Little Bastards in Springtime by Katja Rudolph Read Free Book Online Page B

around, but after a few minutes I go in and lie on their floor.
    They run in circles around me, giggling, and making up little poems that don’t make sense. Then I read
Snow-White and Rose-Red
to them. I like sitting on the bed with one of them on each side of me, the way they lean against me and hold hands across my stomach, the way they breathe on my neck and stroke the pages with their little fingers. When they were tiny babies they sucked each other’s thumbs—that was funny. There’s a photo of it in one of our photo albums, which I sometimes look at to remember the past.
    I WAKE up in the dark and hear voices murmuring in the living room. I can’t stand that sound these days. Mama will start crying, Papa will shout, Mama will shout. I hear the clink of bottle against table, ice against glass. We aren’t allowed to drink; what can we do to get through this shit-time? I pull out the pack of cigarettes from under my mattress. I bartered for it with one of my comic books.
    Dušan is at the door, he always knows when I’ve got something he wants, it’s like a sixth sense.
    “Can I have one, Jevrem? Where did you get them?”
    “I got them from Konstantin. For my Wolverine comic.”
    I light a cigarette and Dušan and I sit next to each other on my bed, smoking. It reminds me of the time before Dušan became a teenager, when we played together quite a lot.
    “They never stop talking,” I say.
    “They don’t know what else to do. We’re all so fucked. I’m going to score some weed tomorrow, lots of it, and get baked every single day. Going to sell some of it to make back the cash. Too much bullshit around to stay straight all day long. U.S. soldiers were high during the whole Vietnam War.”
    “Didn’t they lose?” I ask.
    Dušan picks up one of my comics and I wander into the living room feeling dizzy. Mama and Papa are slumped on the sofa, their clothes rumpled. The room is blue with smoke.
    “What are you doing up, Jevrem? Go to sleep.”
    I sit down in the armchair and pretend to read
National Geographic.
I flip through the pages. Black people with spears, black people with painted faces, black people with no clothes on, poor black people in slums. Giant, weird-looking sea creatures at the bottom of the ocean. I put down the
National Geographic
and stand up. I hover over Mama and Papa, staring right at them, but it’s like I’m not here. They’re totally blind they’re so tired; they’ve had so much to drink. But they can’t get themselves to bed. I wander back to my room and there is Dušan fast asleep on my bed.
    “Dušan, come on.” I grab his arm and shake. “Go to your own room.” I bend over and put my ear to his nose. I can hear his breath, faint and even, I can see the pulse jump in his soft white neck. He’s so skinny and tall. Without a shirt on he looks horrible, like a starving guy who’s about to die even though he eats all the time. That’s why he has weights under his bed.Every evening he stands in front of the mirror and tries to pump up his muscles so they hide his bones.
    He doesn’t hear me or feel me. I shake him again but he doesn’t move. Maybe he’s high already. Or maybe I somehow got killed and I’m a ghost, the first child killed in the war. I float into Dušan’s room feeling dizzy and see-through and curl up on his musty, twisted sheets, wondering what it feels like, the moment you don’t belong to your body anymore, the moment you know that all the ordinary days are over, nothing more than dim, hazy dreams.
    ‡ ‡ ‡
    F ROM THE BALCONY I WATCH THE TREES OPPOSITE our building. They just stand there. The sound of explosions doesn’t seem to bother them. Some of them might be hit too, but they’re not worried. In our forests, the foresters often cut down trees. They use them for firewood, but the reason for felling them is to keep the whole forest healthy. Now the trees are a light hazy shade of green. Soon their leaves will grow to full size. In the