by Jirí Weil
The van arrives at the hospital entrance. They transfer him to a hospital trolley.
His flag is still fluttering over the castle, the flag with the sovereign symbol and the swastika. This means that he still reigns over the subjugated land. The day he first stepped into the courtyard accompanied by music of fife and drum, the flag was unfurled for the first time. That time he greeted it with outstretched arm and the entire guard of honour greeted it with him. The statues look out at him from their pedestals at the portal. The flag is still flying, it will keep flying, he will not surrender.
He continues to clutch the briefcase as they wheel him into the operating room. He will not release it to anyone. Only to the authorised person, and that is the head of the SS.
Now a crowd rushes to the deserted car. There is a lot of debris and broken glass all around. People bend down and eagerly gather the bits.
‘Why are you taking it?’ someone asks.
And one of them answers, ‘For good luck.’
TWELVE
THE LARGE ROOM looked like a junk shop. It was full of every possible kind of thing – furniture, chandeliers, refrigerators, radios, gramophones, clothing, vacuum cleaners, paintings, framed photographs, pots and pans, serving dishes, toys, binoculars, typewriters, irons, tennis rackets, oars, kayaks, footballs, a garden ornament in the shape of a dwarf. There was none of the orderliness here he had grown used to at the Collection Agency, where everything was sorted according to type and every type of object had its own special stockroom: an eiderdown stockroom and a refrigerator stockroom. There, every object had a tag with a number. Here, everything was just thrown together. Of course, there was a simple explanation for the sloppy state of affairs in this warehouse.
The theft of Jewish property was a part of the larger mission aimed at the extermination of all Jews. The Reich declared this property to be its own, and organisers from the Jewish Community had created a safe and reliable net to catch such property in the warehouses of the Collection Agency.
This warehouse also depended on theft. But the objects came by a different route – they came as a result of the red decrees. It was not possible to predict the number of those who would be executed and to plan for the disposal of their property. There were periods when the number of red decrees went down, others when it rose. Right now, in the wake of the assassination of the Acting Reich Protector, the number of names on the red decrees was rising so precipitously that everybody in the warehouse was going crazy with the flood of things. The small objects – gold, jewellery, fountain pens, watches – went their own way and never reached the warehouse. But the room was constantly filling up with heavy objects – furniture, chandeliers, kitchen sinks.
Now the dealers were coming virtually every day. These were the vultures who used to buy goods from pawnshops. The lady manager of the warehouse sold them everything for a song, just to get rid of them. Requests for clothes and furniture for bombed-out families kept arriving at the warehouse from various Reich relief societies. The lady manager threw these into the wastebasket, saying, ‘The Gestapo gives nothing for free. The Gestapo only sells.’
The lady manager, a Baltic German, spoke German with a Russian accent. She called herself a baroness, though people said she once ran a brothel in Riga. Gestapo members used her office as if it were their bar, but they brought their own drink. They also brought along various provisions from the confiscated goods – rare delicacies, Hungarian salami and real coffee. They’d arrive there half-drunk, stamping around as if they were trying to shake off something. Sometimes, when they were very tight, they’d try to shoot off their guns and break dishes. But the baroness knew how to keep things in hand.
‘You’re not going to make a pigsty here. Go somewhere else for that. I’ve seen plenty of your type in my life, and I’ve always known how to handle them.’
‘Madam,’ Erich teased her, ‘a whorehouse madam.’
‘Shut up, you idiot,’ the baroness said sharply. ‘Where did you put that gold cigarette case? Don’t think I didn’t notice it. The one with the initials J. P.’
‘They’re gone, old girl,’ Erich squealed, ‘rubbed away.’
‘You imbeciles, why don’t you at least learn to keep your mouths shut,’ the baroness said heatedly. ‘Richard is right behind that door. He can hear every word.’
‘Come on.’ Karel grinned. ‘What’s all this Richard business? He’s just a Jew. Who’s he to blab? He’s going up the chimney.’
‘As long as he’s here, he’s Richard, as far as I’m concerned,’ snapped the baroness. ‘Whatever you do with him later, that’s not my business. All I know is, he’s a good worker, he doesn’t drink, he doesn’t use bad language, and he doesn’t throw up in my flowerpots.’
‘He can’t,’ said Erich. ‘He’d like to, but he can’t. He’s a subhuman, see. But otherwise he’s a good-looking guy.’
‘Call him in,’ bellowed Karel. ‘Let’s have him drink to the Reich with us. Oh damn, not to the Reich. That’s forbidden. So let him have a drink just for nothing.’
‘Behave yourselves,’ said the baroness menacingly. ‘You’re not at headquarters here and I won’t let you hurt Richard. If you try to pull something I’ll get you for it, even if I have to go to Geschke himself.’
‘We don’t want to hurt him,’ Erich reassured her. ‘We’re off duty here. We’ll just give him a swig.’
The lady manager called in Richard Reisinger.
‘Here, bottoms up.’ Erich offered him a glass. ‘It’s real French stuff with three stars. It used to belong to some banker. Well, we just did him in – maybe that bothers you.’
‘Oh no,’ said Reisinger. He knew he mustn’t provoke the Gestapo. ‘I’m still on duty here.’
‘The hell with your duty.’ Karel waved his hand. ‘The baroness here says it’s okay.’
‘But I’m a Jew,’ Reisinger tried to argue. ‘There’re rules against it.’
‘Those rules don’t count for us. They only count for ordinary people. We’re the Gestapo,’ bawled Erich.
Reisinger took a drink. The cognac was really good, prewar French Courvoisier.
‘Here’s some salami – you don’t want to drink on an empty stomach.’ Karel handed him a plate. ‘Go ahead, eat and drink, you’re a dead duck anyhow.’
‘You know too much and you’ve seen too much. Types like you are usually dead ducks.’ Erich lit a cigarette.
‘We know too much and we’ve seen too much and we’re not dead ducks,’ said Karel.
‘Maybe we are,’ answered Erich.
‘Cut it out with talk like that. It’s treason, and I’ll knock you off with my own hands. Even in front of the Jew. I don’t care.’
‘Stop yelling. Couldn’t you be quiet once in a while and drink like decent people do? A treat like this, real Courvoisier, and they swill it down like pigs,’ said the baroness.
‘Shut your trap, madam,’ shouted Karel. ‘I can knock you off, too. We’re allowed to do anything.’
‘You better keep your grubby hands off me, or I’ll turn you in for stealing,’ the baroness threatened.
‘And you? I suppose you don’t steal? What about those bangles? I suppose they’re from Riga, too?’
‘Maybe they are from Riga. It’s none of your business where they’re from. But I can deal with you, if it comes to that. I know exactly who to speak to …’
Karel was drunk, but he had just enough sense left to recognise the baroness’s threatening tone and know that she really meant it. God knows how that woman does it! She’s got contacts with the biggest bosses, she even drops in on Geschke without an appointment. She probably does various transactions for them on the black market, things they wouldn’t dare do themselves. Naturally she divides everything up with them, and also gives them presents. Moreover, she knows a lot about them.
He gave her a foolish, drunken smile. ‘Don’t get mad, Baroness. We were just joking around. After our kind of work a fellow’s got to have a little fun. Right, Er
ich?’
‘Of course,’ babbled Erich. ‘You’re our little darling, our honey, our little mama.’
‘Keep your sweet talk to yourself, and get going. I’m expecting a visitor. Our colleagues from Kladno are coming to look at the stock.’
‘We don’t give a damn about them. They can kiss our … They’re this small,’ Karel sneered.
‘But you’re in the way now. Get out of here. Marsch!’
Erich and Karel obeyed. They belted up their trench coats as if they were uniforms and said their goodbyes.
‘Grüss Gott, Baroness.’
And they made an exit, still walking straight.
The baroness spoke to Richard, who was sitting in the office with his half-filled glass. ‘Clean this place up after those pigs so it looks decent. And hide the bottle somewhere. They’re sure to forget there was anything left over.’
The day they sent Richard Reisinger to this warehouse from the Work Force Division he had imagined it would all be different. He assumed he’d be working under conditions similar to the trench diggers – under the command of the SS, with beatings, kicks and curses. The best he could hope for in such a case would be for the SS to abuse him to the degree that he’d have to be carried off in a handcart to the Jewish Hospital, no longer eligible for heavy physical labour and unable to return to the warehouse. That was the only way to get out of the Gestapo’s clutches. He didn’t know any other.
But what he saw in the warehouse was something entirely different. It was more terrifying, even though nobody actually beat him and nobody was patrolling in uniform. Everything he heard and saw there seemed incredible to him, a crazy dream or something he had read about somewhere in an adventure book. It was as if he had fallen into a den of thieves, though the house was near the centre of town, a relatively new house with a gate wide enough for a removal van to go directly into the courtyard. You could enter a room on the ground floor from the courtyard, a room that was lit up day and night. That was the stockroom, from which a little door led to a small office. The baroness, who managed the warehouse, sat in the office. She was a fat, old, heavily made-up woman who wore many necklaces and bracelets that jingled with every step she took.
She took his paper from him and welcomed him in quite a friendly way. She used the polite form of address with him and behaved decently to him, much to his surprise. She described his various duties: mainly he’d be in charge of ordering the removal vans, supervising the movers, overseeing the storage of things in the warehouse. She showed him the handcart he’d use to take various things to various apartments whose addresses he’d be given. If a piece of furniture was too heavy, he could hire a helper. Then there’d be various side trips, perhaps even to the country, to pick up pieces of furniture, but of course he could go there only with an escort.
He had plenty of work to do. At the Collection Agency he had been obliged to move and carry heavy furniture himself. Here he’d only be supervising. The lady manager was probably a beast, but she didn’t speak to him unpleasantly, nor did she threaten him in any way. She warned him that he must hold his tongue, that a careless word meant death, but he knew that already from the official at the Community. The warehouse was a mess, but that wasn’t part of his job; he wasn’t responsible for the warehouse.
Then he met the Gestapo. Quite a few of them came there, most often Erich and Karel – they had no other names. They were responsible for the confiscation of furniture from apartments, and of course they did other work as well. But he preferred not to think about that. They didn’t wear uniforms but, rather, street clothing. Still, they did wear something that reminded him of a uniform: leather coats in the winter, trench coats in the summer, and always green hats with tufts.
They didn’t scream at him the way the SS man had done, that one who made him run to the Jewish Town Hall, bleeding from the mouth. These men called him Richard, quite affably, and didn’t lay a hand on him. Nevertheless they inspired fear, greater fear than the uniformed ones did. Their eyes seemed to be mad, and they always kept one hand in their bulging pockets. That’s where they had their revolvers, undoubtedly cocked and ready to fire.
When they were drunk they were terrifying: they raved, they waved their revolvers and seemed ready to fall on him at any minute. They resembled bloodthirsty animals. But the lady manager knew how to handle them, and nothing bad ever happened while they were in the warehouse. Once they were outside, once they were on duty, they knew how to control themselves. But because they were so high-strung and because their bloody work made them so nervous, he could never be sure they wouldn’t kill him. He knew that this kind of person would never be satisfied with merely knocking out a few teeth or cracking a few ribs. For such a person only death would do.
Thus it was that he found himself in the midst of robbers, thieves and murderers, joining them on their various expeditions, though only to pick up their booty. They weren’t careful in the least about what they said in front of him. They calmly chatted about whom they had ‘knocked off’ or ‘done in’, and how. They used certain technical terms during these discussions that they must have learned at some courses in murder. That they spoke so casually in front of him was the most terrifying thing of all. It meant that he was doomed from the start, that he had only as much time left to live as they might assign him. That was why they didn’t have to hold back in any way before him. He was a living dead man.
He had to be incredibly careful when they asked him about anything. The fact that they didn’t curse him or beat him, that they spoke quite pleasantly to him sometimes, meant that such behaviour didn’t cost them anything. It was clear to him that they could shoot him any time they wanted, either because they had an order to do it or without any order. Murder was a small detail to them. They didn’t have to work themselves up to a fury or a fit.
‘Come and have a beer with us,’ Erich once invited him when they finished emptying an apartment and the movers were already carrying out the furniture. ‘There’s a tavern right near here.’
‘But there’s a sign there: NO JEWS ALLOWED.’
‘You can sit there with us even with a star on. We’d take care of it if anybody objected.’ And he motioned to his right pocket.
They sat at a table near the window.
‘To your health,’ Erich toasted. ‘Go ahead, clink glasses with us. Let everybody see this farce.’
It was evening, after work. There were quite a few people in the tavern, but as soon as they saw the queer little group they began to leave quickly. Soon nobody was left in the room besides Richard and the Gestapo.
‘See what big shots we are,’ Karel boasted. ‘You’re completely safe with us, even if we don’t pay the bartender, even if we slap him in the face instead of paying. He’d still bow to us. Isn’t that true, Erich?’
‘Too bad you’re a Jew, Richard.’ Erich clinked his glass against Richard’s. ‘We’d take you with us. You’d have a great time. Money, women, we’ve got everything.’
‘Too bad. You’re such a good-looking guy. What did you do before the war?’
‘I had a small hardware store. Nothing special. But I made a living from it.’
‘I was a plasterer and Karel here was a shop assistant. See how we’ve come up in the world,’ Erich boasted.
Richard had read about things like this in books. Things like this didn’t happen in real life. In books he had read about gangsters or gunmen from the Wild West. They also got drunk and shot at people. Of course, in those books a sheriff always showed up who got rid of them somehow.
‘I’ll tell you a story,’ said Erich, in a talkative mood, ‘it’s sort of a story with a moral about five old-fashioned overcoats. Some guy named Fischman was still working at the warehouse the time this happened – a good-for-nothing fellow, scared shitless. In any case, there was a certain farmer, a rich bastard who lived out in a village somewhere – what was it called? – well, I’ve forgotten, I can’t remember all those Czech names. Anyhow, he found an apartment in Pragu
e and was moving there with his whole family. He had a son and daughter over fifteen years old – that’s important. And then there was the grandfather. He was supposed to wait in the village for the family to move to Prague and fix up the new apartment. So they took all his things away in the moving van and told him they’d let him know when to come and join them. Then somebody denounced that farmer, one of his enemies, and reported that he had provisions hidden in the moving van. So we went to check it out.
‘Well, he did have some provisions there – that wasn’t so bad. But we also found some hunting guns. And of course you know the penalty for that today. So we had to sort of liquidate that family. The only one of them left, finally, was that grandfather out in the village. Naturally we confiscated their things, so grandfather in the village didn’t even have an extra shirt to change into. Then some smart aleck advised him to write to us saying that he hadn’t done anything wrong and therefore his things had been wrongfully confiscated, and to request that his things be returned. But you know the way we operate. Nothing hangs around very long around here. Those things were gone ages ago. Only the five old-fashioned overcoats of Grandpa’s were left – nobody had wanted them. So we sent them to him. We really made Grandpa happy, don’t you think?’ Erich cackled as he finished his story.
All the Gestapo’s stories were terrible, but the way they told them was even more terrible. Even gangsters in books didn’t talk like that.
Every two weeks Mr Smutny came to the warehouse. He was a bit different from the other second-hand dealers: round, pink-cheeked, well-dressed and courteous. He addressed the manager as dear lady and kissed her hand. He leaned confidentially towards Richard when they were alone and spoke in a pained voice: ‘You know, my heart bleeds when I look at these things: Imagine my coming across Mr Netousek’s portrait here, and he was one of my best customers. What can I tell you, we became friendly over all those years we did business together. Well, I didn’t buy the portrait. Just between us, Mr Netousek didn’t take my advice that time and ordered the portrait from a second-rate painter – Mr Netousek didn’t know much about art. I bought back the things I sold him, for the right price, needless to say. Mr Netousek was just too trusting and he paid through the teeth. Well, my heart was bleeding, but I bought them. I said to myself, Smutny, you have a duty to buy these things. If you don’t buy them, someone else will. At least they’ll be in friendly hands.’