The Branchline reprise...

Nová Bystřice 1974, J. Slavík photo.

"When I have to die one day I'll take the local train that runs from Jindřichův Hradec to Nová Bystřice. It will be early August after the St. Anne's Day, cold in the morning and dark at eight.
That means I can leave just after lunch and still arrive in daylight. If the timetable hasn't changed since the last time I travelled this way.

If it has it would be a shame and I wouldn't go.

From Jindřichův Hradec to Nová Bystřice it is thirty-three kilometres along the narrow gauge line. The train covers that distance in about two and a half hours. A car driver who values his own life too much can make it along the road in twenty-five minutes.

The train to Nová Bystřice is not boarded at the station in Jindřichův Hradec but behind the station. It stands there on a track that no one knows whether it ends or begins. It's as if they were ashamed of the train in Hradec. After all, it's not a train, it's a little train, the most adorable one left.

It would certainly be convenient to buy first class for such a journey but only second class carriages are included in the set. Never mind. Maybe on a wooden bench, just when I get there.

The track runs through countryside between ponds and reeds as sharp as desire, past villages with cottages walled in and barns enough to hold a hundred of your rich lives. The silence there is sweet and thick. Skylarks fly over it and sometimes you see a stork from the train. The stations have names like pebbles. Jindřiš, Blažejov, Malý Ratmírov, Střížovice, Kunžak, Kaproun, Senotín, Hůrky. The penultimate one is Albeř. Then comes Nová Bystřice.

The train is in no hurry and that will suit me. There is a thorough wait at every station, with railwaymen uncoupling or coupling freight wagons, shunting and waiting anyway when it's not needed. Summer afternoons are as golden as the Ornate. The minutes are as thin as the pages of The Holy Scripture. Stories kind. Songs without words. And the old men at the stations trim the bark from the logs with their shiny cuttings. I'm going to get off at Kunžak for a while and go for a last swim in the pond. I'll make it in time, my swimsuit will be dry.

Sometimes when I get tired of sitting for long periods I'll walk along the train and pick a bouquet of sticky catchflies for my grave. When my legs ache I'll hop back on while the train is moving.

We'll arrive in Nová Bystřice in the evening. The chickens will be asleep and Death will be waiting for me at the station. I'll shake her hand and say: "Hurry up, while you can still see it. I'm all broken up from the journey."

If I ever have to die I'll try not to have to put my life on the line for something and I'll take the train from Jindřichův Hradec to Nová Bystřice.

Just don't let them change the timetable before then."

Jan Skácel (1922 - 1989, Czech poet, journalist, radio editor) 

Czechoslovak literary review Host do domu (English: Houseguest), Brno, 1964

This wonderful prose was shared with me by a regular reader, translated from its Czech original, after reading Chris's original 'The Branchline' which appeared here and in print, in 'Compendium'. I have included a full reference and source - sadly the author and original magazine are no longer with us. I hope that you enjoy me sharing it with you all here and you can find within some of the saudade that fuels my own modelling. The photo at the top is from my friend in the Czech republic that accompanied this translation, below is one I have chosen from the many on Flickr kindly shared by the originator to allow embedding on blogs and other websites. This depicts the sort of train that would have been running in 1989, when Jan took his final journey. 

Ferda Hejl photo: https://flic.kr/p/nzMGik

Until next time, more soon...