Apart from the occupational hazards of underground work, there were practical difficulties, caused by shortages. Typing, copying and carbon paper were rarely available in the shops. Fortunately some of my friends were still employed in offices and in spite of the tight stationery rationing, smuggled small amounts to us.
There were disappointments. Once-fearless friends declined to participate. Paula had returned to the fold and her column. Eva had thrown in her Party card and retired from work and the world. ‘I’ve done my stint. Three betrayals by West and East in a lifetime are too much. I’m too old to join another struggle,’ she declared.
I missed Heda sorely. She and her second husband had settled in the United States. I found an unexpected ally in Magda, a gentle, cultured woman some ten years my junior. She had aged perceptibly since the invasion. Shadows saddened her dark eyes, but her face had retained its wistful charm. After being fired from a responsible job, she had been reduced to office cleaning. Recently she had been promoted to clerk but this brought her no joy. ‘Employees elbow for positions and settle personal accounts under the guise of political vigilance,’ she complained. ‘Mistrust is rife not only because of police informers but because nearly everyone has yielded to some form of corruption. There are no depths to which our people will not sink when political pressures are exerted’
Mirek had put it more pithily. ‘We’re a sub-nation! We knuckled under to Ferdinand II and Francis Joseph. We bowed to Hitler. Then along comes Pepík Stalin and we double up to him. We put up a bloody great statue. Not even the Zhittites and Missites and all those other ites had an idol that size. It cost billions, and what did it look like? A bloody meat queue with the old butcher himself at the head! Then Nikita blows the gaff and what do we do? Blow a fortune in marble to smithereens! And now we’re all licking Brezhnev’s arse!’
The Czechs veer readily from national pride to national castigation, I observed.
Unfortunately, Magda had not exaggerated. Morale had indeed declined. Deceit, fraud, sloth, sycophancy and careerism were the order of the day. Everything had a price, from a university place to the delivery of raw materials. Hypocrisy was rewarded, honesty pilloried. The economy was again built on rejects, with the difference that now shoddy workmanship was, in part, a form of passive resistance. The workers refused to ‘tear their guts out for the Russians.’
Magda burst out: ‘We’re cut off from the world and each other, we’re even divorced from our own history! If only there was something I could do!’
I thought quickly. I had known and trusted Magda for several years. Her sincerity was beyond dispute. Without revealing my source, I asked whether she would like to receive, type and pass on underground journals. Her face lit up. She couldn’t have looked more pleased if I’d offered her a free trip to the Bahamas. She hugged me, laughing. ‘Life will have a purpose again! Here’s to co-operation! And thank you. You’ve saved my sanity.’ She put down her glass. ‘I’ll have to type at my mother’s. My husband …’ Her shoulders sagged.
Her husband had found the price of integrity too high. Outwardly he supported the new regime in order to keep his job. Magda felt the humiliation deeply. I reserved my condemnation for those who enforced such choices. How many Englishmen would openly criticize Ian Smith or John Vorster if their jobs were at stake and no unemployment benefit existed, I wondered.
So far the resistance groups had acted independently. In November 1971 they executed their first concerted action. General elections were to be held. The electoral law allowing for wider representation, proposed in 1968, had not been passed. We were back to the old farce. The unwilling electorate would be herded ‘joyously’ to the polls to give a unanimous mandate to a list of candidates they did not know, drawn up by officials of a regime they did not support. The ideology mongers did not waste time on subtleties. Abstainers and deleters would be branded as traitors and treated accordingly. Some enterprises underscored the point by declaring that November pay packets would be issued only on the production of voting receipts.
The underground organized an audacious campaign to persuade the electorate to vote according to its conscience. The duplication and distribution of vast quantities of leaflets presented almost insuperable problems. But as Jiří, who was now a frequent visitor, said: ‘If politics is the art of the possible, the possible can be achieved only by striving for the impossible.’ The possible was achieved. A duplicator was obtained; about 70,000 leaflets were turned out.
The leaflet declared that to vote for the official candidates was to endorse the occupation and the current violations of human rights. It reminded the public that the elections would be rigged, all the figures would be determined beforehand. It pointed out that by law, voting was a right not a duty; no citizen could legally be penalised for not voting. It suggested that to boycott the elections or delete candidates would be tantamount to registering disapproval of existing conditions and policies.
I felt privileged to be a part of this campaign. It was the first major gesture against the regime since Jan Palach’s death and proof that the whole nation was not ‘a docile populace, easily dominated by foreigners’. Obviously the leaflet would not sway the vote and oust the government but its very appearance would demonstrate to both rulers and ruled the strength and resolution of the resistance movement. Public morale would be boosted both by the leaflet and the publication of the real polling figures in the underground press.
The participants were under no illusion about the risk they ran. Husák bleated from time to time that no citizen would be brought to trial on political grounds: only law-breakers would be punished. But what guarantee of legality was there when the Minister of Justice declared: ‘The necessity for protecting the rights of citizens and the independence of courts is a subjectivist theory’? What chances of a fair trial were there when a third of the country’s judges had been removed from office for refusing to judge according to political directives, and pliable working class cadres had been rushed through one-year law courses? If the punishment for playing a tape of Husák’s August 1968 speech deploring the invasion was two years in prison, what would it be for an unofficial election leaflet?
Interrogators from the fifties were back in business. I had nightmares in which I was arrested and thrown into jail. Sometimes the dream took place in the fifties. I was fretting because the boys were ill and needed me. Pavel visited me. From the other side of the glass partition he told me I should have thought of my sons before I got involved. In another dream Pavel lay dying. He didn’t know I was in prison; I heard him revile me for not coming to his deathbed. Other dreams were in the present. I was in the same cell; the warders were the same. The same interrogators tricked me into betraying my collaborators.
On 8 November leaflets were mailed or transported to private addresses, offices and factories all over the country. The next day the remainder were slipped into letter boxes or displayed in public places. There were some arrests among the distributors. Otherwise the country-wide operation worked smoothly.
After the deadline was up, I was left with a few hundred undelivered leaflets and no instructions to destroy them. Perhaps they were to be scattered near the polls on the eve of the elections, two weeks away. I looked round my bare room in despair. Where could I hide them? I stepped out onto the balcony. Nothing there. Flower pots were too obvious. Beyond the wall of the balcony reared the rooftops of other, lower buildings. In a sheltered corner in the distance I spotted a small and inexplicable patch of soil. I waited until nightfall then I climbed the wall and, crouching low, dodged among the chimney pots until I came to the spot. I removed some weeds, scooped away the earth with a tablespoon and pushed a polythene bag containing the contraband into the hollow. I replaced the soil, propped up the dispirited weeds and crawled back, elated with my evening’s work.
I had had to come to some decision about my future. The Ministry of Education had refused to extend the boys’ stay abroad. If they wanted to gain university degrees they w
ould have to remain in England as émigrés. If they returned to Czechoslovakia, they would be drafted into the army or imprisoned for ‘illegal sojourn’ abroad. That was one reason for me to return to England. The other was my ageing parents. Visits abroad were rarely granted to Czechs now. There appeared to be only one solution: to emigrate. I therefore applied for an emigration passport.
It was months before the answer arrived. Application refused. My emigration was ‘not in the state’s interest’. For the same reason, I was refused an exit permit to travel West on holiday. This confirmed my suspicion that I was being detained on political grounds. There were two possible explanations. The Jonsen affair was one. Some persons had recently been interrogated on their connection with Jonsen. My name had come up. I had received messages from unknown well-wishers to get out before it was too late. Several Czechs had been tried for allegedly passing espionage information to the Dutch Embassy. A similar scandal might be being prepared with the British. The other possible explanation was that the police were aware of my other activities. They might have obtained information from a detainee; they might be planning further arrests in connection with the leaflets. I warned my collaborators of the probable implications of my rejected application.
Legal emigration being out of the question, I considered other possibilities. Though loyalty to my friends urged me to stay, concern for my mother and sons swayed me. My mother’s health had deteriorated since Pavel’s arrest. Another shock might prove fatal. I had a premonition that after the elections it would be too late. My two previous presentiments of disaster — fifteen months before I was bombed out and eighteen months prior to Pavel’s arrest — had been accurate. I could not wait. I had to act immediately.
The resourceful Jan had planned an emergency exit for me, should all else fail. This was the moment to put it into operation. I phoned London and gave the code message. For reasons of security, I must leave the reader — and the security police — in ignorance of my escape route. Suffice to say it worked efficiently. My motto had to be ‘business as usual’ until the last minute. I spent the last week hammering out translations, fees for which I would not have time to collect, and my last day playing a part in a short film for a secondary school English course. In the evening I sorted papers and distributed them among friends for safe-keeping, and handed over to Magda the latest issue of the samizdat chronicle.
There still remained the hidden leaflets. Once my absence was ascertained, the flat and its vicinity would be searched very thoroughly: they might be discovered. There was no time to ask for instructions. I scrambled over the rooftops and unearthed the bag. Burning would be the most thorough method of disposal, but where in a centrally-heated flat did one incinerate? The large saucepan that had been used for boiling Ilja’s nappies offered a solution. I placed it on the tiled bathroom floor, closed the common ventilator shaft, opened the window onto the balcony a fraction, and began to tear up and ignite the sheets of paper. The bathroom was soon a furnace. Smoke filled my nostrils and stung my eyes. From time to time I tottered out, gulped some air and checked to see if smoke or flames were visible from outside. The last thing I wanted was a visit from the fire brigade! The paper burned slowly, charred flakes remained. I flushed these down the toilet. Two hours later, throat parched, face roasted and eyes smarting, I burnt the last leaflet, washed out the blackened saucepan and threw it in a dustbin.
In the morning I had a streaming cold. From a distant vantage point I watched myself perform the necessary last-minute actions as though I were a character in a TV drama. I combed the flat once more for incriminating evidence. I re-checked my zip-bag and its contents for Czech labels. As a final act of defiance I stuck an anti-regime joke on the wall to greet the police when they forced an entry.
I stood at the door ready to leave. Strange that, like Pavel in 1939, I too was fleeing East in order to reach the safety of the West. I too was seeking freedom — at a price. I had lost everything, including twenty-six years of my life. I had nothing to show for them, except a handful of clothes — less than I had brought with me to Prague in 1945. But I had gained much. I had gained insight and self-reliance. I could contemplate calmly the prospect of prison if the escape bid failed or starting life again at fifty if it succeeded. I had acquired friends whom I would never forget and who would not forget me, even if we were never to meet again. Women in particular had sustained me. Women are geared to survival. I too had learnt the art of survival. It enabled me to combat with confidence the cancer I was to find I had brought away with me. My experiences in Czechoslovakia had challenged and finally reaffirmed my belief in love, courage, goodness and freedom.
Two hours later I said goodbye to Prague, and carried with me an ache like the longing for a loved one who is dead or far away. An ex-lecturer of the law faculty once said: ‘To be Czech is not a nationality; it is a disease.’ I would add: ‘It is a contagious disease;’ ‘it has entered my bones; my heart is affected.’ In my mind’s eye I carry a picture of the Hradčany panorama. A voice whispers in my ear: ‘Truth shall prevail,’ appending Čapek’s rider: ‘But it will be an almighty struggle.’
1. Jiří Pelikán is a former Director-General of Czechoslovak Television and is currently a member of the European Parliament representing the Italian Socialist Party.
Chapter 24
Jan met me at Victoria station. I was crushed in a hairy hug. He was wearing some mangy unidentifiable animal. He grinned: ‘So we made it!’ I heard the love and relief in his voice. He admitted he had not slept or stirred from the phone till he received my safe-and-sound call from over the border.
Several days later I found Jan sitting pale and hunched.
‘Jiří’s been arrested!’ his father’s voice sounded in my ears: ‘They’ve arrested Eda!’ Jan went on painfully: ‘A week after you got away there was a big round-up in Prague and Brno.’ He rested his forehead on his clenched fists. I knew what he was thinking: What am I doing here?
‘Someone has to tell the world,’ I reminded him.
That I night I tossed on my fold-up bed in Jan’s draughty kitchen. Mice scampered along the wainscotting; my thoughts darted hither and thither. What had gone wrong? What evidence had the secret police found? I had warned Jiří in time. Nothing could have been discovered in his lodgings. Had I been careless over the phone? One could never be sure. An unguarded moment, an unwitting betrayal.
We learned later that Jiří had been betrayed by others during interrogations.
The taste of freedom was bitter. My only consolation was that the election campaign had not been in vain. Some genuine results had been published by the underground and these refuted the official poll of 99.8 per cent. In the capital alone, 10 per cent of the electorate had abstained, in the factory districts 11 per cent. One fifth of Prague’s voters had registered no confidence in Husák. More important was the knowledge that the Party leaders knew the full results. (They had instructed the election commissions to draw up a secret report on the real poll and the behaviour of individual voters.) The true figures would prove to the leadership the instability of its position. All this information had eventually reached the West.
Jan’s light was on. I went in to him. He was listing through old Czech magazines, articles by himself, by Luboš and Jiří, declarations of faith, of ethical principles.
Poor Jan, it was harder to be outside, alone. In Prague he would have been sustained by constant contact with his close friends. In England he waged a lone struggle to keep Czechoslovakia’s fate in the news. Immediately after the invasion, as a Czech ex-student leader, he had been much in demand on the British radio and television. Then interest in Czechoslovakia had died down, superseded by other political upheavals and natural disasters. Jan had continued to bombard the English and American press with articles under his own name and a variety of pseudonyms, swallowing anger and disappointment when they were cut, quoted out of context or distorted by unfeeling editors.
Now he stepped up his efforts, writing, t
ouring the country, talking, organising another Müller campaign and protests on behalf of all Czech political prisoners, raising money for medicines and other needs for them and their unsupported families.
‘You’re neglecting your studies and your health,’ I pointed out. Apart from his headaches, he was suffering from dangerously fluctuating blood pressure and kidney trouble. He shrugged impatiently. He valued education, as all Czechs do, but he valued other things more highly: justice, loyalty to friends, decency.
‘One must live as one would like others to live,’ he muttered.
I understood. But if only he would take up yoga, meditation, ease and refresh his mind and body. Jan spurned such advice and stuck perversely to his destructive pain-killers. There was nothing I could do about it; except ease the burden where I could: correct his English, type an article, translate materials that still miraculously made their way across the border and to London.
Love and Freedom Page 31