What is Truth? Chapter 4

For three weeks, the three of them moved south through a country explaining itself.

At a monastery outside Sava, a priest told them suffering strengthened the soul.

Bambi asked why children needed stronger souls than generals.

They were asked to leave before lunch.

At a military checkpoint, a soldier told them innocent people had nothing to fear.

Laleh whispered, “Then why is everyone afraid?”

At a field hospital, a doctor told Bambi that survival was mostly chance, although training could occasionally improve the odds.

“People don’t like chance,” the doctor said while sewing a farmer’s scalp. “Chance cannot be thanked, punished, bribed, or worshipped. So we rename it destiny.”

Bambi wrote that down.

The doctor glanced at the notebook.

“Don’t quote me until I finish this stitching. He may die and ruin my credibility.”

Thumper carried water for the nurses and became infatuated with each of them in order of appearance.

“Nurses like wounded men,” he told Bambi.

“They like treating wounded men. It’s their job.”

“Exactly. Shared interests.”

Laleh rolled her eyes.

Thumper looked delighted.

“She does that because she likes me.”

“I do it because my eyes become tired from looking at stupidity,” Laleh said.

“Strong emotions are still emotions.”

They left the hospital with a convoy headed toward the capital.

The driver, a man named Korin, hid medical supplies beneath sacks of potatoes. He warned the children that the National Army had begun searching vehicles.

“Soldiers never search children,” Thumper said.

Korin laughed without humor.

“Who told you that?”

“My uncle.”

“Was your uncle ever a soldier?”

“No.”

“Was he ever a child during a war?”

“No.”

“Then your uncle has achieved expertise without the inconvenience of experience.”

At the next checkpoint, soldiers ordered everyone out.

One guard searched Laleh’s coat. Another emptied Bambi’s pockets and flipped through his notebook.

“What is this?” the soldier asked.

“Things people say.”

“Are you a spy?”

“I’m eleven.”

“Children can be spies.”

Thumper stepped forward.

“Soldiers never search children.”

The guard struck him across the face.

Thumper fell.

The guard found the medicine beneath the potatoes.

Korin was dragged from the truck.

“It’s for the hospital,” Bambi said.

The soldier hit him too.

Korin shouted for the children to stay quiet, but the soldiers forced him to his knees beside the road.

The convoy was allowed to continue without him.

For several miles, Thumper held a rag against his bleeding lip.

No one spoke.

Finally, he said, “I don’t know.”

Bambi looked at him.

“What?”

“I don’t know why they searched us. I don’t know what they’ll do to Korin. I don’t know if my uncle knew anything.”

The admission seemed to physically weaken him.

Laleh sat beside him.

“Your uncle probably knew some things.”

“Like what?”

“How to smell like onions.”

Thumper laughed, then winced.

Bambi opened his notebook.

He wrote:

Not knowing is painful. It is still better than being wrong with confidence.

He did not record a source.

He was beginning to understand that some conclusions belonged to him.

In the capital, the walls were covered with posters.

The National Army promised unity.

The Liberation Front promised freedom.

The government promised order.

The rebels promised justice.

Every poster showed clean faces, straight backs, and flags that appeared unaffected by wind, rain, hunger, or artillery.

Bambi stared at them.

“They all use the same words,” he said.

“They mean different things,” Laleh replied.

“How can the same word mean opposite things?”

“Adults are talented.”

At the railway station, Bambi showed his father’s photograph to anyone willing to look.

Most people shook their heads.

One old conductor studied it for a long time.

“I know him.”

Bambi stopped breathing.

“Where?”

“He worked the northern lines before the war. Organized the railway strike. After the army broke it up, he joined the Front.”

“Is he alive?”

“He was six months ago.”

“Where?”

The conductor pointed toward the mountain region east of Drenovo.

“Paper mill outside Varen.”

Bambi looked at the map.

Varen lay north.

Every refugee road led south.

Laleh found him that evening sitting beneath the station clock.

“You’re going,” she said.

“He may know what happened to my mother.”

“He wasn’t there.”

“He may know why he left.”

“That won’t change that he left.”

“I know.”

Laleh sat beside him.

“Then why?”

Bambi looked at the photograph.

“Because there are five stories about him, and all of them belong to someone else.”

Thumper approached carrying three pieces of bread.

“My grandfather said a boy becomes a man when he faces his father.”

Bambi looked at him.

“Did your grandfather face his father?”

“No. His father died when he was a baby.”

“Then how would he know?”

Thumper handed him the bread.

“I’m still coming.”

Laleh sighed.

“So am I.”

Thumper smiled.

“She follows me everywhere.”

“I am going because neither of you would survive haggling in the market.”

“Women like men who need rescuing.”

“No woman has ever said that.”

“They don’t have to. I can sense it.”

Next Chapter: The Man in the Photograph

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