Siege 13 by Tamas Dobozy Read Free Book Online Page A

friend’s body, the spasms that passed through it as he held him. “You have to pull yourself together,” he said, “the siege won’t last forever.” But Sándor was already past the idea of waiting, József knew that, past thinking of what had happened and what was to come. What he reallywanted, what he needed, had nothing to do with József at all, for József was already disappearing for Sándor—disintegrating into the state of war, falling apart with the capital and the zoo, with the death of the animals—and all Sándor needed to realize his own disappearance was this one last act, this final favour. But things weren’t like that for József, not yet, for the presence of Sándor was still keeping him intact, as if the strength of their friendship, the history they shared, whatever it was in his character that Sándor loved, could recall József to himself. He looked at Sándor and saw what the war had done to friendship after it had finished with everything else—with sympathy, with intelligence, with self-awareness, with loyalty and affection and love—all those impediments to survival, all those things that got in the way of forgetting who you were. It was for this that József envied Sándor, for Sándor had forgotten him just as he’d forgotten that the soldiers he’d fed to the lion were men, that the bodies the birds fed on where those of women and children, that there was even such a thing as his own life, or anyone else’s, and that it might be worth preserving.
    When he finally rose up with Sándor that night, carrying him in his arms like a child, József wasn’t sure if he could do what Sándor wanted him to do, because he was still clinging to his friend’s memory, unwilling to let him go, as he would weeks later, even more so, after the conversation with Zamertsev, after the Soviet hunting party had gone out—sober this time, no horses—carrying flashlights and head-lamps, determined to do it right. He had set out that night in exactly the same way, out the door, moving along, bent with Sándor’s weight under arc lights and stuttering street lamps,dodging patrols that weren’t really patrols but an extension of the three days of free looting the commanders had granted their troops.
    By then he knew what Sándor needed as much as Sándor did—this is what József would not tell Zamertsev—and when they arrived at the subway entrance and swung open the door and looked inside, József hesitated. And when Sándor, resting his head against his old friend’s chest, asked to be put down on the threshold, József laughed and said no, it was fine, they could go in together, it didn’t matter. “Please,” said Sándor, jerking limply in József’s arms. “You’ve been better with your grief,” he said, “better able to use it—to help make yourself stronger.” With this, József finally understood what Sándor wanted, and why, and József would remember it as the moment when he finally gave in to the siege, to its terrible logic, to what Sándor hoped to become, what he needed József to witness. He said goodbye before putting Sándor down and closing the door on him. Then there was only the weakness, from carrying his friend across the ravaged city, from using up what little strength was left in closing and slumping against the door, too tired now to pull it open, knowing he would have nightmares in the years to come—nightmares of banging on it, wrenching at the handle, calling out to Sándor—only to wake to the terror of loss, alone in the dark with all he’d been separated from, as if there was no way to figure out where he was, where he began and ended, until he realized what was out of reach. It was Sándor’s last gift, to József and the lion both, what he thought they needed to live, as if