The American Spectator : A Christmas Tale

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A Christmas Tale

By Christopher Orlet on 12.22.11 @ 6:08AM

A Polish village, a war, and a brand new bicycle.

He passed away earlier this year, the old man. We spent a number of Christmases with him and his wife, in their crowded, crumbling apartment in a village called Mysliborz near the German border. It was on one such Christmas night that he told this story, which even after all these years I am unable to forget:

FOR CHRISTMAS that year I received a brand new bicycle. This was in the first year of the war. The bicycle was a Lucznik, sleek and fire engine red. I was the envy of all the kids in the village. I still cannot imagine how my father saved enough to buy such a thing, but somehow he had.

That was the winter German troops arrived in our village. Immediately the soldiers began posting notices all over town. Every week a new notice ordering villagers to bring this or that item to police headquarters. One week it would be butter churners, the next week it was goats. If you ignored the order and you were found out, or if someone reported you, you would be severely punished. You can probably guess what that meant.

I was attending school the day the Germans decided to round up all of the bicycles in the village. I can only imagine how terrible my father must have felt, knowing how much I loved that bicycle. Nevertheless he dared not disobey orders. My father was a practical man. He wasn’t going to risk being shot over a bicycle.

That afternoon my friend Radek and I walked home from school just like we always did. It had been raining earlier but now the sky had cleared and the cobblestone streets shimmered in the late afternoon sun. Suddenly Radek halted. He nudged me and asked if that wasn’t my bicycle leaning against the wall of the tavern. We hurried to get a closer look. True enough, it was my bike. No one else in town had one like it, and no one would for many years.

“How do you suppose it got here?” asked Radek.

I shrugged. “Beats me.”

I climbed on my bicycle and began pedaling up and down the street. It was my bike all right.

Radek ran alongside me for a while. “Can I try?” he cried.

“I have to get home now,” I said. I rode off doing tricks down the alley.

I did not go home directly. Chores waited at home. I rode up and down the wet cobblestone streets, enjoying the looks of all the wide-eyed villagers envious of my new bike.

My mother and father were working in the garden when I rode through the gate. I saw my mother straighten and the hoe fall from her hands. She let out a small cry.

My father looked up. His face had turned ashen gray. He raised his arm and pointed as though he were seeing a ghost. “Where did you get that?” he cried.

I was confused. What kind of question was that? “I got it for Christmas,” I said. Even then I was too old to believe in St. Nicholas.

“No! Where did you get it just now?”

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About the Author

Christopher Orlet writes from St. Louis.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (14) | Leave a comment Leave a comment

Moe Blotz| 12.22.11 @ 9:10AM

Quite a tear jerker. Was the old man your kin? I wonder how many more similar stories from the era remain untold. One of my mates from the place I worked in 1990s was the son of a Lithuanian refugee and his dad told some hair raising stories of tyranny in the old country. Merry Christmas .

POST American| 12.22.11 @ 10:10AM

----Great piece!

AND MEANWHILE,

"Understand folks --without the Consitituion
---without the Bill of Rights ---we're Mexico
--we're North Korea ---we're finished."

Just a little X-mas REALITY CHECK as
here at home NDAA is calling for
the 'disappearance' of American citizens
---on top of full-spectrum surveillance
nationwide, and the end of posse
commintatus.

----------------------UNDERSTAND FOLKS.

DO------------------------------------------------

John Navratil| 12.22.11 @ 11:42AM

My father, as a teenager, defused bombs for the Czech resistance and endured the frequent mid-night break-ins by the Gestapo looking for contraband. At the end, the Americans were thought by the resistance to be liberators. The resistance rose up, the Americans stopped advancing to leave Prague to the Russians, and many fighters were killed by the Germans during the final days before the Russians "liberated" Prague (thanks, FDR! thanks, Stalin!). Dad escaped to Austria after the Commies took over and closed the borders. His brother delayed a few weeks in order to graduate with a law degree from Charles University. He was caught attempting to escape and spent sixteen years in prison until the '64 general amnesty. As a "political" he never practiced law. Their parents were stripped of their wealth and shunted into the least desirable housing.

That's why I love Socialism as much as I do.

God Bless America. I pray we save it.

John Navratil| 12.22.11 @ 11:43AM

I don't know how this got posted as a response to "Post American". Sorry.

Occam's Tool| 12.22.11 @ 4:46PM

I do, too, John. Merry Christmas.

John Navratil| 12.22.11 @ 6:25PM

Occam's Tool,

Thank you and may you and your family enjoy this Channukah celebration. Perhaps after this country's defiling we can rededicate it with what remains of the oil of liberty.

rhoetus| 12.22.11 @ 4:55PM

Mr. Navratil: I hope that you have a very Merry Christmas and that you are in good health. Many years ago members of my family left Slovakia.
Zedna Kapral wrote her auto-biography about her life in Czechoslovakia before, during and after WW2. I learned a lot about my father's former homeland.
http://www.amazon.com/Tomorrow.....094317368X

John Navratil| 12.22.11 @ 6:33PM

rhoetus,

Thank you, and Merry Christmas to you. I pray my health remains as strong as that of my Father and Uncle who still lives in Prague. They are 84 and 88, respectively. Dad and Mom (81) are in the Czech Republic visiting his brother as I write. I'm looking forward to helping him do a little carpentry work on my house when he visits for the New Year - I'm definitely the assistant.

I've ordered the book you've suggested. I look forward to receiving it.

rhoetus| 12.22.11 @ 7:48PM

I'm sure that you will enjoy the book. Cordially, rhoetus

Louis Jenkins| 12.22.11 @ 4:48PM

And the socialists will take all that we have if we allow it. A sad story.

Tina B| 12.23.11 @ 8:54AM

I thank you too, Mr. Orlet, for the trip to pre-war Poland, where my Papa grew up. I have just retired and before I go home I would love to see and touch the land of my father.

I trust we will have memories in heaven, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus would indicate this, as the rich man wants to go back and tell his family not to make the same mistake he did. After his death. I plan to ask my dad about his youth and his life as a Polish Army Captain in WWII. All those things I should have asked when I had him here.

God bless you Christopher, John N, and Occam's, and all other believers in a Holy God. Hear, Oh Israel, the Lord is One.

Happy Chanukah and have a Merry Christmas.

Tina B| 12.23.11 @ 8:55AM

Oh, and keep your lamps burning till the Bridegroom returns.

Vasu Murti | 12.24.11 @ 3:30PM

(The folk song below receives airplay on KFOG 104.5 here in the SF Bay Area during the holiday season.)

"Well, Jesus was a homeless lad
"With an unwed mother and an absent dad
"And I really don't think he would have gotten that far
"If Newt, Pat and Jesse had followed that star