Chata, Mikušinec and Karel came in. They stood there in the kitchen and looked. We all had the same hairstyle. Mikušinec was gingery. The shortpants made fun of him. They said he had dirty hair. Karel and Chata were the tallest. Dýha was fat. Karel was bigger than Chata.
‘Here, have a drink,’ said Karel. ‘You’re a Bandit now, and we’ve decided to join the Legion.’
He handed me a small brown bottle.
‘Give it here,’ said Chata.
‘Hey, let him have a drink,’ said Karel. ‘He’s in shock.’
I was glad to be a Bandit. That was important. Chata reached out to grab the bottle, so I took a swig. My stomach heaved. It wasn’t as disgusting as tar water, though. The horrible clammy taste stuck my lips to the neck of the bottle. I carried on drinking.
‘You’ll make yourself puke,’ Chata told me.
I felt a bit like puking, but I had to laugh as well. I had turned up before them. Years before. The lads knew a lot. About how to do a runner. They knew a lot about Chapman Forest. But I was there when the Home from Home was a stately home. I started laughing again.
I emptied the bottle and dropped it on the floor. Someone opened the door. It was Páta. ‘Come,’ he said, ‘all of you.’
I went, though I kept falling about in a funny way. Karel dragged me along by the shoulder. By the kitchen there was some blood on the floor. I wanted to tell the lads it was the longshirts’ blood from when they were fishing for gherkins in the broken glass, but I couldn’t speak. My tongue kept flopping about.
4: The cellar again. My watch. They arrive
Now there were lots of candles in the cellar and lots of lads, including longshirts, and lots of shadows.
We went to the solitary cell, and Dýha shouted, ‘Is he blubbering?’
And Mikušinec shouted back, ‘Nah, he’s pissed!’
All the lads, crammed into the cellar next to the cell where Dýha was locked up, were laughing like mad, even the little longshirts, most of whom had pulled sweaters and anoraks over their nightshirts… But Šklíba and Martin weren’t laughing. They were shut up in one of the cubicles. They sat on a pile of papers and underneath them was a mouse kingdom, and the mice could come and get at them through all the little tunnels and runways they had dug, and they could get out through the bars too, because mice can… but the boys couldn’t.
They didn’t have a blanket or a bucket or a light bulb.
Šklíba was kneeling on the piles of paper, like you do in church, saying a Hail Mary… Martin said nothing, he was blubbering.
‘We’re gonna sentence them now,’ Karel whispered in my ear.
‘Quiet!’ shouted Dýha. ‘I declare this meeting of the Bandits open, because they stuck Ilya’s Monkeyface in the washer drum. Šklíba, shut it!’
But I never heard whether Šklíba stopped praying, and none of the others could have heard either, because the front door banged again, and voices and footsteps echoed through the Home from Home. Someone was pounding up the stairs, and suddenly I felt elated that things were back, back the way they had been! The others also thought the nuns were back, because the little longshirts let out a cry; they were all shouting now and suddenly thrusting their way out of the cellar. The youngsters pushed me and Karel to one side as they sloshed their way out through the cellar water. We ran after them, though I was a bit unsteady. I was the last and our shadows kept jumping. Mikušinec and Chata blew out the candles. After all, no-one could even imagine having candles in the cellar — it was forbidden! In the dark I could hear Šklíba mumbling something religious. I was the last to haul myself out of the cellar. There was no-one anywhere. Slowly I went upstairs, leaving the cellar behind me… and then I opened the front door. I was going to fetch Monkeyface, but I got a surprise!
Outside there was a little horse harnessed to a sleigh, and on the sleigh there was a pile of blankets. They’d come by sleigh! The villagers… I peeked under the sleigh, but Monkeyface wasn’t there. I kept looking for him! I craned upwards and saw the broken window, and I was trampling on the broken glass in the snow… There were no footprints any more; instead the snow had turned into black mud and everybody had been trampling in it. I went round to the little horse and then I got this stupid idea… the idea that the horse had been sent to me by Monkeyface, since he wasn’t lying there. But that was impossible! Sent for me to get in and let the sleigh take me to Shadowland, and my little brother would be waiting there for me… And then I heard, ‘What about that then, sonny?’ and I looked up and there in the sleigh sat Mr Cimbura, wrapped in blankets. He was looking at me, but I don’t think he recognized me. I always recognized him, though he was much older.
‘Some surprise, that, eh? When they took them penguins away, eh? Well, it had to come. I’m from peasant stock, sonny, and I served ’em for years. But now the people’s rule’s reached even us, here in Siřem, and the worker and the peasant shall eat from the nobleman’s plate. Listen, where did the silly bitches hide their gold crosses and pyxes? Their vestments and stuff? The valuables? Do you know?’
‘They didn’t take them with them,’ someone somewhere behind me said. It was Mr Holasa, and behind him was Mr Kropek. I don’t think they recognized me. When the Home was the manor house I was little, and the villagers couldn’t tell one child from another if it wasn’t their own. But I knew who they were.
From lying in his blankets Mr Cimbura sat bolt upright, looking silly, and he said, ‘I’m interrogating this youngster here, see.’
‘Is that you?’ Mr Holasa asked me, so I knew he had recognized me.
‘I’m Ilya, sir.’
‘What sort of a name’s that? You some sort of little Russky?’ Mr Holasa punched me in the shoulder.
‘Little Russky be damned!’ Mr Cimbura croaked. ‘What’s in a name?’
Mr Kropek was also looking at me. He put out a hand and tapped me on the shoulder by way of saying hello.
‘Otherwise they’re all little Russkies, Asians, and lots of gippos!’ said Mr Holasa, and he rifled around in the blankets on the sleigh, Mr Cimbura shifting out of the way.
Mr Holasa got some wire-cutters and a hammer from under the blankets and handed them to Mr Kropek. Then he fished out some wire-cutters and an axe for himself, and they went inside the Home from Home.
‘I’ll finish interrogating this youngster,’ Mr Cimbura called, but they ignored him. The little horse looked straight at me. I dodged, but his head still followed me…
‘Don’t worry, I’ll tell them,’ I said to the horse…
‘I knew it!’ said Mr Cimbura. ‘You know where those holy cows hid it all, don’t you, sonny? We won’t let on to anyone else. Here.’ Mr Cimbura leaned out of the sleigh and handed me two squares of chocolate. I wolfed them down at once, and the vile taste of alcohol still in my mouth was sliced through by the fabulous sweetness. I ate it all myself. I wouldn’t have to share things ever again.
‘I can’t help it that he’s dead!’ I cried.
‘’Course not, sonny. Just tell me where they put it.’
‘He wanted to. He did it himself!’ I said.
‘Of course, sonny. I know. I’ll testify for you,’ said Mr Cimbura and he gave me another piece of chocolate…
‘He wasn’t any use and they didn’t like him,’ I said. ‘All the time he wanted to die and he couldn’t.’ I swallowed and my belly was full of sweetness… and the little horse snorted and pawed the ground, raising his head and looking at me. Oh no. Tears started streaming down my cheeks, and I’d been so proud when Mikušinec had shouted down there in the cellar that I wasn’t blubbing. Ha! And there I was blubbering. ‘I don’t think it hurt him much,’ I said, and the little horse snuffled warmly at my ear.