Well, I don't mind that they're lucky

But it seems that they always win

And gamblin' is illegal in the state of mind I'm in

– Melanie Safka, 'The Nickel Song'

I woke up with this song in my head. I wondered why. Then I opened Twitter.

People sharing aurora photos. People complaining about bad politicians. People saying nice things about mothers because it's Mother's Day weekend in the US. Somebody asking cheerily, 'What do you need to zhuzh up in your life?' What, indeed? And I'm thinking about the Nickel Song.

'They're only puttin' in a nickel and they want a dollar song.'

I hear you, Melanie.

And then, this: a woman shared a very nice story about how her in-laws visited her family in Europe. They wanted to go to Lorraine, of course, by which they meant the big American war cemetery in France. The mother-in-law's uncle was buried there. He was a pilot in the Second World War.

When the family got there, they got a surprise. It seems Uncle Bud was famous. The site interpreters (that's Newspeak for 'tour guides') used his very eloquent letters home to present visitors with 'relatable' moments. Bud, a young Mormon farmer in civilian life, had written of the simple pleasures: 'I want to. . . do a good hard day's work, eat a good meal at a good family table, say "hello" to neighbors, shoot pheasants, walk out through a pretty field of spuds, drive to town through the snow. . . ' We can relate. Unfortunately, Uncle Bud did not live to do these simple things again. He died, and was buried in France. Visitors honour him with flowers and flags and rub sand into his gravestone to read his name clearly and with pride.

And then they all go away, sad but somehow with a sense of duty fulfilled, thinking, 'This is how it must be. We must always sacrifice the young and the brave so that life can on. After all, we can never fix what's broken. Wars happen.'

Well, you know, I don't know so many things

But I know what's been goin' on

We're only putting in a little to get rid of a lot that's wrong.

I think what Melanie thinks here: we're only putting in a nickel. And we want a dollar song. We never stop to ask: what would it take to make the next war memorial the last war memorial?

What would it take to make peace break out? The same thing it would have taken when Melanie sang that song more than fifty years ago. The same thing it would have taken to prevent any death from any war that's going to be remembered on the weekend when you're reading this, which is US Memorial Day. The same thing it would have taken to prevent the centuries upon centuries of death, all the way back to when the first farmer hit the first shepherd over the head with a rock.

You know what that is. I'm not going to name it. You are. Somewhere in your mind. Even if you push the thought away, or scoff at it, refusing to even think about it as you pick up your device to read about more conflict.

How does it start? Look in this issue. It can start with what FWR and his wife do on their holidays: taking notice of the people they meet. Remembering that they're guests in somebody else's home. Appreciating them. Bothering to learn how to communicate – okay, a little, but trying is what counts. If you can't even do that much, get one of those 'pronounce out loud' computer apps, and you can laugh together.

Those apps remind me of the time we had with Miklos in Bonn. He showed up at the Baptist Wednesday night prayer meeting. (Go ahead and laugh.) Everybody there was German except for me, because Jimmy the Scotsman wasn't there that night. Anyway, it was a prayer meeting of the old-fashioned kind. People went around the room and prayed out loud – not everybody, because the crowd was too big, maybe fifty people. Just the ones who felt 'led'. I was listening.

And suddenly, I didn't understand what was being said. Funny. That wasn't German. Or English. Or French. Or any other language I knew. I'm acquainted with a fair few of them, at least to shake hands with, and it wasn't any of them. Hm, I thought: what does it sound like? By the time the prayer meeting was over, I had narrowed it down. I was pretty sure it was Hungarian.

I chuckled inwardly, because I'd already noticed Iris in the group. Iris was an up-and-coming apprentice at the post office. Iris was delightful, helpful, and five-foot-nothing of bossiness and opinions. Iris organised people. One of Iris' opinions was that 'speaking in tongues' should not happen on Wednesday night. I feared that Iris would suspect that 'speaking in tongues' was taking place in her prayer meeting.

As soon as the meeting broke up, I made a beeline to the visitor. I met Iris coming the same way, also other students.

'He's Hungarian!' announced Iris with relief.

'Oh, good!' I grinned. 'Does anybody speak Hungarian?'

'No, but he's got a dictionary!'

Indeed, he had. He didn't know it yet, but he also had Iris. Relieved that no glossolalia had taken place, Iris did some organising – and off we went.

We spent the rest of the evening and into the wee hours communicating through that dictionary: we'd point, he'd point, we'd all laugh. We did this in Bonn, and down the highway to Düsseldorf, mashed into somebody's VW bug, and for an hour or so at Schneider Wibbel's. We introduced Miklos to the rarified pleasures of Berliner Weisse mit Schuss, and to the naughty delight of making the glasses ring with moistened fingers until the annoyed wait staff demanded we settle up.

Not a linguistic achievement, but a really good evening. Our guest was off to his next destination, having enjoyed this part of his holiday.

What's the point? Like FWR, we didn't just put in a nickel. We put in a dime. That might seem a modest amount to fix a lot that's wrong. But I know of somebody who said that would be enough. After all, he fed a crowd with a kid's sack lunch one day.

And maybe, just maybe, we'd get to that word you're thinking about, but we're not saying aloud.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

27.05.24 Front Page

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