Armadillo by William Boyd Read Free Book Online

trading in whatever meagre toing-and-froing of goods that was permitted – cleaning fluids, aspirins and laxatives, kitchen utensils, tinnedfood, vegetable oil, tools—a clapped-out reconditioned lorry making the difficult run to Budapest, initially, and then expanding modestly over the years to Bucharest, Belgrade, Sofia, Zagreb and Sarajevo.
    It was inevitable that Bogdan should marry Pirvana after what they had been through together. And it was Pirvana who stood by his side in the early days of EastEx, wrapping cardboard boxes in brown paper, stacking them on pallets, loading the truck, labelling the cartons, supplying the Thermos of clear soup to the driver, while above them in the tiny flat Rebeka cooked meat, stews and goulash, salted hams and made a spicy variation of blood sausage which she sold to other immigrant families in Fulham who yearned for an authentic taste of home.
    Slobodan arrived in 1960, duly and speedilyfollowed by Monika, Komelia, Drava and, eventually, after a longish gap, little Milomre. EastEx gamely flourished in an unexceptional way and over the years Bogdan diversified, adding a small haulage division, a smaller van and truck hire company and a mini-cab firm to the EastEx ’ s roster. A larger apartment was required for the growingfamily and the kids werefervently encouraged to become English men and women. Bogdan decreed that no Hungarian or Romanian was to be spoken – although Pirvana and Rebeka would still chat covertly to each other in their special dialect which even Bogdan could not understand.
    And this is how I remember it: the big, crowded, triangular flat, the ever-present smell of cooking meat, thefrowsty, chilly reek of the EastEx warehouse, school in Fulham, promise of a role in one of the family ’ s always somewhat struggling businesses, the constant incantation of, ‘Now you are English boy, Milo. This is your country, this is your home. ’ But what of the enigmas that remained? My grandmother ’ s early youth, grandfather Constantin, my shady uncle, Nicolai-Gheorgiu? I read a rare history of the Transnistrian Gypsies and came to understand a little of the horrors and the hardships they must have endured. I read also of the gendarmerie commanders in Transnistria, cruel, petty tyrants who dominated and exploited their transplanted populations, and who Hived in debauchery with beautiful Gypsy women ’. I looked at my wily old grandmother and thought of the beautiful teenager who must have stumbled from the cattle-trucks by the banks of the river Bug wondering what had happened to her life and what fate lay in store for her… Perhaps to be confronted by a handsome young gendarmerie officer named Constantin… I will never know, I will never know more than this. All my questions were met with shrugs or silences or sly deflections. My grandmother would say to me as I pestered her for more information: ‘Milo, we have saying in Transnistria: when you eat the honey do you ask bee to show you the flower? ’
    The Book of Transfiguration
    Ivan Algomir’s shop was on the north side of Camden Passage, behind the arcade, to the left. Its two windows contained one spotlit object each – a studded painted chest in one, and a small brass cannon in the other. The shop was called VERTU and emanated such a daunting aura of the exquisite and pretentious that Lorimer wondered how anyone dared to cross its threshold. He remembered his first visit well, how he had dithered, hummed and hawed, visited the Design Centre, circled back, searched for excuses to go elsewhere, but had finally surrendered to the irresistible lure of the dented Norman basinet (£1,999) which stood on its high pedestal, starkly lit in the sepulchral gloom of the vitrine (which he had sold last year, finally and reluctantly, but for a considerable profit).
    He had not planned to come up to Islington; it had been a long and tedious ride from Fulham, landing him with a £23.50 taxi fare, impeded and harassed by