Diggers (10 page)

These soldiers lay unburied and exposed to forest animals
.

The evening was coming to an end. I went out on the balcony to drink my beer and to pull a few cubic meters of smoke into my lungs. A warm but damp evening encircled my flesh. It wasn't cold—it was nice. On the right side of the balcony there is a 1927 Russian machine gun, which needs to be repaired, and there's a German military helmet there, too. Something occurred to me—I don't know how logical, but still—”War—it's the beginning of a new history.”

Listen to me—I'm a ready Socrates!

***

June 29, 2000

Everything is in order. The story about the bones had been checked out, the necessary people had been found, and we—the Classicist, the Communicator and I—are in Kurzeme. I am taking a vacation day. We drove to the place with two sources of information—guys who promised to show us the precise place in the forest that had been described in the newspaper. We drove along the small dirt roads of Kurzeme, and I got the feeling that I knew the place. A few kilometers later we concluded that we were in that part of the former front lines where we had been in the spring—just five or six kilometers away.

“Gentlemen, are we taking something along for the rain?” the Classicist asked. He was already holding his raincoat.

“You dope—there won't be any rain!” The men's choir was unanimous on this, but I kept quiet, thoughtful. Of course a raincoat is something more to carry, and that can create serious problems later.

We pulled on our rubber boots and tramped into the forest. It was cloudy, and the leaden sky mocked us, waiting for us to get as deep into the thicket as possible before starting to drip rain on our exposed clothes. That's exactly what happened—it started to sprinkle. For a while the rain got stronger, then it stopped for a bit. Briefly put, the raindrops fell not only on our backs, where they were nicely absorbed into our clothing, but also on our nerves. Having tramped through the swampy forest, we entered the field of death. I have talked about the bones of soldiers dozens of times in my journal. Now I was sitting and pondering the issue of the level of detail that I should use in describing today's activities. Maybe I should end with these words?

All around us—bones, rotted boots, pieces of belts and various military objects. Nobody was recognizable. I began to become a “bone collector.” I thought that the Communicator and Classicist would agree with this name. What is your hobby, a beautiful woman might ask me in starting her flirtation. I don't know what she would say after that answer...

“I'm shocked,” the Communicator said, squatting next to the pile of soldier bones and picking through them.

“An awful lot,” the Classicist agreed.

“Enough. Let's gather up the ‘boys' and take them out of here,” I said “We have a sack, after all.”

“Look, we won't accomplish anything here today. All of have to come here and dig everyone up properly.”

I did not object to the Communicator's words. I would have been happier in digging around in the dirt if I were not being attacked by flying insects of various sizes. My back could feel the consequences of the rain. The third layer of clothing—the one closest to my skin—was already wet.

This is where the witnesses to the tragedy of the last world war are resting. There are bones—some covered with green moss, others rinsed completely white by the rain. I remember the story one Legionnaire told. “When we recovered our positions, I saw the body of a Red Army solder by a tree. In the last seconds of his life, he had been holding a photograph of his family, and his glassy eyes continued to gaze at his wife and three little children for a long time. At that time you cannot help but remember that in addition to being a soldier, you are also an ordinary man.” When I left this place, I collected the iron bodies of four mines, a German armored helmet, and a small pot from a German soldier's kit. The pot looked as though a tank had ridden over it—a bit thicker than paper. The Communicator looked fondly at an unexploded artillery shell and left it there. It was beautiful, but it was the size of a large piglet.

On the way back to the road we were showered down by the rain again, and that put an end to our expedition. It did not, however, keep us from digging up a few well-preserved German army shells, as well as a piece of paper on which some had stuck a label from a German factory, dated 1944. I have it at home now.

***

“Dad, why do boys have to wash their dicks every night?” This outstanding question came from my son.

“A boy, like a soldier, always has to be ready, so that he can fight at any time.” I explained too much. I knew what the next question was going to be.

“Fight who?”

“Who?” I searched for the right answer. “Well … well, you know, when you get a bit older, you'll understand. Get in the tub!”

More than once I've found myself thinking that I should write down how it all began. Basically it's clear. Something finds something else. Think of the old stone in the country that grows over with moss over the course of the years. That's what happened with my diggers, too. I'll start with myself, I guess.

The time we call childhood had long since passed when I used a sharpened spear to poke around in large areas of what used to be front lines, and on the veranda of our house my cousin and I opened up a war museum. Then I found I had other interests, too. The period of my life started when I began to find out about women. A woman's breasts, her rear end—this God-created miracle that messes us men's minds and make them engage in heroics. Among other things, I came to understand why wars have been launched over women and why women have often ended war. In a word—this was a beginning to my school of life that was hard and complicated, but at the same time amazing and emotionally rich.

As soon as I found out how a man is “affected” by the opposite sex and the benefits that this process can bring to society, I was drafted into the army. I won't write separately about my army days—it's a different story, and it would make a fine comedy. The army influenced me so much that for the next several years I wanted to hear nothing at all about war and the army.

In the early 1990s, during the great changes that were happening, I wanted to learn more about what had happened to my grandmother's two brothers. About the younger of these brothers it was said that the 19-year-old soldier who was drafted into the Latvian Legion drowned in the Baltic Sea, on his way from the Curland Cauldron to Germany. I started to search, and I proved the opposite. He fell in the battle for Curland in March of 1945. I also found out where he had been serving. There is no more detailed information about him.

Around the same time I began to study the history of World War I, and I completed a screenplay. In late summer 1999, in the newspaper, I read an article that had with it a photograph of my now-colleague, Skvarceni. Thanks to the word Lucija that was engraved on a golden wedding ring, Skvarceni had found an old soldier's wife. He had found the ring, in turn, when the Legionnaires were being reburied. I got to know Skvarceni.

Around the same time, I saw on the TV news how the Communicator was trying to get two tanks out of a swamp. I felt sorry for myself for not being there. The Classicist didn't think that way. He got in his car and drove right over there to meet the Communicator and to ask for his permission to touch a real battle tank. Around the same time, Mario was going on another one of his expeditions to various rural homesteads. Having heard about what was going on in the swamp, Mario, too, traveled to meet the Communicator, and that's how they met.

Everything from that point on happened in the way that it had to happen.

I was suffering because of my conscience, and the reason was the sentence with which I began my journal. When all was said and done, I was the only one who knew the story about the buried soldiers, and I felt it my duty to solve this riddle. Skvarceni gave me Anatolijs's telephone number. Before I called him, I rang up the Russian Embassy. I was told that the aforementioned person was completely normal and would not be using any skulls that were found to produce night lamps.

We agreed to meet. I still cannot explain myself how this happened, but the Communicator, the Classicist and Anatolijs arrived from one side, and Skvarceni arrived from the other. I had found the men with whom, with interest, I could share my knowledge, and I learned just as much from their experience.

Shit happens.

The clock struck another hour of the night. My eyes were wandering across the names of people, arranged in countless rows. Born in 1918, fell in 1943. Born in 1923, fell in 1945. Born, fell, born, fell, born, lost. On and on, without end. At one farm Mario got to know an elderly woman who showed him the place under a rose bush where a Legionnaire had been buried. Soviet soldiers in March 1945 had captured the Legionnaire, tortured him in the basement of the house, and then dragged him outside and killed him. When the horrible stink of Russian tobacco smoke disappeared, the woman and her sister came out of their house and saw the Latvian who had been killed. The young girl look at his documents, and now, as an old lady, she could remember only two words—the young man's surname, Auzins, and the fact that he had been drafted into the Legion from Riga.

The ink of a pen had written six similar surnames on a white piece of paper. A date was listed alongside several of them, marking the day when a bullet or a piece of metal put an end to the life of the person who carried the name. In other cases there were only years. I spotted the name of a junior officer. In the column “Fell” I saw only the year, 1945, and the month—March. If it had been a rank-and-file soldier, I don't think they would have tortured him, but that was not the case when they were dealing with an officer, who might have information. I might have found the right surname.

And now what? Actually I have to write up the marketing plan for 2001.

***

June 30, 2000

I opened the trunk of my car and stood rooted to the spot—forest ants had set up an anthill in there, like illegal immigrants. Where on earth had they come from?

***

July 1, 2000

My director was celebrating his name day. I came to the party two hours in advance and asked him for a crowbar to use in prying apart the German soldier's pot. When I was done, I found that the pot contained forest ants and a spoon. What a valuable discovery! I declared war on the ants.

***

July 2, 2000

Sunday. As usual, normal people can sleep until they're tired of sleeping, but at 4:00 AM I turn to the woman beside me, run my hand across her body a few times, pat her bottom, kiss one of the cheeks of her butt and crawl out of bed. An hour later I am in my car, thinking about my wife's shape, displayed to my eyes because her nightgown had ridden up during the night. I was driving to the Classicist's house. You may not believe me, but it's a fact that I fell in love with my wife right around that age when a kid starts to understand the difference between HIM and HER. She was my neighbor, and it was winter. It was the way romances like this usually begin. I stood aside and watched other five-year-olds messing around with my girl. Then I drew up my courage, picked up some snow in my little hands, went up to her and asked her to make me a snowball. The little princess looked at me with irony in her eyes and said, “What—I'm supposed to be making snowballs for everyone?” My parents thought that I did not know anything about love, and we moved to a different place, although they kept the old apartment, just in case.

We met again when I was 17 and she was 18. I was living in my parents' old apartment. Everyone around me was a fool, I was sick of my teachers, poets were idiots, artists were parasites, writers were all gay. I was the only smart one. Now I laugh at myself, writing these lines—”Viktors, how low you have fallen! Where have all your convictions disappeared to?” My life had arrived at a crossroads. One road promised me merry company, various kinds of girls, alcohol and drugs. The second—well, there wasn't really a second road, was there? Nevertheless, when I looked at Ija the girlfriend I had then, I sometimes thought otherwise. Although some jerk had knocked out one of her teeth, she was generally speaking a beautiful woman. Or, to put it precisely, she would have been a beautiful woman if she had not been taking tablets by the ton, smoking, drinking and giving her flesh to every man who passed by. I found myself thinking—if all pretty girls are like my Ija, where would I find one with whom I could live until my old age? I kept up this line of thought until a certain evening. A friend of mine did not have a girlfriend to take some event, and, trying to help, I called my old neighbor. Of course, she did not show up. A week later I called her again and told her that if she did not come outside, I would stand under her window all night. It was winter. The next day I was sick, but I got what I wanted. I stood outside for two hours before the most wonderful person on this planet emerged from the dark of the yard. “Sorry, friend,” my brain told me. “She is not for you.” In five minutes I had talked her into coming upstairs to warm up and drink some champagne. When I opened the door to my apartment, I was pleasantly surprised—my Ija was already in my friend's arms. Thank you, God!

Stop! That's not what this journal is about.

Today we are going to see Mario. The digger has been in Kurzeme since yesterday.

The weather? For the time being it's not raining, but conditions are right for the forest to be wet, the grass to be wet and us to be wet.

Mario was waiting for us on the road, and when we met him our eyes—mine, the Classicist's and the Communicator's—sparkled. “The old man told me that when the Germans fled, they left behind boxes of weapons. In order to avoid problems, the old man dug everything into the ground in the forest, by a young aspen. He did not really remember the specific place. There were also two German tank drivers who were racing. One of the tanks sank into a swamp, and the old man knows the specific place.” We were beaming.