Tomáš Zmeškal - A Love Letter in Cuneiform

“‘Hello,’ I greeted the man who stopped in front of me. ‘I’m your neighbor. My wife and I live about three hours from here.’ I offered my hand. He looked right through me and my outstretched hand.

“‘You have entered a military installation without authorization. Please vacate the premises immediately!’ His rudeness caught me by surprise. I turned to Martha in the car, but she just sat there looking out from behind a pair of large, impenetrable sunglasses.

“‘You must be mistaken,’ I said. ‘I know the local maps in some detail, and this land is state-owned, not military, as you say.’

“‘Please vacate this military installation immediately, or I will have you placed under arrest,’ said the man in the uniform. Now I was outraged.

“‘This is a free country and you aren’t going to tell me what I can or can’t do. I know my rights as a citizen, and—’

“The man in uniform interrupted: ‘You are on a military installation here, in the middle of the desert, Mr. Hegel, and everyone on the grounds falls under the jurisdiction of the military police. It is within my authority to arrest you on the spot.’

“‘Arrest?’ I repeated in disbelief.

“‘Yes, sir, arrest. Now, please vacate this military installation immediately!’

“‘But this isn’t a military installation …,’ I started in again. The man pulled a small, official-looking notebook from his breast pocket, opened it, and began to read:

“‘You have trespassed on a military installation and remained on it without authorization despite repeated warnings. It is within the authority of the military police to place you under arrest in accordance with the powers granted us in accordance with applicable laws, in particular the Law on the Protection of Military Installations, Military Property and …’

I didn’t wait for the rest. I turned around, walked back to our car, climbed in, slammed the door, started the engine, and turned the car onto the road heading the other direction.

“Martha looked at me. ‘What a nice way to start the week.’

“Still filled with rage, I looked at her and said: ‘Don’t try to tell me this is a military installation. I studied every single map of this area in detail when I was trying to find alternative water sources for the flower beds, and there was nothing like a military installation anywhere!’

“‘Oh, I know, honey. After all, you’ve lived here since you were a child,’ Martha said. ‘But you see for yourself the barbed wire, the soldiers, the gate. So why argue?’ The trip back felt like it took forever. About halfway through we switched drivers, and there was one thing I couldn’t get out of my head. I could have sworn that at one point the guard called me by name. He definitely said Mr. Hegel . I kept replaying the situation over and over, but I couldn’t figure it out. Before we got home, I mentioned it to Martha. I told her one of the guards or soldiers, or whatever they were, had called me by name. She said that was impossible, since we’d never been there before. ‘Right,’ I said. ‘I thought the same thing, but he definitely said my name.’

“‘That’s impossible,’ she repeated. ‘There’s just no way. You must have heard wrong.’

“The next day I went to do something in the garage and noticed the jeep we had driven had a scratch on the fender from when Martha had pulled into the garage. For the next few days, nothing out of the ordinary happened, but when Steve called from the garden center I told him the story.

“‘File a complaint on the bastards. Is the army out of their fuckin’ minds? They set up a base in the middle of the desert and we don’t have any rights? You better complain. God only knows what they’re doing there!’ When I mentioned it to Martha at dinner, I couldn’t help notice it made her nervous. I let it pass, pretending I didn’t notice, but after six years of living together it’s hard to hide anything perfectly, including feelings. I had the feeling Martha knew something she wasn’t saying. It was a funny feeling, not believing her. I thought it would turn out to be something hilarious, some kind of joke. That night, just as I was nearly asleep, Martha went to the kitchen for something. I was going to call to her to bring me something to drink, but then I heard her close the kitchen door and made myself get up. I was just about to open the door when I realized she was talking to someone on the phone. But that wasn’t what made me stop so much as the tone in her voice. Whoever it was, she was speaking to them in a nervous whisper. I stood listening with my hand on the door handle. What she was saying didn’t make any sense:

“‘Absolutely. Oh, absolutely. You shouldn’t have done that. Mm, I don’t think so. You don’t understand. He wants to make a big stink. Yes, his friend told him he should complain. Of course it’s a mess! Of course! I don’t know. That could give the whole thing away. That’s all I know. Oh, sure. Sure.’ I opened the door and walked into the room. All of a sudden her voice shifted from a nervous whisper to a quiet, even-tempered tone, and the topic of conversation took a sudden turn as well.

“‘It’s too late now. Right. I’ll call back tomorrow. I’ll give him the message.’ She hung up the phone and turned to me: ‘My brother says hi, honey.’ I nodded, opened the fridge, grabbed a box of juice, and headed back to the bedroom. I had no idea what was going on, but I knew Martha was lying to me. I tried to fall asleep. Just as I could tell what she was thinking and feeling, she could tell for me too. I was confused. Instead of sleeping, I lay there wondering what she had been talking about. She mentioned me and a complaint, which could have been either about my failed attempt to get into university again, or the military installation surrounded by barbed wire that wasn’t on any map. The next morning I went out to the garage, and as soon as I saw the scrape on the fender, things started coming together. First, Martha had tried to dissuade me from driving out to the buildings Winter’s nephew had told us about, which belonged to the military. Second, the whole time we were there, she didn’t set foot out of the car and what I had interpreted as fatigue might actually have been nervousness. I was amazed it hadn’t occurred to me sooner. Next, she’d scraped the jeep entering the garage right after I told her the guard had called me by name, even though we’d never been there before. Again, nerves. And finally, the phone call.

“The next morning, I got up before sunrise. Quietly, so as not to wake Martha. I looked at her a few times. Her hair, her permanently dry skin. I came this close to reaching out to touch her and give her a kiss, the way I usually do. Love can lead to ill-considered actions. I stopped myself, not wanting to wake her. I was in for an adventure. Ever since I completed the irrigation system, I’d been a little bored, feeling like there was nothing to do. Once I got dressed, I realized that everything was going according to plan. Most adventures, if I remembered correctly, got under way at dawn. I took some food and a few boxes of juice from the fridge. I filled a plastic canister with drinking water. Finally, I loaded everything into the car and quietly pushed it out of the garage. I didn’t want to start the engine, since it might have woken Martha. I had left a note on the kitchen table saying I went into town to pick something up from Steve. Which was true and I did. What I didn’t do, which I wrote in the second part of the note, was stay the night at his place, in fact just the opposite. I intended to get inside the military installation and find out what was going on. After about ten minutes of pushing the car, I started the engine, climbed in, and set out on my way. A few long hours later I pulled into town. I stopped by Steve’s, then went to see a movie, and from there I walked to the town library to copy the latest edition of the state map. Just as I’d thought: It showed nothing on the site where the military installation was located. I asked the librarian if it was possible there might be something that wasn’t shown on the map. After giving it a moment’s thought he said it was, and recommended I go to town hall, since they were likely to have the most recent changes entered on their maps. On my way to town hall I realized that the fencing around the installation, as well as the buildings I’d seen in the distance on either side of the road from the gatehouse, as well as the gatehouse itself, weren’t new structures. Well preserved, yes, but not new. The whole thing must have been there a good few years now. When I got to town hall, the man at the information desk sent me up to the third floor. I sat down on a bench in the hallway and waited my turn. When they called me in, I explained to the lady which location I was interested in, and she told me straight out there was nothing new there, but she would check. After a while she came back with a large cadastral map. Just as I expected, there was nothing indicated on the site. I paid the fee for the copy, and before I left I asked her how a military installation would be marked on the map.