Home » Czech Republic » Bianca Bellova »Jezero (The Lake)
Bianca Bellova: Jezero (The Lake))
This book opens in a remote fishing village by a lake. However, things are not going well. The lake seems to be drying up. There are the remains of a Russian fleet rusting in the lake. The children have played on them numerous times a and are bored with them. For the men work has dried up. The port is out of action so there’s no work there, the fish plant is not hiring and there is little fishing available. They drink. They gossip. They complain. Many people seem to have eczema. There have been rumours of a baby born with three hands and two headed lambs.
Our main character is Nami. When we first meet him, he is three years old. We see him with his grandmother and grandfather and he is encouraged to swim for the first time. However, he takes in a mouthful of the filthy water and is ssoon throwing up. The grandfather soon disappears and and we learn that he has died out on the lake Local gossips indicate that his mother was free and easy with her favours but we do not know any further information, nor who his father is. The rumour is that the mother has gone to the big city (not)ot named). Nami does ask various people about her but gets no solid information.
Nami hangs out with Alex, a neighbouring boy of about his age. They generally behave badly, smoking, drinking, and of course eyeing the girls. There are a group of Russians living nearby who are involved in engineering and one of the favourite games of the boys is shooting the Russkies.
Like most boys Nami does not particularly like not like school. All of the mothers and fathers in Boros want
their boys to do well in school and attend the naval academy, but most of them
are dimwits and end up on fishing boats just like their fathers.. However, the teacher later say that Nami is very bright and is deserving of support.
He is now growing older and has met a girl, Zaza and they start seeing one another.
Then it all goes wrong again it is clear that his grandmother is going blind and eventually she trips over and hurts herself badly. The doctor comes and has her removed to a hospital while.Nami goes and stays with the director of the kolkhoz and his wife. They have a baby who has a hand coming out of its chest and has fingers.
Nami clashes with the director, partly because ofZaza and partly because the director wants him to work hard in the garden. Eventually.Nami is locked you in the henhouse. He easily gets out and visits.Zaza in the evenings. However, one day they meet a couple of Russian soldiers and one of them rapes Zaza. After further clashes with the director,Nami decides to leave and at the local café the waitress, who has a soft spot for him, gives him some money and introduces him to the captain of a barge.who will take him to the capital city.
Things are pretty grim in the city. He finds out about the job market which is basically people queueing up and potential employers selecting appropriate ones. He gets a job carrying heavy boxes in a warehouse and thsen as a tar layer and then a loader of sulphur onto barges. . Leisure time activities for him and his fellow workers involve drinking and prostitutes. However, he does look at the various women and wonders if they might be his mother.
Inevitably, things go wrong with the sulphur job and he is back in the queue of job seekers. Despite his scruffy appearance and the fact that he smells as he has not washed for time he is picked up by a man called Johnny, who is a rich man who works for an oil company and Nami will be his facttotum. He lives in Johnny’s luxurious flat IHe is not directly paid. He gets board and lodging can keep the change when he goes out shopping for Johnny. Once again things go wrong. There is an island nearby which had a Russian biological research station it. It has been abandoned but the animals used in the experiments aare now wandering around on the island and it has been decided to get rid of them and this will be a hunting exercise for Johnny and his friends.Nami does not appreciate the cruelty to the animals and gets into a row with Johnny. Once again he is saved, this time by a sailor.
We have gradually been getting a picture of what and where we are. The country is presumably based on Czechoslovakia, it is equally not Czechoslovakia.There seems to be some sort of underclass called Ouroubors, who may or may not be of a different ethnicity, who do the dirty work and now and then revolt. The country is under something like communist rule . The Russians a are still around. The country is run by a dictator called simply. the Statesman. And there are of course people like Johnny who are rich. Clearly climate change is having a an effect as the lake is drying up and there has been very little rain recently. Later we will see that there is a Muslim population, which was not the case in Czechoslovakia.
Meanwhile Nami is introduced to the Old Dame , who was a former mistress of the Statesman. She claims to know who his mother is, which seems a bit dubious, as he does not know his mother’s name or even what she looks like.
Nami continues his adventures and spend some time in the countryside, where they are growing cotton though it has not rained for sometime and where the Muslims are pushing for head coverings for women.
However, as in some novels and indeed in some cases in real life one goes back to the place of one’s birth and Nami goes back toBoros. It has seemingly got worse, but he does find out further information about his origins, though neither we nor he are convinced.
This is an excellent novel, only the fourth I have read published byParthian, the Welsh publisher. Bellova keeps us guessing about Nami’s origins but also about the nature and identity of the country in which this novel is set. As mentioned above it, clearly is and is not Czechoslovakia.Nami seemingly comes through, but many others, human and animal, clearly do not.
Publishing history
First published by Mrvní vydání in 2016
First published in English in 2022 by Parthian Books
Translated by Alex Zucker