Shche Ne Vmerla Ukrainy
I pokazhem, shcho my, brattia, kozats'koho rodu.
Jack regained his senses during a face-cleaning administered by two or three muddy, mangy dogs, and the first thing he thought of was how it was nothing at all like being wildly kissed by beautiful women, and the second thing was that their tongues smelled like a dozen different substances that he didn't want on his face. He sat up and swiped around his head until the dogs wandered off, affronted.
Someone hauled him to his feet by his hair, and Jack leaned his head hard against the hand that held him while the world bucked and spun. He was surrounded by about seventy giants and midgets, all lined up tallest to shortest—no, that wasn't reasonable. The sun made him nauseous. He made some muddled calculations and concluded that there were about twenty averaged-sized people, and he was seeing triple.
"Parlay!" he exclaimed brightly, gripping the man that held him by the back of the neck and noticing that whoever it was was knotted as a plowhorse. The crowd seemed unimpressed. "No me killim. Toktok? Mipila stretpela, gut, i no stret, hoki? Dood mi niet. Hablemos premero. Mif logorim, nactoko oropcheno. Sorry. Savvy?"
The burly policeman holding him turned to a friend who had joined the crowd in staring at Jack as though he were some sort of five-legged donkey. "What the hell kind of language is that?"
Cantonese, thought Jack, still working his Ingratiating smile. What did he know in Cantonese? He could haggle, he could wish the Emperor health, he could make off-color jokes about a hundred subjects including the Emperor, he could critique an enemy's swordplay—right now, though, he felt reduced to throwing out random syllables until something made sense. "Suixi Women's Reformation through Labor," he blurted, then grinned as he realized that not only had he said it in the right language, he had said something useful.
"Suixi Laogai," said the plowhorse. "I know that place, I worked there."
"What is your country, foreigner," barked a sour-faced police captain.
Jack rocked back away from him and drew himself up as tall as he could with another man pulling down on his hair. He decided to go with the last wrong language he'd spoken. "I from Russia," he said, bruising his Cantonese with a bizarre accent.
The captain's face lifted a bit; evidently Russians were good people to be courteous to. "You mean the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics," he said, with a hint of curiosity in his voice.
"Da, da. That. Comrade, where are your two fine men who gave chase me? They have my boot," he said, and wriggled his toes. "Zhanzhiang should be proud of them, they flew at me like mighty borzoi. Had only the devout and compulsive police of Vournikovikovska such training, such passion like the mad dog. This is lesson I take back to my country." Someone passed his boot through the crowd, and Jack handed the man who gave it to him a ruble from his coat pocket. The man spit on the coin, polished it on a sleeve, and, grinning, tucked it away.
"Pardon me, good Russian," said the captain, "but I have never seen a Russian to look like you. In what province is . . . Worn-koy-koy-chan?"
"Province!" Jack sneered, and spat on the ground. "I am Cossack," he declared, drawing his coat back to reveal the saber at his hip. The crowd shrank back slightly, which gave him a warm feeling. "Cossack knows no province, as no one keeps a Cossack! Cossacks have freedom of wide steppe, the wind on hair, and company and plunder of other Cossacks. And also company of feisty, wise women," he said, twisting the word "wise" into something the police captain licked his lips over. "Cossacks also have lousy jails and policemen who know less than their horses—which is a credit, truly, being our horses are very smart. So I, Jascha Capitanovic, come to your country from my country to gather the magnificent skill of police and prison who put pretty Zhanzhiang in so iron trample-hoof fist of legal order, so to go to my country so teach iron police horse men all of comrade China's legal order and strike back evil dirty criminals." He spat again. "Perhaps start with Suixi Laogai? Cossacks have much to learn of women's prisons; our women are wise, but very feisty."
"You—you care to tour Suixi Laogai?" asked the captain, frowning in bewilderment.
Jack startled, amazed at his good luck. "Da!"
"Let me see your travel papers, good Russian—Cossack—and Hou will get a car."
Jack reached into his other boot and handed the captain the warranty agreement for a Waring blender.
"I cannot read this," said the captain, inspecting it closely.
Jack plucked the warranty from his hands and handed it back again, upside-down.
"Oh," said the captain, red-faced. He thrust the paper back. "Hou!" he shouted, as someone unseen began to snigger. "Get the car!"
"—And then my comrades and I on our war-boats sailed twenty leagues that evening under a busy wind, pillaged the whole isle, and returned by morning with twelve more boats and more pots and tin cans given them by the filthy Americans during the war than a Taiwanese could hock in an alley," said Jack, finishing the highlights of the last years he'd spent as the god-king of a previously unknown Pacific island. The trick was getting a bit old, but giving the islanders distilled spirits and cookware, as they gave him—or rather, his floatplane that he had arrived on—worship and offerings, had helped him through a dark time in his life. That little plane was always smothered in flower garlands, shell necklaces, warpaint, and strange whisk-like objects made from dried banana leaves.
"I did not know Cossacks could fly planes," said the plowhorse, behind him.
"No one keeps a Cossack!" Jack barked. "I fly where my horse cannot carry."
Jascha Capitanovic, as an honored guest, had the front passenger seat of the rattley little car, while the captain drove and two policemen sat in back. Once it appeared Jack had finished his story, an uncomfortable silence fell, and Jack watched out the window for landmarks. The hill country was lush, green, full of foamy floaty budding branches and soft meadows, lit by a mellow sky the color of sea fog. The sight of hills, unfortunately, made him dizzy in the pit of his stomach; it was unnatural to stand at the foot of something so tall; the surface of the earth should not be jagged. Mountains were hairy brown moles on the otherwise smooth forehead of the world.
"You know, you are the second foreigner to visit Suixi Laogai," said the captain, by way of conversation.
The other policeman, who was a bit pudgier than Plowhorse, snorted. "He will be the first foreigner to leave it, then."
"Second," said Plowhorse.
"What?" Pudgy was skeptical.
"First," snapped the captain firmly.
"What is this, comrades?" Jack asked, turning around in his seat as he offered the captain a sip from his flask.
"Nothing, nothing, just a silly story among the guards," said the captain. "Ignore it."
"Nonsense, good comrade!" said Jack, indicating for the captain to keep the flask. "I did all my talking; tell this silly story, da?"
Plowhorse watched the captain nervously, torn between the urge to gossip to the visitor and Pudgy, and the fear of official reproof. The captain took a deep swig with his right hand, steered with his left, and ignored a stop sign, so Plowhorse shrugged to himself and obliged. "It was before my time, just after the Hundred Flowers campaign. There had been many arrests, and Suixi Laogai had a new prisoner, a Christian missionary woman from America."
"Britain," the captain corrected.
"Britain. Now it happened, when this missionary had been reeducated in the great reforms of Beloved Chairman Mao for four months, she was removed from the facility five days, and was brought back. For a hearing, they say. That was the same time they executed that wokou war criminal Zhu Hong—remember Zhu Hong, Hou? She fell in with the Kuomintang, so they say—bad choice of friends. Imagine, she scoffed at our Revolution!"
Jack flinched at the name, and stared rigidly out the window.
The opening lines are from the national anthem of the Ukraine--home to the bold and dashing Cossack horsemen. The languages Jack apologizes and pleads for his life in are, in order, Papua New Guinea pidgin, Dutch, Spanish, and Russian.
Suixi is a real town, but I don't know if it has a Laogai, or reformation-through-labor facility--that is, prison.
The Hundred Flowers Campaign was a purge of dissenters from against the Chinese Communist Party under Chairman Mao.
And yes: during and after World War II, Jack had himself a cargo cult. It's a bit over-used, but I couldn't restrain myself.
