Colum McCann - Zoli

She was waiting outside. I had to drive her to another town. She smiled slightly at the sight of my fist wrapped in a towel, and for a brief moment I hated her and all the bareness she brought to her life.

“You've got to drive me through the mountains,” she pleaded. “I can't stand the idea of those tunnels.”

And yet we were in a tunnel anyway, we knew it, and maybe we had always been. We had sped into the arch of darkness, slowed down, steered a moment in the unusual cold, until it felt right, and then we'd jolted the bike forward again, pushed against the headlong wind. We had recognized a pinpoint of light, a tiny gleam that kept growing, and the longer we journeyed in the darkness the more dazzling the light had become, ever brighter, more brilliant, and we leaned forward onto the handlebars, until eventually, like everyone, we had approached the mouth of the tunnel. Then we smashed that motorbike out into the sunshine, momentarily blinded, stunned, and we stayed so for quite a while, until our eyes adjusted and we began to blink and things came into focus and all around us were pebbles and amongst the pebbles, stones, and amongst the stones, rubbish, and amongst the rubbish, small gray buildings, and between, and beyond, pockets of gray men and women, a wasteland of them-ourselves. Instead of letting our hearts sink, we had closed our eyes once more and we had ridden that bike into another darkness, another tunnel, thinking there would be a brighter light just a little further along, that nothing would derail us, and that belief, like most beliefs, was more precious than the truth.

What is there to say?

Stränsky's last words to the firing squad: “Come closer, it will be easier for you.”

The hubs were of elm. The spokes, mostly oak. The rims were made from felloes of curved ash, joined by strong pegs, bound with iron. Many were painted. Some were badly nicked and scarred. Certain ones were rigged with wire. A few were buckled with moisture. Others were still perfect after decades. They were hauled in from riverbanks, deep forests, fields, edges of villages, long, empty tree-lined roads. Thousands of them. Sledgehammers were used to remove them. Two-man saws. Levers. Tire irons. Mallets. Pneumatic drills. Knives. Blowtorches. Even bullets when frustration set in. They were taken to the railroad yards, state factories, dump grounds, sugar mills and, most often, to the weedy fields at the rear of police stations where once again they were tagged and then, after meticulous documentation, they were burned. The troopers worked the bonfires in shifts. Small groups in the villages gathered, bringing their chairs with them. In the freezing afternoons workers broke off early to see the stacks as they whistled and hissed in the fires. At times the air bubbles popped in rackety succession. Sparks yawed off into the air. The rubber caught and threw huge flames. The iron hoops reddened and glowed. The nails melted. When the fires waned, the crowds threw on extra paraffin. Some cheered and drank from bottles of vodka, jars of cucu. Policemen stood and watched as the embers made silent passages into the air. Army sergeants leaned in and lit cigarettes. Teachers gathered classes around the flames. Some children wept. In the days afterwards, a slew of government officials rolled out in jeeps and cars from Kosice, Bratislava, Brno, Trnava, Saris, Pobedim, to inspect what had happened under Law 74. It had taken just three days, an incredible success, so our newspapers and state radio told us, generous, decent, Socialist: we got rid of their wheels.

There were horses too, of course, requisitioned and sent to the collective farms, though many were old and bony and ready for the glueyard. Those were shot where they stood.

I walked the backstreets of Bratislava, reeling, the copy of Rude pravo rolled up in my back pocket. I knew there was a syntax in the way I carried my body, and I was careful now not to unfold myself fully to the troopers. I stayed at home, hung shirts across the window for curtains.

Zoli's kumpanija, which had been hiding out in the forests not far from the city, had tried to flee, but they were surrounded and brought to the city. They called it the Big Halt. They were joined by other families as the roads filled. Women at the front, men at the flank. Long lines of carriages and children. Dogs snapped and kept them in line. The people were herded into fields at the foot of the new towers. The troopers disappeared and the bureaucrats came, waving files. The children were deloused in the local spa, then everyone was lined up and inoculated against disease. Speeches were given. Our brothers and sisters. The true proletariat. Historical necessity. Victory is swift. The dawn of a new era.

Flags were unfurled. Bands played trumpets as Zoli's men and women were guided towards community centers-from now on they'd live in the towerblocks. They were a triumph of what we had become. They were to be envied.

Alone in my room, I listened to the radio reports: serious and high-minded, they talked of the rescue of the Gypsies, the great step forward, how they'd never be shackled by primi-tivism again. One of Zoli's poems was read out on the midnight program. I didn't have the bravery to turn it off.

I went downstairs, snapped the front cable on the motorbike, took apart the chain and left the links in pieces on the ground. I wandered the alleyways, my hand trailing the lichen on the walls, paced underneath the marble arch carved with Soviet stars. Blue posters were pasted on street corners, long columns of names of those who had committed crimes against the popular democratic order. I looked down at the dismal sweep of the Danube. Citizens moved along the waterfront without motive, without volition. It was like watching a silent movie-they spoke but remained silent.

In the mill, the new boss, Kysely, was a vicious little corner-shop of a man. He waited for me with a clipboard.

I ventured down past Galandrova Street, wearing a black-belted shirt and a pin from the Union of Slovak Writers, and there she was, huddled in the shadows of the mill. She wore her overcoat and her kerchief had fallen down over her eyes. I walked up and stood in front of her a moment, lifted her chin with a forefinger. She pulled away. I could hear the noise of the mill behind us, its mechanical hum.

“Where've you been, Stephen?”

“The motorbike.”

“What about it?”

“It's broken down.”

She took one step back, then reached forward and ripped the pin out of my shirt.

“I tried to get out there to help you,” I said. “I was stopped, Zoli. They turned me back. I tried to find you.”

She pushed open the door of the mill and strode inside. Kysely, grimy and yellow-faced, was wearing one of Stränsky's shirts. He stared across the machines at her. “Identification?” he said. She ignored him, stamped across the floor, and went to the filing racks. The original poster plate was there, cased in steel. She took it and threw it against the wall. It bounced on the floor and slid against the hellbox. She picked it up and began to hammer the image of her face against the ground.

Kysely began to laugh.

Zoli looked up at him and spat at his feet. He gave me a smile that froze me to the ground. I took him aside and pleaded: “Let me handle this.” He shrugged, said there would be repercussions, and went upstairs, past Stränsky's colored footprints. Zoli was standing in the middle of the floor, chest rising and falling.

“They'll keep us there.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The towers,” she said.

“It's temporary. It's to control-”

“To control what, Stephen?”

“It's just temporary.”

“They played one of your recordings on the radio,” she said. “My people heard it.”