by Jirí Weil
Richard didn’t really like to get in a conversation with him. It was like talking to a hyena.
‘Mr Smutny, you’re an Aryan and a member of the National Confederation, so you’re not allowed to talk to a Jew.’
‘But I don’t have anything against Jews,’ objected Mr Smutny. ‘I used to do business with them in the old days, though they were certainly sly. Still, I don’t hold it against them, you’ve got to be clever to do well in business.’
Mr Smutny dealt only with artistic objects; he didn’t buy junk. He had a shop on the main street with many select customers. The lady manager was gracious and polite to him. She offered him liqueurs.
Mr Smutny looked over the antiques carefully. He didn’t buy any old thing. He was on the lookout for rare pieces, examining everything for a long time, picking up objects in his hand, studying the signatures on paintings. He never chose many things. Reisinger delivered them to his store personally, perfectly wrapped. He always received a box of good cigarettes as a tip.
First, of course, Mr Smutny haggled for a long time with the lady manager over their glass of liqueur. Mr Smutny knew that the baroness knew nothing about art. The baroness, on the other hand, knew that Mr Smutny offered a third of the actual value at most. They always came to a friendly agreement in the end.
One day, during Mr Smutny’s usual visit, after he had picked out several antiques and was getting ready for his usual negotiations with the manager, the baroness stopped him.
‘I want you to buy this statue also. Otherwise I won’t sell you anything. It’s in my way here, and I don’t like to look at it.’
The statue was half a metre tall, a bronzed plaster casting. Of course the baroness didn’t understand all that.
Mr Smutny looked at the statue. ‘My dear lady, what would I do with this? Who’s going to buy it? A modern sculptor made it, this is no antique. It’s a copy of the statue of Justice that’s standing or used to stand in the main courtroom at Pankrac. You tell me, dear lady, who cares about justice these days?’
Justice held a sharp sword in her hand. Her eyes were blindfolded.
The baroness insisted. ‘Take it away. I don’t want to look at it. Justice or injustice, I don’t like it either way. Why should I ruin my nerves here on top of everything else? I’ll give it to you cheap. Maybe for only fifty crowns. That’s only five marks, after all. The main thing is, I’ll get rid of it.’
‘Dear lady,’ Mr Smutny replied, ‘I can’t give you more than twenty crowns for it, and that’s only to do you a favour, because it’ll just sit in my shop.’
‘Good,’ agreed the lady manager, ‘take it for twenty crowns, then, and I’ll be rid of it.’ She turned to Reisinger. ‘Richard, wrap this statue up right away and put it on the handcart, before Mr Smutny changes his mind.’
‘I’m going to lose out on this, you can take my word for it, dear lady,’ complained Mr Smutny, ‘I’m only doing this as a favour …’
‘So much talk for twenty crowns,’ the lady manager said scornfully. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll foist it off on someone. Hurry up, Richard.’
The copy of the statue of Justice was soon packed in sawdust and put in a box on the handcart together with the small objects Mr Smutny had picked out. Reisinger waited by the handcart while the dealer and the lady manager settled on a price for the other things.
After a while Mr Smutny came out. He was grumbling to himself: ‘Justice, what a stupid idea in this day and age!’ He turned to Reisinger. ‘You’ve wrapped it up too well, my friend. It’ll never break this way. Well, it’s only twenty crowns, so the hell with it.’
It wasn’t far to Mr Smutny’s shop. Reisinger carefully unloaded the crate and received the usual box of cigarettes.
When he returned the lady manager greeted him: ‘Thank God it’s gone.’ She was drunk. She must have been tossing them down the whole time he was away.
She poured some liqueur into a glass.
‘Have a drink, Richard.’ She began to complain. ‘What a life, surrounded by skunks here! I’ve seen a lot in my day, but never anything like what goes on here. When I see these things I feel like crying.’ The drink was making her sentimental.
‘Don’t believe what they tell you, Richard. They’re playing cat and mouse with you. They don’t care about anything. They’d do me in, too, if they could. But they can’t get me. Do you like it here, Richard?’
What was he to say to a direct question? How to answer a drunken floozy who is bad-mouthing the Gestapo while she’s in with them up to her neck?
‘Well, you’re very kind to me, Baroness, but otherwise …’
‘I know,’ wept the lady manager. ‘I’m a real softy. But you know, life is hard and a person has to be tough to survive. I used to live differently, once upon a time. I’m sorry for you, Richard. I used to know somebody who looked like you. And when I think that …’
Suddenly she caught herself. It was as if the drunkenness had suddenly lifted. She began to speak in a different tone of voice. ‘Oh, I almost forgot. I have another errand for you. Look over there in the corner – you’ll find some framed photographs. Here’s a package with some other photographs a certain gentleman sent me from Bredovska. Go to the framer’s, tell him to take the old photos out of the frames and put in the new ones from the package. Tell him I need them in a hurry.’
Reisinger was glad to get out in the fresh air. He remembered seeing a shop with the inscription PICTURE FRAMING AND GILDING somewhere quite nearby on a parallel side street. He was wearing his workday smock without the star, which he wore in the warehouse. He didn’t want to embarrass the framer.
The owner of the shop, an older man with a grey moustache, stood alone behind the counter. Reisinger unwrapped the framed photographs and said to him, just as the lady manager had instructed him, ‘Throw away these photographs and replace them with the ones in the package. And hurry, we need them soon.’
Hardly had the framer taken the framed photograph in his hand than tears began to flow from his eyes. ‘Good Lord! It’s Frantisek! Jesus Christ, here’s Ruzena and Jaroslav! That’s my cousin. Why, they …’
He began to sob. ‘This can’t be true,’ he gasped. ‘My God, where did you get these?’
Reisinger made a great effort to answer calmly. ‘Please. It’s better not to ask. And please do the job quickly. I have nothing to do with this. I’m just the servant.’
‘But whose servant are you? Who sent you?’
Reisinger realised that he must tell the truth. ‘If you must know, then, the Gestapo.’
The framer stood stock-still, like a pillar of salt. Reisinger left the shop quickly.
‘What a job,’ he said to himself. ‘What a job. It would be better to be kicked to death by the SS than this.’
Three weeks later, as he was unpacking objects from another confiscated apartment, he had a sudden shock.
‘Baroness, Baroness, please come here,’ he called to the office. He could tell by a scratch mark on the left side that this was a statue that had been here before.
The lady manager waddled into the warehouse. She almost fainted when she saw the unwrapped object.
‘I can’t believe it.’ Her eyes were popping. ‘Why, it’s that statue, that Justice! Call Smutny immediately,’ she screamed, ‘tell him to come here at once, to drop everything and come.’
She ran back to her office and locked the door behind her.
Mr Smutny came very soon. He obviously thought this was going to be some exceptionally good business deal.
‘Well, how d’ye do,’ he said, all smiles. ‘Here I am again. What little gem do you have for me today?’
‘This.’ Reisinger pointed to the statue.
‘Ah so.’ Mr Smutny didn’t allow his feathers to be ruffled. ‘Well, well, there’re a lot of strange things in the world.’
As soon as the lady manager heard Mr Smutny’s voice, she ran into the warehouse and began to scream hysterically: ‘You must take this statue away immediately. Ri
chard, wrap it up!’
‘Dear lady,’ said Mr Smutny apologetically, ‘I’m sorry you’re taking it so hard. Please don’t get so excited. You know, I did sell that statue, after all, although to tell the truth I didn’t make anything on it. It was bought by, let me see, yes, a certain Mr Krajicek, yes, that’s who it was; he’d been a major in the Czech Army and now he’s a bank official … I mean, actually, what am I saying, well, so it’s come back again …’
‘Take the statue away. I’m superstitious. It’ll drive me crazy.’
‘My dear Baroness,’ Mr Smutny said slowly, ‘please forgive me, but I won’t take that statue. I’m also superstitious and I don’t want it in my shop.’
‘What am I supposed to do with it, then?’
‘That’s easy, dear lady. Tell Richard here to go out to the courtyard and break it. That’s all. And then throw the pieces in the dustbin.’
‘Richard,’ the lady manager commanded, ‘take it out to the courtyard and smash it.’
Richard put a hammer in the pocket of his smock and carried the statue out to the courtyard. The lady manager and Mr Smutny watched him go.
‘Let’s have a drink, Mr Smutny,’ said the baroness invitingly. She was calm now.
Reisinger began to destroy the statue with the hammer. First he knocked off Justice’s head, with her blindfolded eyes. Then he knocked the sword out of her hand. Then he struck the head again to smash it completely. Then he attacked the body. Finally all that remained were some dirty white bronzed pieces lying on the courtyard floor. He swept them up and threw them in the dustbin.
Justice would no longer stand in anyone’s way.
THIRTEEN
THE TRANSPORTS CONTINUED to leave from the Radio Mart. The Hangman’s death changed nothing in the carrying out of his task. The dead lines and quotas for each individual country were set in the plan, the plan was hidden in the folder, and the folder was in the briefcase. The briefcase ended up in the hands of the highest Reich police officer, who came to town in a Panzer tank. He came at the request of the dying man, who wouldn’t relinquish the folder to anyone else. The two from the Anthropoids had got him, after all. His coffin lying on the gun carriage passed through the castle courtyard and the portal for the last time. The statues with dagger and club stood there, silent, motionless. He’d never see them again, he’d never return to this city again. The flag with his sovereign symbol flew at half-mast. Death, once his constant companion, went on a rampage at his extinction. The red decrees appeared daily and the list of names grew longer. Death stalked the city. It even found the two from the Anthropoids.
The body on the gun carriage passed through the city accompanied by fife and drum and left the subjugated land. It passed the statues on the bridge, it passed the statue of Roland. It passed along the river, it wound through the main streets, and the tramp of heavy military boots accompanied it all the way to the railway station. The strangled city fell silent. The flags at half-mast were harbingers of death. People sat behind darkened windows. As death marched by, they turned on their lamps and read the words of poets.
The body on the gun carriage, followed by a parade of dignitaries, left by special train for the capital city of the Reich. There, too, it passed through the streets accompanied by an honour guard, but these were different streets, with broken buildings, crumbled walls and shattered windows. Death already held sway there as a trusted friend. The city belonged to it entirely. The broken city greeted the dead body with a twenty-one-gun salute by the light of blazing torches. Thunder and lightning from a storm of nature joined the thunder of the cannons.
The city in the subjugated country was plastered with notices. Loudspeakers attached to street lights rattled off the names of the executed. But because it was warm and the sun was shining, people lay on the banks of the city’s river, swimming, jumping into the water and laughing. Because life is stronger than death. Because people have to sleep, eat and love.
Death walked all around the town. It even paid a brief visit to Mrs Javurek’s house. The city was under martial law then and the tramp of metal-studded boots and the blows of gun butts on doors were heard at every house. They searched the apartment, but they didn’t find anything, for they never dreamed there was a little room behind the cupboard. Besides, they were in a hurry. The old house was overflowing with people, children suddenly awakened from their sleep were yelling in every apartment. The stifling smell of poverty was everywhere, for it was forbidden to open a window.
Adela and Greta barely peeped. They knew that every little sound could mean death. They only heard the voices, sharp, blustering. They gave a start and almost cried out when they heard a crash. It was a rifle smashing to the floor, either by accident or deliberately, to scare the Javureks. Then suddenly everything was quiet. The night callers were gone, but nothing moved in the kitchen. The Javureks didn’t speak to each other, as if afraid that the night’s guests were still listening outside the door. Adela and Greta were just falling asleep when the Javureks moved aside the cupboard and opened the cubbyhole door. Drowsily they let themselves be carried into the kitchen and seated at the table. They had been locked up all day and had eaten nothing.
Now the Javureks began to talk loudly, almost too loudly. That’s how people behave when some danger has passed and they feel elated. All at once they felt like talking long and loud. They wanted to go over everything bit by bit, how those two had rushed into the apartment, how the smaller one had a gun and used it to poke around under the bed, how the bigger one searched the parlour and kitchen, pulling out dishes from shelves, searching the cupboards and rummaging through the linens, even messing up everything in the kitchen cupboard that stood in front of the cubbyhole.
The Javureks described it all to Adela and Greta and praised them for being so quiet. The danger had passed. But fear stayed on in a place deep inside.
The very next day Jan came to visit.
‘How are you doing, little submarines,’ he said, seemingly jolly and carefree. But everything was very bad now – house searches, arrests, ID checks. Food had vanished – the black marketeers were scared. They were hanged and shot, too, as it was expedient to mix them in with the other names on the red decrees. But he had to find food, he couldn’t ask the Javureks to share their meagre rations with the children.
They spent only a short time together. Jan was in a hurry. He had a date with a man who was perhaps the only person who could get him food now that the city was in a state of siege.
The person Jan was going to visit was a Jew. He was in hiding, even though he didn’t actually need to be. He was not persecuted, because his name was not listed at the Jewish Community or at the Central Bureau. He had Aryan papers – genuine ones, moreover, and so nobody was after him yet. Still, he preferred to remain at home. There were quite a few people who lived in the city that way. They were registered properly, they picked up their ration cards regularly at the janitor’s, but they didn’t show up in public very often.
He had been a photographer for a picture magazine before the war, and he accepted every assignment he could get: important visitors, sports events, exhibitions, new acquisitions at the zoo. He took very different photographs for his own purposes: the temporary shacks of the unemployed, queues at the employment agency, people on breadlines and in shelters, mothers and children begging for food and money, demonstrations, shantytowns being knocked down. Nobody paid him for these pictures; they served a different purpose: to show how the unemployed live in a country that boasted of its democratic ways. Communist delegates submitted the photos to parliament: they travelled around the Republic in small travelling exhibitions to gain support. Nobody knew who organised these exhibitions. Nobody knew that these shots of policemen beating people at demonstrations and shooting into crowds of children were taken by a photographer with an official licence.
The photographer had a common name – Otto Pokorny. Some of the many people with the name Pokorny were Jews. He had a studio in a large modern apar
tment house with a steady turnover because the rent was high. Even the janitors kept changing, because the landlord didn’t want to pay them for operating the central heating. The house actually belonged to a bank that was represented by an accountant. Nobody pays much attention to anybody else in a house like that.
After March 15, several German tenants moved into the house. They were quiet and inconspicuous, not wanting to attract attention. They went off to murder at regular working hours, while pretending to be ordinary office workers at home, carefully wiping their shoes on the doormat and politely stepping out of the lift to make room for ladies.
Pokorny signed the ‘Aryan declaration’ for the new editor-in-chief of the magazine he worked for. But nobody there knew him very well – the magazine employed several freelance photographers. There was little work to do, since most of the magazine’s pictures were provided by the German news agency – pictures from the front, sessions of the Reichstag and military parades. The only local pictures were sentimental ones, used for diversionary purposes: springtime on the river, lovers in the park, a country market. But even such pictures could be dangerous. For instance, a view of a city square might include a monument that had not yet been removed.
Pokorny worked with a heavy heart. He was sick of grinding out the same old sentimental pictures. His passion was to uncover old and unusual things. And so it happened that he almost got his editor sent to a concentration camp. He took a photograph of a trained dog, a mongrel named as an outstanding circus artist by the German Commission. This remarkable dog received special allotments of meat and rice which supported his whole performing family. The editor printed the picture with the caption A Deserving Dog in the same issue that carried a portrait of the Acting Reich Protector. At the very last minute someone noticed it and the whole issue was pulped.