We had a marvellously relaxing time collecting wild strawberries, swimming in a little pool and enjoying the company of the other guests. When the time came for Bronka and Gidek (alias Oh Boy) to leave, he gave me a note with a telephone number on it and told me if I ever came to Warsaw to ring them. I thanked them but couldn’t imagine an occasion when I would use it. I put the scrap of paper in my blouse pocket.
Finally, with all the other guests gone, it was our turn to leave, but George had a surprise in store for us. Instead of the long train journey to Poznań we had expected, he now offered to drive us there himself, promising a picnic on the way. I put some paper napkins, together with a glass bottle of Ribena in a small bag which George, in holiday mood, slung into the car rather too forcefully. Imagining the worst, my heart sank, but there was no time to waste – the picnic basket was put in the boot, Anna rushed out issuing final instructions to her children, got into the car, and we were off. The countryside was at its best and we sat under the shade of some trees at the edge of a vast forest to have our lunch – a splendiferous affair indeed!
We arrived in Poznań barely ahead of the Moscow to Hook of Holland train, and Anna insisted that we took the remainder of the picnic with us. Our train departed as quickly as it had arrived. The sleeper compartment was spacious and extremely comfortable. I prepared the top bed and tidied up our cases before relaxing with Kirsty. Hamish meanwhile discovered that the restaurant car sold chocolate. With almost our last Polish coins, he bought a cheap bar, returning in triumph at having negotiated the transaction. I was looking forward to a glass of hot tea later served by an attendant from the samovar – a kind of Russian hot drink urn – installed at the end of the carriage.
We arrived at the East German frontier amid a lot of noise and banging of doors as the guards came on board demanding to see our passports, visas and other documents. George had heard on the radio that the Cold War had suddenly heated up but he was sure that I would not be affected. He was wrong.
Unlike the Poles, the German guards and police were curt and officious. Although my German wasn’t perfect, I understood that I was somehow missing an important piece of paper. The passports and tourist visas were in order, but ‘Where are your transit visas?’ I showed him the document I had bought on the incoming journey but this turned out to be only a one-way visa. Without a return visa, I would have to get off immediately.
I said I was willing to buy the necessary visa, as I had done before, but this was apparently impossible: they were only issued on entering the Eastern section. The guard tried to intimidate me, ordering me to leave the train then and there. Annoyed at his manner, I protested that we weren’t going to set foot on East German soil since we were merely travelling through his country. Even though my German was poor, there was no mistaking his determination to get us off. A fine was incurred for every minute the train was delayed. He demanded I left the compartment immediately; my luggage would be seen to ‘later’. And have it disappear along the German–Polish border? No thank you!
Hamish was meanwhile being very helpful, hauling a rucksack onto his back as I refused point blank to leave the train until they allowed us to take our luggage. No help was forthcoming from the guards, who looked on impassively as we struggled to collect our things and install ourselves on the platform. I was taken aback to see my fellow passengers pressing against the windows of their compartments – perhaps they thought some spies had been caught.
I rather hoped that Kirsty would be so upset and look so forlorn and unhappy that the senior guard would change his mind – but there she was, smiling happily and waving from her pushchair to all the passengers, who now even started to wave back at her. Had the question been put to the popular vote, Kirsty would certainly have won our case hands down – but then free elections were scarcely an East German speciality.
The train slowly started to move on, leaving us stranded with our luggage on the platform. We were taken to a large and hastily erected tent on another platform, with a Red Cross over the entrance – presumably prepared for refugees like ourselves. Obviously, more ‘truants’ were expected. I asked if I might phone my friends in East Berlin, or indeed anyone in authority, for help. This request was met with a blunt refusal. The tent already had one guest: a kindly Polish farmer. I gathered he had been on a group passport, hoping to visit relatives in Holland but had also fallen foul of the transit visa problem. We sat there for several hours until we were told to collect our things and board a train for Warsaw – argument proved futile.
Hamish’s eyes were by now a little watery, and so I smiled at him encouragingly, gave him a hug and said, ‘This is a real adventure.’ Luckily, he didn’t know how far east we were going. We found the first-class carriages where I invited our Polish friend to join us. Then it seemed time for a banquet. I spread out the picnic food, Hamish’s chocolate, and some other delicacies. Looking for Kirsty’s Ribena I realised my earlier fears had been justified, but at least the paper napkins had soaked up all the spilt juice. The Polish gentleman offered me his cigarettes. It was actually quite a happy occasion, despite there now being no sleeper accommodation.
At some point in the early hours of the morning a Polish ticket collector arrived on his rounds. I knew very well what he was telling me – that I was going in the wrong direction with the wrong tickets and that the fine alone would be double the cost of the ticket. But apart from two little coins, I didn’t have any zlotys and so smiled in blind incomprehension. After a time he gave up.
I suddenly remembered Oh Boy’s note and realised I was still wearing the same blouse. I felt inside the breast pocket and there was the telephone number.
We arrived in Warsaw at around 7am. Porters rushed to help me but quickly disappeared when the ticket collector told them I had no funds. Hamish shouldered the big rucksack and between us we managed the suitcase. I rang the number and someone answered in Polish. All I said was, ‘Oh Boy!’ and like a password it solved our dilemma. He promised to be there as soon as he could. His famous last words were: ‘Don’t go away.’ With a bag full of nappies, a pushchair, luggage and two small children, I wasn’t going anywhere.
We stayed with Gidek and Bronka for three days while we waited to find out what to do and had time to go around the restored Jewish ghetto and see some of the sights I remembered from my previous visit a few years before. Kirsty was on baby-reins some of the time, much to the amusement of the Poles, who had never before seen such a thing. While we enjoyed our enforced tourism, Oh Boy arranged for us to go to the German Embassy to procure the required documents.
There was one man in the room for our interview, sprawling back in his chair with his feet on his desk. I disliked his superior attitude and his apparent enjoyment of my predicament. Oh Boy addressed the man politely, but whatever it was that he replied, it immediately changed the atmosphere. Oh Boy suddenly became every inch the aristocratic Polish officer, drawing himself upright and making a curt remark that seemed to drive home a point. When we got outside I asked him what had happened. He told me not to worry: he had merely reminded the gentleman that he was a guest in his country (with an emphasis on the word ‘guest’). All the Poles I met treated such Teutonic precision about transit visas with equal disdain and humour, saying that if they had been so rigid, I might have ended up, through no fault of my own, a stateless person.
Oh Boy saw us off from Warsaw station. It was a comfortable compartment and the seats slid down to form a bed. Hamish and I studiously ignored those getting on the train, hoping to keep our compartment to ourselves, but we underestimated Kirsty’s charm as