Zbornik Mednarodnega literarnega srečanja Vilenica 2004 - Ljudmila

The Barricade
a fragment
The town in which I grew up lies right on the frontier in a mountain pass
but the town itself is on the level so everyone goes about on bicycles.
Of course they have to start with a tricycle. Anyone keen to progress
then got a fairy cycle, then a Pioneer which was made in red and blue, but
if you wanted to stand out and had a father who was good with his hands,
you could have it painted, only this was a bit of a waste because after a
while, like everyone else, you moved on to a three-quarter size Eska which
came in many different colors and had a derailleur.
So it was no wonder that it was hard to give up your Eska when your
legs became too long for it and it was time to look for a Favorit. This was
the last word in bicycles. Not only because there was nothing better to be
had at the time but also because with a bit of luck you had it for life.
My father was a grown man and a footballer but all the time he went
round on a Ukraine. A basic, unwieldy, Russian-made bicycle; I never saw
him use any other bike. In many places it was scratched and rusty but my
father never had it repainted. He said it had been scratched at the barricades
and that that was no shame. He always laid great stress on these words.
The aforementioned Ukraine had indeed been at the barricades and
by coincidence so was my tricycle.
It was summer during a great heat wave. Because of the heat I had to
put up with the indignity of wearing a sunbonnet. Suddenly some older
boys appeared on their red’ and blue Pioneers and their three-quarter
size Eskas, eyes popping out of their heads, saying there were tanks at the
customs barrier. At that our neighbor quickly slipped away and soon the
motor of his big excavator could be heard.
We stood on the pavement and watched him dig up paving stones and
pile them up in a heap. We watched till our worried mothers dragged us
off home but there just the same we continued to watch even if only from
the windows. The pile of paving stones grew, the road suddenly changed
into a pit. Now it would be very difficult to ride a bike on it, that’s for sure.
It was hot. Our fathers began bringing all kinds of cupboards and tables
out of cellars, pushing and shoving them to the very top of the pile. And they
were hot. Someone brought a case of beer on a cart. Everyone took a bottle,
occasionally drinking from it but not stopping bringing more things.
By now it was nearly dark and there was a great heap under the windows.
Men came from the Polish side of the frontier. They stood in front
of the pile, drank beer and talked. Eventually they went and brought their
bicycles and placed them on the heap from the other side and my father
went and put his Ukraine up there with the others.
It was all beyond me. After all my mother and told him not to go where
there might be shooting and he still went and put his bicycle on the heap.
No, I did not understand. I occurred to me to wonder if he had put some-
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