448
PARTISAN REVIEW
He won't stay on the right, he said, and I can't steer him cause my
arm's broke. I was delivering some crates for the priest and the cart
turned over on me.
Who were you taking them to?
His - you know - his superior.
A light went on in my head.
Mr. Blaha slipped into the pantry for a beer, opened it against the
doorpost, and took a long swig. He enjoyed recalling the events,
watching them fit together; he took great pleasure in the logic events
acquire when a person can guide and control them.
So we made a quick U-turn. Next stop Father Superior.
Show us that crate, and be quick about it.
We opened it, and there they were: monstrances, vestments, gold
chalices - all neatly packed. We threw the crate in the car, the priest too,
and chugged merrily off to Khust to turn in the
corpora delicti .
I got a Letter of Commendation from Prague Headquarters for my
investigation of the Senevir fire.
We had five murders per year on the average. Blood feuds, mostly.
Once a man butchered another man with an ax during a wedding, and
all he got was two years: extenuating circumstances. The First Republic
was soft. We were dealing with a backward people, they said. President
Masaryk even abolished capital punishment.
He shouldn't have . Two years later the murderer came back from
prison and the brother of the man he'd murdered murdered him, and
he
landed in jail. And so it went as long as there were people left to mur–
der.
Mr. Blaha's once vigilant, now weary gaze shifted to the hut, and
screwing up his eyes he stared at it as though appraising its value.
One winter some women were plucking chickens in that hut when
suddenly they heard breaking glass and saw a window shatter. The bullet
lodged in the temple of a sixteen- year-old girl.
It was a real mystery. We knew who had guns for legitimate pur–
poses, but we had no way of finding out about illegal weapons.
It was a lead bullet, which made sense because there was a shooting
range nearby. We took careful measurements and went out onto the ve–
randa. There was a big crowd. I leaned against the bannister, peering
from face to face. One man dropped his eyes. I sent him over to the cart.
Just you wait.
I walked around the courtyard for a while, thinking, and it came to
me. I don't know how, I don't know why, but I went up to the well
and leaned against the side, staring down, thinking. I'd never done that
before, and suddenly there I was.
Whenever he reached this point, Mr. Blaha would experience an
