Potok, yeah, he said, what else?
Where are we … you boy you!
Banatka! he started jabberin on, an I didn’t get much, but it sounded kina like Romany or Romanesque, an old word here an there …
Me Benjamín, knockin his chest. Then he whips out a book again, a notepad … ships stuck all over it and … la mare, he says, la mare … taps the paper, lookin at me …
Not me! I said fast, donno that one … or the sea.
No?
That night … the old woman took me in to see David, in the settin room as they called it, had it all to himself, slept on top of the stove, I realized I was sposta climb up there too, that didn’t thrill me … I don’t handle close quarters too well … but objections were no help, she had practice with her whipper-snappers, so she put out the candle and I lay there in the dark, next to David, my blood brother … who fell asleep right away, I guess, breathin regular, on his back, had to squeeze in right up next to him … what’s that old bag want from me, what kina punishment is this, didn’t fall asleep till daybreak, then got woken by some squeaking noise … I figured it was David, over by the window … started to say somethin … took a look, he was standin on an overturned footstool, the squeaking was comin from underneath, he was squashin some mouse or whatever, poor thing.
That morning the old woman showed me how to change David’s bandages, brought us into the kitchen, to a tub of warm water, outside it was just getting light out, but everyone was up already, all ten or twelve brothers, there weren’t any girls … everyone quiet as we rewrapped him, they gathered like that every morning to look … at David’s wounds, the flesh was clean, I was worried it was infected, but no … it was totally clean and the blood seeped out … from some bottomless inside, and David held on.
Then Benjamín took me by the sleeve and we went. With David. The little hunchback boy took care of the sheep. Didn’t have my T-shirt on anymore, but he gave me … what might easily’ve been a shirt at one point. Back in Napoleon’s days. I put it on. It made him happy.
We sat on the hillside among the sheep, Benjamín grillin me, me grillin him, and it wasn’t gettin anywhere.
Banatka, damn it! I took a stick and scratched in the dirt … Here’s the world. Where’re we?
Here, he banged the ground. Took a clump of dirt and set it down on my very imprecise map. Jabbed his finger into it and said: Lord Vladan Dragač.
Lord Barrow? I inquired.
Benjamín nodded happily. That was all I could get out of him.
I tried to spend time with David, but … he’d just squat wherever we put him, runnin his hands through the grass … I told him stories, but only Benjamín got anything out of that … every now an then he’d fire one of my worse words back at me … so I toned it down a little … here I am with the sheep, on one side an idiot, forgive me, David, on the other a cripple, forgive me, Benjamín, an me in the middle, like King Salaman, me I won’t forgive.
She-Dog, what do I do. How do I get outta this, there’s gotta be some scam, some trick. Helena! I shouted at David. Nothin. But … Benjamín perked up.
Bitch, he says.
Huh, Benjamín, c’mon … David’s wife, Helenka!
Yup, nodded Benjamín.
Was she here?
No answer.
She ran off when she saw him, is that it?
Nope.
What is this crap, you donno, you’re just makin it up, show-off …
Eyed me askance. But he took the bait. Shilly-shallied … yeah, I had to swear up an down the holy of holies I’d never tell a soul, which of course now I’ve broken my oath.
Abram said: Bitch. No be here with Davidko.
But she was pregnant!
Ah know. That’s haw cum they chaysed hir off.
That was as much as I learned.
David. He still looked the same, all of us’d definitely changed since then. Yep, turned old and hoarse.
Not him. But there was a strange quality to his face, even in spite of the overall, unfortunately, dimwittedness … an enthusiasm, perhaps. There were moments, but only moments, he looked like he knew it all, like he had it all under control … and there was something working inside him. With a design. But then again maybe I just imagined it.
The boys treated him with respect when he walked around the yard … with that awful mechanical stride, either clearing outta the way or gently steering him around. They never called him anything but Davidko or Davidik. Even though … they were constantly ribbin each other, givin each other lickings … the old man harried em, the old woman too, she made em toe the line … but … in all the days I was there I never saw a single one snivelin off in the corner cause his bro’d trampled his matchbox car or some similar mortality … no, most of the time they were … exhilarated, they were untamed … sometimes they fought like horses … but, I noticed, no kicking in the balls, no ganging up or eye-gouging … more like practice for who versus who … soon I came to realize they were savin their brutality for somebody else … an when from time to time a genuine disturbance broke out, Abram an Kubík were there to tame em down … there was also one called Daník, evidently the family pride, he didn’t even haul the plow … Daník was a wisenheimer … a bit of a loner, like Benjamín, only Benjamín was the family jester, the cheerer-upper, the crackpot … Daník had a place of his own too, out in the barn … one day, stuffed full of herb soup again, they hauled me out there … the old man an Abram an Daník an me, I took a look … he had these pits in there, an in one of em was this thing covered in rawhide, a stick, but smoothed an shaped, an Daník takes the string, draws it back, an goes fshhh … tok! I gaped … they mumbled somethin, all I could get was they were talkin about Benjamín, Abram walked off … they all went back, Benjamín proudly luggin the book about Egypt under his arm … barely draggin, but it was clear he wasn’t gonna let Abram get his paws on it, set the book down on the threshing floor, slowly, painstakingly … relishing it … turnin the pages an jabberin away, the old man went stompin off … Benjamín gets right up an points, a painting in some ancient crypt, mummies, yeah yeah … taps his finger, there on the wall, hunters an bowmen … my eyes pop, yeah … bow … it’s a bow! I barked out the proper word. They just stared. In Prague that’s called a bow, an you invented one, Daník! A bow … there’s bows in Prahah? Yeah, lots, it’s normal there. Daník’s lip sank, probly thought he was the first … c’mon, your gramma told you they’ve got everything in the world there, right, an her gramma told her … so he calmed down.