The Thin Wall: A POW/MIA Truth Novel

by R. Cyril West

  After sipping his tea, Dal said, “You are not a young man, doctor. You should be careful in young love.”

  “What is it you want?” Milan asked impatiently.

  “I am sending Zdenek Seifert to Prague.”

  “Oh? And when will this occur?”

  “The army has already sent a shuttle for him. He leaves for the city as we speak.”

  “He’s already gone?”

  “Alas, the situation is no longer in my hands. However so you know, I have relayed his diabetes condition to the Army. The Army has a crack corps of physicians. They will take care of him.”

  Milan became exasperated. “I should’ve been informed of this transfer days ago.”

  “The challenges of health care management are difficult for civilian and military alike.” Dal folded his hands on the table. “Which reminds me. I read an interesting article in Pravda. It exposed the various inconsistencies of the American health care system. How some poor Americans are without access to proper care, specifically the elderly and the Negros living in the southern states.”

  “Oh?”

  “I find it interesting how a country with so much economic wealth cannot afford to care for its citizens. It is such a tragic mismanagement of resources. I believe the communist system of health care is much better. What is your opinion? Health care for those who can afford it? Or free care for everyone──old, young, party official and proletariat alike.”

  “You could make the argument that each has its merits and each its shortcomings.”

  Dal snickered. Controlling the health care system also meant controlling the people. Such things went a long way in preventing public discontent. As long as the presidium managed the key aspects of their daily lives, confiscating guns, closing churches, providing health care, the people would remain subservient to the state. “Anyway,” he went on, “I clipped the article from the paper. You might find it interesting. I will drop it by the clinic tomorrow.”

  “Sure. Feel free.” Milan took a step toward his car.

  “Which reminds me,” Dal said inquisitively. “Have you ever been to America?”

  “America? No. Why?”

  He sensed Milan was lying. Visas were issued regularly to Czech doctors seeking knowledge in foreign countries. “I have been to the United States.” Dal spoke matter-of-factly. “To Chicago. I have an American friend who hails from a ritzy suburb of the Windy City. Like many comrades, he is interested in bringing down the United States and moving it toward the path of socialism. He showed me around town. I remember it being a filthy place. American cities are not so beautiful. Not like they appear in the glossy pages of LIFE magazine. They reek of the financial ego on one side of town, while casting a shadow of poverty upon the other.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Ah, but I am keeping you from your little lady. I will tell you more about my friend and his Marxist movement later. Maybe at the brewery over that beer I promised?”

  “I expect a full report on Zdenek Seifert.” Milan ignored the invitation to have a beer and walked away.

  When he was halfway across the street, Dal threw the baseball and shouted, “Think. Quick.”

  Milan spun as the ball flew toward his head──catching it. “What’s this? A reaction test?”

  Had he thrown the baseball to ten Czechs, not one man would have caught the ball with such ease, let alone a single hand. Either Milan was naturally athletic, or he had played baseball at some point in his life.

  “It is a silly thing called a baseball,” Dal replied. He knew the doctor was right handed. Baseball players typically caught with the hand opposite their writing hand──as did Milan, who hurled the ball back to him with such high velocity that it stung the palm of his hand.

  MILAN GRABBED the flowers and walked to the front door. He cleared his throat before ringing the bell. He had trouble letting go of what just happened. The colonel was up to something. But what? There had been a snarky tone to his voice. Be careful in young love? Had he really said that? It had not occurred to him that Dal was jealous of his relationship with Ayna. Perhaps he had deliberately lied about Horbachsky’s food poisoning. Was the intent to separate them after church? Milan wondered.

  After a moment, Nadezda opened the door and invited him in.

  He took a deep breath and waited for Ayna to come down from her bedroom. Jiri was eating a slice of pie in the kitchen. He introduced himself to the boy, who, like a typical teenager, was detached from the conversation, but friendly nonetheless. “How’s it going kid? Strong handshake you got there. You a good football player?”

  Jiri was quick to answer the questions, shoveling a bite of pie into his mouth, before leaving the house with his football.

  After the door slammed, Nadezda asked Milan to sit on the sofa, a coffee table between them, before pouring him a cup of tea. “Earl Grey,” she said, her hand trembling. “With a drop of vodka . . . they say it helps ease anxiety.”

  “Are you okay?” he finally asked. From the smell on her breath, she had poured more than a drop. “Has something upset you?”

  “That dreadful book burning.”

  “Yes, I heard. The colonel is a bully.” Josef had told him about the public spectacle, how Sergeant Gurko broke Tad’s nose. “He’s only flexing his muscle. Trying to intimidate us.”

  “It brought back memories of the Nazis. The horrible things they did.”

  “I understand.”

  “Dark memories . . .” Like everyone, the woman was whipped into a frenzy over the arrival of the Soviets, comparing Dal to Hitler. She became cross, then silent, before confessing her frustration with the apathetic police chief from a nearby town. “Damn law enforcement. Never around when you need ‘em.”

  “Things are a little murky in the government halls,” Milan said. “I sense confusion and flat out incompetence from the Castle to the district police departments.”

  “Well, at the very least, are you on good terms with the KGB colonel?” she asked, cutting him off.

  “Not particularly.”

  “Pity.”

  “There’s no love lost between us.”

  “In Mersk, we all want to get along and do what’s best for the people. You’re not a country boy. Perhaps you should remember that.”

  “What are you getting at?” he asked politely.

  “I heard what happened at the clinic.”

  “Oh?”

  “You and the colonel were in a heated argument.”

  “Yes. Damn him.”

  “Don’t you see, if he closes the clinic, he might also lock the doors to St. Nepomuk. That church means the world to us.” Nadezda’s eyes were bleak. “You’ve seen the tank parked on the street?”

  “Can’t miss it.”

  “It’s a problem. Especially since the police chief doesn’t care about what’s happening here.” She leaned forward with an empty cup.

  Before Milan could respond, Ayna entered the room and smelled the flowers. She looked lovely in her bellbottom jeans, a white blouse, and a yellow headband.

  “Let’s go,” she said, taking the picnic basket. “Russians this. Russians that. Enough already. I’m sick of talking about them.”

  Milan drove toward the river.

  He asked questions. Lessons. The recital. What inspired Ayna the most? And she responded enthusiastically. The cello. Her favorite works. The masters who had influenced her, Franck, Handel, and, of course, Smetana.

  He steered the car and looked off into the distance, trying to appear engaged. He needed a moment to rethink the morning’s conversation with the colonel. Maybe Dal had found the newspaper in the trash can and was fishing for answers. If so, what did he suspect? That Milan was fascinated by American sports? Did it run deeper? Throwing the baseball was odd. Why did he have a baseball? Milan decided to play dumb with the Russians. If the subject was brought up again, he would admit to having confiscated the American newspaper at a conference in Prague.

  He sped around
a car, kids crammed in the backseat, a child waving a hand. Alone with Ayna, his mind began to sink into a murky abyss. And he wondered: what kind of man am I? Two-faced? Disingenuous? A traitor? He gripped the steering wheel, his eyes somewhere on the road and feeling hypnotized by a stretch of cracked pavement.

  Ayna was talking, “My father played the violin . . .”

  But he was not listening.

  Instead he heard another voice hounding him: A traitor. Yes, a traitor! But to which country? Perhaps a traitor to both nations, he concluded. Czechoslovakia, where he had created a life, and America, his roots.

  The question tore at him. Then again, living with his fabricated identity had never been easy, especially early on when he struggled to make sense of everything. There had been times when depression settled in, when he missed his friends in Chicago, the sound of pine bats cracking at Wrigley Field, and, of all things, the smell of buttered popcorn. Those were the hopeless hours, when a young Milan Husak flirted with exposure and considered making a run for the Austrian border. Managing his paranoia, his suspicions of the secret police, the late night sound of a car stopping near his flat or spotting a stranger standing on the curb, the unknown, always the unknown, proved challenging for his restless mind.

  He asked himself: when do the lies stop?

  The question had been punishing him ever since he woke up that morning to the rain pattering against the window, lying in bed watching the jagged streaks of water slicing up the windowpanes.

  He let it go.

  For now.

  For the picnic.

  By then, he had pulled off and driven to the end of a dirt road. It was quiet along the river.

  Milan had brought along a 1920s Gramophone and several jazz records. He set the player on the blanket and wound the crank handle. Forcing a smile, he placed the needle on Duke Ellington’s Take the ‘A’ Train and kicked off his shoes.

  “My grandfather had a record player just like it,” she said, interrupting his paranoid thoughts of Dal, the KGB, the CIA. “He used to tell me, ‘Ayna, someday when you grow up, all of Czechoslovakia will hear you play the cello on a record machine.’”

  “It can happen. Even here. Even in Czechoslovakia.”

  “What a dream.”

  He sliced an apple and offered her a piece. As they reclined on a blanket and joked about their chance meeting, it astounded him how fast things had moved between them. A week ago, he had been a contented bachelor focused on his career, sniffing out a promotion to deputy minister and an office in Prague. Today his career was the furthest thing from his mind. Instead, Ayna was all he could think about. He loved how her eyes lit up when she spoke about Jiri and when she spoke about playing in the string quartet. And yet when he looked at her joyful face, so full of life, he knew lies would destroy their relationship unless he told her the truth about what had happened after the war. But how would he tell her? And when? His clandestine past was the best kept secret in Czechoslovakia. Only Frank and Philip knew he was a spy. The truth might not go over so well with Ayna.

  Nevertheless he wanted to tell her.

  She would listen, wouldn’t she? She would understand, wouldn’t she? She would forgive him, wouldn’t she?

  Several times he started to say something, then stopped. The timing was bad. With Frank hounding him, it was probably best to keep a lid on things until they simmered down.

  He leaned closer and touched her hand. Her fingers were long, supple, and surprisingly strong.

  WHAT WAS IT about him? That he made her smile? Was that it? Perhaps. But there was more to him . . . Milan was charming, talking about his old record player, his craze for jazz, his appreciation for the river. And he understood her passions, too; her cello, and especially her love for Jiri. Sometimes it was as if she had known him her entire life. She was that comfortable sitting next to him by the river. When he took her by the hand, her heart fluttered and she felt weeks of tension drain from her body. She moaned, silently begging for a kiss. She wanted more. Much more. Wanted him to touch the underside of her arm. Wanted him to slide his hand gently up her shoulder. Wanted him to . . .

  Oh, but what was the right thing to do? Should she scoot away? Pull back her hand?

  She stopped thinking about it.

  Stopped analyzing.

  Stopped trying to talk herself out of it.

  Fact was, three years had passed since she last slept with a man. Peter, of course. Three long years of living like a nun. As they sat on the blanket, watching the water flow gently around a bend, their fingers interlocked, Ayna realized she was going to make love to him right there on the river’s edge.

  So did it matter that she hardly knew him? No. It was probably better this way. She was not looking for a relationship, just company with the right man, someone to help get her through the stress of recent weeks. Be it a fling or a little romance, Ayna had no expectations.

  She leaned her head on his shoulder and gazed dreamily at the sun sparkling off the water. Milan made her feel good about herself, about her future, about life. She wondered, had Peter ever made her feel this way? She was not sure. If she obsessed on how Milan had stolen her heart, she might begin to hate him. Because really, was it casual company she wanted? Or was she only lying to herself, trying to avoid getting hurt?

  “I’m hungry, let’s eat,” she said, opening the wicker picnic basket. To an extent, she was telling the truth. Her stomach was rumbling. She was hungry, but deep inside she had been anticipating his hand moving on her lap and his lips touching her neck. A responsible woman, someone with Ayna’s awful history of relationship troubles, of men turning up dead, would have resisted him, pushed away his hands. Because she knew better. Why then, did she sit still when he kissed her? Remain there? Because it felt too good. She closed her eyes and let go of the basket, feeling guilty but letting him have his way. Something had awakened in the pit of her stomach, the first moments of a new existence.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said, placing a hand on the small of her back.

  She turned to meet his lips. “Don’t stop,” she whispered. “Whatever you do . . .”

  He unbuttoned her blouse, then reached behind to unclip her bra. She rolled onto her back with a nervous laugh and unzipped her bell-bottom jeans with a jerk. He grabbed the pants at the ankles and tugged. When they failed to slip off, he became embarrassed, and she helped him. After he finally pulled off the other leg, he pitched them into the grass and leaned into her, his fingers inside the edge of her underwear, waiting for the invitation to remove it.

  On the way home, there was not a need to clarify what had happened or to say something ridiculous like, “I’m not that kind of girl” or whatever excuse she might have said to another man in order to maintain a respectful relationship. Girls liked sex, too. Under the right circumstances, she was that kind of girl and she was not ashamed of it.

  There was silence between them for much of the drive. She held onto his warm hand. Every now and then, their eyes met and they exchanged affectionate smiles.

  But why was she behaving like this? Out of love?

  She let out a breath. The guilt had set in. She felt it briefly when he kissed her and the instant before he went inside of her. By then it was too late.

  She slumped, a heavy feeling.

  The curse.

  The curse kills.

  It had killed three times.

  There was, she understood quite suddenly, no such thing as love anymore. At least not for her. Not for Ayna Sahhat.

  The road took them past the paper mill, an ancient brick building with a hammer and sickle painted on the face of its four-story warehouse wall. On windy days the smoke spewing from the multiple smokestacks smothered the valley with a yellowish haze and with a rotten egg stench that watered her eyes.

  Logging trucks pulled in and out of the parking lot. Milan tapped the brakes, then accelerated when the road opened up.

  She looked beyond the mill, toward a green clump of trees near a hil
l, and felt, at that moment, very empty. The smoke. The smell. Always reminders──that there had been a sinister time many years ago. The first time.

  Not all of them had died.

  Ayna shuddered. The memories of that day when she was alone with Mr. Janus──the last time she had gone into the woods──were unbearable. What really happened that morning of 29 September, 1954? For over a decade she had been untruthful with her version of the story. She had, in fact, led the schoolteacher on from the start. However contrary to the ugly rumors on the street, the absurd lies that persisted to this day, the whole thing had been rooted in innocence.

  She was not to blame. Not completely.

  She had been struggling with her school work. Learning about iconic philosophers──Marx, Hegel, Lenin──made her gag. Workers of the world unite? The ideological slogans bored her to no end. With the palm of a hand holding up her head, she sat in the back of the classroom and doodled, glancing through her hair to monitor the time on the classroom’s wall clock, counting down the minutes to music class, to something better.

  Then one day, Mr. Janus called her home to warn of a possible expulsion from school if her failing marks did not improve. Ayna’s mother was irate. She told Ayna to pay more attention to her studies and blamed her for tarnishing the family name. Making matters worse, she threatened to take away what mattered most to her──her cello.

  So Ayna schemed.

  She would find a way to get Mr. Janus to like her. By the time she was done with him, the schoolteacher would adore her. He would feel guilty for awarding her anything less than a passing grade. But how? After all, Mr. Janus was a jerk. He berated her in front of the classroom. He accused her mother of being unsympathetic toward the communists. The Sahhat’s are a stain, he told his pupils, at the same time encouraging students to report on neighbors who spoke out against the Party.