The October Circle

by Robert Littell

  “They’ve taken care of that small inconsistency,” the Rabbit replies. “They’ve invented what they call a ‘new phenomenon of history.’ Are you ready for this? It’s called ‘peaceful counterrevolution!’ “

  “Peaceful counterrevolution!” echoes Mister Dancho, dum-founded.

  “Peaceful counterrevolution,” Elisabeta repeats. “That’s going to be their ticket for this trip. The line hasn’t been authorized for mass consumption yet, but it will probably be used as soon as the political situation in Prague is straightened out.”

  “My god,” moans Valyo.

  “Say what you want about them,” Mister Dancho observes. “They’re creative bastards.”

  The Dwarf shakes his head and mutters some dark phrases in Hungarian.

  “It is just not possible for anyone to be that cynical,” declares Octobrina.

  “What about the Americans?” asks the Racer. “Is there any word on their reactions?”

  Mister Dancho shakes his head in despair. “You still think the Americans will save the day, don’t you?”

  The Rabbit turns to Tacho:

  “One of the men I work with says he heard from his brother-in-law, who is over at the Ministry of Defense, who got it from a Russian major general, who said he saw a limited distribution memo which said that the Americans had quietly let the Russians know that they would make appropriate noises but take no action in the event of a military move against Czechoslovakia.”

  Another trolley goes by and the window rattles slightly in its pane. “The central question,” the Flag Holder asserts quietly, “is what are we going to do.”

  Valyo jumps up. “We must consider seriously the possibility of making some sort of protest.”

  “And end up in jail for our troubles,” Octobrina cries in alarm. She flicks her cigarette ash nervously and it floats around in the breeze from the fan.

  The Racer says:

  “You forget we have our photographs — “

  “Then it is agreed we must do something?” Valyo persists.

  His feet dangling from the chair, the Dwarf smiles his mocking smile and nods slowly.

  “But what will we do?” demands the Rabbit.

  “There is no possibility of your taking part in this,” the Flag Holder announces matter-of-factly. When Elisabeta starts to protest, he cuts her off sharply. “It is out of the question. You have no photograph to protect you. You are vulnerable. We are not.”

  Octobrina smiles at Elisabeta. “The very least they’ll do is take away your job. And then we will lose our source of information.”

  “We will have to resort to the newspapers to find out what is happening,” jokes Dancho.

  Popov coughs nervously. “I could try to write a poem,” he offers. “Something obscure enough to get past the censors. It is easier, you know, to get poetry past them than prose. In poetry, you can hide what you want to say between the words.” He looks around shyly.

  “That’s very generous of you, Atanas, and very brave too,” Octobrina says. “We all know what it would mean for you to write poetry again. But I think we had something more— “ She looks around for help.

  “Immediate,” Dancho prompts.

  “More immediate in mind,” Octobrina continues.

  “Something in the nature of a protest letter perhaps,” Valyo suggests.

  “But to whom sending it?” demands the Dwarf.

  The Rabbit reminds them that the Russian dissidents always send their letters to the New York Times.

  The Racer begins pacing back and forth in front of the open window. “They send their letters to somebody, with a copy to the New York Times” he notes.

  “How about the Minister?” Valyo ventures. “We could send it to him. ‘We, the undersigned’ — that sort of thing.” He glances around hopefully.

  “I have it,” Dancho interrupts excitedly. “What about boycotting the nine September parade. My god, what could be more appropriate: protest against the Soviet liberation of Czechoslovakia by boycotting the parade marking the twenty-fourth anniversary of the Soviet liberation of Bulgaria!”

  “But that’s almost three weeks from now,” the Racer reminds him. “In three weeks everyone may have forgotten about Czec hoslovakia.”

  “If we’re going to send a letter,” Octobrina insists, on a wavelength of her own, “we might as well go all the way and send it to the United Nations.”

  “Or Soviet Politburo,” the Dwarf throws in. “Or Brezhnev.”

  “We should consider other possibilities,” the Racer suggests from the window.

  “Like for instance?” asks Dancho.

  “I don’t know, for god’s sake. We could all refuse to pay our dues, or quit the Party altogether. That would shake them up.”

  The Flag Holder rests his hands on the keyboard of the Remington and stares for a moment at his fingertips. “Look, friends,” he says, “we must begin by facing reality. And the reality that we must face first is that we have no access to the press or to the people. Even the articles in my little newspaper must have a Central Committee stamp on them before the Lamplighter will set them in type. No, friends, there is only one way that we can protest.”

  The Flag Holder bends his head and sucks another Rodopi into life. “We must give them theater.”

  6

  WITH EACH STEP Popov’s left shoe squeaks like an unoiled hinge. (The squeak doesn’t appear to bother him, which means he has turned off his hearing aid.) Mister Dancho, gallant to a fault, carries Octobrina’s placard for her. (His lids droop; he has spent most of the night with Katya, and he is very tired.) Octobrina holds a long-stemmed rose with pale red petals. (She once wept at television clips of young Americans thrusting roses into rifle barrels; it struck her as a poetic gesture, and she had in mind to do the same thing if it came to that.) The Flag Holder, walking with the Racer, flicks the butt of a Rodopi onto the pavement. (He sees a “Littering is Against the Law” sign, scoops up the butt and deposits it in his trouser cuff.) Valyo (toying nervously with his tuning fork) and the Dwarf (with his blind dog, Dog, farting loudly into the early morning stillness) come last.

  “If he was on roller skates,” Valyo whispers disgustedly, “he’d be self-propelled.”

  “When you into becoming his age, you farting all the goddamn time too,” the Dwarf replies evenly.

  Valyo snickers loudly. “I’m already farting all the goddamn time.”

  “Shhhhh,” hisses Mister Dancho, glancing angrily over his shoulder.

  “How old is he anyway?” Valyo whispers, indicating Dog with his placard.

  “Hundred thirty-three dog years.” The Dwarf urges the dog on with his foot and mutters:

  “All years are dog years.”

  “Shhhhhhhhh,” Dancho hisses again.

  Octobrina taps him on the shoulder with her rose. “Why are you whispering?”

  “I’m whispering,” Dancho whispers, “because” — he leans close to Octobrina’s ear, as if he is about to let her in on a state secret — “because it has been my experience that women will believe anything you tell them as long as you whisper!”

  “What a rat you are, Dancho!” cries Octobrina.

  They are making their way along Stambolski, and have just passed the Deux Chevaux with the route traced on the driver’s door. Octobrina feels more comfortable with Dancho talking, so she taps him on the shoulder again with her rose. “‘What do you do about mosquitoes this time of year?”

  “I kill them,” Mister Dancho whispers.

  When he doesn’t say anything more, Octobrina offers:

  “I try to kill them, but they always get away.”

  “The trick,” whispers Dancho, “is to approach them in such a way so as not to throw a shadow across them. If they see a shadow, they jump.”

  “What about stockinged feet?”

  “Stockinged feet help, of course,” concedes Dancho. “I hold my breath too.”

  “What do you prefer in the way of a weapon?” Octobrina
inquires.

  “The Party theoretical journal. It’s long, but not overly flexible when folded. The only drawback is it leaves ink smudges on the wall. But then you are obliged to wipe the blood off anyhow, so the ink smudges are not much of a problem.”

  “What’s this about the Party theoretical journal?” Valyo whispers from behind them. “Did they print something about Czechoslovakia?”

  “Dancho uses it to kill mosquitoes,” Octobrina explains.

  Somewhere along the way Popov has tuned into the conversation. “How can you talk about mosquitoes at a time like this?” he demands. He looks down at his left shoe with disgust. “Why didn’t somebody tell me?”

  They turn the corner of the National Archeological Museum. The cobblestones underfoot are spotlessly clean and bone dry; the water wagons have long since passed this way. Dimitrov’s tomb, sooted white marble hulking in the grayness of the early morning, looms ahead.

  “Whatever happens,” the Flag Holder instructs them, “stay together. Remember, friends, we have Octobrina with us.”

  Their footfalls (and the squeaks from Popov’s shoe) echoing on the cobblestones, they make their way into the center of the square and take up positions in a circle, facing outward. Dog farts and sinks onto the ground next to the Dwarf’s legs.

  “My god, but it’s quiet,” Dancho whispers after a while. His voice is huskier than usual. Valyo makes a soft, wheezing sound. Popov runs a finger under his starched collar; his shoe squeaks as he shifts his weight. The Flag Holder clears his throat. The Racer runs his tongue over his parched lips.

  There is whispering from the soldiers riveted at attention on either side of the iron door leading into the tomb. A few minutes later there is a crablike scurrying in the park behind the tomb. Fifteen minutes later a door slams in the National Art Gallery, across the square. A walkie-talkie blares for an instant and then goes dead. A light comes on in the Central Committee building further on down Ruski Boulevard, and then another, and another. Then shades are drawn, blotting out the light. For a long time there is no sound at all. Then comes the clatter of hobnailed boots running in lock step across the cobblestones near the National Archeological Museum. Popov pivots in that direction; his shoe squeaks again. On the other side of the square, trucks come roaring up Ruski Boulevard and squeal to a stop in front of the People’s Army Center. There is a scraping sound, as if furniture is being unloaded onto the street. It is growing lighter now, and there are more trucks, and more furniture being unloaded in front of the Central Committee Building, just out of view from the square.

  “Look there,” the Racer whispers. “There — near the side of the tomb.”

  “I don’t make out anything,” Octobrina says nervously.

  “What time is it?” whispers Dancho.

  “You don’t have to whisper,” snaps Valyo. “They know we’re here.”

  “Roof,” shouts the Dwarf, and he points with his placard. There are half a dozen men in army uniforms on the roof of the Central Committee building studying the small circle of people in the square through binoculars. “Make them into seeing slogans,” cries the Dwarf. He curses in Hungarian at the men on the roof and thrusts his placard up in their direction. Octobrina takes a deep breath to control the pounding in her chest and holds hers aloft too with both hands. The slogans are printed on the back of blown-up photographs of themselves, and they spin the placards around so the eyes behind the binoculars can see both sides. (“Let’s think of some catchy slogans,” Dancho suggested when they were preparing the placards the previous afternoon. “Everyone arms himself with slogans and assaults the intelligence,” the Racer complained. “Let us say instead what we feel, even if the sentences are not short and catchy.” But the Flag Holder disagreed. “We only have time for slogans,” he said, so slogans it was.)

  The sun edges over the rooftops and into the eyes of the Dwarf and Octobrina.

  “But where are the people who go to work at this hour?” cries Octobrina. She calms down, and gesturing toward the windows facing the square, says:

  “I have a feeling they are eyes.”

  “This is the first demonstration in history to be observed by only two,” quips Dancho, and he calls to the soldiers guarding the door of the tomb, a hundred or so paces away:

  “Ho, comrades, and a good morning to the both of you.”

  The soldiers, staring into each other’s eyes, never move a muscle.

  “I’d hate to be in their shoes,” observes Valyo.

  “They must be exhausted,” agrees Octobrina.

  “That’s not what Valyo means,” the Racer says. “He means they’ll probably be transferred to some outpost on the Greek border to keep them quiet.”

  The Flag Holder takes a few dozen steps in the direction of the Central Committee building and listens and walks back to his place in the circle. “They’ve sealed off the square,” he announces. “They’ve closed the streets with barricades. They’ve quarantined us.”

  “How will people know about our demonstration then?” demands Octobrina. She lowers her placard heavily to the ground.

  “That’s just the point,” the Racer remarks bitterly.

  “They not owning balls for making arrestations,” sneers the Dwarf. He shouts something obscene in Hungarian toward the Central Committee building.

  “Listen,” Dancho declares, “we can hold out here as long as they can. Let’s not lose heart. They’ll have to keep the square closed all day. People will begin to ask questions.” He looks around for encouragement.

  “Here, no one asks questions,” the Racer says. He lowers his placard to the cobblestones too.

  “We should have brought some water,” moans Valyo. “My throat is dry.”

  The sun is high now, and hot. Octobrina looks faint and Valyo slips an arm under her elbow to support her. Dancho takes her placard.

  They wait a while longer, but still no one comes to arrest them or to observe them. Even the men on top of the Central Committee building have disappeared. At midmorning, one of the two soldiers in front of the tomb faints — his rifle clatters to the pavement — but the second soldier makes no move to help him.

  It is almost noon when the Flag Holder lowers his placard to the ground.

  “What the hell,” murmurs Dancho.

  “Win some, lose some,” shrugs Valyo.

  The Flag Holder fumbles for a Rodopi, and Dancho produces a light from out of nowhere. The Flag Holder exhales, and the tension seems to drain out of his body with the smoke. “We must learn,” he says, “to protest in a way that does not convey to them the impression they have forever to set things straight.” He looks at Tacho, and then at the others. “Change comes only to those who are crazy for change.”

  7

  OCTOBRINA CLAIMS it is his imagination, but Mister Dancho isn’t convinced. It is nothing he can put his finger on, he admits, but …

  ‘For instance,” demands Octobrina, and Valyo agrees:

  “Give us an example.”

  “For instance,” Dancho says, and he raises his eyes and studies the ceiling and remembers that his portrait-painter friend, Punch, turned away when he, Dancho, sauntered into Krimm. That for starters. And the crowd at Punch’s table seemed to avoid his eye. The television actor Rodzianko shook hands warmly enough, but he turned back to his companion, who happened to be a beautiful woman, without introducing her to Dancho.

  “He’s afraid of the competition,” Octobrina concludes.

  “Maybe,” Mister Dancho says not very convincingly. “But what about Poleon?”

  “What about Poleon?” Octobrina bites.

  Even Poleon seemed — well, strange, Dancho says. He was half out of his seat, slopping champagne into tall-stemmed glasses as Dancho passed. “We’re celebrating,” Poleon cried. “They’ve promised me an apartment — one with a balcony up near Boyana. Not far from the Dwarf’s. They’ll be able to roll me downhill after his weddings.”

  “I’ll miss the sex,” Poleon’s ex-wife giggl
ed. Everyone at the table laughed at that — too loudly, it occurred to Dancho now as he goes over the scene. Poleon’s ex-wife downed what was left of her champagne and thrust out her glass for a refill. “Oh, we’ve had good sex, Poleon and I, since the divorce” — she hiccupped — “we just don’t get around to it all that often.”

  Poleon leaned toward Mister Dancho. “My morning censor says they’re going to release my film too. Can you believe it?” He lowered his voice. “They need a favor from me, it’s plain as the nose on your face. They haven’t said what it is yet — probably want me to put someone’s mistress into my next film.” Poleon laughed wildly. “Well, I’ll do it —I’ll do anything to get that film released. Not to mention an apartment!”

  “He sounds his usual self,” Octobrina comments when she hears the story.

  “You don’t understand,” Mister Dancho insists, trying to pass it off as a joke. “He didn’t offer me any champagne!”

  Mister Dancho perks up when the Racer arrives with the American girl. He lets his eyes drift over her bare midriff, which is brown and firm, and starts telling Rumanian jokes. Even the Flag Holder, who is in one of his deeper depressions, can’t help laughing at one of them. Later Dancho runs through some of his repertoire of tricks. On an inspiration, he asks Valyo for his tie.

  “Be careful with it,” Valyo cautions him. “it’s a Turnbull and Asser.”

  Mister Dancho takes out his pocket scissors and makes a great show of snipping the tie into three pieces. Valyo looks mildly worried. Dancho pulls the tie through his fingers and voilà — it is still in three pieces! Valyo is furious.

  “Next time use your own tie,” he grumbles. “You owe me forty leva fifty.”

  Valyo leaves soon after.

  The Flag Holder asks whether a tie really costs forty leva fifty in England. When Mister Dancho explains that it can cost anywhere between fifty stodinki and fifty leva, Lev just shakes his head. “Forty leva for a tie!”

  Popov hauls out his pocket ledger and turns up his hearing aid. “Let me see. Sssssssss. One earring made from fingernail clippings linked together with tiny gold rings. One glass paperweight, chipped, with a tarantula inside. Did you know there was a time when people believed that tarantism came from the bite of a tarantula? But then people will believe anything, won’t they? Sssssssss. One wooden leg with a hinged knee; it looks like the leg from a life-sized puppet. One …”