All six of us together now made for quite a powerful group, even though you couldn’t count on most of them … Marko was too delicate, Franci too much of a wimp, Firant too sneaky, Andrej too handsome to fight without holding anything back, and Ivan too excitable and dimwitted. I just wasn’t sure about Karel. Nobody really had him figured out. Was he brave?… Of all of them I was most attached to the two of them … possibly because our parents did similar work, both families had workshops at home and all three of us constantly had to cut, fold, dampen, crawl on the floor looking for needles, and clean … and we were always decked out with every conceivable thread, yarn, fur, and ribbon … But what mattered was that there were enough of us now that we could attack the Breg dwellers, who were constantly violating our borders on the bridge … Perhaps we were already strong enough to declare war on Žabjak and Trnovo, but for sure we could prevent other armies from making incursions on the embankment … Up in the old castle, for instance, there was a motley rabble living in the semi-dilapidated rooms that were propped up with beams. It was led by Sandi, the scourge of delinquents, who had already been under arrest for robbing an alms box in the cathedral … If we could just organize our defenses like they did! They had a habit of lurking in the tree branches that jutted over the path and then leaping down on miscreants’ necks like Robin Hood’s merry men. It was in one such attack from above that they jabbed a pocketknife into one kid’s neck … If they caught one of their attackers, their practice was to tie him up to a tree trunk upside down and then take everything that fell out of his pockets … Knights! Then they kicked him from the battlement walk all the way down to Streliška Street at the bottom … Some of their sisters were also part of their gang, and they were nasty, wild, combative girls … They wouldn’t even let grown-ups into the castle, they chased everyone away … nannies with children, school classes that went up with their teachers to have a look at Ljubljana, they sent all of them running …
My idea for the coming battle was this: to use scrap lumber to hammer together swords of various lengths that we could hide in our jackets and trouser legs … fill up some inner tubes with lead … pool everything we had to get some brass knuckles … buy up some popguns for visual effect at a distance … fashion some bows and attach wire to the tips of some toy arrows … In short, to create all the armaments that the others already had. Hammer some nails into shields made from old crates, with the tips pointed out. Change the Prinčič boys’ wagon into both an attack and a supply vehicle for munitions. Equip it with sharpened beanpoles or stakes and then shove the wagon … weighted down with paving stones that the driver would sit on, steering with his legs and wielding a slingshot, while a gunner would be free to throw the stones – downhill toward Žabjak … As the wagon raced down the roadway, the slingshot-armed driver and the gunner would send stones flying at boys and windows … The wagon would immediately be followed by infantry with slingshots and sabers … This would have the same effect as the English desert tanks at Tripoli, Sidi Barrani, and Benghazi … the infantry would paralyze the enemy exactly the same way the pictures in the newspapers showed Finnish ski patrols turning the Russian assault cavalry, old nags and all, into ice … We began fashioning sabers and learned to fence following the Frenchman’s instructions, we threw stones on the run, and we practiced shooting our slingshots with pots set out as targets. Fencing and throwing did not come easily to Karel: he would hurl a stone across the water or hit a dog with a stick like a girl … Our first battle was with the Breg gang on Cobblers’ Bridge. There weren’t many of them, so it wasn’t a real battle, more of a trial run, our first faltering gropes, during which our swords broke … The real war was still ahead of us and that was with the castle gang. But they must have found out about us and our plans. Maybe Franci had blabbed something to Slavko Škerjanc, a friend of his from the castle, whose mother minded the public toilet underneath the Triple Bridge. Škerjanc helped her out at work and so spent all his days on our territory. They must have found out, because no sooner did we get to the steps leading uphill at the Scarp than they attacked us from behind the old fortress wall as others began racing toward us through the neighboring gardens to the upset shouts of the owners. We sword fought with them up close, then we just clobbered each other with baskets snatched off pegs that we still had in hand, until we finally retreated in the face of their superior strength … However, we did manage to pay the Castle gang back, if only a little … they showed up on our turf … They were coming along the Ljubljanica from under Cobblers’ Bridge, taking potshots with stones at the fish in the shallow water. Sandi was with them. They were walking in a long, drawn-out single file … from staircase to staircase … He was walking in the middle, wearing his red revolutionary shirt, as always. We shouted and got them to look up … We shrieked that they’d better withdraw from our waters … They shook their heads as though there were flies buzzing around them and went on … Then we started to pelt them with stones and slingshot fire … not straight out, so as to hit them, even though the fatheads deserved it, but just to warn them that we meant business … The paving stones and projectiles struck in front of their column and behind them, sending the water shooting in ten-foot-high fountains up to the steps.… Sandi, who was a true leader, since the bravery or lack of bravery of his crew made no difference to him, pressed forward to get to the steps by the drugstore and climb up, but another, Slavko Škerjanc, one of his sidekicks, turned back toward Cobblers’ Bridge where there was another way up across from the antique stores … We couldn’t under any circumstances let them come up, or else we would pay for it … we had to drive them back upstream, toward Žabjak, the St. Jacob’s bridge, and farther on to where Little Graben empties into the Ljubljanica … to Trnovo. We ran on both sides of the river, on Breg and the Gallus Embankment, past antique dealers yelling at us, over their divans and past their mirrored cabinets, throwing stones at all the staircases. I knew that if they got a chance to poke their heads over the top, that would be it for my army … Now we waited for the payback, their revenge. I believed that we had to beat them to it … We had to attack the castle before they could launch their offensive …
ONE DAY Vati unexpectedly received from the Swiss authorities the money that was left after they confiscated his property in Basel and settled his debts … There it wouldn’t have amounted to much money, but here it was a lot … Vati began making plans to start over again, from the ground up, so to speak … Despite the fact that we’d been living in the center of town for quite a few months, and despite all his advertising, the business refused to get off the ground … He could count the customers who had walked in our door on the fingers of one hand. Mrs. Hamman, one or two friends of hers, Sergeant Mitič and the wives of other NCOs … But those were just repairs – blowing the fur, as they called it, to see where the piece was worn down or deficient … No serious orders. A fur coat. Or a whole outfit: a fur hat, a stole, and a muff … A jacket or a vest … “Die Leute haben kein Verständnis mehr, kein Gefühl für wirklich schöne Dinge,” mother lamented. “Sie schätzen die feinen, ganz handgearbeiteten Dinge nicht mehr nach Gebühr … Man interessiert sich nur für den verkommenen maschinengezeugten Kram …”* In the display windows of the six or eight furriers in town … Eberle, Rot, or on the square, you could see yards and yards of muffs, fur hats, little caps. Miles and miles of them! And fur coats on mannequins! Always different and new, a regular multitude. The junk that mother saw that was quickly stitched together by machine not only made her sad, it gave her stomach cramps … And we continued to eat badly. Rice made a hundred different ways … steamed, with peas and milk … There was no butter on the bread … maybe once a month some beef soup … twice a week a little, thin disk of salami … macaroni mixed with egg, just one of course …
Vati was making his plans: to become a supplier of hides. He was thinking of building a rabbit farm. Rabbits of all different colors and breeds. Silver, Russian, angora, and silk … He would build his farm in Polica on Uncle Janez’s pr
operty. We didn’t know him yet. It was near Ljubljana. The gray fur of Russians, resembling chinchilla, for overcoats and jackets, and wavy angoran like yarn for children’s outfits … We would have the furs and the meat, to boot … Mother and Clairi were against it … Mother kept vigilant against flights of fancy. A farm like that would be exposed to all kinds of opportunities for theft. And somebody would have to look after it. And then there was the expense of the hutches!… you couldn’t just leave the rabbits out in a field or the woods. Then there was food for the rabbits, a special kind of bark, these rodents had an insatiable appetite … We have to think very carefully. It would be better to invest the money … But Vati kept pushing. I wrote in his name to Uncle Rudi in Polica that we would be coming for a visit on Sunday. We took the train to Grosuplje and from there we walked through a quarry and a road that ran through some fields … which I hadn’t seen or smelled in a long time. It was like an outing …
Uncle Rudi was a short, broad-shouldered man who bore some resemblance to Uncle Jožef, but wasn’t as caustic. He would ride his bicycle to Ljubljana and in the winters did road maintenance work in nearby Grosuplje. His house stood on a small hill with a winding path leading up to it like the kind in picture books … He had a number of children, including some girls, and one of the boys was my age … They were poorer than Karel and Jože, but they were nicer. They had just one cow, two pigs and a few hens. Their fields were all on the hillside … But their barn was magnificent. The straw was hard and smooth and we could slide down it like a lumber chute, then tumble down the slope outside the door … Vati chatted with Rudi about his interest in building some hutches on his property and buying some rabbits … Uncle Ivan was for the idea … We got a basket of fruit, lard, and some flour to take home …
The train was overflowing with drunk and happy men and women … There were so many of them that they sat on the floor between benches, in the corridor, outside the lavatory … All of them were carrying bags, suitcases, backpacks, bundles, and wicker baskets … with corn, beans, barley, sausage, and chickens … “Well, boy, I’m going to need to empty my bladder here in a second,” an excited little man kindly put his hand on my head. I drew in my legs so he could shove his way through to the toilet … People were singing in the compartments … including the women, flushed red, their shiny faces with necklaces that got lost in the fat folds of their pendulous dewlaps … I had never before liked people so much as I did on that train. Every compartment had its own song, or several compartments would share one … The luggage racks practically shook from the basses and sopranos and things fell down in our laps … In the compartment next door people were of course talking about that … the willy and wee-wee. That was interesting … “Me, no longer able to do it?” cackled a man’s bass. “Even after three score years she isn’t satisfied … Now when I get home, she’ll start whining … like you wouldn’t believe. I’ll tell her, look, here’s a news flash. When I leave in the morning, you get one kiss, so in thirty days that’s thirty kisses and after dinner I’ll slap your bottom, another thirty per month, so that’s thirty kisses and thirty slaps on the ass all together … whoever wants more won’t get any, that’s bolshevism, skinning a man alive …” … “Ha ha ha!” … “Score, one-zero, my favor!” On the platform of the last car where you had a good view of the tracks as they narrowed on the gray granite ballast the farther away they got, the happiest people on the whole train were shouting and playing an accordion …
*People have no understanding, no sense of truly beautiful things anymore. They don’t appreciate fine hand-made things anymore the way they ought to … They’re only interested in cheap, machine-made junk.
SEVERAL TIMES when I came into our room I found Mrs. Hamann standing in front of the table where mother, Vati and Clairi were sewing. One time there was even one of those gentlemen in the black neckties and green hats with her. The next time there were two of them, a short one and a tall one, both dressed identically … Barely had I come in when they fell silent … Sometimes a servant would ring the bell and Vati or Clairi or mother, and sometimes all three of them, would have to go upstairs to talk to her … “Ich will mich nicht in die Politik einmischen,”* mother complained … They were sitting around the table, downcast … “Sie werden uns glatt in ein Lager stecken, wenn wir nicht eintreten,” … I heard Clairi say. “Andererseits, wenn wir beitreten, bekommen wir eine Unterstützung …”† I didn’t like it when they sat like that, made worried faces, mumbled to themselves … that usually meant we were facing yet another misfortune or some decision that would propel us into even more hopeless circumstances … a move … no money … even worse poverty. “Wo sollen wir eintreten?”‡ I asked … The mere fact that I’d entered the room caused mother unspeakable irritation. “Geh spielen …”§ she said abruptly … she still saw me as a stupid, frivolous, heartless child who was not to be trusted. But at school they all took me for a full-blooded German. The classrooms at Graben were ugly. They were full of stupid mama’s boys and spoiled brats from Trnovo. There was no point in having anything to do with any of them. Just one boy in my class, Miki, the son of a drunken painter, small for his age, even came close to being likable. At least he didn’t laugh at me. Otherwise the whole class would grab at their bellies guffawing whenever I was asked to write a conjugation or declension on the blackboard. The teacher, whose name was Marija Sajevec, seemed bright and pretty to me. She had reddish-blond hair that looked like a huge blossom, pretty legs, a nicely made-up face, and eyes between her blond lashes that looked like aquamarines among onions … But her prodding, silly questions exposed me to even greater mockery. It was in her nature … The class got stomach cramps from laughing and I stood on the platform, as dumb as a log … Then with her finger or facial expression she sent me packing back to my bench and recorded a big, fat F for me … I didn’t understand how such an elegant lady, who put me in mind of perfumes, dance dresses, and great beauties, could be so indiscriminately hard-hearted and rude … And yet our form master, Mlekuž, was even worse. His huge, naked, white head with its shiny crest reached all the way up to the black frame of the heir apparent’s portrait … while under the table the orthopedic shoe on one of his feet rested there, big and black, as though it were some sort of old-fashioned photograph camera … He walked with a cane. He was a confirmed Falcon and patriot. On the first of December, with fifth grade teacher Sirnik, leader of the Youth Organization of the Adriatic Guards, standing at his side, he delivered a speech in the gymnasium, which had been decorated for the occasion. He spoke about the twenty-first anniversary of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, about King Aleksandar the Unifier and about the Germans who were threatening Slovene territory. He spoke briefly, clearly, not one bit loftily, while the one next to him in his white trousers, blue jacket and captain’s cap on his head looked like a crooner straight out of a musical … From the first day I knew that my classes with Mlekuž were not going to be easy … From the very beginning he gave me sinister looks. Without the tiniest trace of a smile. He had bulging eyes and plump African lips. Otherwise he was quite emaciated, with the sunken cheeks of a fanatic … Even when he spoke Slovene with Vati, his eyes would bulge pronouncedly and his fat lips would strain and contort, as if they were one of the most disgusting amphibians … And his big red ears, with which he could hear everything, even a pin hitting the floor … His voice was penetrating and harsh. He could have delivered a sermon in the cathedral and everyone out in the market would have heard him … He would swat you with the rubber on the tip of his cane, but you’d also catch a good length of cane … Once I had to read aloud what I’d written in my notebook … He simply exploded. He shoved back from his desk and came limping toward me in his faded smock, swinging his cane, with which he smacked me across the shoulders so hard that I literally sank down into the bench … To top it off, some of the boys would wait outside for me every day. I was still safe as far as the main door of the school’s disgusting entryway, which was painted all over with
brown crawlers. But as soon as my foot came off the last step, I had to be on my guard … They would leap at me from behind … get me in a double Nelson … they even knew the holds!… so that all I could do was kick with my heels … or they dropped on me from above, from the threshold, the steps, causing my school bag to fly across the sidewalk into the street, my notebooks, erasers, some arrows … Two or three would hang onto me … they didn’t just use holds, they beat me furiously, which was even worse. I had to defend myself and retreat long enough for some adult to show up on the sidewalk, but they usually weren’t any help, sometimes they just egged on my assailants … They also ripped my school bag so many times that I had to sew it back up with a big needle in the afternoon. They were born brats, Hitler was just an excuse … I would have liked to see him there. Or King Peter II. Or an efendi, or the Aga Khan! There was another ambush waiting for me behind the Zois pyramid … That’s where that miserable Firant sometimes lurked, who was always opposing me, as if it went without saying … allying himself with whatever side was the strongest … Now and then the blowhard was even the ringleader of the ambush … but he was never alone. My voice almost changed from the fury I felt when I saw him. They were all around me, two, three, four of them. Still, I kept heading straight for the pyramid. But I also began to get ready … With a stone that I always took with me to school that served as brass knuckles … I whaled at Firant’s bony gourd, at the bocce ball heads of the other falcons and the knobs of the eagles … I threw him an undercut, a regular knockout punch with my helper, which made his gums bleed and his two bunny teeth up in front start to wobble … Not one of them was my equal. I promised Firant I would deal with him that afternoon when he came to the riverfront … When I got there, he would sometimes be crouching by the cart. He’d steer clear if he didn’t happen to have an inner tube full of stones with him. Sometimes he’d ask from a distance, from the edge of the bridge, if we could be friends again and he’d walk toward Kolman’s on the embankment with his hands up … Sometimes I’d wave for him to come, because I felt sorry for him as he kept circling a pump on the bridge and looking our way … I knew all too well how rough it was to be on your own, without any friends … But at other times I’d be unbending and wouldn’t relent until Karel put in a word or Franci came running to report Firant’s request that we make up … I knew that none of it would last very long … at most until the next day after school … School was one world for us, but the embankment was a completely different one … Sometimes he came up to me all excited to report what he’d just heard on the radio … that eighty German paratroopers had taken Fort Eben-Emael in Belgium, which was defended by three thousand soldiers … Or that the Germans had advanced into Luxembourg … The rat, devoid of any force of character or will, the parasite! I felt like telling him that if you’re going to talk up the Germans so much, speak German, otherwise you’re just a traitor … Now of course there was no way I could think of a war on the Castle … No exploits were possible with that clever and treacherous Firant, who could attack me from the rear … It wasn’t just the Germans in Belgium, the Russians were beating Finland. They had broken the Mannerheim Line, against which they’d fired three hundred thousand rockets in a single day … They had also taken a fortress and waved with their rifles on top of it, like the Germans did from the Belgian fort … strange friends.
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