The October Circle

by Robert Littell

  Kovel accepts Tacho’s hand. “You really think they’ll understand?” he asks again. He is anxious to be rid of the Racer, and afraid to see him go, so he holds on to his hand for a moment.

  Tacho nods and backs off a step. “Dovizdane” He waves, and turns into the fields. Before he is lost from view, high up at the tree line, Kovel can see that he has started to run.

  17

  EXHALING on his fingertips, the Racer sinks down against a sapling on the edge of a long sloping hill high in the Rila range. Below, far below, a narrow rutted Tarmac road winds through a gorge parallel to a silver stream. Every now and then a wooden footbridge arches across the stream from the road: to an old Turkish cemetery, to a shed full of firewood, to a village clinging to the side of a scrub hill with its tractor cooperative and clucking chickens and muddy streets and wooden homes with garlands of red peppers strung like laundry from the windows.

  Where the road curves around the lip of the mountain, overlapping white-painted tires set in cement serve as a guardrail. For a long while the road is lost in the trees, which look like Octobrina’s palate before her “white” period — dried rusts and browns mixed with dirty yellows and every conceivable shade of green. Where the road comes back into view, as if emerging from a tunnel, it is clogged with an enormous flock of sheep winding down from the mountains for the winter. A shepherd with a drooping knapsack and a wooden staff leads the way, another brings up the rear, and three or four dogs dart around the rim snapping the stragglers back into the flock. An ancient tourist bus with valises stacked on the roof appears to be aground, high and dry in a sea of sheep. Suddenly they scatter, and a few seconds later the Racer hears the faint beep of a horn. When the sheep are clear, the bus starts down a straight stretch of road lined with evenly spaced trees, the bottoms of which have been painted white. (“We are the only country in the world,” Tacho remembers Mister Dancho quipping, “where an automobile can hit a tree and the tree is considered to be at fault.”) A few minutes later the bus pulls up in front of the high stone walls of Rila, the fortress-monastery that was the jewel of the Bulgarian kingdom six hundred years before.

  Tacho climbs stiffly to his feet and pulls the sheepskin coat around him. To the west, above the crest of some mountains which sprawl over into Yugoslavia, the sky is streaked with a washed-out sunset — “color with too much water” is how Octobrina once described a similar sunset, Tacho remembers. To the east, a cold metallic full moon is rising over Mount Musala, the highest peak on the Balkan peninsula. Tacho remembers Musala from the war: many a time they camped around its base, and once even they climbed beyond the snow line to escape German patrols. In those days the comrades already called it Mount Stalin, a name that was to stick until Nikita Khrushchev put an end to that particular cult of the personality. What had been Musala for centuries became Musala again.

  Tacho pushes aside the past the way he pushes aside pain when he rides. “I must concentrate,” he mutters out loud, “on the present ridiculous.” Placing his feet sideways because of the steepness of the slope, the Racer starts down toward Rila. Where there are no roots to hold on to, the earth, stirred by his footfalls, runs away in rivulets. Tacho reaches back with his hand to steady himself; the ground feels colder now that the sun is gone, but he is grateful to be close to it.

  “You smell just awful.” Her nose wrinkles up in mock disgust.

  “It’s the coat,” he assures her.

  “Where did you get it?” she wants to know — she wants to know everything, but she is afraid to ask.

  “I bought it from a shepherd in the hills; I traded him my jacket plus twenty leva. He said he had never seen twenty leva all at once. And he was an old man.”

  “What did he want your jacket for if he was a shepherd?”

  “He said it was for his son, who might one day go to the city. He said …” Tacho sees that she is not paying attention, and lets the sentence trail off.

  The girl studies the ground for a moment. “I wasn’t sure you would come,” she ventures softly. “I wasn’t sure you could come. I’m … I’m . . “ Looking up, she fumbles for the right word, the right tone. “I’m very happy to see you again,” she declares, and Tacho is reminded of the Flag Holder’s way of confronting emotional moments with a defensive formality.

  The Racer nods quickly, as if accepting the greeting — the part spoken, the part unspoken too. Then, embarrassed at the sudden emotion between them, he plucks at her sleeve. “Come,” he orders, “I’ll show you the monastery.”

  “I’ve seen the monastery,” she protests. “I’ve been here for days.”

  “I’ll show it to you anyhow,” he insists. “That tower there is called Hreljo’s Tower. It was built by a flag holder, the feudal lord Hreljo, who was later strangled in it. See here” — Tacho’s fingers trace an inscription on the tower’s base. “It says, ‘Thy wife sobs and grieves, weeping bitterly, consumed by sorrow.’ “

  “What happened in Sofia?” Melanie lifts her eyes to study his face. “You must tell me. How is it with Octobrina? How is the one you call the Rabbit — how is Elisabeta?”

  Tacho turns away from her. An old priest with a stringy gray beard emerges from the church and begins knocking a stick against a hollowed-out piece of wood. From the far side of the monastery, other priests slip out of their cells and drift like shadows across the courtyard. A group of German tourists crowds into the church behind them. A single bell rings. An owl hoots. Tacho steps inside the church. It is heavy with gold-crusted icons and incense. The priest who has summoned the others stands before a gold crucifix, swaying back and forth as he chants from a thick book which he glances at only occasionally. His black hat keeps slipping forward on his head and every few pages he pauses to push it back from his eyes.

  “You are a Communist,” the girl whispers to Tacho. “Don’t you say that religion is the opiate of the people?”

  “Violence is the opiate of the people,” the Racer retorts, thinking of Georgi in his hospital bed with its hospital corners and mucus stains on the starched pillow case.

  Outside the church, the girl asks Tacho if he has registered for a room.

  “I haven’t— “

  “You haven’t or you can’t?”

  “I can’t,” he concedes.

  “What has happened?” Melanie is pale and close to tears, but he turns away again.

  “Have you eaten?” she asks, but she doesn’t wait for an answer. “I can see you haven’t eaten — why do I ask such a foolish quesdon. Go to my room” — she indicates a door on the top row of cells — “and wait for me.”

  She is back twenty minutes later carrying a plate of kebapeta, some slices of peasant bread wrapped in a paper napkin and a bottle of Mavrud.

  There are two iron cots in the small cell; one is made up for the night with rough peasant blankets, the other has only a straw-filled mattress on it. Tacho sits on the unmade bed, but the girl places the tray on her bed and motions for him to join her.

  After he has eaten, the girl clears away the tray. “Now you will tell me what happened,” she insists calmly.

  Tacho breathes deeply and begins to tell her: of the funeral, of the arrests, of Octobrina’s cry of pain on the telephone, of the ambulance climbing the hill toward the Dwarf’s house, of the Mime trapped in the revolving door, of his escape. “I came over the mountains,” he recounts, “staying clear of the roads. I made my way through woods where the light slanted in so thickly it looked like mist. I drank from streams. The peasants gave me food. I tried to pay for it, but they wouldn’t take money. Our peasants are like that: in the mountains, they will share their last crust of bread with a traveler.”

  “Didn’t they ask questions, ask where you were going?”

  “They never ask questions—that’s not their way. But I told them I was tired of the city and going back to my village in the mountains. The men would smile when they heard that and look knowingly at the young ones, as if to say: See, here is one who has experience
d the city and rejected it. Learn from him.’ “

  “You like mountain people, don’t you?”

  “I am a mountain person.”

  “You’re going to try and cross the border, aren’t you?” she wants to know.

  Tacho nods.

  “But how will you cross?”

  “I’ll cross,” he evades.

  “There are patrols in the hills, and dogs.”

  “I’ll cross at the official crossing point,” Tacho tells her, “right under their noses.”

  “How can I help you?” Melanie asks.

  “You can take me to Melnik.”

  The Germans, who have been drinking boisterously in the canteen below, troop noisily up the wooden stairs to their cells.

  “Mein gott, it’s cold,” a woman whispers excitedly as she passes Melanie’s door.

  “My tool will shrivel,” her companion snickers, “if I don’t get into something warm soon.”

  “What did you have in mind?” the woman leers.

  “Do you speak German?” Melanie asks the Racer, her lips pressed against his ear.

  “A little,” Tacho acknowledges.

  “What did they say?”

  “Nothing important.”

  “But what?”

  “It was something … dirty.”

  “You’re a prude,” she states flatly.

  “Why do you say that? Because I won’t tell you what they said?”

  “Because you didn’t look,” she chides gently, “when I took my clothes off. You turned your head to the wall.”

  “I thought you would appreciate some privacy,” he explains.

  “You are a prude, you know,” she insists triumphantly. “Nakedness always attracts men.”

  “It’s not the nakedness that attracts them,” Tacho corrects her, “but the vulnerability that goes with the nakedness.”

  Melanie props herself up on an elbow. “Do you think I’m thin?” she inquires archly, talking down at him in the darkness.

  “You’re not thin,” he assures her, “you’re fine,” and he pulls her down and covers her breast with his palm.

  “I’m flat as a board,” she challenges stubbornly. “Once, when I was sixteen, I think, I bought a bra filled with water. It did wonders for my sex life. The boys flocked around me like sheep, brushing my new breasts with their elbows or the backs of their hands whenever they could. At the first school social, my date pinned a corsage on me and pricked the bra. Water leaked out all over my dress.” In the pitch-darkness, she blushes at the memory.

  From the courtyard below comes the hollow sound of the stick being beaten against a piece of wood. “It’s the Klepalo again,” Tacho tells her. “That’s what they call the old priest who summons the others to prayer.’’

  “When do they sleep?” Melanie marvels.

  “When we all do,” Tacho shoots back, “between prayers.”

  “You sound almost religious.” There is a hint of astonishment in her voice.

  “I’m a Communist,” Tacho reminds her.

  “You say that as if you’re trying to frighten me,” she reproaches him. “It doesn’t, you know. You don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Frighten me — you don’t frighten me. Whatever you are, it’s good.” She presses her body against his. “Are you cold?”

  “I’m warm,” he replies, “warm and tired and sick at heart.”

  He thinks she has dozed off when she suddenly props herself on her elbow again. “How did you like it — the lovemaking with an American?”

  “My god!” Tacho rolls away from her. “Our women don’t ask that kind of question. How did you like it?” he mimics.

  “Are you asking seriously?” she taunts.

  “I wasn’t — but I am now. How did you like it?”

  “You’re sure you want to know?” she warns.

  “I’m not sure, if you put it like that,” he fires back, “but tell me anyhow.”

  She moves close to him and talks quietly, seriously, to his chest. “I was engaged once, to a boy from Brazil. He deflowered me when I was twenty-three. The first time in bed he forced my head down to his crotch. Oh, how I hated it. Ugh. It smelled of urine, his thing. He was really very nice about it; he kept reassuring me I’d grow sexy once I lived in the warm climate of South America. But I figured if it was like that the first time, it would always be terrible, so I called off the wedding. I stayed away from boys for a long time after that. They made me very nervous: I’d sweat so much I could never wear the same dress again. Then I fell in love with someone quite a bit older, an American who knew my father. They had come over together from Russia at the start of the war. Our sex life consisted of him coming off against my stomach.” Melanie smiles. “All that’s changed now, of course. I don’t lie to you, Tacho, ever. I like lovemaking, but I don’t love it, not the way men seem to love it. I’ll tell you something I don’t tell everyone I sleep with: everything I’ve wanted in my life, the warning’s been better than the getting. Sex very much included. The irony is that once you learn this, once you learn the warning’s better than the getting, it takes some of the pleasure out of the wanting.”

  “The first time I saw you, that night in Club Balkan,” Tacho confesses, “I got the impression that whatever you wanted, you could wait to get it.”

  “That’s close for a first impression,” she concedes. “I can wait to get what I want, because the getting of it ends the wanting, and I enjoy the wanting more.”

  He is drifting off when she curls herself around his body. “I must know more about you before I can love you properly,” she tells him seriously.

  “Go to sleep,” he mumbles.

  “I can never sleep when I sleep with someone I’ve never slept with before,” she complains. “Are you afraid of death?”

  When he doesn’t answer she prods him in the ribs. “Answer, you,” she insists. “Are you afraid of death?”

  “I’m lucky,” Tacho says quietly. “I have always had to confront the possibility of dying before I was old enough to fear death.”

  “Have you always felt like that? Did you feel like that when you broke the speed record?”

  “I never knew I felt like that until this moment,” Tacho admits thoughtfully. “That’s one of the things that bothers me a great deal. I learn what I believe when I hear myself say it.”

  “But it’s the same with everyone,” she says.

  “Well, it makes me feel I don’t have any control over what I believe. You ask something, and I answer off the top of my head with the conviction that can only come from months of thinking about that very thing. The funny part is I really do believe the things I hear myself say.”

  “For instance?”

  “What I just told you about death, for instance. Or” — he lowers his voice — “I dialed my own apartment before I left Sofia. Even now I don’t know why I did it. I was trying everyone’s number, so I tried my own. A man answered and said he was me. He asked me who I was. Before I could think of what to say, I blurted out that I was the Flag Holder. And as soon as I heard myself say it, I realized I thought I was. I still think I am.”

  “You’re like him in many ways,” she remarks. “You hold part of yourself back, the way he did. You do that with me, you know. You’re doing it right now — holding part of yourself back.”

  “I don’t trust you with my emotions,” he admits.

  “You trust me with your mistrust!” she snaps angrily. “Oh, Tacho.” She clings to him, and he becomes aware of her nipples pressing into his chest.

  “You’re getting hard,” she notices. “Would you like to make love again?”

  “Would you?”

  “Yes, thank you,” she agrees with a laugh.

  The Racer gropes for her in the darkness and, guiding his penis with his hand, thrusts inside her. She cries out softly.

  “I’m hurting you.” He hesitates.

  “No, no,” she assures him, and pulls him toward her. “Oh, d
ear Tacho,” she cries, “you don’t hurt me.”

  18

  “SLOW DOWN,” Tacho orders, leaning forward in the passenger’s seat expectantly. “The turnoff is after the curve.”

  “Will this one be paved?” the girl asks hopefully.

  “Not unless they’ve paved it in the last few months,” Tacho tells her. “Here — just before the sign.”

  The sign reads “Bistrica,” but someone has written “The Village of” in paint above it.

  “Civic pride,” Tacho comments dryly. “Look down there” — he points to the main highway threading its way through the valley; a river runs alongside it, twisting and turning with every twist and turn of the highway — “that’s the Sturma. It flows all the way to Greece. The border crossing is actually a bridge over the Sturma.”

  “How do you know all these back roads?” Melanie asks.

  “From the war,” Tacho explains. “We owned the hills-up here, the Germans owned the road down there. Every once in a while they would come up to shoot at us; every once in a while we would go down to take a shot at them. I know the hills from the war.”

  “You make it sound like a game,” she remarks.

  “Those were our days of innocence.”

  “Innocence!” the girl explodes. “How can war be innocent?”

  “Compared to today, it was. We knew right from wrong; we knew which of the wrongs to right, and how to right them; we knew we were on the side of the gods. Now you can never be sure.”

  Melanie glances quickly at Tacho. “The Flag Holder, you, Mister Dancho, Popov, the Dwarf, Valyo, even Octobrina — all of you lived in the past,” she says passionately, almost angrily. “In the past, and off the past.”

  Her vehemence makes him defensive. “I’ve always regretted that the greatest moment of my life came when I was nineteen. It’s true, what you say — I have been living off it, the way someone lives off capital instead of income. But that’s over with.”

  They are silent for a long time. Then, out of the blue, the girl says:

  “Oh, Tacho, why did you wait for Czechoslovakia? You should have taken a stand long ago, when taking a stand might have changed something.”