My Own Revolution

by Carolyn Marsden

  Because she lives above, Danika has to be the one to start. Now I wish she’d send a note down. Say something. I’d answer right away. I’d send her a sweet note. I’d apologize. She’d sweetly accept.

  And then I’d send her another message with three simple words.

  I wait for Danika as usual on the walkway. But this morning I combed my hair and pressed my shirt. I shined my shoes until I could see my face in them, so distorted I looked ugly and thought: how would she ever love me back? I’m even wearing my stupid red scarf because I think she must like it.

  Danika is late this morning, so I pace the walkway. I see a pink flower with a yellow heart and think I should pick it for her and spill out the words that go with it. But I’m not ready yet. Not now that we are late.

  She comes out the door, letting it bang shut behind her. Her hair falls carelessly over her forehead. She’s carrying her violin case, and I remember that today after school she has her lesson.

  “Let’s go,” I say, but she’s rustling in her bag. She’s off-kilter and distracted.

  I offer to carry her violin case.

  She looks at me funny, since I’ve never offered before. “Why, thank you, Patrik.”

  We walk to school with the lilacs blooming, birds nesting in the trees. We walk over a fallen nest with tiny crushed blue eggs.

  We arrive at the blocky building, the looming trees, our vandalized slogan, so sloppily repaired. The statue of Lenin lifts an arm as if to say, Here I am, ruler over all of you. Once he may have been famous for fighting for the downtrodden, but now he’s the one doing the trodding. I mean treading. He’s a giant stomping boot.

  I follow Danika through the big door, and then she is gone. She’s lost to me in the sea of red scarves. She goes so quickly that she forgets her violin.

  I leave the violin in the office. I write a note, then hesitate before signing my name. Should I draw a heart? That would be a girlish thing to do. The secretary is already holding out her hand, so I skip it.

  The bell rings, trilling through the chatter, the stamp of feet on the stairs.

  My first class is the history of ancient Greece. Mr. Noll writes the timeline of the Peloponnesian War — 431–404 BC — on the blackboard. I wonder if Bozek is in the same mathematics class as Danika. I wonder if they’re passing notes when Mrs. Hathazy’s back is turned. If they’re risking standing in the corner for passing notes.

  A new and horrifying thought comes to me that maybe I won’t find her after school. Maybe he’ll whisk her away. And then I remember her violin lesson at Lada’s house. Lada, the girl with the braces and thick ankles who plays first violin with the orchestra. Lada, who gives lessons in her apartment on a narrow side street.

  “In the Peloponnesian War, democratic Athens was roundly defeated and dominated by oligarchic Sparta,” says Mr. Noll.

  Like us now with Russia, I think. I wonder if Mr. Noll is trying to let us know that he can’t stand the stinking Russians. I look at him more closely with his curly blond sheep hair. Is he a real teacher and not just a propaganda machine?

  But then Mr. Noll says the Spartans were strong and disciplined, and I understand that I got my hopes way too high. He likes the occupying Soviet Russians just fine.

  At break time, when we march around the gymnasium, Danika marches in the opposite direction, and as we pass, I catch her eye and make a funny face. She makes a funny face back. But she thinks we are just being kids together.

  Bozek marches on the opposite side of the gymnasium, swinging his arms with gusto.

  In my last class, which is botany, I tell the teacher I have a dentist appointment.

  Mr. Ninzik asks, “Where is the note from your mother or father?”

  I pretend to look in my pockets while hating doing this to Mr. Ninzik, who is the only teacher I like. He’s the kind of guy who would hate the Spartans. I shrug, saying, “I can’t find it.” I open my mouth and point to a back molar: “Cavity.”

  He looks out the window and back at me and nods.

  I grab my books and head out the door, down the hallway and stairs and outside, where I lie in wait beside a lilac bush, my heart thumping like a dog’s leg when it scratches fleas.

  The bell rings, and kids start to come out. I put my hand on my heart to keep the sound in. Will she come out with Bozek? Will he be telling her all about the wonders of Bratislava, where you can hear little snatches of Beatles songs and where boys have electric guitars and play the Beatles — muffled in a back room — whenever they want. With no Mrs. Zeman banging on the ceiling.

  But no. Today is the day of the violin lesson. She must go to Lada’s. It wouldn’t be right to keep Lada waiting.

  She comes out, the sun full on her face, the violin case in her hand. My heart spins, swirls, stops, then marches on. There is no Bozek by her side.

  I step out, hoping Mr. Ninzik isn’t looking out the window.

  “Patrik! What are you doing here?”

  I take her violin case again, my sweat soaking the handle. “I’m here to walk you to Lada’s.”

  “But you don’t have to.”

  “I want to.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Bozek coming down the steps, surrounded by boys who want to hear more about Bratislava and the Beatles.

  “I have a surprise for you,” I say, hurrying her away with the violin case banging against my leg. There’s a tiny park on the way to Lada’s.

  “What kind of surprise?” she asks.

  “You’ll see.” Out of habit I’m about to set down the violin case and books and yank my red scarf off. But then I don’t. Danika is still wearing hers and seems to like it.

  We come to the park blooming with tulips, and I say, “Let’s go through here.”

  “But that will make me late, Patrik. Lada won’t . . .”

  “Let’s go through here,” I order. “I have something to tell you.”

  “If it’s about Dr. Machovik, I already know.”

  “It’s not about him. Not at all.” I head for the fountain.

  “I’m going to be late,” she complains, but follows. She has to because I have the violin.

  I sit down on the edge of the fountain. In the middle, a stone cherub is peeing, his pee splish-splashing from one level to another. “Come here.”

  She sits and smooths her skirt. But she’s a little away from me, not like she would be with Bozek.

  There’s no time to waste. “I love you,” I say.

  She shrugs. “I love you, too.”

  “But not like that. Not how we used to love each other, Danika. Not like before . . .”

  She looks at me then, looks in a way that I can tell she’s forgotten about her violin lesson. She looks at my face and then her eyes move down, over the red scarf at my neck, over my chest, where my heart is trying to break loose. Her eyes settle on my hands, which are sweating buckets. I wipe them on my knees.

  Her bright-blue eyes come back to my face. She wrinkles her forehead, then runs one hand over it. A breeze blows, knocking drops of cherub pee this way and that.

  Suddenly she giggles. She puts a hand to her mouth. “Oh, my,” she says through her hand.

  My blood zooms like a million cars on a racetrack.

  She takes her hand away from her mouth. She stops giggling. She reaches that hand — trembling — for my shoulder. “This is a surprise, Patrik. You’ve always been like a brother to me.”

  “Not anymore. I don’t feel like a brother anymore,” I protest. “I like you in a different way.”

  She drops her hand and looks at it lying limp in her lap.

  “You’re trying to tell me that you like Bozek instead of me? Is that it?” I drive the words hard.

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “What, then?” I kick at a weed sprouting between the paving stones.

  “You and I used to play Gypsies together. Becoming your girlfriend would feel weird.”

  “It’s because of Bozek.”

  “It’s not. It
’s just that you’ve always been my friend. And you always will be.”

  Only that.

  It’s nighttime and I lean back against the square base of Lenin’s statue. I imagine a nuclear missile coming straight from the U.S. of A. — even with me here — to blast Lenin. The missile would explode in a million red bits, bursting all over like the embers of a campfire. Then Lenin and I would be no more.

  My thoughts revolve back to Danika. Obviously she likes Bozek instead of me. Bozek, the son of a party member. The son of a guy like Dr. Machovik, who sends his colleagues to hard labor. How could she?

  Something goes pop, pop inside me.

  I look around for Karel and Emil, who promised to meet me here. Where are they? Running a toy train? Listening one more time to the Beatles?

  Karel especially should be coming. Adam Uherco is his distant relative. He should be here for Adam because Adam can’t be.

  At last, I make out Karel sidling along like a sideways-walking crab. “Where’s Emil?” I ask. “I thought he was coming with you.”

  “Don’t know. We said ten sharp right here. . . .”

  “Maybe he’s turned us in.” I laugh, but both of us look around for searchlights, someone hunting us down. There’s nothing. Nobody. Not even a moon.

  “Emil wouldn’t do that,” Karel says.

  “He probably just got cold feet,” I say. “Let’s do it without him. The longer we wait, the more chance there is of getting caught.”

  “I drank three glasses of water,” Karel says.

  “I gulped down a pot of tea.”

  We climb onto the base, right at Lenin’s feet. Karel starts to unzip.

  “Not down here,” I say. “Up there.” I point at the dark statue.

  “Piss on his face?” Karel asks.

  “Why not?” If America refuses to send that missile, my pee is the next best thing.

  Karel links his fingers together, making a step with his hands. He hoists me up the cold, slippery statue. I make my way onto the crooked-back elbow.

  “Now, how do I get up?” Karel asks, his voice high.

  “Like this.” Securing my leg in Lenin’s elbow, I reach down and grab Karel’s hand. I yank him. He dangles, then gets a grip and hauls himself onto the statue’s outstretched arm.

  “I’m not giving up on Danika,” I tell Karel.

  From his perch, he says, “Don’t torture yourself, Patrik. I’ve seen the way she looks at Bozek. . . .”

  “But she knows me better. She’s loved me all these years.”

  “She loves you like a friend.”

  “That can change. I can change it.” And then I know I can’t. I shove at Lenin’s immovable shoulder with the toe of my green-spotted shoe. I shove harder, Karel watching from his own Lenin arm. When I start up a low growl, he says, “Come on.”

  So we unzip.

  I feel the release, hear the splash of two streams of pee hitting metal. Both of us aim right onto the face. The pee runs into Lenin’s eyes, down his metal beard. It drips onto his vest.

  The pop, pop grows softer.

  I zip up.

  Karel pulls something from his pocket. “My sister’s,” he says, holding up a bra.

  “That’s not going to fit . . .”

  “How about over the eyes?”

  “Ha! That’s good.”

  Working together, we pull the bra across Lenin’s metal face, manage to hook it behind the head.

  A car starts up nearby. We slither down. At the bottom, I pick up a stick and write in the dirt: REMEMBER ADAM UHERCO.

  “Bravo,” Karel says, then glances into the night as if looking for Adam. Or for those who locked him up.

  “No one’s out there,” I whisper. “No one.”

  We slap each other’s palms, then dash off into our own separate blackness.

  By morning, the bra is gone. A garden hose lies coiled at the base of the statue, and puddles of clear water pool on the paving stones.

  Mr. Babicak’s secretary summons me to the office. This isn’t fair, I think, following her down the hallway. If only Danika had said yes, I wouldn’t have done such a stupid thing. And why pick on me? I’m not the only one here who hates Lenin.

  The white bra — very plain, no lace or frills — is lying on Babicak’s desk. Beside it stands a jar filled with pencils and the sharp blade of a letter opener.

  As soon as I’m seated, Mr. Babicak comes to the point. “You are playing into the hands of the imperialist Americans,” he says. “Did you know that the Americans are aggressors throughout the world, Patrik? Did you know they are developing nuclear weapons?”

  I nod. I won’t point out that Russia is also building missiles and bombs. Not if I want to keep my head, I won’t.

  Mr. Babicak lifts the bra and dangles it from the tip of his pencil. “I think you know where this was found,” he says, his beetly brows inching together.

  This is a trick question. Everyone knows. It was Bozek, I hear, who climbed up to fetch the bra. Bozek Estochin who patriotically turned it in to the office. Everyone in school is giggling about this bra. If I say I don’t know, Mr. Babicak will mock me. If I say I do, he’ll pounce on me. So I say nothing.

  “What about it, Chrobak?” His voice scoots across the desk.

  “It’s not mine, sir. I don’t own a bra.”

  With a snort, he drops the bra back down. The hook clicks lightly on the wood. “Don’t be a smart aleck, Chrobak.”

  A fine rain has been falling since early morning. Washing away fingerprints. No one saw us. Babicak can’t prove anything. Without proof, I can’t be locked up.

  To my surprise, he says, “This will of course go on your record.” He reaches for the jar, where I think he means to pick out a pencil. Instead his hand closes over the sharp letter opener. He runs his hand over the smooth blade.

  I should keep my mouth shut. But I can’t help myself. “But that’s not right, sir,” I say, putting both hands flat on his wide desk. “Nothing has been proven against me.”

  Babicak gives a bitter laugh. “I don’t have to prove anything, young man. I only have to suspect. And”— he aims his glassy eyes upon me —“I strongly suspect.” He lays down the letter opener, takes a piece of paper from the drawer and a pencil from the jar, and begins to write.

  To have a permanent black mark on my record is even worse than copying The Communist Manifesto. I could be locked up after all.

  The next day, Tati throws another paper down on the dining-room table. “This one I refuse to process,” he says. “This is my colleague Dr. Albrecht. I absolutely refuse.”

  I stare at the paper. It’s a little crumpled, as if Tati balled it up, then straightened it out. Is Mr. Babicak somehow responsible for this new order? Has he taken his revenge so swiftly? “What will happen to Dr. Albrecht?” I ask.

  “He’s to be put away in a mental institution. No better than prison.”

  “No tractor driving?”

  Tati shakes his head. “He might still open his mouth and say things the party doesn’t want said.”

  “Maybe he’ll see Adam Uherco at that place,” I say.

  Tati presses his lips together.

  Mami glances at the window.

  Last week a man washed those windows, using a rag on a long pole. It could have been Dr. Csider doing the washing. Except he is way up by Prikra.

  Maybe someone has planted a bug. And now somewhere a man is huddled in an office, listening to our conversation. Recording it for proof with a reel-to-reel tape recorder.

  Mami yanks back the curtain. Maybe the window washer was really a high-up party spy. Maybe he planted a microphone. She runs her fingertip along the frame, perhaps checking for wires. She tries to open the window, but it’s corroded shut.

  “What will happen to you, Tati?” I ask, moving closer. “To us?”

  “I hardly care anymore,” Tati says.

  “You have to care about the children,” says Mami gently. She turns on the radio, perhaps to cover up o
ur conversation.

  The broadcaster announces that the Soviet spacecraft Luna 10 is still orbiting the moon. This makes the Soviet Russians very proud. But what is really going on — friends turning against one another, people being certified as crazy, school principals terrorizing their students, students fighting back in little, stupid ways — of that the Soviet Russians will tell us nothing.

  Just as the Russians hold back secrets, so do I. Babicak has no proof against me. There’s nothing for me to confess to Tati. And yet I now have that black mark. I should tell Tati to watch his back. I really should.

  In botany, Mr. Ninzik stands with his jacket on, gripping the massive tome of Trees of the Western Slovakian Forests. “We’re going on a field trip today, boys and girls.”

  Murmurs. No one ever takes us out of here.

  “I’ll be accompanying you and my third-period class to the Bazima Forest. We’re going to identify trees. Please bring notebooks and pencils.”

  I do a quick calculation of Danika’s schedule, and yes, she and I will be in the forest together. Bozek will probably be back at school studying the Peloponnesian War.

  We gather in the hallway in lines, each of us in an assigned spot. When the other kids join us, I wave at Danika and smile. She smiles back — beaming widely. She’s smiling. No turning away from me.

  Maybe, just maybe, she’s already changed her mind. An unforeseen miracle has come to pass. The whole world suddenly feels just right.

  We walk single file down the street, Danika and I separated from each other by eleven students. I count and count again those who separate us. The overhead flutter of the red flags, the yellow-hammer-and-sickle Communist flags, almost makes me happy.

  Entering the forest, Mr. Ninzik waves, signaling that we’re liberated. He sets down the heavy field guide and strolls off with his hands in his pockets. He obviously doesn’t really care if we identify a darn thing. He’s brought us here to get away from school and all the propaganda. We dump our notebooks into a giant pile.