okay?”
“You were in Italy?” Emil asked later, remembering.
Leonek shrugged, Seyrana nodded. She set down plates of sadayify syrupy shredded dough. They gave proper attention to the dessert before Emil picked up the thread again.
“Venice. Did you see Venice?”
Leonek smiled and shook his head. “No, but Trieste, yes. It was a gorgeous city.”
“But terrible without money,” Seyrana said finally.
“Youve seen Venice?” asked Leonek.
“I’ve heard of it,” said Emil. He described the Bridge of Sighs, trying to tell it as the Croat had, but knowing he couldn’t do it justice. “You know when you’re on the bridge that all hope is gone, and you’re now and forever a prisoner. Behind iron bars.”
Leonek leaned back and lit two cigarettes. “I don’t think I want to go to Venice; sounds like a sad place.” He handed one to his mother, then got up. “Before I forget,” he said as he found his leather satchel in the corner and brought it back to the table. He set his fuming cigarette on the edge and took a pistol out of the bag. Not a Walther, but a Marakov 9mm. He set it on the table. “Be careful-it’s loaded.”
Seyrana raised her weathered hands and muttered something in Armenian, a loud moan of misery.
“Come on, Mama.” Leonek frowned at her, and she rattled an angry stream of abuse at him, her brows shifting, hands fluttering about her face. “You better take it before she does something crazy.”
Emil held it in his hand. It was heavy.
“Go on,” said Leonek, ignoring his mother’s shouts. “In your pocket.”
Emil dutifully dropped it into his jacket pocket.
Seyrana seemed to quiet a little, but the abuse continued, even as she collected the plates.
“We could go through the paperwork,” explained Leonek, “but Christ knows how long that would take. It was faster to go to Roberto for your weapon.”
Emil smiled, a sudden, unexplainable joy overcoming his despondency. It was the gift of the gun, the mother, and Leonek’s love for the old woman. He put his hand in his pocket, felt the cool barrel.
“Good God,” said Leonek. “You’re not going to cry, are you?”
He felt like laughing.
Emil went home and took Janos Crowder’s 35mm Zorki from the shelf where Grandfather had displayed it beside the books. He walked a few blocks to a photographic studio that was still open, where a man in a white smock with a gold front tooth loaded it for him. He explained some of the details of taking photographs, emphasizing light. “If in doubt, more light!”
He brought their electric lamp from the bedroom. Then he turned on the overhead bulb.
“What the hell?” asked Grandfather when he came out of his bedroom into the radiant living room. It was almost eight, and the old man had been napping again. The spot on his jaw was pink. He went out to the balcony for a cigarette and watched suspiciously through the door.
Emil used a book at each corner of the photograph to flatten it, shifting until the shadows from the books did not obscure the two men and their Iron Cross. He adjusted the focusing ring to the approximate distance between him and the photo. He raised the camera to his eye. The button the photographer had said to press was stiff, but finally he heard that click.
He adjusted the diaphragm and shot it again. Again.
When the roll was done, he sat down and smiled. This was the first smart thing he had done for as long as he could remember.
Through the door, he saw the back of the old man s head, smoke rising from it. He got up and joined his grandfather on the balcony. There were seven women down by the six spigots, one waiting for her turn. Grandfather passed his cigarette over, and Emil took a drag, but didn’t give it back. He blew smoke over the railing, where it formed a loose cloud before sliding away. Grandfather cleared his throat. Emil said, “You’re going to have to talk.”
Grandfather grunted. Neither acquiescence nor debate.
“This will go on.” Emil didn’t look at him as he spoke because he didn’t want to pressure the old man. “It will get worse, and we’ll grow to hate each other. So you have to tell me because I don’t want it to come to that.”
“It’s not your business,” Grandfather said finally.
“Everything is my business.”
They settled on that for a moment as more women and a thin man showed up with pails and others left. They heard metal striking metal, and water spilling to the cobblestones. Grandfather took out another cigarette and lit it. His voice wavered now and then, but it pushed on, reluctantly, to the end.
“When we came back here from Ruscova, when you were still up there, abroad, the Capital was mad. You’ve heard stories,” he said. “The starvation, the violence. The Russians.”
“I’ve heard a little.”
“It’s all true, and you’ve only heard a fraction. For a while people really were starving. A month, I’d say. They hadn’t organized the distribution well, and nothing was getting where it was supposed to go. People were desperate. When they’re desperate, when they think they could die at any time, they act differently. Terribly.”
The Arctic had been no different. He looked down on the fat women in the square who were the result of wartime starvation- they ate everything now. Grandfather said that on some days they couldn’t go out at all. There were gunshots outside, and they had to sit in the dark and wait for them to pass. Then, he would go out looking for food. “It’s hard to imagine now, but for a few weeks this is how the Capital was.”
“I’ve never heard this before,” he said. “Why haven’t I heard about this?”
Grandfather’s eyes were almost dry, and his thin lips moved spastically before his voice came: “Why do you think?”
They rewrite history like if s their own goddamn Tolstoy novel
He shrugged. “I’m sure you know about how the Russians were then. Mara likes to ridicule them, but she’s right in some ways. They stole everyone’s watches. They were like children listening to their ticking watches. In the street. Wherever. They took them off of dead bodies. And if it was a very nice watch, they might kill for it. They took what they wanted. I can’t make excuses for them,” he said, shaking his head toward the sky. “I know what they can be, both good and bad. They’re a people of extremes, Emil.”
He looked out over the city, over the windows and clay roofs and women with pails and the broken fountain and the dogs sniffing around it. His voice was even and quiet, and he told the story to the city, not to his grandson. It involved two Russian soldiers. They came to the apartment when he was gone foraging for food. The soldiers came looking for watches. They banged on the door, and when Mara did not answer they kicked it in.
Grandfather didn’t describe them, but Emil imagined the soldiers from the bar outside of town. Loud, scraping fabrics, nervous pistols, acne.
Mara Brod hid her dead son Valentin’s watch in the wood stove, and gave the soldiers her husband’s broken wristwatch instead. One of them wound it and listened. He shook it and listened again. They were both very drunk. They smelled of cigar smoke. Then they raped her.
The old man was welling up as he stared at the city, and his mouth kept slipping into nervous smiles. He squeezed and released the arms of his chair.
“That’s when I came back. They had her on the floor. I saw her there and…I don’t know how to say it…I saw her seeing me seeing her. I couldn’t move. They were still…and I couldn’t take my eyes off her face. It was-I could only fall down.” He was crying now like he had then, shaking all over, the chair clicking against the balcony, saying, “You have to understand, they had guns. One to her head…”
Emil was cold from head to foot.
When they were finished, they gave Avram Brod a pint of vodka. “A thank-you, they told me. Then they were gone.” His weeping sounded choked and small, like a child’s.
Women’s voices came up from the square.
“I just want someone,” he began, then shook his head. He looked at the sky. “I just want someone to make it better. Worth living. You see?”
Emil didn’t know what to say. He was praying the old man would not ask to see his father’s watch.
“We have everything here,” said Grandfather. “And we have lost it all. You. You’re everything we have left.” He was finally looking at his grandson.
