“Shit,” he whispered. He moved closer to Khristo and spoke in a low voice. “We are revolutionaries because we cannot stand any man who tells us what to do. The Turk sent his tax collectors, we sent them back a piece at a time. These people , they crave to be told what to do. A whole bloody revolution they had, but they never left the church. Not really. They aspire to be priests. Do this, do that, today is Tuesday, all turn their hats back to front. Someone says why? They answer because God told me it is so and then they give him nine grams.”
“Nine grams?”
“The weight of the bullet, Captain Khristo. What goes in the back of the neck. They worship their Stalin, like a god, yet he is no more than a village pig, the big boar, poking his great snout in everybody's corncrib. These Russians will come after us some day, that is foretold, and we will give them an ass-kicking worthy of the name.”
They were quiet for a moment. Letting the sweet smoke of treason blow and billow around their heads.
“Yet you are here,” Khristo said.
“I deserve no better,” Kulic answered. “The king sent special police to our town—which is called Osijek, there are hill forts above the river there—and some fool shot them down. This fool hid in people's haylofts when the police came—army police, with machine guns, not the local idiots—but they started poking bayonets into the hay. So the fool moved up into the mountains. But they followed him there as well. One day came a Russian. We like such fools , he said, and he had false documents, a Soviet passport, and a train ticket to Varna, in Bulgaria, and a ticket on a steamer across the Black Sea to Sebastopol. So this fool—like all fools he thought himself wise—believed the Russian promises and left the mountains. Now you find him playing baby games with blank pistols, now you find him cheated of his victory, even his victory at baby games. But he accepts it. He takes everything they give out because he has no choice. He is like a bull with an iron ring through his nose. Every day they find a new way to tug on it.”
He threw his hands into the air and let them fall back to his thighs with a loud slap.
For a time they watched the stars floating by, lulled by the engine's steady beat over the rails. Kulic took a small penknife from his pocket and began paring a thumbnail.
Khristo sighed. The night made him sad. The history of Kulic's nation was like that of his own. The fighting never stopped. The conquerors kept coming. Other Kulics, other Khristos, all the way back through time, wandered the world. Away from love, away from home. They were destined to be eternal strangers. Melancholy adventurers, guests in other people's houses. From now on, forever, there could be no peace for him, no ease, none of the small domestic harmonies that were the consolation of plain people everywhere.
His pleasures were to be those of the soldier in a distant outpost—a woman, a bottle, a quick death without pain. Those he could look forward to. And, though his heart might still swell with poetry at the fire of a perfect sunset, there would never be the special one beside him to share such joys.
Distracted by a slight scratching noise, he turned to see Kulic lying on his side and carving on the wooden wall of the railcar with his penknife. Kulic stood up, made space for Khristo, pointed with the knife toward the wall. Khristo slid over. The scratching was tiny, hidden away in the extreme corner, only an inch above the floor: A 825.
“What is it?”
“ B for Brotherhood. F for Front. Eight, two and five for the proper order of finish in the Belov exercises of March 1935. Our group, Unit Eight, won it. Even though they fixed things so that their stooges came out on top. Unit Two should have been second, and Unit Five third. Thus, somewhere in the world, wherever this railcar travels, our victory will be celebrated.”
He stuck his hand out. Khristo stood and grasped it firmly, the
“Nine grams?”
“The weight of the bullet, Captain Khristo. What goes in the back of the neck. They worship their Stalin, like a god, yet he is no more than a village pig, the big boar, poking his great snout in everybody's corncrib. These Russians will come after us some day, that is foretold, and we will give them an ass-kicking worthy of the name.”
They were quiet for a moment. Letting the sweet smoke of treason blow and billow around their heads.
“Yet you are here,” Khristo said.
“I deserve no better,” Kulic answered. “The king sent special police to our town—which is called Osijek, there are hill forts above the river there—and some fool shot them down. This fool hid in people's haylofts when the police came—army police, with machine guns, not the local idiots—but they started poking bayonets into the hay. So the fool moved up into the mountains. But they followed him there as well. One day came a Russian. We like such fools , he said, and he had false documents, a Soviet passport, and a train ticket to Varna, in Bulgaria, and a ticket on a steamer across the Black Sea to Sebastopol. So this fool—like all fools he thought himself wise—believed the Russian promises and left the mountains. Now you find him playing baby games with blank pistols, now you find him cheated of his victory, even his victory at baby games. But he accepts it. He takes everything they give out because he has no choice. He is like a bull with an iron ring through his nose. Every day they find a new way to tug on it.”
He threw his hands into the air and let them fall back to his thighs with a loud slap.
For a time they watched the stars floating by, lulled by the engine's steady beat over the rails. Kulic took a small penknife from his pocket and began paring a thumbnail.
Khristo sighed. The night made him sad. The history of Kulic's nation was like that of his own. The fighting never stopped. The conquerors kept coming. Other Kulics, other Khristos, all the way back through time, wandered the world. Away from love, away from home. They were destined to be eternal strangers. Melancholy adventurers, guests in other people's houses. From now on, forever, there could be no peace for him, no ease, none of the small domestic harmonies that were the consolation of plain people everywhere.
His pleasures were to be those of the soldier in a distant outpost—a woman, a bottle, a quick death without pain. Those he could look forward to. And, though his heart might still swell with poetry at the fire of a perfect sunset, there would never be the special one beside him to share such joys.
Distracted by a slight scratching noise, he turned to see Kulic lying on his side and carving on the wooden wall of the railcar with his penknife. Kulic stood up, made space for Khristo, pointed with the knife toward the wall. Khristo slid over. The scratching was tiny, hidden away in the extreme corner, only an inch above the floor: A 825.
“What is it?”
“ B for Brotherhood. F for Front. Eight, two and five for the proper order of finish in the Belov exercises of March 1935. Our group, Unit Eight, won it. Even though they fixed things so that their stooges came out on top. Unit Two should have been second, and Unit Five third. Thus, somewhere in the world, wherever this railcar travels, our victory will be celebrated.”
He stuck his hand out. Khristo stood and grasped it firmly, the
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