Stars Are Faultless, Not Ourselves

by Peter Hammer

         Why do people always say, ‘Count your blessings’, or ‘Thank the lucky stars’ when a fortuitous event has occurred, or when you’ve just managed to escape an unpleasant incident, which may have in fact just been one of a random set of chance events?

         I mean, I am all in favour of taking some time out in order to appreciate and be thankful for the key things in my life, in order to project positive energy, the consequence of which, I truly believe produces wonderful, universally-approved ‘good karma’. But such statements make me wonder: how many blessings should one have, in fact? Is my list insultingly short, or much too long? Are the ones on my list appropriate enough? Should I even care about what others have in their list of blessings? And what about finding my girlfriend’s earring in the rubbish a few week’s ago, my arms covered in drying creamy pasta, dust, and tomato bits - was that a blessing (perhaps in disguise)? Or perhaps that was just the resultant good fortune of having counted a few blessings earlier that week? Is it wrong to be thankful for things, which might or might not have happened ’for a reason?’

         And while we are on the topic, which stars would we deem as the lucky ones, by the way? How about a star which has managed to live a full and productive life, like a red dwarf, before it expands with luminous greatness to become a red supergiant, and as its outward pressure cannot overcome its own core’s gravity, eventually condensing and fusing other heavier elements, its core collapses and nearly instantaneously explodes as a spectacularly colourful supernova? ‘Going out with a bang’ - extraordinarily beautiful! Its luck continues to shine when intense gravitational forces cause the supernova to form into a neutron star or even a black hole. Lucky star! Sucking up everything, which enters its event horizon, like a bottomless belly! Binary stars might also be considered to be quite lucky, as (like their name suggests) there are two stars which are able to keep each other company, attracting each other into a mutual orbit. But since (according to astronomical estimations) more than 50% of all stars are binary types, I think we probably should consider them to be more the norm than lucky. And how about that big fireball in the sky that we call ‘the sun’ which plays an enormous part in our own little solar system? I’d say it was pretty lucky (near miraculous!) that it managed to become part of an amazing astronomical feat, to play a major part in creating one planet, which could sustain life on it. But should we call this: a) a chance event, b) fate, or c) Nature? Nature (of which the sun is part) of course, occurs regularly and constantly according to physical law. As it is constant and normal, it is contrary to the very concept of chance.

         When I ran onto the train in Prague, jumping on 2 seconds before it departed, I was tired and frustrated, but it was just by chance that I made it on time. Sweat which had been forming in my skin, from my 200-metre mad dash, including 2 different flights of stairs, welling up like a geyser wells up before it spouts, seemed to just gush out underneath all my layers under my winter jacket. The taxi driver who drove me here had taken what I could only estimate to be the longest route possible from the downtown area to the main train station – without actually leaving the city limits. That earned him a very nice, meaty fare, and earned me a pounding heartbeat, for this was the last train of the evening to Cesky Tesin, about a 6-hour train ride away, where my friends were waiting for me. I had followed their sound advice: ‘make sure you get a cab with a meter, or you’ll get done,’ but I didn’t feel any better for doing so, nor did my pocket.

         The train (which must have been a post-war relic) was packed. Each 6-person compartment was full of large square-shaped, multicoloured plastic bags, sitting over the heads of somber people, many of whom had their shoes off, books or magazines out, or were already snoozing. I guess they managed to get onto the train well in time. It wasn’t easy going from carriage to carriage, with my heavy suitcase and bags, mainly full of presents and winter clothes. Many people who wanted to smoke or just lean out the window ended up in the corridor, and it was a toss-up whether I said ‘excuse me’ or ‘thank you’ each time I got close to the next stern-looking person, who barely moved to let me by. At least one of the two wheels on my suitcase worked, which fought constantly against the other one like a rogue wheel on a shopping trolley, always trying to pull you in the opposite direction to where you wanted to go. Only I didn’t have the luxury of wide aisles to avoid crashing into things. It was even more challenging going through the shaky, undulating section between carriages, where two heavily-grooved overlapping metal plates created a short, but somewhat moving, link to the next carriage. The sound in this small section was quite deafening, as the train had gathered speed, and the small gaps by the sides of the plates showed a fast-moving river of train tracks, slats and stones below, the wheels clacking noisily.

         I was slowly running out of carriages to fight my way through, and was quickly coming to the conclusion that I would probably have to pick a spot in the corridor to stand for the remainder of the journey. I was tired enough to sleep standing up, but although the fast-paced rocking motion of the train might be able to lull me into a restful sleep, that same rocking motion would be my enemy and would undoubtedly throw me to the floor in a matter of a few deep sleep seconds.

         How shocked were my eyes, then, to see two empty seats in one compartment, in the last carriage ! When I slid the glass door open, 4 very tanned and gnarled faces stared back at me. They were all leaning forward, chatting amongst themselves, but my presence rudely interrupted their conversation. At first I thought perhaps I was getting my hopes up too soon, and that two of their rough-and-ready friends must be in the corridor, or in the toilet temporarily indisposed, but I gestured inquisitively all the same to one empty seat, my body language asking the 8 black marble eyes if it was acceptable for me to sit there.

         The one on the right, sitting by the window, gazed at me, looked me up and down, and smiled, revealing a few gold capped teeth, and waved his hand as if to say “please sit.” Brilliant! I wouldn’t have to stand up for 5 and a half hours! My quick-fired elation soon ebbed, however, once I heaved my heavy suitcase, bags, and laptop up on the luggage rack, and plopped down onto my seat. It just became apparent why there was a seat or two free in this compartment – their scruffy dress shirts, dirty jeans, calloused and dirty hands, and scuffed dress shoes were all screaming out to me – they must be Gypsies!

         I had heard that there were quite a few of them in Czech Republic, and I had seen quite a few of ’their type’ when they had ‘annexed’ a piece of council land just outside my old school in England about 12 years before then. They managed to live there for about a year, before the proper paperwork and legal formalities were met in order to evict them off the land. When they cleared off one day (as quickly as they had settled), they left a ’temporary’ campsite in tatters – clothes, rubbish, mess everywhere.

         Now, I’m not saying that I had ever met nor chatted to a gypsy face-to-face before (whom we should begin to call ’traveller’ due to overriding PC pressures), so I couldn’t have been very knowledgeable of their culture, nor would I have been able to allay someone’s generalised fears that they were the sort of people who settle on a piece of land, rape it, wreck it, and then leave.

         So there I was, in a compartment with four men who at least in their appearance screamed out to me that they were gypsy-travellers. But I was too tired to care, I had been travelling the whole week before, had entertained many customers on my foreign business trips and had had many long nights, and here I had a seat on a long train journe y. I thought to myself, “As long as I stay awake throughout the whole train ride, I’ll be fine.” I even thought about taking my laptop bag from overhead and cradling it in my arms, as a precaution, but then I thought that this would be a little rude, and even presumptuous, on my part, succumbing to the gypsy generalizations, which perhaps have existed for many generations.

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         I awoke with a jolt and my heart was racing. I had fallen asleep ! Was my laptop still there? I tried desperately to snap out of my hazy state, and act nonchalantly to scan my possessions above my head by yawning and stretching my arms, then to search discreetly in my pockets to see if my money, passport, etc. were still there. Yes, everything seemed to be in order. But perhaps I was only out for a few minutes? My watch told me differently, I had been out cold for almost 3 hours!

         They all looked at me, and smiled, but this time, they were not talking amongst themselves, they were focused intently on some sort of card game. I couldn’t make it out from where I was sitting (in the corner by the compartment door), but it certainly didn’t look like your typical poker, blackjack, or gin rummy.

         Then the unexpected happened, they cracked open a few beers, and stuck out a can in my direction, apparently asking me if I wanted one. My first thought was to decline their offer, but something inside me urged me to accept it. Perhaps it was because I had experienced many an icebreaker, or barrier removal, in the simple form of water, malt, and hops before.

         So, in the usual form of thankfulness and social interaction, I tried to make conversation with them, believing that there must be many common words we could understand together. I asked, Sprechen Sie Deutsch? Parlez-vous français? hedging my bets on my former education languages. That didn’t seem to work. I tried further a field from my knowledge base: Italiano? Espagnol? of which I only knew a few words and phrases. Dansk? Knowing that Danish or any other Scandinavian language was a long shot, but I was fluent in it and I would have happily welcomed a nodding motion of one of their heads. I even muttered a few words of Russian and Arabic, just in case these caused a raising of an eyebrow or two. Again, nothing. I was a bit astounded that we couldn’t converse together, and I wondered just what the blazes these gentlemen were doing on a train bound for Slovakia (I was heading to the Czech/Polish border), if they couldn’t at least converse in (or at least recognise) any of the most ‘popular’ language-based forms in the entire European + Middle Eastern continent. Heck, I would have even tried some Japanese if I thought that it would help. The only word they muttered after we conquered the almost comical, protracted introductions (‘My name is Peter....P-eeeter’), was ‘arbeit’. Of course, they were asking me what I did for work, funnily enough in German, but they didn’t speak the language. So how was I to begin to describe that I was a Business Development Manager for an American/English IT networking cable and interconnectivity company based out of England? I almost pulled my laptop down from the luggage rack to show them a presentation of the products our company manufactured, but then quickly realised the absurdity of that thought.

         So instead I asked them what they did for ‘arbeit.’ I tried to make sense of what they were saying, but in the end my blank face urged them on to keep pointing at their hands. Then the penny dropped – they were pointing at their rough calluses, which translated into: manual labourers. Excellent, we were getting somewhere! Then they started making gestures, which depicted a car and a house, my car and house, and it looked like they were trying to ask if they were large, and if they were expensive (by the internationally-renown rubbing of thumb and forefinger together). Either they were just trying to make ‘conversation’, or there was another reason? In any case, I just shook my head to say ‘no car’ and ‘no house’, which wasn’t exactly an honest response, but perhaps a more prudent one.

         At that point, the man by the window showed me the pack of cards they were playing with, and motioned for me to sit opposite him. I moved across, replacing my body with his compatriot’s, who moved to my seat. The dirty-edged, ragged cards were roughly shown to me on the tiny compartment table, and they had figures or figurines on them, some just with symbols (e.g. a gold ring, or double gold ring). Most of them resembled the Italian card game ‘Scopa,’ which I had played a few times before, but a few cards were different, from my recollection (perhaps a derivative?). He dealt the cards out, but face up for both of us, so he could show me how each hand was best played. The strategy looked very similar to Scopa as well, so I thought, ‘well, what harm could it be to play?’ We still had close to 2 hours to kill.

         The second hand was played face up as well, but this time a little more in earnest. I won that one. They all smiled, many gold teeth shining, congratulating me on my ‘beginner’s luck’ win. The next two hands we played with our cards hidden from each other – which I won as well. Here I was, sitting with a bunch of gypsies (sorry, travellers), having met by chance and playing a card game, and I was winning. We couldn’t converse with each other, but the two stimulants were acting in a way as opposites to each other, yet acting as facilitators to our social interaction: cards, which, if played in all seriousness, in its own way promotes superiority by luck, chance, and good fortune (but this was just a friendly game); and beer, the amber nectar that washes away cultural barriers, and flows like rivers between social classes in order to make each person accessible to another; was bringing us closer together. .

         After a couple of more of their beers, and a couple of more successful games on my part, the gypsy card player pulled out a wad of folded notes – it seemed as if he was willing to place a wager. I was tempted to accept, as I recalled I wasn’t such a bad Scopa player, and maybe it would be my lucky night. But who would care to lay odds that my glorious winning streak would most likely come to an abrupt end, if I took him up on this ‘friendly’ wager? Yes, it was true, I was on a winning streak, but if ever there was an opportune time to be hustled, now was it! I chose the more cautious route and shook my head, patting my pockets and feigning cash deficiency. They smiled and then pointed to my watch! I tried in my best traveller negotiations to let them know it was a present from my girlfriend, and that I couldn’t possibly gamble with it. I think all my nervous gesticulations amused them, as they just smiled and didn’t seem too despondent. I pointed to the same watch they wanted to gamble with, indicating to them that my end destination was soon: the time for fleecing me was drawing to an end.

         I gathered my bags, and as a gesture of goodwill I dipped into one of them and produced 4 beers (intended for my Czech friends) as a departing present to my new found travelling companions. Again their gold teeth grinned, and their weathered workers’ hands gripped the cans gratefully.

         I stepped off the old workhorse train once it had come to a screeching halt, it was 3.00 am. My lungs burned with the winter air. My friends had promised me that they would all meet me on the platform, which at the time I thought was a bit exuberant a promise, especially at that time of night. My breath exhaled the cold, crisp air into the snowflakes which were gently falling. The train station’s repeated metallic, monotone announcement of our train’s arrival was soon drowned out by more vivacious voices. I hoisted my heavy suitcase off of the train, and walked towards the welcoming crowd, obviously quite happy to see me, it appeared they must have just come from the pub or perhaps from a party. I was glad that they had made quite an event of it. From their hugs and kisses, it seemed they were very pleased that I had made the effort to come visit their provincial town very far from the capital city Prague.

         I barely noticed the train pulling away, but heard a different kind of shouting coming from my right side, and they were directed at me – they were from my travelling companions, all 4 of them squeezed up to and leaning slightly out of the window, holding my beers in one hand and waving with the other, saying goodbye to me. I turned to the train, and waved my arms at them for a few seconds, reciprocating their earnest farewell gestures.

         My friends on the platform, watching this warm departure, all went quiet and one of them demanded, “Who are they?”

         “I travelled from Prague with them,“ I replied.

         “Oh my God,” my friend said, “they’re gypsies! You should thank your lucky stars you weren’t robbed, or even killed!”

         I looked up to the sky to see if any were shining that night, but the luminous mist covered the evening sky, and the snowflakes were coming down in their hundreds. The stars, lucky ones or otherwise, did not need to be visible that night.

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