She picked up a white blouse Eva had deposited on the bed. Eva snatched it from her, groaning inwardly. Kristina’s fingerprints were stamped as clearly as her criminal record card. Eva laid the blouse on a shelf in the cupboard, saying pointedly: I presume this is my part of the wardrobe?’
Kristina shrugged, then glanced at her hands. Crossing nonchalantly to the sink, she held them under the tap and wiped off the surface dirt onto a filthy rag hanging on the waste pipe.
Eva took her lunch in the canteen. Sitting next to her was a huge pear-shaped man. ‘New?’ he asked in a voice that rumbled from the bottom bulge of the pear.
Eva nodded.
‘I’m an old hand. Been in the mines for twenty years.’
Glancing at her neighbour’s improbable proportions, Eva asked doubtfully: ‘Are you still at the face?’
‘Nope, not any more. I got silicosis. Was sent to a sanatorium in 1945 and then trained for a different job, with no loss of pay, mind you. I operate the cage.’
‘The cage. That’s some job. I’d prefer that to the washery,’ said Eva warmly.
‘You would?’ Vašek considered a moment, then he said: ‘I tell you what, if you get an okay from the Chief Engineer, I’ll take you on. We were going to apply for another trainee. I get hunches about people. I’d say you’ll do fine. You’ve got a good head. You can’t let your concentration waver on the job, you know. We had a case, the cage crashed into the top landing, cracked the men’s skulls. The operator thought it was on the fourth floor. You’ve got to keep your eyes fixed on the dial needle. If you don’t decelerate at the crucial second, the cage stops with a jolt and even that can be dangerous. A good operator can feel speed, strain, movement through the lever. Not everyone’s got this kind of sensitivity, but I’d stake a month’s pay you have.’
Eva believed in acting on an idea while it was steaming hot. She went straight to the Chief Engineer and asked to be put down for the six-month engineering course for cage operators on the recommendation of Comrade Hamrik to whom she would be apprenticed.
The Chief Engineer turned a glazed eye upon her and enunciated slowly and softly as though the words might take the top of his head with them: ‘The course is not open to women. Kindly leave quietly, close the door with care, and in future see me by appointment.’
Eva advanced upon him and, in tones calculated to rock even the steadiest of heads, cried: ‘What do you mean, not open to women? All doors are open to women today!’
‘Don’t shout at me, woman,’ he shuddered. ‘Can’t you see my head’s splitting. It’s time we abolished name days — too painful.’ He swallowed a tablet, wincing at the necessity of tipping his top storey. ‘I tell you it can’t be done. There never have been women cage operators and there never will be if I can help it. Now go away, there’s a good girl.’
Eva was not one to be beaten by a hangover. She banged her fist on the able and brought her mouth close to the C.E.’s ear. ‘If I fail, the shame will be mine and the triumph yours,’ she hissed.
The Chief Engineer closed his eyes in agony. ‘For Christ’s sake, take the form and go!’ he groaned. He drew a printed sheet toward him, added a tottery signature and a blurred rubber stamp and pushed it over to Eva. She skipped out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
When she reached her room, there was no sign of Kristina but on the table was a bowl of cherries and next to it an oily piece of paper, on which a blunt pencil and an unsteady hand had scrawled:
‘For Eva. You needn’t be afrayed to eet them. I havent tutched them. Onest. Kristina.’
Eva felt a twinge of shame. To make amends she closed the window as soon as she heard Kristina’s high heels clicketing along the corridor. Kristina, in her turn, had bought a nail brush, a strong paste for removing oil and grime and a striped Turkish towel which she treated with reverence.
*
Arriving home at midnight after the second shift, Kristina grumbled: ‘The right to work! That’s a good one! What about the right not to work? I was earning a damn sight more delivering the goods in me own department; and I didn’t keep a bloody clocking machine in the room. Pay on the dot. No blasted income tax. Ah, those were the days!’
She stretched herself with a movement that was intended to be voluptuous, but contrived only to look like a crafty old rabbit slithering about inside its ill-fitting skin.
‘Why don’t you change your job?’ Eva asked. ‘You must have worked off ages ago whatever they sent you here for.’
‘Parasitism’s what the beak called it. Prostitution’s a naughty word now, dearie. Sure, I’ve done me stretch. I can walk out now ‘cept, where’d I go? Where else would I get this dough? What else could I do? Serve in a shop? You’ve got to pass in ‘rithmetic for a daft job like that. At least this crummy job makes sense.’ She grinned self-consciously. ‘I mean, if I don’t keep the blasted lamps clean, some dumb miner’ll knock his block off, won’t he? And anyway, you get a bigger pension at this racket. I’ve got to ‘ave a bit of comfort in me old age. If I live that long!’
The rate you’re knocking back beers, you won’t have to worry about a pension, ‘said Eva.’ Cirrhosis of the liver is what you’re heading for, my girl. I’ve seen you down thirty pints at a sitting.’
‘Not bad, eh? There’s not many men can beat that. That’s another thing in favour of this job: there’s plenty of men about. And they ain’t averse to a bit of screwing, especially after a beer or two. ‘Course, I wouldn’t take dough off me mates, even if I could. But there’s no law against free beer. The men get what they want and I keep me hand in. I can’t let me talents run to seed.’
Fascinated by Eva’s love of reading, Kristina asked: ‘Got anything I could have a go at? I ain’t read a book since I was at school. Granny it was called. Awful crap!’
Eva smiled to herself. Granny was the best-loved Czech classic. She selected Romeo, Juliet and Darkness, a modern novel, simply and movingly written, about the tragic love of a Gentile boy for a Jewish girl during the occupation.
Kristina commented on every happening, read aloud exciting or touching passages, asked the meaning of words and Eva’s opinion of the characters. At the end, sniffling audibly, she exclaimed: ‘The bastards shot her, and her only sixteen. And to think that I slept with them. I’d always been kicked around. One lot or the other: it made no difference to me. The Germans treated me all right. What a lousy slut I am!’
*
When the time came for Eva to sit her diploma the examiner confirmed her worst fears. ‘Ha, a woman!’ he cried in much the same way as he would have exclaimed: ‘Ha, a mistake!’ in a piece of electrical equipment. His face settled into the severest lines. She would have to know the material twice as well as the male entrants. The examiner did his utmost to catch and confuse her. Eva kept her mind on Vašek and the answers came unhesitatingly. Towards the end his face relaxed. He congratulated her. ‘I was doubtful when I saw you. Now I have every confidence in you.’ He wrote a neat 1 next to her name and altered the masculine word strojník to the feminine strojnice on her diploma. ‘The designer did not consider the possibility of a woman taking this course. You are the first woman cage operator in the country.’
Eva bought a cheap frame and hung her diploma over her bed. Kristina teased her: ‘You really are cracked, Evička luv! You go into a bloody trance when you look at the thing.’
When Eva’s name was posted on the board as cage operator for the morning shift, the miners went on strike.
‘Fetch Vašek, he’ll convince you,’ she pleaded.
He rolled up red from the shower and indignation. ‘You won’t trust your miserable hides to Eva! Who have you just voted the safest and smoothest operator? Me, you mugs! And who was operating half the time while I was having four hundred and forty winks? Eva, you clots!’
‘That’s good enough for me,’ said a cultured voice. Eva looked at the man. An intellectual who had probably been sent there on a six-month brigade by some institute anxious to
‘fulfil its obligations to society’. He walked toward the cage. The rest followed sheepishly.
Eva made her way to the cabin. Suddenly her confidence shrank. The possible consequences of error crowded upon her. She daren’t start. She sat there, paralysed.
A memory from the concentration camp took shape in her mind. She was too ill with typhus to move. The Russians were drawing near; the Germans were liquidating the old and the sick in the camp. She had to get from the hospital to the block where her friends would hide her. It was night. Forcing her limbs to obey her, she crawled, it seemed for hours, and saved her life by accomplishing the impossible.
Strong once more, she grasped the lever. At the end of the shift, she knew she had never worked with such precision.
She completed her first week without criticism. The men still brandished lucky charms when she was on duty, but this was merely to cover their retreat.
In a free moment she sought out the tall, thin miner and learnt that he had been a defence lawyer at a regional court. The presiding judge had been directed ‘from above’ to bring a verdict of guilty and pass sentence of death in an alleged case of sabotage, for which the only evidence was the man’s confession. The judge had refused, and had been arrested for ‘obstructing socialist justice’. A more compliant judge had been appointed. Unable to save his client, the defence lawyer had resigned and volunteered for the mines.
*
When a block of miners’ flats had been completed Eva was offered a single unit. As a parting gift, she gave Kristina the coveted white blouse.
Kristina observed lugubriously: ‘Heaven knows what low type they’ll send here now that the bed’s vacant again.’
For the first time in weeks there was no meeting, no overtime, no friend coming to supper. Eva looked forward to a good read, but the phone rang. The personnel officer’s voice vibrated in the receiver:
‘Can you go to the central hospital? Your old roommate is asking for you. Yes, Kristina. The poor girl collapsed in a pub. Couldn’t stand the flow. You’ll go along, won’t you? Bye — oh, let me know how the old dear is. Save me ringing the hospital.’
Eva put on her coat with trembling hands. She had seen Kristina only once since she had moved into the flat. On the way she bought a large bunch of carnations. The hospital was indistinguishable from the prison, the police station or any other of Ostrava’s blackened buildings. She went in. A professionally cheerful nurse showed her to Kristina’s bed. Eva stared in consternation at the parched, saffron skin, the colourless eyes, and the streaks of white in Kristina’s brittle, orange hair.
‘Hullo, Evička,’ Kristina croaked. ‘Does me good to see yer. Will yer do something for yer old Kris? Bring along me lipstick, next time. It’s on the table in me room. I can’t bear not to ‘ave a bit of colour on me dial.’
Eva took her own lipstick and mirror out of her handbag. ‘Here’s mine, keep it, and the mirror too.’
Kristina held up the mirror to her face: ‘Ježíšmaria, what a sight! No one can look that awful and live!’ She applied the lipstick. The shaking fingers produced only a ragged smear which added the final touch of tragi-comedy. Eva handed her the flowers, too distressed to speak.
Kristina brightened. ‘All them carnations for me? No one’s got a bunch that big!’ After a moment she gasped: ‘Evička, what a place to be in! All these ruddy women! Will I be glad to get outer here! …’ Her voice died away and a tear oozed from one eye. She gripped Eva’s hand. ‘Yer said it’d be the end of me. I always planned to die in the arms of a man on a couch of sin. Now it looks like one of these sterilized females’ll get the benefit of me dying breath. What a fate!’
‘Kristina, don’t talk like that, you’ll get better.’
‘No, I won’t. I know by the way the doctors gawp at me and then go to the winder and mutter together. It won’t be so bad for you when it’s your turn to kick the blistering bucket. Yer’ll know why yer’ve lived. I’m just a bit of waste, due for the scrapheap.’ More tears rolled down the side of her nose.
Eva wiped them away gently. ‘You didn’t get much of a chance, but you’ve done all right. You’ve never harmed anybody’
Kristina rallied. ‘Eva luv, next time you come, bring me a book.’
‘What sort?’ asked Eva in surprise. ‘A novel? Are you up to reading?’
‘No, I feel too lousy, but I’d like to have a book here. When they lay me out, they’ll treat me with just a bit of respect. They’ll know I’ve read books.’
Eva nodded. The nurse came in and announced the end of the visit.
‘I’ll be back tomorrow. Be good!’
‘I ain’t got much choice,’ said Kristina with a touch of her old spirit.
Then Eva vowed to make it up to her. She would visit Kristina every day and get the Works Committee to send her to a convalescent home for six months. And when she returned Eva would see to it that she didn’t slip back into her old ways.
Eva was changing after the shift, when the call came from the hospital. In a matter-of-fact voice the nurse told her that Kristina had just died.
Eva hurried home, picked out her prettiest nightgown and one of her new novels and went to the hospital. She begged the nurse on duty: ‘Please see that Kristina is laid out in this and that this book is put in her coffin. She was in the middle of reading it.’
The nurse accepted the parcel and asked briskly: ‘Are you her next of kin? Will you be taking care of the funeral arrangements?’
In Auschwitz the ‘arrangements’ had been only too simple. Eva had forgotten that in civil life, although the state footed the bill, someone had to organize the transition from death to oblivion. ‘Yes,’ she said, she would be responsible.
Kristina’s was a bleak story: abandoned at birth, loved grudgingly in life, alone in death.
Eva gripped my hand. ‘I was inconsolable; I felt I had failed her.’
‘But you didn’t,’ I exclaimed. ‘You gave her what no one else had given her — a little self-respect.’
Eva considered this. ‘Well, perhaps I did,’ she conceded after a pause.
Eva was a mixture of romanticist and realist. In a conflict the realist won on points. I was glad to have her back in Prague. She bolstered my own wobbly conviction that a collective reason would eventually solve the riddles that confounded our society.
Chapter 15
The unravelling of conundrums began far sooner than I had expected.
Jan, now ten, was convalescent after jaundice. I was working at home so as to look after him. The Czechoslovak Press Agency supplied me with regular articles. Being desperately short of translators, they avoided screening freelance associates too closely. In any case my position as a projektantka had become untenable without an engineering degree. The Ministry was checking on qualifications.
It was evening. I closed my eyes to the bucket of washing soaking under the sink and the pile of ironing under the window. What a mess everywhere! And my hair needed washing; it was as lank as seaweed. But there was no one to see it. Milan was away for a few days. I’d catch up on everything tomorrow. I exhorted my younger son to eat up the semolina he was pushing disconsolately round his plate. I had ten pages to translate before morning. The bell rang. Who the hell was that?
It was Karel. ‘Get your coat quickly. I’ve got a surprise for you,’ he cried.
He would say no more but drove us to his flat. He opened the door. There stood a strange-looking creature. Closely cropped hair, no tie, and no socks, in December! It grinned and said: ‘Hullo, remember me?’
‘Pavel!’ I gasped incredulously.
‘Tati!’ With a rush the boys were upon him. No questions. Three-and-a-half years ago he had gone away unexpectedly; he had returned unannounced. He lifted one on each arm and they planted a kiss on each cheek.
‘He’s our Christmas present. Let’s wrap him up and put him under the tree,’ Jan chanted.
We had coffee at Karel’s while Pavel eased himself back into our lives. Then we dro
ve home. My mind hovered over the disorder. He’ll think this is the way we’ve been living all the time he’s been away. I had planned his return so differently. The flat tidy, flowers, my hair newly set, the boys (or would they be men?) in freshly ironed shirts.
Pavel stepped self-consciously into his new home.
‘I’ve nothing in. If I’d known.’ I murmured.
‘I couldn’t let you know. I’ve been in solitary again for the past five months while investigations were being conducted. There was a hasty re-trial in absentia. This is all I have to show for it.’
He handed me an incredibly flimsy piece of paper. I read that the Supreme Court had abrogated the original verdict and that Pavel Kavan was acquitted of all charges. I could hardly believe it.
Pavel laughed. ‘It’s genuine, all right. Oh, this is marvellous. I haven’t had semolina for years.’
He was home, the husband you cooked for while he played with the kids. We were an ordinary family again. He’d had no warmth or comfort for nearly four years and I was worried because I couldn’t lay on a pork chop.
I cleared the table and got out my translation, but I couldn’t keep my mind on the travel-worthiness of Pilsen beer. I snapped the typewriter lid shut. I’d have to phone the press agency in the morning and explain the special circumstances.
Having said goodnight to their father for about the fifth time, the boys at last went reluctantly to bed.
‘Now we can talk,’ I said. ‘First of all, are you all right?’
‘Yes. At the moment. Those summer months working in the open air set me up.’
‘Start from the beginning, from the moment you left the flat.’
*
‘As soon as we’d driven out of our road, the police handcuffed and blindfolded me. Inside Ruzyně prison I was ordered to take off my clothes and was given prison rags — shirt with no buttons, trousers with no belt and wooden clogs. My small cell had a chair, a table and a Turkish lavatory. There was a small aperture in the door and that was an eye. The colour changed, the expression varied, from mocking to sadistic, from hostile to indifferent, but there was always an eye.
Love and Freedom Page 20