Liberation Movements

Peter
1968

He rubbed his eyes and gazed out the dirty window at the passing countryside, rubbing the scratches on the back of his hand. Flat fields had given way to rolling hills under an overcast late-morning sky. Across from him in the compartment was a fat farmer’s wife, not unlike his own mother, her babushka tied tightly under her chin. She ate pumpkin seeds and tried not to stare at the blood soaked into the upturned collar of his army jacket.

He’d slept the whole way from Prague, then been woken in Sarisske by a Czech border guard, who, though he noticed the blood, was too intimidated by the uniform to comment. Peter handed over Stanislav Klym’s documents with a serious expression and accepted them back just as morbidly. It was in Sarisske that this woman had joined him.

He hadn’t thought about the blood when he plunged the knife into Stanislav Klym’s neck. He had simply followed what he knew was the inevitable next step. He pushed it through the skin, and when it hit resistance the neck slid back against his knee. The soldier’s eyes and mouth snapped open, but without voice. Just the wet rasping of impossible breaths. His fingers came up, clawing Peter’s hands, and his legs kicked. Then Peter let go of the knife and fell back, climbing backward up to the window. It took a minute, maybe two, for the soldier to die. He writhed on the ground as a black pool grew in front of him and dribbled down the steps.

The train slowed and pulled into Velky Saris. On the platform, the men who guarded the border of Peter’s new home gathered and approached the train.

He’d stared at the dead soldier a long time, squatting until the balls of his feet burned. He’d wanted to cry but calmed himself by putting his mind elsewhere, into an oral examination he had taken months and another life ago, where he had mistaken the structure of the sonata allegro form-the first theme, followed by a transition into the second theme in a new key. This theme is developed, and then comes the recapitulation-a repeat of the first theme. Then the second theme returns, but in the original key, and is followed by the coda.

How could he have gotten this wrong?

He’d stood when he thought he could do so without falling. Then, despite the chill, he undressed.

“Papers.”

He looked up at a young guard in a smart blue uniform with the national symbol of the hawk on its shoulder. The guard bowed his head to the woman as he took her passport. “How are the cows, Irina?”

She shrugged. “Norbert had to shoot the two best ones.”

“Oh?” The soldier stamped the passport and handed it back.

“Tuberculosis.” She shrugged again. “It happens.”

The guard nodded with sympathy, then smiled at Peter as he accepted his papers. “Coming from Prague?”

“I am.”

He flipped absently through the passport. “How’s it going up there?”

Peter wasn’t sure how to answer, and his hesitation earned a look from the guard. “It’s improving,” he said quickly, then shook his head. “Last week was hell.”

The guard pointed at Peter’s collar. “Yeah. It looks like it was.”

Peter touched the blood. “Earned this at the radio station. I’m lucky to get back with my life.”

The woman crossed herself.

“A lucky man,” said the guard. He squinted at the photograph in the passport. “You need to start eating.”

“You think so?”

“You’ve lost a lot of weight.” He showed the picture to the woman, who nodded her agreement.

“You’ll get sick,” she said as the guard stamped the passport and handed it back.

“My girlfriend will fatten me up,” said Peter. He slipped the passport into his jacket pocket, beside the stiff hunting knife marked by a hawk similar to the one on the guard’s shoulder patch.

He’d acquired so much in the past six hours that what he’d lost was barely a memory. Like a simple melody line that gains chords, a variety of keys, and counterpoint, developing into a grand piece, he had acquired a name, a knife, money, and an apartment. In the space of six hours he’d acquired a life.

The guard saluted Peter. “Welcome home, comrade.”