BOYS

There were days the two boys left the house in the morning and didn’t return again until they were ravenous for dinner. They talked about what could be caught in the woods and what were the most effective ways of killing.

They agreed ducks on the lake would be easy. Sava could use a stone to bash out the brains and Milan would pluck off the feathers and pull out the guts. They could roast the duck and sleep in the boatshed. One night they wouldn’t return late in the evening, as they sometimes did, so hungry that they ate like animals—almost directly from the hands giving them food. No plates, cutlery or a place in their stuffed mouths for ‘thanks’. They wouldn’t return until the next morning and everyone would be astounded by the two boys when they ambled back to Uncle Stefan’s mansion.

Sava and Milan walked by the abattoir and decided they would go and see how the cows were killed. They heard the noise the animals made as they were herded within steel barricades and the grunts as they were harassed by shouting men through to slaughter. They saw the blood pooled on the ground near the windowless building’s walls. The smell was worse than anything they might have seen, making them gag as they approached. The two boys persuaded themselves they had better things to do than watch cows slump to a concrete floor.

Uncle Stefan’s property was ringed by closely planted horse-chestnut trees that marked the boundaries of his land. The two boys climbed up the tall trunks most mornings and walked across the domed crown of stout branches at the top as though the dense foliage were part of a long green cloud floating near the ground. They had been best friends for three years and sometimes didn’t need to talk for hours. Both felt stronger, braver and brighter simply being in each other’s company. Walking all the way around Uncle Stefan’s property made them feel as if they were princes of a vast kingdom that they would soon inherit.

After the abattoir they made their way along a path that led them towards the lake. Before they got to the water they discovered a flock of geese in the middle of the road. They ran towards the birds, yelling and waving their arms to make them scatter. They were city children so they weren’t aware that a flock of geese wouldn’t get frightened as other birds did. The geese raised their heads high, hissing like twenty furious cobras.

Sava and Milan found themselves stumbling into the flock. They fell to their hands and knees. Getting to their feet again wasn’t easy. The beaks of the geese hit rapidly from above, again and again. The birds knew to strike for the faces of the two boys. Feathers fanned out around them—a wild white movement that created blindness and a total confusion of the senses. Birds from behind the front ranks of geese were diving in as well, so for a few moments it felt as if the world were imploding in a blizzard of white violence.

Sava and Milan burst through the wall of feathers and began running, yelling as they paddled their arms. Geese won’t give chase as dogs will, yet the boys kept going until they were exhausted. They had run down a path that led to a farmhouse. The building looked dilapidated and they assumed no-one lived there.

Wildly exhilarated, they charged at the chicken coop and ripped out its walls of mesh, wanting to scatter the chickens. The birds huddled and awaited their fate, no matter how the boys yelled or stamped their feet. Milan and Sava couldn’t summon the courage to even kick these stupid birds, so they snatched up the eggs that they found in the coop and started throwing them, chasing each other through the farmyard of Mr Vukovich, a supervisor at the nearby abattoir.

Mr Vukovich was home. He heard the commotion and stepped out onto his front porch with a rifle. He didn’t question why two boys he’d never seen before had destroyed his chicken coop or why they were throwing his eggs around the front yard. He fired his rifle into the air above their heads and reloaded as the stunned boys stood stock still.

‘You brats are about to meet the fucking devil. Mumble and whisper whatever shit is in your souls now, for God or his weeping angels to believe, because you’re about ready to descend to the fucking fires of hell.’

Men had always spoken to Sava and Milan with a degree of civility. Even when they were angry, adults talked to them as though they were children. Mr Vukovich spoke as if he were more familiar with speaking to petrified animals.

He levelled the rifle and was about to shoot when Sava began running.

Milan didn’t move. He had an unbroken egg in one of his hands and he lifted it as an offering. His eyes were large and wet. He looked like a child who had been bad and hoped he would be excused in the ways he’d been forgiven in the past.

Mr Vukovich walked down the sagging wooden steps from his front porch and over to the remaining boy. He took the unbroken egg.

‘Can you smell the fucking brimstone, you little cunt?’ Mr Vukovich asked loudly with the same harsh voice as he gave the top of Milan’s skull a brutal tap with the metal barrel of the rifle. Milan shook his head, nodded, and then wobbled as the piss ran down his thighs in a hot gush.

Sava didn’t run straight to Milan’s uncle. He hid in the woods, first in a hollow tree and then in the boathouse by the lake. He scurried here and there, thinking that the man with the rifle would find him at any moment. It was long past nightfall by the time he returned to the mansion.

Milan’s uncle had already gone to bed. The cook had left food out on the kitchen table for Sava and Milan. Sava was so hungry he ate both plates. He should have told Milan’s uncle what had happened but he’d been afraid for so many hours that he went to the guestroom he and his best friend were using and fell asleep far more quickly than he would have expected.

In the morning, Milan wasn’t in bed and it hadn’t all been a nightmare. Sava was still in his clothes from the day before. There were marks from the broken eggs and there was a feather from the geese as well as smears of mud from the woods. Sava changed his clothes and washed his face and hands.

He kept looking at Milan’s empty, unmade bed. Sava could see the shape of the body in the pillow and sheets. He sat down on the edge of the bed. His best friend kept books on the bedside table so he could read before going to sleep and as soon as he awoke in the morning. Sava liked to read as well, but he kept all his books at home because what he was interested in was history and archaeology, and he never felt like reading that kind of thing unless he was alone.

He picked up one of the books. Milan had already told Sava what it was about. A man woke up one morning to find he was a huge insect. It was dog-eared near the beginning but there were fold marks in the corners of the book right through because Milan had already read it twice before. He’d tried to get his best friend to read it but Sava said it was ridiculous. How could a man be transformed into anything other than what he already was?

He took a breath and was now ready to talk to Milan’s uncle about the events at the cottage. He left the guest room ready to raise hell for his best friend but Milan was sitting at the kitchen table, eating breakfast. He had a few bruises, scrapes and some swelling on his face and arms. Uncle Stefan said it was a shame they had fought but he was sure the boys would make up. Boys fight all the time, he told the cook before he went out to tend to his orchards.

They didn’t talk again for hours. Milan went to the guest room and lay in bed without moving. He didn’t cry as far as Sava could hear and he didn’t touch the books on his bedside table. Sava offered to read one of them to him. He was told to go away.

The next day they boarded the train that would take them back to their families in Belgrade. Every minute they travelled, the silence became more unbearable.

Sava said, ‘I’m sorry I ran away, Mish. I’m so, so, so sorry.’

Milan said, ‘I don’t blame you for that, Sava. I don’t know why I didn’t run as well. I wish I had. I really, really wish I had run with you.’

Sava was leaning forward. Their knees weren’t too far away from touching. Sava leaned back into his seat.

‘But I’m still sorry he beat you.’

‘We probably deserved a beating. He ate those eggs every day and we destroyed his chicken coop for no reason.’

The silence went on and Sava could see Milan had not forgiven him even though he seemed so reasonable.

Sava leaned forward again and said, ‘I really am sorry for running away, Mish.’

Milan said, ‘I don’t care about that. You ran away. Of course you did.’ One of his books was open on his lap. His eyes had not left its pages and he looked as if he were reading his responses. ‘You didn’t come back. You didn’t bring help.’

The train wasn’t going to reach its destination until the next morning. They sat on opposite sides of the cabin looking out the window until it became so dark outside that they could see only their reflections. Milan got another one of his books out but he didn’t turn the pages of this novel either.

Sava closed his eyes and let the train rock him into dozes. He woke from them with starts when the train shuddered. Milan continued to gaze at his open book.

The train stopped at a station that wasn’t much more than a platform. No-one got off the train and no-one got on. There was a small wooden structure about as tall and narrow as a phone booth. A sign told them it was Jabukovac station.

It was dark, yet from what they could see, there weren’t even roads let alone buildings in Jabukovac. A stand of tall trees was all that was there, leaves unbothered by wind in the glow of the station’s one light bulb.

Insects bumped around blindly in that small sphere of light outside the window. Sava thought that they should be sleeping but the light at Jabukovac station dragged them from their insect sleep and forced them into a somnambulist’s hell of eternal wandering. They didn’t live longer than a few days. A night like this, under the spell of that electric salvation, was an entire world for them—perpetually about to come alive in a false dawn that lasted most of their brief lives.

‘I came back,’ Sava said. He couldn’t look at Milan so he stared at the meaningless sign outside their window and those bewildered insects. ‘It wasn’t easy. I was so scared I couldn’t think. I should have gone straight home and told your uncle. But I came back to the cottage.’ The train vibrated and its engines rumbled for a few minutes—then shuddered and returned to silence.

Sava needed to run but all he could do was sit in the motionless train. He said, ‘I heard you. I could tell by the way you were wailing that he wasn’t around. The sound—going on as though nothing could help it or stop it. I couldn’t move for the longest time.’

The train’s lights flickered and Sava worried they would die and leave the two of them in total darkness. Sava said, ‘It was a hollow sound and I knew it had to be coming from that man’s well. I lowered the rope down the hole and I whispered though I suppose you couldn’t hear me over that noise you were making. I got so worried that he would catch me whispering or he would come out because you were making that noise.’

Milan was moving as he listened, his hands rubbing at his eyes and cheeks as if he were washing his face. He was silent, yet Sava wasn’t sure if his friend could hear him.

‘I looked up and there he was, sitting in a rocking chair on his porch, in the shadows. I could hear that explosion like we heard earlier. I was still standing there and I suppose I imagined the sound of his rifle. The silence went on and I started breathing again. He didn’t move and I realised as I blinked at him that he wasn’t watching and waiting. He was asleep in his rocking chair.’

Milan said, ‘Maybe that’s why he threw me into his well instead of just “putting me down”, as he said he was going to do. And then falling asleep as he waited in ambush for you to come back for me.’ Milan stopped washing his face with his dry hands and tilted his head up so he could look at his best friend. ‘He was a lot older and weaker than he seemed standing on his porch with that rifle. The hunting knife we were going to use at the lake was just sitting there on his porch.’

The engines began turning again. After a few more moments the train began to move. Sava looked out at Jabukovac station and noticed a large bird sitting in one of the trees. It was far enough away from the light to not be illuminated. Its head moved as the locomotive came to life again. The creature was the size of large baby or a small boy sitting on a branch. A huge bird really, and not too far away. A flash from its large eyes made Sava realise it was an owl and it stunned him that it had been sitting there for the entire time the train was halted without either him or his best friend noticing.