My Own Revolution Read Online Free

sky and the pointy snowcapped peaks. If you ride the ski lifts, you can see all the way to Poland. Here in the Tatras, Janosik and his band of loyal men hid in tough times.
    Tati stops and we get out and stand shivering, gazing at the glaciers. I find myself wondering what kinds of mountains they have in America. I lift my camera and capture the folds and flow of the largest peak.
    Danika moves closer. As her shoulder brushes mine, I wonder if Janosik’s sweetheart also hid out in the Tatras.
    Since the light is falling in the valley below, we climb back into the car for the last part of the trip. We cruise out of the mountains, back to the villages and collective farms.
    At last we arrive in Shindliar, a little town lined with brick houses enclosed by white picket fences. Tati turns down a dirt road into the pines. The rutty road jostles me against Danika until we pull up at a house with a steep-pitched roof covered by emerald-green moss. Smoke unfurls from the chimney.
    Dr. and Mrs. Machovik come out the front door, the doctor with his pointy goatee, and Mrs. Machovik wiping her hands on her apron. Dr. Machovik has been our family doctor since I was born.
    They stand waving while Tati parks the blue Fiat. When we get out, they gush on about how Bela and Danika and I have grown. The collie, named Tulo, licks and jumps against my legs. I settle him down, pressing my cheek into his fur.
    Dr. Machovik takes us around the side of his house to show off his garden of tomatoes, squash, and peas. He shows us the currants Mrs. Machovik makes into jam. He explains that when he’s in Trencin being a doctor, the neighbor cares for all of this.
    “I’m lucky the government lets me grow anything at all. They want everything collectivized.” Dr. Machovik bends down to yank out a weed. “But without these little gardens, we’d all starve. I should give half to the government, of course,” he says. “Instead I give to my friends and declare less.”
    Danika and I make faces at each other. We’ve heard this rant before.
    With a smile, Mrs. Machovik takes Bela’s hand and leads her away to the crisp blades of new tulips bursting through the soil.
    Meanwhile, Dr. Machovik starts showing off the white boxes housing the bees. I used to be afraid of bees and hid in the house whenever Dr. Machovik put on his bee suit. But today only a few stray ones wander through the early-evening air. “In the winter I feed them sugar,” Dr. Machovik says. “That makes inferior honey.” He chuckles. “That’s the honey I give the government.” He chuckles again.
    I know where this conversation is headed. Dr. Machovik and Tati will rage over the way the Moscow advisers are handing down unworkable policies for Czechoslovakia.
Willy-nilly,
they’ll say.
    “Let’s go to the river,” I say to Danika.
    The springtime river, which has angled down from the Tatra Mountains above, is a leady color with sharp whitecaps. In the summer, it’ll turn green and lazy again, glinting with yellow sparkles. We’ll picnic and sunbathe on the hot sand, then jump into the current, which carries us to the river’s bend. Just before the white water, we’ll climb back out and return by the forest trail.
    The light dims, and the river becomes a blur. The pines turn gray. The voices of Tati and the doctor grow softer as they retreat into the house. Finally, Mrs. Machovik calls us to dinner.
    Inside the house, good cooking smells fill the air. I take in the familiar shelves of porcelain figurines, the photographs in their silver filigree frames. There’s even one of me and Danika playing with a ball. Lace doilies extend over the arms of the chairs, the back of the sofa — everything crocheted by Mrs. Machovik.
    “Come here,” Mrs. Machovik beckons. She lifts the lid of a basket. Inside, nestled in flannel, lie two newborn bunnies, their eyes still closed.
    “Their mother was killed by a cat,” Mrs. Machovik says, handing one bunny to Bela, another to Danika,