“WHY ME?” Kovel whines. “I keep my nose clean. I don’t never say nothing political. What did I do to deserve this?”
He casts a long fearful glance toward the back seat, where the Dwarf’s dog, Dog, is curled up in a silky brown tangle. (In the shadows, there is no way to tell head from tail.) “And what in god’s name am I going to do with a dog that farts all day?”
“Dog’s the least of our problems,” the Racer tells him absently. Totally absorbed, he stares out the front window of the car, focusing on the raindrops running down the glass. Kovel reaches into the glove compartment for the windshield wipers and climbs out to put them on. When he gets back in, he runs them three or four times. As the world comes back into focus, Tacho snaps out of his reverie.
“How did the Dwarf know they were coming for him?” he asks.
“Someone telephoned — one of his circus friends, maybe,” Kovel guesses. “He got a lot of friends, you know. He slammed down the receiver and dumped that damn dog of his in my arms and pushed me out the door and told me to watch the house from the next block and if anything happened to find you.”
“Well, you found me,” Tacho mutters glumly. He reaches back and feels the dog’s shirred flesh stir warmly under his touch.
Kovel runs the windshield wipers again. “He said for me to give you a message.”
“What message?” the Racer demands. Kovel chews on his lip and Tacho shakes his elbow impatiently. “What message?”
Kovel peers into the Racer’s face. “Run.”
“That’s all — just run”
“He told me to tell you to run,” Kovel repeats softly.
The Racer thinks for a moment. “How long after you left did they come?”
“Twenty minutes maybe. Twenty-five on the outside. Three cars and a paddy wagon. Oh sweet Jesus, them poor little girlies started bawling like it was the end of the world when they seen the wagon waiting for them.”
“I wonder if Angel warned — “
“He never came out, you know.”
“What do you mean he never came out?”
“He never came out.” Kovel’s eyebrows arch up. “I passed an ambulance coming up the hill when I was going down.”
Tacho collapses against the window. “He said he would never let them do that to him,” he remarks weakly.
On the corner a horn sounds. Tacho looks around. They are parked on a side street off Don Dukov, which is clogged with morning rush-hour traffic. “I’ve got to try and warn the others,” he says urgently. “Wait here.”
Oblivious to the rain, which is light but steady, Tacho crosses the street to a workers’ lunchroom with a bank of telephone booths along one wall.
“The trouble is I never like nothing from Column B,” a middle-aged man is yelling in the first booth. “Can you hear me now?”
A young woman is reading from notes in the second booth. “Disintegration of the ozone layer. Right. Thickening of the polar ice cap. Right. Drying up of the monsoons. Right. Slowing down of the earth’s — “
In the third booth, an old man is studying a pocket chessboard. “Bishop to rook three,” he says. “Same time tomorrow?” The old man smiles savagely as he hangs up, and tells Tacho happily:
“He was expecting probably pawn to queen’s knight five! Ha! Life is full of its little surprises.”
The Racer settles into the booth, leaning against the folding glass door as he tries to collect himself. All around the telephone are scribbled numbers: “Zlatarov 90.25.14” and “Kitka 38.16.16” and “GG 24.12.56” and “Airport Inter 27.27.07.” He dials Valyo’s apartment. There is a strange clicking noise, and then nothing. The same thing happens a second time. Tacho retrieves his coin and dials the Flag Holder’s number. A man answers, and Tacho hangs up immediately. An old woman taps impatiently on the glass door with a coin, but Tacho turns his back on her and tries Octobrina’s number. The phone rings four, five, six, seven times. He is about to hang up when Octobrina answers.
“Octobrina,” Tacho blurts out, cupping the mouthpiece with his hand.
“They’re here,” she tells him with measured dignity, “they’re on the earpiece, so don’t say where you — “
Octobrina gives a sharp cry of pain and the phone clicks dead.
The old woman is tapping on the booth again, and Tacho turns on her, trembling. “What do you want?” he yells, his face livid, and she backs away in fright.
Tacho frantically dials Octobrina’s number, but there is a busy signal. He tries again, and again there is a busy signal. On a hunch, he dials his own number. On the first ring a man answers.
“Yes?”
“Who’s this?” Tacho demands.
“The Racer,” the man says casually. “Who’s this?”
“This is the Flag Holder,” Tacho replies, and he chops down with his forefinger to sever the connection.
The old woman with the coin is still there as Tacho emerges from the booth. “What do you want?” she mimics. “What do you want? What I want is to use the phone, what do you think I want?”
Tacho brushes past her without replying, and she follows him onto the street. “Rude is what you are, all you young people,” she shouts, her voice rising hysterically. “Rude, rude, rude.” People turn to stare at Tacho. “You’re nobody,” the old woman flings after him. “You think you’re somebody, but you’re nobody.”
At the taxi, Kovel waits nervously, both hands gripping the steering wheel. “Did you get anyone?” he wants to know.
Tacho slides in, ignoring the question. “There still may be time to find Atanas,” he says. “He was supposed to work the morning shift — he may be on the streets.”
They begin cruising the side streets off Hristo Botev near the Russian Monument: Mihailov first, then Hadfrdimov, then Blagoev. As they swing into Hristo Botev again, Tacho touches Kovel’s elbow.
“Slow down,” he orders. “Look — next to the cinema.”
A uniformed militiaman is on duty in front of the Lamplighter’s print shop, and two workmen in overalls are boarding up the plate-glass window, which has been splintered. People on their way to work stare curiously, and the militiaman motions for them to go on about their business.
“Maybe Popov’s gone home already,” Kovel ventures after a while. “Maybe — “
“Pull up,” Tacho yells excitedly, and before the taxi comes to a stop he bolts from it and dashes back to the corner they have just passed to look down Košut. A garbage truck, surrounded by three or four police cars, is blocking traffic halfway down the block. Popov stands with his back to the truck; his hands, manacled at the wrists, droop in front of him,. A militiaman is grilling him harshly, but Popov, who wears the uniform of a garbage collector, stares back at him with great serenity. Tacho is suddenly sure that he has turned off his hearing aid. Another militiaman kneels nearby, inspecting the contents of a small canvas sack; he lifts each item and lays it on the sidewalk. There is something made of stained glass, a rolled-up canvas, a stuffed bird, an oval picture frame, a toy airplane. A civilian looks down at the collection, touching with the toe of his shoe each item as he checks it against a list in a pocket ledger. Women with their hair in curlers lean from the windows of the surrounding apartment buildings (daylight arrests are rare; they will have something to tell their husbands) until a detective looks up at them; instantly the heads retract and the windows slam down, the shades right after them.
“What did he do with all that junk he collected?” Kovel asks— he has come up behind the Racer to see what is going on.
They turn and walk back to the taxi. “He made lists of what he found and read them to us every day … Octobrina said he was taking inventory of his epoch.”
“Inventory of his epoch,” Kovel snickers, “that’s a laugh.”
“It’s no joke, friend. His lists were his poems. They destroyed his real poetry during the period of the cult of the personality. After that, Atanas wasn’t able to invent images, so he rummaged for them in garbage cans. The things he collected he brought to his apartment. Octobrina said he had a whole wall papered with pages from some old bankbooks he found. He was a beautiful, brave, lost old man.”
“What are we going to do?” Kovel asks once they are back in traffic. He himself is calm now, almost resigned.
“Take me up to Vitoša,” Tacho tells him, looking toward the mountain. “Then you go to militia headquarters and turn yourself in. You weren’t involved with us, and they’ll probably go easy on you.”
“Oh, Jesus, you think so?” Kovel grasps the straw eagerly. “You think they’ll understand I’m only just a taxi driver with a yearlong fare?”
“I think they’ll understand, yes,” Tacho reassures him. To his own ear, he doesn’t sound very convincing.
Kovel drives down Hristo Botev, then turns into Aleksandâr Stam-bolijski. Behind them police sirens wail. Kovel casts a frightened look into the rearview mirror. As the taxi turns onto Avenue Vitoša, the first police car screeches to a stop in front of the Hotel Balkan. A crowd is gathering at the foot of the steps leading to the hotel, and the militiamen have to shoulder their way through it to the entrance.
Trapped in the great revolving door with the corroded brass handles and the gold lettered “BAL AN” in English on the glass is the Mime. His white pancake make-up is flaking off; patches of pink skin appear like freckles. Faces press in on him from either side of the glass. One of the militiamen hefts his handcuffs. The Mime reaches up and starts slapping his palms against the glass as if to see how far it extends. His eyes grow panicky. His hand motions become quicker. He searches wildly for an opening, a door, a window, a crack, but there is nothing but solid glass. Eyes bulging in terror, he scratches at it with his nails. His fingertips begin to bleed. Backing into the narrowest corner of the door, the Mime opens his mouth and screams a silent scream that makes the faces pressing in on him wince.
“You need money, clothes — “ Kovel says.
The taxi is parked at the end of a dead end street high on Vitoša; according to a nearby billboard, garden apartments will be constructed here as part of an intensification of the state building program.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Kovel yells excitedly. He races around to the trunk compartment and pulls out a bag full of sweaters. “I got them from a guy who got them from his wife’s sister, who works in a sweater factory. Here” — Kovel holds one up against Tacho’s chest to check the size— “I got to get rid of these before I go to the militia anyhow.”
Tacho takes off his jacket and pulls the sweater over his head. Then he puts the jacket on again. When he reaches for his wallet, Kovel grabs his hand by the wrist. “Listen, no, wait a minute,” he exclaims, shaking his head in embarrassment.
The Racer offers his hand to Kovel. “We won’t meet again. You have been a friend to all of us. For that, thank you.”
Kovel accepts Tacho’s hand. “You really think they’ll understand?” he asks again. He is anxious to be rid of the Racer, and afraid to see him go, so he holds on to his hand for a moment.
Tacho nods and backs off a step. “Dovizdane” He waves, and turns into the fields. Before he is lost from view, high up at the tree line, Kovel can see that he has started to run.