1 July, 9:00 AM, “The Czernograd Gazette” newsroom
There was another message on his desk, and this time he suspected the meeting would not go as smoothly as before. Perhaps the time just for the word from the wise had passed and Igor should be taking an umbrella to shield them from a stream of piss falling on him from a great, great height. He actually imagined, as he was making the slow journey from his desk to his boss’s lair, Lis, a man shorter than Igor by at least a head, standing on his desk with his fly unzipped – no, the desk would not do; in the window of his office, and Igor downstairs on the street, opening his beaten up black umbrella, and the thought actually made him chuckle. Better store up on that mirth, he thought, there won’t be much more around for a while.
Lis wasn’t on the phone when Igor walked into his office. Normally it would have been a good sign; waiting being a prelude to a harangue, a time to stew and soften. But this time it only meant that Lis wanted to get straight to the point, and the point would be clear enough for Igor to absorb without a preface.
“I don’t like repeating myself,” Lis said.
“Then don’t,” Igor said, collapsing into the guest chair.
“I didn’t tell you to sit down,” Lis said, his attention focused on fishing a cigarette out of the pack.
Igor shifted, but didn’t get up. Lis’ bark was worse then... well, for all the posturing, there was just bark. It was a secret shared by Lis and Igor and only one or two others around the office. A useful secret.
Lis lit up and threw a spent match in the direction of the bin.
“Just what the fuck do you think you’re exactly doing?” he said, through the smoke, his profile turned away from Igor, towards the window.
“I could pretend not to know what you’re talking about,” Igor said.
“Thank you for your consideration in not wasting our precious time,” Lis said. You sound like the messenger, Igor thought. Is that it? “Drop it,” his boss said. Most probably yes.
“What if there is something to it?”
“Drop it,” Lis repeated. Outside the window an overcast sky the colour of dirty dishwater rose above the jagged roof line. If it was a sunny day, the morning light would now be striking his face, Igor thought. No light now.
There was a fork in the road. That is there was a choice, an option other than a silent dissent. He could have told Lis everything he had learned thus far. It wasn’t solid yet, but it was something. Granted, most of it based just on Igor’s say-so, his instinct and hearsay from sources which could not be identified. And maybe Lis would take a bite. Igor would have had. Or he could keep quiet, pretend to heed the instruction, as always, and do his own thing, nurture it and water it until it grew into a big, powerful tree – his tree – that everyone would then want to share but only he could claim as his own, the sort of a story that his American counterparts would get a Pulitzer for, a fat book contract and the instant household fame through a talk-show circuit.
But then he thought about Lis the messenger, and he knew that there was really no choice, no option, and there was no fork in the road, just a road, a road he would take, alone. Lis was not an adventurous soul, strangely for his trade; just a man who wanted to get on and get by without bumping into anyone too much along the way. Some would call him a coward; others would call him smart. Igor would call him unimaginative.
“Or what?” he said.
Lis stabbed out the cigarette and finally looked at him.
“Svoboda, this is not a game, and I’m not asking a favour. I’m telling you.”
“And I’m listening,” Igor said, standing up.
“If you have any sense, you are,” Lis nodded, to no one and nothing in particular.
“Is that all?” Igor asked. The room looked somehow smaller when one was standing up. Or maybe it has just become smaller.
Lis nodded again.
“Svoboda,” he said when Igor put his hand on the door handle. Igor turned around.
“If you want to be a hero, become a fire-fighter,” his editor said.
Words of wisdom, truly.
“I just might,” said Igor and walked out, taking the first step on his road.
Photo by Sara Kurfeß on Unsplash