by Jirí Weil
They went off in opposite directions.
The next Sunday Reisinger went to Sestak’s. It was an ordinary corner pub with a bar and a small side room. Before the war the owner used to lend the room to the Boxing Club at no charge. It brought in hardly any business, because the boxers drank very little or nothing at all. But the owner was a boxing fan. He even turned on the heat for them in the winter.
The pub was unchanged. People were sitting around the bar, playing cards. The owner stood behind the counter, pouring beer. He recognised Reisinger, but he gave no sign of it. He just muttered a greeting and indicated the door of the side room with his eyes. There were sounds coming from that room, dull thuds. When he entered, Reisinger saw Franta and two young men he didn’t know. They were hitting a punchbag – those were the dull, inexpert thuds he had heard in the bar-room. Franta was apparently giving them lessons.
The little room looked the same as in the old days. Pictures of famous boxers hung on the walls. In a glass case were polished trophies won at various matches; the boxing gloves must have been in the cupboard. Either the owner had declared the things in the room as his own private property when the inventories of the various workers’ sporting clubs were confiscated or perhaps the officials didn’t want to bother carting away that small amount of junk.
‘This is Louis and this is Tonda,’ said Franta, introducing the two young men. They shook Reisinger’s hand. Their hands were strong, work-hardened.
‘Not to keep you in suspense too long,’ continued Franta calmly, ‘I didn’t really invite you here for boxing. We have to keep punching this bag so that people in the bar-room think we’re practising. One has to be careful. But first tell me, do you still live in that little house up on the hill? I haven’t been in that part of town for a long time.’
Reisinger answered that he still lived there. They’d probably let him keep his apartment until he was called for the transport, because nobody really wanted it.
Then Franta continued to ask a lot of questions. What time did he come home? Did anybody come for visits? What were the neighbours like?
Reisinger found the interrogation strange, and finally he asked, ‘Why do you want to know all this?’
‘I’ll tell you. These two young fellows are from Suchdol. Do you know it?’
Reisinger was familiar with Suchdol. When he was still working for the Collection Agency they used to pick up furniture there. A former village located just outside Prague in the woods above the river, Suchdol was a neat and clean suburb with little gardens and odd street names. No factories or industry, only market gardening. Once when he was moving furniture out of a Suchdol villa and the sun was shining and the sky was clear and blue, he felt as if he were on an outing to the country. They took it easy that day, smoking a pack of cigarettes the former owner had left in a drawer. They felt as if there were peace, as if this neighbourhood were in a world of its own because everything was so calm there. They ate sandwiches and drank water from their thermoses and watched the river flow away from the city.
‘I know it a little. What about Suchdol?’
‘The town was always left-wing and always somewhat red before the war. The authorities were after a doctor from Suchdol for unfair competition, because he took patients who were unemployed during the Depression without charge. The mayor of the town was a Communist and so were the majority of people there. Something was always going on in Suchdol. Then, after March 15, the Gestapo began to kick up hell. They wanted to arrest the mayor and the local authorities. Except they didn’t pull it off and they haven’t caught them to this very day. They tried to find out where they were hiding from their wives, so they arrested them, but they never got anything out of them – good women in Suchdol. Then nothing happened for a long time. But now they’re having trouble again. These fellows come from there and they need to disappear. As soon as they get new papers they’ll go somewhere else. So they need to hide out somewhere for a week or two. I thought maybe the way things look today the safest place might be at your house. They’d never search for them there.’
At first Reisinger was a little surprised. But he made a quick decision. Those fellows were obviously not hiding out for no good reason. He was glad to help them. At least he’d be a bit useful.
He told Franta that he didn’t mind at all if they stayed with him, but there was a problem about getting enough food.
‘Don’t worry about that. We’ll take care of it.’
The young men didn’t take part in these arrangements. They kept punching the bag.
‘Well, what do you think? How about going a few rounds, since we’re here. Are you still a welterweight?’
Richard and Franta stripped to their undershirts and put on boxing gloves. Louis and Tonda were referees, except it was obvious they didn’t know anything about boxing.
‘Let’s call it a day,’ said Franta. ‘There’s not much time. You go home now, Richard. I’ll bring them to your house in the evening, after dark. I won’t ring the doorbell and I won’t knock. I’ll just whistle that signal of ours we used to use when we went to steal pears in the Grabas’s garden.’
Later that evening Franta whistled and Reisinger opened the door immediately. It was raining outside and nobody was hanging about on the street. They didn’t turn on the lights in the hallway but followed Reisinger, groping in the dark.
‘We didn’t manage to find any food,’ Franta apologised. ‘But I’ll send something tomorrow. Until then they’ll simply have to go hungry. They’ve been through many worse things. Once, during the rampage after the Heydrich assassination, they had to stand all night in a pond without moving.’
‘What about sleeping arrangements?’ asked Reisinger. ‘There’s an old couch in the kitchen and a bed in the living room, but two won’t fit on it, so somebody will have to sleep on the floor. How about let’s toss a coin.’
But Franta wouldn’t hear of it. The guests would sleep in the kitchen and take turns on the couch.
And so Reisinger became one of a threesome. In the evening the young men wanted to talk a lot, mainly about soccer, since they didn’t talk during the day. That was partly because they had to be quiet and partly because they had exhausted all subjects of conversation between them. Franta sent food through various contacts.
It was a new world for Reisinger. Until then he had come to believe that one has to give up fighting when the opponent is stronger. It sometimes seemed to him that he had been written off already.
Louis and Tonda persuaded him that it was possible to fight, that it was only necessary to know what one is fighting for. This small country had been sold down the river, then it had been overrun by bandits and murderers; they chained it and beat it down, but they couldn’t break it, not as long as there were people to defend it. The people he had been meeting until now didn’t know how to defend themselves. Living life just to survive – that would never end well. One had to make up one’s mind firmly and resolutely, to be willing to give up comfort, submission and fear; one had to be willing to sacrifice one’s own life, if need be, for a cause that would ultimately prevail and bring peace and freedom to other people.
The young men often told stories about Suchdol, their pride and joy, where nobody ever gave in to fear tactics, where the mayor, for instance, distributed the entire town treasury to the unemployed during the Depression and then was arrested for embezzlement. After Munich he had been forced to give up his office, and a Nazi warrant was put out for his arrest immediately after March 15. But they hadn’t managed to catch him, and they probably never would.
After quite a long while Franta reappeared one day and Reisinger knew he had come for his guests. As they were leaving Franta said casually, ‘Thanks a lot, friend. We won’t forget what you’ve done for us.’
When they were gone the house felt empty and deserted to Reisinger.
FIFTEEN
ANTONIN BECVAR LIVED in Prosek. It was a long walk from the last stop of the tram at the end of the day, and he had
to get up early in the morning. But Prosek had its advantages in wartime. People were able to keep rabbits and chickens in the backyards of their little houses. People also kept goats.
He came home from Municipal earlier than usual. His wife was out in the yard doing laundry in a washtub.
‘Marena, come in the house,’ whispered Becvar, ‘everybody can hear us out here. I have some news for you.’
‘I know,’ Marena scolded as they sat down in the kitchen. ‘That Paroubek bilked you out of the wood slats you gave him a down payment for. I always told you he was cheating you. And Santroch is coming for the rabbit hutch the day after tomorrow.’
‘It’s not Paroubek, not at all.’ Becvar waved his hand. ‘If he doesn’t bring the wood slats I’ll find them elsewhere. For your information, I was kicked out at Municipal today.’
‘What did you do wrong? You were blabbing somewhere, right?’
‘Not at all. It’s all on account of that statue I was telling you about. They canned Schlesinger, and so he took it out on me. I was about to go in for lunch, I was hardly out of the door when the guard yells at me that I should go to Personnel. So I went there and they told me I was dismissed as of today and that I was to register at the Employment Bureau. So I said I wanted to know the reason I was dismissed, but they said they didn’t know themselves, that the notice was signed by Dr Buch. Imagine that, after so many years of service they give me an hour’s notice like you give a maid. All that talk about a job with a pension! I should have stuck to cabinet making.’
‘Of course you should have,’ said Marena. ‘Everything’s different now.’
Three days later Becvar received a summons to come to the Employment Bureau. It stated a time and a room number.
He knocked and entered. An official sat behind a desk.
‘Morning,’ said Becvar. ‘I’m here with the summons.’
‘Hail to the Homeland,’ answered the official, according to regulations. ‘Now, let’s see what you have here. I see. Becvar Antonin, formerly employed as a worker at Municipal, married, no children. Sit down, Mr Becvar.’
Becvar sat down.
‘So what will it be,’ Becvar asked, ‘CKD or Letov? I’d rather go to Letov, it would be closer to home.’
‘Neither CKD nor Letov,’ said the official, almost apologetically. ‘You are definitely conscripted to the Reich.’
‘But that can’t be possible.’ Becvar jumped up from the seat. ‘I’m over fifty. What would they do with me there?’
‘The order came from higher up. The file from Municipal states that you are an asocial element and a malingerer.’
‘That’s baloney,’ said Becvar angrily. ‘I’ve been working since I was fourteen, and I’ve been at Municipal for ten years.’
‘I know, Mr Becvar,’ said the official, trying to calm him down, ‘I believe you. But what can I do?’
Becvar grew even more excited. ‘What’s going to happen to me now? I’m supposed to leave everything here at my ripe old age and go off to work in the Reich somewhere?’ Suddenly he had a better idea: ‘Look, couldn’t we make a deal somehow, like that I wouldn’t go to the Reich, like that I was sick or something. I’d make it worth your while, you know …’
The official shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s a direct order from a Reich official. His stamp is on the paper and the Employment Bureau is required to inform him as soon as the order is fulfilled. You must have done something wrong to make them go gunning for you.’
‘Yeah, sure, it’s a long story,’ said Becvar. ‘It’s on account of a statue. Then I was denounced by a certain Schlesinger because he had to go to the front. I didn’t do anything bad at all.’
‘You’ll have to go to the Reich one way or another. It’ll be better if you stay out of their sight.’
‘Yeah, sure, but why all the way to the Reich?’
‘Look, I like going to the theatre. I saw a play recently called Harlequin the Comedian. It’s a completely different world there, with real honest-to-goodness people living in it who love, who hate, who are jealous of each other, who kill for love. Meanwhile, these four walls covered with dirty whitewash, and this work of mine – sending people to the Reich – that’s all just a dream, it’s not reality.’
‘Yeah, sure, except I’m a part of that dream, and you’re obviously sending me to the Reich no matter what.’
‘I can’t help you. Here are your papers. Day after tomorrow you’re leaving from the main station.’
Becvar left without a word, slamming the door behind him. Out in the hallway he spat disgustedly.
‘That one’s crazier than the Krauts with that play of his.’ And suddenly he felt homesick for everything, even the lifeless streets of his native city, even the rabbit hutches and the little yard in Prosek. They were sending him off to a foreign land he didn’t know or care about; they’d give him all sorts of awful stuff to eat, because Germans don’t know how to cook and they ruin even the best food. He’d have to sleep on a bunk in some dump there. And in the end he’d certainly be killed by a bomb, because bombs were dropping day and night there.
And then there was Marena. They’d been together twenty-five years and they’d never been separated once, if you didn’t count the time Marena was lying-in in a hospital. What would she do without him? Of course, he’d send her money from there, but what good did money do these days? Why, they’d be dead of hunger by now if they had to live off the pay he got at Municipal. It was just barely enough for their rent and coupons. The main thing was those rabbit hutches; they brought in extra provisions. Well, nothing could be done about it, Marena would have to manage on her own. She’d pull it off somehow because she was a tough woman. Boy, would she carry on when he told her the news. ‘I always told you to keep your mouth shut, Tony, but not you, His Highness always thinks he knows better, and look at him now – off to the Reich.’
But it didn’t happen that way. When he came home to the little yard Marena said to him, ‘You don’t have to tell me, I can see it written all over you that things turned out badly. Where did they send you? Somewhere out in the country?’
‘If only it was the country. The rats are sending me to the Reich.’
‘But you’re over fifty. How can they do that?’
‘They can do anything they want.’
‘The dirty bastards!’ Marena said angrily. ‘Well, they’ll get theirs one of these days!’
And that was it. No reproaches, no crying or carrying on. Just anger and hatred. Marena was a fine woman, Becvar thought to himself. Then they began to figure out how to manage things once he left. Marena could trade off some things for food. Today everything had a price. Then there were the rabbits. She couldn’t eat them all, so she ought to sell a couple here and there. Marena seemed calm. But she was on the verge of tears.
The neighbours came over. They had obviously heard everything, since Becvar was talking out in the yard. Some offered help, others had malice peeping out of their eyes: Becvar is going to the Reich and we’re staying here. Meanwhile, Becvar acted as if he were getting ready for a holiday. He was leaving the day after tomorrow. Marena had her hands full of work and Becvar had a lot of running around to do. He also stopped off at Municipal to sign some papers and say goodbye to Stankovsky.
‘This was all that idiot Schlesinger’s doing, the lousy Kraut,’ said Stankovsky. ‘Just be careful you’re not clobbered by a bomb like Sehnoutek. All that was left of him was his coat. Actually it was just rags and they sent them to his wife. But they refused to bury just the coat at the cemetery, so she’s got it at home now.’
‘Don’t worry, I’m not croaking. I’ve got years for that.’
They shook hands.
‘So look, come home soon. That statue is still lying on the roof there, you know. Nobody’s minding it, and it’s only missing a hand.’
‘That damned statue.’ Becvar sighed. ‘It really played a dirty trick on me.’
The next day Becvar said goodbye to his wife at the main
station and departed for the Reich. This time Marena cried.
Bad luck had been dogging Becvar from the moment they sent him to the roof of the Rudolfinum. Now he was working in a munitions factory, though doing the bare minimum – what did they expect from an older person, and a politically re-educated one at that. Becvar actually knew various trades, but why should he say anything about it here? In any case, everything was mixed up in the Reich. A barber worked on a milling machine and a worker from Ringhoffer’s tapped beer. There were air raids all the time, day and night. At those times they all ran to a shelter and work stopped. In fact, everything turned out just as he had imagined it in Prague: he slept in a bunk and the food was awful. It was only bearable because everybody received packages from home and Marena sent him some, too.
And then disaster struck. They used to sit around in the dark telling stories during the blackout hour organised in the buildings every night. When his turn came around, all he could think of was the time he was a volunteer fireman back in the days when Prosek was still a village and not part of Prague. The building must have had a spy, because he was called in the next day and informed that he was being transferred to the fire brigade. And that was the beginning of a hellish life for Becvar. Not only did the job involve putting out fires – which was futile in any case – but they had to drag dead bodies out of basements and carry off the wounded. All the while bombs were whistling and any one of them could knock him off in a second like a nine-pin.
The fire brigade was made up entirely of foreigners, but the commander was a German and he had a revolver. There were also fifty-five men all over the place, so sneaking off was out of the question. Becvar found a countryman in the brigade, a certain Ruda Vyskocil from Prostejov. He used to work in a clothing store there before being sent to the Reich. Ruda taught him not to get involved in anything unnecessarily – he was a crafty Moravian. It was a miserable job and many of their number were carried away on stretchers when walls collapsed on them or they were struck by shrapnel. Becvar and Vyskocil were lucky; nothing had happened to them yet. But how long could such a streak of good luck last?