Trafika Europe 7 - Ukrainian Prayer

VOROShILOVGRAD

maybe not.” In the early fall, everything was set into motion again, everything was reactivated— caravans of trucks pushed out to the north, delivering the fruits of the harvest to local markets. This golden September was warm. The sun would seem to halt right above the gas pumps, and then it’d get it into its head to roll away as quickly as it could, heading along the highway to the west, lighting up the road for the truckers. Sometimes Ernst would stop by and hold forth to Injured about differences in the tactics of tank combat in daytime and nighttime conditions. Injured would soon lose his temper and disappear into his workshop to dismember some more fresh automobile carcasses. Occasionally, when it wasn’t too hot, the clergyman with whom I’d struck up a friendship during

speaking terms. My former Kharkiv friends never came back. I forgave their debt. Kocha’s Gypsy relatives gave me enough money to keep going. I stopped trying to contact my brother. At night I’d dream about airplanes. Surprisingly enough, my gas station worries had just evaporated somehow. At first, I sat around anxiously awaiting their next move— waiting for arson, corpses, and so forth. I even tried to rally my old acquaintances in town. Nothing ever wound up happening, though, and I was told not to make a big deal about it, and just take things as they came. I gradually calmed down, despite Injured’s constant warnings that our problems wouldn’t blow over so easily, and that one day somebody was going to get his neck snapped. “Maybe,” I told myself. “And then again,

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