by Rupert Wolfe Murray | 24 Mar, 2019 | Journeys
Bombay’s main railway station is vast, Victorian and teeming with people. I stood there feeling at a loss as to how to navigate through the crowd. Bombay is the biggest city in India and I didn’t have the energy to explore it. I stood in a queue, requested a ticket for the next train to New Delhi and was told they were sold out. I stood at the head of the queue wondering what to do next until the ticket seller took pity on me and said:
– Speak to Station Supervisor. Only he can help you.
The Station Supervisor’s office felt like a museum about Britain in the 1930s: shabby old cardboard files were stacked against each wall, from floor to ceiling; each file was bulging with paperwork, tied with string and covered in dust. An endless stream of small, thin men dressed in white cotton pyjamas came into the room to consult with the supervisor – a hugely fat monster who sat immobile behind his desk. He would give everyone a few seconds, look at their note, stamp or sign their paperwork, exchange a few words. He was like a spider sitting at the centre of a vast web. I wasn’t sure how to approach him, how to interrupt the constant flow of people. Nobody seemed to notice me, so I just stood there and watched. Time seemed to stand still.
– How can I be of service? the fat man asked, without looking up.
– I would like to get the next train to Delhi, but the ticket office says they are sold out. They also said if I came to the supervisor perhaps you could find me a ticket.
– Who on earth told you that? These Ticket Wallahs are acting very cheekily. They will have to be punished. If the tickets are sold out they are sold out. There is nothing I can do. Tell me please, where are you from?
– I am from Scotland.
– Ah, Scotland. I am very fond of your Scottish whisky. I don’t suppose you are carrying any on your person?
– Er…No.
– Well you can just stand there for a while and we will see what developments arise.
Eventually the penny dropped and I realised he was waiting for a bribe. I had never bribed anyone in my life and I had no idea how to do it. Isn’t it illegal? Maybe he would report me and have me thrown in jail? More time passed and I knew the Delhi train was about to leave. Desperation drove me on and I fumbled around in my money-belt and pulled out a Scottish five pound note, went up to him and said:
– I would like to give you this.
– What on earth is this?
– A Scottish five pound note.
– And what am I supposed to do with it?
– You can exchange it for ten rupees.
– That is not a great sum of money.
– It’s a gesture of my appreciation.
– I beg your pardon.
– I want to show my appreciation for getting me a ticket on the train to Delhi, which I simply must catch.
– I see. It’s urgent is it. Well, it all boils down to the same thing in the end. This train or the next one?
He barked orders to one of the nearby Ticket Wallahs and within minutes a ticket was produced, more money was exchanged and I was escorted across the station by a cheery old man in a white pyjama suit. He indicated a third class carriage that was packed to bursting point. There was no way that I would be able to get on there, but he shouted an order, an opening was made in the crowd and I squeezed through the railway carriage to the compartment.
It wasn’t the usual railway compartment with six individual seats, it was a sleeping compartment with three levels of beds on one side and three on the other. They weren’t beds with mattresses, they were simply hard wooden surfaces, like shelves in a store room. People were crammed into every available inch of space, there were faces in front of me, above me and even below in the narrow space under the bottom bunk. There must have been over thirty people in there and all of them were staring at me. Indians can stare at you all day and I always appreciated the absence of hostility. They seemed interested in everything: my clothes, my rucksack, my movements, anything I took out of my pocket. They had welcomed me in and I felt safe. I leaned forward onto my rucksack, which was standing on the floor, and immediately fell asleep.
When I woke up the train was moving and my fellow passengers were still staring at me. Time passed slowly. I had a book to read and a diary to fill in – every day I wrote one page – but the others had nothing to do but stare. Then I pulled out a packet of Shag tobacco and rolled a cigarette. There was a murmur of excitement in the crowd and they moved a bit closer. Each of my movements was scrutinised but it didn’t bother me. I finished rolling the cigarette, handed it to the person sitting in front of me and then lit a match. He was delighted and he puffed away happily. The others had become agitated with excitement and they all wanted a puff – but they didn’t ask me for more, they asked him to pass it round, which he did. This little act of sharing sealed our friendship.
I felt protected by this group and when I squeezed my way through to the toilet I didn’t think twice about leaving my rucksack with this group of poor Indians. I trusted them and knew that if anybody even touched my bag the others would have lynched him. When we arrived in Delhi I met a serious German couple who described how they had chained their rucksacks to themselves as they slept on the top bunk – but still their stuff had been stolen. I wondered if trusting people was the key to having a safe and stress free journey.
At every station we stopped at skinny old men in loincloths would stride up and down the platform swinging a huge aluminium kettle in one hand and a pile of tiny cups in the other. Gup Dee! they would shout. Gup Dee! Gup Dee! Gup Dee! These were the Chai Wallahs and they would appear whenever the train stopped. I crowded up to the barred window of our compartment, held out one rupee coin and was given a beautiful hand-made clay cup, full of hot milky tea. It was delicious, very sweet with a hint of cardamom. Best cup of tea I’ve ever tasted, I thought. I carefully handed back the precious clay cup, assuming I was doing the old man a favour as he could use it for the next customer, but he threw it down onto the tracks with a look of contempt as if I had given him a piece of rubbish. This was their form of disposable cup.
India doesn’t look very big on the map – especially if you compare it to Africa – but when you cross it by railway you start to realise how vast it really is. It took over 24-hours to reach Delhi and another day to cross the northern plains to reach the border of Nepal. By this time I had developed a sense of momentum and wasn’t hanging around in every city I came across. After Delhi I started hitchhiking on trucks that were so overloaded that they would swing from side to side like ships at sea, and motorbikes, jeeps and cars that had been designed in the 1950s. Soon enough I reached Nepal.
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This is an extract from 9 Months in Tibet — the eBook — which will be published soon. It was about a journey that happened in 1986 and 1987. If you’d like to reserve a copy just email me at wolfemurray@gmail.com (or post a short comment under this article)..
by Rupert Wolfe Murray | 20 Mar, 2019 | Journeys
I only stayed four days in Romania but it felt like months. I was glad to be sitting on the train to Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, to be gradually moving on. Laurentiu and Cristina had brought me to the station, insisted I take some chunky sandwiches and waited on the platform until the train left. Their hospitality belied the image of hostility, fear and repression that had I felt on the streets of Bucharest. The train crawled out of town, made its way across a flat plain to the Danube. I was saved from excruciating boredom by a big, bouncy black woman from West Africa who was studying physics in Sofia and had been visiting her African friends in Bucharest.
– Why would you come and study here? I asked.
– There aren’t enough university places in Nigeria.
– But Bucharest? Sofia? Don’t you find these places dark, repressive and dull?
– Not at all, she replied cheerily. The place looks bad but the people are very friendly. They know how to party and the authorities leave us alone. The education here is very good and very cheap. Much cheaper than it would be in Western Europe or America.
We talked all the way to Sofia and when we arrived in that strange capital city she invited me to come and stay with her African friends in a block of flats, a student hall of residence. That evening I was basking in the euphoric friendliness of Africa, soaking up the human contact which acted like an antidote to the hostility of previous days. I hardly noticed the city of Sofia. I had no time or energy to look around yet another East European city. I was desperate to get going and first thing the following morning I went straight back to the station and bought a ticket to Istanbul.
When my train rolled up to the Turkish border I was in a deep sleep. Sounds of people shouting woke me up as I lay on the comfortable bench, not wanting to move. It was night outside and I lay there wondering why I was doing this journey. All of a sudden the whole journey felt pointless and I didn’t want to go on. I felt sad, lonely and bored and I had a powerful urge to go home. I was at the border and I had to get up, grab my rucksack, go outside and submit myself to questioning by the Turkish border guards. For the first time since I left home, I just couldn’t be bothered. A sense of doubt quickly started to grow and I could feel my purpose melting away. Then I heard a high pitched oriental song blasting out of a distant speaker. All of a sudden I knew why I was here. The Orient was calling, sweeping away all sense of doubt. I jumped up, grabbed my stuff and got off the train.
The travel agent in Istanbul looked like he never got out of his seat. He was friendly, helpful and spoke English but was so overweight that I wondered if he could even stand up. Everything he needed was right in front of him – telephone, reference books, airline catalogues, adding machine, cashbox – and I wondered if he slept there at night. I had noticed a lot of skinny people on the streets and wondered how this one had got so huge.
– I would like to fly to India, I said, not mentioning my fears about going overland through Iran.
– Hmm, let me see. The most comfortable route is through the Middle East but it is rather expensive.
– I want the cheapest ticket possible.
– Hmm…in that case you must go to Athens. I have a very good offer here of a flight from Athens to Bombay but you have to pick up the ticket in Athens.
– Greece? But I thought Greece and Turkey were enemies? Can I cross the border? There are so many newspaper reports about hostilities between your countries.
– Someone has been filling your head with a lot of nonsense, he said with a laugh. Indeed, the politicians and newspapers on both sides of the border do make a lot of noise, but when it comes to business we just carry on as normal. Do you want this ticket? You have a two day stopover in Athens.
– Yes.
I didn’t appreciate Athens with its infernal traffic, ugly modern buildings and westernised people. I had adapted to the gruff but friendly Communist citizen and was looking forward to the noisy chaos of India. I didn’t want to be in Greece but I now had a ticket for Bombay in my money belt, squashed up against my sweaty collection of US dollars, and I had to do something for two days.
The closest island to Athens is called Aghina and I got there by a short boat ride. All the buildings round the harbour were restaurants, hotels or something to do with the western tourists I was trying to avoid. It was the height of the summer holiday season and there were tourists everywhere. Aghina is a small island and I decided the best way to escape from the tourists, and to get some exercise, was to walk across it. It was less than twenty kilometres to the main beach resort on the other side. In my hurry to get away I forgot to take water and several hours later I felt I was dying of thirst in the middle of dry and barren hills. The heat was intense and I cursed my own stupidity.
Eventually I found a small village with old ladies walking around in long black dresses, with black headscarves, as if they were in mourning. It was the first place in Greece I had seen that wasn’t modernised; finally I was seeing the ancient stone buildings that travel agencies use in their enticing brochures. Perhaps I could enjoy Greece’s traditional culture? Maybe they would feed me something delicious? I had heard that the Greeks were hospitable. The village looked totally cut off from the tourist circuit and I wondered if any westerners had ever made it up here. I staggered through the village, feeling like Laurence of Arabia, and walked up to an ancient looking house with an outside well and an old crone sitting on a bench.
– Water, water, I pleaded. She looked at me stonily but didn’t reply.
– Water, wasser, l’eau! Can I have some water? I made drinking gestures and she finally got it, stood up and shouted:
– Cola, Fanta, Sprite?
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This is an extract from 9 Months in Tibet — the eBook — which will be published soon. If you’d like to reserve a copy just email me at wolfemurray@gmail.com (or post a short comment under this article)
by Rupert Wolfe Murray | 16 Mar, 2019 | Journeys
Next on the agenda was Romania, the biggest country in that part of Europe. I had been interested in Romania since university because it never appeared in the media. All the other Communist Bloc countries got mentioned now and again, but Romania seemed forgotten. All the Hungarians I met hitching across their country warned me about visiting their eastern neighbour:
– You go Romania?
– Yes.
– Why you go Romania?
– It’s on my route to China.
– China? But Romania not near China. I not understand.
– I’m on my way to China. Romania is in the way.
– You no go Romania. Not good country. No food in Romania. They steal everything. Bad people.
These warnings made me even more curious to see Romania, but I did take the advice about the food situation seriously. Could it be true that there was no food in Romania? Surely that would have been a news story at some point? I had some space in my old canvas rucksack and I went to a grocer’s shop and filled it up with tins of grim-looking beans and a big leg of smoked ham. The shopkeeper asked where I was going and shook his head in sympathy, as if I was off to the front.
The border crossing was deserted. There was space for trucks and cars and people, and men in uniform everywhere, but the only form of transport I saw going in or out of Romania that day was a single car, surrounded by armed soldiers who were patiently going through all the driver’s possessions, and a lone cyclist. None of the uniforms seemed interested in my appearance – I presume they were geared up to search vehicles and interrogate drivers and didn’t know how to deal with a foreigner who’d appeared on foot – and they seemed rather bored. I had a brief chat with the cyclist, who was an American. He was middle-aged, skinny and didn’t seem to have any luggage at all. I wondered if he was some kind of undercover missionary. I asked him what it was like in Romania and he said:
– It’s exotic.
I tried to hitchhike but it didn’t work. I walked from the border crossing point and eventually got a lift from a tractor driver, black with grease, to the nearby city of Oradea, a horrendous looking dump that had been disfigured by grotesque architecture. In fact, the whole country had been ruined by Communist architects. I walked through the city, saw greasy looking cakes in a shop – there was food but it looked inedible – and tried to hitch towards Bucharest on the road south. I stood on the outskirts for the rest of the day but none of the drivers would even look at me. On the street nobody would make eye contact and I couldn’t understand it. Nowhere else had I encountered unfriendliness on such a scale. They also looked incredibly shabby, as if they had been wearing the same clothes for months. That night I walked back into town, found the railway station and got a ticket to Bucharest and thought: What a horrendous place. I can’t wait to get away from here.
I was travelling in terra incognita and the only contact names I had were reluctantly given by the boyfriend of Gwen Hardy, the artist I had visited in Berlin who had given me the tip about the Künstlerhaus exhibition in Vienna. Gwen’s boyfriend was a dark, brooding, silent Romanian called Marian. He didn’t say much when I visited their apartment – was he jealous I had come to visit Gwen? When I found out he was from Romania I asked for some contact names, and he reluctantly gave me a scrap of paper with two names and two numbers. The names were Lolla and Vlad and there was no mention of a surname, address or any other information.
I was standing in Gara de Nord, the main railway station in Bucharest, the capital of this accursed country, holding that scrap of paper in my hand and wondering if I should call the numbers or get the next train to Bulgaria. The thought of leaving was most tempting but something made me hesitate. I found an antediluvian phone box and some grubby, aluminium coins and made the call. No reply. Vlad wasn’t in. Things were looking up: one more phone call and I could hit the road. I was keen to get away from the oppressive atmosphere of this station. And then I called Lolla – what kind of a name is that? – and a grumpy female voice shouted Alo and I was at a loss for words. I hadn’t learned even one word in the Romanian language and I had no intention of doing so. Marian hadn’t told me anything about this Lolla character. Was it male, female or animal? Did it speak English? What was I supposed to say?
– Do you speak English?
– Poftim!
– Sprechen Sie Deutsch?
– Moment! barked the female voice. There was a long silence. After what seemed like an eternity I heard footsteps approaching the phone.
– Alo, said a male voice.
– Do you speak English, oder Deutsch?
– Ja, the voice said, followed by a long pause
I explained in my kindergarten German that I had got this number from a friend of his in Berlin, Marian Stoica. There was another long silence on the phone and I could hear a frantic, whispered conversation going on at the other end. This is ridiculous, I thought, deciding to get the next train to Bulgaria and be done with this Godforsaken place. Eventually the voice said:
– You wait in station. We come! The line went dead.
I wouldn’t have been surprised if a squad of policemen had dragged me off in the next half hour. Maybe it was true what the Hungarians told me, that half the population were informers for the dreaded Securitate, the secret police. Had this Lolla character called them up and told them there is a dangerous foreign spy lurking in the station? And was Lolla the woman or the man? Maybe Lolla was the acronym for the Secret Police? Should I go and get my ticket to Sofia now? What was I doing here?
The scene that followed could have been from a romantic film. I was standing in the station looking at the collection of people walking by, wondering why everyone looked so depressed, as if we were in a massive psychiatric ward not a busy European railway station. And then the sun burst through the gloom, lighting up the station for the first time and, just as the orchestra struck up, a handsome looking couple appeared. It had to be Lolla and his sister, or was it Lolla and her brother? I just knew it was them as they looked so different from the mentally disturbed crowd that I had been observing.
– Guten Tag, I said, addressing the tall and handsome man. I was so pleased to meet normal people that I couldn’t get the huge smile off my face.
– I am Laurentiu. This is my sister Cristina, introducing me to a beautiful young lady who had a perfectly formed round face and long, flowing black hair. Her smile was enchanting.
– But who is Lolla?
– I am Lolla. My name is Lolla. And Laurentiu.
– Aha, so Lolla is a nickname?
– We must go from this place.
– You speak good English, I said to Laurentiu on the way out of the station.
– I do not speak English. I speak German.
– But you are speaking good English.
– I never speak English before. I watch English films.
Laurentiu was a maths teacher and a film buff and he had watched all the classic old films at the National Film Archive, the Cinemateca, learning English, French and Russian in the process. German was the only language he had studied formally and he knew it so fluently that when I tried to speak it he would wince in pain as he knew my pronunciation was appalling. He was incredibly good looking but seemed a bit sad and I presumed this was to do with the repressive country he lived in. Why didn’t he go to Berlin like his school friend Marian? But he didn’t want to talk about Romania, emigrating, the Securitate or the dictator who overshadowed everything – Nicolae Ceausescu. In fact, he didn’t want to talk about anything – but he was warm and understanding and silent communication worked fine.
We drove off in their father’s Wartburg, an ancient East German car with a two-stroke engine, leaving behind a cloud of blue-grey smoke. We went to their house in the old town, an apartment in a street of elegant nineteenth century town houses. They welcomed me in and fed me. I handed over the leg of smoked pork I had carried from Hungary in my rucksack but they refused it. I insisted and so did they, but when they weren’t looking I put it in their ancient fridge and it wasn’t mentioned again. Later on I learned that Romanians are the most welcoming people in Europe and if they take you into their home they will refuse payment and share all their food with you, however little they have.
Bucharest felt scary, especially at night when each street seemed to be lit up by a single street lamp. It felt good to have a friendly base in such a hostile location. The next day I walked the streets alone and saw the biggest queues in my life. I passed what seemed to be a grocers shop but noticed that instead of fruit and veg on the tables outside the shop they were displaying books. When I looked closer I noticed they were all the same books, all with the name Nicolae Ceasescu on the cover. This was strange; I understood the Communist Party urge to sell the great words of the leader, but to sell them on the street like fruit and veg? Didn’t that lower the tone? Later on I came across the Museum of Romanian History, one of the few buildings with an English sign on it, and noticed that the whole upper level of the building was dedicated to Nicolae Ceausescu. There was a big sign that described in glowing terms his personal contribution to Romanian history. This didn’t feel right, the creep wasn’t even dead yet and already he’s got half the National History Museum. Needless to say my new friend Laurentiu didn’t explain any of this.
But he did take the weekend off and show me round town. Gradually, I realised it wasn’t as grim as I had first thought. We met with Victor, his sister’s boyfriend, who had smiling eyes, a stylish 1930s moustache, a devil-may-care attitude, and a car. We went to a park that was wrapped round by a lake, shadowed on all sides by trees, where we played ping-pong on concrete tables outside and drank strange fizzy juice from glass bottles. Laurentiu took me to a screening of a new Russian film called Come and See and we sat in a small, grimy but totally packed cinema watching scenes of butchery as the Nazi army invaded Belarus and proceeded to burn, shoot and destroy the local population. The film was in Russian, the subtitles in Romanian, but I didn’t need to know a word of either language to understand it. Never before or since have I seen such a powerful war film. I later found out that the director of Come and See, Elem Klimov, decided that all he wanted to say was in that film and he never made another.
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This is an extract from 9 Months in Tibet — the eBook — which will be published soon. If you’d like to reserve a copy just email me at wolfemurray@gmail.com
by Rupert Wolfe Murray | 13 Mar, 2019 | Journeys
Professor Fastl seemed like a kind man. He was tall, handsome and pre-occupied. He had renovation projects going on all over Austria and wasn’t going to look too carefully at this scruffy applicant. He had no reason to not believe my story of studying art in Edinburgh, of working in restoration in that great city – and there was an element of truth here; I had worked on building sites in Edinburgh, and they were renovation jobs – for Stewart Anderson — builder, climber and my Mother’s boyfriend.
– Have you heard of the restoration work of Professor Stewart Anderson? He is the leading expert in the restoration of ancient buildings in Edinburgh. He always praises your work.
– Humph, said the professor.
– It has been my ambition for the last two years to come and see your work.
– Hmm…said the professor, not really listening
– And if there is a chance to experience your restoration work more closely…
– Come here tomorrow morning. Have a trial. We will see then.
On the one hand I was euphoric – I was going to work in the most beautiful building in Vienna. On the other hand I was a fraud and I couldn’t bloody paint. How on earth was I supposed to do anything? I was in a panic as I left but Krzysztof, the Polish doctor who’d landed me in this, told me not to worry:
– I show you how to do this job. Is easy. You see tomorrow.
– Er, but, I can’t paint. I never could.
– Is no problem. Just come tomorrow. It will be fine.
I worked harder than I ever did in my life, desperate to keep this job and cover up my deceit. To my relief, the job was a lot simpler than I’d imagined. A huge renovation project was going on at Palais Ferstel and we were dealing with a relatively small part of it: painting huge pieces of fabric with a simple floral design. Each piece of fabric was about six metres long and two metres wide and took weeks to complete. When it was done we would attach wooden blocks to the back of the fabric, climb up scaffolding that was erected inside a series of huge arches and screw the fabric into the arch. The idea was to make copies of the original floral design that had been painted on the wall, inside the arches, and then cover them with this new fabric. Apparently this would improve the acoustics, as the room was destined to become a concert hall.
It was a bit like drawing in a children’s colouring-in book: you just need to make sure you don’t spill paint, which is easy if you concentrate. The tricky part was drawing straight lines. I was a nervous wreck: surely everyone could see that my lines weren’t straight, my hands were shaking and that I wasn’t an artist. My new colleagues, the real artists, seemed happy to have someone new to talk to and they were patient and kind. One of them was a sultry, attractive Hungarian woman called Beata whom I soon fell in love with – a hopeless case as her artist-boyfriend was working alongside us. There was also a small Turkish lady who offered me a room in her spacious apartment, an offer I jumped at.
Her flat was located at the Schottentor (the Scottish Gate) which was five minutes from the job, very central and next to the Sigmund Freud Park. It was an old and spacious flat, the most elegant place I had ever lived in. She used to give me coffee in delicate china cups and then read my fortune in the leaves; one evening she described my father in chilling detail and then showed me the cup and there he was, in outline, among the tea leaves.
I couldn’t believe my luck, although I was dreading the moment when Professor Fastl would next visit as he would look at my work, realise I was a fraud, and fire me instantly. My denouement became even more likely when an American artist showed up and managed to paint at twice my speed, whilst gabbling on about his jealous Austrian girlfriend. I was convinced that this friendly, long-haired American would get congratulated and I would get the sack. To my amazement the opposite happened: the American was shouted at by the professor and fired on the spot. He had used brilliant white rather than the magnolia colour the rest of us were using and the professor, who had been very mild-mannered until that point, was furious. I was so nervous about my own performance that I hadn’t even noticed what colours we were using; I had simply copied what the other artists were doing.
Gradually I mastered the art of drawing straight lines and filling in colour. Once I’d cracked it I started inventing ways of doing the job more quickly. Krzysztof, the silent Pole, was like a foreman in that he organised the supplies. He was also in charge of hanging the huge pieces of fabric in the arches, the trickiest part of the job. I could see that his was the least artistic role of them all and realised that this is what I needed to be doing. I watched what he did, helped him constantly and slipped into his unofficial position by the time he emigrated to America – about a month after I started. I also loved the part that everyone else hated – climbing up the scaffolding and screwing the massive piece of fabric into the wall. I had found my niche.
Three months passed quickly. My love affair with Beata got nowhere, but it was nice being in love and I would amuse her trying to pronounce impossible Hungarian words like eggy-sheggy-dray (which means cheers). Her boyfriend noticed my obsession for his girlfriend but didn’t seem to mind, he even made the odd joke about it; was he bored of the relationship or did he trust her totally? The work was going far better than I had expected, all thoughts of going home were banished and I even managed to get a job for Bettina Tucholsky, my new friend from the Künstlerhaus. My apartment never ceased to impress me with its big windows, wooden floors and beautiful art on the walls and I kept thinking: What have I done to deserve all this?
It was time to go. I had over two thousand dollars in my money belt and this time I felt determined to keep going until I reached Shanghai. When I asked Professor Fastl for a reference letter he gave me such an excellent one that I considered staying on indefinitely. But it was time to go. I organised a going away party in my apartment and the next morning I was on the road, hung-over, with my thumb out and a cardboard sign that said Budapest.
In Budapest I met up with Bettina for a weekend together. While I was hitchhiking she was getting a ship down the Danube. We had become closer and closer over the preceding months and we would go out for long beer drinking sessions. My definition of a friend is someone you can talk to about anything, indefinitely, and never get bored. We had managed to keep the whole thing platonic – avoiding romantic entanglements is an essential part of my type of travelling – until the combination of alcohol, closely packed bodies and dancing at my going away party had somehow ended up in bed.
Budapest had a special status within the Soviet bloc. I could feel it as soon as I arrived in this most beautiful of cities. Its architecture was similar to Vienna’s but it had a sinister atmosphere I couldn’t explain. I was told that Budapest was more open than any of the other Soviet bloc cities in the region; the staff in restaurants and stations were friendly and efficient, they spoke English, there were foreign tourists everywhere and someone told me this is the city that Russia uses as a place to meet with westerners. It’s their window to the west. They also offered a service I had never heard about before: a list of families from whom you could rent a room. In other words you could officially stay with families. We stayed in a big, nineteenth century room belonging to an elderly couple.
I had a small camera with me but I took very few photos in those days. Film was expensive and you could buy professional photos, very cheaply, in the form of postcards. I kept one black and white photo of Bettina in a bikini, laughing, in an old fashioned outdoor pool (lido) for which the city is famous, where old men played chess on floating boards, enjoying the hot water. In the background was a line of concrete dolphins, water spouting from their mouths.
In a crowded bar we bumped into a young, chatty American with a neat beard and a loud voice. He turned to me and said:
– So, you’re going to China?
– Yes.
– Which way are you planning to go?
– The usual way, in through Hong Kong. It’s the only way in as far as I know.
– Not any more. Things are changing fast over there.
– What do you mean?
– I’m just back from Asia and I met people who got into China through Kathmandu, Nepal.
– You mean they got into Tibet?
– Yeah, they’ve just opened up Tibet to tourists.
– Wow, it would be incredible to visit Tibet. I’d never thought about going there.
– Go for it man! Go to the Chinese Embassy in Kathmandu and ask for a tourist visa. They’re giving them out.
Heading for Nepal and Tibet seemed like a much better plan than working my way through South-east Asia where there were bound to be border problems, expensive visas and other hassles. I’d already spent enough time in Eastern Europe and I didn’t want to waste more time by picking my way through small countries like Burma and Thailand. On the spot I decided to head for the Chinese Embassy in Kathmandu, from where I could discover a land I knew precisely nothing about: Tibet.
There were still too many East European countries to get through and I was getting impatient. I wanted to be in the wide open plains of Turkey, Iran and India – getting nearer to my destination – but I was stuck in this patchwork of small, complicated, repressive, dark countries. I didn’t feel I was actually getting any closer to China and over four months had passed since I had left home. If things carried on like this I would be an old man before I reached Shanghai. It was like a dose of the flu – I had to be patient and work my way through it.
by Rupert Wolfe Murray | 6 Mar, 2019 | Journeys
– You want a job? Here? In Vienna! Are you mad? You don’t even speak German!
My new friend Andras was most amused. He was short, athletic, handsome and spoke fluent English. His family were obviously rich; he had his own flat in the centre of town and didn’t seem to work. He also had a small but incredibly fast car – a Peugeot 206 – which he raced round town and in rallies. Andras had studied English in Edinburgh; I had got his number from a friend and invited myself to stay.
Andras pointed to his girlfriend, a long-haired blonde with a perfect figure, a languid aristocratic manner and a beautiful face. Just looking at her was a pleasure.
– Look at her! She’s been searching for a job for two years! And she can’t get one. How on earth do you think you can?
– Er…I dunno…but does she go out there and ask for work?
– Actually no, she just sits around here all day, and then has me drive her to the shops. Don’t you baby?
– Fuck off darling!
– But how on earth are you going to get a job?
– I’m going to walk the streets for three days and go in every shop, restaurant and building site and ask for work.
– Hmm. I’ve never heard of anyone doing that.
– If I can’t find a job within a week I’ll have to go back to Edinburgh, and I really don’t want to do that. My plan is to travel overland to China.
– Well I think you’re absolutely mad but you’re welcome to stay here for a couple of nights.
– By the way, how do you say in German: Do you have any work?
– Haben Sie Arbeit?
We were in a small, exquisite flat high up in an old block in central Vienna, overlooking St Stephen’s Cathedral – one of the most beautiful buildings I had ever seen. Arriving in Vienna was one of the most memorable moments in my life: never before had I seen such incredible buildings, such gorgeous networks of narrow streets, beautifully preserved houses that you could sometimes glimpse inside – such stylish and well-lit interiors – and well-dressed and handsome people everywhere. The whole place was magical and I couldn’t think of anywhere better to live. Andras didn’t share my enthusiasm for his home town:
– Vienna is populated by students and old ladies. Budapest is more beautiful and more fun, and it’s only down the road.
The next morning I got up early and started looking for work. The unbearable thought of going home motivated me to go from door to door – shops, cafés, cinemas, restaurants, hotels, building sites – and say the magic words: Haben Sie Arbeit? Although I didn’t understand the replies, their body language and facial expressions were enough to let me know the answer: no, we don’t have any work for you! I dealt with this series of rejections by comparing it to hitchhiking; thousands of cars pass the hapless hitchhiker before one will stop. Working as a sales rep for publishers is similar; most of what you present to the bookshops isn’t wanted. Being rejected is a part of everyday life.
After three days I had a success – a hotel where the young manager must have recognised the hungry immigrant’s look in my eye. He was vague about what I would do and I didn’t like his laid-back manner. When I saw a topless girl in a leaflet saying Come with me! Come on me! Come in me! I decided not to come back unless there was no other option.
One of the first things I’d done in Vienna was to visit the British Embassy, where I asked for a job helping set up a British Arts and Crafts exhibition:
– How did you know about the exhibition? asked the friendly young diplomat.
– I met a Scottish artist in Berlin called Gwen Hardy. I asked her advice about getting a job and she advised me to go to Vienna. She told me she was exhibiting down here, at the Künstlerhaus, and that I should ask for a job helping to set it up.
– Hmm, very interesting. And you came all the way here, from Berlin, looking for a job?
– Yes.
Three days later they called the number I had left them – at Andras’ flat – and left a message telling me to show up at the Künstlerhaus. In a flurry of excitement I rushed down to the city art gallery and, without any formalities, got my first job abroad. It only lasted about a week but it banished the pessimism that had been gathering like storm clouds. I threw myself into it with such energy that the organisers from the British Government’s Central Office of Information offered me a job back in London, but I was heading east and had no intention of returning.
My job involved humping paintings around, something I knew all about, and setting up the information desk. But there was plenty of spare time to sneak off and go round more shops and building sites asking for work. One day we were told that Prince Charles and Lady Diana were going to show up in a few hours and officially open the exhibition. The whole place went into a frenzy of excitement. A tough looking crew of security men came round the building looking for bombs and we were all herded into the basement.
The others seemed quite happy to sit around underground and take a break, but I wasn’t. I snuck back upstairs, saw the security people leaving and thought I should stand behind the information desk which I had helped to set up. What was the use of an info desk without someone behind the counter? The gallery was deserted – the Austrians were all in the basement drinking, smoking and playing cards and the Brits had disappeared. I had a moment to appreciate the imperial architecture of the building, the light that flooded the place, the windows all along the ceiling and the dramatic paintings that had just been trucked in from London. Künstlerhaus means House of Art and I suspected it was one of the most impressive galleries in Vienna.
There was a commotion coming from the front door and suddenly Charles and Di appeared, as if they were in a real hurry. My first thought was: How can they be so small? They don’t look small on TV!
But they looked open-minded, attractive and keen to get away from the crowd of sycophants, officials, and posh hangers-on who came surging through the hall after them; people with excited looks on their faces, delighted to be in contact with British royalty and chattering like monkeys. Not one of the entourage even noticed me or took a second look at the Information Desk – but Charles and Di did.
Prince Charles walked straight up to me and said:
– You from Vienna are you?
– No, just passing through.
– Really? And he was gone.
– Would you like one of our brochures? I said, holding them out to the departing couple and feeling rather ridiculous.
– I would, said Lady Diana. She took a few steps back to where I was standing, took a brochure, walked off and gave me a backward glance and a seductive flicker of the eyelids.
I was smitten. Like everyone else of my generation I had seen hundreds of photos of Lady Diana, and who didn’t know about the Royal Wedding of 1981? But I hadn’t thought much of her and found the media coverage excruciatingly boring. I was neutral when it came to royalty – they seemed rather harmless and people say they attract tourists – which is rather odd if you think about it; the best argument we can come up with for justifying royalty is that they’re a tourist attraction. But seeing her in the flesh was another thing altogether; she was not only beautiful but she looked rather lost and vulnerable. I fell in love instantly, was head over heels, fantasising about what we could do together, plotting about how I could entice her away from Charles.
I crept into the grand room where Prince Charles was giving a speech to the officials, artists and hangers-on. He was reading slowly from a series of elongated cards but I don’t remember a word that he said. Lady Di was standing to one side like a formal Japanese doll and I wondered if she was bored out of her mind. Does she have to listen to this sort of stuff every day? I wanted to go up behind her and whisper in her ear: Let’s get away from this place! I’m going to show you the delightful backstreets of Vienna! But I noticed the beefy men with well trimmed beards and plain clothes who stood at strategic points around the gallery, legs apart, watching everything. Each one carried a little handbag that contained, I was sure, a pistol. These men were calm and motionless and they blended into the crowd, and they had surely spent time honing their killing skills with the Special Forces. It would be a matter of seconds to knock me to the ground and stick a pistol in my back.
Andras and his girlfriend were astounded that I had managed to find a job, and I took advantage of their surprise to ask if I could stay a few more nights (which stretched to three weeks). Although I was technically employed I knew the job wouldn’t last for more than a week, I hadn’t seen any actual cash and wanted to avoid paying rent at all costs.
I made a lifelong friend at the Künstlerhaus: Bettina Tucholsky. Bettina always seemed to be smiling; she had chubby cheeks, a mischievous nature and we had conversations that never seemed to end. She had been brought up in London by Jewish parents who had fled the Nazi persecution in Russia. They had set up a small shop and taught their children to speak German, English and Russian. I had never met someone before who could speak as fluently as a native in three languages, and I was intrigued. We would hang out with Paul, a giant of a man with a black moustache and an unhappy marriage.
I soon realised that I wasn’t being supervised at all and, as long as I did what was asked, I could disappear off for a few hours and nobody at the gallery would know. I was pounding the streets again, saying Haben Sie Arbeit in every shop, cafe and restaurant I came across.
When I walked into Café Central on Herrengasse in central Vienna I knew my chances of getting a job there were non-existent. There was no point in even asking. I was getting nowhere. Andras would kick me out before long, I’d run out of cash and I’d have to make a humiliating call home begging for a loan so I could crawl back to Scotland in disgrace. A feeling of failure and guilt, for sneaking off for so long from the Künstlerhaus, settled over me as I admired the interior of the Café Central, which was located within a palace – Palais Ferstel. It made me feel small, weak and pathetic.
The gothic interior of the building was more beautiful than anything I had seen yet and the waiters, in tuxedos and bow ties, glided around as if trained at the Bolshoi Ballet School. How could they even consider offering me a job? I didn’t know their language, didn’t look the part, had never worked as a waiter and surely they already had someone to take out the garbage. This was the place where Hitler used to hang out when he was a penniless artist, so presumably it had been a cheap place for a cup of coffee at one point. Not any longer. Now it was full of grand ladies in fancy hats and there was no way that I could afford the espresso which I craved. So I sat on a chair in the empty hallway and contemplated my situation.
Suddenly a door burst open and a short, fat man in overalls stepped into the hall. He was covered in dust, carrying a piece of wood and seemed oblivious to the fact that his scruffy presence was lowering the tone of this grand location. He slammed the door with a deft kick and shuffled up some steps, leading away from the grand world of Café Central. As if pulled by a string, I stood up and cautiously followed him up the steps and along a marble-floored corridor. He opened another door and disappeared inside a big room with pillars and arches and the familiar sounds of a building site. My heart leapt: here was a building site right under my nose. I had been so pre-occupied with my own misfortunes that I hadn’t even noticed. This was more like it! I felt at home on a building site, and what a building site this was! The feelings of unworthiness that I had been wallowing in two minutes earlier were banished like mist in the morning sunlight.
– Haben Sie Arbeit? I asked a kind looking man in a beard. He didn’t reject my question immediately, as was the norm, but he looked at me and seemed to be thinking. Perhaps he was wondering why I had a silly grin on my face.
– Upstairs go, he said, in broken English. Go see artists. Maybe have work there.
Artists on a building site? I thanked him profoundly, bounded up the stairs and stepped into a room that was as spacious as a skating rink and as tall as a cathedral. The floor was made of ancient wooden tiles. Tall arched windows reached up to the full height of the room and flooded it with light. Halfway up the wall was a narrow balcony, a mezzanine, fronted by elaborate wrought iron railings with imperial eagles painted in gold-leaf. High above where I was gaping, was the pièce de résistance: a wooden ceiling, with elaborate coats of arms painted onto huge roof beams. Later, I discovered that this had been the stock exchange of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, an entity which had controlled much of Central and Eastern Europe until the First World War. I was so stunned by this room that I had forgotten to ask for a job. Just standing there and basking in its beauty was enough.
– Can I help? asked a thin bearded man in fluent English. I snapped out of my daydream and looked at him. He didn’t look like the usual roughneck you find on building sites, he wore a white coat and had intelligent, penetrating eyes.
– Er, I’m looking for a job.
– What job?
– Anything.
– Hmm. He was silent for a while and seemed lost in thought. I wondered where he was from as he spoke English well, without the tell-tale German-speaker’s accent.
– Have you worked on a building site before?
– Yes, in Edinburgh. I am from Scotland.
– Good. You tell him that.
– Tell who?
– Professor Fastl. He is the boss. He’s not here. He comes tomorrow. You must come back and tell him you are a student of art, that you studied his work, and you came here from Edinburgh for the great opportunity of working with him. He will like that. Come back tomorrow morning.
– But I can’t say that! I’m not an artist. I can’t draw anything. And I didn’t come here to see him.
– Just come tomorrow and you might get a job.
– But I’m not an artist.
– Not a problem. I’m not artist. I am a doctor from Poland. I come here to get away from Communism. I go to USA soon.
And with that he was off. He walked back to a group of scruffy but handsome artists, at least I presumed they were artists, who were lounging around. They were painting a huge piece of fabric and looking over at me with curiosity. They looked totally out of place on a building site. They also looked bored.
The rest of that day was a torment. It would be a dream come true to get a job in a place like that but I would have to tell a story that was untrue. I didn’t know if I had the courage, or if I could keep it up in the face of my interrogator. Wouldn’t he see through me at once?
#
These chapters will soon be published as 9 Months in Tibet — the eBook. If you’d like to get a copy just leave a comment below as I’ll see your email address and get in touch. Or you could email me at wolfemurray@gmail.com, or even call/WhatsApp on 0044 747 138 1973.
