60
PARTISAN REVIEW
gave me food to eat, and poured me drinks. Lord knows how much of
the potent Polish moonshine,
bimber,
we consumed. Those were happy
times. Today I would not dare stick my nose in the door, speaking Rus–
sian, in either Warsaw or Lublin. Nor in Prague. Yet at the time every–
one was smiling as they stared at my epaulets and filled me up with if not
bimber,
then with the heady Czech beer. I do not know what or with
whom Russian officers stationed in "fraternal" Poland drink today. I
haven't a clue as to what they think and talk about, as they slosh down
the customary half-liter of vodka. But I am confident that they will
never be the Poles' drinking partners.
Today, I have an Afghan friend who fled from his country. He stud–
ied for ten years in Moscow, got a graduate degree there, befriended
Russians, and came to love them and even sang with them, "May mother
and the sun alway exist." But now, he remarked bitterly, these same
Russians kill our mothers and blot out the sun. Everyone hates Russians,
without exception.
In
the past they loved them. Listening to this, your
blood curdles. The "birch boy," the innocent Russian stripling, has
become an occupier. He coats a village with napalm, destroying people's
eyesight. My friend's eight-year-old daughter has undergone treatment
for some time. They sprayed a school and then announced that the
victims had been marauders. The "birch boy" sows death everywhere,
without even crawling out of his tank, chucks tiny mines in the shapes of
wristwatches and toys from his helicopter. The mines do not kill but
they maim. And at night the "birch boys" pillage stores, look for
cigarettes, and trade AK-47s for hashish. That's right, hashish. The great
"birch boy" is now a drug addict; alcohol doesn't get the job done any
more. And he is always hungry, wants to eat.
We underestimate the power of Soviet propaganda, the hypnotic
effect of newsprint. No one believes anything anymore, but the lies enve–
lop you, creeping into your bloodstream. Nineteen-year-old Vanka,
wearing a starred army cap, really believed that the Americans and the
"slant-eyes" coveted our neighbors. Later, when he has seen a thing or
two, he turns into a nasty, hungry animal, trading his machine gun for
hashish, after he has used it as a weapon. Against whom? Who knows?
They give the orders, and he shoots. Prisoners are not taken in
Afghanistan, they are shot. By both sides. Which is why no one surren–
ders.
We did not suffer from such ambiguity. We knew who our enemy
was, that he was cruel and strong, and that he had attacked our country.
