was a rumble outside in the camp, he would quickly cut the string and shove his leather-bound book into a hidden pocket at the back of his jacket. Then he stood outside with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face.
He would sooner have invited in typhus than a trooper.
If they forced a check on us they pushed their way past him without asking, stomped their boots on the floor, but they never found Lenin or the book. They tore the place up and tossed teacups to one another. From outside we could hear the smashing, but what was there to do, we just waited until they came out, down the steps, their boots shiny at the knees and scuffed at the toes.
When they were gone, we cleaned the mess, and Grandfather rol ed up the Virgin again, let Lenin look out once more.
Grandfather went to the Poprad market one day and didn't come back for four more. He had built a wal for a man who had given him a wireless radio. He carried it into the camp with great fanfare, put it down by the fire, and music jumped out. Vashengo's father came to look at it. He liked the music indeed and everyone gathered around and fiddled with the knobs. But in the morning, a group of elders came and said they didn't like the children listening to outsiders. It's only a radio, said Grandfather. Yes, they said, but the talk is immodest. Grandfather took Vashengo's father by the arm and they walked down by the river and worked out a plan: he would only listen to music and not the other shows. Grandfather took it with us to our caravan, turned it very low, and listened anyway. It's my duty to know, he said, and he ran the little yel ow dial along the glass panel, Warsaw, Kiev, Vienna, Prague, and the one he loved the most, though it didn't get any sound: Moscow.
One day I heard him slam down the wooden backing on the ground: This bloody thing needs batteries, can you imagine that?
He came back a couple of days later with a sack ful of batteries over his shoulder and his clothes covered in flecks of gray. He told us that the gadze now wanted wal s held together with cement—al his other wal s he had built with rocks and air—but if that's what he had to do for batteries, that's what he had to do.
Soon everyone grew to like the radio. Mostly we listened to music, but every now and then government voices came through. In the caravan, Grandfather tuned it in to whatever he could find, al the different languages. He spoke five—Romani, Slovak, Czech, Magyar, and a little Polish—
though Eliska said he should forget al that red gibberish, he sounded the same in every language, he should come back in the next life as a loudspeaker strung up on a lamppost. He said that loudspeakers were fascist and just you wait, you black-haired chovahanio, you witch, when the good ones, the Communists, final y get power. She shouted at him that she couldn't hear him, that she must have been asleep when he was talking.
He shouted back: What the hel did you say, woman? I thought that Eliska might lift her skirt to shame him, but she did not, she just turned away. She got a lash of his tongue, and he said something rude about her little enamel brush and where she could sweep it. Soon everyone began laughing and joking and it was forgotten.
Stil , Grandfather got in fist-thumping arguments about the book he carried. He sat with the elders around the fire and tried to talk to them of revolution, but they said that our men were not meant for such things. Petr the violinist nodded in agreement with Grandfather, and Vashengo too, but Conka's father was loud against him.
Did you ever hear such nonsense! If Marx was a worker, how come he never worked? How come he just wrote books about working? Tel me, did he just want to keep pissing on a hot stove?
Grandfather clicked his fingers, stood up, and shouted: Whoever is not with us is against us!
He and Conka's father stepped across the pots and came to blows.
In the morning, they drank their coffee and began al over again.
So you never answered my question, said Conka's father. If Marx loved the poor so much, how come he had time to write books?
Grandfather took me down to the river. He tipped his hat and brought me across a fal en log, and he held my hand as we balanced near the edge.
Listen to me, Zoli, he said. The river here, it doesn't belong to anyone, but some of them say they own it, they al say they own it, even some of us say we own it, but we don't. Look there, see the way the water is stil moving underneath? It'l keep on moving. Only inches below, girl, the owning is gone, even ours, and you have to remember that, otherwise they wil make a fool of you with their words.
The next day he led me to the schoolhouse.
I had heard about schools and did not want to go, but he pul ed me under the green overhanging roof. I tried to run away but he caught me by the elbow. Inside, the desks were arranged in neat rows. Strange pictures with lots of green and blue hung on the wal s—I did not yet know what a map
was. My grandfather talked with the teacher and told her I was six years old. The teacher arched her eyebrows and said, Are you sure? Grandfather said, Why wouldn't I be sure? The teacher's hands trembled a little. Grandfather leaned forward and stared at the teacher. The teacher went white in the face. Bring her here, sir, she said. I'l gladly look after her.
I was put in the corner with the youngest of al , dribbles from their noses, one even wore diapers. The older children giggled when I sat on the tiny seat, but I stared at them until they were quiet.
That night, when it was raining, and the sound of it was drumming off the leaves outside, there was an enormous fight in the singing tent. Stay where you are, said Eliska. But I want to sing, I said. Stay where you are, she said, if you know what's good for you. I huddled up under the eiderdown. There was screaming and shouting. Then it stopped and the music started and I could hear Conka's voice drifting out under the rain.
No matter what, he said, it's my choice.
He kissed me goodnight on the forehead and he turned on the wireless radio and it played a polka. In the
