The Best Travel Writing 2011 - James O'Reilly [35]
A few yards from Lev, the guard stopped and shouted again.
Lev glared back, eyebrows arched sardonically.
The guard stepped forward, white-knuckled fists clenched above his hips, but Lev stood rooted to his spot, looking like a giant glittery-eyed bird with his beaky nose, his tufts of white hair flapping in the wind.
With one hand the guard reached for his nightstick and flourished it, lunging forward and grabbing the strap of Lev’s camera with the other hand.
Still clutching the jar and his camera, trying to free the strap, Lev lowered his head like a bull and butted the guard. Marina and I hung back a few yards. I glanced down the slope, gauging the distance to the car.
The guard slammed Lev on the shoulder with his stick, but Lev wouldn’t let go of his camera.
From down the path came the sound of an engine starting up. Ina had started the car, and managed to turn it around. She was backing up toward us.
Hearing glass shattering, I turned to see Lev, still clutching his camera and strap in one hand. His other hand was empty. Near the guard’s feet, shards of Lev’s jar of relics were scattered along with its contents—fragments of newspaper, a length of green ribbon, a twisted spoon. The guard’s beefy face twisted with rage.
“Run to the car,” Lev shouted, unnecessarily. Marina and I were already running, with Lev close behind, snapping pictures as he ran.
Once we were all in the car, Ina coasted down the path toward the foot of the mountain, the red fire extinguisher bouncing around on the dashboard, the wipers flapping, scraping grime from the windshield. Gasping, Lev laughed like a madman. Suddenly, we were all laughing hysterically, though at what I wasn’t sure. Lev pointed at the guard, who stood on the crest of the mountain, waving his stick like a Keystone Cop.
“What does he imagine he’s guarding?” Lev wondered between snorts of laughter. “What does he think he’s guarding with his ridiculous uniform?”
Shoulders shaking with laughter, Lev worked the wires to secure the broken passenger door. “What the hell does he think he’s guarding?” he repeated. “He probably doesn’t even know!”
We laughed all the way to the foot of the mountain, where Ina stopped the car. We all fell silent then, and turned back for one final look.
“Koshmar,” Marina whispered from the back seat. “Nightmare.”
“History,” corrected Ina, the historian.
As we reached the clearing and headed back toward the road, a fresh wave of gulls wheeled overhead. I turned to watch their winged shadows flickering over the mountain of trash. I still heard their cries, growing fainter and fainter, as the Moskveech bumped along past the guardhouse with its looming STOP. NO TRESPASSING sign, and on through a half-mile of sunlight-laced forest.
As we turned back onto the Partisan Highway, Marina tapped my shoulder and pointed to the cloudless sky. A stork was gliding toward us, silently, white head and neck extended, black tail feathers spread, its long legs trailing like streamers. Ina stopped the car, and we watched the stork as it coasted down to a giant nest at the top of a telephone pole, folding forward like a hinge as it landed.
“This bird is our national symbol,” Marina reminded me. “We say it brings happiness.”
I smiled. “Does it bring babies too?”
“Yes, we also have this story,” Ina said. “There are many legends about the stork, all happy ones. The stork is the bird of hope. And, perhaps because they return to the same nest each year, there’s a legend that storks brought to mankind the gift of memory.”
Hearing this, Lev again burst out in laughter.
“Memory,” he muttered. Then, shaking his head, he added bitterly, “Our national bird.”
I considered Lev’s comment as I watched the stork settling onto its enormous nest. I’d come in search of my own history