by Ivan Repila
IVÁN REPILA
THE BOY
WHO STOLE
ATTILA’S HORSE
Translated by
Sophie Hughes
PUSHKIN PRESS
LONDON
In a system of free trade and free markets poor countries—and poor people—are not poor because others are rich. Indeed, if others became less rich the poor would in all probability become still poorer.
MARGARET THATCHER
I came to the cities in a time of disorder
When hunger ruled.
I came among men in a time of uprising
And I revolted with them.
So the time passed away
Which on earth was given me.
BERTOLT BRECHT
Contents
Title Page
Epigraph
2
3
5
7
11
13
17
19
23
29
31
37
41
43
47
53
59
61
67
71
73
79
83
89
97
Acknowledgements
About the Publisher
Copyright
‘IT LOOKS IMPOSSIBLE to get out,’ he says. And also: ‘But we’ll get out.’
To the north, the forest borders a mountain range and is surrounded by lakes so big they look like oceans. In the centre of the forest is a well. The well is roughly seven metres deep and its uneven walls are a bank of damp earth and roots, which tapers at the mouth and widens at the base, like an empty pyramid with no tip. The basin gurgles dark water, which filters along faraway veins and even more distant galleries that flow towards the river. It leaves a permanent muddy peat and sludge specked with bubbles that pop, spraying bursts of eucalyptus back into the air. Whether due to pressure from the continental plates or the constant eddying breeze, the little roots move and turn and steer in a slow, sad dance, which evokes the nature of all the forests slowly absorbing the earth.
The older brother is big. With his hands he digs up lumps of sand to form a step strong enough to hold him, but when he lifts himself up in the air the weight of his body defeats him and the wall breaks.
The younger brother is small. He sits on the floor with his arms around his legs, blowing on a fresh graze on his knee. While thinking that the first blood always falls on the side of the weak, he watches his brother fall once, twice, three times.
‘It hurts. I think it’s broken.’
‘Don’t worry about the blood.’
Outside, the sun continues its loop and is eclipsed behind the mountains, drawing an afternoon shadow like a curtain over the well until it’s barely possible to make out the pale cheeks, the eyeballs, the teeth. Attempts to carve a way out through the wall of earth have proved futile, and now Big is on his feet with his fingers hooked into the belt loops of his trousers, focused, searching the day’s end for the answer to an enigma which fades as darkness falls.
‘Up you get. You might be able to reach the edge if I put you on top of me.’
Small shudders, but he isn’t cold.
‘It’s really high. We won’t reach it,’ he says, standing up.
Big takes Small by the hand and in one move lifts him up to his shoulders, as if they were playing at grown-ups and being as tall as a man. They steady themselves against the wall and from this position Small realizes that they won’t be making it to any ledge.
‘I don’t reach. It’s really high.’
Big grabs Small’s feet firmly so he can lift him and increase their height by the entire length of his arms.
‘What about now? Now do you reach?’
‘No. Still no.’
‘Are your arms stretched?’
‘Of course!’
‘Hold on then,’ he says, and Big propels himself upwards and jumps as high as gravity and his legs allow him, emitting first a puff and then a kind of animal pant, full of rage, which his throat finally turns into a cry for help when they fall to the ground, hitting their elbows and backs against the soft mulch at the bottom.
‘Was it close?’
‘I don’t know. I had my eyes shut,’ Small says.
At night, the rustle of the forest is accompanied by a nagging buzz, the din of invisible jaws that inhabit the space like an amorphous mass. The brothers hug one another stretched out on the driest side of their new country, on a pelt of thick roots that enfolds them unresistingly. Neither of them sleeps, how could they?
At sunrise the well is a different colour. The dry earth on the higher part is composed of copper sediments, brownish-grey scars and yellow pine needles. Further down inside the well the earth is damp, black and blue, and the tips of the roots have a purplish glint. The sun is warm, and only the birds respond to the silence. Small’s intestines gurgle under his hands.
‘I’m hungry.’
Big rouses himself and tries to focus his vision with the turn of his neck. His sleep-stiffened muscles stretch from the Achilles tendon to the annulus of Zinn.
‘We’ll eat once we find a way out. Don’t worry.’
‘But I’m really hungry. My stomach hurts.’
‘There’s nothing to eat.’
‘What do you mean there’s nothing to eat? We’ve got the bag.’
Big remains silent for a second or two. The bag is in the corner of the well, rolled up in a muddy ball. Neither has touched it since they got there.
‘The food in the bag is for Mother,’ he says firmly.
Small pulls a face somewhere between resentment and resignation and gets up, supporting himself first with his hands on the floor, then on the wall. His brother lets out a pained sigh.
‘We’re getting out of here right now.’
They stretch out their limbs for a while, study the position of the sun to work out the time, and shout, calling for help. Afterwards, they grope the walls. They search them, scratch them, probe them for jutting fragments of rock, hardened snags, holes. They go on shouting. They repeat a few of their moves from yesterday afternoon, but barely raise themselves a couple of metres before they plummet back down to the bottom of the well. They dig up the earth looking for objects they might be able to use as a bridge: a large root, the remains of a trunk, anything. With each hour that passes they shout less. When the sun declares noon, pointing at the boys with his marble fingers, Big makes a decision.
‘Hold on to my hands firmly. I’m going to throw you out of the well.’
Small suffers a fit of panic. The prospect of being thrown out of the well, as if he were a stone or a gun or any old object, makes him feel extraordinarily small, but his brother’s resolve prevents him from protesting. After a few seconds of to and fro they manage to adopt the position required for the move; with their hands gripping on to the other’s forearms they take slow breaths to quell the riot in their hearts, unsettled by the mystery of the exertion to come.
‘I’m going to start spinning now. Don’t be afraid. When you feel your legs lifting off the ground, let yourself be carried. We’ll spin a little bit more to pick up speed and then I’ll call out loud for you to let go of me. Have you got it?’
Small looks at his brother, amazed, as if seeing him for the first time. The image of his shattered body crosses his mind for an instant, leaving the taste of coins in his saliva.
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m strong and you’re small. I think I should give it a try.’
Then they take their positions: Big spre
ading his legs to steady himself when the speed picks up, Small with one knee on the ground so that he isn’t dragged along, both of them gripping with such force that their knuckles blanch. And without another thought they start to spin. Big pulls his brother upwards so the rotation is clean and goes on spinning, and Small is raised a hand from the ground and he spins, another hand and he spins, until with the next spin he’s virtually horizontal, with his eyes closed and his clenched teeth making dents in his gums; and still they spin, faster and faster, with each spin mapping a bigger circumference, and when it seems like they are at the point of falling, exhausted and breathless from so much spinning, Small slips down to the ground, but doesn’t touch it, then soars back up at an angle, and they repeat this twice more, and in the final ascent Big shouts Now, and lets go, and with his eyes still closed Small breaks free and he takes off from the earth towards the sun like a comet of bones, and for just a few seconds he is flying, but he smashes, literally smashes into the wall, producing a dull crunch that drowns out any cry; and then, unconscious and bleeding from the mouth, he falls the few metres that separate him and the floor and lands on the dizzy body of his brother, like a circus act that ends in a bundle of piled up flesh, and no applause.
When he recovers, Big rinses the blood off his brother and cheerfully announces that apart from a few broken teeth and some bruises, it’s nothing serious. Small protests:
‘My whole body hurts. That didn’t work. And I’m hungry.’
Big feels responsible for Small’s injuries. He looks at him pityingly and ashamed, and then looks up at the spot against which he’d smashed him only seconds before. He gets up. Looking closer he sees the marks from the impact, the dent in the wall of earth. The cast has held the shape of the top half of his brother: the head, the torso, the arms. The missing teeth that they couldn’t locate are probably still biting into the hollow. A smile spreads across Big’s face. And though he knows he has had to use every ounce of his strength for that throw, a dark something awakens in him, a kind of mechanical resourcefulness that connects sequential layers of thought; a conspiracy of scattered images comes together and gives form to a pattern that is painful, but real. Afterwards, glowing with excitement, he goes back to Small. It’s been twenty-four hours since they fell.
‘I’ve had an idea,’ he says. And also: ‘But you have to make me a promise.’
2
IN THE BAG there is a loaf of bread.
When they go for food supplies, the brothers must take the dirt path that runs alongside their house up to the slope of bergamot trees, then rock-hop across the river and carry on beyond the wild cornfields. If they want to gain time, they must go through the forest. To do this means almost half a day’s walk; double that if you count the return journey.
‘I’m thirsty,’ says Small.
‘You can drink the water there on that side. I’ve already tried it. It’s fresh.’
‘But it’s dirty.’
In the bag there is a loaf of bread and some dried tomatoes. Big goes towards the corner where the water flows more heavily, kneels down and digs a small hole. After a while the water builds up in the hole until it spills over. Big then sinks his head in the little well and drinks loudly, imitating a thirsty dog.
‘It’s good. Try it.’
Small copies all of his brother’s gestures, including the nasty slurping sound.
‘It tastes like dirt.’
‘Everything here tastes like dirt. Get used to it.’
With his eyes on the bag, Small adds:
‘Now I’m hungrier.’
Big takes the bag, twists it, and throws it to the opposite side of the well floor.
‘I’ve told you already that we’re not going to touch Mother’s food. We’ll eat what we have here.’
‘But we don’t have anything here.’
‘Yes we do. You’ll see.’
In the bag there is a loaf of bread, some dried tomatoes and a few figs. Big inspects every millimetre of the well, every cranny, every root. He makes a fold in his shirt and in the hollow collects everything he can find. Small watches him blankly. Afterwards, with black nails, Big sits down in front of his brother and unveils his booty of squashed ants, green snails, little yellow maggots, mushy roots and larvae.
‘This is what we’re going to eat.’
Small can’t hide his disgust. He knows his brother is not joking, and that if he has made up his mind that they’re going to eat grubs and weeds, grubs and weeds he will eat. He bites his lip to hold in the rising nausea and says:
‘Fine.’
And he takes a handful of ants in his hand and tosses them into his mouth, swallowing them without chewing, almost without breathing. With his tongue he checks that there are none left between his teeth.
‘Maybe if we added a little piece of tomato they’d be tastier,’ he says with a weak smile.
In the bag there is a loaf of bread, some dried tomatoes, a few figs and a wedge of cheese. On hearing his brother’s suggestion Big upends his shirt, scattering the food everywhere, and smacks him across the cheek with the back of his hand. His hand being so big, however, and the cheek so small, the blow also reaches Small’s temple, his chin, and his ear. It connects, too, with his mouth and yanks the nerves in his teeth, pealing through the bone and making his gums flare. He falls flat on his back with half a lazy face, the flesh swelling with a pain so sharp it clouds his vision. And with his good ear he can still hear a voice bouncing between the walls, a deep echo that warns him:
‘The bag isn’t the solution. If you mention it again, I’ll hold your head in the dirt until I kill you.’
In the bag there is a loaf of bread, some dried tomatoes, a few figs and a wedge of cheese.
Small never again repeats the word beginning with bee.
3
BY THE THIRD DAY they have developed a routine. When the sun comes up they drink water and gargle, then spit it out on the other side of the well in the same hole that they have dug for their waste deposits. Afterwards they take turns to shout, calling for help for several minutes at a time until their throats burn from the strain. For the rest of the morning Small busies himself collecting all manner of insects and roots, which he mashes in his shirt until they form a thick paste. Meanwhile, his brother does his exercises. Big builds up his muscles, adhering to a fixed regime, with push-ups to exercise his arms and shoulders, sets of sit-ups and then squats, which he does until his legs no longer obey him and he has to stop. He moves on to resistance training, lunging at different angles, strengthening his back and spine. To finish he repeats the push-ups, the sit-ups and the squats, but with his brother in tow so the session ends with him lifting Small up onto his shoulders, as if he were a weight bar or a sandbag. He rests for fifteen minutes and in this intermission the two brothers go back to their shouting, only stopping when they can no longer utter a word. Afterwards, Big repeats all of the exercises.
If they are able to look up at the sky without the sun burning their eyes they agree that the morning is over, and with that the afternoon begins. The distribution of food is totally unequal. Big eats eighty per cent of what his brother collects, leaving Small with what little he can extract from a worm, a few insects and two or three roots. Both sate their appetite in silence, and keep aside a small portion for supper. Once they have finished, they drink all the water they can and repeat their chorus of shouts. Afterwards, Small tucks himself into the foetal position, barely moving, and Big spends a couple of hours doing stretches. With the last light of the day they eat the vestiges of food that they left aside, still observing the same rationing model, and then go back to shouting until nightfall. They lie down pressed together, each of them searching in the other’s body for some warmth to help him sleep. Meanwhile, the forest answers their daytime shouts with a nocturnal song. They await it restlessly, wondering whose they’ll hear first: the crickets’, the owls’, or the wolves’.
5
SMALL DREAMS about a swarm of butterflies an
d watches himself catch them with his long, retractable tongue. If they are white, they taste of bread; if they are pink or red, of fruit—a combination of strawberries and oranges; the green ones taste of mint and peppermint; if they are dark they don’t have a flavour—eating them is like licking windows.
The night before, a glow-worm fell into the well, which his brother devoured without batting an eyelid. In the dream, too, there are glow-worms, but they’re big and you can’t eat them, so he picks one and mounts her like an iridescent cavalryman. He is so hungry that he rides the glow-worm to a clearing set apart from the plain and when she stoops to let him down, he sinks his teeth into her side, tearing off pieces of luminous flesh, and drives his nails into her green haunch until he is in up to his hands, his elbows, the full length of his arms, and he slurps the glistening blood as if he were drinking raw egg out of the small crack in its shell. Satiated, and still atop the glowing body of his mount, he begins to cry, kicking himself, since without her, and in the terrible darkness that now covers him, he has no way of escaping the well.
In his dream the well is big like a city. Some say the citizens are all starving because the land exhausted itself. Small can’t recall life outside of the well, but Big is older than him and remembers.
‘They needed space up there,’ he answers whenever Small asks why they live in such a rotten place.
‘Are there many of them up there?’
‘No, very few of them.’
‘So above is small?’
‘No. It’s very big.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Up there is where they hold the power.’
‘What’s that, then?’
A flying dog licks his horns, tickling him. His brother always talks like this, with few words, because he works a lot. For years he has been constructing a ladder out of liquorice laces in order to reach the edge of the well.