by Brian Bakos
Next thing I know, I am flopped down on my cot with no idea how I got there. I must have blacked out momentarily ... my legs gave way. Tears are streaming down my face.
“My God, what happened!” Bel cries.
He wrenches the paper from my fingers and reads the evil message written upon it. Stilikan, my elder brother, has been killed in action.
9. Sad Journey
It is a day to encounter grief-stricken mothers. The first one approaches me on the train station platform where I stand waiting for transportation home to attend my brother’s funeral.
My brother’s funeral – what a terrible weight those words carry! All my life, Stilikan has been there for me; I never knew a time without him. But now he is gone. I’ll never see him again in this world.
The thought that he might not survive the war hadn’t entered my head; it was simply too preposterous. He’d been like a basic law of the universe, ongoing, unchanging. But now he’d been snuffed out ... forever and always.
At moments like this, when the grief seems more than I can bear, I look for some diversion to take my mind off my suffering. I find it this time with a war poster that has been stuck onto a column over layers of commercial advertisements.
The poster shows a heroic figure holding aloft a shield adorned with the National Salvation Party eagle. Behind him, visible between his strongly braced legs, reposes a peaceful little town with a church spire. Sharp lines of power accompany his bold stance. He is protecting the village, and by extension our whole country, from violent onslaught.
Desist!
The artwork isn’t bad, as far as such propaganda goes, but the tone seems wrong. It is overly defensive, as if the enemy is already pounding at our gates. It is a departure from the usual aggressive images of our troops surging ahead or of medieval warriors swinging swords from behind similarly emblazoned shields.
But maybe the enemy really is at our gates. Haven’t I seen their aircraft raining destruction upon us – haven’t I carried away the mangled corpses? Or maybe I am in such a gloomy state of mind that everything looks defeatist to me. Then:
“Bastard!”
A shrill voice pulls me out of my musings long enough to see a small, gray-haired woman striding my direction.
“Excuse me?” I say.
“His name was Piotra, you swine!”
She slaps my face with surprising power for such a tiny woman. I stumble back, unable to comprehend the dreadful turn of events. The weight of my duffel bag nearly unbalances me.
“You murdered my son!”
She flutters toward me like an avenging harpy, I don’t even think to defend myself. A railway station police officer does that for me, grabbing the woman from behind. She fights hard, nearly breaking free. The policeman raps his billy club expertly against her skull, and her resistance ceases.
“Don’t worry about this one, lad,” he says. “A stretch of forced labor will calm her down.”
“No ... let her go,” I say. “Just wait til I catch my train. Please?”
The cop looks doubtful.
“There’s no problem with it,” he says. “We need to keep her sort in line.”
“It’s all right.” I rub a hand over my stinging face. “No real harm’s been done.”
Piotra’s mother is conscious again. Her eyes blaze with hatred, and tears fill them now.
“We did not mean to kill your son,” I say. “He chose to fight us. He was ... a hero.”
My train arrives. I do not look back as we pull away from the platform.
***
Sitting in the train car, staring out the window, the full weight of misery presses down on me again. I’ve already lost the sky, and now I’ve lost Stilikan. My mind brings both of them together in a single, aching memory.
It was a glorious day with lots of fresh breezes – I was, maybe, eight years old and Stilikan twelve. We were flying our toy glider planes in a meadow of spring flowers.
“I’ll be a real pilot someday,” Stilikan said. “What about you?”
“Yes, me too!” I said.
I could almost hear the roar of planes overhead. The sky radiated possibility; a wonderful future seemed open to us.
Now the future has arrived, and it isn’t so wonderful.
The incident at the station had been a welcome distraction, almost. It had taken my mind off Stilikan for a while, and it had been an actual relief to endure some kind of punishment for my stupidity and arrogance.
If slapping me brought the poor woman a bit of peace, then the episode was worth it. I hope the cop is a decent sort and let her go as I’d requested.
So, now the face of our victim has a name – Piotra. This is a very common slobe name; in fact, we refer to the enemy generically as ‘Piotra.’ Even their leader goes by that name, Piotra, the so-called ‘man of iron.’
In turn, they refer to us as ‘Mag’ – short for ‘Magleiter’ and, less flatteringly, for ‘maggot.’
But was Piotra his actual name? Or was she using the generic version, telling me that her son represented the fighting spirit of the entire slobe nation? Well, if all the enemy soldiers possess that boy’s courage and fortitude, we truly have the devil to pay.
How bright the world seemed to be only a short time ago! It is still bright, at least on the surface, as a glorious spring day passes outside my window – the neat little towns, freshly planted fields, woods and hills. A scent of vitality penetrates the rattling old train car. Difficult to believe that a war is raging behind the peaceful facade.
The last time I took this train home was during Christmas break. That was supposed to be the Christmas when our troops came marching back to us, grasping victory in their hands. The victory hadn’t come, of course, but hopes were still high that we’d triumph by spring – this spring.
The army was so sure of an early triumph that no one thought to issue our men with proper clothing, and they were left to the mercy of the harsh slobe winter. A big push was on to fill the gap, and people were donating their winter coats to the war effort. I was proud to contribute as well – not just my old coat, which I’d outgrown, but also my brand new one. People shivering in thin attire were a common sight on any street. I rather preferred the chill; it allowed me, in a small way, to share the hardships of our combat troops.
I’d been glad to see family and old friends that Christmas, even if Stilikan couldn’t be there ... as he would never be there for me again. I was a proud ‘Yuliac’ back then, as we members of the Youth League Air Corps are known, half way through my second year at the elite Leadership High School which only the brightest and best could attend, regardless of their financial status.
A high point of my trip home was the stay in my old bedroom with its comforts and privacy. It was a welcome change from the communal barracks life with my Raptor Aces comrades. Even so, I was glad to get back to the school routine.
We began each weekday with a brisk, 3-kilometer jog or bike ride to our morning classes where we all excelled, even among so many other bright students. Afternoons and weekends were for flying. All of us lived at the barracks, even the local boys who could have stayed with their families in town – and Beltran, who had no other home. He is an orphan, raised by the State, and we Raptor Aces are the only family he knows.
I was so happy then. How has everything gone so horribly wrong?
The exhaustion of the past few days is catching up with me. I close my eyes and try to nap away the hours until my destination. The aisle seat next to me is empty, thank heaven, as I have no desire to talk with anyone. As an added boon from the gods, my sleep is untroubled by dreaming.
When I awake, the train car has filled up. Every seat is now taken, including the one beside me which is occupied by a woman of perhaps forty. She’d been attractive once, you could tell, but now her face is creased and downcast. Her hair is graying, and her eyes have a hollow, tragic aspect.
I try to manage a smile and a nod. She looks at me with understandin
g.
“You’ve also lost somebody in the war, haven’t you?” she says.
***
And finally my own mother.
The first thing she says to me as I enter our house is: “My God, Dytran, you look 10 years older!”
Then she is in my arms, weeping. I hold her there a long while, caressing her hair. It is thinner now and more streaked with gray than the last time I’d seen her. Was that only five months ago?
I look around at the comfortable, good-quality furnishings of our living room. Thank heaven, everything looks exactly as I remembered. With so much of my world coming unhinged, at least I can rest my eyes on familiar surroundings for a while.
But then my gaze turns toward the back parlor. The larger furnishings have been moved out of it, replaced by a narrow table. Chairs fill the rest of the room with a number of folded ones at standby for the overflow crowd.
Mother finally stops crying and draws away. She pulls a handkerchief from her apron pocket to dab her eyes. I leave her to her private grief and walk alone into the back parlor.
The table is strewn with flowers, and amid them is a black-draped portrait of Stilikan. Inside the picture frame, my brother stands proud and smiling in his Air Force uniform, as if he were still alive and unafraid of anything the world could present. Tears well up in my eyes, and I have to divert them.
Then I glance back toward the table, at the urn standing beside the picture frame. Mother joins me.
“Look how they sent my boy back to me.” She gestures toward the cremation urn. “I can never see his face again.”
I put my arm around her shoulders. I want to utter comforting words, but nothing comes.
“Ah, my two young lions,” Mama sighs. “How could you have gotten such a father?”
10. Stilikan
I pass the night keeping vigil by Stilikan’s remains. Candles offer dim illumination to the parlor; an electric bulb in the hallway provides the only other light on the ground floor. Our house settles around me, quiet except for Mama’s soft weeping upstairs. Finally, sometime after midnight, her crying ceases. I twist myself around in the easy chair I’ve dragged in from the living room. There will be no sleep for me before the dawn.
It is a night for disturbing thoughts and memories.
First off, how did Piotra’s mother know that I would be on the train platform this morning? True, some ghastly coincidence might have brought her there at the same time as me, but that didn’t seem probable. A spy tracking my whereabouts is the more likely explanation. Perhaps it is the same one who tipped off the enemy about our air base.
Lucky for me it was only her that showed up and not some suicidal terrorist with a knife concealed under his coat. I would have been stabbed right through, like Papa was.
Papa ... I’ve scarcely given him a thought for years. I was just 10 the last time I saw him. He’d always terrified me – a big, burly man with angry eyes. There seemed to be a vast store of rage inside him always ready to come vomiting out.
He’d never struck me, though, and sometimes he almost doted on Stilikan, his obvious favorite – if a man like that could be thought to favor anyone. But there was always this tension between him and my brother, as if things could get out of hand at the drop of a pin.
I was just scared and tried not to be noticed. By and large, Papa was content to ignore me – until toward the end. He’d begun pushing me and was verbally abusive more often. Maybe he thought I was getting big enough to start smacking around.
Mainly it was Mama who had to bear the brunt of his abuse, especially when he was drunk. Thankfully, he was gone much of the time, either working long hours at the mill, drinking with his pals, or doing whatever. Probably other women were involved. For all his shortcomings, he was a ‘handsome devil,’ as Mama put it.
***
On that particular day, Stilikan and I were out running with our gang – actually it was Stilikan’s gang – and planning an attack on the local slobe boys. These alien kids were ‘trespassing on our territory,’ as Stilikan put it, and he’d decided to push them out.
“We have to teach them a lesson now,” he said, “or, next thing you know, they’ll take over everything.”
This hardly seemed likely as there was only a small slobe community in our town. Mostly they’d come to do the dirtiest jobs in the mill where Papa worked. Papa hated them, though, and even the government said they were a lower race from us, so it only seemed natural that we had to keep them in line.
Stilikan had already been accepted at the National Leadership high school for the next year, and he wanted to make sure that things were in order before he journeyed to the eastern provinces.
“We have to let them know that it’s our park,” he told us, “they can use it only with our permission.”
“When do we give them permission?” one of the boys asked.
“Never!” Stilikan replied.
He was still rather small and wiry at this time, not having begun his growth spurt yet. Even so, he easily commanded the respect and loyalty of the other boys. They all stood around in their crisp Youth League uniforms listening to him give orders. I hadn’t joined the first level of the Youth League yet, so I just wore a civilian outfit.
We found the slobe kids playing football on one of the fields at the park. We could have used another playing field but decided that we didn’t want any company.
“Tear ‘em up boys!” Stilikan shouted as he led the attack.
The battle was quickly over; they outnumbered us, but we had Stilikan on our side. Fists flew and tussles went to the ground. I got a puffy eye and skinned elbows for my trouble, but the outcome was never in doubt. The slobe kids took off at a run, with us close behind. When we reached the edge of the park, Stilikan halted our pursuit.
“Don’t show your ugly faces here again!” he shouted after the retreating enemy.
The usual schoolboy nonsense followed – back slapping and congratulations. We all thought we were wonderful fellows. We played a triumphant round of football. As usual, I had to content myself with being a ‘reserve player,’ meaning that I never got to take the field.
Then we headed for home.
Stilikan and I turned down the lane to our house, leaving the others behind. I began to come down from my exhilaration a bit. While the fight was going on, I was as determined as anybody and I celebrated with the rest when we drove the enemy off, but now I didn’t feel so excited. Was this really necessary, I wondered?
“They weren’t bothering us,” I said, “and there was plenty of room at the park for everyone.”
“Twerp!”
Stilikan smacked the back of my head.
“Stop that!” I said.
“You’re too young to remember how bad it used to be,” Stilikan said. “Back before the Great Leader took over and all the riff raff was treated as good as any racial comrade – back when there were no jobs and we were really poor.”
That was true enough. The National Salvation party had been in power for over five years, and I scarcely remembered a time before them. Mostly I remembered that Papa was home a lot more and there were many arguments about money. But now that our country was building up its defense forces again, there were plenty of jobs – even the slobes could find work.
“There’ll be a war, sooner or later,” Stilikan said. “Then we’ll show this human garbage what’s what! I just hope I’m old enough to fight.”
“Me too!” I said in an excess of patriotic fervor.
“You?”
Stilikan tried to smack my head again, but I dodged out of the way.
“What could you do against the slobe hoards?” he said. “At the sound of the first shot you’d run home crying.”
“I would not!”
“The big hero, eh?” Stilikan said. “I’ll just leave you alone out here with the slobes, then we’ll see how brave you are.”
He took off at a run and dodged down a narrow side street.
“Hey,
come back!” I yelled.
But he was gone. He could take any number of alleys and lanes back to our house; I’d never catch him, even if I could run faster. I looked nervously up and down the street. Everybody was inside now for dinner, and only a scary little wind shared the outdoors with me. It blew along bits of rubbish and howled around corners like the voices of lost ghosts.
What if the slobe kids were lurking about? Maybe they had followed us, just waiting for us to split up so they could pick off the smallest and weakest of the lot. I felt a whole world of danger pressing down on me.
Then I straightened my shoulders and began walking. Maybe I would get beat up; there didn’t seem to be much I could do to prevent it, but at least they wouldn’t find me cringing! I turned down the lane where Stilikan had gone, half expecting to see a gang of enemy kids there. But it was empty.
I walked for a minute or so, neither looking left nor right and especially not behind me, as much as I’d wanted to.
Be brave, I told myself.
Then somebody leaped out of a doorway and grabbed me.
“Boo!”
I practically jumped out of my skin – it was only Stilikan.
“Don’t worry, Little Bro,” he said. “I wouldn’t leave you to the savages.”
He wrapped an arm over my shoulders and led me off toward home.
“As long as I’m around, you’re safe as spades,” he said.
“Yes ... but you’re leaving in the fall,” I said.
“Hey, no problem,” he said. “If somebody gives you a hard time, I’ll come back and kick their butt right quick.”
He turned serious, and all the mischief was suddenly out of him.
“Believe that,” he said. “If anybody hurts you, I’ll get them – no matter how far I have to go.”
I felt safe and reassured with my big brother’s arm around my shoulders. Maybe there really was nothing in the world that could harm me.
“Me, too,” I said. “If anybody ever hurts you, I’ll chase them down and smash them!”
I realized what a dumb thing this was to say. What could possibly happen to Stilikan that he’d need me to handle for him? I expected him to smack my head again, instead he just squeezed my shoulder. This sort of faraway look came into his eyes.