The two of us try to do it together. My brother laughs out loud. We take turns kicking it, shoving the crowbar along its edge. Finally it gives. The ditch is completely flooded, and water is spilling out. The smell isn’t that bad, and it doesn’t get any worse.
My father says there is no point draining a single ditch. “Everything is stopped up. The whole village must be stopped up by now. The problem isn’t here. There isn’t much we can do.” My father is very handy in situations like this. The truth is we’ve never had to call in a plumber or a painter or an electrician. I have no idea where he acquired these skills. You could easily assume he’d once worked in the sanitation department or with an electrician. For as long as I can remember, whenever that kind of problem came up, Father would roll up his sleeves and set about solving it and we, the three brothers, would follow him, as would-be apprentices trying to live up to their master’s high standards.
He stands there for a moment, leaning on his spade, looking this way and that, his eyes shining at the thought of the new challenge that has come his way. He looks up at the houses he’s built for us and says, “Lucky I used a provisional connection to hook you up to the sewage system. We saved money and I also knew it would save you unnecessary work. He smiles as he recalls how he managed to connect the whole system in a single night, laying out the pipes and connecting them to the parents’ house. He said at the time that there was no point paying the municipality more money and that, besides, that’s what everyone does. He did pay once, after all, and that should be enough.
So there is no blockage. The sewage is backing up, in fact, because the entire village is blocked. My father looks up from his spade, his face pensive as if trying to solve a complicated riddle, and he says, “There’s nothing we can do about it. We’ve got to block off the last drainage ditch, the one from the house to the central system. Let’s start out by doing that.” He shouts to my mother to come outside. She hurries out, wearing the kerchief usually reserved for days of mourning. Father instructs her to bring some plastic bags and the sack of gypsum from the storeroom. My mother hurries into the house and comes back with the supplies Father has asked for. Meanwhile, he brushes the sand off the last covering, the one closest to the road. One movement of Father’s hand is enough for my brother and me to understand he wants us to lift the lid. We both get into position. This time I am the one who looks for a place to insert the crowbar. Father watches disparagingly. I find the spot, shove it in with all my strength and give it a powerful kick, sending the crowbar up in the air. Father covers his head. I scurry backward.
“Are you a complete idiot?” he shouts. “Are you trying to kill us?” My younger brother laughs, picks up the crowbar and tries his luck. It works. He presses down, using his full body weight to dislodge the lid. It moves and I hurry to catch it from below before it slips back into place. “Yuck!” I say as I lift it up, my hands suddenly coated with green slime. I shake my head and rush home to wash my hands. But then I remember the water shortage and I’d better put it off till we’re through. “It’s just as well that you got yourself dirty,” my father says. “It’s about time.” The last ditch lets loose a stronger outpouring of sewage, with repulsive turds floating on top. I can’t hold back. I bend over and puke. My bones hurt, my face is flushed and I throw up again and again. I hold my hands as far away from my body as I can. My eyes are burning and filled with tears and my nose is running. There isn’t much I can do except wipe my face with the shoulder of my shirt.
“As long as you’ve gotten dirty,” my father says, and hands me a plastic bag filled with a white mixture, “shove your hand into the ditch and push this bag into the pipe that goes toward the street so we don’t wind up with the sewage of the entire village. Got that? Not the pipe going toward the house, the one going in the direction of the village.”
I retch one more time, making gagging sounds. It hurts as much as before but nothing comes out anymore. I can tell by my brother’s expression that he’s feeling very sorry for me, and he signals to let me know that he’ll do it instead. I shake my head and approach the ditch, where I see the sewage flowing in all directions. I bend over without thinking twice, my knees digging into the ground, which by now has turned into a smelly bog. With one hand I lean on the ground, and the other hand I push in, deep into the ditch. My entire arm is inside by now, as I grope for the pipe that Father was talking about. I find it easily, and keep pushing. My whole left arm is inside the pipe. My cheeks are up against the muck. I don’t think about it at all, don’t think about anything, just keep looking at my father, who stands there smiling and tries to speed things up, looking every bit the winner.
I proceed like a robot, tilting my face to the right to keep my mouth and eyes from touching the sewage. I shove the bag into the pipe and inform my father. I pull out my arm. It’s dripping wet, but I ignore that. My father hands me a bag slightly larger than the first one and says we need to insert one more to make sure it’s completely blocked. “It mustn’t flow back up from the ditch near the road.” I take it from him without a word and stoop back down, resuming the same position, my left arm reaching all the way in, my left cheek and whole body touching the ground. And I push the bag, which is harder to do because this one is larger.
“Now we’ve got to get the sewage out,” my father says, and hands me and my younger brother some black buckets.
“Pour it out in the road, or as close as possible to the road.” The sun is centered high above us, but we can’t stop now. We have to finish the job. Empty one ditch, the one that the sewage of the three neighboring houses will flow into. My brother and I take turns plunging the bucket into the ditch, and pulling it out when it’s full, moving a few steps back and pouring it as close as possible to the road near the house. A few of the neighbors see us and try to do the same, to deal with their own sewage problems. “Let’s see how long it takes them to figure out that they have to block off the pipe to the road first,” my father says, smiling his victory smile. My brother and I work continuously, without speaking, quickly, ignoring the heat and the stench. The level of the water in the ditch remains unchanged. My father walks over to the ditches we uncovered earlier. He studies the first, then the second, and announces loudly, “Excellent, it’s beginning to go down. Soon it will be over.”
I try to think about the new situation, the roadblock, and wonder if I should be listening to the news. Maybe they’ve found out something, maybe things have changed, but I can’t really concentrate on such things. My main concern now is to dump my bucket, which is full of muck. My father gets back in position. He calls out my mother’s name, and then, “Water!” at which she emerges with a glass of water in her hand. He complains it isn’t cold, spills it out, hands the glass back to her and asks for another. She reminds him that they no longer have a refrigerator and that she can’t make it any colder — which earns her a tirade from Father, who doesn’t care about anything right now, and she should have thought of it sooner. Everyone has to obey Father. Mother is his main victim, but at least she enjoys it. She adores him, loves him more than her own life. She’ll do anything to keep him from getting upset, and it isn’t that she’s afraid of him. Unlike us — we have always obeyed him to keep from being punished. I dash back and forth with the bucket, glancing at Father every now and then, to see if he is at least pleased with my hard work. But his face shows nothing.