On the Road to Babadag by Andrzej Stasiuk Read Free Book Online Page B

he had never died, since no doubt there was little difference between that store and the tavern of the Jew Semek. He could simply start again after a hundred and fifty years, though without the Austrian blessing. So I reflected, standing in the noon sun. Having traveled several hundred kilometers, I had the right to these thoughts. In addition, I came from his native region. I looked in the direction of Moldova and wondered whose blood he would want to shed today, and with whose blood he would want to mix his own. The flies flew heavy and slow in the cooperative store. On the shelf were two kinds of cigarettes, the cheapest. No aristocracy nearby, yet the air inside had the same stuffy, impoverished taste. I thought: You sit here, Szela, drinking Ursus or Silva, and there's no one for you to go after. If you try, the world will part before you like a phantom, and your hands will clutch emptiness. You'll accomplish shit here. The most you could do is go to Suceava and like a postindustrial Luddite smash a sky-blue ATM. Nowadays you can't become another person through the simple transfer of goods or objects. Killing won't let you enter your victim's body and life. Wealth has become an elusive thing; it floats in the air, materializing now and then—here, there. Whereas poverty, abandonment, and ruin are concrete, tangible, and thus it will always be. All the treasures of the world are now the property of no one in particular, and no plunder will exalt you, no violence ennoble you. Left to you is only the ATM in Suceava as a physical emanation of the remote, all-powerful evil that will never permit the last to be first.
    In this way I spoke to the spirit of Jakub Szela on the edge of Europe among the lanes of Vicşani. I was filled with left-wing sentiments but had no regard whatever for revolutionary fire. A kilometer on, in an open field by the road, sat a man reading a newspaper. Nothing as far as the eye could see, yet he hardly looked up at our car. We drove south, to the village of Clit, to check another possible resting place. Which made sense, because Clit lay a few kilometers from Solca. The Austrians sent Szela to Solca when it was all over. At an intersection after RădăuÅ¢i stood a Romanian cop. He stood smack in the middle of the intersection. At the sight of our car, he turned his back pointedly and looked off into the distance. A friendly gesture, probably, pretending not to notice us, because we were a provocation.
    In Clit, people spoke an odd tongue. Like Ukrainian, but I understood only every fifth word. I asked a woman in a kerchief if this was a Ukrainian village.
My Ruskie,
she replied: We are Russians. We asked about Szela, if she had heard such a name here or in the area. She shook her head, then said she would take us to the oldest man in the village. The road was dry and dusty. The wooden houses had white-and-green walls and shutters. On the ground lay pink and white petals from flowering apple trees. In the distance, the gleam of a pond. Geese walked in that direction, unattended. A man in faded jeans emerged from the shadows and dust. He didn't look so very old. He pondered awhile, asked that the name be repeated, then asked us himself, directly, if this Szela person ... was that one of our "father leaders"? "Perhaps, in a way," we answered evasively. He finally gave up and said there was someone here, not old but worldly, just got back from Germany, who might be able to help. The old man called him out of a roadside bar. This person was about forty and dressed in overalls with a sewn-on Esso patch. P. remarked that Esso was practically Shell, so we might be close. We spoke in Russian, Ukrainian, German, and Polish, but it turned out that all they could do for us was show us where the cemetery was. They took us there, wished us luck, a pleasant trip, good health, and left us in the cool of the trees. The old man went down the hill slowly and carefully. Occasionally the younger man took his