Jáchym Topol - Devil's Workshop

You were there, huh?

The underpass is long and dark. I’m glad Maruška’s telling me about her life, but I’m ready to leave.

Yeah, I came too, but I ran into some guys I knew! Coincidence. They stole a keg of beer somewhere. So I went with them. Lucky me! A storm got up. The people from the concert ran to take shelter in the underpass here. The crowd squeezed up against the bars, people kept trying to push their way in. They didn’t know the grille was closed. Two or three militiamen also got trampled to death.

How did that happen?

It just did. Which proves it was really an accident. Some idiots forgot to open the grille! The government didn’t plan the massacre to disperse the youth, get it?

I don’t get it. She stares at me, I nod. Black shadows flash past on the ground. I wonder whether Maruška’s scared of mice. Probably not.

You know how much it costs to train a militiaman like that?

I just wave my hand, like it’s obvious.

They say there was blood up to their ankles, Maruška says. She waves her hand too. It soaked into the ground. Into the river that runs underneath here. The Niamiha. That’s the river Minsk was founded on.

Uh-huh!

The bloody banks of the Niamiha, as The Song of Igor’s Campaign says. Ever heard of it?

I take a deep breath, preparing to answer her truthfully, but just then we come out of the underpass and a blizzard swallows us up, the whooshing wind lifting heaps of snow in the air. I grope my way through the white fog, a red sign flies by, slams into the pavement. I stand, spitting snow.

Where are you? I shout.

The hum of engines drowns out the whoosh of the wind. Trucks emerge from the fog, stop, bundled figures jump out, soldiers.

Damn, these guys don’t take a moment’s rest, I swear under my breath. Maruška knows what to do and where to go, dragging me by the hand again, the wind whipping snow all around us. We walk along the wall, to the next street and the next, and there are trucks here too. I hear commands muffled by the wind, the stomp of boots, as the team comes running down the street. We duck into a passageway. I hear — can it be? — Maruška laughing. We lean against the wall of the passage.

You wanted to go to a pub, right? she says.

Yeah. But what about Kagan?

Kagan can wait. We can’t get out of here now anyway. She laughs behind her hand.

What are you laughing at?

You.

How come?

You’re our expert and you don’t even know how to walk!

Wait till she finds out that I’ve never been in a pub either.

She raises her hand and points to the wall. Aha, a bell.

I go to ring it.

Wait a sec, she says. She pulls the pouch from her satchel, fishes around, we pop some pills. Maybe that’s what people eat here.

She rings, standing on tiptoe, holding her finger on the bell. Not long and thin and nervous like Alex’s: Maruška’s sweet little finger is perfectly ordinary, the nail bare, no polish globbed on. She keeps pressing the bell until the door opens.

We walk down a corridor, it’s quiet here, another door opens, I see a set of stairs. Light, warmth, music, conversation, the blaring of a TV. We walk down the stairs, leaving the wind, snow and fog behind.

Salodky Falvarek . I read the words on the pink neon sign: ‘Sweet Court’. We’re in a bar.

Tea? says Maruška. Or what do you want?

Again I see people’s backs, they’re squeezed into the corner, in front of a TV. The volume’s on high and a man in uniform, pale-faced with a moustache, is talking. He opens and closes his mouth, but there’s no life in his eyes — like that mannequin in the coffin, the bride. I start cracking up. Maruška elbows me in the ribs and a tall guy in front of me, also in uniform, with a leather jacket over it — you know the type — turns, frowns at me. Stop laughing, Maruška says in my ear, that’s our president.

A wave of panic and rage runs through the people around the TV, I can feel it.

Wow! He just declared martial law, Maruška says.

Really? What does that mean? I act interested, seeing as it will probably be a while before I get that tea.

Now everyone is talking, so somebody turns up the volume to full blast. Luckily I know enough Russian, since that’s what he’s speaking, to understand: ‘The German order was formed over a period of centuries, and under Hitler it reached its highest point,’ the pale-faced guy on the screen thunders. ‘Not everything associated with Hitler was bad. This is how we see our presidential government in Belarus today.’ All of a sudden a big man pops out of the swarm in front of the TV, knocks it furiously to the ground, and starts kicking and pounding it. A murmur runs through the room, somebody screams, and a few people laugh. Somebody starts to clap.

A little fellow sweeps through the room and hops up on the bar, holding a piece of paper. Quiet! somebody shouts. He’s going to recite. Maruška tugs at my sleeve, tilts her chin towards the door. What, you want to leave? And go outside in that mess?

Let’s go, c’mon, she says in my ear. We’re on assignment. We can’t stay here. They’ll come, you’ll see.

Yeah, but they’re out there too. The street is covered with them!

This way. She gestures with her chin towards the toilets. The silence is so tense now, she doesn’t want to talk. The only sound is the papers rustling in the hand of the guy on the bar. He tilts his head back, lifts his hands, and shouts:

Kill the president!

Murder the bastard!

Amid the voices of thunderous approval — apparently this is their favourite poem — I hear a woman shriek. The hefty guy in the leather jacket and somebody else rush the bar and try to grab the man reading, but the ones who want to keep listening form a wall and block them.

The little guy ignores them and goes on reading:

Kill the President!

Axe him, shoot him

Chop off his accursed head

Murder the son of a bitch!

Now the guy on the bar is yelling and tossing his papers into the crowd, people are clapping, whistling. I see the guy in the leather jacket has pulled out a gun, so I rush after Maruška. She’s gone to the ladies’, inconvenient for me, but we can’t go back out on the street, there are trucks full of soldiers out there. I burst in, lean back against the door. She’s climbing on to the radiator, her soggy clothes kind of get in the way, but now she’s wriggling out the window, she kicked the lock clear off the thing, the girl knows how to move! I jump down into the yard, land on all fours, sneak through the rubbish bins. The wind’s died down, it’s quiet now, no snow scraping between my teeth. And look, another rat. I just see the flash of its teeth, then the tail, its mangy behind covered in stains. All of a sudden, bang! We hear gunfire in the bar. I look around for a way out. Can’t stay here. At least now we’re touching, though. Hunched down in the courtyard, wedged tight together. Wow, Maruška’s really shaking. It’d be awful if you got busted, she says softly into my ear, if I lost you. That really got me. I snuggle closer. Alex would kick my arse, she says, if I fucked up my first assignment. A shadow slips across the lighted bathroom window, we pull apart. We’re not the only ones who want out of the bar, now that there’s shooting. I don’t know if the big man did the poet in or what, and with my foreigner’s accent I’m not about to ask. A guy with a beard lands in the yard, boots, quilted coat. Something’s blocking out the light, a big woman climbing out the window, they must be pushing her from inside. The guy that just jumped down reaches out his hands, she lands in the snow, right by me. Yeah, she’s big all right. Hair tucked under a scarf. Ula. But I didn’t know that yet.