What is Truth? Chapter 6

Bambi found Thumper and Laleh behind the kitchen.

“We have to warn the village.”

Thumper looked toward the command building.

“Your father will shoot us.”

“My grandfather said fathers can never harm their sons.”

Laleh stared at him.

Thumper lowered his head.

“I know. I know. My grandfather was unreliable.”

They stole three coats, bread, a compass, and a map.

Laleh took medicine from the infirmary.

Thumper took a photograph of Sabina.

“She doesn’t know you have that,” Laleh said.

“She gave it to her sister.”

“That is called stealing.”

“History will understand.”

They slipped through the mill fence after midnight.

The road to Drenovo ran west through open country.

Bambi avoided it.

“Main roads are where armed men expect people to be,” he said.

“Who told you that?” Laleh asked.

“My mother.”

They followed the river until dawn, then crossed through orchards and abandoned farms.

At one farmhouse, dogs began barking.

Then, all at once, they stopped.

Bambi dropped into the ditch.

“What are you doing?” Thumper whispered.

“Soldiers.”

“How do you know?”

“My mother told me.”

“That is not evidence.”

Bambi listened.

A truck engine rumbled beyond the trees.

Boots moved across the road.

The three remained hidden while a National Army patrol passed within twenty yards.

Afterward, Thumper looked at him.

“So that one was true.”

“It was true this time.”

Bambi’s coat tore while they climbed a fence.

The rip caught on the wire and nearly pulled him backward.

Laleh found the sewing needle hidden in the hem.

“Your mother put this here?”

“She said I might need it.”

They repaired the coat beneath a tree.

Thumper watched.

“Old women know everything.”

“No,” Bambi said. “But they remember what happened before.”

They reached Drenovo the following afternoon.

The village looked smaller.

Several houses had burned. The church tower was gone. Sandbags surrounded the schoolhouse, and soldiers had dug trenches through the gardens.

Bambi entered through the irrigation ditch.

Mrs. Varin was still alive.

They found her in the basement beneath the bakery, teaching six children arithmetic by candlelight.

She stared at Bambi as though he had stepped out of a grave.

Then she slapped him.

“Where have you been?”

“My mother died.”

Mrs. Varin pulled him against her.

For several seconds, neither moved.

Then she held him at arm’s length.

“Your father?”

“Alive.”

“I am sorry.”

The answer was so precise that Bambi almost laughed.

They warned the villagers.

Some believed them.

Some did not.

The National Army commander accused them of spreading rebel propaganda.

“The Front will attack at dawn,” Bambi said.

“They wouldn’t shell their own village.”

“My father is commanding the attack.”

The commander arrested them.

They were locked inside the school supply room.

Thumper sat on a box of chalk.

“My uncle said honesty is always rewarded.”

Laleh kicked the door.

“Your uncle has caused more damage to this journey than either army.”

Bambi looked through the window.

From the second floor, he could see the eastern fields.

Smoke rose near the mountains.

The Front was moving artillery into position.

“What do you think we should do?” Thumper asked.

Bambi stared at the village.

“I don’t know.”

Thumper waited.

“But I know what we shouldn’t do.”

“What?”

“Stay here.”

They broke the window with a chair.

Laleh climbed out first, then Thumper.

Bambi followed.

They found Mrs. Varin and began moving people toward the irrigation trenches.

The National Army commander ordered everyone back inside.

Then the first shell landed beyond the cemetery.

The argument ended.

People ran.

Bambi led them through gardens, over walls, and into the ditches his mother had taught him to follow.

A woman carried a baby.

Two boys supported an injured soldier between them.

The old man with the empty birdcage appeared from somewhere, still carrying it.

“Why do you have that?” Thumper shouted.

“The bird may come back.”

There was no time to discuss the likelihood.

Shells struck the village.

Roofs lifted into the air.

Glass fell like rain.

At the stone culvert, Bambi stopped.

This was where his mother had told him to wait.

For a moment, he was eleven years old forever, clutching a blue scarf while the church bell rang itself to death.

Then Mrs. Varin touched his shoulder.

“Keep moving.”

They guided the villagers toward the river.

Near sunset, fighters emerged from the trees.

Stefan stood among them.

His men raised their rifles.

Bambi stepped in front of the villagers.

His father looked at the children, the wounded, the elderly, and the families dragging what remained of their lives through the mud.

“You warned them,” Stefan said.

“Yes.”

“You compromised the operation.”

“Yes.”

“Government troops escaped with them.”

“Some did.”

“They will fight us again.”

“Maybe.”

Stefan’s eyes moved to the blue scarf around Bambi’s wrist.

“You think this makes you brave?”

“No.”

“What does it make you?”

Bambi considered the question.

“Responsible.”

Gunfire sounded from the village.

The National Army had begun withdrawing toward the river.

Stefan’s officers shouted for orders.

He looked at Bambi.

For the first time, neither of them asked the other to become someone different.

Stefan turned to his men.

“Give them five minutes.”

One officer protested.

Stefan raised his pistol.

“Five minutes.”

Bambi led the villagers across the river.

The bombardment resumed before everyone reached the far bank.

A shell struck the culvert.

Another landed near the orchard.

Bambi looked back and saw his father standing on the eastern ridge while Drenovo burned between them.

He could not tell whether Stefan was watching the village, the battle, or his son.

Years later, people would say Commander Valev had allowed civilians to escape.

Others would say he had attacked knowing they were there.

Both stories were true.

Neither was enough.