{"id":2429,"date":"2024-04-30T17:44:42","date_gmt":"2024-04-30T15:44:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/krisbest.com\/?p=2429"},"modified":"2024-04-30T17:46:39","modified_gmt":"2024-04-30T15:46:39","slug":"preview-winterbergs-last-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/krisbest.com\/de\/blog\/2024\/04\/30\/preview-winterbergs-last-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"Preview: Winterberg’s Last Journey"},"content":{"rendered":"

Exciting news: My very first book translation, ‘Winterberg’s Last Journey (Winterbergs Letzte Reise) by Jaroslav Rudi\u0161, is coming out this summer with Jantar Publishing in the UK! However, we still have some up-front costs to cover, so we’ve launched a Kickstarter<\/a> offering advance copies and plenty of other goodies to make up the shortfall.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enjoy this free preview of the first ten pages, and if you like what you read, please check out our Kickstarter<\/a> to order your own copy!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz to Sadowa<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The Battle of K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz runs through my heart,\u2019 said Winterberg, looking out the foggy window of the train. He squeezed his breast so tightly, it seemed that he wanted to crush not only the thick wool of his old, grey coat, but his ninety-nine-year-old heart as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The Battle of K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz is the beginning of my end,\u2019 he continued, staring out of his horn-rimmed glasses at the snowy Bohemian landscape as it passed us by.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The small train moved slowly, swaying like a lonely ship without a captain on the high seas. The young conductor gazed at her phone and swayed along with it. As did we.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The Battle of K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz is the beginning of all my calamities, the beginning of all our calamities, if you were born under the sign of the Battle of K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz, you were lost forever. That\u2019s why I\u2019m lost, that\u2019s why this country is lost, and that\u2019s why you, dear Herr Kraus, are lost, whether you like it or not, yes, yes, there\u2019s no escape, it\u2019s not as easy as laying railway tracks across the Alps. The Battle of K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz is like a trap, one that we set ourselves, which we lured ourselves into and into which we willingly fall, the Battle of K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz is an abyss into which we all plummet, the Battle of K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz grasps at our necks, it\u2019s closing around my throat, it\u2019s like a cord, like a noose, always getting tighter, yes, yes, like the rope with which we all hang ourselves in the end, whether we like it or not, yes, yes, and noose corpses aren\u2019t a pretty sight, as my father always said,\u2019 rambled Winterberg, still looking out of the window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Look at that, Herr Kraus, the wild boar on the edge of the forest, aren\u2019t they beautiful? I\u2019d just love to paint them. I used to love to paint, especially peaceful winter landscapes like this, but even the boar are lost, yes, yes, the Battle of K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz is an ever-sprawling Cornus sanguinea.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Winterberg rambled on while I looked out at the animals on the edge of the forest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Half a million soldiers back then, today half a million ghosts, you have to be able to imagine it, I imagine it, yes, yes, I see through history, yes, yes, I\u2019m not historically blind, I don\u2019t care what you think, dear Herr Kraus, whether you can or even want to imagine it. The battle is here, and so are we.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Those were deer.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018What?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Over there by the woods. Those weren\u2019t wild boar.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Exactly, wild boar, that\u2019s what I said.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018But they were deer.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Yes, yes, deer and boar and stags and foxes and people and houses and fields and forests and winter landscapes and picture-perfect panoramas, everything is lost, tragic, tragic. My grandfather was a hunter, and he said that killing animals was nothing good, but if you must kill an animal, then do it quickly, the Battle of K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz knows no mercy, the Battle of K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz is our deepest abyss, the Battle of K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz is our downfall, and it has been for the last hundred and sixty years. Why can\u2019t you see through history, Herr Kraus? You should really read something about history, then you would understand, then you would understand me, like the Englishman and my Lenka understood me, then you would know and understand what I mean by Cornus sanguinea. You wouldn\u2019t just stare at me like a fool\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Those were deer.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Winterberg coughed lightly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Deer?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Yes, deer. The animals from before. A whole herd of deer.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He continued to cough. I handed him a bottle of water. He didn\u2019t want to drink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018What kind of deer?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Doesn\u2019t matter.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He fixed me with a serious look. Then he glanced over at the conductor. Then he looked back out of the window at the snowy fields. And then continued to ramble on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The Battle of K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz doesn\u2019t just run through my heart, it also runs through my head, and through my brain, and through my lungs and liver and stomach, it\u2019s part of my body and my soul. Two of my ancestors lost their lives, dear Herr Kraus, one on the side of the Prussians, and the other on the side of the Austrians, Julius Ewald and Karl Strohbach, yes, yes, I can seek out either side, but in the end I\u2019m laying with both of them in the grave, I don\u2019t know if you can imagine that, I want to understand it, I want to finally understand everything in my life, you understand, dear Herr Kraus, that\u2019s why we\u2019re here now, in order to understand it, you understand, dear Herr Kraus, here at K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz was where the entire tragedy began,\u2019 rambled Winterberg, still looking out of the window. \u2018Shouldn\u2019t we be in Sadowa? This must be Sadowa. We\u2019ve got to get off this damned cold train.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018No, that\u2019s not Sadov\u00e1. That\u2019s\u2026 agh, it doesn\u2019t matter.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Winterberg wasn\u2019t listening to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Winterberg never listens to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The Battle of K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz tears me in two,\u2019 he rambled on, while the conductor sat down on the bench across from us and briefly closed her eyes. \u2018The Battle of K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz robs me of sleep. It was because of the Battle of K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz that I lost my first wife, and because of the Battle of K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz that my second wife went mad, yes, yes, she grew up in Berlin in the Stresemannstra\u00dfe, which used to be called the K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tzer Stra\u00dfe, that can\u2019t just be a coincidence, dear Herr Kraus. We met in a dance hall in the Skalitzer Stra\u00dfe, yes, yes, that\u2019s right, you\u2019re correct, dear Herr Kraus, the whole affair isn\u2019t a happy coincidence of history, it\u2019s a tragic accident of history, a misunderstanding that one can never make right, yes, yes, it\u2019s all because of the Battle of K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz that I suffer from history and from historical fits, yes, yes, dear Herr Kraus, I know what you\u2019re going to say, the Battle of K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz isn\u2019t as easily overcome as the Alps by the railway, there are too many fault zones, if you know what I mean by that, dear Herr Kraus.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wanted to say that I had no idea what he meant by \u2018fault zones\u2019, but I knew that there was no point. His head is one big fault zone. I nodded as I always nodded when I listened to him and thought what I always thought when I listened to him. Winterberg coughed again and I handed him the water bottle. He didn\u2019t want to drink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018There was also some quite heroic combat near Skalitz in 1866, we have to go there, too, it\u2019s all in my Baedeker. And also to Trautenau and to Jitschin, the city of Wallenstein, which he chose to be the capital of his empire, yes, yes, we have to go there, there was also fighting around Jitschin, many Saxons and Austrians drowned in the pond there, and many Prussians later in the beer, when they stormed the Jitschin brewery.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wanted to say that I was once in Ji\u010d\u00edn back in my childhood, with my parents, but it was impossible; Winterberg could not be stopped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018A good friend of mine in Berlin lived in the Gitschiner Stra\u00dfe, my best friend in Berlin, he was also a tram driver, before the war he played football in Obersch\u00f6neweide. Of course you don\u2019t know, because you don\u2019t see through history, but for a long time the stadium was called Sadowa, yes, yes, after Sadowa here in Bohemia, where we\u2019re getting off the train, yes, yes, precisely, named after the glorious Prussian victory and the glorious Austrian defeat. But the victory became a rather notorious defeat for the Prussians later on, like all victories throughout history, yes, yes; how often I allowed myself to be tortured by an unrelenting football game there, football had really never interested me, yes, yes, it was only because of Sadowa, only because of K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz, that I went. No one else cares, but I know it, everything is connected to K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz, yes, yes, our entire calamity began with K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz, and I know what you\u2019re going to say, dear Herr Kraus, mad, it\u2019s all mad. You\u2019re right, it is mad,\u2019 Winterberg continued, without looking at me once the entire time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He looked out of the window at a sleepy field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At country houses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At an old church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At two children with a dog on a country road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018It\u2019s beautiful here, so beautiful, truly \u201cthe beautiful landscape of battlefields, cemeteries and ruins,\u201d as the Englishman always said.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Him again.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Yes, yes.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018But who was he?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The Englishman could see through history, unlike you. Why don\u2019t you read any history books, dear Herr Kraus? You could have long known all of this, with Cornus sanguinea and K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz and Sarajevo and the railway. It\u2019s all because of the Battle of K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz that my third wife was deathly ill. It\u2019s all because of the Battle of K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz that I had to care for her for thirty years. It\u2019s all because of the Battle of K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz that you had to care for me. Why can\u2019t you see through history? That factory there, isn\u2019t that the Sadowa sugar factory, dear Herr Kraus, where the Austrian infantry so bravely made their stand?; yes, yes, the famous Bohemian-Moravian-Austrian sugar industry, I didn\u2019t know for a long time that sugar cubes come from Datschitz in Moravia, did you know that, dear Herr Kraus?; now where was I, yes, yes, the Austrians wouldn\u2019t melt like sugar, they turned the sugar factory into an Austrian fortress, and on the wall they wrote in tall words: \u201cBehind us is Vienna\u201d, I read about it all. But it was in vain. Within three hours they were all dead.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018No, we\u2019re not in Sadov\u00e1 yet, and that isn\u2019t a sugar factory, it\u2019s an electrical substation,\u2019 I said, but Winterberg wasn\u2019t listening, and he was trembling as he often did during his historical fits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018That must be the Bistritz river, which was fiercely contested. And that over there, that must be the famous Sv\u00edb Forest! A paradise of Cornus sanguinea, yes, yes, we must go there, to the Road of the Dead that winds through the forest, we\u2019ve got to go there. We may even find the two graves right there, the graves of my Prussian great-grandfather from Tangerm\u00fcnde and my Austrian great-grandfather from Ottersheim near Linz, one grew up on the Elbe, the other on the Danube, both killed on the same day, here, at Sadowa, at K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz, on the third of July, 1866, the German war in the Bohemian Paradise, madness, madness, I know, you\u2019re right, dear Herr Kraus, it makes no sense at all, and yet it does make a sort of sense, Cornus sanguinea, the Road of the Dead. We\u2019ve got to go there.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I nodded as I always nodded and thought what I always thought. I couldn\u2019t stand Winterberg for much longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I know, I know; quiet down now, everything\u2019s all right, yeah? We\u2019re not at war.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I cracked open a beer. The foam dripped to the floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018You shouldn\u2019t drink so much, or else you\u2019ll get foggy again, just like yesterday and the day before, beer corpses aren\u2019t a pretty sight, as my father always said, and he had to know, he saw many beer corpses and drank beer himself, tragic, tragic, it isn\u2019t good that you drink so much, it\u2019s not healthy, it\u2019s not proper, you won\u2019t get to be ninety-nine like that, you won\u2019t get to be as old as the Republic of Czechoslovakia, as old as the Feuerhalle, yes, yes, you won\u2019t get to be as old as me like that.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I don\u2019t care, I don\u2019t want to be that old. I don\u2019t want to live in pain.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I\u2019m not in pain. I still feel young, I\u2019m not transparent.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Transparent?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Transparent. For the women, I mean.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I don\u2019t understand.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018It doesn\u2019t matter. You should drink less.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018But I want to drink. I like beer. And you should drink more, too. You haven\u2019t had anything to drink yet today.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I did have something to drink.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018You didn\u2019t.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018You have no place telling me whether I drank or didn\u2019t drink, yes, yes, I know when I drink and when I don\u2019t drink, yes, yes, perhaps I drink too little, but you, dear Herr Kraus, drink too much.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Someone has to do it. That\u2019s how we achieve balance, as my father used to say. Some drink and others don\u2019t.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The train drove on, and I thought about how I hadn\u2019t really wanted to start drinking again so soon. During a \u2018crossing\u2019, I never drink. Only after it\u2019s over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I drink to forget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To free myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be able to start anew with the next crossing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this time it was different. It was the first crossing that had been interrupted. And so, I had to drink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Otherwise, I would be long gone, and Winterberg, too. Without the beer, I would have done away with him already, and then myself soon after, because who would be able to stand this ridiculous journey without beer? No one. Just me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The train ran along a small river, and perhaps it really was the Byst\u0159i\u010dka, because at that moment the conductor suddenly announced: \u2018Sadov\u00e1.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Winterberg sprang to his feet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two abandoned and slightly crooked railway tracks. An abandoned station building. And an abandoned dog pissing into the wind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Otherwise: nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were the only ones who exited the train. I helped Winterberg out of the carriage, which he did not appreciate. The train drove off, and I lit up a cigarette.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018You shouldn\u2019t smoke so much, dear Herr Kraus,\u2019 said Winterberg, and coughed again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He took in a deep breath of the cold winter air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Beautiful, it\u2019s so beautiful here. Something very beautiful is hanging in the air, yes, yes, we had excellent luck with the weather, dear Herr Kraus. The battle may have taken place at the height of summer, hopefully you know that, but the weather back then was just like it is now in November, after a couple of hot days came a day like an early winter, yes, yes, a day like today. A shift in the weather, as they say, with much mist and rain, yes, yes, and the fog of war on top of that, yes, yes, that\u2019s how it has to be with a shift in the weather, wonderful, wonderful, we have excellent luck with this bad November weather, dear Herr Kraus. I love bad weather, because you can usually be alone wherever you want to be. I don\u2019t need any tourists around, no, no, certainly not, tourists are historically blind, like you, it\u2019s difficult to discuss history with you, too.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Don\u2019t we want to get going?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018What?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Or do you have something more to say?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Winterberg was silent for a moment and glanced at the abandoned station building. The empty, broken windows. The bricked-up door. The damp grey walls. I lit my next cigarette, took a few steps, and looked over at a couple of teenage boys sitting in a car parked on the main road. They were watching us, smoking, and snickering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Beautiful, it\u2019s beautiful here by K\u00f6niggr\u00e4tz, much more beautiful than I imagined it. Look, it\u2019s starting to snow. My last wife didn\u2019t like bad weather, she always wanted to spend holidays at the beach, tragic, tragic, a misunderstanding right from the beginning, you can\u2019t even imagine, dear Herr Kraus, what luck we\u2019ve had with the bad weather. My Lenka loved bad weather and solitude, yes, yes, if you were born in Reichenberg, you had to love bad weather and solitude, always nothing but rain and mist and snow, often from October to April just snow and wind and solitude, it\u2019s because of the mountains, they surround the city like a great wall, yes, yes, and that\u2019s how it is in the whole country, if you were born in Bohemia, you have to love the bad weather and the solitude, bad weather makes many people melancholy, the bad Bohemian weather drove many of our fellow countrymen to madness, it didn\u2019t matter whether they spoke German or Czech, yes, yes, but Lenka loved the bad weather, she loved when it was snowing, like it is right now, yes, yes, my Lenka, the first woman in the moon.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Winterberg calmed down and looked up at the sky. It was true, the first delicate snowflakes were already drifting down towards us. I was cold. I thought, tomorrow we\u2019ll both be lying in the hospital with hypothermia. I would finally have my peace over a tea with rum, Winterberg would be transported by helicopter back to Berlin, and there he could ramble on about whatever he liked. And I would finally drown myself in beer and schnapps like I do after all my crossings, and forget everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought, maybe I\u2019ll stay here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the country that I left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That I had to leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That left me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018We were lucky with the bad weather, wonderful, wonderful, of course the train station wasn\u2019t here back then, they didn\u2019t lay tracks in this part of Bohemia until later, but let\u2019s not allow ourselves to be disturbed or distracted by it. Over there, look, on the main street, that must be the inn! A simple inn near the battlefield, as it says in my Baedeker, yes, yes, it\u2019s all just as it was back then, just as it was in 1913, when my book was written, just as it was in 1866. We\u2019ll go there first, every soldier needs a bit of reinforcement before the battle, even a soldier from the Army of Last Hope, yes, yes, a soldier like you, dear Herr Kraus, since a bit of hope is all a geriatric nurse like you can offer, you\u2019re completely right. Change the diapers of the dying, that\u2019s all you can do. Nothing more.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For once, Winterberg was right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s all for now – to read more, please check out our Kickstarter<\/a> to order your own copy and support our project!<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Exciting news: My very first book translation, ‘Winterberg’s Last Journey (Winterbergs Letzte Reise) by Jaroslav Rudi\u0161, is coming out this summer with Jantar Publishing in the UK! However, we still have some up-front costs to cover, so we’ve launched a Kickstarter offering advance copies and plenty of other goodies to make up the shortfall. Enjoy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2432,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/krisbest.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/krisbest.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/krisbest.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krisbest.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krisbest.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2429"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/krisbest.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2434,"href":"https:\/\/krisbest.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2429\/revisions\/2434"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krisbest.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/krisbest.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krisbest.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krisbest.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}