wrapped against the cold in kapok and high necked leather coats. They might take a picnic or sometimes just a flask of coffee in winter or a bottle of apple juice as summer came and the days were getting warmer. It was a low isolated coastline running north and a little east of Königshof. The shore was flat – punctuated by the occasional group of fishing huts or sometimes just a boat or two with nets or long lines drawn up on the shore. But the sea was different, it had a thousand faces, sometimes sparkling grey, sometimes leaden, sometimes reflecting the blue of the sky, sometimes the path