There was little if any Western pop music to be heard publicly in Leningrad in 1985. But this song was overheard playing on the single-channel radio set in my room.
Previously: Euro Pilgrimage ’85, Ch. 14: Meet the Finns — and hop a bus to Leningrad.
At last: Leningrad. It was the first of August, more than a month past the peak nocturnal glow of northern lights, but with ample illumination to occupy roughly 70 hours on the ground in one of the USSR’s ranking “hero” cities.
A scant four months prior to the Travela tour group’s arrival in Leningrad, something of epochal significance occurred. I don’t recall it being mentioned. On March 11, 1985 following the death of the doddering Konstantin Chernenko, Mikhail Gorbachev was elected General Secretary of the Communist Party.
Obviously it was too early for anyone to make much of Gorbachev’s ascension to power, or for the USSR’s new leader to accomplish anything beyond working to consolidate his position amid the country’s bureaucratic mafia system. And yet, a tremendous upheaval soon would commence.
All I’ll say is that any American who still believes Ronnie Ray-Gun singlehandedly defeated the Evil Empire a la “High Noon” is mistaken. He gave the edifice a nudge, of course. But it was Gorbachev’s ill-fated effort to reform the system from within that exposed the terminal rot beneath the USSR’s façade. The ensuing teardown of the Bloc could have been bloody and catastrophic.
In large measure, it wasn’t, and you can thank Gorby for that. That it would eventually lead to Vladimir Putin is unfortunate, but that’s another story.
In 1985, I had no way of knowing that return trips to the USSR would take place in 1987 and 1989. Now, four decades later, I’m just happy to have taken advantage of these opportunities. After all, there are no do-overs when a country ceases to exist.
Upon our arrival at the hotel the group members were issued rudimentary maps, fed a brown bag snack that included a hard-boiled egg pickled in rust and a well-oiled salami portion, then placed back aboard the bus for an orientation drive.
We were not compelled to shelter in place. As adults, there were no restrictions on our movements through Leningrad, other than remaining within city limits and refraining from illegal acts, the definition of which remained hazy in this communist municipality. Consequently I kept reminding myself to refrain from American-style exuberance.
As soon as the opportunity arrived, Aussie Mark and I left the tour bus with Ari’s blessing. By early evening, we were exploring the general vicinity of Nevsky Prospekt, Leningrad’s major pedestrian-thronged downtown avenue.
Mark regaled me with tales of his travels. He’d bartended his way across the English-speaking world before diving headlong into continental Europe. In return, I spoke to him about the whys and wherefores of Russian history. Ironically, we decided against finding beer in favor of ice cream, universally acclaimed as one item Soviets invariably got right.
We found some at a curbside kiosk tucked away on a side street. It was very quiet, and two Russian women were in the same mid-length queue (lines were an inevitable feature of all consumer transactions). The women seemed older, perhaps in their mid-thirties, and queuing for ice cream gave my garrulous cohort the opportunity to “chat them up.”
Mark’s task was slightly complicated by his non-existent Russian, as accompanied by their limited English skills. This comical cross-cultural ballet continued as the four of us ate our ice cream. My friend’s ultimate aim was transparently obvious, although it struck me as far too surreal to ponder.
Then came a pause. He proposed drinks, and took me aside, whispering: The petite brunette was his, the taller redhead mine, and the petty details ― time, place, requisite small gift ― all could be arranged quite easily once matters progressed a wee bit further.
Glancing over my shoulder, I could see a similar conversation taking place. The brunette was doing most of the talking, and I was suitably flabbergasted. After only three hours in an utterly unfamiliar communistic totalitarian city, Mark required a mere 25 minutes to pole-vault cultural and communications barriers and achieve an instantaneous multi-national double hookup.
Granted, he was a handsome charmer from Down Under, like Michael Hutchence with a Tom Selleck mustache, but this was beyond amazing, except that nothing about this carnal four-poster of an ice cream-laden windfall appealed very much to me. I wasn’t exactly a prude, just a guy who favored prudence. “Let’s get to know each other” seemed solid advice any time and anywhere, and far more of a challenge amid our compressed time frame in the Evil Empire’s second city.
Besdies, “heated rush” simply isn’t a concept in my internal vocabulary, and moreover, Mark’s dazzling improvisation seemed too much like a simple transaction. I feared my disinterest would be a deal-breaker, but fortunately my projected partner looked almost as unenthused as me. Who knows; she might have come to the ice cream kiosk merely to eat ice cream, and not be randomly assigned a date.
The Australian was engagingly conciliatory; absolutely no problem, he said; see you tomorrow.
The three of them peeled off, and I made the long walk back to the group’s hotel, viewing Leningrad in the gloaming, off the beaten path and perfectly content to be alone with my own ruminations.
On Friday the full story was told. The redhead went home to her children, and the brunette took Mark to meet her husband, who thoughtfully watched television in the main room of their flat and drank the bottle of vodka Mark thoughtfully brought to him from the hard currency shop, while she earned 20 dollars American in the bedroom … probably a week’s salary.
Day One was simultaneously eventful and uneventful, thank heavens.
—
The Peter and Paul Fortress occupies an island in the Neva River. It is the birthplace of St. Petersburg from 1703, as commissioned by Peter the Great. Inside the fortress, the Peter and Paul Cathedral is one of Russia’s most important Eastern Orthodox churches, a landmark housing the mortal remains of numerous Tsars.
In short, yet another Kaisergruft.
Two accredited Intourist functionaries accompanied the group for a full day of sightseeing. The ranking guide was older and quite serious; her younger assistant served as English interpreter. Among us was a quartet of Swiss high school history teachers, two men and two women. One of them looked rather like the singer and drummer Phil Collins, 30-something and balding. Already his barbed asides marked him as a man of considerable wit, to be remembered as Swiss Phil.
He crisply supplemented the guide’s scripted talking points with a running revisionist commentary of his own. Already that morning at the Winter Palace, he’d been overheard loudly correcting the official historical record, and consequently became a marked man.
I’m told there’s one in every visiting capitalist crowd.
Now, inside the Peter and Paul Cathedral, our guide spoke about the Romanov imperial dynasty, scrolling through a list of imperial burials. Each was repeated by the interpreter: Nicholas I is buried there; Alexander II is interred here, and so on.
Are there questions?
Phil raised his hand, and was ignored. Two pairs of eyes darted left and right, hoping someone else would speak. No one did, and at last, Phil was allowed to make his inquiry.
“Can you tell us where the last Tsar is buried?”
I strongly suspected Phil took the Leningrad tour for the sole reason of asking this most politically incorrect of questions. While any Soviet tour guide was happy to explain the overall necessity of deposing the imperial order as a prerequisite for social justice, in 1985 the USSR had yet to come clean officially about the last Tsar’s unspeakably violent demise.
Nicholas II, his wife and their children were murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1918, their bodies thrown into a pit near Yekaterinburg, perhaps 1,500 miles from St. Petersburg. Lenin himself gave the orders for these killings. By 1979, amateur Russian sleuths had located the family’s likely remains, but positive identification of the victims had to wait until after the USSR collapsed.
The whole world always knew the truth, anyway, and Phil’s question turned the interpreter’s face glacial white. She turned to the guide and spoke; her face hardened. They both glared, emitting a collective shrug.
“He is not buried here.”
“I see,” said Phil. “Thank you for answering my question.”
—
Many of Leningrad’s inhabitants took their main meals at lunchtime, as served at their workplaces. They also grabbed quick bites at any number of “people’s” or “worker’s” cafeterias, which served simple yet sustaining soup, potatoes and dumplings. As one guidebook colorfully stated, these eateries were “dirt cheap and dirty,” and in later years, I became enamored of their conceptual cousins over yonder in Eastern Europe.
After all, parts is parts; sausage never scared me much, and those cafeterias in Hungary punched well above their lard-soaked weight for the everyday low price.
Soviet “sit-down” restaurants perhaps comparable to the sort seen by the half-dozen at every American interstate exit were regarded by ordinary Soviets as places for special occasions, like weddings and anniversaries.
Above a certain classification, formal restaurants had the reputation and appearance of being inaccessible to normal human beings. In essence, all their seats were reserved, always. There’d be a sign stating the restaurant was entirely booked, even though a glance through the window showed most (sometimes all) seats to be empty. A doorman would guard the door as though he were defending the vaults at Ft. Knox.
During later trips in 1987 and 1989 I learned that this hustle wasn’t exactly what it seemed. In fact, anyone could phone the restaurant or visit earlier in the day and make a reservation. Do it, and you’d be welcome, sans hassle.
Their attitude about walk-ups was meant to help manage customer traffic, not discourage it entirely; they were being paid whether they worked or not, so the idea was to keep the flow manageable, minimize table turnover, and selectively negotiate with the foreigners. As for the latter, the “game” seemed to be how best to bribe one’s way inside, hence the value of cigarettes, toothpaste and other consumer items common in the West, but rare or of variable quality within the worker’s paradise.
Saturday, August 3, 1985 was my 25th birthday, and when Mark found out, he couldn’t contain his enthusiasm. A splurge was merited, and my meal was to be his treat. We’d heard about Baku, an Azerbaijani restaurant on Sadovaya Street, close to Nevsky Prospekt, and arrived there hopeful of somehow gaining entry.
Mark took the lead and was rebuffed by the doorman. He failed a second time, visibly bruising the worldly traveler’s machismo. At this moment we were approached by two English-speaking Russian men (brothers, one said), who offered to help resolve the seating impasse. I withheld my wariness, and a few succinct words later all four of us were inside Baku.
We sat together. Our new friends denied ulterior motives, insisting that eating was their sole objective; it would be a rare treat to break bread with foreigners. To this day, I’ve never had a clear understanding of who they were. No black market transactions were requested. We weren’t fleeced. The two men made no advances of any sort. Rather, there was wide-ranging and bracingly frank mealtime conversation.
Was it a busman’s holiday for the KGB? Who else could consort openly with foreigners?
The fare was comparatively exotic Central Asian, with actual green salads made from strange indigenous stalks, weeds and veggies, and a garlicky chicken dish as the main course. The drinks list at Soviet restaurants tended to be narrow; perhaps juice, mineral water, sparkling wine and (always) vodka, although seldom beer.
Vodka invariably was the default choice, leading to my very first experience with a timeless bit of travel wisdom: Don’t ever think you can drink with Russians.
That night at Baku, I watched as Mark ignored this axiom and paid dearly for emulating Icarus. I resolved to keep a clear head. It wasn’t hard to do; at that stage of my life, straight liquor of any sort was a touch too much for me.
In short order, Mark dissolved into a puddle of vodka-infused goo. Fortunately, our chivalrous Russian partners nonchalantly took control of the situation, helping settle the bill accurately, getting Mark into the street for the necessary vomiting, then hailing a taxi to get us safely to our hotel.
Who were these exemplary strangers? They simply had to be KGB. There can be no other rational explanation. I can only hope that somewhere, I have a file.
On a corner of Nevsky Prospekt, St. Petersburg’s main downtown avenue, stands a stately Art Nouveau building dating to 1904, originally constructed in 1904 right across the street from the Kazan Cathedral by the Singer Sewing Machine Company.
The building has survived revolution, bombardment and communist upkeep, and is best known for housing Dom Knigi (House of Books), a state-run bookstore, the undisputed highlight of which was its poster shop.
Posters were printed by the tens of millions in the USSR, comprising a sprawling graphic arts genre all its own, one often subjected to denigration as mere agitprop by visiting Westerners.
Even I have to admit there are grounds for the charge, as evidenced by this set that I bought. It might have been titled “Greatest Hits of American Social Injustice.” Translations are loose but reasonably close.
Predictably, the bookstore-visiting capitalists observed to be laughing loudest usually waited until no one was looking and snatched posters by the dozen for the bargain price of pennies apiece, to be transported home and flaunted as exotic, chic décor in their dens and rec rooms.
I became obsessed by a similar urge. One of the posters I bought in 1985 commemorated the 40th anniversary of the Great Patriotic War’s victorious conclusion.
Westerners know this bloody conflict as World War II, but whatever its name, the poster corroborated the same point made constantly by my father, and reinforced on the tour: the Soviet Union bore the brunt of human and material losses in defeating Nazi Germany.
It is estimated that upwards of 20 million Soviet men, women and children were killed during the war. The city of Leningrad itself was a major battleground, besieged, starved and shelled by the Germans for 900 days without giving way.
Down the street from Dom Knigi, a stenciled wartime inscription on a building’s wall was preserved for posterity. It reminded citizens which side of the street was safer when the artillery rounds started falling.
1980s-era Leningrad was crowded with plaques and monuments to the war, as well as living reminders in the form of older men seen proudly wearing their service medals in public.
We were taken by bus to Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery.
About 420,000 civilians and 50,000 soldiers of the Leningrad Front were buried in 186 mass graves. Near the entrance an eternal flame is located. A marble plate affirms that from September 4, 1941 to January 22, 1944 107,158 air bombs were dropped on the city, 148,478 shells were fired, 16,744 men died, 33,782 were wounded and 641,803 died of starvation.
These improbably precise but grim numbers are sufficiently eloquent, and while visiting the cemetery on Saturday afternoon, we were fortunate to witness an instance of remembrance’s pervasive dignity. A wedding party arrived in a convoy of Lada passenger cars, and the bride and groom were photographed with seemingly endless rows of mass graves as a backdrop to their special day.
The Soviet government didn’t require them to choose this backdrop. They wanted to do it. Are couples still doing it, now, or is there a different ritual to honor current losses in the Ukraine?
—
In 1985, Leningrad was a ceaseless collage of surreal occurrences. I remember standing in the middle of the vast open space called Palace Square, with the huge green Winter Palace on one side and the even larger gold-painted Admiralty on the other, imagining the epochal revolutionary crowds of 1917. The “Internationale” was on heavy rotation in my head, along with scenes from Warren Beatty’s classic film Reds. These fantasies wore me out, and it was time for a break.
Near the closest wing of the Winter Palace were benches beneath shady trees, and what appeared to be vending machines. Hesitantly, I walked toward the sooty gray boxes until I could make out a word stenciled in Cyrillic: Вода́.
Water … apparently drinking water.
There was a coin slot, and a posted price of one or two kopecks, at 100 kopecks to a ruble. Our tour escort Ari later explained that the two choices were still (meaning uncarbonated) or sparkling water. Several public drinking glasses were available for use; merely select the cleanest, rinse upside down with a tepid water jet, place right side up in the recess, deposit coins, push button, drink liquid and set the glass back on the ledge for the next user.
My water wasn’t fizzy. The reusable glass was returned to its place. The remarkable absence of litter finally made sense.
On Sunday morning, luggage and hangovers in equal measure were hauled to the motor coach for the return trip to Finland. The day was sunny, and the mood on the bus somber. Perhaps the visceral experience of a world so very different from our own was more exhausting than we’d imagined.
Border controls on both sides were perfunctory, and most group members debarked in Helsinki, including Mark the Australian. He’d been a great pal, and so we embraced and promised to stay in touch. I’ve neither seen nor heard from him since; so it goes.
A half-dozen of us rode an hour further to the Finnish port of Turku, where the overnight ferry was waiting for Sweden. The sands in my hourglass were indeed scarce, and the highway segment from Leningrad was only the beginning of an epic three-day, non-stop public transit journey waged across six European nations, all the way back to Luxembourg.
I’m inordinately proud to have taken this crazed journey in stride. Maybe at last adulthood had arrived.
As it transpired, two tour members were shipmates to Stockholm. I’ve forgotten their names, so they’ll be Jeff and Robert, 1985 high school graduates from Somewhereville, Mississippi, both 18 years of age and bound for military school to be trained as cannon fodder.
They looked, spoke and acted the part of soldiers-in-waiting, personality traits subject to amplification in the USSR, where we aired opposing points of view on more than one occasion. Mark had been openly disdainful amid their frequent references to the glories of the Bible and Reaganism.
Naturally I agreed with the Australian.
Occasional prayer breaks testified to Jeff’s and Robert’s fundamentalist upbringing, and any mention of Soviet history produced rote disdain, as though Pavlov himself had trained these two super-patriots to salivate and squawk “dirty stinking Commie” upon activation of the electrodes. Even the provocative schoolteacher Swiss Phil quickly wearied of Mississippianism: “It’s hard enough fighting the Communist disinformation without having to fight the anti-Communist disinformation, too.”
When the youthful Falangists spotted me returning to the hotel after shopping at Dom Knigi, they were appalled…and evidently curious, as later they materialized with armloads of their own propaganda posters.
Waiting by the docks in Turku for the gangplank to fall, they plied me with questions. Having flown directly into Helsinki for the Leningrad tour, it would be Jeff’s and Robert’s first ferry ride. I strive to be a fair broker of information, even with Mississippians, and so I sketched the routine for them.
This sent them scurrying to the nearby train station, because they hadn’t bothered activating their Eurail passes, and it is a non-negotiable rule of passage that one must have a ticket to board the ship.
Once this hurdle was complete, I told them that unless there was a deck passengers’ padded lounge on this particular vessel (turns out there wasn’t), we’d all be looking for a place on the floor to nap during the nighttime hours unless they put in for a room.
As for food, I noted the existence of a duty-free shop, a less expensive cafeteria-style eatery, and the Silja Line’s wonderful, reasonably priced seafood buffet in the ship’s ritzier restaurant. I explained my methodology of bringing a plastic “doggie” bag for the next day’s breakfast.
Jeff and Robert were intrigued by the seafood, but hesitant. Would it be too much for their burger and fries upbringing? Would they feel out of place in a nice space? Would Jesus have approved?
Would I go to dinner with them, just to make sure – their treat?
Yes, it would be my pleasure. I can tolerate almost anything for a free meal, even teenaged militaristic evangelicals from the Deep South. That night, at the seafood buffet, we were nearing the end of the meal when Jeff and Robert each produced huge plastic bags of the sort used to wrap booze at the duty-free, and began animatedly filling them with food.
Before I had the chance to remind them that discretion is an integral part of most pilferage equation, they had been spotted, and shortly a restaurant worker appeared. As the dressing-down commenced in brilliantly detailed English, I shrugged.
Seriously, people; everyone knows that carry-outs aren’t allowed at a buffet.
Soon Jeff and Robert were marched off to the cash register to settle their tabs and pay a fine for intemperance. Meanwhile I’d been entirely forgotten, and the whole dining room’s attention was centered on their farce, so I shrugged a second time and filled my own freezer bag with selected morsels for morning, secreted it inside my coat, and left the scene.
On the way out, I thanked Jeff and Robert for their generosity. They seemed very unhappy, but I felt pretty damn good. It may have taken three months, but I’d successfully learned at least some of the many budget travel ropes.
The last time I ever saw Jeff and Robert was on Monday morning in the subway station near the Silja mooring in Stockholm. They were standing forlornly by the turnstiles, crumpled dollars in hand, unable to determine how they’d be able to get the Swedish kroner necessary to buy tickets to the central station. Having passed through Sweden a week earlier, I’d reserved a handful of coins for just such a contingency.
There was enough for three fares. It was the least I could do for a morning’s delicious leftover smoked salmon.
The Travela agency’s chartered motor coach departed Leningrad just after breakfast on Sunday, August 4. By mid-afternoon, I was situated in Turku along with the antebellum Mississippians, their fingernails on my metaphorical blackboard, waiting to catch the ferry. The island-strewn Baltic was crossed during the night, and Stockholm’s efficient subway connected the city’s docklands to its central train station for the next leg to Copenhagen, Denmark.
It seemed that nothing could stop my relentless momentum, and as the rails steadily clicked past, I made leisurely work of the previous evening’s buffet doggie-bag remnants, all the while plotting a final “Sleep-In” hockey rink hostel evening in the Danish capital, followed by an early morning train in the direction of the Duchy of Luxembourg.
Way back in May, I’d taken the precaution of reserving a dorm bed at the Luxembourg City Hostel for my last two European nights, but first, there’d be time in Copenhagen for another heaping platter of fried potatoes and eggs at the Vista Self Service Restaurant, a couple bottles of Tuborg, and a decent night’s sleep in something roughly approximating a bed.
Alas, it was not to be.
Somewhere between Stockholm and Copenhagen, surrounded by amber waves of grain and cloudless blue skies, the train shuddered to a halt. It remained motionless for a full three and a half hours.
The stoppage had something to do with engine failure. Better a train than a plane, but the delay necessitated an itinerary rethink. By the time we made Copenhagen, there was little sense paying for a bunk at the hockey arena when another train soon would be queueing for the overnight run to Germany.
I might as well keep moving.
Scraping together the haggard remnants of my Danish kroner stash, I found fruitful foraging near the station: Three bottles of Carlsberg from a shop across the street, a handful of rødpølser (hot dogs) from the pølsevogn out front, and an International Herald-Tribune. It was enough. There was ample room in the train’s 1st class car to stretch out across the seats. It wasn’t a bed, though it was an improvement on the ferry’s unyielding floor the night before.
Morning found me in Köln, Koblenz, or maybe Aachen. I can’t tell you exactly where I debarked on Tuesday morning. The most likely explanation is Köln, with a change to Koblenz for the final approach to Luxembourg City, via Trier. Wherever it was, two memories have survived reasonably intact.
Most importantly, the train station in question was “old school” and still had a for-pay locker room with hot showers, where filth-encrusted budget travelers could pay a few Deutschmarks to be clean and fresh again. These facilities seemed entirely obsolete even then, and I sensed they were doomed, but it was blissful to have a scrub while it was still available.
Then, feeling human again, I visited the train station bistro and pointed at a dish that appeared to be chopped steak on a roll, ready to be cooked to order — and it was, in a manner of speaking, except that the beef was purposefully raw, served with the added bonus of an uncooked egg on top. Such was my introduction to steak tartare.
At a train station bistro.
Had I not already paid for it, rejection likely would have ensued, but funds were running low. Silly American squeamishness had no choice except to be surmounted, and so I ate it. It wasn’t bad, and I did not die.
It was Vonnegut in reverse.
—
This is truly a remarkable story for such a small country (Luxembourg) that originated from an old Roman fort sold to a Prince by some monks.
— Andre Sanchez
In early afternoon on Tuesday, August 6, my three-month European adventure finally came full circle. Once again, I stood on the plaza in front of the Luxembourg City train station, and this time it was without the incapacitated drunkard at my feet.
Roughly 54 hours and 1,750 miles had passed since the bus left Leningrad. My emotions were jumbled and conflicting. Exhaustion vied with exhilaration, and a reluctance to return to America was balanced by acceptance.
In May it had taken me almost two hours to find the hostel on Rue du Fort Olisy. In August, a quick stop at the handy tourism kiosk in the station produced a free city map and concise directions in English. I found the hostel after a pleasant 20-minute walk.
In May, confused and probably delirious, I’d noticed very little about my surroundings. Now, in August, Luxembourg City was revealed as a place worthy of exploration in its own right. The hostel itself reposed in the shadow of a huge stone bridge spanning a quiet valley, north of the promontory where the centerpiece of the city’s fortifications formerly straddled. Two rivers snaked through the historic downtown area, a place seemingly devoid of flat ground.
Luxembourg’s blend of German and French cultural influences was newly evident, especially as reflected by the local language, Luxembourgish. It seemed a hybridized and impenetrable German dialect with French loan words.
Billeted and unburdened of baggage, there remained ample time late on Tuesday afternoon for a visit to the Bock casemates, accessible by climbing the hill behind the hostel. The casemates are underground passages remaining from Luxembourg City’s castle, formerly placed astride a rocky ridgeline surrounded on three sides by the looping River Alzette. Famed for its impregnability, the castle’s construction began in the year 963, and for 900 years, it was augmented with formidable walls and ramparts.
The Treaty of London in 1867 established a neutral Luxembourg and called for the demolition of the castle and adjacent defenses. The casemates remained. Originally, these radiated from the castle’s cellar. A long, central passageway leads to what were storage areas, workrooms and kitchen capable of being used when the castle was attacked or under siege.
Smaller tunnels radiate from this passageway, leading to artillery emplacements in the walls of the cliffs. After demilitarization, with most exterior structures removed, the casemates still had their uses, most memorably as bomb shelters during WWII.
Wednesday was my final opportunity to wander European byways with dreamy, aimless intent. It dawned a flawless summer’s day in the Duchy, warm and sunny, but without the oppressive and muggy humidity of the Ohio Valley.
I walked to the train station and exercised the magical powers of the Eurailpass for the very last time. The idea was to ride the slow local route northward to Clervaux and back, perhaps stopping to examine other small towns along the way, and getting a feel for the Ardennes.
As I was to learn the hard way from the saddle of a bicycle 19 years later, the Ardennes may not be lofty mountains by world standards, but they’re far more mountains than hills. They’re also beautiful and filled with history.
Clervaux was the scene of fierce fighting during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. In one of the war’s great military feats, George S. Patton’s 3rd Army broke off combat in Germany, reversed course in impossibly rapid fashion, and relieved American forces trapped 20 miles to the west of Clervaux in Bastogne, Belgium.
In the Great War, nearby Troisverges marks the spot in 1914 where Imperial Germany violated Luxembourg’s neutrality in route to their eventual standoff with the French. Everywhere I looked in Clervaux, there was history on a signpost.
Better yet, Clervaux proved just the place to indulge in a valedictory reverie. I went into a small grocery store, bought a crusty loaf, ham, cheese and two local Diekirch lager beers, and walked up to the castle. It houses a museum devoted to the Battle of the Bulge, and outside, a Sherman tank and artillery piece are on display.
I found a bench near these relics of violence and peacefully ate and drank my lunch. Dessert was in my shirt pocket, because I’d bought five small Cuban cigars at the Beriozka back in Leningrad. In terms of quality, they were purely average, but it’s the thought of three transformative months that really counts.
The hostel served supper. I showered, packed and slept. At last, it was time. On Thursday morning, there was a bus to the airport. We passed a sign pointing the way to the American Cemetery and Memorial. General Patton, who died of injuries suffered in an automobile accident after war’s end, is buried there.
Back amid the jets, it was Icelandair again, to Chicago by way of Reykjavik. I retained my neophyte’s inchoate fear of flying, but oddly, there was a certain tranquility to the boarding process. As the plane began rolling toward liftoff and ascent, something absolutely strange happened.
I barely noticed it, because I was deep in thought. Not once in three months had I allowed myself the luxury of considering possible sequels. Now, with the wheels folding up into the plane’s belly, I knew.
There was going to be a next time. As of 2025, there have been 45 more after that.
Next: Euro Pilgrimage ’85, Ch. 16: Lessons learned, corners turned, bridges burned (finis).
