My Own Revolution (6 page)

She comes out, the sun full on her face, the violin case in her hand. My heart spins, swirls, stops, then marches on. There is no Bozek by her side.

I step out, hoping Mr. Ninzik isn’t looking out the window.

“Patrik! What are you doing here?”

I take her violin case again, my sweat soaking the handle. “I’m here to walk you to Lada’s.”

“But you don’t
have
to.”

“I want to.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Bozek coming down the steps, surrounded by boys who want to hear more about Bratislava and the Beatles.

“I have a surprise for you,” I say, hurrying her away with the violin case banging against my leg. There’s a tiny park on the way to Lada’s.

“What kind of surprise?” she asks.

“You’ll see.” Out of habit I’m about to set down the violin case and books and yank my red scarf off. But then I don’t. Danika is still wearing hers and seems to like it.

We come to the park blooming with tulips, and I say, “Let’s go through here.”

“But that will make me late, Patrik. Lada won’t . . .”

“Let’s go through here,” I order. “I have something to tell you.”

“If it’s about Dr. Machovik, I already know.”

“It’s not about him. Not at all.” I head for the fountain.

“I’m going to be
late,
” she complains, but follows. She has to because I have the violin.

I sit down on the edge of the fountain. In the middle, a stone cherub is peeing, his pee splish-splashing from one level to another. “Come here.”

She sits and smooths her skirt. But she’s a little away from me, not like she would be with Bozek.

There’s no time to waste. “I love you,” I say.

She shrugs. “I love you, too.”

“But not like that. Not how we used to love each other, Danika. Not like before . . .”

She looks at me then, looks in a way that I can tell she’s forgotten about her violin lesson. She looks at my face and then her eyes move down, over the red scarf at my neck, over my chest, where my heart is trying to break loose. Her eyes settle on my hands, which are sweating buckets. I wipe them on my knees.

Her bright-blue eyes come back to my face. She wrinkles her forehead, then runs one hand over it. A breeze blows, knocking drops of cherub pee this way and that.

Suddenly she giggles. She puts a hand to her mouth. “Oh, my,” she says through her hand.

My blood zooms like a million cars on a racetrack.

She takes her hand away from her mouth. She stops giggling. She reaches that hand — trembling — for my shoulder. “This
is
a surprise, Patrik. You’ve always been like a brother to me.”

“Not anymore. I don’t feel like a brother anymore,” I protest. “I like you in a different way.”

She drops her hand and looks at it lying limp in her lap.

“You’re trying to tell me that you like Bozek instead of me? Is that it?” I drive the words hard.

“Don’t be silly.”

“What, then?” I kick at a weed sprouting between the paving stones.

“You and I used to play Gypsies together. Becoming your girlfriend would feel weird.”

“It’s because of Bozek.”

“It’s not. It’s just that you’ve always been my friend. And you always will be.”

Only that.

It’s nighttime and I lean back against the square base of Lenin’s statue. I imagine a nuclear missile coming straight from the U.S. of A. — even with me here — to blast Lenin. The missile would explode in a million red bits, bursting all over like the embers of a campfire. Then Lenin and I would be no more.

My thoughts revolve back to Danika. Obviously she likes Bozek instead of me. Bozek, the son of a party member. The son of a guy like Dr. Machovik, who sends his colleagues to hard labor. How
could
she?

Something goes
pop, pop
inside me.

I look around for Karel and Emil, who promised to meet me here. Where are they? Running a toy train? Listening one more time to the Beatles?

Karel especially should be coming. Adam Uherco is his distant relative. He should be here for Adam because Adam can’t be.

At last, I make out Karel sidling along like a sideways-walking crab. “Where’s Emil?” I ask. “I thought he was coming with you.”

“Don’t know. We said ten sharp right here. . . .”

“Maybe he’s turned us in.” I laugh, but both of us look around for searchlights, someone hunting us down. There’s nothing. Nobody. Not even a moon.

“Emil wouldn’t do that,” Karel says.

“He probably just got cold feet,” I say. “Let’s do it without him. The longer we wait, the more chance there is of getting caught.”

“I drank three glasses of water,” Karel says.

“I gulped down a pot of tea.”

We climb onto the base, right at Lenin’s feet. Karel starts to unzip.

“Not down here,” I say. “Up there.” I point at the dark statue.

“Piss on his face?” Karel asks.

“Why not?” If America refuses to send that missile, my pee is the next best thing.

Karel links his fingers together, making a step with his hands. He hoists me up the cold, slippery statue. I make my way onto the crooked-back elbow.

“Now, how do
I
get up?” Karel asks, his voice high.

“Like this.” Securing my leg in Lenin’s elbow, I reach down and grab Karel’s hand. I yank him. He dangles, then gets a grip and hauls himself onto the statue’s outstretched arm.

“I’m not giving up on Danika,” I tell Karel.

From his perch, he says, “Don’t torture yourself, Patrik. I’ve seen the way she looks at Bozek. . . .”

“But she knows me better. She’s loved me all these years.”

“She loves you like a friend.”

“That can change. I can change it.” And then I know I can’t. I shove at Lenin’s immovable shoulder with the toe of my green-spotted shoe. I shove harder, Karel watching from his own Lenin arm. When I start up a low growl, he says, “Come on.”

So we unzip.

I feel the release, hear the splash of two streams of pee hitting metal. Both of us aim right onto the face. The pee runs into Lenin’s eyes, down his metal beard. It drips onto his vest.

The
pop, pop
grows softer.

I zip up.

Karel pulls something from his pocket. “My sister’s,” he says, holding up a bra.

“That’s not going to fit . . .”

“How about over the eyes?”

“Ha! That’s good.”

Working together, we pull the bra across Lenin’s metal face, manage to hook it behind the head.

A car starts up nearby. We slither down. At the bottom, I pick up a stick and write in the dirt:
REMEMBER ADAM UHERCO
.

“Bravo,” Karel says, then glances into the night as if looking for Adam. Or for those who locked him up.

“No one’s out there,” I whisper. “No one.”

We slap each other’s palms, then dash off into our own separate blackness.

By morning, the bra is gone. A garden hose lies coiled at the base of the statue, and puddles of clear water pool on the paving stones.

Mr. Babicak’s secretary summons me to the office.
This isn’t fair,
I think, following her down the hallway. If only Danika had said yes, I wouldn’t have done such a stupid thing. And why pick on me? I’m not the only one here who hates Lenin.

The white bra — very plain, no lace or frills — is lying on Babicak’s desk. Beside it stands a jar filled with pencils and the sharp blade of a letter opener.

As soon as I’m seated, Mr. Babicak comes to the point. “You are playing into the hands of the imperialist Americans,” he says. “Did you know that the Americans are aggressors throughout the world, Patrik? Did you know they are developing nuclear weapons?”

I nod. I won’t point out that Russia is also building missiles and bombs. Not if I want to keep my head, I won’t.

Mr. Babicak lifts the bra and dangles it from the tip of his pencil. “I think you know where this was found,” he says, his beetly brows inching together.

This is a trick question. Everyone knows. It was Bozek, I hear, who climbed up to fetch the bra. Bozek Estochin who patriotically turned it in to the office. Everyone in school is giggling about this bra. If I say I don’t know, Mr. Babicak will mock me. If I say I do, he’ll pounce on me. So I say nothing.

“What about it, Chrobak?” His voice scoots across the desk.

“It’s not mine, sir. I don’t own a bra.”

With a snort, he drops the bra back down. The hook clicks lightly on the wood. “Don’t be a smart aleck, Chrobak.”

A fine rain has been falling since early morning. Washing away fingerprints. No one saw us. Babicak can’t prove anything. Without proof, I can’t be locked up.

To my surprise, he says, “This will of course go on your record.” He reaches for the jar, where I think he means to pick out a pencil. Instead his hand closes over the sharp letter opener. He runs his hand over the smooth blade.

I should keep my mouth shut. But I can’t help myself. “But that’s not right, sir,” I say, putting both hands flat on his wide desk. “Nothing has been proven against me.”

Babicak gives a bitter laugh. “I don’t have to
prove
anything, young man. I only have to suspect. And”— he aims his glassy eyes upon me —“I strongly suspect.” He lays down the letter opener, takes a piece of paper from the drawer and a pencil from the jar, and begins to write.

To have a permanent black mark on my record is even worse than copying
The Communist Manifesto.
I could be locked up after all.

The next day, Tati throws another paper down on the dining-room table. “This one I refuse to process,” he says. “This is my colleague Dr. Albrecht. I absolutely refuse.”

I stare at the paper. It’s a little crumpled, as if Tati balled it up, then straightened it out. Is Mr. Babicak somehow responsible for this new order? Has he taken his revenge so swiftly? “What will happen to Dr. Albrecht?” I ask.

“He’s to be put away in a mental institution. No better than prison.”

“No tractor driving?”

Tati shakes his head. “He might still open his mouth and say things the party doesn’t want said.”

“Maybe he’ll see Adam Uherco at that place,” I say.

Tati presses his lips together.

Mami glances at the window.

Last week a man washed those windows, using a rag on a long pole. It could have been Dr. Csider doing the washing. Except he is way up by Prikra.

Maybe someone has planted a bug. And now somewhere a man is huddled in an office, listening to our conversation. Recording it for proof with a reel-to-reel tape recorder.

Mami yanks back the curtain. Maybe the window washer was really a high-up party spy. Maybe he planted a microphone. She runs her fingertip along the frame, perhaps checking for wires. She tries to open the window, but it’s corroded shut.

“What will happen to you, Tati?” I ask, moving closer. “To us?”

“I hardly care anymore,” Tati says.

“You have to care about the children,” says Mami gently. She turns on the radio, perhaps to cover up our conversation.

The broadcaster announces that the Soviet spacecraft Luna 10 is still orbiting the moon. This makes the Soviet Russians very proud. But what is
really
going on — friends turning against one another, people being certified as crazy, school principals terrorizing their students, students fighting back in little, stupid ways — of that the Soviet Russians will tell us nothing.

Just as the Russians hold back secrets, so do I. Babicak has no proof against me. There’s nothing for me to confess to Tati. And yet I now have that black mark. I should tell Tati to watch his back. I really should.