My Own Revolution (8 page)

She sighs, then studies the other negatives — pictures of the Bazima Forest, the back of her own head. Her eyes flit here and there.

“Do you still want this?” I hold up one of the prints I made of the Beatles’ faces.

“Sure,” she says, but takes the print slowly, without enthusiasm.

Suddenly, I realize what she’s really come for. The precious thing she’s risked seeing me to get. My jaw tightens. I take her image from where it’s pinned on the back of the door, the image with Bozek’s face cut away.

She reaches for it, then draws her hand back.

“You’re wondering where Bozek is.”

“Well, yes . . .”

“I cut his face off.”

“You’re joking.”

I shrug. “I’m the photographer.”

Danika picks up a loose clothespin and snaps it open. Snaps it shut. “I didn’t know you were so petty, Patrik.”

“It was an artistic decision.” I kick at the wastebasket. “He’s in there somewhere. You’re welcome to look.”

She pinches her finger with the clothespin, then throws it down.

With Karel off at his model-train club, Emil and I decide to ride the bus to the castle perched on the hill above town. When you want to escape everything, a castle is a good place.

At the last bus stop, Emil and I get out at the ancient ruins. Castles are everywhere, left over from the times of the Roman Empire, and on this one the inscription reads:
We Romans were here in the name of Pax Romana 200 AD.
But now no one is supposed to be here because the walls could collapse. Following Emil, I wander in on a path overgrown with thistles. The prickly leaves graze my hands, lightly scratching them.

I walk over the broken glass of smashed liquor bottles, over crushed beer cans. “Careful,” says Emil, peering through the massive entry. “There could be police.”

Instead of looking into the castle, I glance behind. A man pulls up in a dirty white Volkswagen Beetle. The car has a large patch of rust on the fender.

There aren’t any police inside, but I still go cautiously, half expecting to find Danika and Bozek kissing here. Mushing up against each other. Under the spreading tree, with its dark-purple shade, would be a perfect spot.

But only a few boys are playing a game in the open courtyard. Heat waves rise off the paving stones. The game is part soccer, part handball, as the boys kick the ball against the castle wall. The ball wallops the wall of slogans:
Down with all Fascist dogs!
and
Invaders out!

The walls are also covered with love hearts. I scan the ruined surfaces for two sets of initials. But they’re not here. Which means nothing.

“Want to join in?” Emil asks, nodding toward the game.

Part of me wants to. It would feel good to hurl and slam a ball. But part of me feels as fragile as the castle itself. “Go ahead.”

Emil shakes his head.

The driver of the VW strolls into the castle courtyard. He wears a beige Windbreaker and has beige hair to match.

I lead the way to the edge of the precipice. The pale buildings and red roofs of Trencin lie tiny before us. From here the city looks peaceful, not at all like a nest of traitors and spies. There’s the river, my school, even our gray apartment building along with all the others.

Somewhere down there lives the tiny figure of Danika, smaller than Bela’s doll.

“It looks like a bunch of toys,” says Emil.

“Or like a dream. As a kid, I had flying dreams. I used to fly like this.” I hold my arms straight out. With my eyes closed, I imagine myself soaring over Trencin.

Emil pulls out a cigarette and lights it. Then, blowing smoke rings, he says slowly, “I think a lot of people want to fly. Fly away, I mean.”

Emil’s words, along with the smoke, come to me as though in a dream. I open my eyes and cast him a glance. Is he saying that
he
wants to fly away? Are his steel-mill parents making plans? Maybe all of us are poised for flight.

There’s now a hitch in our own plan. Tati got a letter from his aunt. With the big new highway, not enough cars stop at their gas station. Our Slovakian family in America will have to close the station down.

So there will be no jobs pumping gas for us.

The man in beige moves closer. He adjusts his lapel, maybe turning on a tiny tape recorder.

“How about you?” Emil asks, dislodging a rock with his shoe.

“I’m fine. Except for Danika.”

“Hmm,” Emil muses, blowing three perfect gray halos. He pushes the rock, and it clatters all the way down.

He wants to talk more. I can tell. I also want to talk. I want to tell him how Danika’s father is joining the party. But then Emil wouldn’t like her anymore. I want to tell him that my parents are feeling their way through a labyrinth, looking for a way out, bumping against dead ends.

But even Emil could change in the blink of an eye. I think of Dr. Machovik. Even Emil could turn against me.

Bela and Mami sit at the kitchen table, a pile of paper flowers stacked in front of them. Bela wears one of the flowers behind her ear. All morning they’ve been cutting and twisting the paper, preparing the decorations. On the day before May Day, a person like Bozek will walk the streets with a clipboard, marking down which windows are bare.

Someone knocks on our front door, and I open up to see Bozek, a pile of flags draped over one arm, a bag slung over the other. Bozek of all people. He puts a foot in the doorway, as if I might close him out.

“Is your family ready?” he asks.

“We’re working on it.” I move closer, using my beanpole height against him. I reach down for a flag of each country, thinking that later Mami can clean the furniture with the Russian one.

“Make sure you hang the Russian flag,” Bozek says. “It doesn’t matter so much about the Czechoslovakian, but do hang the Russian flag.”

“I know.” He thinks I’m a moron.

Bozek lifts the paper bag, and I hear the clank of metal. “Do you have flag holders?”

“Of course we do. From last year and the year before and before . . .” He thinks we’re all morons.

He lingers. He’s no doubt looking for something suspicious. Like my photo of the painted-out letters. Maybe he suspects that Danika is here.

“Do you have something else to give us?” I ask.

He shrugs.

Thwack,
I close the door on him. I open it again and look out. But he’s already at old Mr. and Mrs. Smutny’s door.

“I hate to think of who made these,” says Mami, stretching out the flags.

“Who?” Bela wants to know.

“Prisoners,” Mami answers. “And not even criminals. Ordinary people. Anyone who says boo to the state.”

“That’s sad,” Bela says, taking the flower out of her hair and adding it to the others.

“It is indeed,” Mami agrees. “Help me, Patrik. Let’s get these flags hung.”

“Be sure to go today, Patrik. Don’t hide out. And sing. Don’t just mouth the words,” Tati advises me. “It’s hard to stomach, I know . . . but for the sake of all of us . . .” He straightens my red scarf, making sure it lies neatly. “There will be a lot of secret agents milling about,” he says. “Ready to pounce on anyone who doesn’t look enthused.”

“I promise to look enthused,” I assure him. Babicak will certainly have his eye on me.

Out in the street, the crowd has already gathered. Lining up are the steelworkers, with Danika’s father and Emil’s parents among them, the workers from the local spa, those who bottle the spa’s water, the professors from the university, the Communist militia, Tati and the other psychiatrists of Western Slovakia, and the doctors from the hospital. But not Dr. Csider, who told one too many jokes.

Tractors decked out with red flags have arrived from the collective farms. If I knew Eduard Bagin by sight, I’d look for him. Party members carry more red flags, raising the poles high. Women in Slovakian dancing costumes look ready to lift their embroidered skirts, kick up their legs, and prance.

High above the crowd float big photo portraits of famous Communists: Lenin, Karl Marx, Fidel Castro, and Lumumba of the Congo. The giant faces stare down on us, watching. Watching for those who might pee on them.

Secret agents are certainly mixed into the crowd. Rumor has it that for every two people, there’s one agent. We never know who. As Mami likes to say, it could be the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker.

Three police vans, their windows blacked out, are parked at the corner.

At school, Mami leads Bela by the hand, helping her find a spot at the front of the parade. The younger kids are dressed in their white shirts, the older in blue. Of course, all of us sport the pointy red scarves. Mami blows a kiss to Bela, then hurries off to find the other nurses.

Mr. Babicak, Mr. Noll, Mrs. Jakim, and the other teachers stand with clipboards and pens. The principal calls out names, and we take our places in formation. I’m next to Bozek. He stands serious, his haircut shorter than before. For this special day, he’s wearing a pair of blue jeans. I move toward the boy on my left.

Through a gap in the buildings, I see a caravan of Gypsy wagons winding along a distant hillside. They don’t have to march in this stupid parade but are making their own. Even the Communist Party has no hold over them.
Outside of proper society,
people say.

A shifty, restless feeling grows among us. Some of us are eager to begin the celebration; others want to get it done with. It’s hard to know who feels what.

Four boys and four girls carry the banners that stretch the width of the street. When Mr. Babicak finally blows the whistle, they unfurl and we set off.

The parade has begun. We’re a few steps closer to the end.

As the parade moves out of range of the teachers’ control, some of us break formation, edging nearer to friends. I sidle close to Emil and Karel. Together we march behind a flag with dangling red fringe.

On each street corner, bands play the Communist anthem, “The Internationale.” “Arise, ye workers from your slumber . . .” Loudspeakers blare: “Soviet Union forever!” We wave — we have to wave — at those lining the streets, mostly the mothers. Although they have no official group to march with, they have to be here.

Since I also have to be here, I wish I was at least marching with Danika. If she was my girlfriend, I could put up with this. Just as I think that, I catch sight of her. She’s not far ahead.

She’s walking with Bozek. Two good Commies marching together. So it’s come to this. I bite the inside of my cheek on one side, then the other.

“Don’t look,” says Karel. “Don’t get yourself upset.”

He’s right. I shouldn’t look. Not with that black mark on my record.

Emil presses something small into my hand. I open my fingers to his plastic cigarette lighter.

Walking on tiptoe, I see that those two are not only marching together. They’re holding hands.

Karel points at the red fringe on the flag ahead of us.

I glance toward the giant faces of famous Communists. All but one — Lumumba — are facing away. I flick the tiny wheel of the lighter. It takes a few seconds for the fringe to catch. I hold the lighter steady, my thumb firm. Finally, the fire ripples along.

Karel and Emil dash off, but I stick around. I raise my camera to the flag on fire and shoot, capturing the glorious moment.

The man holding the flag touches the back of his neck. He whips the flag around and drops it to the ground. He stamps out the flames.

A bunch of people stare, one shouts, and then the parade goes on, the man carrying the blackened flag in his arms.

I move away, looking around for anyone who might know me. That man over there — is he the one from the castle, the one with the beige jacket and the VW Beetle? Now he’s wearing a dark-blue jacket, so it’s hard to be sure.

The parade makes a turn onto a side street where no one’s watching. The marching bands play a few more bars of melody and fall silent. Thank God the marching peters out.

I run across Mr. Ninzik, who is not with any group. He hasn’t been sent to the wastelands of Siberia after all. He’s not shoveling rocks and ice. At least not yet. “Mr. Ninzik!” I call.

He looks around, hands shoved deep into his pockets.

“Mr. Ninzik!” I wave. I want to tell him that I’ve just acted against the state. I’ve rebelled. In the name of Adam Uherco and of all of us. “Mr. Ninzik!”