They sat in the shade of the truck for almost an hour. There had been a lot of talking, and some of the women had gone so far as to attempt to strike or claw the captain. Mrs. Baulij had been one of these, and she now sat on the ground in the middle of the square, her face bleeding from where a soldier had hit her. One of her friends, Nazifa Sponsz, stood beside her. From time to time Nazifa surreptitiously wiped the blood from Aloj's mother's face and quietly tried to get the older woman to get up and go back to her house. Mrs. Baulij wouldn't move, but at least she was no longer screaming at the soldiers.536Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcCpeRjE1MH
Aloj watched his mother and did not allow himself for one minute to glance toward his house. He hoped that Borburo had had wits enough to hide herself and the babies. Borbura was as likely to stand and scream as she was to hide---since the day some Syldavian soldiers grabbed her and kept her in their truck for an hour she had never been a sane, whole person. But whatever Borbura was doing now, Aloj was not conscious of any flicker of movement from his house. Even the door had swung half open, stuck in the mud, with only two crows pecking around.
He decided not to think about his mother and sister, for if he did he might reveal by some passing expression that someone was hiding, and he had a sense that the soldiers were preparing to leave. The sooner they got out of the village, the less damage would be done.
He knew, of course, that when the soldiers left, he and Tokar and Kszar would go with them. The captain had taken out a pen and filled out some official-looking papers, handing one to each boy's mother. One of them accepted the paper silently as if dumb and blind and the other as if it were a snake or carrion. Mrs. Baulij had dropped hers, and Nazifa now held it. Aloj could hear that paper crackle a little as Nazifa moved to cover his mother behind her skirts.
Aloj hoped that Nazifa could get his mother back into the house soon. His mother had become so enraged when the soldiers did---that thing---to his sister that she had even tried to kill one of them with a steak knife. They were Syldavians, those soldiers, and it was just because there was suddenly word of the approach of a band of Bordurians and they had to leave at once that they did not shoot Mrs. Baulij then.
If she had tried to kill a Bordurian soldier she would have been arrested, tried, and then shot. That was the main difference between the Syldavians and the Bordurians, as far as Aloj could tell. The Bordurians weren't "ethnic cleansers" who disappeared you immediately, but they would conscript you, and you died fighting, or they "arrested" you and you disappeared. Either way you died.536Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZXKroY6u6T
Both sides sent committees of people to the villages from time to time to make speeches about their causes and tack up posters which people immediately tore down to use for writing paper. Aloj and most of the others never listened to the speeches, even though they were compelled to stand there, and most of them refused to read the posters. Both Kszar and his grandfather could read them---Aloj read them sometimes---but nobody cared what the posters said anyway. Who cared if the Bordurians said they had opened ten new schools this year and were going to hold elections next year---or the year after---if you were starving this week? In any case, Aloj knew he had to load onions and sausages and harvest wheat to earn money for food for his family, so the Bordurians could have opened a school next door, and it wouldn't have mattered to him. Food, on the other hand, mattered a great deal. Right now he was very hungry.....536Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB0DWXVceaJ
Aloj jerked his attention back to the present and the soldiers. They had loaded the desk and chair and other things onto one trick, along with some sausages, some bread loaves they took from one of the houses, and several chickens whose feet they tied together with string.
Captain Maric stood talking to Mr. Jaral, and Aloj could just barely hear his voice. "Yes, Mr. Jaral, it is a great sacrifice. Not one single family in the nation has escaped without making a sacrifice. But it is only with our heart's blood that we will win our right to life...."536Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp1PmpJPfWq
"But"--the old man's voice was only a reedy whisper...."will there be anyone left in the country to enjoy the peace---to build the breakaway Republic of Borduria? I only ask, my captain...."536Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDl5EbtR0ye
Captain Maric was silent for several seconds. Then he turned suddenly to the men: "Pozsuri! Load up! "Zsamo napred!"536Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmam64o2kj1
Life, hell, raged Aloj as the soldier beside him booted him up in the truck---they take us prisoner and call if fighting for our lives---?
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