What is Truth? Chapter 5

They reached the paper mill in winter.

The building stood beside a frozen river, surrounded by sandbags, trucks, and men carrying rifles.

The Liberation Front had turned the factory floor into a command center. Maps hung where production schedules had once been. Ammunition crates replaced bundles of paper.

A young fighter took Bambi’s photograph of his father to an officer.

They waited beneath a rusted machine.

Thumper rehearsed what Bambi should say.

“Stand straight. Men respect confidence.”

“Which men?”

“All men.”

“The guard hit you for being confident.”

“That was excessive confidence.”

Laleh nudged him.

“Try silence. Women love it.”

Before Thumper could answer, an older man entered the room.

Bambi recognized him immediately.

Stefan Valev’s hair had gone gray at the temples. He wore a military coat and walked with a slight limp. But the eyes were the same.

His own eyes.

Stefan stopped several feet away.

“Bambi.”

No one had told him the boy’s name.

For a moment, Bambi felt something open inside him.

Not love.

Not forgiveness.

Something younger and more humiliating.

Recognition.

His father crossed the room and embraced him.

Bambi did not lift his arms.

Stefan released him slowly.

“Your mother?”

Bambi unwrapped the blue scarf from his wrist.

His father looked at it.

The muscles in his face moved, but he did not cry.

“She died when Drenovo was shelled,” Bambi said.

Stefan closed his eyes.

“Which side fired?”

“I don’t know.”

“The National Army had artillery west of the village.”

“The Front had artillery east.”

Stefan opened his eyes.

“Who told you that?”

“Refugees.”

“Refugees repeat rumors.”

“So do soldiers.”

For the first time, Stefan seemed to see the notebook in his son’s hand.

“You ask questions like your mother.”

“She said I got it from you.”

A bitter smile appeared and vanished.

Stefan gave them food and beds in an office overlooking the river.

That night, he told Bambi his version.

He had organized railway workers after wages disappeared and military shipments replaced civilian food. The National Army arrested his brother and two other organizers. Stefan joined the resistance to free them.

He left Drenovo because the government had begun watching the family.

“If I had stayed, they would have taken your mother too.”

“Did she want you to leave?”

“She understood.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

Stefan stared into the stove.

“No.”

“Did you write?”

“It was dangerous.”

“Did you send money?”

“Messages could be traced.”

“Did you try to come back?”

“I was fighting to build a country where I could come back.”

Bambi opened his notebook.

Stefan’s voice hardened.

“Put that away.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m your father, not a witness.”

“You’re both.”

Stefan stood and walked to the window.

“You think the world can be corrected by writing down its contradictions.”

“I think people should know what happened.”

“People need something to believe.”

“Even if it isn’t true?”

“Especially then.”

Bambi wrote that down after his father left.

Over the next several days, Stefan tried to become his father again.

He showed Bambi how to clean a rifle.

Bambi asked whether cleaning it made killing more moral.

He showed him maps of military positions.

Bambi asked how many civilians lived inside the colored circles.

He told stories about brave fighters.

Bambi asked what frightened them.

Stefan became angry, then proud, then angry at being proud.

“You could work with our communications unit,” he said. “We need educated boys.”

“I’m not educated.”

“You can write.”

“So can the people who make your posters.”

“That is not writing. That is persuasion.”

“What is the difference?”

Stefan did not answer.

Laleh found work in the infirmary.

Thumper joined the kitchen staff because the cook had three daughters.

He became devoted to the oldest, Sabina, after she threw an onion at him.

“My uncle said passionate women throw things.”

“Your uncle was married to your aunt,” Bambi said.

“Exactly.”

“Your aunt hated him.”

“Passion takes many forms.”

One evening, Bambi discovered a new map on the command table.

Drenovo was marked in red.

Government forces had fortified the village. The schoolhouse was being used as a barracks. Artillery positions had been placed near the church ruins.

A Front attack was scheduled in two days.

Bambi found his father in the turbine room.

“There are civilians in Drenovo.”

“They were ordered to evacuate.”

“Some people couldn’t leave.”

“Anyone who remains is being used to support the army.”

“Mrs. Varin would stay.”

“Then she made her choice.”

“She’s seventy.”

“War does not measure age.”

“People do.”

Stefan turned toward him.

“If we allow the army to hold the village, they control the eastern pass. More towns will fall. More people will die.”

“How many people in Drenovo?”

“We don’t know.”

“How many soldiers?”

“Enough.”

“How many children?”

Stefan’s expression tightened.

“This is why commanders cannot think like sons.”

“This is why fathers shouldn’t think like commanders.”

Stefan struck him.

The sound echoed through the turbine room.

Bambi touched his cheek.

His father looked immediately ashamed, which changed nothing.

“You don’t understand what is at stake,” Stefan said.

“No. But I understand who will be underneath the shells.”