Diggers

by Viktors Duks

  Dirty with cow shit, we jumped out of the wagon. Was I upset? Absolutely not. My soul had been trampled into the shit, and the waste from an unseen animal made my inner world visible—nothing more.

  We lined up single file and walked down the path of the swamp. Little Spirit, the Communicator and the Classicist lugged the water pump with gritted teeth. It was actually two times lighter than the old one, but because of the soft surface of the swamp moss, it became heavier and heavier with every meter. The walk to the place where the airplane had fallen was not easy, but we all but ran. Those load bearers whose fingers refused to carry the weight any further did not have to ask anyone else to help. Our mutual understanding was like a unified organism.

  The view that greeted me did not promise anything good. Of course, we did not see the airplane. It was a ditch, ten meters long, full of brownish water and hiding a horrible tragedy within itself.

  “I’ll tell you—I’ll be fucked if we get anything out of there today,” the Classicist sighed in my ear.

  “The main thing is the process, the process. The airplane is not ours. We’ve been sent in as professionals, we’ll do it for free so that later the airplane can be set up outside of a casino and a greasy millionaire can piss on it.

  “Don’t mess around with me, asshole,” my friend hissed. I had touched his most sensitive spot. To be honest, I felt the same. Rich people had heard about us and about the Communicator’s tanks, and over a glass of whisky they came up with a nightmarish vision about how they could make some money. They would build a new entertainment center and install a museum of military equipment therein. I don’t know. Maybe it’s not really a bad thing, but I think that this would demonstrate enormous disrespect against the pilot whose body was shattered along with the aluminum parts of his plane.

  “The airplane is in small bits, and the nose is about five meters deep into the swamp. Those millionaires will shit themselves when they see a big pile of rubbish,” I smirked.

  “We’re not going to tell them anything. We have to find the pilot. He’s here. We’ve already found an arm bone, his belt. Let them sponsor us,” the Classicist began to smile.

  “We’ll find a souvenir or two, won’t we?” I was getting excited. We understood that we were dealing with true businessmen. They think nothing about the horrors of the war, about rusted metal, ammunition and real battle weapons. They’d like those things, sure, but the equipment is not deep in their hearts. These are men who will never feel the great sensation that occurs when you pull a rusty box with unknown contents out of the ground. Never.

  Little Spirit turned on the pump. Its hose, like an elephant’s trunk, disappeared into the water and began to suck out the brown liquid, like a vampire. The motor kept choking on the moss and the peat. Little Spirit kept the pump working with serious determination, making sure that it did not suck up anything too big. The rest of us went into the forest to find logs with which we could shore up the edges of the ditch. The Communicator used his chain saw to cut down the few trees that we could find in the swamp, just like a barber would work over someone who is almost bald. I don’t mind saying that I’m afraid of chain saws. I saw a movie about a maniac who did terrible things with his saw.

  ***

  December 31, 2000

  The afternoon sky of New Year’s Eve lit up with the first fireworks. They’re supposed to bring luck, aren’t they? Those who were impatient were running toward the new era. A new era appeared for them through the fireworks . For me—they caused time to stop. The sparkles gradually disappeared behind the darkened roofs of the city’s houses. We sat in the car in silence. How romantic, what a devastating exterior. All we needed was a director and a cameraman.

  “A beautiful end.” Quiet words breaking out from my heart. “I could never have imagined that this would happen to me.”

  “Perhaps you asked more of me than I could give?

  “I never looked at you as a servant, you were always a woman I loved, adored. I didn’t ask you to iron shirts or cook dinner. In 15 years you have never even sewn a button onto a shirt. I never asked you to do those things. I have never hit you, never. I have not lounged around in bed, I have never approached you unwashed and smelly.”

  “I couldn’t dress in a way that you liked. You satisfied me physically, but not spiritually. You’ve emptied me out, do you understand? When I’m with you, I don’t feel like a woman. You didn’t love me as a person. You needed me just for sex. You...”

  “Don’t you think that it sounds stupid? You’re just looking for ways to make me feel guilty. All I wanted...”

  I choked. I closed my eyes, but the tears poured forth anyway. I cried like a little baby.

  “I’ve never met a man who is more handsome than you. You’re a good man, you have a good heart. You won’t be alone for long, you’ll find someone soon who is better than I am, a woman who will understand you and give you everything.”

  “I’ll be waiting for you. You’ve never had anyone else. I can’t force you to live with me if you’re thinking about him. Love is like a disease, you have to get over it. Love is the hardest job that two people can ever hold in their lives. I tried. I failed.”

  “Grabbing my butt and making love in the car,” my wife said accusingly.

  “Get out, please. I’ll be waiting for you. Please promise me that you won’t go to him tonight. Please.”

  “I promise.” My wife, loved by two men, silently stepped out of the car.

  There is never a day when I do not repeat my mantra within myself: “I miss you so much, I’m so sad. Why didn’t God open my eyes when you reached the breaking point?” Shit happens.

  “Oh, fuck! The pump isn’t pumping any more.” Little Spirit pulled the hose of the pump out of the ditch. We’d been working in the right direction, and Little Spirit and I looked at each other. From the mess of mud underneath, a piece of green aluminum that was clearly from the body of an airplane looked up at us.

  “What is that? What do you think?” the Classicist asked the Pilot.

  “What? We have to keep digging.” This was not exactly an exhaustive response, but we grabbed our buckets. I worked on expanding the diameter of the ditch, laboring alongside a colleague who works with commercial interests. Little Spirit calls him Beatle. As soon as we took off 50 centimeters of earth, we found a mass of earth and peat that could not hold my body weight. The swamp slowly but purposefully called us down into its depths. I understood that it was once again time to get dirty. I fought against the fairly hospitable swamp and kept sinking. My friends pulled me out a bit too late, and I was wet between my legs. No, I was not that afraid—I just sank a bit too deep.

  The Communicator was very quiet on this particular day. The digger was quite different from those times when all we had to do was listen to his commands and do what he said.

  “We’re not going to get anything here,” the Communicator said, studying the piece of the big destroyer we had uncovered. He had a large scar of black mud across his face.

  The level of water in the ditch could be maintained only if ten-kilogram buckets full of mud and water were pulled out of it constantly. Slowly the swamp began to give up smaller parts of the airplane.

  What was, what is and what will be...

  I sank into a feeling of helplessness. I became apathetic. I would have to march into the new millennium all by myself at the stroke of midnight. I couldn’t think about the fact that life goes on and eventually time heals all wounds. I saw only emptiness in my future. There was a fence before me, and I couldn’t get across it, I didn’t even know how to climb. I had spent nearly half of my life thinking about that woman. At night I listened to her breath, and it sounded like a melody to me. In the morning, when she woke up—my God, how beautiful she was. Damn it all! I’m writing these words after spending ten years and more living with that woman. Every time that I made love to her, it was my victory, it was clear proof of the fact that she needed me in her life.

  How hard, how
unbelievably hard it is for me to write these words—each one is torment. That’s because of that stupid psychologist. On January 2 the wife of a friend of mine gave me the psychologist’s telephone number and said that he would “fix me up.” He suggested that we meet two days later. Can you imagine—two days later? I couldn’t find it in myself to live for five more minutes, but he, damn him, told me that his day was busy.

  “What should I do now?” I asked quietly.

  “Write. Write.” That was the answer from a family psychologist.

  And so I started to write.

  At lunchtime another friend took me to a restaurant. I stuffed some pork chops and French fries into my mouth with great difficulty and felt a bit happy. Anything I wanted, my friends immediately provided it. They understood me without me having to say anything at all.

  Why didn’t I ask the Classicist to give me the World War I vodka glass that Skvarceni dug up and presented to his friend as a gift?

  I don’t want to turn my wife into a monster. NEVER! She used a dull spoon to chop a painful hole in my heart, though. No one on this earth had ever caused me as much pain as did the woman whom I trusted the most. Three months later, oddly enough, I still love and adore her. She was a good wife and a caring mother. Now that I think about it, though, I have my doubts about that “good wife” status. I have no one to compare her to. On the other hand, if I could be in love for so long, then surely I was satisfied. My greatest dream is to get her out of my heart, but what will happen then? Will I feel better?

  It seemed that all of the water that we were scooping out of the ditch was pouring back in through some other hole. Little Spirit swore in Russian, but with a Latvian accent. It’s possible to express your feelings in extraordinary detail in Russian.

  “Gentlemen,” Little Spirit called from the bottom of the ditch, covered in mud. “Get off your asses, we can’t stop for even a minute! Let’s get going!”

  A week later the Russian ambassador will watch his employees without understanding them, because they’ll be laughing at something. I guess he also watched the videocassette?

  “Can you tell me what kind of an airplane it is?” the Classicist asked the Pilot. At a depth of two meters, we had found a much larger piece of airplane, but we could not move it. “What do you think?”

  “I think that it’s the tail of the airplane, and it’s on its side.”

  We collected tiny pieces of aluminum and other metal on a plastic bag.

  The snake, half a meter long, was twisted around the handle of the pail from which I had just dumped ten liters of swamp water and peat moss. I looked at it for a while and then grabbed it by one end and removed it from the bucket.

  I was holding a flier’s intestines.

  The Communicator kept his silence. Just like my wife.

  February 2000

  I know that it’s not easy for her either. Great changes are happening in this woman’s life. Many times, when we said our good-byes, I saw her crying.

  I cried, too.

  Our life together is over, we were two people who were too different from one another. No matter how one of us tried to shape the relationship, it was not acceptable to the other person. She was the first to understand. I tried to be the best man in her life, but maybe she didn’t need it? If you try to give something to someone, there must be someone to accept it. Otherwise, on New Year’s Eve—SHIT!—you get a message that destroys you.

  “I don’t know, my friend, how I can help you, but I hope that all of your wishes come true.” These words were spoken to me by the Classicist. What do you think—is it possible not to love someone after he says something like that?!!!

  “Come and replace me, I’m starting to get a headache from the stink.” The Tractor Driver handed us another bucket, looking up at us from the ditch.

  The stench was made up of aviation fuel and swamp gas, and it was heavily concentrated at the bottom of the trench. I had the opportunity to check it out, but not for long. My guardian angel was watching when a large piece of moss slowly began to break away from the side of the ditch. It would have pressed me against the wing of the airplane.

  On the first day we found a piece of the pilot’s skull, the surface still covered with skin. The swamp preserves everything it swallows up. I wish someone had preserved my marriage that way.

  ***

  Evening.

  We’re back at home base. Five pairs of hands, with dirt under their nails, were peeling potatoes. Believe me, we all tried to wash our hands, but all of the stuff that was on them could not be washed off. Hunger, however, was making such a fuss in our stomachs that we simply closed our eyes to the lack of hygiene.

  The meal was tasty. We boiled the potatoes, and I added some canned meat. I mixed it all up and dumped it on everyone’s plate.

  “For the second time in my life I failed to understand what I could do. FUCK!” The Communicator made it clear why he had been so quiet all day. “We can’t pull that thing out without heavy equipment,” he said.

  “Let the Bug pay for the equipment. We don’t need money, except for some refreshments. Cola, for example, with whiskey as a chaser. A little bit of beer.” (In our vocabulary, “a little bit” means everything that is in the local store.) I felt like joking.

  “You know how much it costs to bring heavy equipment into a swamp?”

  I didn’t answer my friend, because I was as calm as a dead lion. I am his biographer and cook. The Communicator will think of something. There’s a pilot down in that swamp, and there is nobody else who has such great respect toward fallen soldiers.

  ***

  The second day

  It’s raining and raining and raining some more. We’re standing at the ditch and staring into it silently. The water is up to its edges. Let me move ahead a bit. When we bailed out the stinking water again, Little Spirit found the chassis of the airplane at one of the edges of the ditch. The Communicator attached a hand-powered winch to a nearby pine tree and tossed the other end of the chain to Little Spirit.

  We were all excited as we watched the piece of airplane come up from the swamp.

  “It’s not a destroyer, it’s something bigger,” the Pilot commented. “It’s either a bomber or an attack airplane.”

  “So kind of you to tell us that,” someone laughed.

  “It’s probably an attack airplane with two pilots,” the Communicator explained.

  The chassis was huge and heavy. On the surface we could see the name of the Soviet factory that had produced it and the year when it had rolled off the assembly line—1944.

  We would not be proper diggers if we did not open up the hatch of the chassis so as to get a whiff of 57-year-old air.

  The day was a success. The mud we had had on ourselves on the previous night was nothing compared to today’s. Little Spirit and I looked particularly “good.” There was not a single spot on our rubber suits that had not been touched by the mud.

  Little Spirit loaded an old German motorcycle into the wagon of the tractor. Well, not a motorcycle—just its frame. We had dug that up two weeks previously.

  ***

  December 31, 2000

  I couldn’t control my nerves in the car any more. An unseen force was tormenting me. I called a friend. Of course, as was right for the situation, his mobile phone was outside of the reception zone. All I could do was speak a few words into his automatic answering machine: “Please help me...”

  When I got home I opened up a bottle of vodka and poured half of it down my gullet. My wife’s brother called at that point to talk about something or other. I couldn’t speak, and he asked me what was wrong. I fell silent. I couldn’t stop the tears. And then my wife’s brother did something for which I will be eternally grateful. “I’ll be right over,” he said. He stepped across my threshold a while later.

  He found out what had happened. We cried quietly. How unbelievable—two grown men, sitting there and crying. We did not look into each other’s eyes. “Keep your fingers cr
ossed for me, but don’t keep drinking. It won’t solve anything,” he said hoarsely. And then he drove off to watch his daughter being born. Wife’s brother was the first person to give me faith in the future. I understood that I was not alone, that there were others around me. A bit later I told my friend—the one who was outside the reception zone earlier—what had happened, and he was silent for a moment. “I’m going to be driving by your house anyway. Get dressed, come with me, and we’ll celebrate the New Year together.” He knew what I was feeling—eight years previously his wife had found a new lover and had left for good. My savior put me in his car and took me with him. Next to me was my four-year-old godson, who was far more interested in the upcoming fireworks than he was in my problem. I could never have imagined that a man has so many tears. I sat there with a whiskey bottle in my hand and quietly sobbed.

  “Our Englishmen should have been here,” the Classicist crowed with joy. “What an adventure this would be for them!”

  If I’m writing down my memoirs, I have to mention the guys from Britain—Matt, Chris, Ken and Chummy. I find myself smiling as I think of the next sentence. I want to shout: “Guys, I thank God that all of the millions of sperm that gave it a shot, those which led to your being alive were the ones that survived!”

  It all started with an innocent e-mail message that appeared on our homepage. Matt was the author. In the vast fields of the Internet, he had dug up a peculiar address, which had a military ring to it, and then he had found someone with a peculiar hobby—digging up rusty metal and collecting the pieces of someone who had once been a soldier. That’s how our friendship began. The Classicist and I both started to work on Matt’s brain, each in our own way. As a result of this psychological attack, Matt eventually sent us a question: “Could I come to Latvia and at least stand around to watch how you dig and what you find? I’d very much like to do that.”

  “Classicist, do you understand? We’re not the only idiots in this old world. In England—they’ve never even had a war there, but there are people just like us in Britain. To be honest, I feel sorry for them.”