A Bridge To Long Ago

A blanket of silence had been pulled across his country by the Soviets in 1968, hospital corners tucked neatly under the edge of the Iron Curtain. Doctors became window washers. Physicists became truck drivers. Legends became diggers of ditches. No one could complain. No one could talk.

"It was like this...." Zatopek's wife, Dana, says.

English is her fourth or fifth language, so she uses a visual aid. She pulls open a drawer.

"They put us in here," she says.

She closes the drawer.

"And this was where we stayed."

To finish the explanation, she opens the drawer again. This is now. Pictures of the new president, Vaclav Havel, have been in the windows of the stores in Wenceslas Square. Amazing things have happened since last November. The Soviet troops are going, going, soon to be gone. Lines form in the streets to buy copies of newspapers that didn't exist a few months ago. Free elections are going to be held in June. Mouths can work again.

"For so long, the people of Czechoslovakia had to live with a double face," Dana says. "One face for the public. One face for home. We were a nation of schizophrenia. Now we need only one face. We can tell the truth."

Freedom is being able to speak and move. A door can be opened. A legend can be available.

He could run through the pain. That always was his greatest gift. He never was a picture-book runner, never was a flat-out talent. His style sometimes seemed to be no style at all. He listed to one side, his head cocked, his face contorted. The contortions were so extreme they were humorous and scary at the same time. He always looked as if he could not possibly run one more step. He always did. Sportswriters called him the Human Locomotive.