anyone from getting the Voice of America.
I look at the recorders again, running my fingertip over the big spools of brown recording tape. With one of these, I could record Emil’s Beatles music for myself. What is taking Tati so long? Is there a problem? Maybe there’s no boat available. Maybe it’s like my film. No boat to be found. Maybe we’ve come all this way for nothing.
Or maybe someone has discovered the real reason Tati wants the boat.
I walk back over to the radios, examining them as if I were a serious buyer. In Yugoslavia we’ll pretend to be just normal campers, like we were before. We’ll take our boat out every day, as if for fun. We’ll make campfires and gaze at the distant freedom of Italy, straining to make out the lights on the shore.
When we camped there, a woman set out swimming. She was towing her little daughter in an inner tube. The two got smaller and smaller until we couldn’t see them at all, even with binoculars. We never saw either of them again.
Tati finally does return, flourishing a piece of tan paper. It says he has paid for a boat and gives the Bratislava address where we are to get it. Beside the address, the man in the office has scribbled directions.
Back in the car, I again read off directions while Tati drives: “‘Right here, around the bend . . .’”
We pass a little store that might sell film, but I say nothing.
Finally we arrive outside town at a big parking lot. Beyond the barbed-wire fence, I see cars, trucks, boats, and trailers.
At the guard hut, a soldier looks over Tati’s tan paper. Then he picks up the phone.
“Who’s he calling?” I whisper to Tati.
“Probably the
tuzex.
To make sure we didn’t counterfeit the bill of sale.”
The man comes out, climbs into our backseat, and instructs: “Go on through the gate. . . . Turn here. . . . Now here.”
The trailer bumps along behind, clattering over the rutty dirt lot.
Finally, we pull up beside a turquoise boat, gleaming with newness. There’s a name painted along the side:
The Fancy Free.
The name makes me smile.
The three of us climb out, banging shut the Fiat’s doors.
While Tati and the soldier look back and forth between the paperwork and the boat itself, I stroke the hull’s glossy surface. I pat the bulk of the East German engine.
“We’re going on a trip to Yugoslavia,” Tati explains to the soldier.
Even now, if this man were to have suspicions, he could just call someone. The boat’s name suddenly seems to give everything away. It’s as if someone gave us a boat with this name on purpose.
“Here, Patrik, help me,” Tati says.
We winch the boat onto the trailer, the soldier helping. We secure it on with long cables.
When we drop the soldier at his hut, we all shake hands. And then we are out the gate with our prize.
“The name!” I say when we’re back on the road.
Tati slaps the steering wheel and laughs.
“It’s not funny,” I say. “Do you think that soldier guessed?”
“Who knows?” Tati glances in the rearview mirror. As he drives, I feel the tug of the boat behind us.
This time I see the car for sure. I see the rust.
On that half-moon of beach, we’ll have to watch out for that car. We’ll have to watch out for the Yugoslav patrol boats flying their red-white-and-blue flags. We’ll have to be careful of even fellow campers. On the final morning we’ll have to leave early, before the afternoon thunderstorms scroll along the horizon.
“What about the travel permission?” I ask Tati.
He sighs and taps the steering wheel, saying, “One thing at a time, Patrik.”
In the past, whenever we traveled out of the country for vacation, Tati went to the downtown office and got travel papers. But he won’t be able to do that anymore. Without that slip of paper, the Czech guards at the border will turn us back. This journey to fetch the boat will be all for nothing.
Tati taps the steering wheel again, accidentally honking the horn. “Things will work
I look at the recorders again, running my fingertip over the big spools of brown recording tape. With one of these, I could record Emil’s Beatles music for myself. What is taking Tati so long? Is there a problem? Maybe there’s no boat available. Maybe it’s like my film. No boat to be found. Maybe we’ve come all this way for nothing.
Or maybe someone has discovered the real reason Tati wants the boat.
I walk back over to the radios, examining them as if I were a serious buyer. In Yugoslavia we’ll pretend to be just normal campers, like we were before. We’ll take our boat out every day, as if for fun. We’ll make campfires and gaze at the distant freedom of Italy, straining to make out the lights on the shore.
When we camped there, a woman set out swimming. She was towing her little daughter in an inner tube. The two got smaller and smaller until we couldn’t see them at all, even with binoculars. We never saw either of them again.
Tati finally does return, flourishing a piece of tan paper. It says he has paid for a boat and gives the Bratislava address where we are to get it. Beside the address, the man in the office has scribbled directions.
Back in the car, I again read off directions while Tati drives: “‘Right here, around the bend . . .’”
We pass a little store that might sell film, but I say nothing.
Finally we arrive outside town at a big parking lot. Beyond the barbed-wire fence, I see cars, trucks, boats, and trailers.
At the guard hut, a soldier looks over Tati’s tan paper. Then he picks up the phone.
“Who’s he calling?” I whisper to Tati.
“Probably the
tuzex.
To make sure we didn’t counterfeit the bill of sale.”
The man comes out, climbs into our backseat, and instructs: “Go on through the gate. . . . Turn here. . . . Now here.”
The trailer bumps along behind, clattering over the rutty dirt lot.
Finally, we pull up beside a turquoise boat, gleaming with newness. There’s a name painted along the side:
The Fancy Free.
The name makes me smile.
The three of us climb out, banging shut the Fiat’s doors.
While Tati and the soldier look back and forth between the paperwork and the boat itself, I stroke the hull’s glossy surface. I pat the bulk of the East German engine.
“We’re going on a trip to Yugoslavia,” Tati explains to the soldier.
Even now, if this man were to have suspicions, he could just call someone. The boat’s name suddenly seems to give everything away. It’s as if someone gave us a boat with this name on purpose.
“Here, Patrik, help me,” Tati says.
We winch the boat onto the trailer, the soldier helping. We secure it on with long cables.
When we drop the soldier at his hut, we all shake hands. And then we are out the gate with our prize.
“The name!” I say when we’re back on the road.
Tati slaps the steering wheel and laughs.
“It’s not funny,” I say. “Do you think that soldier guessed?”
“Who knows?” Tati glances in the rearview mirror. As he drives, I feel the tug of the boat behind us.
This time I see the car for sure. I see the rust.
On that half-moon of beach, we’ll have to watch out for that car. We’ll have to watch out for the Yugoslav patrol boats flying their red-white-and-blue flags. We’ll have to be careful of even fellow campers. On the final morning we’ll have to leave early, before the afternoon thunderstorms scroll along the horizon.
“What about the travel permission?” I ask Tati.
He sighs and taps the steering wheel, saying, “One thing at a time, Patrik.”
In the past, whenever we traveled out of the country for vacation, Tati went to the downtown office and got travel papers. But he won’t be able to do that anymore. Without that slip of paper, the Czech guards at the border will turn us back. This journey to fetch the boat will be all for nothing.
Tati taps the steering wheel again, accidentally honking the horn. “Things will work
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