by John Lawton
“Or shall I say … seduce him?”
“Eh?”
“They sent hookers to his sleeping car.”
“I’m not sure I believe you.”
“It’s just what I hear. Make of it what you will. But it’s the point when I think the Russians washed their hands of him. If you can’t get a man’s mind with Marxist logic, that’s one thing. If you can’t get a man by his cock with a couple of whores, then he’s beyond redemption. After that any pretence they would not invade was a smoke screen. Brezhnev had already made his mind up.”
They sipped beer.
“And here we are,” Wilderness said.
“Yep.”
“Unemployed. Out of work.”
Tibor almost choked on his beer.
“Don’t make me laugh, Joe. It’s a waste of good beer.”
“We’re redundant. Think about it. We are spies with nothing left to spy on. It has happened.”
“It is a cock-up. And when it has run its course to nowhere, the Czechs will blame the Slovaks, the Slovaks will blame the Czechs and sooner or later they’ll both blame the Jews.”
“Meanwhile, what do we do? Run a book club and meet to rehash Kafka? I’ve read every word he’s written in the last year.”
“I did, as you suggested, come with sandwiches, beer and a good book.”
Tibor stuck his hand in his jacket pocket, pulled out a tatty German paperback.
Faust by Goethe.
“I’m only halfway through … but … fascinating.”
“I read it years ago,” said Wilderness, taking the book from him. “I doubt I was even twenty. There are lessons for us all in these pages.”
He flipped through to find the line he was looking for.
“Doch der den Augenblick ergreift, Das ist der rechte Mann.”
(He who grasps the moment, he is the proper man.)
“Carpe diem?” Tibor said.
“Oh, far too late for that,” Wilderness replied.
§164
Pussy-in-the-Well to White Rabbit: September 25th
— Joke. When will the Russians leave?
White Rabbit to Pussy-in-the-Well: September 25th
— OK. Tell me.
Pussy-in-the-Well to White Rabbit: September 25th
— When they find out who sent them the invitation!
White Rabbit to Pussy-in-the-Well: September 25th
— Ha bloody ha.
§165
Prague Old Town: October
Someone had been telling the truth about Jiří J.
§166
Jiří was short of money. Again. Partly because of the cost of paint. He had more than two dozen stencils made up and could spray a ten-word slogan in well under a minute. It was great fun, dodging the coppers, ducking and diving, in and out of the alleys, finding an untouched wall and desecrating it. His latest was:
I AM THE WALRUS
Meaningless, but in a system that arrogated to itself such irrationalities as “the inevitability of history,” meaninglessness was the final protest. The revolutionary power of nonsense. Dada pure and simple. History is on our side! History will absolve me! … dada dada dada dada dada dada.
Since the invasion the number of slogans on the walls had multiplied tenfold. Every Prankster had a spray can. He still thought he was the best and had never stooped to the obvious—“Go Home!” or “Freedom!”—and he avoided obscenity. Vepřové Václav didn’t, but then he was much more visual and took time and risks to create cartoons, usually of Brezhnev engaged in sex with animals. And František had taken the biggest risk, pulled off the biggest stunt of all the Pranksters—he’d climbed up the façade of the Old Town Hall and gaffer-taped the mechanical figures.
Jiří felt speed was essential. All the same you couldn’t stencil “Do You Know Which Way the Wind Blows” in just a few seconds. Eight words that had almost got him caught. He’d had to drop the can and the stencils—and he’d made the mistake of telling Nell, who had all but begged him to stop.
His mother might be good for a few crowns. Since he had moved in with his uncle, she had seemed better disposed towards him. She complained less about the length of his hair, asked fewer nosy questions, and while she had never offered money, there was always a cup of tea and a slice of bread and bratwurst set in front of him.
As he walked to her flat in Bartolomějská it occurred to him that if the police were clever they’d stop chasing him through the streets—any kid in plimsolls could outrun a copper in boots—and instead keep an eye on who bought spray paint in hardware shops. Then it occurred to him that they probably did. He pushed the thought to one side and let himself into his mother’s apartment.
“You little sod!”
“Is that any way to greet your only son?”
“What have you been up to?”
“Nothing, Mami.”
“Then why have I had the coppers banging on my door before breakfast? Not just ordinary coppers. StB—and they had a Russian with them!”
Oh shit.
“They’ve never bothered with me before.”
“Jiří, for God’s sake. They never bothered with you because you were a kid. You’re eighteen now. That’s when they start their secret files. Some apparatchik probably typed your name on a folder the day you turned eighteen. And ever since, you’ve been filling it for them. You and your stupid stunts.”
“You didn’t tell them anything?”
“Of course I didn’t. I told them I hadn’t seen you in months. But I don’t want you here. I went through all this with your father. Months of accusation and interrogation. And at the end of it all I was a widow. I won’t go through that again. If I am to lose a son, I’d far rather it was because he just buggered off than fell into the grip of the beast. So, Jiří, find a way out of Prague, find a way out of Czechoslovakia—and just bugger off.”
“I have no money.”
Magda vanished into her bedroom for a minute. Returned with her handbag. Tipped it out onto the kitchen table. A moment’s ferreting around and she plucked out half a dozen bank notes and thrust them at him.
“There. That’s all I’ve got. Take it and go.”
“Mami—”
“Mami nothing. Don’t try and soft-soap me. Just go. And remember this. Your father died for a principle, not for some silly teenage prank.”
§167
Jiří weighed up the risk of going to Petr’s flat. It all depended on whether the cops had worked out where he really lived, by which he meant someone might have finked on him, and whether or not their sense of drama would be ruined if they banged on a door in the middle of the day rather than at daybreak. You should never underestimate the cop love of showing off.
He turned up his collar, pulled his woolly hat down to his eyebrows and took the risk.
Nell was in the kitchen. He could hear Petr clacking away on the typewriter in his study.
“We’re eating in. Care to join us?”
Before Jiří could answer, Petr’s voice boomed from the study.
“He can buy his own bloody food. This is not a soup kitchen!”
“He’s joking,” Nell said.
“If only,” said Jiří. “Nell. I have a problem.”
“Money? You’re always broke.”
“Well … of course … but there’s more … the secret police are on to me.”
Petr had ears like a jackass. He would hear a gnat fart as a tram went by. Now he stood in the doorway.
“What?”
“They came to Mami’s apartment this morning.”
“And you came here?”
“I’ve nowhere else to go.”
“You stupid little fucker.”
“Petr! Please,” Nell said. “Let the boy speak.”
“He’s said it all. The cops are after him, so he leads them here?”
“Were you followed, Jiří?” she said.
“No. And I don’t mean to put either of you at risk. I just … well I have no mone
y.”
Petr grabbed Jiří from behind, his right hand locked into the scruff of his neck, twisting his shirt collar. With his left he opened the door wide and had thrust the boy halfway into the stairwell before Nell body-slammed him with her shoulder and forced him to let go.
Nell banged the door shut.
“For God’s sake, Petr. He’s your own flesh and blood.”
“Flesh dies, and blood bleeds. My flesh and blood died in prison ten years ago. This … this is a parasite!”
“Which is what the Party used to call you!”
This stopped Petr. Whatever he had to say next went unsaid. Instead he spoke more calmly.
“If he stays here, if he is found here …”
“I understand. He can stay at my apartment.”
“No, he can’t. It’s diplomatic territory. You’re the consul. That won’t stop the StB searching your apartment, but it will spread the fallout if he’s found there. A diplomatic incident. Think of Brandt’s reaction. Even the Americans aren’t taking in refugees, for just that reason.”
Nell turned to Jiří.
He was rubbing gently at the bruising on the back of his neck. His expression unchanged, unmoved by all this. So used to Petr’s rage that it bounced off him. He hadn’t resisted, and he wasn’t cowering.
“Then … then you must go to the British. Go to the embassy. They represent my country, they have a legal obligation to me. I will give you a letter. You must ask for Janis Bell. Remember the name: Janis Bell.”
“Nell,” said Petr. “The American Embassy is surrounded by police. What makes you think it will be any different at the British?”
“I was there yesterday. No Russians. No StB. There were just two regular police. Jiří will have to take his chances with them. May I use your typewriter?”
§168
Palác Thun
Jiří got to the British Embassy in the last light of day. The spook in the broom cupboard opposite the main entrance was having a less-than-crafty fag, smoke billowing out from the observation hole.
Right in front of the embassy’s intimidating wooden gates two uniformed policemen were holding back a crowd of twenty or so. They were all kids of his age, all boys, and he knew all of them by sight and three or four were friends from way back, from kindergarten … Tommo, František, Mopslík … Vepřové Václav.
Mopslík said, “The cops are trying to round us all up. They came to my mother’s flat.”
“They came to my mother’s too.”
“Looks like they’re out to get all the Pranksters.”
“Maybe we’re not as harmless as we thought?”
“Right now, Jiří, that’s fuck all consolation.”
“Will the English let us in?”
“Not if this pair have a say. They’ve kept their guns holstered, but if any of us take so much as a step towards them the night sticks come out. Perhaps we should try the Americans.”
“Forget it—more cops and KGB than the Kremlin.”
The side door to the embassy suddenly opened. A small, dark woman, dressed for the evening in a classic little black dress, came down the slope, clutching a silver tray as though she might be about to serve tea and cucumber sandwiches to the cops.
Both cops turned and looked down at the tray in expectation. It was bare.
Before they could look up the woman bashed them both about the head with the tray and went on bashing until one of them fell to his knees and the other stepped back to flip the stud on his holster. He stepped back into Vepřové Václav, bounced off one hundred and fifteen kilos of flesh and fell flat on his face.
The main gate to the embassy courtyard opened as if on cue, wide enough to allow a car out, wide enough to allow twenty kids in.
They froze.
“What the fuck is going on?”
“Move, you morons!”
“What?”
“Imshe, mush—inside!”
They ran for gate, the madwoman not far behind them, urging them on with cries of “Head ’em up, move ’em out, Rawhide!”
Then the gates closed behind them.
The sound of iron on oak, so reassuring.
A collective breath drawn, a collective sigh exhaled.
A warm tide seemed to Jiří to be spreading outwards from his heart across his ribs, down through his belly. Chaos and mystery washed away by this new-found sense of safety.
§169
Janis Bell said, “Do you think that was wise?”
And Anna replied, “Yep, gotta keep them dogies movin’.”
“Where are we going to put them all?”
“We’ve bags of room. This place is huge.”
“No, we haven’t. Honestly. And if there’s just one Russian agent among that lot—”
“OK, OK. I see your point. Don’t want the little buggers roving around the embassy, poking into stuff. Hmmm … hmmm … got any tents?”
“Well … sort of … we have two or three small marquees we use on the back lawn for receptions in the summer. You know, just big enough to keep the rain off the cucumber sandwiches.”
“Super. Have them put up on the lawn, send someone into town in the morning to buy sleeping bags—they all look like hippies, they probably enjoy roughing it—and speaking of sandwiches, rustle up a pile and see the little buggers get fed—and …”
She handed Janis Bell the silver tray.
“See if the odd job bloke can straighten this out, will you? It would appear it once belonged to Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria. Be a shame to leave it looking quite so dented.”
§170
The Morning After
“Have you gone completely mad?”
“Sorry Rod, not sure I follow you.”
“Some woman in your embassy clobbered a Russian soldier with a tin tray and let a dozen refugees in. I had the Cabinet Secretary on the phone before breakfast! I got summoned to No. 10!”
“That’s not true.”
“All of it? Some of it?”
“First—it wasn’t ‘some woman’; it was Anna.”
“Oh bloody hell.”
“The tray was silver, not tin. And they were Czech coppers, not Russian soldiers. The Russians didn’t arrive till this morning. But now the place is crawling with them, so no more refugees.”
“How many do you have?”
“More than a dozen.”
“How many?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“Oh bloody hell. Oh bloody hell. What do you intend to do with them?”
Zzzzzzfzzzzzzz.
The crackle on the line from London gave Troy just the excuse he needed.
“Sorry, bro … the line’s playing up.”
And Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Czechoslovakia put the phone down on Her Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for Home Affairs.
It bought Troy time, and he needed time. He was in awe of his wife’s courage and bloody-mindedness, but unlike her he had to work out what to do with twenty-seven refugees, none of whom was much past childhood.
Rod had asked what he intended. He would certainly ask again.
§171
Later the Same Day Around Six in the Evening
Nell arrived back at Vítězná to find Petr throwing clothes into a suitcase.
“You’re packing?”
“I’m leaving.”
“Leaving me?”
“God, no. Leaving Czechoslovakia.”
“But I’m in Czechoslovakia.”
“You don’t have to be. Go home, grab what you need and we can be in Vienna by midnight.”
“Petr. I have a job to do. More of a job than it was ever supposed to be. I have a duty to Germany, a duty to Brandt and like it or not a duty to Czechoslovakia.”
“Nell. Please come with me. I beg you, please come with me.”
“No.”
“No?”
“First you tell me why.”
“Jiří. He has made us all vulnerable. You as well as me.”
�
�He’s just a boy.”
“He is a dangerous boy.”
“Dangerous? He paints graffiti, Petr. That’s all he does.”
“And people go to prison for less. I spent a year in prison simply because I was someone’s brother. I spent four months in a factory turning scrap metal into hinges because my occupation was deemed parasitic. I’m not going back to either of those simply for being his uncle. Why do you think his mother threw him out?”
“She threw him out because she caught him smoking pot!”
“And because he was a liability to her. I took him in on condition he brought no trouble down on us. Now the police are looking for him.”
“They looked at Magda’s, not here.”
“They will look for him here. Perhaps tonight, certainly tomorrow.”
“You should be proud of Jiří.”
“I’m fed up with his childish antics. And I’ll find room for pride when I’m free.”
“So, what do you propose to do?”
Petr took a sheet of headed paper from the tabletop and handed it to her—Ministry of the Interior.
“What is it? You’ll have to tell me. It’s too … too official. Too many ticks and too many boxes.”
“It’s an exit permit. I was supposed to attend the Cannes Film Festival in May. They abandoned the festival after the troubles in Paris, so I didn’t go.”
“I remember. That was over five months ago. What use is it now? Anything issued before the Russians arrived is surely worthless?”
“They forgot to date it. All I have to do is type in the date.”
Nell held the sheet of paper out to him.
“Then do it. I won’t be coming with you. Go on, take it.”
Nell had never thought of herself as leaving Wilderness. She had walked away from him, left him in his bed at the American Hospital in Tempelhof, but she had not left him. He had left her. He had told her lies of leaving for months on end. Every lie a mendacious mile.
She heard the rapid click of typewriter keys in the next room, took her coat and let Petr leave her just seconds before he reappeared. He called down the stairwell to her.