Nikolai's room was filled with books. A poetry anthology lied face down beside the bed, the second volume of war and peace rested on the edge of the desk beside the typewriter. A notebook was kept open by a pen, containing the first few lines of a poem:
The Lily's roots run to the deep beneath
Yet on the surface jolly as a wreath
Goes up and down on the sea’s heaving breast
Toyed by the wind, the sun and all the rest…
But he wasn’t in his room. He had not even entered it that day. All night radio messages had announced the fall of army strongholds that had stood between their village and the enemy line that now seemed to advance like the sweeping hand of night, a dark blade, at its edge a red margin of blood: a twilight... And now he was gripping his gun with sweaty palms among other volunteers who had stayed to fight alongside the army.
At first the war was a joke, the latest conversation topic for his father’s friends, another item on the long list of things his mother could worry about and an excuse for his brother to drag people into passionate Marxist debates, or rather lectures since he would be doing most of the talking.
It was remote, impersonal, a backdrop for his days wallowing between books, staggering between small tables of bars on his way to their toilets, Sunday mornings laying in bed with Julie until hunger drove them out and midnight poundings on the type writer’s keys: the piano that played the waltz to which the world outside of him held the hand of the one within while they gently danced.
But now the war was anything but remote. Distant gunshots echoed in the jungle, sounded like a great ax falling on tree trunks, and each time they sounded a bit closer, which no doubt played some part in causing what had been a mild discomfort in his stomach all day to turn into a more serious need to use the toilet.
to be continued ...
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