The Spinning Heart Read Online Free PDF Page B

brother and I journeyed south to a city that was spreading outwards like a dirty puddle. We lived in a hut of galvanized metal and scrap wood, near to where a great building was being erected. Its foundations were deeper than I thought even an ocean could be. I could not see their lowest part. My brother and I carried blocks to masons, along planks suspended above nothingness. We became braver each day and the other men began to respect us. You goatherds aren’t bad, the boss said once. I felt pride and then foolishness. My brother must have misheard what the man had said and taken his words for an insult. He cast aside his burden and struck the man in the face. Other men, anxious to be in good favour with the boss, turned on my brother and kicked and beat him. I fought until blood ran down my face and into myeyes and mouth and my fists were raw and scorched with pain. My brother was almost unconscious when I dragged him clear of danger; there was a swelling on his forehead. I looked back from the street and the men that had attacked us were already turned away, bent once more to their labouring. The fat man my brother had struck was rubbing his chin, pointing and shouting orders.
    My brother left our hut the next day and bought dirty vodka brewed by a man in a small still across the street, beaten together from a vat and a stolen distiller. He sang scraps of folk songs that night, half-remembered from our childhood. There was no music in his voice; he shouted and screamed the words and woke people from their sleep. Shut up Afanasiev, you fool, men said from inside their own shanties. No one had courage enough to stand before him, though. He staggered away from me as I reached for him to calm him and bring him inside; he fell, and pushed me away as I tried to help. The swelling on his forehead had not reduced. The next day, a local militiaman and a regular policeman came to our muddy street and began to ask for relatives of Viktor Afanasiev. He is my brother, I said. Your brother is dead, the policeman said. The militiaman had a stubby rifle slung around his neck. He stroked it as though it were a pet and said come with us. Viktor had been found lying in a gap between two buildings at the centre of the town. He’d been beaten again and had suffocated in blood. I could never return to my home without my brother.
    I heard of men who were planning to travel to Western Europe. I asked them how this could be done and they gave me a piece of paper with names, addresses and numbers. That was four years ago. When I first reached Ireland I learned quickly how best to find employment. I took from others words and phrases that served me well for a while: off the books, under the table, on the queue tee . One man can learn some trades by watching another closely. I worked in two cities and then came to this village. There was work here and the air was sweet. I worked for Pokey Burke for nearly two years. Now I use the money I had saved for food and to pay my rent and I work some days for the foreman again. Bobby. He calls me the best of the ‘see too’ boys. I don’t know what this means. I smile and nod.
    I have learned the roads around this village. I know the way to a quay, on the edge of a lake of placid water. There are wooden seats at this quay to sit on and look at the water. The evening sun turns it to a glistening, dazzling thing that has no place on this dull earth except in that short time before sunset. That light is a trick: if I were to swim to it or row out to put my hand upon it, it would be gone as I approached and there would be only dark, cold water in its place. Across the bay there is another place, identical to the one where I sit. When the air is moist the distant bank becomes magnified and seems closer, as do the dark hills behind it. When the air is dry it moves away, and could be another country, across a sea. When it looks to be a distance that I could easily swim, I think of myself trying and of being