The name of the rose

Readers of my first novel A Season of Leaves will know that I was inspired to write the story after hearing the family legend of my Great Auntie Ginge’s extraordinary experiences during and after the Second World War. (How she met and married Jan, a Czech soldier while working as a Land Girl in England and followed him to Prague once peace was declared, only to escape the Communist regime within a few years.)

In my novel, I changed Ginge’s name to Rose, and Jan’s name to Krystof…

They were having an Indian Summer in Cornwall. Rose smiled and leant a little further from her window, tasting the sweet, balmy air tinged with the tang of sea salt. In Krystof’s language, September was Zari: the month that glows with colour. She kept his words alive, kept his memory bright. In the dark every night before she drifted off to sleep, the thoughts and words spinning through her head were Czech…

But while writing A Season of Leaves, I was also inspired by another story: that of Eva Melichar.

Eva was a Czech lady who, like my auntie Ginge, had also escaped Prague with her husband and child in the late forties.

I interviewed Eva at her home in Canterbury in the summer of 2006 to hear her amazing story. Eva’s husband disappeared one day while he was fixing the doorbell of their house in Prague. He was imprisoned and tortured by the Communist regime; his foot was broken by Red Guards stamping on it. Eva went to the headquarters every day to ask after him, only to be told each time to go away; each time: ‘you will be informed’. Eventually, he was released, but the couple knew they were in great danger and had to leave.

They put their trust in a complete stranger. He told them to meet him on the edge of a wood, and he would lead them through the countryside and safely across the border. Their trust paid off, and Eva and her family lived in a series of refugee camps before finally settling in England.

In A Season of Leaves I based my character Rose’s lover Krystof’s experience with the Red Guards on this traumatic episode (although Rose and Krystof, and Ginge and Jan, escaped Prague in an entirely different way…)

As well as sharing her story, Eva also helped me with the Czech language, and the translation of Rose’s name into Ruzena.

‘They are watching us, Ruzena,’ Krystof spoke deeply into her ear. ‘They are listening. Every person is our enemy. We trust no one.’ His voice was thick, unreal. ‘From now on, we pretend. We buy ourselves time. We buy ourselves a life. They wanted my confession of bourgeoise behaviour and an application to join the Party. All I had to do was sign. But I will never sign.’

In 2008, I received the sad news of Eva’s death, at the age of 86. Her daughter described her as quietly courageous, curious and enthusiastic about the world.

I will always be grateful to Eva for the time she spent with me, her kindness and her hospitality. And her enthusiasm for my little project, which eventually became the realisation of my dream, the publication of A Season of Leaves.

It was only when I heard that she’d died that I learned that Eva’s full name was Ruzena Eva Melichar; her name was Rose. How fitting that this dignified lady had let the co-incidence of my character’s name matching hers drift by… another one of life’s wistful but thought-provoking mysteries.

An enormous moon was suspended over Prague, like a fat white cheese against a velvet navy night sky. It spilled light onto the Vltava, onto the statues on the Charles Bridge, over the jumbled landscape of red roofs, making silver pathways for rats and cats. The forest of chimneys and spires cast moon shadows over tiles and over cobbles in the streets where dogs trotted silently stopping occasionally to sniff the drains.

A strangely tranquil night. The middle of May. The month of Kveten. The month of flowers. Their spring had come, thought Rose, and yet their future had not yet started.