Liberation Movements Read Free Page A

it over. Of course, as soon as she gave me the keys I was packed off to the army, so I haven’t enjoyed it yet.” He grabbed his pocket, making a sound like loose change. “I always keep them with me, just to remind me what I’ve got to go back to. And this,” he said, reaching into another pocket. He took out a crisp photograph and placed it on the table: a girl with dark eyes and a handsomely bent nose inside a bob of blond hair. “She’s a smart one, my Kati. I think she’ll be a mathematician. Numbers—she’s got them all figured out.”
    “I’m no good with numbers,” said Peter, lifting the snapshot and staring at the face.
    “You’re also uglier than she is.” Stanislav raised his glass. “To my Katja’s unbearable beauty.”
    They both drank.
    “They give you a good coat,” said Peter.
    Stanislav rapped the table with his knuckles. “Socialist quality, one hundred percent!” He put the photograph away. “Lots of pockets—I can fit my whole life in them. Apartment keys, documents, my girl. I even carry this.”
    From his belt, Stanislav unhooked a knife and set it on the table. The leather sheath was worn and old, the burned-in design of a hawk with folded wings just visible. “Belonged to my grandfather. My father presented it to me when I got sent here. We drank brandy to celebrate. The old man even cried.”
    “Why did he cry?”
    “You know. Sentimentality. Fathers get that way over their sons.”
    Peter tried to judge whether this was a joke. He could not remember his own father crying for him. There had been tears, but only for the animals that died on the farm, placing his family that much closer to starvation. And the tears were always tamed by alcohol, which gave his father the strength to rage—at his whore of a wife, at his useless son. You’re a humiliation for me—you know that? Get your fucking education, what do I care? A goddamned humiliation.
    “Sure,” said Peter, lifting the knife. He unsheathed it and found his own face in the reflection of the clean blade. “Sentimental fathers.”
    As they talked, Peter noticed the bar clearing out. The men would stare at one another across their tables, then at Stanislav’s back and the Kalashnikov he’d propped against the table. Then they would leave. After a couple of hours, Peter and the soldier were the only customers, and Stanislav looked over his shoulder. “Yeah,” he said. “This keeps happening.”
    “Where are your friends?”
    “Eh?”
    “You’re out here celebrating, but you’re alone. Where are the other soldiers from your regiment?”
    Stanislav scratched his neck under his collar. “It’s a funny thing. They stick us in mixed regiments—internationalism or something like that—so I’m surrounded by Polacks and Bulgars and Ukris, and we all communicate in what little Russian we know. There was only one other guy from home, and he…well, he was killed last week, over at the radio station. I don’t know.” He waved for another round of drinks. “It’s all right, they don’t want to mix with me either. So I figure it’s best to celebrate on my own. Or with you. No?”
    “And if I hadn’t come along?”
    He reached into yet another pocket and tugged out a wrinkled envelope. “I’d reread Katja’s letters. Again and again.”

Libarid
     
     
    Sitting at Gate 7 among yawning travelers, Libarid chain-smokes the rest of his Carpai and writes only five sentences to his wife:
    For someone who weeps so much, it’s strange to me how deeply you hate sentimentality. But you do. You call it “fake emotions.” So I won’t pad this with sentimentality. I’m leaving you.
     
    Then he stares through the large windows at the midnight darkness where lights seemingly unattached to planes take off and land. He wonders, again, about the mechanics of later getting Vahe out, and for the first time realizes he’s been fooling himself: He’ll never see his son again.
    On his way down the corridor to the