The Thin Wall: A POW/MIA Truth Novel

by R. Cyril West

  “That woman . . .” Milan watched her walk through the square. She wore a black dress. “Who is she?”

  Josef joined Milan at the window. “She is someone who would stand up to the Russians.”

  “She already has,” Oflan said. “Apparently, the doctor has yet to meet our gutsy Ayna Sahhat.”

  Hearing Ayna’s name for the first time excited him. He removed his physician’s coat and left the clinic without saying another word.

  . . . and then he ran after her, across the square. His eyes were locked onto her swaying hips as he chased her stride down the sidewalk. She turned one corner, then another. It was not until he had reached the cemetery behind the church that he realized he was being tugged by the pull of her gravity.

  People stood in the way, greeting him. “Hello? How’s it going, doctor?”

  He looked straight ahead rather than meet their eyes, brushing them aside. They treated him like a celebrity, wanting to glom onto his war hero label, thinking that somehow he might protect them if and when the Russians came knocking on their front door. But it was a foolish way of thinking. Just foolish. He wanted to tell them this but didn’t.

  She glanced over her shoulder as if physically aware of his presence. “Excuse me,” he shouted to her, waving a hand. “Can I have a word with you?”

  She ignored him.

  Two boys playing football in the street nearly tripped him when chasing an errant pass. One of the boys fell at his feet. “Sorry, sir.”

  “Careful,” Milan said, lifting the kid. When he looked up, he had lost sight of her. He started into a trot, hoping to catch up, only to find that she had vanished.

  He went on, hurrying to the next block, and the next, looking up and down the street. He stood on the pavement with his hands on his hips. He was breathing hard. Vanished? Or did she intentionally ditch him? He took grim inventory of the passing strangers. A man entered the bookshop. A small grocery store was filled with shoppers. Children left the schoolhouse.

  A car screamed by. “Get off the road,” the driver shouted, laying into the horn. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Milan paid no attention to the hotheaded driver. Instead his eyes were impenetrable and constant, focused on the storefronts, the schoolhouse, the sidewalk, the road.

  Where was she?

  Third Act: Shame

  MYTH AND REALITY

  A man that flies from his fear may find that he has only taken a short cut to meet it.

  J.R.R. TOLKIEN

  Dal sat at the café patio with a Rude Pravo newspaper──the official paper of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. The front page reported on a factory shutdown and clashes on the streets. More bad news for the country, but better news than had been published in previous days, when the sirens in Prague sounded, and a demonstration at the railroad station resulted in a woman’s death.

  His eyes drifted to an article at the bottom of the page, an appeal from the Central Committee urging citizen responsibility and trust:

  These are grave moments in our history, comrades.

  Long live Dubček!

  During the early hours of the invasion, Alexander Dubček, along with several high-ranking Party members, had been arrested in the name of the “revolutionary government.” Now came word he would be released and carry on as first secretary, thanks to the negotiations by President Svoboda’s delegation in Moscow. The government, according to the article, had sworn to protect socialism in Czechoslovakia. This marked the first step in working toward a Soviet drawdown from Czech territory. It was true, Dal thought. The bulk of the troops would eventually withdraw, but the pro-Moscow mindset was here to stay. The invasion had not been about a longterm occupation of Czech land, rather an occupation of the mind, and with it the course of socialism. He sneered at the final words of the appeal:

  We are with you. Be with us.

  He folded the paper when a waiter approached and served him a cup of black tea and a slice of toast. “Spasiba,” Dal said. “The service here is exceptional.”

  “We try to please,” the waiter said, sliding a small jar of blueberry jam next to Dal’s hand.

  The waiter’s long bistro apron was spotless, his hair and nails impeccably groomed. The café was the nicest restaurant in town and the workers took pride in their appearances, holding on to a much grander past. Life in Mersk, from the lonely street musician to the sparsely attended marionette theatre, was eerily surreal. With so many abandoned buildings in the village, the streets felt like a ghost town. Yet here endured a gem of a restaurant, of five-star caliber, where the food and the service stood second to none in the country.

  “Have you worked at this café for many years?”

  “Ten years.”

  “Excellent. This place must have been packed during its heyday.”

  “Even Comrade Gottwald ate at these tables during the final days of his life.”

  “Wonderful.” Dal spoke cheerfully. “You are a loyal worker.”

  “I like to think so.”

  This was his morning routine, dressing in civilian clothes, eating at the local café, making idle conversation with the friendly waiter. After breakfast, he enjoyed visiting the quaint bookshop a few blocks away and perusing the works of Plato and Aristotle. Though most of the citizens were standoffish or avoided him, some people, like the impassive waiter and the intellectual bookshop clerk, were willing to chat.

  While farmers unloaded fresh produce for the local market, the imbecile appeared from behind their work trucks and entered the square. Dal tucked a napkin into his collar and spread jam on his toast. “You simpleminded fool,” he whispered, thinking of Bedrich. “We share something in common. So few comrades here in the hills.” He scrutinized the retarded man’s youthful smile and the carefree way in which he threw handfuls of seeds to the cooing pigeons. It reminded him of an eight-year-old boy.

  Dal had a bite of toast. The morning sunshine felt good and he was enjoying the time to himself. He needed restful moments like this. He was looking forward to the day when the Soviet military had fully secured the country and he could slip away to the spa for some rest and relaxation. It would do him some good.

  Just then, Horbachsky approached the table. He was holding a metal bucket. “The hardware store employees were reluctant to help,” the Ukrainian private said.

  Dal set aside his toast. “You didn’t steal that bucket, did you?”

  “I paid for it with the crowns you gave me.”

  “Good.” Dal had a drink of water. “Putting money into the local economy is a good thing. These people have seen better times.”

  “Maybe so, but I don’t understand the currency exchange. I think they might’ve shortchanged me.”

  “Oh? Where is the change?”

  “They took it.”

  “All of it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Dear Lenin, why are you such a moron?” Dal wiped jam from the corner of his mouth with the napkin. “I have little patience today. Get to work, private. You have already wasted enough of my time.”

  “Yes, comrade colonel.”

  When Horbachsky crossed the street, Dal dropped a lump of sugar into his teacup and watched the gangly soldier approach the imbecile.

  “You there,” Horbachsky said to Bedrich, at the same time flashing a pornographic magazine. “Do you like girls? If so, help me drain the water from this fountain and I will let you look at the naked lady pictures inside this magazine.”

  Bedrich’s eyes lit up. He took the bucket and stepped shin-deep into the fountain. Heaving a grunt, he scooped a pail of water, then another.

  Meanwhile Horbachsky stepped aside, distracted by a couple of flirtatious girls who had stopped to peek at his gun. He bummed a cigarette from them, and then stood by and chatted about the local music and party scene.

  Thirty minutes later, Father Sudek limped into the square on his cane. Dal glanced up from the paper. He was struck by how quickly the priest walked. The Nazi bullet trapped in h
is leg had slowed him very little over the years.

  “Bedrich, what in God’s kingdom are you doing?” the priest asked.

  “What do you think, eh?” Horbachsky towered over Father Sudek. “He’s emptying the fountain.”

  “Emptying it. Why?”

  “The colonel has a surprise for you people.”

  “This is unnecessary.”

  “I’m only following orders.”

  “That doesn’t make it right.”

  “If you have a problem, talk to Colonel Dal.”

  Dal sipped his tea and nodded approvingly at the priest.

  “We don’t need your help,” Father Sudek said to Horbachsky. He pulled Bedrich by the arm. “The street cleaner will take care of the muck water in due time.”

  Horbachsky inspected the nearly dry basin with a grin. “Too late. The task is already complete.”

  Bedrich groped Horbachsky’s army jacket, trying to grab the magazine. Instead of letting him look at the pictures, the private pushed him away and returned rapidly to the café.

  “I was clear,” Dal said irately to Horbachsky, “from the onset of this mission. Pornographic material is strictly forbidden.”

  “I forgot, comrade colonel.”

  “And furthermore, why tease the imbecile?”

  “I don’t understand?”

  Dal shook his head. “You promised him the magazine, private. Are you not a man of your word?”

  “But─”

  “Give it to me.” Dal yanked the magazine from the soldier’s jacket.

  “Comrade colonel, the village idiot can’t read.”

  “Read?”

  “He has no brain, comrade.”

  “Do you actually think he wants to read the articles?” Dal smacked Horbachsky across the head with the pages.

  “But─”

  “You put him to work on my behalf. You promised the poor man the magazine for a job well done. He desires a naked woman as much as anyone. Don’t make promises in my name if you cannot keep them.” He had distaste in his mouth for Horbachsky. The private had no reason to display arrogance; he had accomplished nothing noteworthy in his brief military career.

  “Yes, Comrade colonel.”

  Dal walked to the square and delivered the magazine to the overjoyed imbecile, patting him on the shoulder. “You are a productive worker. I will report back to the presidium on how you have joined the trust of pro-Moscow communists.” Encouraging Bedrich and other young members of society to engage in open sex and pornography went against the old moral virtues of the church, thus diverting them from their religion, from the source of their strength.

  The fountain dry, Dal returned to the GAZ, put the truck in gear and drove away, leaving Horbachsky standing alone on the street with the bucket.

  At 7:00 a.m., Milan stopped in Lisov for coffee with an old friend. A member of an exclusive gun club, the retired doctor had invited him to join a wild boar hunt in the north, at a lodge built by Duke Schönburg-Waldenburg in 1876. Even though the invasion had put the outing on hold, Milan looked forward to spending time with the club’s members, to a break from the long hours of medicine, and from the hassles of the occupation troops. Shooting a rifle, those rare opportunities he actually had these days, often relieved his stress. He had just left the man’s home when he saw the Praga truck parked in a vacant lot near a petrol station. It was the same green truck he had seen in the previous days.

  He stomped on the brakes and got out of the car. Another coincidence? Or was the secret police watching him? He walked briskly toward the truck. He was fuming, wanting answers. What is it? What do you want from me? However his anger was quickly replaced by confusion, by a familiar sense of déjà vu. He recognized the man climbing from the truck. “Frank Stevens?” Milan said in English. “Is that really you?”

  “Yes,” Frank said with an American accent. He tipped his hunter’s hat. “It’s been a long time. How are you, Mickey?”

  Milan “Mickey” Husak was born in the village of Humsova, near the German border in 1921. Shortly thereafter, his parents immigrated to America, settling in Chicago, where he eventually acquired the name Mickey from his classmates. While his mother and father never lost their distinct Czech accent, and always dressed decades behind the fashion, Mickey was as American as the kid next door, right down to his knickers and striped T-shirts.

  He was young then, Milan remembered. And patriotic.

  In 1941, Milan was a biology major at the University of Illinois when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Like everyone, the surprise attack shocked, then angered him. The next day when America entered the war, he put his education on hold, joined the army and several months later shipped off to England to train for the war in Europe. His parents──he had last seen them waving goodbye from a terminal at O’Hare airport──were proud of his fighting spirit. They always spoke of how good life was in America, and other than missing their relatives in Czechoslovakia, they had raised him to understand that the United States was a land of opportunity and, as the anthem declared, land of the free.

  It was Frank who had found him in the English town of Dorset and recruited him into the OSS. Frank who had trained him in the art of deception. Frank who had taught him how to kill with a single hand.

  In February 1943, in preparation for its liberation, and because Milan spoke Czech, he parachuted into German occupied Bohemia to serve with the resistance. After landing in a barren wheat field, he donned his civvies, buried his gear in the snow, and then reached his rendezvous point within an hour. He had passed his first test by avoiding capture.

  Now what? he remembered thinking. Even with his military training, Milan felt lost and unprepared for combat. He was only twenty-two-years-old. Nothing in life could have possibly prepared him for this, for the killing that lay ahead.

  The following day, he took to the streets, joining the handful of British operatives already embedded into the fabric of society with their forged identities. He did his best to blend in, without drawing attention to himself. Frank had forewarned him, you must never reveal your American roots. You’re Czech. Born and raised in Humsova.

  Milan understood. The Germans shot allied soldiers who aided partisans──no questions asked.

  By May, Milan had snuffed out his first German soldier, a young officer in charge of a local communications depot. Now he was a wanted man, living a meager day-to-day existence, constantly on the run and looking over his shoulder for enemies. He slept in barn lofts, in hidden attic spaces, in slum apartments. He kept a loaded pistol near his hand and an ear alert to any unexpected sounds lurking in the night. You never knew who the informants were; the Nazis had their spies, too.

  But most missions were not very dangerous, he recalled. Milan spent the majority of his time in disguise, reporting on troop movements and photographing military facilities. Walking among the people, the crowded downtown Prague streets, he had perfected the art of trailing German officers and learning how to identify them by the way they stepped and by their body language. He memorized their favorite restaurants, the places they went to for sausage and a beer. He noted which brothels they frequented and the ladies they preferred. Some of the prostitutes were informants, luring valuable information from their partners. Everyone, it seemed, had a hand in helping push back the Germans, from prostitutes to the clergy, to the average person on the street.

  Of course, the information was crucial toward victory. Any information, no matter how large or small. He delivered it to Frank, who kept a low profile, yet always seemed to be around when Milan needed him.

  Then when orders came to engage the enemy in combat──the missions he looked forward to most──he led a team of fighters in ambushes against convoys and other military targets.

  He soon found himself on the Nazi’s most wanted list, his face plastered on posters from Prague to Brno. It was quite an accomplishment for a science-minded kid from Chicago. Just a few years earlier he had been a whiz with a Bunsen burner and cen
trifuge, never having fired a weapon. By August, he was kicking Nazi ass. He was proud of his notoriety, though careful to keep overconfidence from seeping into his blood. He had seen the graves of those who fell due to overt cockiness and delusions of invincibility. In the end, his work helped pave the way for George S. Patton, Jr.’s Third U.S. Army, which liberated Western Czechoslovakia in May, 1945.

  But no matter how much information he gathered, or how much mayhem he stirred up with his resistance soldiers, Milan lived with an unshakable remorse for the unintended deaths of the Roma orphans. Not a single day went by that he was not reminded of the tragedy:

  Children on the streets.

  Children at the park.

  Children in his nightmares.

  In the days immediately following the war, while people celebrated at the Old Town Square and embraced their families, Milan slumped into a state of drunkenness and withdrew to the isolation of his cold apartment. He had no friends in the Prague ghetto. Not a girl. Not a drinking buddy. Not even a damn dog.

  So-called “war hero” turned loner, he had been contemplating suicide for weeks, slipping from one drinking binge to another, sleeping with prostitutes, playing dice with sketchy gamblers, his hair grown out and looking like a disheveled bum. He planned to step in front of a moving bus or more symbolically a speeding train when his money ran out. It was only a matter of days. A few more rolls of the dice. A run of bad luck.

  Then Frank found him lying in an alley with a bloody nose. He had been mugged and left for dead. Frank helped him to his feet and took him to a nearby café and bought him a meal. I have an idea, he told Milan. Might sound crazy. But would you consider staying in Czechoslovakia for a few years?

  Frank, like a football coach motivating his players before a big game, explained how the Soviets had no intention on withdrawing from the territory they liberated during the war, especially from Czechoslovakia. Stalin was breathing down the backs of democratic countries and planned to rule Eastern Europe with an iron fist. Half of Europe would soon be in chains. America, Frank made the case, must have agents in place with open eyes and listening ears. The free world needs you, Milan.