Need a lift? Part II
Life lessons elevators have taught me
The most incredible lift I ever met was in Prague. I’ve never seen this kind of lift anywhere else, and considering it is a sort of death trap hurtling through space, that’s probably a good thing. You see, this lift had no doors, no buttons to press, and no second chances if you missed getting off at the top floor.
A Paternoster lift diagram: courtesy of Wikipedia
The lift perpetually kept on doing its thing, constantly gliding through space. It was up to you to do yours, meaning stepping on or off at the appropriate floor and timing your arrival or departure with great precision. Kind of like getting in and out of a moving vehicle.
This kind of lift is called a Paternoster lift because it mirrors the constant circling of prayer beads sliding through one’s hands. It’s likely a good idea to be praying the Lord’s prayer when you use it: those words could well be your last.
And heaven help you if you miss getting off on the top floor – urban legend has it that there is some sort of unknown purgatory up there: that was the zone where the lift box would lurch and turn to prepare for its glissando decent.
Once I’d seen the first one, they seemed to pop up all over the city, interestingly especially in government buildings. Very Brazil. Over time, I heard many gory stories of so and so’s uncle Bob who got splinched between floors and maimed for life or killed by one of these pseudo-medieval devices.
There is a great video on YouTube that I highly recommend you Czech (sorry, couldn’t resist) out, which shows you the many ways you could get mutilated by a Paternoster Lift. Just google “Riding the Elevator of Death.”
Use at your own risk
The day I met the Paternoster lift was the first day I went to the Ministry of Trade to teach Mrs. Boučkova her English lesson. I wasn’t her regular teacher, but I heard she was really sweet and studious, so I was really looking forward to it. It didn’t hurt that I’d already heard that the Trade building had the most fascinating elevator – I could hardly wait to see it for myself.
When I got to the concierge, I introduced myself and said I was there to teach Pani Boučkova. Who? The Concierge asked. I repeated myself several times, rhyming “bouč” with “couch”, and the concierge helpfully tried to figure out who I was talking about, and if I might possibly be in the wrong building. I looked over at the clock, and started to despair: although I’d arrived in plenty of time, I was now late for the start of the lesson. This was not the first impression I was hoping to make. When he declared that there was no one who worked there by that name, I finally pulled out my lesson plan with her name written on it.
Oh! Bo-učkova, exclaimed the concierge! Why didn’t you say so!
You see, in Czech, you pronounce every letter, no exceptions. There are no diphthongs. The general, simple rule of thumb is to pronounce each vowel equally distinctly, and equally long: 50/50. To get technical here for a moment, in art song or arias, when singing a word with a pair of vowels like this, you could treat each of the vowels equally long, much like we could do in Italian with the word mia:
[bↄ.ut∫.kↄ.va]
Or, again as with Italian, you could follow a 2:1 ratio:
[bↄ:.ut∫.kↄ.va]
This pair of vowels will very often arrive on one note (a good example is at the end of Rusalka’s song to the moon, when she sings: at’se tou vzpominkou vzbudi).
One really needs to pay particular attention to precision and timing when it comes to a pair of vowels.
As for daily life in Prague, I learned that 1:1 timing was always safer if I wanted to be understood. Or punctual…
Within seconds of showing the concierge her name, he had Mrs. Boučkova on the phone. I was instructed to wait for her to come and collect me.
Mrs. Boučkova was every bit as kind and sweet as promised – even though I was late for our lesson. I was acutely aware that she, a senior official, had come down to the front desk to escort me. I tried my best to apologize for my tardiness and explain that the reason for my delay was that I had been mis-pronouncing her name.
Oh! She looked a little perplexed when I repeated how I’d been saying it. The concierge was right, there is no one who works here by that name.
As we cleared the lobby together, I finally laid eyes on the legendary lift. It looked like a perpetual-motion sort of dumb-waiter, dishing out people instead of entrées. Mrs. B explained to me that since it was our first meeting, she didn’t want to take the chance that I didn’t know how to use this type of elevator. That’s why she had come down to escort me herself. She proceeded to sweetly and carefully explain to me all the ways in which one could be dismembered before we took our fragile lives into our hands. Then, with a little hop, we jumped in.
Now, watch carefully, she warned; it’s time to hop out again in 3-2-1!
What a rush of adrenaline! I imagined it was the most fun these government types had all day!
On leaving the lesson, Mrs. B made me promise that I would stay alert and get off on the ground floor, so I wouldn’t end up in that dreaded, unknown abyss where the lift box turns directions from down to up. I assured her I would pay very good attention. And with a rush and a giggle, I jumped on to the lift going down: the thought of that ride in the constantly moving lift still makes my heart flip a little.
That day, I left the Ministry of Trade having learned much more than I had taught. I learned from a Paternoster lift, and a pair of Czech vowels, that timing is, indeed, everything.
To hear about the other lessons I’ve learned from lifts, check out Need a Lift? Part I
