The October Circle

by Robert Littell

  “I am not authorized to give you information,” one of the officers who attended the conversation replies.

  Somewhere down the street a store owner winches open a steel shutter. The screeching sends shivers down Tacho’s spine. He turns and notices a large mirror on the other side of the lobby. Nothing moves in it, and for an instant Tacho imagines it is the mirror at Krimm. He reaches up to adjust his collar, and glances to his right expecting to see Octobrina cocking her head to one side to present the profile Mayakovsky admired.

  A soldier trots noisily down the stairs. Tacho catches sight of him in the mirror. Then he steps closer and sees himself too.

  The town is pitted asphalt and potted plants and cheap storefronts with elaborate gold lettering on dirty plate-glass windows. Tacho sees it all through the tunnellike rear flap of the covered army truck in which he is riding. They pass the small hotel and he catches a flash, almost subliminal in its brevity, of the girl inside; the window has fogged with her breath, and she seems to be wiping it clean with the lace curtain.

  “We cleanse our souls the way we clean our windows,” he recalls Popov reciting, “with the curtains already hanging on them.”

  “I remember that it was very lovely,” Octobrina comforted him when he wasn’t able to repeat the line.

  The topsoil in the fields outside the town is thin, and the rows of cabbages meander, as if planted by the wind. They pass an old man with knee-high rubber boots shoveling manure into a wheelbarrow; he doesn’t look up as the convoy speeds by. Beyond the town, beyond a large billboard that announces the spectacular achievements of a government irrigation program, the fields are bone dry and the topsoil swirls up with each gust. The wind cuts through the canvas sides of the truck, bringing with it the smell of snow, and the smell folds back the memory of other winters, and the memory sucks a smile to the Racer’s lips.

  “He smiles,” observes the soldier sitting next to Tacho.

  “Not for long,” laughs the soldier sitting across from him.

  The truck stops with a jerk, the tailgate drops and Tacho jumps down. He walks around the side of the truck and sees the bridge that marks the frontier. Nearby, a soldier holds his bicycle.

  A boy — Tacho guesses he is fourteen or fifteen — shouts excitedly and runs over to the bicycle; his wide eyes take in the polished gears, the thin tires, the leather saddle, the graceful sweep of the handlebars.

  Tacho takes the bicycle from the soldier and holds it out to the boy, who steps back and looks around in bewilderment.

  “He gives it to you,” Major John explains.

  The boy blinks in confusion.

  “Go ahead,” Tacho encourages him gently, “take it.”

  “Take it, damnit,” Major John repeats in Greek.

  The boy hesitates an instant more, still unable to believe his good fortune. Then he flings a leg over the saddle and coasts off down the road toward the town, looking back from time to time to see if anybody will stop him.

  Nobody does.

  “Idiot,” Major John scoffs as he walks with Tacho toward the bridge.

  “Him or me?”

  “The both of you — you don’t know a good thing when it is offered to you. You place me in an awkward position, I will concede it to you. I am a democrat, and being a democrat implies a certain — how shall I put it so that you won’t mock what I say — solicitude for people.”

  Across the river, a covered truck is backing up to the wire-mesh gate. Two soldiers with machine pistols jutting casually from their hips advance onto the bridge.

  “What I am attempting to say to you is that you can still change your mind,” the Major tells Tacho.

  When Tacho makes no answer, Major John stops in his tracks. “Do you know what it is you do?” he calls after the Racer.

  Tacho turns toward him. “I think so,” he says slowly. “I have been told I am laying the foundation of a house that my sons will build and my grandsons will live in.”

  “You there, Abadzhiev,” the Major yells as Tacho starts toward the bridge. “My name is Xanthopoulos. Epaminondas Xanthopoulos.”

  The Racer calls over his shoulder:

  “You were right — it is too difficult to pronounce. I won’t remember it. Nobody will remember it.”