Island Operation (Part II)

I walked up to the Red Army sentry at a distance of some five meters, showing him the bottle. He looked around, beckoned me, and when I stood by him, took the bottle, and in one decisive, quick and strong strike to the bottom, cracked it open. 

“Drink a little bit, because you look like imperialist spy,” he said in a mix of the native tongue and Russian. 

Before his eyes, I took a swig from the bottle. 

Then he brought it to his lips, leaned back, closed his eyes, and through the glass you could see only the bubbles making their way to the top. 

When he brought down the bottle, there was maybe a quarter of the liquid left. 

Holding on to the vodka in his right hand, with his left he began to pat down his pockets. I figured that he was looking for cigarettes so I took out a pack of Chesterfields. 

He looked at the label. 

“Oh, you definitely spy… What do you want?” He took out two cigarettes. Putting one under his forage cap behind his ear, he lit the second. 

He took three drags, enjoying the aroma of the smoke and took to the bottle again, like a thirsty man in a desert, in one swig emptying it of the rest of the vodka. 

Then he flung the bottle in the direction of the channel so that the glass shattered on the hard cement. 

“What do you want Mr. Spy?” 

We both laughed. 

“I wanted to pick myself out a chair.” 

“We have a few chairs, go there and choose yourself whatever one you want,” he said, pointing at the barracks. 

“The doors there are open. When you find it, whistle, I’ll give you a sign when you can get out. I’m standing here until four,” with pride he looked at one of the three watches which he had on his left hand. 

“What time, Moscow or ours?” I made sure. 

“Your time, in Moscow,” here again he looked at his three watches, “in Moscow it will be six,” he noted wistfully. “Go away, because if you are late, then the soldier who will take my place, he might shoot you. Just don’t smoke there, motherfucker,” he gave me a friendly pat on the back. 

I moved in the direction of the barracks. The entire distance was no more than thirty-something meters. I passed junked automobiles on the side of the road. Among other things, in the various other garbage there were the pieces of many shattered bidets. 

I thought that maybe Mr. B had been telling the truth. I had not believed what Mr. B said at all. Pretty much everybody at that time lied like crazy, making up some unbelievable stories about the war era, of course with their involvement in them. 

For example, in the case of his brother the priest, Mr. B had in a certain way avoided the truth. In fact it could not be said that he was quite lying but he was definitely twisting. For a long time I knew the whole truth from Milena, who in fits hated her husband and his brother.