Widow Killer

by Pavel Kohout

  He considered leaving while Grete was asleep, to spare both of them the good-byes. However, when he had made tea down in the kitchen and dipped his biscuit in it, he suddenly knew he couldn't disappear without at least kissing her for good luck.

  As he had held her, sleeping, in the crook of his arms long into the night until he himself fell asleep, he realized why she attracted him more than his wife ever had. His conclusion was unfair but true: he had been Hilde's first; she had simply belonged to him, and never had any secrets from him. With Grete, the closer she supposedly brought them with her confession, the more mysterious she seemed. He had filled Hilde's entire life; in Grete's he was simply the latest man, or even one man too many. Sometimes he felt himself entirely superfluous.

  He was wrong, she'd said once long ago (Long ago? They'd barely known each other seven weeks!), utterly wrong to make all his predecessors into rivals. You love once in your life, for your whole life, and that love simply takes on different names—but the final one is the sum and summit of them all, and that was him, as he knew full well; why brood over it?

  He could not deny that he felt the same. As if he'd never loved anyone but her.

  Anyway, why worry about it? Now the point was for both of them to stay alive.

  He went back upstairs in his socks and tried to wake her by staring intently at her. She slept so deeply that finally he leaned over.

  "My love ...," he whispered in her ear. "Do you hear me?"

  She swam to the surface of consciousness remarkably quickly.

  "Why did you wake me, Buback? You've never woken me before? Do you want to tell me you're staying with me?"

  "No...."

  "Nor that you're taking me with you?"

  "You know I can't."

  "Then why? I could have not known for hours that you'd gone. That you'd left me in the lurch at the mercy of the first person to come. Maybe it'll even be your murderer. Murderers like to return to the scene of the crime, don't they?"

  He was horrified.

  "For God's sake, Grete.... I tried to explain to you ..."

  An ironic gleam appeared in her sleepy eyes.

  "Now you've convinced me, love. Of course you explained it. And of course I'd rather see you than wake up here alone. Now go, for real, and leave me alone. I don't want to see you anymore."

  "Grete—"

  "I don't want to see you till I see you again!"

  He collected his strength to leave.

  "You'll have to lock up after me...."

  "Not now. Now I have you inside me and I don't feel so abandoned, so I'll try to sleep some more. Lock me in and keep the key. I won't be entertaining visitors today. Good-bye, love."

  The bedclothes billowed. The last thing to register on his retina was the tiny flicker of a flame.

  Grete's face, that battleground of despair and passion, stayed with him the whole way to Gestapo headquarters. No one noticed him; there was no gunfire, and the barricades had become social clubs, where people hashed and rehashed the possible developments while they waited for the Americans to arrive. Everywhere snatches of conversation told him people were convinced the war was over, at least in Prague.

  He did not meet his own men until close to Bredovska, but even here Czechs living on "German" territory walked freely through. In the building he found the document burning was over and the drinking had begun. The collapse of Germany's self-declared millennial values and its leading characters was turning a national tragedy into a bloodstained burlesque. In his previous workplaces, a power elite directed by Berlin's mighty pen had managed to arrange an orderly withdrawal. Here the pen had snapped and the Gestapo had disintegrated into a frightened crowd of men arguing when and to whom they should surrender. To Buback's horror they were unanimous on one point: that all the prisoners in the underground bunkers should be liquidated first, so they could not inform on their interrogators.

  Regardless of the state of their relationship, he had to speak to Meckerle immediately, and coincidentally he ran into his boss on the way. The newly minted lieutenant general was just leaving his antechamber; when he spotted Buback, he motioned to him with a finger and retreated back into his office. There he poured two large cognacs as he walked, drank his in a single gulp, and began to speak, standing.

  "You were right, that SS moron's raid was a colossal failure, and then he slept right through that fiasco at the radio station. Prague is lost and I've given up on Schorner. Do you still have a direct line to the Prague police?"

  Is it a trap? he considered hastily; is Meckerle after revenge? Does he want my confession so all he'll need is a quick field trial and an execution that's more like a dog slaying? But if Buback had been followed the day before, then saying no would only confirm his guilt. So he hedged his bet.

  "Yes. Neither you nor Schorner withdrew your orders for cooperation."

  "Perfect. If it amuses you, then keep looking for that deviant in this shambles, but help your countrymen while you're doing so."

  For the first time, Meckerle gave that word preference over the Nazi term kinsmen.

  "I'm happy to, assuming I can figure out how to proceed, and if it's in my power to do so."

  "We need to get out of this trap, nothing more, nothing less, otherwise the Russians will sweep us up and put our backs to the wall. Yes, the western front has stopped. They could let us retreat toward it. We'll need our guns, of course—otherwise every kid we see will want to take a crack at us—but we'll give them up as soon as we see the first Yank."

  No! Could this be his chance?

  "And what are we offering?"

  "Not to turn their baroque buildings into piles of rubble; what more could they ask for?"

  "I don't think that will be enough. They have the upper hand."

  "Probably so. What would you add?"

  "Their people imprisoned in Pankrac. There's talk here of executing them."

  "People are afraid the prisoners would want revenge."

  Buback had an answer to this one.

  "We'll give them the keys to the building once we've been allowed to leave."

  "Done," the giant said without hesitation. "Move, then, and see to it."

  Buback could not risk having the former bank clerk change his mind and overrule him.

  "I request a written order."

  "Have them write it up next door and hurry!"

  Buback did not move.

  "I have one further wish, Mr. Meckerle."

  He deliberately neither phrased it as a question nor used his superior's title. It was a risk, to find out how far he could go with the lieutenant general.

  "Speak."

  Nothing more. So he'd mellowed.

  "Have you already sent your wife home?"

  The question hit the mark. Meckerle's answer was defensive.

  "You know perfectly well I don't have a 'home.' They blasted my villa into smithereens."

  "But she's left Prague."

  Meckerle was starting to seethe, just like he used to.

  "Yes. She's at her sister's in Bavaria. Is this an interrogation, Buback?"

  "I think it's a man's first responsibility to take care of those close to him. In your position, all the German civilians in Prague should fall into that category."

  There was still no outburst. Instead, the newly minted lieutenant general poured both of them another glass. But he did not drink; he was working up to a question.

  "She's still here?"

  "Yes."

  "Where?"

  "Last time you found out and practically had her abducted."

  Once again he watched this powerful man practically drown in childish embarrassment.

  "Well, all right. It's in the past. We all have our weak points; don't you? Anyway, she set matters straight right away. I should really lodge a complaint through you about excessive self-defense.... Keep your hiding place to yourself, but watch out for her; it'd be a shame to lose her."

  "I can do that as long as the Czechs don't compl
etely control the city. Then she and all the other Germans left will be at their mercy. There are recognized principles for dealing with soldiers that have to be upheld, even, more or less, in uprisings. But for civilians there's only a general declaration, and so far hatred has swept it aside each and every time. Yesterday, at a meeting in Pankrac, I suggested that we concentrate all civilian personnel under our protection; they'd certainly rather hang about the barracks on a hard floor than wait in their comfortable apartments until someone breaks down the door with an ax. Kroloff convinced the other officers that every German residence in Prague should become a fortress."

  "Kroloff s a fanatic and a moron."

  "Kroloff claimed to be quoting you."

  "Now wait!" Meckerle was on the brink of exploding, but immediately regained control. "Until yesterday I had orders from the highest levels of the Reich to boost soldiers' and workers' morale at any price. But I depended on each of you using your own brain."

  I've got to ride this one out in silence, Buback thought. The statement's author soon realized how absurd it sounded.

  "Well, yes, all right...." He sighed again. "We dug the spurs in; now we'll have to ride the horse till it throws us. You can convey your idea about the prisoners to the Czechs as my own offer. I'll have our civilians watched, but I can't promise much. Most of the city is no longer in our control, and to tell the truth I'm hoping none of our men get the bright idea to try to reconquer it; that would hurt us even more. Anyway, the Czechs have new allies. Vlasov's Russian division has moved toward Prague in the naive hope that they'll get a pardon from Stalin if they come to defend the Slavs against the Germans, even though it's shutting the door once the horses have left the stable. But don't tell the Czechs; it'll just puff them up. Let me make myself clear: The Reich is over, and the Protectorate no longer exists. I have no idea what Schorner's up to, and no inkling what's keeping Frank busy, but I know what I want. I've still got a good few thousand men armed to the teeth here in the city center whom the Czechs would be glad to get rid of because, well, why take the chance? I'm offering a nice little capitulation, one that'll be tolerable for both sides, in return for a retreat where we'll take all the remaining Germans with us. Pass it on to your cops, see to it they give us the green light, and save yourself and her."

  He placed the glass firmly down, stalked off to his desk, and began to rummage through the drawers. Buback had the impression the hearing was at an end, and moved to leave.

  "Wait!" Meckerle stopped him. "Does she have a way to defend herself when you're not around?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean, did you at least leave her with a gun?"

  "No ... I don't think she'd know how—"

  "What? You didn't know she was crazy about guns? I think one of her lovers got her interested in pistols. She even knew how to take mine apart; just to be sure, I always unloaded it. Wait...."

  Finally he found it. What he gave Buback was a small ladies' revolver with a handle of inlaid pearl.

  "This little jewel, which makes perfectly good holes, was going to be a present for her. If it doesn't bother you, give it to her with my apology. She can shoot me with it later. That's all."

  Buback could not think of anything better than to stick the thing in his pocket. From behind as he left he heard Meckerle say nostalgically, "Tell her I said hello ... that pretty little bitch."

  He felt another of the stabs inside which love used to scare war away.

  While the photographer made more and more enlargements, Morava sat writing notes. He was taking the first five hundred prints out to Litera's car, wracking his brains over how to arrange transport around the shattered city without Buback's help, when he spotted him. The chief inspector was walking toward him from a controlled crossing point, waving at him like a friend arriving for a social get-together. From up close he did not seem as relaxed; he urgently requested a meeting with Beran.

  The latter, now ensconced in Rajner's office, made time for him immediately and got hold of Brunat as well, whose turban had lost its snow-white color overnight. The injured man looked as if he'd been wandering the sewers, the former superintendent (now the other half of their commissionership) joked, and Brunat, to their surprise, confirmed it. He had been directing work on the sewage-main barricades, so they wouldn't find themselves—as he put it—with visitors up their asses.

  Buback described the mood at the Gestapo and then went through Meckerle s suggestions in detail; at that they sent him into the antechamber. After what Beran had said the night before, Morava would have expected him to be pleased at the disintegration of the unified German command, but the serious faces of both men told him there was a problem: The end of the war, in Prague and all over Bohemia, was sliding out of control.

  He was even more shocked at the political problem presented by Vlasov's anticipated attack on his former allies. The outlaw Russian general was expected to turn on the Germans, a move that would greatly help the insurgents. According to Beran, an increasing faction within the council believed that any cooperation with Vlasov was tantamount to approving the Russian rebels' original motive for fighting against their native country.

  The commanders from the city's southeastern edge were asking urgently for an explanation: Why couldn't they accept Vlasov's men as emergency protectors? They were exasperated to see the Germans' death grip closing around them, and made it clear how little these breaking and re-forming political ice floes interested them.

  However, both commanders thought the suggested German retreat from the area around the main train station—a dangerous reinforcement source if Schorner should attack Prague—should be accepted as a local decision not affecting the Allied principle of total and unconditional capitulation.

  Beran and Brunat therefore decided to recommend that the Czech National Council accept a political resolution to the situation.

  And what about Vlasov? Beran claimed—and Brunat backed him on it—that the Russian would not want to attack unless necessary. Then he reached for the telephone.

  "If the Germans attack you," he ordered someone, "Vlasov's people can fight alongside you; I'll take the heat for it."

  In the meanwhile, Buback would wait there, the chiefs decided in conclusion; they would guard him against the ever-growing numbers of patriots who were trying to set a sharper tone at Bartolomejska. Several colleagues, supposedly led by the garage manager, had adorned themselves with armbands marked RG, calling themselves the Revolutionary Guards.

  How strange, Morava thought. Tetera—nicknamed "Pretty Boy" for his skirt chasing—never let a word against the Germans pass his lips; they'd always watched their words in his presence. But the young detective had already noticed at the radio station how quickly the cowards became heroes. After all, the woman called Andula (who, at a critical moment, had asked them to heed the Germans' request to cease broadcasting distress calls) had become the first to compile a list of "radio station lighters."

  Finally he had finished his tasks. As he left, he agreed with Buback on three times and places to meet (just in case) and picked up Litera and the car in the courtyard. After confirming with the operations officer that, excepting the center, Bubenec and Pankrac, there were still contiguous bands of the city in Czech hands, he decided to wear his uniform so they would not be held up with constant identification checks. The others wanted to avoid Germans, but Morava now believed he might be able to reason with many of them. They could always ask to be taken to the Gestapo building; curiously, thanks to Buback, it might offer them the greatest degree of safety.

  First they visited the caretaker. The house on the embankment was locked and they had almost given up ringing when unexpectedly something moved in the raised ground-floor window. The Germans had had guards here till Friday, he explained once he'd opened the door; yesterday they'd disappeared with a truckload of papers, so he was on his own. They still hadn't caught the murderer? No, Morava admitted, and now they couldn't even help the caretaker. Surely he could see what
was afoot, so in future: Keep the door locked and don't open it! Still, they would like to test his memory once more.

  In putting nine other photographs chosen randomly from the archive on the table along with Rypl's, he was satisfying the conscience Beran's training had drilled into him, rather than his intellect; he had long since ruled out the caretaker as a reliable witness. Instantly he realized his error.

  The shock of the murder, the bombardment and his resulting shameful bowel trouble must have temporarily clouded the man's memory, but a few months' distance had refreshed it; the caretaker pointed without hesitation to Rypl.

  Finally, a state's witness!

  Could he move somewhere else for the meanwhile, Morava asked. Where, the man replied; the front would cut off his path to safety in eastern Bohemia any day now, and how would he get out of Prague, anyway? It occurred to Morava that he could requisition a guard for the man under the pretext of securing German secret offices; his boss had been right once again.