Jachim Topol - Gargling With Tar

Then we drove through Ctiradův Důl and in a flash I knew that Peter not only knew nothing at all about waging war, but that he couldn’t even drive: he was accidentally going back on himself… The whole time I had been thinking we were going away from Siřem, but I was wrong… I raised my head, saw what was around the corner and shouted.

* ‘Cannibal comrades, I’m not a tasty boy.’

I spotted the tank guns the second we hurtled around the sharp bend towards the little bridge, and they weren’t the guns of the ‘Happy Song’ column. They had to belong to Major General Kozhanov’s 1st Tank Brigade of Guards. Peter, as was his habit, had been firing into the bend, so it came as no surprise that the tanks gave us a welcome of hot iron, as if they’d been expecting us.

The explosive shells hurled Peter backwards, away from the steering wheel. He landed right on top of me. Sadly, I could hear the bullets ripping him to shreds, but if he hadn’t been there it would have been me who caught it. I rolled up in a ball under Ted.

The jeep smashed into some rocks — probably the very rocks I’d once carried this way, in and out of the water. It hit the dark surface under the bridge, bounced off the bottom, and, while the shouting sub-machine-gunners blazed away at the bear meat, and quite likely at the men who had called the animal Uncle Ted, I knew nothing about it, because I had got into deep water and was being carried away by the fast current. I tried to float and only just made it through the big rocks. Then I remembered that I couldn’t swim, so I began catching my belly against more stones. It all happened so fast.

I was in a reedbed. Something gripped my leg. It wasn’t alive. I was caught up in the scrap iron in the tip. I banged my head against some metal sheeting, then fell back into the water. When I prised myself up again I was stuck there, held fast by the scrap metal, water up to my chin. I heaved my shoulders and arms into a space surrounded by metal walls with just enough room to breathe. I was just starting to fight for my life when I found myself among rotten branches and reeds that cut like arrows.

I could hear shouting and calling coming from the bank of the stream… It was probably the sub-machine-gunners leapfrogging from their posts behind the tanks to find out who it was they’d shot to bits. They were running up in an assault line to comb the bank… The reeds pricked at my belly from below. This was a shallow bit. From my waist up I was clamped in iron sheeting. I groped around among the reeds and branches, making myself some space. I could smell a lot and see a bit, so I quickly got used to being in that metal air-pocket in the water and reeds. I was scared of the men on the bank.

The moon shone through chinks in the twisted metal and was reflected on the water in which I quietly fidgeted. It occurred to me that I could be in the cab of some sunken truck. But trucks don’t have wings. The wings were twisted metal overgrown by reeds. Wherever the reeds moved under the joint forces of wind and water, the metal surface gleamed. I’d never been in a plane before, I thought. This small, battered plane was the biggest piece of scrap metal in the tip. I’d sometimes seen its iron skeleton from across the dark winter water.

Now in the summer the reedbed was shallow. No doubt all the shelling and numerous fires all over Bohemia had boiled away the water of the rivers and streams.

The seat was stuck fast on its side, crisscrossed by perished straps. Sunk in the mud and washed by the water, the plane was completely overgrown with reeds.

So I had plenty of fun fighting with the reeds as I waded through the cold water to the bank. I have no idea how long I stayed in that air-pocket. I waited for the sub-machine-gunners to finish their work before leaving to clear another sector. Then I made a move. I can always tell when a forward patrol has finished its task.

I scrambled onto the bank, slithering through the darkness. The cottages I could see didn’t look battered. I heard a dog barking. A rooster swore at his hens, even though it was night-time.

In Siřem I wanted first of all to find an ally, so I set off for the cemetery using footpaths and detours.

I found Páta easily. I had just pushed through the large rusty gates, heading straight for the toff’s tomb, which stood out white amid a field of crosses, when Páta jumped me and floored me right there among the graves, and we rolled about on the ground and neither of us had the smell of the Home from Home in our hair or on our clothes. So for a moment I worried that it wasn’t him but a stranger. Wrestling in silence, one on one, we fell through the earth and I got a bash on the head. Only then did Páta recognize me by the light of some burning candles, crying out ‘Ilya!’ and that brought me round from my sudden descent into the bowels of the cemetery. Páta was glad to see me there.

And Mr Cimbura was glad as well. He lay in some blankets, and said straight away, ‘Hi, sonny… you made it!’

He propped himself up on one elbow. I had recognized him in the flickering candlelight, even before he had spoken. So Mr Cimbura and Páta have made up, I thought to myself.

Then Mr Cimbura yattered on, ‘So, sonny, you thought you’d escape from your very own village on a tank, did you? Just like your old man, though he tried it by plane.’

In the bunker-like darkness, relieved only by the candles, I checked again that it was Mr Cimbura that I was seeing and hearing. I clenched my fist. I didn’t want to hear any more of his or anyone else’s fairy stories… Then I saw that there was somebody else there… I was so glad to see Sister Alberta again. She was sitting in a snug of rags, looking at me. She was pleased too, I think.

‘Well, here we all are, come together like one happy family,’ said Mr Cimbura. ‘You know, sonny, how I used to look after you as best I could, seeing as you’re the bastard sprog of an aristo, but I couldn’t look out for the little ’un, you know that yerself.’

‘I saw it! I saw Monkeyface fall all by himself!’ Páta blurted out, and I said, ‘So did Karel!’ and I stamped my foot.

‘Ah well, we looked after you under all them bosses that evil times inflicted on us, sonny. Everyone in Siřem took real good care of you… but then, you’re our lord and master, kid… We always kept an eye on you, ever since I dragged you out of that plane in flames as a screaming wee thing. The eyes of all us folk, Siřem folk, kept a close watch on you. I was afraid you’d never ever get over all that gormless gawping you did, but you have. Our Hanka used to keep us up to date! It weren’t easy for her, obviously, to keep up with some neglected, delinquent kid. She’s a lovely girl really, but then she had to see to the wellbeing of the young squire. She had that explained to her proper like!’

Mr Cimbura sat up. I could see his face was terribly burnt, the light from the candles gliding over the craters in its ancient skin. He was covered in filthy bandages, and though it probably isn’t right to say this of an old person, he stank. No matter how many times I’d been in combat, I’d never realized that burns could smell so bad.

‘Well, sonny, you never needed as much protecting as when them red communards betrayed the Czech people and threw in their lot with the Moskies. If you’d been a growing, aristo orphan, you’d have been for it. Much better to be a retard. That was a damn good idea we had! And the popular masses put the frighteners on the Muscovite and now our victory’s in tatters, but we’ll pull through. We’ll lie low in our cellars and pull through. There’s always someone survives, that’s a known fact. So, sonny, you’ve grown into a fine upstanding son of Czechia, a stalwart soldier in the Czech cause. You didn’t get far from your native Siřem on that tank. And now you’re back with us. Welcome home!’