Jáchym Topol - Devil's Workshop

I’ve never seen anything like it. Chimneys jut towards the sky out of the damp earth. The chimneys of cottages, everywhere, rising out of the mist. Chunks of walls, broken stairs. Grey chimney pots surround me like masts in a graveyard of ships. But it’s a village graveyard. I’m on a road paved with black stones that leads to the flattened gate of a lifeless farmstead.

Come, let me show you my little museum, Alex says. The sneak. He’s right behind my back.

He grabs the rope hanging around my neck. I’d forgotten all about it. And we walk, again, him in front, leading me uphill. It’s drizzling. I’m glad the jacket Alex gave me has a hood. Drops of icy rain fall on Alex’s close-shaved head.

This is Khatyn, he says. There were hundreds of villages like this, thousands, not like in your country! Could they wipe out the Slavs? They tried, right here. Three hundred thousand they killed. And nobody in the West knows. How come it got swept under the rug? How come nobody talks about it? Huh?

It was a long time ago, I say in a normal voice. The noose is pretty loose now. It isn’t choking me any more.

Bullshit! Alex yelps. It got swept under the rug because the Germans were in charge, but the ones who did the killing were Russians, Ukrainians, Lithuanians. They did it for money, and everybody keeps quiet about it, because nobody wants to piss Putin off. Get it?

I nod.

Slovak soldiers were stationed in Oktyabrsk, where too many people got slaughtered and burned to even count! About ten of them were my relatives.

Awful, I say.

All those spoiled bunk seekers coming halfway across Europe so Lebo can blow on their wounds and make it better! All those hippie cunts and naive bitches with their parents’ credit cards and fabulous passports. Everyone here’s a seeker, get it? And you can bet your arse they don’t have any credit.

It dawns on me that the paths here are made out of black stone for a reason. It’s a monument to the village. Or a memorial.

I’m proud to be Belarusian, Alex says. But I don’t want to just sit around eating draniki and watching TV. Or protest and throw stones. I want to preserve the nation’s memory. If we lose our past, we lose our future. We won’t exist, get it?

Yeah, Alex, I get it. I wish you didn’t exist. That’s what I think. I don’t say it.

We can’t live like that. Buried forever along with our dead like we were some kind of demons. Can you even see what I mean? Do you fucking understand? He tugs on the rope around my neck. That bothers me.

Hey, Alex! I need to tie my shoe, OK? I hunch over and look to see if there’s a stone I can grab. Nobody’s going to tell me what to do any more.

Your shoes are fine, Alex says calmly, just come on.

So I get up and we go. Guess he knows that trick.

He lets go of the rope and gives me a friendly slap on the back. He knew the whole time he was choking me.

Look. He gestures grandly into the mist. We’re gonna build a huge car park for buses over there. Kiosks! Like they have in Auschwitz. Resurface the road! You think the tourists would like it more if it was bumpy? We could put in a rainforest! They don’t have that at home! What do you think? Work, you cunt! You’re the expert!

Rainforests are nasty, I tell him truthfully. Hot, muggy. Terrible weather. The tourists’ll tell him to go fuck off. Summers here aren’t nice like they are in Terezín.

Only now do I notice that all the chimneys have signs on them: Navicki, Navicka, 50, 42, 14, 5, 3, 1, 1 … names and ages of the dead, aha.

This just isn’t going to do the trick, Alex says, waving his hand around the ruins. Some boring, old-style memorial. That won’t get the attention of the new Europeans. Look at the Poles and that Katyn of theirs! A step ahead, again! They’re shooting a movie about it! And what about our Khatyn? Nobody’s even heard of it.

All of a sudden Alex jumps up on a wall and shouts: Listen to me, you heroic Poles! The people who got murdered here in Khatyn weren’t officers who could defend themselves. No, sir!

He jumps down, grabs the rope, and starts talking normally again.

They forced the men to run around in a circle, till they got tired. Then they herded them into a barn and set fire to it. They used another barn for the women and children. Why didn’t the people resist? Because Slavs are stupid brutes? No, they just didn’t believe it. Right up to the last minute. Throwing kids in the fire. Why would someone do that? Nobody thought it would happen until it actually did. The killers had it all worked out.

We start walking back towards the tent.

I learnt something there in Terezín. Alex gives me a punch in the shoulder. Oral history! The most important thing is the story. Authenticity. That’s what Lebo said, right?

We both stop short.

Lebo, that’s right.

This is Belarus, my friend. No Kafka T-shirts are going to help us here.

We walk straight towards the building, bypassing the tent. The flap is down. I don’t know where Maruška and Rolf are. The only sign of the tractor is the furrows in the snow.

I want to tell Alex to untie me and let me just squat down somewhere and take a crap in peace. I’ll give him the Spider. But I want out. Right now.

But I don’t say a word. The building is a little wooden cabin with slits for windows. I know what this is. The outer walls are tree trunks, but there’s armour plating behind them an inch thick, and the base is made of concrete. Yep!

Alex pulls out a key and says proudly: The museum’s inside this bunker. Fooled you, huh?

What a moron. This isn’t a bunker, it’s a firing cabin. They were all over the bastions in Terezín — we’d crawled through them all by the time we were five. They must’ve been left here by the Germans.

The bunker is behind the wood, built with a separate frame, double walls, fortified. I know the setup well. The tunnels and false hatches, the guard posts, all of it.

In spite of my bleak situation, I’m looking forward to going inside. The forest is starting to make me sneeze.

Alex drops the rope and, cursing, unlocks the door. We stamp our feet on the ice in front, I swing my head and arm around and the piece of rope’s behind my back. I take it as a good sign.

The dim glow of light bulbs. There are candles here too. Alex lights one. We used to use candles in the bunkers when we were kids. They’re pretty smoky, though. It’ll make your head spin if you aren’t used to it.

First thing we’ll buy once we get some cash is a proper generator, Alex mutters.

Concrete steps to the basement. Passageway. Staff room, they call it. Bet he doesn’t know that. Bundles of wires on the walls, saws and cleavers, knives and other junk. A long table. Nasty chemical smell. A heap of rags. Dark spill on the ground. Canisters. We used candles, but the bunkers were empty. You don’t use candles if there are chemicals. Place is a mess. I bet all his experts are Russian. Generator, right. First thing he needs to put money into is some proper ventilation. I make a note to myself to let him know.

He lights candles here too. Manages to get a couple of bulbs turned on. The low ceiling is covered in cables.

He doesn’t even have a head torch. Wires draped all over him. He’s holding a dynamo or something.

An old lady in a scarf and long skirt is sitting right by the door. She’s not alive but it’s like any moment her eyelids are going to open behind her glasses. Her face twitches, lips move. I was in the cellar with my mum and little sister, they were stamping around upstairs, my little sister was going to scream so I put a piece of bread in her mouth, to keep her quiet. I was holding my hand on her mouth and she suffocated.

She stops talking and just starts groaning and wailing, on and on. Alex disconnects the wires, turns her off.