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it—as if he had nothing better to do.”
    Khristo was properly silent for a moment; he loved and respected a story like little else. Antipin bent to the sand, put his cigarette out, slipped the remnant in his pocket.
    “Was the flower grown? When they went there the second time?”
    “The story does not say. I like to think it wasn’t. But the point has to do with being ruled. Being someone else’s property. Fiftyyears ago the landlords owned their serfs, hundreds of them, to do with as they pleased. They would marry them off, one to another, to please their wives’ romantic fantasies. We love dolls in Russia, Khristo Nicolaievich, it helps us remember our past.”
    “Perhaps it was like that here too,” Khristo said. “When the Turks ruled us.”
    “The Turk still rules you, my friend, except that he has taken off the fez and put on a crown. Czar Boris, your king calls himself. Czar! And he is the toy of the army and the fascist officers’ clique that calls itself Zveno , the chain link. You are young, and have lived a natural life on this river, perhaps you don’t yet understand how these bastards work. You see Veiko and his little army, and you know them for what they are—bullies, drunken piss-bags out for a good time. But when there is fertile political soil, your Veiko will soon be a towering tree. As things stand now, he is the future of this country.”
    He paused a moment, cleared his throat. “Forgive me, there is a demon in me that demands to make speeches. Let me tell you, instead, what will happen here. Your brother died at the hands of swine, and nothing was done. Nothing will be done.”
    Khristo’s heart sank. A thousand times he had wished that that night could be lived over again, that he could take Nikko by the scruff of the neck, as a wise older brother should have, and haul him away from the ridiculous parade. He had loved his brother well enough, his death was a piece torn away from his own life, but there was more than that. The sorrow of the family had lodged in his father, and he suspected, no, he knew, that his father blamed him for it.
    “Do not feel shame,” Antipin said quietly, reading his mood. “It was not your fault, no matter what you think. You should not blame yourself. I do not grant absolution, I am not a priest. But it is history that I understand, and this thing had to happen. It was meant to happen. That it happened to you, to your brother, is sorrowful but you will someday see that it was inevitable. The important thing is this: what will you do now?”
    “I don’t know.” His voice sounded small. They had reached the end of the beach and stood for a time, the Turkish fortress loomingabove them, the river running quietly along the sand, white foam visible in the darkness.
    “I will presume,” Antipin said, “to jump history a pace and I will tell you what to do. Do not waste your time with grief. It is a great flaw in our character, our Slavic nature, to do that. We are afflicted with a darkness of the soul and fall in love with our pain.”
    “What then?”
    “Come with me. East.” Antipin nodded his head downriver.
    His eyes followed Antipin’s gesture into the darkness, toward the East. His stomach fluttered at the idea of such a journey, as though he had been invited to step off the edge of the world.
    “Me?” he said.
    “Yes.”
    “Why?” In wonder.
    “Here, in this town, it will go on. You will not survive it. They murdered your brother; they must now presume you to be their mortal enemy, very troubling to keep an eye on. As the eldest brother, responsibility to even the score rests with you. With me or without me, Khristo Nicolaievich, you must go away. You may very well save your family’s life, you will certainly save your own.”
    Khristo had not meant why go . He had meant why me . But Antipin had answered the wrong question the right way. It would happen like the old feuds—one of mine, one of yours, until only one stood. Since Nikko’s