The food was delicious, and just as much as needed to be in abundance, but without causing overindulgence.
The drinks were of excellent choice and were served generously by two elegant white-gloved bartenders, but not to incite unruly carousing in guests.
The band played a tasteful selection of music, and the sound was loud enough to be heard everywhere it was supposed to be heard, but without disrupting gentle, flirting whispers so inherent in wedding dance.
The dance floor was always full, but not crowded to the point when dancers step on each other toes.
Even the kids behaved as the kids always behave during any wedding - when they instinctively know the adults are not watching them too closely - but not to become a nuisance.
The wedding, indeed, was going well... It reached the enchanting point when everyone believes to be in love with one another and with the rest of the world. The guests looked dandy and content, even though more than half of them were perfect strangers before the bride and groom were pronounced husband and wife. The justice of the peace looked distinctly out-of-place in his prudish black robe among guests who were specifically requested by the parents of the groom to appear in black tie.
Of course, as at any party, there was also "us" - a group of men who just happened upon one another, and for whatever reason one-by-one and with drinks in hands seeped through the gallery of decorated rooms, passed the dancing couples, passed the pompous waiters, and arranged ourselves in the desolate corner of the otherwise lush backyard by the rustic shed.
There, in the unexpectedly cool and mysterious darkness one could see a pitiable lawnmower that was kept there for no good reason at all, a twisted rake with a worn out red handle, and a shovel covered with the last fall's yellow dirt. Perhaps, there were more treasures in this shed, but nobody was about to venture inside, partly out of laziness, but mostly because we had a different mission in minds - drink some vodka and, if all went well, top it with a bottle of very good cognac, which I seized from the bar by the dance floor.
Our rented tuxedoes gave us all a dead-leveled appearance and we felt overtly uncomfortable about this. We flocked together around a small rickety table. Jake, the father of the bride, knocked it together from simple planks when he first bought this house and had no money yet for more decorative garden furniture. Judging from the table, Jake was no carpenter.
Jake was an artist. And a good one, I must add. He grew a beard, bought himself a loose-fitting linen robe, converted his big garage into the cozy studio, ran a gas line into it and installed a heater. There was always the imperceptible smell of gas in the studio and I thought that smell was the reason why Jake's paintings emanated what I defined as "fuzzy mist." But who knows - it could have been just the smoke of Jake pipe's tobacco.
I loved Jake's paintings. They were both mystical and painstakingly realistic. Obviously, many other people liked Jake's paintings because, unlike me, they were buying them. Not that I did not want to own one of Jake's paintings - I simply could not afford to pay for them. I was waiting for Jake to give me one as a gift.
Back in the old country, Jake painted portraits of high-ranking officials. Sure, his more principally inclined "comrades-in-brush" despised him for "selling out," and one-by-one stopped visiting him and inviting him to their homes. Jake only laughed dismissively and continued with his boring portraits, while making a decent living for his family.
Very few knew then that Jake was quietly and persistently readying himself for emigration and with it for real work, and real revelations of his remarkable talents and imagery.
Yes, Jake's carpentry skills were much less than his talents as an artist, but this feeble table was the only one left in the garden. All the better tables were promoted to the inside of the house for the evening, and perhaps they felt proud under crisp white tablecloths.
We minded neither the absence of a white tablecloth nor the wobbliness of the table. Frankly, most of us were quite wobbly ourselves. It was a wedding after all, and we were allowed to drink a few bottom ups, weren't we?
The group was an interesting bunch. One was a recent emigrant from Russia, a physicist, who mostly kept silent because his English was not good yet. He was a distant relative of Jake's wife, Alina, a stunning Russian belle. She walked tall, wore a hairdo worthy of a medieval royal court dame and conducted herself with so much dignity it was obvious she descended from a noble princely family. However, she was just a peasant's daughter, who chose to fall in love with an unknown artist whose future promised to be filled to the brim with troubles... But Alina really loved him, and made herself indispensable in Jake's life and Jake's art, and, most importantly, in Jake's heart.
There was also one former South Vietnamese colonel or maybe even a general, named Dao Minh. He told us he was educated in Paris' Ecole Militaire. The Colonel spoke superb French. I had no idea how he was invited to Jake's daughter's wedding, but his aristocratic French has certainly added some class to our linguistic mix.
There were also two American men. One was "a lawyer with a sense of humor," as he presented himself while vigorously shaking my hand. Tim was plump, but very lively, fast, and garrulous. He immediately told me he was married to a Polish woman named Kristina, and that she held Tim and his money in a tight grip and that Kristina was a bone fide flirt and the only reason why she let Tim out of her sight this time was that she was dancing with a handsome younger brother of the groom. I felt uneasy to become privy to such personal information, but Tim seemed to be nonchalant.
Another American among us was a chisel-faced southern gentleman with an enviable silver-gray ponytail. When I first saw him in the garden, I could not get rid of a feeling that I had seen him before, but could not remember when and where. He was the first one to take off his tux jacket and yank the bowtie. He sighed with relief and articulated his name, Vernon Werner. We, the pitiful drunks, tried unsuccessfully repeat this tongue twister of a name. This brought out the laughter so loud that a white-gloved waiter appeared at the door and endowed us with a reproachful gaze.
After the second bottle of vodka, we grew completely languid. Our wonderful Vietnamese Colonel Minh began telling us the story about his belligerent past. I guessed he'd gotten drunk much sooner then the rest of us. His speech became incomprehensible, and he broke into a mix of Vietnamese, French and English. Tim - the lawyer with a sense of humor - explained to the rest of us that the Colonel was telling a story of his escape from Vietnam.
Vernon, who I thought was not even listening to the Colonel's story being too preoccupied with his glass of vodka, suddenly spoke.
"So, are you telling me you left behind your 6-year-old boy?"
"Had no choice," Minh said matter-of-factly and ran his forefinger through one especially corroded plank of our table. The hole in the plank strangely resembled the outline of Illinois.
I started having a bad feeling about where this conversation was going and said, "Look guys, here's Illinois! Let's drink to Illinois!"
Everybody but Vernon began staring at the plank. Vernon said dismissively, "Never mind this. It's just a hole." He turned to the Colonel. "There is always a right choice, always."
Tim the Lawyer, too, did not like the way this conversation was un-folding. He extended his fat finger as if he was asking for attention.
"Not necessarily," Tim said. "Our choices are product of circumstances. Yes, the circumstances dictate how we choose. So our friend the Colonel made a choice he thought at the time was the best, right, Colonel?"
Before Colonel responded, Vernon spoke.
"That's bullshit. Spoken like a lawyer."
"I am a lawyer," Tim said and seemed offended with Vernon's remark,"and am proud of it."
"You can be proud all you want, but you are wrong."
"About being proud?"
"About all choices being product of circumstances. Some circumstances offer no options to choose from... Now, Colonel, let me understand something here... You were running out of time and decided not to get your little boy from school? You left him behind? You have not seen him for 15 years? What the hell were you thinking?"
I felt a sudden chill in my stomach for that little boy. I guess so had everyone else. Except for the Colonel. His face was totally imperturbable. Vernon was now standing so close to the Colonel that the Colonel instinctively leaned backward to allow himself more space. Vernon continued slowly.
"Imagine your little boy's horror when he came home from school to find no mom and dad... Just the horror... day after day... What are you, Colonel? What are you, a cow...?"Minh unclenched his teeth and said hoarsely. "Cannot judge me. I know what I did. Not a big deal... Arranged for everything. Last year I found my son. He's coming to America soon. Don't owe any explanation. You know nothing. Understand nothing. What are YOU, a cowboy?"
Vernon looked the Colonel straight into the eyes, knocked back his glass of vodka, put the empty glass right in the middle of Illinois, and answered with great conviction.
"Me? I am just your fellow man from Southern Texas."
And suddenly I remembered how I knew Vernon.
***
...There was a whimsical curve of a shiny white object. Its unanticipated brightness pierced right into my eyes.
But that was not the pain I was concerned about. There also was gist of a million other little pains, which seemed to be conniving with one another to sternly gnaw my body in several spots at once.
Perhaps, these pains were coming from the wires and tubes, which coiled my body? The tubes were the most unnerving for they looked alive, and there was a dark red liquid pulsating in them, like there was not enough room inside the transparent walls of the tubes and the liquid was determined to get out and spread around the small space I occupied with my flaccid being.
I carefully moved my eyes over the curves of the strange white object. It looked like a thick outline of a human ear. But it was attached to something that I totally failed to recognize, until somebody's arm picked up this item, holding it right at what I mistook for an ear. ...A cup? It was a bright white cup!
The hand was floating in a lusterless air. The white cup began to swirl around until it became a woman's face, and that face was full of compassion and care.
The woman's lips moved and she spoke in a strange language. Somehow I guessed the words coming out of her mouth:
"Yes, I am here. You are OK now."
I knew right away it was OK for me to close my eyes, because everything would be good from now on because the Woman I Loved was finally with me. But before my eyelids were about to close, she whispered:
"No, no, don't do this, don't sleep, stay awake...you must stay awake..."
I tried to comprehend why the Woman I Loved spoke in the strange language with me, and why I couldn't go to sleep if I wanted to, but it was too painful to contemplate and I chose to follow the advice - I did not close my eyes. The woman nodded approvingly as if I did something very good that pleased her a lot. She leaned toward me and looked straight into my pupils, and her firm hand gripped my wrist searching for my pulse.
I had a thousand questions to ask of this woman who no more was the Woman I Loved but an unknown person in a white coat, but she whispered again:
"No, no, don't ask anything now, you need to rest..."
And I did not ask my questions. I was actually relieved that I did not have to ask questions. There were so much peace in the whole situation, and the only thing I wanted was to be in peace.
The woman smiled and added:
"But you can try to remember all you want. Everything..."
***
Remember what?
My head was hurting much less now, and I could open my eyes without being afraid of the piercing bright light. But still it was much easier just to keep the eyes shut because when they were shut my vision was actually sharper, and instead of unwonted room and the machines with plastic tentacles stretching toward me, I saw something totally different.
...I was in an Army officer's uniform, in a bus full of other men in similar uniforms. Last night, when I came to my apartment after work, I found a note under the door. It was "povestka", a call-up paper. As a reserve Lieutenant, I was ordered to report for active duty in the Army.
For months we were talking about the Prague Spring, so it was commonly accepted that the Soviet Army would go to Czechoslovakia to bring things to order. Frankly, I was too busy at work and much too involved with the Woman I Loved, so I barely thought about the unfolding events. The only thing I knew for sure was that I did not want to go there. I did not understand why it would be my business. And I was afraid to go there because I knew I would not be welcomed, and the people there would be harsh to me even though I was an OK guy and personally held no ill will against them...
Last night I barely had the time to say goodbye to the Woman I Loved. We met for a little bit, first in the park because it was August, and the weather was magnificent. We walked and talked about some secondary things. And then I told her I was leaving, and most likely was going to Czechoslovakia. The Woman I Loved cried soundlessly and sincerely, and as always, I did not know what to say or what to do, but I was really pleased that she was crying for me. I thought that her crying for me was a good manifestation of love, of which I was never sure because she carefully avoided talking about love and other things important to me. After the walk we went to my apartment and loved each other, and then I fell asleep and she left. When I woke up right before dawn, ready to go to the military processing station, I looked for a note from the Woman I Loved, but found none. It was vexing, but what could I do? I let it go because I wanted to remember only the good things while I was gone.
...An old, screechy bus delivered us to a spooky city where streetcars were running through enormous, somber fields of dry and thorny weeds, making turns as if there were still real city blocks, as they were before they were leveled during WWII. We spent a week in this city, doing nothing during the days and drinking in the officers' mess at nights. We talked very little about where we were going and even less about why we were going. It would be a disturbing conversation, and definitely a moot point. You don't talk about things like that in an army. In any army, I am sure.
By the end of August we had arrived at a village near the Czech - West German border. I was assigned to the infantry division's newspaper. Perhaps, for the first time, I let go of my fear.
The newspaper staff and the print shop occupied two large vans. One housed the entire editorial office - the Editor, an aging, bolding, and dull lieutenant colonel, and myself, the one and only staff writer.
There was a large desk heaped up with old galley proofs, photographs, and the halftone plates of similarly looking soldiers in various situations.
The Editor immediately claimed the desk to himself.
"And where I am going to write?" I asked.
"And why do you think I give a fuck?" My Editor was quick to reply.
As a career officer and a wannabe writer, my Editor took instant dislike of me - an accidental lieutenant in a second-hand uniform who knew nothing about military life and yet managed to work in a popular civilian newspaper and even published two fiction books. I, too, was not overly happy to have this knucklehead for my boss. To top this, I was told that we would not only work in this van but also bunk in it.
I was upset about this for a while. But then I tried to think about the positives of my situation. There were plenty of positives: working at the newspaper was definitely less dangerous then commanding a platoon. And sharing a van with only one person was better then sleeping in a tent with dozen of fellow officers. And doing my writer's duties, even in the uniform, was better then being responsible for 12 soldiers in a platoon.
It soon turned out I was only half right in my assessments.
A small village where our division was stationed was the hub of a large and prosperous collective farm. It had a very nice name - "Zlaty Podzim," Golden Autumn in Czech.
The weather was calm and warm - a golden autumn, indeed. The war was far from here, somewhere else - in Prague, and Brno, and Bratislava. Here, all was quiet. The locals were friendly to us, the invaders, and their language was easy to understand. Our soldiers had nothing to do because all commanding officers gave up on combat training, and were taking it easy themselves. Like me, all officers were from the reserve. Nobody wanted to be here, and nobody cared about the cause that brought us here.
Actually, we liked the Czechs. They were neat people; their homes were, by our standard, rich and full of mysterious objects like juicers and coffee espresso machines made by Krup. The elegantly crafted chrome and enamel devices were adorned by smartly designed logos most of us saw for the first time.
The days were going lazily and leisurely. Once in a while a platoon or two were sent to help the locals on their croplands, but even this was a welcome change because after a day of work the Zlaty Podzim's management served us simple but lavish dinners where famous Czech beer was flowing freely. These long dinners usually followed by dancing, and when the dances were over our soldiers were disappearing somewhere with smiling local girls.
My newspaper was published once a week instead of required three times a week. Three times would be a challenge. Nothing was going on, and there was no news to write about. My knucklehead editor wasted his days laying down on his bunk and reading some books. I could not even see what he was reading. The books were wrapped in dust covers that the editor made with his own hands. I suspected he was reading some erotic novels because a few times I caught him with his hands under the blanket. But the life was going so easy that his perversion didn't even register in my mind.
I rarely spent time in the editorial van. If I needed to write, I sat outside on the stump that was still warm from the afternoon sun. I put the typewriter on top of a stool and the radio in front of my stump. The radio was assuring us that "we have greatly succeeded in putting to rights the situation in the country, and soon it would be no need for the Warsaw Pact armies to continue their brotherly mission." That was the news we really wanted to believe in, even though it was coming from the official army propaganda office, and nothing good ever came from that office.
This news, however, we choose to believe, despite that cryptic and scary statement about restoring the order in the country. We all wanted to go home. I wanted to go home. I missed the Woman I Loved. I needed her back in my life. I wanted to lock up the door in my apartment, and stay in bed with the Woman I Loved for heavens only know how long. Perhaps, until us both would be just laying down not even able to touch each other anymore. And we'd just talk about what we wanted to eat, and how wonderful it would be if one of us would have the guts to get up and go to kitchen, barefooted, and make a thick, sloppy sandwich with layers of salami, fragrant fresh tomatoes, and cheese, and mayo, and more salami and tomatoes. I wouldn't even worry whether this woman loved me in return...
But I still was not home, and tried to use my time wisely. As a staff writer, I was given a pistol, for which I didn't care much, and also a car and a driver, which was absolutely great.
My Latvian driver, Corporal Victor Sviede, in civilian life was a farm machinery mechanic, and - as I soon learned - a self-taught artist. Victor always carried with him a sheet of copper, a little hammer and a chisel. Whenever we stopped for a break, he relentlessly banged on this copper plank. Once I asked him what he was working on. Victor covered the copper with his field cap:
"I cannot tell you, Lieutenant. It will be what will come out. It has not come out yet. I will show you when it will come out. No offense, Lieutenant."
I left Victor alone. He kept banging and banging, and still was not showing me what he was creating. I guessed that whatever was supposed to come out was not coming out yet.
Victor was a complaisant driver. When on our way to different battalions in search of news, I would ask him to take us to places where there was no Army, he'd nod and reach for his secret, shabby, but very detailed map of the region. He bartered it for one of his copper compositions at the Reconnaissance Unit. He'd study the map in silence for a long time. Growing impatient, I would ask him to hurry up and, perhaps, start moving while the day was still young. Victor always gave me his standard answer:
"Sure. I can do that. But you must know that we'll end up in a swamp."
"There are no swamps here, Victor."
"Doesn't matter. We'll still end up in a swamp." Coming from Victor, the statement sounded like it would be definitely my fault if a swamp would have suddenly appeared in this perfectly dry alpine countryside.
Victor's faith in his map was unyielding. Actually, the same was his faith in all things printed - books, newspapers, magazines, even the cigarette packs. He considered his current assignment - driving me, the staff writer for the newspaper - a real blessing. Not that he had a special respect for me, which I thought would be proper. He just liked his involvement with the newspaper. His face was totally lit up when each Friday morning I presented him with a fresh issue of the newspaper. He especially liked pointing out to me:
"Look, here's the story about that sergeant from the signal battalion where I drove you on Monday!"
"Victor, I know, I wrote this story!"
"Yeah... but it was I who drove you there". Victor always made sure his role would be properly acknowledged. And I always choose to oblige:
"Of course, of course... I wouldn't have the story if you have not driven me there."
And so we worked together, and drove together and, when Victor's map was gracious to us, we were exploring this region, which was full of mystical medieval castles, rich emerald pastures, and small gypsy towns with cool winding streets and tranquil brooks.
My two soldiers-typesetters were usually done with composing the type by late Wednesday. We were supposed to run our portable rotary printing press all day Thursday so the newspaper would be distributed Friday morning. It was a living hell to print the whole circulation on that grandfather of a press. I found a solution. The nearest professional print shop was just a few miles away, in a small town of Suvice. The print shop was under control of the municipal authority, but they gladly allowed me print the newspaper there, and even agreed to overlook the charges for paper stock and printing ink. I initially credited their willingless to my excellent negotiation skills but soon I realized that they'd seen in me an officer of the occupying army and simply prefered to stay out of trouble.
On Thursday I found Victor behind the editorial van, in the shade, as always, tweaking his copper plate.
"Get ready to go early tomorrow," I said.
Victor covered his work with a towel and pulled his famous map from the car.
"You don't need the map," I said. "We are just going to Suvice to the print shop. Just make room on the back seat so the galleys will not scatter."
"Will do, Leiutenant. I'll deliver the galleys like a peasant delivers eggs to a market. All intact. Guaranteed."
The road from our camp to Suvice was too beautiful to ignore. The trees had already been touched by the autumn colors, and these colors were worthy of Paul CИzanne's brush. I shared this thought with Victor. Unexpectedly, he agreed.
"You're right, Lieutenant. Very much so."
"You know CИzanne, Corporal?"
"I know CИzanne, Lieutenant."
I asked no more questions, and we were driving in silence. Our picturesque road was winding along the German border. It was strange to see a foreign land so close, to see tidy, small villages on another side, and colorful trucks. One of them was going almost in parallel with my car. I was surprised that there were no clouds of dust behind the truck like it would be on most of our country roads, and then I realized that on the other side all roads were asphalted.
When the grove became thicker, and the road on the other side dissapperead from my view for awhile, I felt a sudden sensation of anxiety. Victor kept driving, but for some reason he turned down the radio and strengthen his grip of the stearing wheel.
And then there was a group of four teenage boys: their faces blushing, their eyes expressing the same guilty resolve, their voices strained, while they yelled in Czech:
"Odejdete otsud! My vas tady nechceme! (Get out of here! We don't want you here!)"
And then in broken Russian:
"Okupanty ebaniye! Ubiraites otsuda k kommunisticheskomu chertu! (You! Fucking occupants! Go back to your commie's hell!)"
I watched how a boy with red hair and a face sown with freckles raised his Kalashnikov and pulled the trigger. I watched how my dear Victor Sviede was falling out from his driver's seat, and how his legs in polished boxcalf boots were catching the floor mat, the running board, until they permanently landed in the bright green grass.
I could not comprehend why the boy shot Victor, but not me. I would be a much more defined target for hatred and killing - I was a Lieutenant of the occupying Army while Victor was just a Corporal. But Victor looked older, hence, I guessed, the boys thought of him as a more seasoned commie then I.
I watched the same boy looking at Victor's body, and tossing his Kalashnikov with disgust, and bending over Victor and throwing up impetuously on Victor's polished boxcalf boots.
I was angry and wanted to stop the boy from doing this, but by then three other boys pushed the red haired one away from Victor's motionless body. They were helping the red haired one to walk, and I saw they were scared of what just happened. I thought since they were walking away they were done with us. I was apprehensively relieved and tried not to look at Victor. I was standing by the car, it's motor still running, and despite the noise, I was hearing how the boys, who obviously recovered from the initial shock, were arguing about something in Czech.
When one of them suddenly stopped and turned around, and looked me right in the eyes, I realized what they were arguing about. They were arguing about whether to kill me or not. The boy's lips were transformed into a barely visible pale line, and I understood that the argument was not in my favor, and I was going to be shot, too. That was my last clear thought, because the boy nodded to me as if he was confirming my suspicion, then he despairingly sighted and pulled the trigger...
***
The same nurse came into my room, and I was happy to see her. While she was carefully closing the door, I even put together a phrase in Czech:
"Jak se jmenujete? -What's your name?"
The nurse turned around with a big smile. I looked at her with pleasure, because she was for me a personification of life itself. She had blonde hair, small white teeth, deep green eyes, and hands to die for - very soft and gentle, and these hands were touching my forehead, and they made my throbbing headache go away.
"My name is Miroslava. And your name I know - you are Lieutenant Turovsky, right?" While saying this, Miroslava was looking at me as if she tried to check whether my memory was all right.
"An accidental Lieutenant. I am a journalist. Please call me Alex. Or Tur. All my friends call me Tur. Lieutenant - it's a very war-like thing."
"Of course, Alex." Miroslava agreed. "Is there anything you want?"
"How long have I been here?"
"It's your fifth day. You know, we took good care of you. We are a small hospital, but we took a very good care of you. There're no other patients herethis time of year. It's the harvest season. Peasants stay away from hospitals. We are glad you are here, though." Miroslava realized that she said something out of line. She blushed and added: "I... I... what I meant was..."
"I know what you wanted to say. I am glad I am here, too. And I hope you understand what I mean by that."
Miroslava laughed and said simply and sincerely:
"I prayed for you, Tur, all five days I prayed for you."
"You prayed for an occupant? Hmm... My stomach hurts, Miroslava. I guess I have not eaten all these four days?"
"You haven't."
"Then please give me something to eat. My stomach hurts because I am starving."
"No, it's not that. I am sorry, Tur, your pain is not because you are hungry. You've been shot in the stomach. You lost lots of blood. We had to do the transfusion three times."
I laid silently for a while trying to process what Miroslava just said. So, the boy shot me in the stomach. No wonder - his aim was definitely too low for the heart. Maybe he did not want to kill me at all? He was just a very confused 15-year old little man who wanted to play defender of his Motherland. And he was defending it from me, a confused 27- year old who reluctantly wandered into his beautiful land with fear of this encounter...
It was hard to think about this. It was hard to think about anything while my stomach was brewing with pain and my brain was about to explode. Miroslava gave me a shot and I became calm and oblivious to pain. I recovered enough to ask her a very important question:
"My driver, Victor Sviede, what's with him?"
"He hasn't survived. I am so sorry. He had very strong hands. Like our men here."
"Yeah, he was a mechanic. He had three daughters..."
"The man who brought you here also brought this." Miroslava pulled a drawer and gave me a sheet of copper. It was the sheet Victor was working on while we were on the prowl for my stories. Now I could finally see what came out, as Victor liked to say. It was a face of an American Indian man, with a feathered headgear, straight nose, powerful resolute lips, and wide-open eyes staring into the unknown. I've noticed that one side of the man's headgear was quite narrower then the other side. Looks like Victor made a mistake here, but he couldn't correct it. When metal is embossed it's not easy to fix a mistake... I took the picture and put it on my nightstand.
"I will keep it." I said decidedly. "You said - the man brought me here... Who brought me here, Miroslava?"
"He didn't say his name, or anything else. He spoke in Czech with accent. He was a foreigner..."
"A Russian?"
"No, no!" Miroslava leaned over me and whispered: "I think he was an American."
"A diplomat?"
"I think he was with the American military... you know, they are just two kilometers from here on the German side."
"I want to see this man, Miroslava. Can you find him for me?"
"How? I told you they are on the German side. But he said he would comeand see if you've made it..."
Days passed, and I learned how to walk after being too weak from losing so much blood. The doctors were giving me medicines generously, but Miroslava was treating me the way, she told me, her babicka - grandma - taught her. Miroslava made me eat freshly boiled beets. It was supposed to make my blood healthy.
Once, when I was sitting on my bed and, under Miroslava's super-vision, ate the third head of beet, making sure the penetrating red juice was not dripping on my sheets, the door to my room opened, and four men entered.
One was an army medic from my division whom I knew, another one was a major from the army intelligence branch, the third was a middle-aged man in the U.S. Army uniform, and the fourth was the man who brought me her. I instantly knew it was he who brought me here. He had facial features of an American Indian, strangely resembling the copper embossing made by Victor Sviede.
Or was it just my imagination?
This big man looked too foreign for this hospital and this little Czech town. He was in civilian clothes, but somehow it was obvious he was a military man. He was tall and well tanned, and he wore great cologne. I never knew that men wore cologne like this. He carefully shook my hand and looked at me for a long time, the way a good craftsman would observe the work he just completed.
Then he said something in English. I think it was "You look okay," and asked the Medic for confirmation.
"He says - he finds you in good shape, and he's happy for you." Medic translated.
I asked:
"How did he find me? How did he get over the border?"
"He says, he was watching your car from his truck on the German side all the time. He saw what happened. When you fell, he ran to the Czech side put you in the car and brought you here..."
"What's your name? Who are you?" I asked the man, this time directly. I had a feeling he'd understand me.
He understood. He smiled and answered:
"Me? Call me John Smith. I am just your fellow man from Southern Texas."
And then all the men left, and the man who brought me here also left, and I never saw him again.
***
...Here we were, the refugees from a glamorous wedding, grown men in rented tuxedos, all worked up about the choices we've made or have not made in the distant past. Colonel Minh was ready to defend his choices. He obviously knew karate; his posture has changed and he was no longer a refined graduate of EcoleMilitaire, he became a confident ancient fighter ready to protect his honor. I don't know what would happen if this little, but skilled warrior and Vernon had engaged in a fight. I mean, I know that Jake, Alina, and their daughter whose wedding we were about to ruin, would be devastated. What I couldn't predict - who'd win the fight.
Thankfully, we never found this out, because Jake stormed to the backyard and began yelling at us first in English and then in Russian. He called us names I don't dare to reproduce, for abandoning him and leaving him without his best friends to share a couple of toasts for his wife and daughter and even the guy who's now his son-in-law...
Vernon, as if nothing was just about to happen, enveloped Jake with his arms and shamelessly proclaimed:
"Imagine this - we were just getting ready to go back inside and have a drink with you, and here you are... Right, guys?"
And we, "the guys" - Tim the Lawyer, the Colonel, the Physicist, and I - hastily nodded.
Later, already back to the house, I looked for Vernon. I needed to ask him a few very important questions:
"Do you remember 1968? Czechoslovakia? And how you saved the life of one Russian officer? I was that officer."
Vernon looked at me for a long time, the way a good craftsman would observe the work he just completed, and finally answered:
"Never been there.""
With that Vernon turned around and left. He was walking away firmly, without looking back.
Disclaimer: This short story is a work of fiction. All similarities to events, situations and characters depicted in this work are PURELY coincidental. 1