And then, through parched lips, Dago asked me to look about to see if there wasn’t at least a drop of meths somewhere, because he had had a splitting headache since the events of the day before. And he remarked that whereas he had survived his first war thanks to music, this time it could be as a dancer, and next time he would certainly become a poet.
‘Ilya!’
‘What?’
‘That is, if there is a next time!’
I looked at my fully grown arms and legs, remembering how, one winter, Mr Cimbura had regretted I was still a shrimp and that I couldn’t go off through the snow to fetch him a bottle, after he’d talked himself hoarse with his yarns about Czechia…
‘Yes,’ Dago wheezed again, ‘the dinosaur egg might save Captain Yegorov from being court-martialled… Since if the egg did hatch into a dragon it would be seen as a magnificent victory for the armies of the Warsaw Pact, and Communism in general. Yes, an actual dragon could turn the situation in favour of the Soviets,’ the dwarf muttered, ‘and… we might meet someone else. What do you reckon, Ilya?’
An order was given and we stopped in the middle of a sun-scorched field, stretching away from the road to the dark knots of forest trees. I slithered off the tank and left Dago to his own devices… He didn’t know the Captain, but I did, so it was obvious to me that Yegorov had been puzzled by the egg and had picked it up for its very oddness, just as he picked up many other useless oddities from churches and cottages. He had subdued the little arrow-wielding boys with a command. Only if they gave him the egg would he accept them into the tank column. That’s how it’s done in an army. Dago’s just ignorant… I was happy we’d stopped. I’d had quite enough of the tank’s bumpy progress and Dago’s endless wittering. But I would still look around for a nip of something for the midget, I promised myself.
I passed along the column and exchanged greetings with the servicemen, acknowledging their salutations and shouts, and the soldiers were tightening their belts, and those who didn’t have helmets but caps on were mostly taking off their caps and putting on their helmets, because having your cap on meant taking a chance, and this close to Siřem no-one wanted to take chances. We expected that in a place where there was an inflammatory radio transmitter there’d also be armed men guarding it, and the soldiers in our column wanted to destroy that pocket of fanatical bandits once and for all. Many took advantage of the stop to put their arms and equipment in order, some were ambling about in the grey dust a few feet from the tanks, stretching their limbs, but they always remained vigilant. Unless the bandits had withdrawn for good… or perhaps surrendered to some other Soviet units… but we didn’t think that was very likely… We knew by now that Czechs don’t surrender. So we carried on as if they were all around us.
I got to the very end of the column, next to the cage with the wolf in it. This was where the camel boys were posted. That it was a wolf had been obvious to me when all those lights were blazing. I’d never have guessed that the first wolf I’d ever see would be such a wasted creature. It was cringing there on its pile of straw and blinking. I pulled a face at it, and narrowed my eyes to a squint and growled at it, but it didn’t react. Its coat was all thin and moulted, and it probably couldn’t care less that they’d taken away the egg it was keeping warm. Its eyes were all watery. I had to chuckle inside and thought to myself, ‘So this is Margash’s dad? And Margash’s country where we were both supposed to go… it was probably about as beautiful as this here father of his was strong and mighty… ha, ha, ha!’ I laughed at the wolf in a mighty voice, the kind of voice me and the boys had laughed in when we were making peace with the altar boys… Then one of the camel lads strolled over to the cage, and I pointed to the wolf and I said in Russian, ‘Is that your dad?’
‘Yeah,’ said the lad, and made to push something into the cage.
‘Is he the dad of all of you?’
‘Yeah.’ He nodded and looked at me, then he went off into some foreign language. He was younger and smaller than me. He had coarse black hair and his eyes were reduced to slits.
‘I don’t understand,’ I told him.
‘And who’s your dad?’ he asked in Russian.
‘My dad’s the military commander Captain Yegorov!’ I said, and the lad pursed his lips and nodded, saying, ‘Hmm…’ and I got to thinking he was, like, envious of me. He stuck his hand through the bars and tossed a mouse into the cage. The wolf’s mouth twitched. He bit the mouse in half and started chewing the spurting entrails and bristling skin.
I turned away and left. I hadn’t found any meths. Dago was gonna have to get by without. Perhaps he’ll give his tongue a rest, I thought to myself. If I’d had any inkling that I’d never see Dago again, I’d have thought something different.
I heard a shot, then another. Warning shots fired in the air. A group of women and children was coming towards us across the dusty field, their clothes grey with earth and dust… They were getting closer. Then they were quite close to the tank column. They were carrying sharpened sticks. They were poking in the soil… Captain Yegorov had probably left the egg in the inner recesses of the tank in the safekeeping of handpicked NCOs. He went up to the crowd of women and cowering children, looking around… and he was looking for me!.. I crawled through a gap in the tanks and followed my captain into the field, my tankman’s jacket flapping around me as if I were some longshirt, but I hadn’t been a longshirt for a pretty long time now… I followed the Captain, and the women made way for us, and they weren’t looking at us, and the Captain asked them things. He put the questions and I followed in his footsteps and said all the questions after him in Czech, which was dead easy. Captain Yegorov asked them, ‘Where are your men? Where are the bandits?’ and the women replied, ‘Neznaju,’ so there wasn’t anything for me to interpret. And suddenly I was standing in front of Mrs Kropek, and she was so grey in the face I wouldn’t have recognised her if she hadn’t said, ‘You poor blighter. They should’ve finished you off with a stick inside your mum’s belly, you double-crossing Tatar monkey!’ A girl stood next to Mrs Kropek, her face white and grey, and she was all haggard and worn, and I couldn’t believe I’d once had her warm and soft and firm breast in the palm of my hand… Mrs Kropek carried on swearing at me, and some of the women had stopped retreating from us and our questions. They were laughing… ‘You sodding treacherous little piece of Russian shit!’ Mrs Kropek went on at me, and she gave me more of the same. I was looking over her shoulder at Hanka, who just stared at the ground and hid behind her mum. ‘You twisted little rat!’ said Mrs Kropek said. ‘Go and die alone somewhere — and I hope it hurts, you filthy bastard!’ That was a curse and they all knew it in Siřem, but they should never have used it… Captain Yegorov came over to us, asking what the Czech woman was saying, so I told him she was hungry.
Captain Yegorov gave an order and the field kitchen was brought from the supply train, and the women and kids got some army rations, today’s gruel, and the whole grey crowd jostled around the kitchen, and we in the column were ordered back to our tanks, because Captain Yegorov had announced a midday break, and during the meal Captain Yegorov went about among the women and personally gave them second helpings, and carried on amiably asking his questions unaided, because the questions kept repeating themselves, the women already knew them, but they wouldn’t tell him nothing.