Free Angel of Oblivion by Maja Haderlap Page A

couriers. I did the cooking. It was very dangerous.
    Were you afraid? I ask.
    I should think so, I was only a child, a few years older than you.
    Behind us we hear frightened game take flight.
    It got a whiff of us, Father says.
    Under the crest of the forest, between mighty spruce trees with thick branches that almost reach the ground, a hut appears. It is completely covered with bark, layer nailed upon layer over a wooden frame. We used to sleep here when we were felling timber, Father says. He opens the lock and stores the tools and the fuel canister next to the unused cots.
    First I have to go to the logging stand, he says, then we can cross the border.
    His work area looks neat and is marked off by piles of branches. Stripped and unstripped logs are arranged on the ground, with branch stumps or pared, as Father says, and between them, fragrant piles of sawdust. The logs have sloping edges, the cut surfaces of the trunks shine like freshly carved wooden plates.
    Father stands in the middle of the clearing and looks over the stand, then he gathers the scattered splitting wedges and covers them with branches. I’m looking forward to a beer now, he says and points toward the border.
    To my surprise, the border runs close to the logging stand. From thecrest of the forest I can see the Yugoslavian side of the slope and to my amazement it looks exactly like the Austrian side, just a continuation of the familiar landscape. Father leans his weight on a fence post as he leaps over the border. He tells me to crawl across under the barbed wire, lifting the bottom strand so I don’t get caught on the twirling spikes.
    Suddenly he is in a hurry again. With long strides, he rushes downhill through a sparse wood. Fern leaves slap at my face. He waits for me below the wood. He sits on the grass, looking down at a low-lying valley that seems to disappear in the depths.
    Over there, behind the Raduha, Father points at the ridge of a mountain, that’s where I went to school during the war, he says. Not long. Fourteen days it must have been. I went to school there, in Luče. He and his brother were the band’s couriers, on a farm. After they ran away from home, they were only allowed to stay in the bunker with their father for two weeks. Then they were taken to the Savinja Valley because it was liberated territory. They had to abandon their command center in January because the Germans attacked the valley. The Germans fired so many shots over the field, that dirt sprayed everywhere, Father says. He and the other couriers buried the typewriters in the ground. They dug a hole, threw in some straw and piled the typewriters on it. Then they spread more straw on top, and then dirt, and grass, and snow, until nothing was visible. They set off in the afternoon and walked all night. The next day, Germans chased us again, Father says. The snow came up to my hips. One of the commanders told me I wasn’t going to make it.
    He spits hard as if he needed relief after telling the story.
    At the Kumers’, we are greeted by two women who know his name. Zdravko, they call, Zdravko, how nice that you’ve come back! They serve Father a beer and me a slice of bread with liverwurst.
    On the way home, Father looks at me with an absent smile. I think how good it would be if Father took me into his confidence and repeated the story he told me earlier then asked me what I’ve been through and I could tell him how I’m bullied on the way to school and that I dream of him confronting my classmates and demanding they stop threatening me at once. In the hope of being able to count on Father, I make him a silent promise that I myself don’t understand, a commitment to accompany him on his way home and on his way to school, through this very landscape, maybe, or in his memories. As we make our way uphill through the forest I wonder if I should stay in my child’s body or should grow out of it, and for this day I decide to stay in my short skirt, cotton tights,