Before (21 page)

“Co se mu stlo?”
Jana says. “He is not himself.”

“There was a fight, at lunch,”
Rí
a
says.

“Jiri was in the fight?” Jana says, feeling her mouth go dry.

“Even
I
was in it,”
Rí
a
says, smiling and gesturing at his hands, “though I'm afraid I didn't give much of an account of myself—”

“Well, what was it?”

“Communists. Always Communists. On the coal trucks. They don't think like Czechs anymore. They just think like Moscow. First defending Hitler—now after Heydrich dies saying Stalin will save us! Such goddamn fools.”
Rí
a
shakes his head.

“It is amazing they didn't turn on Stalin when he got in bed with Hitler,” Jana says. “They are as stupid as Stalin is horrible.”

“They were telling us—Jiri, and me, and
Smetá
ek
and Rejsek—you know him, from Kladno?—that Stalin would save us all! Can you believe? And Jiri told them, and he is right, that Stalin will just rape the country the same way Hitler has and one of them came at Jiri—”

Jana imagines the fistfight as
Rí
a
tells it:
Rí
a
jumping in immediately to defend his boy and the others, too, hitting suddenly, getting swept up in it, the sound of guttural male fury. Czech guards coming and hitting with clubs and telling everyone they were fools, to shut up. The few Nazi guards looking on, watching to see if something should be done, if someone should be shot to take the starch out of the others.

“You cannot
do
this,” Jana says in horror.
“
Rí
a
.
The fighting will just get someone killed.”

“Ano.”
Rí
a
is nodding. Jana knows he tried to calm down his hotheaded teenage son. Knows that
Rí
a
has reproached himself all afternoon for failing. “You're right,
drahou
ku
.
We cannot let these things happen. We must somehow ignore the philosophies of these idiots or just tell them right away to shut up, before it gets out of hand. I told Jiri all of it after. But I must
say”—Rí
a
leans to Jana and lowers his voice—“our son fights like a lion. And Rejsek told me Jiri made a point of matching the Communists shovel for shovel all afternoon.”

Jana sees it: her son with the black and wooden shovel swinging and the sun overhead. The sky like bright tin. Jiri's teeth gritted against the strain. She feels pride, fear, sorrow, fluttering in her. “You cannot do this,
Rí
a,
” she says. “You cannot let it happen.”