We clinked glasses and emptied them bottoms up as a pledge to address each other by the familiar ‘thou’.
‘Tell you what,’ Mirek added. ‘I’ll guarantee your job in exchange for stories of your life.’
From then on Mirek took me under his wing. If you took him with a pound of salt and remained unruffled under all circumstances, he was a staunch friend. He began every morning with: ‘Have you heard this one?’ His jokes fell into two categories: rude and radioactive. The latter were anti-party or anti-state jokes, for which one could be sent to the uranium mines. For instance: XY, a Party leader, returns from a visit to Moscow. His wife asks: ‘Were you unfaithful to me, dear?’ He replies: ‘Only five times dear. You know how it is, the comrades think of everything; it’s part of the room service. And what about you, miláčku?’ She answers: ‘Only twice.’ The Party leader asks: ‘Who with, miláčku?’ She replies: ‘Once with the Czech Philharmonic, and once with the Sparta eleven.’
I had already observed that the Czech regards eating as one of the more sacred pleasures of life. Early in our marriage Pavel had dropped the remark: ‘My mother never gave us the same meal twice in a year.’ I had not taken it up. Apart from his conspicuous silence when other husbands extolled their wives’ culinary exploits, Pavel had submitted with good grace to his fate. My apologetic preamble: ‘It hasn’t turned out quite like the book,’ was accepted with the reply: ‘That’s all right, I eat anything,’ while his expression conveyed: ‘And, my God, I have to!’
Mirek excelled at gastronomic description. In moments of boredom at work he would recite a eulogy on the previous evening’s meal, which immediately commanded the attention and expert comments of his colleagues. Mirek provided incontrovertible proof of his own contention: ‘The Czech is a true animal, built compactly round his alimentary canal.’ Every two or three days a large vanilla cake, jam-filled bun loaf or fruit-laden slab of pastry would be housed in the bottom drawer of his desk, and slices would be hacked off every hour or two, in addition to his regular mid-morning snack of bread and cold pork and mid-afternoon snack of bread and salami.
Observing my lean and hungry look, Mirek would usually push a piece over to me with the polite prompting: ‘Go on eat it up; I’m as full as a sheep’s gut.’
Towards the end of the month I handed Mirek the tracings on which I had lavished the maximum care, if not talent.
He picked up the top one, exclaiming: ‘What in the name of all the saints is this? The groundplan of a kitchen? Himmel-hergot, this bit looks like a stove pipe with rheumatic knee joints!’
‘It’s the contact wire.’
‘And these harpoons?’
‘The dimension indicators.’
He clutched his hair. ‘Krucinálfagot! Your lettering looks as though a spider with dysentery had fallen into the inkpot and bolted across the page.’ But seeing my face he said: ‘Don’t look so glum. It’s not the end of the world.’
‘But it may be of my term with this firm.’
‘In a bull’s arse! Quit worrying; it’ll give you wrinkles. What did I promise? You shan’t be thrown out on the cobblestones. A few of these tracings’ll pass. I’ll re-do this heap of crap myself and share out the rest. The boys’ll have them done in no time.’
The result of my month’s probation was a pile of professional tracings.
‘I am amazed at your progress,’ declared Mr Němec. ‘I shall have no hesitation in recommending you for a permanent job.’
As far as anything is permanent in this time and place, I added silently.
*
A buff envelope awaited me at home. My heart missed a beat. For six weeks I had heard nothing of Pavel. This must be news at last. I tore it open. The Ministry of National Security informed me in two type-written lines that my husband was ‘remanded in custody on suspicion of anti-state activity’. I read it several times, uncomprehendingly. It was not unexpected. Heda had received a similar communication. Yet now I stared at the words as though they were in a strange language. My head buzzed, my eyes blurred, I could not move. I tried to get a grip on myself. A drink would have helped, but my shoe-string budget cut out alcohol. My Russian teacher’s universal panacea would have to do. I tottered to the window, threw it open and took ten slow deep breaths, emptying my mind. My nervous system returned to normal. I tried to view the situation calmly. Suspicion was a far cry from proven guilt. I must not dissipate my energy in needless pessimism; I needed every erg.
The next day I stayed on in the office to finish some work. Mr Němec’s assistant, Sláva, dropped in. He glanced at my drawings.
‘Ah, the Spišská Ves-Žilina line. I hear you’re doing well. I had a hunch you would. When recruiting staff, we put a premium on enthusiasm rather than qualifications, as no one in the country has had any experience in electrification, except Němec. You said:’ I can learn anything’ with such conviction I thought the time spent in training you would be a good investment. And’, he added bashfully, ‘I admired your spirit.’
Perched on the edge of my desk, he began to talk about the problems of our department. There was a lack of know-how, yet the ban on foreign travel precluded inspection of completed tracks abroad. No technical literature from the West was available. Consequently, calculations had to be made, tables compiled and problems solved from scratch, whereas reference to foreign experience would have saved time and effort. There were also difficulties with material. Under the present autarkic system all equipment had to be made in Czechoslovakia. Copper for the contact wire had to be imported from the Belgian Congo for hard currency, of which Czechoslovakia was short. We would soon be obliged to replace copper by steel aluminium conductors, which would bring fresh problems.
Once broached, Sláva flowed like a tapped barrel. His job was his life. He would have gone on happily for an hour or two, had I not reminded him of my obligation to purchase and cook supper for two hungry boys. But I performed these unimaginative tasks in a pleasant glow. I was learning a job that was new not only to me but to Czechoslovakia. The electrification of rail transport was in its infancy and I was one of its godmothers.
After the chat with Sláva, I was promoted from tracer to draughtswoman. I was still largely at sea because I was learning piecemeal. I gathered that we were using a 3kV d.c. overhead contact system; the current was supplied via main and auxiliary cables to the contact wire and collected by a pantograph attached to the roof of the locomotive. From sketches and photographs I could visualize the situation on an open line. Complications set in in stations and junctions, and bends in the track were a jungle of catenaries running parallel to the lines and crossed by others at right angles.
I was impatient to learn the whole system. I persuaded Mirek to take me to the Main Station with a plan of the layout so that I could coordinate reality with its blueprint. Armed with our pass cards, we scrambled over lines that ordinary mortals might not cross. I recognized with joy the different kinds of contact wire anchorage, rigid or movable. Parts with unpronounceable names, like boční držák, acquired feasible functions when seen in the round and in context. Gradually the mystery sorted itself out. I began to follow with interest discussions about current collection in low tunnels, or in the vicinity of domestic power grids and other unorthodox situations.
Mirek gave me my first design to execute. His instructions were colourful, if not explicit: ‘The bastards that laid this track for steam had no consideration for future electrification. They constructed a pig of a bend that is making me a bloody heap of trouble. Take these two parts and cook up something to hang them together.’
The finished design drew the comment: ‘It doesn’t exactly fit like a baby’s bot in a chamber pot; but, as the degree of tolerance is large, I’ll pass your puerile effort.’
I was as elated as if I had had a masterpiece accepted by the Royal Academy.
To mark the occasion, a long-awaited letter from Pavel arrived. It was short:
‘Darling,
It is many years s
ince I last wrote you a love letter. Today I should like to write one again. I see now that I am bound to you by closer ties than I had imagined during the past years when we were both often stubborn. My greatest concern is what you and the children are living on. Are you still getting articles to translate? Do not worry about me. I have everything I am entitled to.
Love and kisses to you and the boys.
Your
Pavel.’
I read and re-read it. Tears were running down my face, tears that washed away tempers and misunderstandings. Like an art restorer soaking away overlayers of paint to reach the original, they left only the passion and tenderness.
There was exciting news for me at the office too: Mirek and I were to be the first to try out a new method, using a contact wire with flexible fastening and no steady arm, which, it was hoped, would save thirty to forty per cent of wire. The line, running from Čerchov to Lipno, in southern Bohemia, had to be modernized for the transport of heavy freight now that a dam and reservoir were planned at Lipno. The technical bug had bitten me. My thoughts became entirely absorbed by the Čerchov-Lipno line. Original plans and designs accumulated under the abbreviation KAV.
*
No sooner had I reinforced my defence line of working enthusiasm, than I received a stab in the rear from the security police. Two plainclothes men came to the house to abduct the Minx. I objected that my husband had been neither charged nor sentenced and would certainly be released from custody.
‘No one ever is,’ was the ominous reply.
They drove off. But I had removed and sold the good tyres, and replaced them with old ones as bald as eggs. I hoped the police would discover to their cost that the brakes worked only by the grace of God.
The police had undermined my resolution not to indulge in fruitless conjectures about the future. The likelihood of Pavel’s release seemed more and more remote. Suspicion was tantamount to indictment. How long would I be able to keep going? To augment my meagre earnings I had taken a part-time job at the Language Institute (screening for jobs on an ad hoc basis was less stiff than for full-time jobs). On three evenings a week I conversed in English for four hours, after nine hours at the drawing board, while the good-hearted women of our house fed, bathed and bedded my two poor sons by rota. This might go on for years.
I thought of Pavel, accustomed to dominate. How was he faring in prison, at the mercy of moronic warders, despised by his inferiors, misjudged by his peers? How was he employing his restless energy with nothing to occupy him? He had always had a tendency to hypochondria. At the first sign of a cold he would take to his bed with his favourite bottles of medicine. A sore throat or a headache sent him in search of the thermometer. A coated tongue presaged the onset of some dire disease. How then was he enduring the privations of prison life? How was his heart standing the strain of uncertainty?
A weight of depression settled upon me.
My colleagues made several abortive attempts to cheer me up. One morning, after an hour’s subdued silence on my part, Mirek observed with his customary bluntness: ‘Rozmarýnka, you look as though you had sour cucumbers for breakfast. What’s up?’
I told him.
‘A dose of Švejk is what you need,’ he declared.
Our two bosses being away on a tour of inspection the mice felt free to play. Mirek took a tattered volume from his desk, announcing: ‘Comrades, a few words from our inimitable morale officer, Jaroslav Hašek, for Comrade Kavanová’s benefit. In view of her present situation, Švejk’s interrogation on suspicion of high treason may prove edificatory.’
My colleagues brightened. Mirek read aloud:
*
‘Mounting the staircase to the Third Department for interrogation, Švejk carried his cross to Golgotha, blissfully unconscious of his martyrdom …
As he came into the office, he said: “A very good evening to you all gentlemen.”
Instead of a reply, he got a poke in the ribs and was told to stand in front of a table, behind which there sat a gentleman with a cold official face and features of such bestial brutality that he might have fallen out of Lombroso’s book, Criminal Types.
Giving Švejk a bloodthirsty look, he said: “Take that idiotic look off your face.”
“I can’t help it,’ replied Švejk seriously. “I was discharged from the army for idiocy and officially pronounced an idiot by a special commission. I am an official idiot!”
The gentleman of the criminal mien ground his teeth:
“What you are accused of and what you have committed proves that you are all there.”
And he proceeded to enumerate a whole series of different crimes, beginning with high treason and ending with abuse of his Majesty and members of the Imperial Family …
“What have you to say to that?” the gentleman with features of bestial brutality asked triumphantly.
“There’s a lot of it,” Švejk replied innocently. “You can have too much of a good thing.”
“So you admit it’s true.”
“I admit everything. You’ve got to be strict. Without strictness we wouldn’t get anywhere. Like when I was serving in the army …”
“Shut up!” the police officer shouted, “and speak only when you’re questioned! Do you understand?”
“You bet I do,” said Švejk. “I humbly report that I understand and that everything you are pleased to say is crystal clear to me.”
At his second interrogation Švejk was asked: “Do you confess to everything?”
Švejk fixed his kindly blue eyes on the pitiless man and said softly: “If you want me to confess, Your Honour, I shall. It can’t do me any harm. But if you say: ‘Švejk, don’t confess anything!’ I’ll deny it with the last breath in my body.”
The severe gentleman wrote something on the document and handed Ševejk a pen, ordering him to sign it. And Švejk signed Bretsneider’s deposition with the following addition: All the above-named charges against me are founded on fact. Josef Ševejk
… His fellow prisoners deluged him with questions, to which Ševejk replied clearly: “I have just confessed that I probably killed the Archduke Ferdinand.”’
*
Everyone in the office laughed. They all knew their Švejk by heart, but the book never ceased to strike a chord. Little did we dream that this bizarre passage would soon become a monstrous reality.
Chapter 9
The trial of the ‘Anti-state Conspiratorial Centre’ in fact outdid Hašek.
The different people who had been arrested at various times over the previous three years were now linked in one large-scale conspiracy, led by Rudolf Slánský. Thirteen other conspirators were named, including Rudolf Margolius, Otto Šling, Vladimír Clementis, Artur London and Bedřich Geminder. Scores of ‘witnesses’ for the prosecution were to be called. I presumed Pavel would be among them.
The trial started on 20 November 1952 and lasted a week. Parts of it were broadcast over the radio and reported in the press.
I do not know how I got through those days of suspense, waiting for Pavel to speak. I remember my mounting horror as the state prosecutor enumerated the charges. I had expected error, negligence, deviation from the Party line — all of which are open to loose interpretation — but not espionage, sabotage of the economy and undermining domestic and foreign policies, in short high treason. According to the prosecution, the conspiracy had been master-minded by Tito with the aim of moulding Czechoslovakia’s future on Yugoslav lines and of weakening the Soviet Union’s position in the communist sphere.
The star spy part was allotted to Konni Zilliacus who, masked as a left-wing Social Democrat, had travelled to the People’s Democracies, meddled in their internal affairs and established contact with right-wing Social Democrats and hostile elements inside the communist parties. He had been ‘directly responsible for Yugoslavia’s defection to the war-mongering West’, the prosecution claimed.
I could not believe my ears. Zilly, the enfant terrible of the Labour Party, a spy! I
pictured his great bulk and round face, with its protruding teeth ever visible in an amiable grin, gracing receptions held by the Eastern bloc countries, liked and trusted by all. It occurred to me that if he were really the ‘master of deceit and provocation’ described by the prosecution, he must have been spying on the other socialist countries as well, yet he had not figured in the Hungarian and Bulgarian political trials.
I recalled the many pleasant evenings we had spent at the Zilliacuses in Maida Vale; in particular a candle-lit dinner party at which I had set my hair alight rocking with immoderate mirth at one of Zilly’s jokes. Pavel and Zilliacus had frequently exchanged views on British and Czechoslovak policies. With a sinking heart, I wondered what fantastic accusations would be brought against Pavel.
I missed the excerpt from Slánský’s testimony while I was putting the boys to bed. I switched on the radio in time to here the presiding judge, Dr Novák, ask witness for the prosecution Dr Eduard Goldstücker:’ When and how did Slánský gain your collaboration in his anti-state activity?’
A shiver went down my spine. The question was a presumption of guilt.
Eda replied: ‘It was the beginning of 1946. Slánský told me he was aware of my past, of my Jewish bourgeois background …’
This was nonsense. Eda came from a poor family in a small Slovak village. His father had caught malaria at the front during the First World War and had died in 1924 when Eda was eleven years old. His mother had barely made ends meet, working as a cook.
Eda admitted sending correspondence between Zilliacus and Clementis, Geminder, Slánský and Frejka1 (Head of the Economic Department of the President’s Office) via Artur London. He gave no details, but his use of phrases such as ‘accomplices’, ‘maintaining contacts’ and ‘infringement of state security’ imparted a cloak-and-dagger colouring to what I believed to be a harmless exchange of letters. I remembered hearing about one of them. It contained an analysis of the Israeli situation by Bohuslav Kratochvíl, who had been our Ambassador during part of our stay in London. Together with articles by Zilliacus on the same subject, this had been despatched to Clementis for reference at the United Nations.
Love and Freedom Page 13