I spent a few hours walking and slipping into character. For three days I had been speaking and thinking in Greek and now I had to shift mental gears and switch to the strain of Bulgarian spoken in Macedonia. I have been fluent in the language for several years, and it was only a question of making the proper mental adjustment. Languages have always come easily to me, and the more languages a person knows, the easier it is to add another to the string. All it takes is time.
And time is one commodity of which I am rarely in short supply. My endless insomnia has meant rather more to me than the $112 a month partial disability payment the Army graciously pays me. It has meant that I have at my disposal a full twenty-four hours a day, not the usual sixteen or so. Such an abundance of waking hours permits one to learn any number of languages and embrace any number of lost causes.
Here too a mental adjustment was required. I had spent time with Greek members of the Pan-Hellenic Friendship Society and was now heading toward members of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization. The Pan-Hellenists dreamed of a restoration of the old Greek empire, while the IMRO comrades pledged their lives to the vision of a Macedonia free and independent, independent not only of Yugoslavia but of Greece as well. My Pan-Hellenist brothers and my IMRO brothers would have cheerfully slit one another’s throats.
By midmorning the rain had let up entirely. I practiced my Bulgarian on a succession of peasants who carried me a few miles each in donkey carts. I flashed IMRO signs at each of them. One or two seemed to recognize the signs but chose to ignore them, but ultimately a bull-necked goatherd with a thick brown moustache offered the appropriate countersign, and I gave him an abbreviated version of who I was and where I wanted to go.
“Evan Tanner,” he said. “Who made the revolution in Tetovo.”
“Yes.”
“Todor Prolov will rejoice in your arrival.”
“Todor died in the revolution. When the Serb troops crushed the revolutionary spirit of the people of Tetovo, Todor was killed.”
“But his sister Mischa lives-”
“His sister is Annalya.”
“Ah. As I have never seen you before, a test was in order. You bear me no resentment?”
“I am not the sort to resent caution.”
He took a wedge of cheese from a sack in the back of his cart and cut sections for each of us. We washed down the cheese with resinous wine. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and asked in a whisper if I planned to start another rebellion.
“It is not time,” I said.
“I agree. We must gather our forces. One may be impatient for open revolution, but in the meantime we put thorns in the side of the Belgrade dictatorship. An act of sabotage, an assassination – it is better to provoke, to sting like a hornet, for the time being. You agree?”
“I do.”
“And you go where? To Tetovo?”
“Yes.”
“For a special purpose?”
“To see my son,” I said. I dug out the sketch and unfolded it. “My son,” I said.
He studied it, nodded. “A good likeness.”
“You’ve seen him?”
“Who has not? It is said that one day he will lead Macedonia.” He looked at the sketch, then at me. “A strong resemblance. But Annalya and the boy no longer live in Tetovo. The authorities… it would be unsafe. They are in a village not far from Kavadar. You know where that is?”
“More or less.”
“I will take you there.”
“Can you get me across the border?”
“The border?” He began to laugh. “The border?” He made fists of his hands and pounded them against his meaty thighs. “The border? Because Greeks and Serbs draw an imaginary line across the heartland of Macedonia, does this mean that there is a border? Because despots and oppressors string barbed wire and post sentries, does this constitute a border?” He shook with laughter. “This border,” he roared, “should not concern you.”
The border obviously did not concern the goatherd. His first impulse was to round up a crew of comrades and raid a border post, killing a few sentries and opening up a hole in the border wide enough to march an army through. It was such acts of provocation, he explained, that kept nationalist spirit keen. I managed to talk him out of it, arguing that such a stir would make it more difficult for me once inside Yugoslavia. He agreed reluctantly.
“So we will find a place where the crossing may be managed with ease,” he said. “We will be no more than a pair of stupid goatherds with our flock. Does a goat know of borders and barbed wire? A goat knows only that he must graze where he may. And once across the border, we shall turn the goats over to a friend, and I shall lead you to where Annalya lives.” His broad face split in a smile.
“By nightfall,” he said, “you will be holding your son upon your knee.”
Chapter 2
By nightfall I was holding my son upon my knee.
And what a grand son he was! The sketch, however accurate in details and dimensions, had not done him justice at all. Charcoal could not capture the sweet animation of him, the sparkle of his dark eyes, the glow of his pink skin, the way his little hand curled around my finger with such strength and determination. The way he kicked and cried, the way he yawned in slow motion, the way he sucked methodically upon his thumb. The way he giggled foolishly when I, like a fool, made idiot faces at him.
“He is a healthy baby,” Annalya said. “And very strong.”
“How old is he?”
“Almost six months.”
“He looks big.”
“He is big for his age. And so fat.”
Little Todor giggled at me again. His dark eyes focused upon a spot a few feet in back of my head, then gradually zoomed in until he was staring intently at my nose.
“He likes me,” I said.
“Of course. You are surprised?”
“I think he recognizes me.”
“But of course he knows you. You are his father.”
“He’s a wise child,” I said.
We sat cross-legged on the earthen floor of a little one-room hut a few miles outside of Kavadar. Annalya and Todor shared the hut with a childless peasant couple. The old woman had cooked supper for us, and then she and her husband had slipped out of the house to spend a few days with relatives a mile or two down the road. A few thick logs smoked on the hearth. The fire cast a shallow glow over my son and his mother.
Motherhood seemed to agree with Annalya. Her long blond hair shone in the firelight. She leaned forward suddenly to wipe the corners of little Todor’s mouth, and my eyes took in the rich curves of her full body, the full breasts bobbing braless beneath her heavy sweater, the lines of hip and thigh. I remembered the feel of that fine body beneath me on the night of young Todor’s conception.
“Todor Tanirov,” I said solemnly.
“You approve of his name?”
“Completely. He is named for a hero.”
“He is named for two heroes,” she said, and touched my arm. “But I will have to keep his patronym a secret when the boy goes to school. If the authorities knew his parentage, there would be trouble.” She sighed. “But when he is of age and when he rallies the people of Macedonia to his side, then he shall call himself Todor Tanirov.”
The subject of all this speculation began fussing. I picked him up, held him over my shoulder, patted him dutifully upon the back. Instead of burping, he cried all the louder.
“A conspirator,” I said, “should cry in whispers.”
“He is hungry. Let me have him.”
I handed over the crying infant, and she opened her sweater and presented him with a breast. It was immediately evident that this was precisely what the lad had in mind. His little mouth fastened upon the nipple, his hands positioned themselves on either side, and he nursed greedily.