The Czech Boy by Sophie

The Czech Boy by Sophie - February 2016 Scholarship Essay

“Without darkness, nothing comes to birth. As without light, nothing flowers.”
The above quotation is from the writings of the poet, novelist, and memoirist May Sarton. She was born in Belgium in 1912, immigrated to America in 1916 when her family was driven out by advancing German forces, began writing poems in 1929 at age seventeen, and, by the end of her life in 1995, had published seventeen volumes of poetry, twenty novels, fourteen memoirs and collected journal entries, and two children’s books. The themes she explored were as numerous and various as her body of work itself, ranging from love, friendship and sexuality, to feminism and politics, to solitude, aging, nature, and spirituality. Though she remains underrated by the literary community at large and somewhat overlooked by history in general, literary critics and fans, particularly those of feminist literature, consider her to be one of the twentieth century’s most important and prolific contemporary American authors.
It sounds as though May Sarton was a remarkable writer and woman with whom it would be an honor to have dinner. Her dinner guest might have the opportunity to discuss with her her enormous body of work, her feminist activism, her views on American literature, the immigrant experience, love, or humanity. But to be honest, before conducting some preliminary research for this essay, I knew almost nothing about May Sarton. I can’t claim that any of her accolades or accomplishments as the reason I’d like to have dinner with her. The real reason I’d like to have dinner with May Sarton is this: in the early to mid 1930’s, May Sarton traveled throughout Europe and along the way, during a stint in Vienna, she met a young Czech engineering student named Franz Wiener. Franz fell madly in love with May and while she didn’t return his romantic affections, she did take an interest in the young man. She allowed him to follow her around for a summer and soon she was mentioning the “Czech boy” in letters home to her friends and family in Cambridge, MA, writing of his intelligence and his engineering hopes. Then, as May began making preparations to go back to America, German occupation of Austria and the Czech Republic began. Franz was Jewish. He and his family needed to get out and May saw a way. She wrote one more letter back home to Cambridge about the Czech boy and this one was to her father, an established scientist and academic. May’s father agreed to sponsor Franz so that he could flee to Cambridge and study engineering at Harvard. Franz did so, escaping German occupation and, a year later, sending for his mother and sister, who also made it out safely. Franz graduated from Harvard and lived in Massachusetts for the rest of his life. He went on to marry a Swedish immigrant and father two daughters, the youngest of whom grew up to be my mother.
I never knew my grandfather, Franz. He died when my mother was still quite young. I’ve become familiar with the handful of anecdotes and snapshots that my mother sometimes shared: his brilliance in the field of audio engineering, his dry nature and strict parenting style, his closeness with his sister, his intolerance for junk food. And, of course, the story of how, one summer, he met a young May Sarton, who helped him escape to America. But, as is the nature of any story about people who are no longer here, they only breed questions and the desire for more stories in response. I often wish I could hear the story of whether May and Franz kept in touch in the years to come. Or the one about what Franz was like as a young man. Or the one that describes Vienna during that wonderful, precarious time, just before everything began to unravel, the one tells whether May and Franz were oblivious or afraid, aware or, up until the crucial moment, in the blissful dark. The one that tells whether or not May knew, when she wrote that last letter home, that she was saving my grandfather’s life. That she was making my mother’s life, my aunt’s life, my sister’s life, and my life possible. Based on her body of work, it seems there are very few people more skilled at storytelling than May Sarton. Based on the brief summer when she fatefully crossed paths with a Czech student, I know that she is one of only two people who could tell the specific stories I so wish to hear.
I’d like to have dinner with May Sarton so that I might hear her tell them. And, of course, so that I might have the chance to tell her “Thank you.”