The Thin Wall: A POW/MIA Truth Novel

by R. Cyril West

  “It’s confusing. I was an American.” Milan looked him dead on. “And you were British.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “Our life as Czechs has been fabricated. We stayed behind after the war to be the eyes and ears of our governments. Me──for the President. You──for the King.”

  “To hell with them all. King. Queen. Prime Minister.”

  “We just stayed longer than we were supposed to.”

  The girl looking at sheet music sensed their heated discussion and shifted uncomfortably behind the bins. Noticing this, they lowered their tone to a murmur.

  Philip said, “You. Me. We were always Czech. That’s why we were singled out after the war. We fit into society. Just like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I can trace my roots back to the fifteenth century. My ancestors built Pilsen. I am a respected member of the Communist Party. I stand with Svoboda.”

  “Maybe so, but after the war, I signed up for this. I gave my word. America first.”

  “And what is that word worth today, eh? It will get you locked up in a prison. Or perhaps much worse, sent to a Soviet Gulag.” Philip riveted his gaze on him. “Please. You must go away. Life has changed. The world has changed. I don’t remember England.”

  When Milan reached for his wallet, Philip held up his hands to reject payment. “Consider it a farewell gift,” he said with a frown, handing Milan the case. “And don’t ever return or mention my name again.”

  “Goodbye then,” Milan said, his pulse quickening.

  That night a storm struck at the heart of German Bavaria, before passing over the Bohemian Forest and knocking out electricity on Milan’s side of town. He lit several candles and ate cold pasta for dinner, some yams, and opened a bottle of Becherovka to drown his sorrow.

  His mind, too, was a tempest, whirling with dread and second-guessing his decision to visit with Philip. Nothing good had come from their conversation. Only regret. Pulling his buddy into this mess had been a mistake. No matter how things turned out, he had lost a friend.

  Milan checked the deadbolt, the chain door lock, then sat grimfaced on a recliner chair in the living room. Goddamn, he thought. He could sink or swim. Which would he do? He drank straight from the bottle, half expecting the secret police to break down his door at any second.

  When thunder rattled the windows, followed by a flash of lightening, he buried his head in his hands and heaved a sigh. Was there a way out of this trouble? His mind drifted to the boom of artillery, to the final days of the fighting. How had he survived the war? How?

  Truth was, near the end of combat, when Patton’s Third Army was marching into Bohemia, he held little value for his own life. The deaths of the Roma orphans had destroyed him, his spirit, his will to live. And so he had become reckless, single-handedly snuffing out a machine gun nest, skirmishing hand-to-hand with German soldiers, brazenly walking the streets when his face was plastered on wanted signs all across town.

  He took a quick pull from the Becherovka. He was lucky. Damn lucky. He had stayed alive like a man protected by a guardian angel. How else could he explain it? Luck, pure luck. But his comrades saw things differently. His acts of suicidal carelessness and stupidity came across as acts of heroism. I’m not a hero, he told them. I’m just an ordinary man. The truth, which he kept hidden from them, was that he was stuck in depression and unable to escape the shrill of children’s voices crying for help, weeping in pain, and wanting mothers. He never sought help for his post-war trauma; just kept the horror to himself──as most soldiers did.

  After the war, when the tales of his heroics began to spread like wildfire, he denied them, insisting they were fabrications. Hero? Milan felt fraudulent. But what could he have said to put an end to the showering of praise? They had patted him on the back, all of them: the ministers, top brass, his comrades, and even strangers. As the country began to put itself back together, Milan, like a national sports hero or a beloved politician, grew larger than life. Without asking for or seeking it, he somehow became a man the people could believe in. And there was nothing, nothing at all, that he could say or do to silence their kind words. It had simply gotten to the point where he finally grew numb to the adulation and withdrew into his private darkness, to that place where he felt most secure.

  By 10:00 p.m., he was drunk and cursing the CIA for reentering his life. At one point, he gazed between the curtains when lightning struck and thought he saw Frank standing with an umbrella on the street below the window. Then darkness. Then nothing.

  At sunrise, and still reeking of alcohol, Milan jumped in the Škoda and drove the streets until he reached the textile factories and the row of faceless concrete apartment buildings.

  A convoy of Polish army trucks slowed traffic, forcing him to take a side road near the railway station where he got bogged down in road construction delays. The windswept rain was falling in sheets now, the tattered wipers sloshing water across the windshield. He stretched into the window and squinted to get a better view of the road.

  He eventually passed between checkpoints and merged onto the highway. It struck him how the occupation felt orderly, with little emphasis placed on ID-ing drivers or stopping cars. While protesting, Czechs had slowly acclimated to the presence of foreign troops and returned to work as instructed by President Svoboda──for the good of the economy. It was an easing of tension, maybe even a reluctant acceptance of the lifestyle changes. In the meantime, people kept a watchful eye on the occupiers and carried on with their daily routines: working, shopping, sending their children to school. They trusted the government would turn back the Soviets through negotiations. What else were they to believe?

  Milan rolled down the window and let the air rush into the car.

  . . . he was reminiscing about America again.

  There had been opportunities to defect, he realized. Though he had taken none of them seriously. Even when the communists turned life into a system of coercing neighbors, friends, and family against each other, rewarding those who reported anti-government activities, Milan never tried to flee the country. His parents were dead and his American school buddies were distant memories. Life had changed. He had planted roots in Czechoslovakia. He had developed relationships with his patients and with his colleagues. Besides, why go back to the United States when there was work to be done at the hospital──especially with children? Nevertheless, Frank’s offer to get him out of Czechoslovakia did stir up old feelings.

  He glanced at the Chicago Tribune sports section in the footwell. He had made no real effort to hide the newspaper, let alone destroy the damn thing as Frank had wisely advised. Instead, he held onto the pages like a kid with a souvenir. And why not? The newspaper brought him back to a lost time, to warm summer days when life was carefree, when he wanted to be a ballplayer──the next KiKi Cuyler. It had been years since he really remembered his youth. And flipping through the inky pages, looking at the advertisements, Coca-Cola, Chevrolet, General Electric, took him home to a cramped apartment in Chicago, to the smell of the streets, to his parents, to his childhood friends. Even in his forties, he still embraced the lost life he had left behind so many years ago. But it was nothing more than a rekindling of distant memories. Utter, stupid foolishness. He felt no real desire for the past. Just a need for a future, which he grasped at like a man sinking in mud.

  The streets were deserted when Milan reached St. Nepomuk and parked next to the Soviet tank and a scatter of cars. He was hungover and his mouth tasted like crap. With the Chicago Tribune in his hand, he got out of the Škoda and walked to a trash can. “Idiot,” he said. Idiot for having kept the newspaper. Idiot for having carried on with Frank Stevens in the first place. He stuffed the paper inside the can and brushed his hands together. At last, the question of his allegiance and flirtation with returning to America had been put to rest.

  He heard the pitch of the organ and started for the doors. The morning service was underway. He entered the sanctuary and sat in a pew next to Irena. “Sorry for being la
te,” he whispered. “Russians, y’know. Damn roadblocks.”

  Father Sudek stood at the pulpit. “We are being tested by this occupation. How will we survive? How will we reflect upon these troubled times? As mere mortals who walk with the Lord? Or as men tempted by the devil? I ask you, will you sink to the level of the occupation troops? Will you fight fire with fire? Or will you wear your Christianity as a badge of courage and let He who died for our sins be the strength in our hearts and the might of our resistance?”

  Instead of listening to the sermon, Milan searched the room for Ayna’s black hair──which was buried somewhere in a sea of blonde and gray.

  DAL GAZED at the steeple and shook his head. He was a proud atheist. A believer of reason, he did not understand how anyone in good conscience could dismiss the theory of evolution in favor of creationism. “Oh you pitiful fools,” he whispered. “Organized religion is purely a means for the Christian church to control the masses. Why are you people so ignorant?”

  Even though it went against communist principles, he was nevertheless thankful the citizens of Mersk were devoted to their religion. He credited their faith with having helped to maintain the fragile peace of recent weeks. With Father Sudek preaching nonviolence from his pulpit, restraining even the bravest of resistors, the people had remained somewhat orderly and obedient. It was why he never publicly chastised the priest or compromised his position as a leader. He had seen this sort of thing play out in the republics of Central Asia, where local cultures had been suppressed by the Party, and Islamic leaders, devoid of social antagonisms, were strategically propped up to manage ethnic tensions. There were times─like the present─when it was advantageous to look the other way and allow citizens to carry on with their tribal traditions. The people of Mersk could have their religion. They could sit in their church. They could listen to their priest. For now, at least. Until he decided otherwise.

  Dal approached the T-62 and ran his hand along the armor. Always this question of the tank. Had the iron beast fulfilled its purpose? Had the threat of losing the church scared the people to the point of submission? He believed so. As long as the tank represented a symbol of power, they would remain subservient and allow him to pull their strings at will.

  Feeling at ease, he gazed across the cobble toward Bedrich. The imbecile was picking up bits and pieces of trash from the gutters. He seemed enormously cheerful for a village idiot. Not that idiots were typically unhappy, but Dal wondered, was he ever angry? Did he cry? He felt a surge of pity for the little guy. His role in the village bordered on nuisance. He was an outcast, the dreg of society. Without religion, he was an illegitimate member of the Christian community. Then maybe he did not need their god or their communal strength. Perhaps he preferred to go it alone like a wise socialist who turned to the state for support. Either way, he was too dumb to know what he was missing in life and thrived on the routine, dwelling happily in monotony. Today the trash. Tomorrow the trash. The following day the trash. Give him a little praise, Dal thought, and Bedrich would pick up trash long past midnight.

  He took a drag on his cigarette and flicked the stub into the street. He began to walk. He approached Milan’s Škoda and leaned into the window. There was a cello case in the backseat adorned with a red ribbon. A present? Something romantic must be happening between the physician and the girl. He had seen Milan throw some paper into the trash can before entering the church. Strictly out of curiosity, he went to investigate.

  AYNA SAW HIM sitting next to Irena and smiled. What was the doctor doing at St. Nepomuk? She glanced at her watch, a gift from Peter, and shook her foot anxiously. How much longer until she could talk to him?

  Forty-five minutes later, Father Sudek said his final “amen,” kissed the altar and strode down the long center aisle with the altar boys in their scarlet robes and other members of the procession.

  While the organist played on, she rushed outside the church to search for Milan.

  Where did he go?

  The parishioners lingered on the steps to chat and eat free pastries served by Josef and his bakery employees. Ayna moved among them.

  She heard her name, “Ayna?” Then turned to Milan, and asked, “Who, me?”

  He stuck a piece of gum in his mouth. “You’re a hard person to track down.”

  She was tongue-tied. Did she really just say, who me? What a dumb thing to have said. Yes, you. Who else? She squeezed the strap of her purse and slung it over her shoulder. “You have been looking for me?”

  He nodded. “Yes. Everywhere. You’d think the village was the size of Prague.”

  She had been avoiding him for days, slipping out of her home and taking the back way to rehearsal, walking all the way around the church and entering from a side door, just to steer clear of the clinic. Except for yesterday, stupid yesterday, when she was in a hurry and thought she could sneak past his window. Then, after he began to follow her, she had no choice but to ditch him. The last thing she wanted was to get involved with a man.

  “It’s rehearsal,” she muttered. “Morning and night.”

  “Now that’s what I call dedication.”

  “It’s what I love most.”

  “I completely understand.”

  “Speaking of which, are you coming to the recital?”

  “Um, not if the Russians are invited,” he said with a smirk.

  “Heavens, no.”

  “Then count me in.”

  “Speaking of Russians, thank you for standing up to the colonel at the clinic.” Her face was serious. “Finally someone who refuses to be pushed around.”

  “It was nothing,” he insisted.

  “No one else will confront him.”

  “Yes, well, I suppose there is no need for anyone to get hurt.”

  “Were you going to punch him?”

  “No. I wanted to. But sometimes biting your tongue is better in the long run. You know the old saying, ‘live to fight another day.’ Still, I was pissed off. The guy’s a real jackass.” A football rolled up and he kicked it back to Jiri and some boys standing near the fountain. “He’d love more than anything to arrest me.”

  “Then it was good to show some restraint,” Ayna said, walking toward the square. She grew excited when his hand accidentally touched her fingers. “If you do come to the recital, I’ll have a front row seat reserved for you.”

  “I’ll be there. Though I am curious about something.”

  “Oh?”

  “Emil tells me you are the best cellist in South Bohemia.”

  “He exaggerates.”

  “Is it true?”

  “Hardly.”

  “I would take it as a compliment.”

  “Emil is often too generous with his opinions.”

  “Seriously,” Milan said, “have you thought about auditioning for the orchestra in Prague?”

  “Funny you should ask. It’s my dream to play for the Prague Symphony Orchestra.”

  “What’s stopping you?”

  “Well, for starters, I’m not a communist.”

  “Good point. Except the maestro would likely overlook that technicality considering your talent.”

  “Plus I’m a single mother. I’d need help. Someone to watch Jiri. Not to mention the fact that I don’t know anyone in the orchestra willing to open any doors for me.” Ayna hated being so negative, but it was the truth. “And did I mention occupation troops?”

  “Are you finished?”

  “Yes.”

  “Those are excuses,” Milan said. “I’m sure the members of the orchestra each had their own stumbling blocks along the way.”

  “Maybe so. However I’m told the members come from prestigious families. They have college educations in music theory.”

  “Keep in mind, music comes from the heart, not the text book.”

  “Regardless, why would they give a country girl a chance?”

  “Don’t give up on your dream. Let persistence lead the way.” He grinned. “Which reminds me, I have a
surprise for you.”

  She lit up. “I love surprises.”

  “So close your eyes. And no peeking.”

  “Okay, no peeking. Promise.”

  Standing in the square with her hands over her eyes was perfectly reasonable, wasn’t it? Her affection for Milan was purely adolescent and silly, and she loved it. But why him? He was not dangerous like Peter. Or criminal like Dominik. Or rebellious like Daniel. Other than quarrelling with the colonel, he seemed straight as a ruler. At the same time, she sensed something. A little secret. Did he hate cats? Or steal from the alms tray? She was trying to unravel the mystery behind her crush on the doctor, when he returned and peeled the fingers away from her eyes.

  “Now then,” Milan said excitedly, holding the cello case. “What do you think?”

  Ayna’s eyes widened. “It’s beautiful.”

  “From Hamburg.”

  She took the case, opened it and touched the rose interior. “It’s a bit princess-looking, no?”

  “You don’t like it?”

  She gave a silly laugh. “I’m only teasing you. I love it. Really. I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “I just wanted to make things right.”

  “Honestly, you didn’t break my cello case,” she confessed. “I found it at a junk shop several years ago, broken handle and all. It was all I could afford.”

  Milan looked as though on the verge of telling a joke. “Doesn’t surprise me. I figured the case was already broken. But it was a good excuse to become friends, eh?”

  “How wicked of you.”

  “About tomorrow,” he said. “If you’re available, how about a picnic?”

  IT WAS DISGUSTING, Dal thought. Repulsive even. He smoked a cigarette in the shadow of the tank and watched them flirt. They were reminiscent of little lovebirds. How quaint. How hideously quaint. Was that the romantic music of Claude Debussy stirring in the wind? He could vomit over the way they brushed against each other and stared dreamily into each other’s eyes. Dear Lenin, these men today, so submissive to women, always looking to please the opposite sex, what had happened to real men like the old Bolshevik Lazar Kaganovich and Stalin’s executioner Vasili Blokhin?