Wolf Hunt

by Ivailo Pretov

  He was an agent of imperialism, a fascist and a warmonger, a die-hard opposition member and instigator, he would kill communists in the dead of night, burn down houses, and poison the co-op’s animals, he hindered the building of the new life in any way he could. The kulak was constantly being written about in the papers and being talked about on the radio, he was depicted in caricatures and posters as a bloodsucker. In short, the kulak turned into a bogeyman, that evil spirit from children’s fairy tales, only now adults were the ones afraid of him. There was no place for him in the village; so as to render him harmless, he and his family had to be resettled in some distant corner of the country or locked up in a labor camp. My brother kept several people in constant fear of such a fate, one of whom was Iliya Dragiev.

  Iliya Dragiev had twenty acres of land and six children, each one smaller than the next. He had promised Stoyan that he would sign the membership declaration, but when he came to the party clubhouse, he lost his nerve. Stoyan took him to task for not keeping his word, but the other man told him that he’d already gotten burned by the co-op once and if he joined again, his children would die of starvation. Since he had managed to feed them thus far, he would be able to keep feeding them – he had two oxen, two cows, thirty sheep, plus a well in his yard.

  Iliya left, and Stoyan ordered two young men to watch for when Iliya wasn’t at home, then to board up his well and to seal it with a big padlock. During the big droughts in these parts, that well was a true oasis in the summer, because all the houses in the upper neighborhood drew from it when the water in the other three wells in the town square had dried up. The young men waited until Iliya was out in the fields and then boarded over and locked up the well. That evening he smashed the padlock and tore off the boards in order to water his livestock, but during the night someone dropped a dog in the well and left a note. The whole village bristled with anger. It was a dry autumn and people were drawing up sand from the bottom of the wells. They insisted that the two young men be punished, but they denied throwing a dog in the well. They had boarded it up under orders from the party secretary, but they hadn’t thrown a dog in. The young men weren’t lying. Some of the opponents of the co-op and my brother’s personal enemies had taken advantage of the situation to make him look bad in front of the village, and just a few days after this incident someone shot at him. Around midnight, as he was going back home, three bullets whizzed past his head. The would-be killer was standing behind a fence where it could not easily be leapt over – in case my brother hadn’t been hit and decided to try to chase the shooter. And that’s exactly what happened. One of the bullets only nicked the batting of his left shoulder. Stoyan pulled himself together in time, fired his own gun, and wanted to give chase, but by the time he found a place where he could jump the fence, the gunman had already disappeared into the darkness.

  In the morning we inspected the place and found no clues. Stoyan informed the police, and Miho Barakov, as if he had been expecting just such a case, immediately arrived with an investigator, along with two young men from the intelligence services. Miho Barakov ordered that several families be searched. I refused to be present during the search, and I advised my brother to do the same, declaring that it was unnecessary and indiscreet to sow unrest among the people right now, when they were not calm by any means. But Miho Barakov said that since we as claimants had called him in, we definitely must be present during the searches. People were horrified when the investigator and his assistants most unceremoniously started rummaging about in their homes, turning everything topsy-turvy and digging around in trunks and other places which outsiders’ eyes should not see and strange hands should not touch. The women were wailing as if to raise the dead, the children started bawling too, it set off an uproar throughout the whole village. Weapons were not found and each of the suspects had an airtight alibi. This was Miho Barakov’s new blow below the belt to us. A very quick and well-calculated blow.

  But that was not the end of this whole business. First and foremost among the suspects had been, of course, Iliya Dragiev. His innocence did not need any proving. During the search of his home the man met us, flustered by the “high-ranking” guests, and started plying us with brandy despite the early hour. His children, the oldest sixteen and the youngest merely an infant, were half naked, still unwashed and snot-nosed, they had just gotten up from beneath the rugs they slept under and were scrambling around the room. They piled into one corner, huddled together like frightened animals, and watched us with shyness and curiosity. The room smelled of stale air and piss, the lady of the house, slovenly dressed, yellow and bony, hid her bosom as best she could with the swaddling of the baby she was nursing, and also stared at us from under her brow with curiosity and hostility. They asked Iliya whether he had any weapons and he said he did. He left the room, dug around beneath the eaves of the barn and pulled out a rusty barrel revolver.

  “It was my father’s way back when and it’s been rusted out since then. As a child he would give it to me to play with, then I gave it to my boys as a toy.”

  The investigator took the revolver, tried to spin the barrel, and returned it to him. His assistants began searching through the pee-scented rugs, rifled through the linen trunk, poked around in the barn and the sheep pen, but didn’t find anything. And then, goaded by some devil, Iliya turned to my brother and said, wagging his finger at him: “So, Mr. Secretary, since you’re a party fellow, do you think you’ve got God by the balls? You want everyone to dance to your tune, as if the village is your birthright. The head of the police here is one of our boys, I’ll tell him. You boarded up my well, locked it up with a padlock, and in the end tossed a live dog inside, ’cause I didn’t want to join the co-op again. You left my children, the animals, and the whole neighborhood without water. We heard they shot at you last night. Why bother shootin’ that guy and be forced to do time the rest of your life for it? Send him to court, but the court don’t catch the likes of him, that’s why he’s ridin’ roughshod over all of us. Since the court ain’t gonna catch him, he oughta take one right there in the kisser. To open his eyes so he can see that there are people living in this village.”

  Iliya uttered all this in a single breath in a squeaky voice that kept catching, with clenched fists, flushed from indignation and overexcitement, while tears gushed from his big round blue eyes. He was one of those people who wouldn’t hurt a fly, on top of that he was pudgy and flabby as if deboned, his raised fists provoked patronizing smiles. He had probably taken courage from the presence of the chief of police, who was “one of our boys,” to tell someone off for the first time in his life. That same night, as if Iliya Dragiev’s threat was being carried out, unknown assailants attacked my brother right in front of his home, as he was opening the gate to go into the yard. He tripped over something (a stretched-out rope), fell flat on his face, and his attackers hurled themselves on him. They tied his hands and gagged his mouth and started pummeling him with their fists. Luckily, the neighbor had come out on his veranda with a windproof lantern to go to the barn, because he was waiting for his cow to calve, heard someone groaning in the dark, and thus saved my brother. His enemies were quick and resourceful, they were able to gauge the psychological moment and to cover up their tracks. After they had thrown the dog in the well and shot at him the night before, the last thing my brother was expecting was for them to attack him the next night as well, and especially right after he had walked the chief of the police back to his father’s home. My brother had no doubts about Iliya Dragiev’s innocence, but to counter the compromising story of the dog in the well, he started accusing him of having thrown the dog into his own well so as to make the new government look bad in front of the village. The enemies of the co-op, who had thrown the dog in the well, took Iliya under their wing and he unwittingly joined their ranks. My brother had no choice but to force Iliya to join the co-op “voluntarily” somehow and thus to put an end to this unpleasant business. As I found out later, he threatened Iliya that he would de
nounce him as a kulak, but before that he decided to put him through another ordeal.

  At that time a campaign to kill off dogs had been launched in the village. Economic want was cited as the reason behind this grisly campaign – there was a ration system in place and food needed to be saved. How many dogs each villager had was common knowledge, and the chairman of the village soviet, Stoyu Barakov, gave an order to leave only one dog per yard and for the rest to be killed. There were hundreds of extra dogs and since the soviet didn’t have that many bullets on hand, they were slaughtered with a knife. This job was assigned to the Gypsy, Mato. His guillotine was a simple structure: a post driven into the ground with a hole drilled through it about a yard off the ground. Mato drew the dog’s leash through the hole in the pole and pulled on it. The dog would rise up on its hind legs, exposing its chest, and Mato would drive the knife into its heart.

  I had gone to Orlovo on business and on my way back I took a shortcut through the fields to the north of the village. My path led me right by the place where they were slaughtering the dogs – a meadow surrounded on all sides by thistles, in the center of which jutted up the canine guillotine. Lined up one next to the other on both sides of the road were thirty or more dead dogs. I was shocked by the sight and hurried to go back the other way when someone called my name. I looked through the brambles – in the meadow stood the blood-covered canine guillotine, and next to it was Iliya Dragiev. I went closer and saw that he was holding the leash of a large speckled dog. At the edge of the clearing Mato the Gypsy was sitting on a stump, smoking a cigarette rolled from newspaper like a man who had finished some important work and was now resting with satisfaction. He was smiling with his big, yellowed teeth and looking from the two knives stuck into the ground on either side of him to Iliya and back, shaking his head ironically: “He ain’t got the balls! He can’t stick it to him. Softie! He’s been standin’ here since Lord knows when and he can’t do it.”

  “Who me? Just you watch! It’s no problem to put this mutt under the knife!” Iliya cried, pulling the dog’s leash through the hole and yanking him upright. The dog’s head was looking upward and it was standing on its hind legs, its tongue was hanging out and it was choking. The Gypsy got up off the stump and held out the knife, Iliya didn’t take it, he looked at the ground around the post, which was drenched in blood and covered with swarms of bluish-green flies, and let the dog go. He was shaking as if with a fever and his teeth were chattering, his pale face was slick with sweat. The autumn sun was beating down, it was hot and stuffy in the clearing ringed by thistles on all sides, it smelled of blood and dog feces. Grinning from ear to ear, the Gypsy was looking at Iliya, shaking his tousled, sweat-slicked head, then he took the knife and stepped toward the dog.

  “Hey, Gypsy!” Iliya shouted, standing in front of him. “Don’t you dare put your filthy hands on my dog! I’ll rub you out like nobody’s business. I’ll kill the dog all by myself. I’ve raised it from a pup, I’ll take its life by myself.” The man was fussing around the dog as if he had lost his mind, now pulling on its leash to raise it on its hind legs, now letting it go again and smacking himself on the forehead. “How can I take your life, Rex! Tell me how! I don’t have the heart for it, nor can I lift a hand on you.” Finally he let the dog go and yelled: “I’ll sign your declaration, why not? Plenty of folks have signed and not died, it won’t be the death of me, either! Ilko, come give me a declaration! This time I’ll sign, to save my children’s lives…”

  As we walked toward the village, he told me how he had met with my brother several times one-on-one and Stoyan had given him the job of killing all the dogs instead of Mato the Gypsy. First your own dog, then all the others. If he didn’t do it, Stoyan would denounce him as a kulak, since he had hired children to herd his lambs, and then he would send him to a labor camp for insulting a party secretary, and there’s no getting out of a labor camp. He would rot away in there and his children would be left fatherless…

  My brother wasn’t at the club when we got there. I gave Iliya the declaration, he signed it and left. I was still under the depressing impression left by the canine guillotine and started rebuking my brother as soon as he came through the door. He saw the signed declaration, deftly tucked it away in the cupboard, and only then sat down across from me. I had not guessed he was so hard-hearted, and I told him this. I also told him that for some time now I had been wondering how it was possible for two brothers like us, who had grown up together in dire poverty, not to know each other by now. I thought he would be hurt by my reproaches, but he kept silent, his face taking on a strange expression of sorrow and resignation.

  “Yes, yes, I think there is something to it,” he said, looking me in the eye. “But why not?…Why shouldn’t we know each other? Perhaps you don’t know me, but I know you. Years ago, when we were striving toward our big goal, you were charging straight ahead like an arrow. Now you’re different. You look to the side, you have your doubts, you hesitate. Yes, what we dreamed of several years ago doesn’t match entirely what we have now. We thought and believed that as soon as we took power, the people would rush into the new life whistling and singing. But it didn’t quite turn out like that. It turned out that not everybody thought like us. The struggles, the hesitations, the suffering began. But how could it be otherwise? You told me yourself many times that taking away private property is the biggest event in the history of mankind. That history has seen everything: hundred-year wars, and the change of epochs, revolution, the obliteration and creation of states, and what have you, but the confiscation of private property is happening for the first time. Twenty years ago in the Soviet Union, and now here in Bulgaria. This is the biggest revolution, all the others were some kind of reform, rebellions and nothing more. Our revolution has turned life on its head in order to completely renew it. Those are your words, my dearest brother, I’m quoting you. Since we’re advancing toward a complete renewal of life, how can we not run into some difficulties? We didn’t expect them to be quite this daunting, but since they’ve come crashing down on our heads we need to overcome them. You accuse me of using violence. Aren’t you mistaken when you call my vigilance to overcome the difficulties on the path to the new life ‘violence’? Fine, let’s say my vigilance is violence. But why am I ‘using force’? For myself, for my own benefit, or for the common good, the people’s benefit? You feel sorry for folks because they’re suffering. But why are they suffering? They’re suffering over their pitiful little strip of land, over their mangy livestock, over what’s ‘theirs.’ Isn’t private property the root cause of all of mankind’s suffering? I don’t mean to be throwing your own words back in your face, but you taught me that, too. You’ve read me books on that question…”

  Stoyan got up and started pacing around the room. His steps were slow and measured, as if on the edge of an abyss, and from time to time he would stretch his neck, as if the collar of his shirt were too tight. This tic showed that he could not suppress the storm welling up inside him, and that it would soon burst forth with all its force. To head off this storm, I got up to leave, but he caught up with me at the door and grabbed my shoulder: “Before you go, tell me how we’re going to reach our goal – socialism. We’ve discussed this question a hundred times, but I still haven’t understood which tactics you’re suggesting. Since you don’t approve of mine, that means you must have your own tactics. I’m listening, lay it on me.”

  I told him that it was both out of place and mistaken to speak of tactics in this case. The good we want to do for the people comes from the soul, and not from some set of tactics. Tactics are a strategic notion, a skill or resourcefulness to win a war, attain riches, win a contest, etc., thus they cannot give rise to goodness. Goodness is a moral category and is not the result either of laws or of ideas that come to a man from the outside, but from his essence, like water from a spring…

  He was standing before me strained and concentrated to the utmost, as if afraid to miss even a single sound, internal tension bl
azed in his eyes. But now, across his face, which had been frozen like a mask, ran a quiver of liveliness and that was a sign that he had guessed or he imagined that he had guessed my thoughts, even though I myself didn’t understand completely what exactly I wanted to tell him. We had spoken many times about the question of “tactics,” as he understood it, and I always got confused and never managed to express myself clearly and definitively. It was a question of carrying out in deed the revolutionary tasks the party had assigned to us, and on this question we had differing opinions. He rejected my opinion and in most cases never even heard me out. He interrupted me now again. He stretched out his right hand toward me like a sword, while his eyes flashed demonically.

  “I get it, I get it! Just as I thought – the old tactic of waiting and whining. Of liberalism and mercy. Even though you know very well that every revolution is made by a smaller or larger group of like-minded people called a ‘party,’ which is in this case our communist party. The party leads the majority onward, while to the majority it always seems that the party is moving far faster than necessary. That’s what revolution is. Whatever words you want to use to define it, that’s what it is – organizing the people and leading them onward toward something new and better for them, through difficulties, through suffering, and if need be, through blood. And you reproach me that I’m thin-skinned, painfully touchy and vengeful, that I don’t let anyone who dares insult me go unpunished. That’s how the party’s authority must be defended, so that a speck of dust does not fall on it. The party is never wrong, therefore it follows that the party secretary, when working under its instructions, is never wrong either. I am a soldier for the party and whatever it orders me to do, I do it. Now it wants me to reestablish the co-op at any price (at any price!) and I am obliged to act such that it is reestablished, even if I have to pay for it with my life. That’s why I want to recommend that you…”