In a Distant Country
Story from Janus 49 by R.P. Forrester The past is another country . L.P. Hartley? Yes. And certainly that idyllic spot, that little village set in the sparkling mountains that I wandered into as a young man is another country. A country which then had not known the ravages of war and post-war; a country now only of my mind. It was just before the war, 1938 I think, but as yet in that remote mountain-ringed region of Central Europe there was no hint of what was shortly to come. I was walking, with a rucksack, occasionally taking a lift on one of the rare vehicles, studying the language (or telling myself I was) which was a dialect of German (I suppose now it is Russian they have to speak). At any rate English travellers, indeed any travellers, seemed to be very rare birds and perhaps that is why I was treated with such friendliness. And allowed such intimate insights in that household. I simply wandered in along the dusty road one sunlit autumn afternoon. I stayed for fou...