a short story by Ilona Kutas to my grandfather
The discovery of the marvellous world of languages is the great
experience of my life. The motivation for this sprang from family
roots. My maternal grandfather, a theological professor, had
mastered eighteen languages. Language and religion were very
important for him. He was not able to teach me German, Hebrew,
Polish or English because I was only five when he died. I only feel
somewhere in my genes that I should follow in his footsteps.
As a member of a librarian delegation I spent a week in Oslo. After
the rich and interesting daily programmes I always ran back to my
hotel room to spend the lonely evenings in the company of my new
friend, an EnglishNorwegian bilingual Bible. I had found it on the
night table on the first day when I entered the hotel room, my home
for a week.
Perhaps it is common in the hotel rooms of Christian countries to
have a Bible at the guests disposal. I experienced this custom for
the first time in my life there in Oslo. Finding that Bible brought
to mind remembrances of my childhood as well. As a daughter of a
protestant minister, living at the parsonage until the age of sixteen,
I used to go to church and read the Bible. During the next thirty
years of my life, however, I had not even held a Bible in my hand.
A great game began. I read the English column of the page, compared
it with the Norwegian column and, with the help of my past knowledge
about the Bible, I began to understand the text and the Norwegian
words of mixed English and German origins at the same time.
Day by day the Bible and I became closer and closer friends. I began
to fear my impending separation from it.
On the sixth day I felt a great desire to continue the game at home
as well. I decided therefore to steal the Bible.
I packed it into my bag on the last evening after reading it. But
after I switched off the lamp I could not fall asleep. In the
darkness I watched the closed bag with my friend in it. A battle
raged in my head.
This battle raised the following questions:
> How could I reconcile being the daughter of a minister and a thief
at the same time?
> Moreover it was written in this Bible in two beautiful languages:
"Thou shalt not steal!"?
> What would my grandfather say if he knew that his granddaughter
had stolen a Bible?