The Assassins by Alan Bardos (best novels in english txt) 📗

guessed the man who spoke was the same age as him, but Johnny was twice his size. He looked sallow and delicate with a sharp featured face, accentuated by a pencil moustache.

‘I agree, Gavrilo. I am not saying that we should create a state, but we must lay foundations first,’ the older one said submissively. He was sitting on a bed opposite the door. Johnny supposed he was some sort of intellectual.

They were dressed in the same style as Johnny, except the older one was wearing a black tie. Breitner had told him the names to look out for: Danilo Ilic and Gavrilo Princip. They looked as likely a pair of revolutionaries as he was ever going to meet. Johnny knocked and they broke off their conversation.

'Good afternoon,' Johnny said, waving his copy of Kropotkin as they looked up. 'My name is Jon – Jovo. I have the room next door.’ He received the same hard, blank stares as he’d had in the cafe a few nights previously. 'I see you're also reading Kropotkin. Tell me, are you familiar with the pamphlet, “What is to be Done?” by Lenin?'

Gavrilo scowled and stood up. ‘I am sure that whatever is to be done has nothing to do with listening at keyholes,' he said and slammed the door in Johnny’s face.

Johnny left the boarding house, retracing the route he’d taken the day before with Breitner, through the meandering streets of the old town and past the City Hall, which now seemed an incredibly desirable place to be after a night in his lodgings.

He turned right onto Appel Quay, a long straight embankment which the Austrians had cut through the city to control the flow of the Miljacka River, and followed the elegant new Austrian style buildings along the embankment.

It was obvious to Johnny just how pointless this whole venture was; he’d exchanged views on historical materialism with Trotsky but couldn’t strike up a conversation about anarchism with some simple peasants.

Johnny crossed a cobbled bridge and sat in the park opposite the embankment, then reluctantly opened the copy of Kropotkin that Breitner had given him. It was starting to look as if he’d actually have to read it.

‘I don’t think that I’ve ever seen such a reluctant anarchist before.’ A smooth, liquid voice immediately distracted Johnny and he turned to see that a pretty girl had sat next to him. She had a perfect oval face, with a cute, upturned nose and long auburn hair neatly plaited and tied back in a bun, but it was the mocking look in her amber eyes that shook him.

‘You do not find his work interesting?’ she asked.

Johnny shrugged indifferently. ‘It’s not that I don’t find it interesting, it’s that I’m more familiar with the works of Lenin.’

‘Really? That is unusual amongst the local youths. In fact, I think you’re the first person I’ve met who is.’ She eyed Johnny suspiciously.

‘I’m sure that Lenin and Kropotkin aren’t so different. They both want a revolution and to change society,’ Johnny said pompously. He doubted that this simple creature would have read Lenin or Kropotkin - probably too busy plaiting her hair.

‘Lenin believes in a strong, centralised state while Kropotkin argues for communities based on mutual aid and cooperation,’ she said, taking a bite from a burek and reminding Johnny just how hungry he was. Her eyes mocked him and she broke a piece off for him.

‘Here - solidarity amongst the workers,’ she smiled.

Johnny nodded his thanks and took a bite from the pasty, savouring the spicy meat and wondered if he could afford to buy one after she’d gone.

'Lenin wants to replace one form of authoritarian state with another. True freedom can only be achieved if we have no state,’ she said.

‘I see, thank you. I’ll bear that in mind the next time I talk to an anarchist,’ Johnny replied, wondering if that was where he’d gone wrong with Princip and Ilic. ‘But surely, they both believe in revolution?’

She looked at her watch before saying, ‘Revolution is more than a slogan; it needs to be a change in the way you behave and feel.’ She stood up. ‘Come on, you can walk me back – it’s the least you can do after I fed you.’

‘I say, you’re very forward,’ Johnny said. He’d been on the back foot ever since he’d met her and he wasn’t comfortable with the sensation.

‘There is a revolution going on and you stand on social niceties.’

‘I’m supposed to be meeting someone.’

‘A girl?’ she asked coyly.

‘No, as it happens,’ Johnny said, looking around for Breitner.

‘I see. Perhaps you don’t like girls.’ She smiled teasingly and walked away, swaying in a long billowy skirt. Johnny waited a moment before following. He couldn’t help himself and he didn’t have anything to tell Breitner anyway.

They walked along the opposite side of the river, from the embankment, past whitewashed Turkish style houses, until they came to the Emperor’s mosque.

‘So do you often do this - dally with strange men in the park?’

‘Is that what I’m doing? I thought I was educating an ignorant youth.’

Johnny was used to this type of charade. ‘I might be ignorant, but I’m sure that I can satisfy your needs – as a woman.’

‘That’s very funny, but inaccurate.’ She turned her head away, hiding her smile and guided him across the Emperor’s Bridge.

Johnny saw a good looking man on the other side of the river stop at the bridge and take his cap off.

‘Right on cue, that’s good,’ she said and pulled Johnny’s cap off. 'You know what this place is, of course?'

Johnny shrugged. He looked down at the Miljacka River, its blood-red water running a few inches deep in the June heat. 'The Emperor's Bridge,' he said tentatively, not sure why she was asking.

'This is where Bogdan Zerajic made his