446
PAlUlSAN REVIEW
Ol1e brother was wounded by machine-gllH fire; he was given a tobaccollist's
shop in Plzen after the war. I was shot ill the Jace by an Allied soldier, but
tht
bullet went through both my cheeks and out again.
Despite his good aim I must have been meant to stick it out and see it all.
The bullet passed right through me, and I've never stopped wondering why.
In
'38, '50,
'54,
I couldn't get that shot out oj my mind. Why did it go Ollt
way al1d not the other? Why did it desert me? It was in my mouth, it tore
my
teeth apart. It wanted to stay; they wOllldn't let it.
When I came home Jrom the war, there was mother with five little clril–
dren. I had to be aJather to thel'l'I. It wasn't easy. The Legiortnaires were back
by then, and I could,1't find a job . I applied at the cOllrthouse arid the post
0f–
fice, bllt they both tllmed me down. Thol in
'21
we were mobilized to fight
the Commlmists in Slovakia. They were recrrliting gendarltles, and I passed
tilt
exaltlS al1d spent fifteen years in the SIIbcarpathial1 Ukraine. It was hard work,
but I soon kl'lew my way arollnd . We introduced our system, our buildillg
codes, all our ways oj doing things. We had to be teachers, lawyers, doctors .
My
village was Jourteen kilometers long, alld we had practically no records to go Oil.
AJter the war twenty to twel1ty-JIve percent oj the population sliffered from
syphilis, but they didn't want to be treated. We had to Jorce childrell to go to
school and parents to attend the literacy courses we set lip. Rllssian ill tire
Cyrillic alphabet was the official langllage. Everything had to be written
ill
two
langllages
.
And
if
you didn't leam a little Yiddish al1d Hllngariar1 besides, YOII
were il1 trollble.
Mr. Blaha got up to look for his favorite picture. Whenever he
thought of Subcarpathia, he went and stared at that picture. For years it
had hung opposite their beds; now it was gone - all that was left was a
fuzzy black square. The furniture too was just an outline on the walls: a
wardrobe and the heads of the two beds - perhaps to show Death what
belonged where .
Where is the house?
Flooded with water.
Where is the water?
Drllnk by the oxen.
Moving through the creaky rooms, Mr. Blaha patted the old
wardrobe, now standing away from the wall, torn from the place where
in the last quarter of a century it must have set down roots. He skirted a
pile of odds and ends, then salvaged an old razor from it. He was always
salvaging something.
He found the picture leaning against the wall.
It
was wrapped in
paper and tied with a string, ready for the move. The gendarme carefully
undid his wife's knots and unwrapped the picture as he would a wet
baby. Then he took it into the kitchen and closed the door to keep the
