The Free World (20 page)

K
arl’s body shop was at the southern edge of town. From where Lyova stopped the van, they could gaze out at the autumn stubble of harvested fields. In the immediate vicinity there were a few small houses with crumbling stucco exteriors, spaced widely apart. The last of the houses on the street looked to be uninhabited. The second to last was the one that had been converted or commandeered to serve as the body shop. Three Fiats were parked bumper to bumper to bumper just shy of the house, their body panels sanded down and blotched with primer. Directly in front of the house two kids were kicking a white leather soccer ball around. Alec guessed that they were about fourteen or fifteen years old. One was fair, tall, and skinny, with knobby elbows jutting out of his plain white undershirt. He wore Adidas track pants from the Americana and Russian canvas sneakers. He had lank hair and a few blond whiskers emulating a mustache. His counterpart was shorter, darker, and stockier. He was clothed much like the first kid, but his features and body language identified him as Italian. Alec and Lyova watched them kick the ball around for a few moments before Lyova put the van in gear and rolled up to the house.

As the van crept closer, the boys looked up from their game. Both
eyed the van with street-kid bravado. The Italian lifted his chin and called out first in his language.

—Hey, dove stai andando?

Lyova slowed the van to a stop.

—Dal meccanico,
Lyova said.

—Quale meccanico?

—Che cos’è quella dietro di te? Non è un’officina?

—Chi ti ha detto che è un’officina?

Lyova grinned wickedly and said,
Tua madre.

Naturally, this provoked the kid to fly at the van, spewing curses and their accompanying hand gestures. His Russian friend followed close behind.

When the Italian kid started banging on the hood of the van, Alec called out to the Russian kid to calm his friend. He received the inevitable response.

—Calm him down, if you know what’s good for you, Alec repeated.

—Who the fuck are you?

—You don’t want to know who I am, Alec said leisurely.

This got the kid’s attention. He turned to his friend and motioned for him to desist.

—So who the fuck are you? the kid repeated.

—If that house behind you is a garage, and if the guy who runs it is named Karl, then I’m his brother. If not, then never mind.

At the mention of Karl’s name, both kids’ faces grew rigid. Their eyes flashed from Alec to each other.

—So I guess it is a garage, Alec said.

—Wait a minute, the Russian kid said, and hustled off to the back of the house.

The Italian kid remained as sentinel, his expression still hooded, suspicious and belligerent.

In short order, the Russian kid returned with Karl, who wore blue jeans and a denim work-shirt, its sleeves rolled up. Using a dirty rag, he wiped his grease-stained hands.

—You’ve become a mechanic? Alec asked.

—Not exactly, Karl said. But now and then I have to get my hands dirty.

Alec watched as Karl glanced ambivalently at Lyova’s van. He then turned to his two lookouts, complimented them on their vigilance, and sent them back to their ball playing.

Karl stepped over to the passenger side and said, So what brings you?

—Have you met Lyova? He shares the apartment with us.

—Nice to meet you, Karl said, and raised his dirty right hand in lieu of a shake.

—As you can see, Alec said, gesturing toward the dented fender, Lyova banged up his van.

—Right, Karl said.

—And I thought, seeing as how you’re now in the garage business, Alec said.

Karl listened stonily and made no motion to invite Lyova and his banged-up van into the garage.

—The accident cost him a lot of money. He gives tours of Italy, and he needs the van for work, Alec continued.

Karl’s expression didn’t mellow. He allowed his gaze to travel from Alec to the damaged van and then over to Lyova, who had been sitting patiently all the while, wearing a look of calm, worldly comprehension.

—All right, follow me, Karl said finally. He pointed at the pitted cement drive that led to the rear of the house. But next time you have a brilliant idea, do me a favor and ask me first.

Creeping along behind Karl, they went along the drive and, at Karl’s signal, stopped the van at the entrance to a small workshop under a corrugated tin roof. Thin shafts of light streaked into the workshop through small holes in the tin. Inside the workshop, Alec saw four or five men—it was hard to be precise—two of whom wore handkerchiefs over their faces and were busy spraying white paint on a yellow Renault. A third man was engaged in removing a side panel from an Alfa Romeo. A fourth man was seated at a
small card table beside the wall, drinking from an espresso cup. Alec didn’t see a coffee pot, only a bottle of vodka. He believed that he saw a fifth man duck out of the workshop, but in the haze of dust and spray paint, he couldn’t say for sure if he’d seen a man or a shadow.

Karl crossed to the man at the card table and motioned in the direction of the van. They exchanged a few words. Then Karl waved for Alec and Lyova to approach. As they did, the two guys in the handkerchiefs briefly paused to observe them, as did the guy working on the Alfa. At closer range, and despite the handkerchief, Alec recognized one of the painters as Dmitri. Alec nodded in passing, a gesture Dmitri didn’t bother to reciprocate.

The man at the card table Karl introduced as Angelo. The house and the workshop were his. He looked to be in his fifties, powerfully built—heavy through the shoulders, chest, and gut. Karl spoke to Angelo in Italian, which, to Alec’s surprise, he commanded admirably. He introduced Alec, the word “fratello” eliciting a smile from Angelo and an invitation to join him at the table.

—We taught him to drink vodka, Karl said. Lately we’ve been getting decent Polish stuff. It arrives in good quantities through Germany.

A chair was dragged over for Lyova, and Angelo poured shots of vodka into the espresso cups.

After they drank, Karl quickly sketched the situation.

—Ma tuo fratello, che tipo di lavoro pensa che facciamo qui?
Angelo smirked.

—Non ne capisce niente di queste cose,
Karl said.
Sa solo correre dietro alle ragazze.

—Anche quella è una dote.
Angelo grinned, and then turned to Lyova.

—Parli italiano?

—Sì,
Lyova said.

—È il tuo furgone?

—Sì, è mio.

—Niente male.

—Grazie.

—Funziona bene?

—Funzionava bene, prima dell’incidente.

—Qui non arrivano tanti furgoni come questo.

—Agli italiani piacciono le macchine piccole.

—Ma qualche volta fa comodo avere un furgone.

—Sì, qualche volta.

—Se ripariamo il furgone, forse saresti interessato a cambiarlo con una di queste auto?

—Una qualsiasi?

—Sì, eccetto l’Alfa.

—È molto generoso da parte tua ma per il mio lavoro mi serve un forgone.

—Peccato,
Angelo said, and turned the matter over to Karl.

Resuming in Russian, Karl told Lyova that there was only so much they could do for the van.

—If there’s mechanical damage, our guys won’t be able to fix it. We don’t have the tools or the parts.

—And if it’s just body work?

—That we can do, Karl said. Though it depends what you can afford.

—What Alec said is true. I can’t afford much.

—Tell me what you think is fair.

Lyova named a figure and Karl accepted it without haggling.

—If you want to wait around, Karl said, I’ll have Valera do it after he finishes with the Alfa. Or if you don’t feel like waiting, you could leave it here overnight.

—If I leave it overnight, what are the chances it will be here tomorrow? Lyova grinned.

—I suppose anything could happen, Karl replied blankly.

—Anyway, it’s our means back to Rome, Lyova said. I don’t want to speak for Alec, but I’ll wait.

—No problem, Karl said. I’d keep you company, but there are some things I need to do.

They spent the rest of the afternoon, several hours, in and around
the garage. They had another drink with the idle Angelo. They rested their chairs along the rear wall of the house—as far from the dust and the fumes as possible—and watched the activity. Nobody paid them any mind. Dmitri and his partner finished painting the Renault, and Dmitri drove it out of the garage. A Ford Escort sedan pulled in, and its driver, another Russian, fetched several wooden packing crates out of the trunk. Karl greeted him at the back door of the house and helped him carry the crates inside. At the same time, two uniformed policemen dropped by to have a drink with Angelo. The afternoon ticked by.

Alec and Lyova made peace with the two kids out front, and periodically joined them to have a smoke and kick the ball around.

Eventually, Valera swapped the panel on the Alfa with another that he drew from a stack of body parts stored at the far end of the workshop. He then turned his attention to the van.

—It’s some operation your brother’s running here, Lyova observed.

—Is it? Alec asked, not because he didn’t have a sense of its illicitness but because he found it hard to believe that the proceeds could compensate for spending so much time in such squalor.

—I’m sure I don’t understand half of it, Lyova said, but the half I understand is no joke. To pull this off, he’s got to be involved with serious people.

—Even so, Alec said, I haven’t seen a sty like this since our fiasco at Chop.

Lyova had also crossed at Chop. His experience had been bad, but he’d freely admitted that Alec and his family had been subjected to a more diabolical order of humiliation.

The fact was that, one night, in July of 1978, in a small, dingy booth at the Chop railway station, a scrawny Russian customs inspector, who reeked of tobacco and looked like a prime candidate for cirrhosis, had said to him:
Bend over and hold your balls and your cock. I don’t want them swinging in my face.
Clutching a flashlight in one hand, he had tried to force the rubber-gloved finger of his other hand into Alec’s rectum. And when Alec’s body had instinctively
resisted, he had barked:
Don’t play the virgin and open your ass! I didn’t have this trouble with your father.

They had all been subjected to this same violation. Samuil had gone first, followed by Alec and Karl. A matronly female customs inspector had taken charge of the women. First Emma, then Rosa and Polina. In a neighboring booth, equipped with a gynecological table, the customs inspector had done her work with the aid of a speculum. For long minutes after they emerged from the booth, they all averted their eyes and didn’t speak. Even the boys, who were not spared, came out this way.

When the customs inspector had tried to take them, Rosa had shrieked with the ferocity of a jungle creature,
They are children! Seven and five! What kind of monster would do this to a child?
Karl had silenced her with a searing look. In a level tone, he had said to the customs inspector,
There is nothing on the boys.
The inspector remained unmoved. He took Yury by the wrist. Karl said,
What will it take to leave the boys?
The customs inspector leered and said,
We have our regulations.
As the inspector tried to pull Yury in the direction of the booth, Karl clapped a hand on his son’s shoulder and shot the agent a withering look.
Their mother goes with them,
Karl said,
or, I swear to God, I will tear your throat out.
The inspector regarded Karl for an instant—long enough to gather that Karl wasn’t the type to issue idle threats—and relented.

Resentful thoughts, like a flock of bats, wheeled around them. Alec tried hard not to blame Samuil. His father’s stubbornness had incited the first customs agent to single them out for the cavity searches, because h e had refused to part with his brother’s letters from the front, or even to allow the customs agent to lay hands on them. The agent had already confiscated his father’s medals. They had only a very short amount of time to clear customs before their train left for Bratislava. If they missed the train, they would be stranded overnight in Chop, a closed border city, without passports or permits, where they could easily be arrested. Alec felt the likelihood of this increasing as his father brandished one letter after another, taking pains to unfold them and display first one side and
then its obverse. It was a ludicrous exercise. It seemed like every letter was written in Yiddish, in an alphabet the customs agent couldn’t pretend to understand. Behind them, other families stirred impatiently.

In the end, after Zhenya, the last of the boys, had been searched, they already knew that they had missed their train. They were stranded in the station amid jumbled belongings. They now appeared very conspicuous. The customs agents who had impeded their departure eyed them darkly. And Alec felt other sinister characters in the station taking their measure.

We have to get out of here,
Karl said. Rosa had looked despondently at their pile of baggage and asked,
How?

At that moment one of the sinister characters, a Gypsy, detached himself from a pillar and sidled over to them. He was squarely built, unshaven, with a greasy forelock, shabby trousers, dingy canvas shoes, and an impressive red silk shirt.
Missed your train?
he asked, scanning them all, but gravitating intuitively to Karl.
What’s it to you?
Karl said.
If you’re in a bind, I can help,
the Gypsy said.

From the station they walked three kilometers to the outskirts of Chop, an area of partially constructed panel apartment houses. The Gypsy and his fourteen-year-old son had helped them load most of their belongings onto a cart harnessed to a lethargic donkey. The cart was large enough to accommodate all their belongings, but Karl and Alec elected to carry some things to allow the boys and Emma to ride instead of walk. Emma had confessed to feeling weak and lightheaded, symptoms she attributed to nervous exhaustion.