At an increasingly awkward dinner party, prompted by simmering cross-table conflict arising from discussion of current affairs both foreign and domestic, our nervous host attempted to lighten the mood by wondering which historical figures we found most sympathetic?
'Wehrmacht foot soldiers at Stalingrad,' I replied unhelpfully, immediately escalating an already tense situation. But it's my usual facetious response to such questions, covering events as diverse as interminable travel delays at airports and train stations, being stuck at my desk waiting for client approvals on Friday afternoons in the summer, and mentally coping with late March snowfall accumulations of one inch or — God forbid — more.
And occasions where the Stalingrad motif applies seem to become more common with every passing day. We find ourselves constantly surrounded by hostile forces with ever dwindling routes of escape. All we did was follow orders by striking out into the world to see what we could conquer. And here we stand, supported by makeshift crutches and blood-stained bandages, with nothing to show for our efforts except frost-bite, a dead comrade's overcoat, and one last remaining bullet. Meanwhile, by the light of their glowing bonfires, we can see the silhouettes of SS officers pinning medals to their own chests while eagerly boarding the only homeward bound plane in town.
I tried explaining my analogy to the other guests but they had long since rolled their eyes at me and moved on. Someone more congenial than I had claimed kinship with the creative spirit of David Bowie, whom everybody loves nowadays, and talk shifted from political and social turmoil to the undemanding topic of popular music. With a sigh of relief, the host went to fetch dessert, a selection of colorfully baroque Petit-four. 'They look like something Ziggy Stardust might wear,' I said, eliciting laughter and precipitating my reentry into polite society.
Cakes, fine wine and convivial company in a comfortable home. Who was I kidding? In truth, I was clearly a million miles away from any equivalent of trench warfare in a freezing Hell on the Eastern front. Me and my glib hyperbole getting me into trouble again. Nevertheless, the daily grind can still resemble a hopeless stalemate from time to time, and it's difficult to shake the dust of struggle from off your shoulders when you're shell-shocked by the news, even on the weekends.
But at future dinner parties, when asked to nominate persons from the past, I should definitely forgo Stalingrad references and perhaps invoke Buenaventa Durruti instead. Nobody knows who he is, so the other guests will just smile and nod. 'He died on a makeshift operating table at the Ritz in Madrid,' I'll explain. 'While fighting in the Spanish Civil War ... oh, just decaf for me, please, but I will have another slice of flan.'
