Diggers (20 page)

It all started with an innocent e-mail message that appeared on our homepage. Matt was the author. In the vast fields of the Internet, he had dug up a peculiar address, which had a military ring to it, and then he had found someone with a peculiar hobby—digging up rusty metal and collecting the pieces of someone who had once been a soldier. That's how our friendship began. The Classicist and I both started to work on Matt's brain, each in our own way. As a result of this psychological attack, Matt eventually sent us a question: “Could I come to Latvia and at least stand around to watch how you dig and what you find? I'd very much like to do that.”

“Classicist, do you understand? We're not the only idiots in this old world. In England—they've never even had a war there, but there are people just like us in Britain. To be honest, I feel sorry for them.”

“Matt, we will welcome you to Latvia's forests and swamps.” We made it clear that we would be receiving him as a friend, not as a tourism agency, and he would not have to pay for the related services. The only thing I sent Matt was a statement about Latvia's pricing policies when it comes to things like beer, whiskey and cigarettes. On the basis of these prices, our British friend could figure out how much bread and meat must cost.

For three months we were consumed with designing our route and thinking about our opportunities. We planned a program of culture and entertainment in case Matt showed up with his wife. This responsibility was put on the shoulders of the Classicist's wife, Natalija. The strategic plan was drafted hour by hour.

After each e-mail from Matt, we changed arrival dates, routes and plans. I prepared a 14-minute film about us from our video archive. I'm almost scared to talk about that archive. Sometimes it seems that we're preparing video for the police, for prosecutors and judges. They are slaves to the law, without human brains but with a perverse yearning to think of everyone as a criminal. Anyway, I asked a friend from my university days to lay a music track on my pictures, and then I sent the whole thing to England. The film served as the period at the end of a sentence—Matt watched it about 20 times. He showed it too all of his residents, and our English digger got so excited that he sent another letter to announce that he would be arriving in May and that he would be bringing his brother and two friends with him.

***

April 2001

We met regularly, and my friends tried to keep up my spirits. They told me that time would take care of everything and that everything that happens to us in life is for the best. Thanks to my friends, of course, but my soul was still howling like a wolf. I was ready to send all bookkeepers directly to the gas ovens.

“Viktors, you must not carry hatred for your wife or for her bookkeeper. You'll destroy yourself.”

“Why can't you understand?” I tried to object. “He came like a thief and stole my greatest treasure.”

“Still, hatred will not help you. You know that my wife left me, too. She came back six months later. I understand you. I took nerve and sleeping pills for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and I took anti-depressants for dessert. I can't imagine that your wife left you because of him. He's nothing—at parties you can't get him to say a word.”

“Now I'm starting to think that she didn't care about anything that I was doing, she wanted something else. If she had once talked about the digging, the iron, the fucking bones—I'd understand, I'd calm down a little bit. But I have never given her an opportunity to be jealous. She never once mentioned my digging.”

My friend, like a guardian angel, flew down from Heaven and gave me the strength to keep living. It was a business day. He left his desk and invited me to lunch. When I thought about our meeting, I came to understand that if he—a handsome, rich and very wise man—lost his wife, then I must ask how my woman managed to tolerate me for so long.

On Friday morning, the Classicist called me at work to talk about the Englishmen who were coming.

“Let's go out there tomorrow, check out the route that we're going to show them. We can do some digging, too.”

“Sorry, but I can't. I'm having a romantic meeting tonight, which might turn into merciless sex. The woman is like an overripe grape, all that she needs is a pair of hands to squeeze the juice out of her.” I was trying to be as romantic as possible in explaining this evening to the Classicist.

“Weeeeeelll,” my digger friend drawled. “You have to choose whether you're going to be with us or with a woman.”

The heat of the flame on the candle caused wax to pour on the iron candelabra. Quiet music was playing. I took a straw between my lips and slowly started to draw a dizzying liquid from a fancy glass. I tried to be as tempting as possible. She appeared in the semi-darkness of the room. She drew closer, a bit shy, perhaps a bit afraid. It seemed that her silk dress was straining to hold in the great power that was emanating from this woman, flushed with love. The rhythm of my heart got mixed up, and my heart started to pound throughout my body. I took her hand.

“Did I tell you that the Classicist bought an original photo album with photographs of General Rommel—original photographs?”

“It can't be! Will I be able to see them? How did the pictures get here to Latvia? The Desert Fox didn't fight here, after all.” The girl was smiling.

“The most interesting thing is that if these really are the only copies that exist of these photographs, the Classicist will be able to see himself as being very, very rich.”

I spoke slowly and tempted the girl so that she would come closer to me.

***

The early winter morning of the next day.

FUCK! My elbow hurt, and it brought me back to reality. I was in a ditch where the bones of a German or perhaps a Russian soldier had been lying for 60 years. I looked up and saw a skull. It was either laughing at me or telling me thanks. I had made love at night and in the morning, and now I had turned it in for a cold and dark time of frozen feet and the company of men. You're probably thinking that I'm completely nuts, but I can swear to God in saying that everyone should have the opportunity which I had last night—to touch a work of art that was created by God himself. At the same time, though, there was only one truth when it came to why I was out in the woods on that day. My heart cannot love two women at once. There are no women who regularly shave their underarms and legs, are fresh and lovely throughout the day and who know about General Rommel. None. Dita was like that, and even though she knew absolutely nothing about the general, my wife was very close to the ideal.

Holding my throbbing elbow, I quietly sat in the frozen trench and, whining, waited for a car to come by. The Communicator's head appeared from the next ditch. He was smiling.

“Fuck, you all disappeared! As soon as the car got here, poof!—everyone was gone.”

There was no reason for us to hide, of course, but we're sick of having to explain to everyone who we are and what we're doing in the woods. It's better to be a guerrilla. I wasn't lucky that day. When I hopped into the ditch, my heel slid on a frozen piece of clay, and I landed flat on my back.

At the end of the day, the trunk of the Classicist's car held the remains of four soldiers in four black garbage bags.

One of these Soviet soldiers, preparing to fire, had poured some shells into his helmet

May 2001

The Englishmen will be here in a week's time.

The Communicator and Little Spirit are gathering food for the cows and the pigs for the coming winter. From morning to evening they're out in their fields.

It's Saturday morning, and I'm knocking on the Classicist's door.

“You've become a male whore, haven't you?” My friend is driving his BMW and mocking me.

“I have no idea how that happened. I was a great husband, but you know what? I feel that this is not the same sex that I had with my wife. I feel completely empty afterward. The conversation is short—”You want to make love?” If not, goodbye, if you change your mind, give me a call. I'm becoming a bit more romantic, though. I suggest dinner, and they all agree. When I say that it will be at my house, about half decline. The girls are fine, they're perfect, but I don't care. I guess we're becoming old. At our age we can't just fuck and feel good if there isn't anything to talk about later.”

“About the war, for example. Haven't you asked? Maybe they like history. There are all kinds of women.” The Classicist was still making fun of me. I allowed him to go on.

“Lots of interesting things happen to me anyway. Last Sunday I was just coming to after a very intense night, and I brought my son over to visit with me. Robert spends more time with me—he likes it. Fuck, Classicist, I'm not a bad father, am I?”

“So what happened?”

“Another girlfriend called. I loved what she said—'Viktors, I'm as tense as a guitar string. Let's get together.'”

“And you?”

“What could I do? I told her my kid was with me. I couldn't tell her that I felt like a cow that has just been milked. Stop smirking. I still feel guilty every time I have sex, as if I had done something to my wife.”

The Classicist stopped joking.

“Of course, the guilt is less and less each time,” I continued. “But still...”

While we were still discussing women, our car stopped at the edge of a forest path. The forest was slowly waking up from its winter hibernation, becoming thicker and thicker as the weeks went by. The diggers dressed in lighter clothing every time, even as the trees dressed themselves in thick green leaves. This is the best season for digging. It's warm, there is no long grass on the ground, and—this is the main thing—there aren't little winged cretins buzzing around. Mosquitoes—damn, how I hate you! Oh, and I also hate bookkeepers who are men.

This forest is our friend, we're sure of that. It's give us so much in the way of good times that I'm all but prepared to eat its soil. Over the last few weeks we've been behaving very well so as not to anger the gods of digging. A week ago we reburied 38 soldiers, with full honors—wreaths of flowers and a clergyman in attendance. The Communicator and Little Spirit dug a grave that was nine meters long. The Communicator was amazingly calm in conducting this ceremony. The military attaches from Russia and Belarus were on hand, along with embassy employees, and a digger showed all of them where to stand, where to place their wreaths and where to carry the coffins. You see, it's our hobby—to dig up corpses and then to rebury them.

When it came to our mission on this particular day, we were happy that the Classicist had “dug up” the fact that there had been a nine-day battle at this location, with two Soviet army brigades encircled by the opposing force. Elsewhere we learned that only 300 soldiers fought their way out of the forest, while 6,000 died there. That was so that we would have something to do half a century later. In truth, I didn't really believe that there were so many men.

The metal detector the Classicist was toting around gave its first beep over a one-man trench. My shovel hit the earth. The soft clay stuck to the shovel and didn't want to shake loose—almost every time I had to scrape it off with my hands. After a considerable battle with this stew, I finally saw something. It was hard to say what it was, but clearly—thank God!—it wasn't a small piece of metal, nor was it a piece of ammunition. The Classicist took over for me.

Eventually we dug down to the point where we could see the top of something that was oval in shape. It was a soldier's helmet. My friend and I had the same thought—perhaps the bearer of the helmet was still underneath it.

“You know what? I don't really feel like messing around with bones today,” the Classicist whined.

“I don't either, but we have to take a look. Of course, we forgot the fucking camera at home today.”

“The batteries weren't charged anyway. You know as well as I do that when we don't have the camera, we find all kinds of miracles in the ground—stuff that you can't really explain to anyone else so that they believe it.”

“Oh, stop it—I'm getting annoyed. Get that hat out of there. I'll just take a few pictures.”

I was in command. I held the camera with my fingertips so as not to get mud all over it.

The muddy hands of my friend appeared over the edge of the ditch, bearing a muddy Soviet army helmet. It was the first time in our digging history that we had found an object in such good shape—at least 85% of the original paint was still on the “bucket.” The price of our find would be even greater thanks to the fact that the soldier had scraped a five-point star into his helmet. On one side someone had painted the letter K. We couldn't figure out what it could have meant—perhaps the soldier was called Konstantin. We didn't find him. That was good, because otherwise we would not have been able to take his helmet away from him.