My Own Revolution (4 page)

“Americans couldn’t possibly be treating those dark people badly,” says Tati. “America is the land of the free.”

“They did have slavery,” I say. I know this fact from my history books, though I know nothing for myself about Negroes, never even having seen one. I lay a black ten on a red jack.

Dr. Machovik waves my words away. “Slavery was a long time ago. Every country has its less admirable moments.” His voice floats into the golden glow of the living room.

“I saw a newsreel about the race riots,” I can’t help but say. “I saw Negroes being blasted with water hoses, being attacked by German shepherds. How can the Soviets fake that?”

“Huh.” Dr. Machovik chuckles. “The Soviets are very clever.”

Maybe he’s right. Surely Tati’s aunt would have said something if there were race riots going on in Pennsylvania.

“For the purposes of propaganda, anything can be fabricated,” Dr. Machovik states. “Even newsreels.” He pounds his fist lightly on the arm of the chair.

Tati and Dr. Machovik light their pipes, fruity smoke curling out. Tati leans close and begins to tell about what happened with Eduard Bagin. About how from out of the blue, orders came to demote this man to tractor driver.

I flip through all my cards. Nothing to play. Suddenly I’m stuck. I wait for Danika. But she’s got nothing, too.

“Never have I had trouble like this before,” Tati is saying.

Dr. Machovik strokes his goatee.

With a loud slap, I throw down my cards, hoping to distract Tati. He shouldn’t be telling this secret story. Not even with this man who has been our friend for years and years.

“I’ve always been left to do my job as I see fit,” Tati goes on.

“Let’s go outside,” I say to Danika.

We slip away to sit on the porch steps. Tall pines poke like leafy spires into the night, and the first stars have appeared. Tulo circles three times, then lies at our feet.

“Remember how we used to play hide-and-go-seek in those bushes over there?” Danika says.

“And how we played badminton without a net.”

“And you cheated, always sending me the birdie so low.” Bare armed, Danika suddenly shivers.

Her shivers pulse into the night, pulse against my skin. Feelings get jolted loose. Feelings I didn’t know I had.

“Here,” I say, taking off my jacket. But instead of handing it over, I tuck the jacket around her shoulders. Suddenly I don’t feel merely brotherly. My arms linger. They don’t want to pull back. They want to
enfold
her in the jacket.

But I’ve never touched a girl like that before. Never wanted to. I draw away and press my legs tight. Without my jacket, I’m the one shivering.

If we can’t see the Beatles, at least we can be them. With the record player turned low for Mrs. Zeman’s sake, we line up in a little group by Emil’s closet. Karel, shorter than any of us, beats a pot while Emil and Danika take turns pretending to strum an old guitar. I’m technically the singer, holding a can of green beans for a microphone, but we all sing along at the good parts.

Emil, who never dresses up, wears his Sunday jacket, trying to look like John Lennon. He’s punched the lenses out of an old pair of glasses and wears the empty frames.

In spite of her short hair, Danika looks nothing like a Beatle, nothing like a boy. Since Shindliar, the feeling of just being friends has vanished. Every word is loaded with meaning. Each tiny glance sets my body humming.

The songs themselves set me humming. They get inside me and tear apart all I ever was. They break me free.

Soft as the music is, Mrs. Zeman’s broom handle starts rapping against the floorboards.

“Hell’s bells,” says Emil. “What a toad.”

“It’s all the fault of the stupid party,” Karel says. “If it wasn’t for the party, we could play all the music we wanted.” Karel has only started caring about music. Up until recently, he’s spent his whole life with model trains, the tracks winding over his bedroom floor. But now he wants to listen to the Beatles all the time.

“We could buy whatever we wanted,” I add. “We wouldn’t have to
share
photos of the record jacket. We could each have our own.” Saying this, I realize I still haven’t printed the promised copies.

“The kids of those party members have everything,” Emil says. “Their parents drive fancy Russian Volga cars.”

“The mothers wear diamonds like ice cubes,” says Karel.

“They don’t care about the proletariat breaking loose from their chains,” I add.

We’re shouting now, trying to outdo one another. We’re even louder than the music Mrs. Zeman pounded her broomstick about.

“They don’t care about the fall of the ruling class.”

“They want to
be
the ruling class.”

“The party goes on and on about how Western music undermines the family,” Karel says, “but their own kids listen anyway.”

“They’re all undermined,” I add.

Only Danika has said nothing. Sitting on the edge of Emil’s bed, she’s grown quiet. She picks up a candy bar wrapper from the floor and folds it smaller and smaller.

“Stupid party.” Karel punches the air.

“Hypocrites,” Emil adds.

“Someone is always trodding us down,” I say.

Suddenly, Danika throws aside the candy wrapper. It lands on the floor, springing loose from the tight folds. Then, her lower lip trembling, she says, “It’s not
trodding.
It’s
treading.
Treading
us down.
Trodding
isn’t even a word.”

“So?” asks Emil.

“It should be right.”

Karel laughs awkwardly.

Emil and I exchange glances.

I reach over and lay a hand on Danika’s shoulder. “What is it?” The words
my darling
spring to mind. I want to add those two lovely words but don’t dare.

“It’s nothing. Nothing to do with you.” She shrugs off my hand.

“Something to do with the Beatles?” She could be hopelessly in love, as so many girls are.

She shakes her head, her short hair wisping out.

“Sure you don’t have a crush on Paul McCartney?” I say lightly, trying to make a joke.

She shakes her head again, harder.

If only she were cold, I could offer my jacket again. This time I’d be brave. I’d put my arms around her pretty shoulders, driving away her troubles. At the thought, my heart does a quick somersault.

Emil goes very quietly to the record player. He lifts off the single and slips it into the jacket.

Karel picks up the old guitar and begins to pluck the strings.

Danika turns to him, saying, “Don’t do that. Just don’t.”

“Danika.”
I get up from my chair and lower myself onto the bed, sitting next to her. She’s pale, and her blue eyes are moist. Maybe it’s her monthly time. I consider drawing her close, even without the excuse of the jacket.

But she abruptly tilts away from me and flings herself down on the bed. “It’s no use,” she says. “This isn’t something you can fix, Patrik.”

In the school gymnasium, we’re marching with our knees high, our hands behind our backs. Suddenly, as we’re drilling to make us better Young Pioneers, training to take on challengers of the Communist state, there’s a stranger among us. His curly hair covers his ears. Like a Beatle. Like the way I sometimes imagine my own hair. I run my hand over my close-trimmed head. “Who’s that?” I ask Karel without moving my lips.

“Bozek Estochin. From Bratislava.”

Bratislava is the big city where anything can happen. Whereas Trencin is like the tiny moon of some far-out planet like Neptune, Bratislava is like the sun. Someone new and exotic has landed in our midst.

After school, Bozek comes down the steps while Karel is bragging about how we got our Beatles single on the black market. Bozek doesn’t walk like he’s the new kid. He’s not shy at all. His legs move loose and jaunty as he comes to us, saying, “I have that single. And I have ‘Please Mr. Postman.’ I even have a Monkees album.”

We shut up and look hard at this guy.

“I even know where in Bratislava people can get real American blue jeans,” he says. “The price is high, of course. The lines are long. But you can get them.”

Emil squints.

I squint, too. What kind of life does this city boy lead?

Karel leans against the railing, frowning. Maybe he’s thinking that Bozek could get him the model-train parts he can’t find in Trencin.

Even though people are trying to get by, Bozek stands with his hands in his pockets, his elbows jutting out, taking up space. “In Bratislava, I listened to three Beatles songs in a row. Just waiting around outside a Bratislava apartment window I heard that.”

I shade my eyes to better see this guy. Maybe he’s for real. Or maybe he’s only bragging.

Bozek glances around. “The girls in Bratislava even wear miniskirts. Of course there would be none of that here,” he says. “Nothing like that here in an out-of-the-way place like Trencin.”

“Then why did you come here?” I can’t help but ask.

He shrugs, says from the corner of his mouth, “It’s just for a little while.”

“How long?” Emil asks. Maybe he wants another Beatles single. Maybe a whole album.

“As long as my father is assigned here.”

“And what does your father do?” I ask.

“Can’t say.” Bozek lifts his eyes to Lenin’s statue.

Can’t say
means he’s a party member. His father is one of the boots that trods on us. Treads on us. I tread down a step, backing away.

Behind Bozek, along the wall, the repaired slogan blares:
LONG LIVE THE USSR!

A group of girls has gathered at the bottom of the stairs, huddling and giggling. Over the tops of the piles of books in their arms, they peer up at the new boy. One of the girls is Danika. She’s staring at Bozek as if he’s dropped from the heavens.

Danika, my very own Gypsy. My sweetheart.

Bozek pauses in his storytelling. His eyes shift to the girls. His eyes glide over them. Will he really care about Trencin girls when the ones in Bratislava are wearing miniskirts? He settles on one girl.

He raises his hand, as if about to wave at her.

She blushes.

What the hell is going on?

And then, in a flash, my whole world changes. I look at Danika and see Janosik’s lovely sweetheart. Or a Beatle’s girlfriend. I see a beautiful girl who could be, should be, my girlfriend.

I step back onto the next step, level with Bozek. “Stay away from her,” I say quietly.

“Oh, really,” he says, not seeming to care that I tower over him.

Now he’s more interested than ever.

I drop my books and grab the red Young Pioneer scarf around his neck.

Karel pries my fingers loose. “Don’t, Patrik.”

“You don’t want to get in trouble,” Emil says.

Karel takes me by the forearm. Even though I loom over him, he leads me away. Emil gathers my books off the steps.

Everyone is staring. “Let me go.”

“Not yet,” says Karel.

Not until we get to the street does he release me.

When I look back, Bozek is moving down the steps toward Danika.

“You can’t do anything about it, Patrik. Nothing,” says Karel. “Don’t make an idiot of yourself.”

“Forget her,” says Emil. “There are plenty of other girls.”

Not like her,
I want to shout. But I force myself to look away, saying, “Okay, okay. But leave me alone now. I promise I won’t go back. I won’t.”

Wandering into a clump of trees, I sit down with my back against the trunk.

My friends stand around.

“You don’t have to babysit me.”

“Then don’t do anything stupid,” says Emil. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

And then they’re off and I’m left with a pile of chewing-gum wrappers and old beer bottles. Behind me, Bozek, the son of a party member, is moving in on Danika.

I take off my red Young Pioneer scarf and knot and unknot it. Any minute now, Danika will pass by here. When she does, I’ll step out and walk her home.

But she doesn’t come. I wait for her until the tree shadows grow heavy.

Has she —? The thought makes my stomach flip. Has she gone off with Bozek?