He nodded. “Why, sure, Mr Frazer. Thanks for the warning.” Ponderously, all smiles, he advanced. So did I, right behind him. Bassett bumped into the girl in green, and she turned to face him. “Sorry, lass,” he said. He gave a grotesque smirk and lowered his voice. “How about meeting me outside, eh, how about that?” I saw understanding in her face; she had a little English, I suspected — or it could have been instinct. Certainly Bassett was obvious enough. He put a hand on my shoulder then, and spoke to the girl again. “My friend too. He likes your mate with the bobble.” He indicated the right one. “All right, lass?” He gave a broad wink, and then I gave him a shove. We made our way out into the cold night. We waited, shivering, stamping our feet. God, it was bitter, and it was snowing again. Even Bassett’s intake of rum tea didn’t appear to keep the cold out. He started moaning again, saying we’d been stood up and I didn’t know my onions after all. But after around ten minutes, though it seemed much longer, the girls came out. Just the two of them, laughing and chatting in high voices. The chatter stopped when they saw us. One — Bassett’s — said, “You follow, please.” Then they both turned away. We let them get some fifty yards ahead and then we got under way as well. They were easy to keep track of, even though we maintained our distance; there were few people about. We went a long, long way, but Bassett no longer protested about his feet. I’d have given any money to see him take his goloshes off when he reached the green-clad girl’s bedroom. Very likely he wore long johns as well. Prostitutes, I thought, must get many a laugh at the bug-eyed old goats who patronize them. We plodded on, under a powdering of snow. We went, by stages, into a broken-down district where all the things I’d talked of to Bassett could well come true. Shadows flitted into dark, narrow alleys, cats screamed out their Bassett-like desires, somewhere something different screamed suddenly from behind a dimly lit window — a woman, I think.
Bassett stopped. “By gum, what was that, eh?”
“Just remember what I told you, Mr Bassett.”
“Aye.” His breath came fast, steaming out in clouds under a climbing moon, pale in a cold sky, as the snow ceased. “I don’t like this, lad, I don’t really.”
“You were the brave one in the automat,” I said with a hint of a sneer. “Don’t back out now.”
“All right, all right,” he snapped. He got on the move again — a little faster, for the girls had pulled ahead. I began to worry that maybe they lived and worked together, under one roof. That would make it much harder for me to vanish convincingly. But I was lucky, because after we had been walking for half a lifetime the girls ahead slowed and stopped and we caught them up. They made us understand we were now to separate. I nodded at Bassett as he clutched his chosen girl, but he was too preoccupied to notice. He went off into the darkness. I wondered when, if ever, I would see him again. He was going to be in one hell of a tizzy when I failed to show in the morning, and he had to do some explaining. He wouldn’t want to, but he would have to, because most of the tourists had seen us go out together. I didn’t suppose he would tell the whole truth, but I knew quite well that there would be a lot of talk and the truth, or such of it as mattered to me, would emerge by way of gossip. That was good enough. I went on with my bobble-hatted girl, holding her arm. She felt decidedly sexy, and no doubt about it. I guessed she enjoyed her work when she got a client half-way reasonable looking. The game must have its good moments, like any other. We went on, turned into yet another stinking alley in the maze of derelict streets. Looking up at the scummy buildings, I could see the moon through many of the roofs, even through the walls, yet scattered lights gave evidence that men and women lived here. They hadn’t much to thank Drakotny for, or Racilek either, come to that. Or their ultimate masters in Moscow. I shivered with the intense cold, and with a strange fear. The girl snuggled against me, feeling me shiver I suppose. She said, “Little far. Then I make warm.”
“Good,” I said. Make love, not war. That had been the philosophy Nada Strecka had embraced — up to a point, anyway, a point that was reached the moment considerations of Drakotny came up. For him she’d make anything, love or war. Make warm, this girl had said. Well, I wouldn’t object to being made warm, but I wasn’t going to make love. Not me! I’m as keen as the next man, but choosey. And I don’t take the kind of risk that would be inherent in this girl, however attractive she looked, however wonderful when stripped, however desirable and erotic when slowly lowered panties revealed the curve of buttocks as she bent to step out of her garments. As for Bassett — well, I could only hope he wouldn’t take back to his northern greengrocery something he hadn’t had when he left it. Oh, yes, in a way I was sacrificing that poor, randy bastard, poor innocent in spite of his age, to the demands and exigencies of international politics. I knew it. But it couldn’t be helped. Drakotny — more than Drakotny — was in danger and time could be running out. I had been given no deadline because Nada Strecka hadn’t any dates to offer — and when there is no deadline, well, “it” can happen at literally any moment.
We reached the “little far” when the girl stopped at a paint-peeled door and said, “Here is. Come.”
She gave the door a push. It went back creakily, almost falling from its hinges. She went in and I followed, not seeing what I was going into, for there was no light. Things crunched underfoot — plaster, wood, paper, general muck and debris. I groped onward, the girl reaching out behind to guide me. “Stair,” she whispered suddenly, and I nearly fell as a foot banged hard into a step. Recovering, I climbed with care. We reached a landing; the stench was terrible. Thick and heavy, it was a combination of old food, unwashed bodies, and a lack of drainage. Disease must be rife here; this was the world’s anus. The girl took my arm again and pushed me towards the left, where another door creaked open and then shut behind me.
Then there was light.
It was an oil lamp, which she lit with a match. I looked at her. Yes, she was pretty, as I’d seen back in the automat. There was an invitation in her eyes, a real one, not just one for the purpose of trade. I looked at the room, and shuddered. No carpets, just bare, rotten boards, and somewhere a scurrying of mice, and vague squeaks. There was a kind of dressing-table made out of old packing-cases, and a mirror resting on it, and a vast assortment of beauty aids — creams, lotions, tissues, this and that. Bottles and tubes and pots. And of course there was the board of trade — the bed. Sleazy wasn’t the word. A mattress with a deep sag in the middle, and a filthy covering, matted and stained and smelly.
The girl smiled at me and began to undress. She did it slowly and I saw how right my imagination had been. She was young and slim and quite lovely, and suddenly I knew she had seen better days, that she was by no means of the prostitute class. To such a state had Czechoslovakia fallen, after successive occupations; even now in the seventies, she suffered the ravages of her more recent past, the past of the last forty years almost. I stared at the girl, and she began to look puzzled, wondering why I wasn’t undressing too.
I said, using my Czech, “I’m sorry. Have what money you want.” I reached into my pocket and brought out a roll of Koruna notes: 100s, 50’s, 25’s, 10’s. I had been well-lined by Focal House. She shook her head in bewilderment, though I would have expected her to ask for cash in advance in any case. I said slowly, “Money, yes. Anything else — no. I want only to sleep.”
“Sleep?” She cottoned on to that all right.
I nodded. “Just sleep. I am tired. Also, I am drunk. In the automat — too much rum. No good. Don’t you see?” I made a gesture with my finger. “No use. I’m sorry.”
She understood then, and she gave a shrug and a pout and sat on the bed. “Okay,” she said. “You sleep. I sleep.” I smiled gratefully, and pushed the notes at her again. She gave me a long look, then riffled through the cash. She took a couple of hundreds; then, after a look at me, a couple more. A fairly steep charge, but a small price to pay for Drakotny, I supposed. She handed the rest back and I shoved the roll in my pocket, hoping she wo
uldn’t belie her looks and knife me for the remainder during the night. Because I intended staying a while and getting some rest — for one thing, I didn’t want to risk possibly bumping into Bassett, homeward bound after his passion was spent. I didn’t like the look of the bed, so I camped down on the floor, which was far from comfortable. I slept a little, very lightly.
*
A faint daylight filtered through the covering hanging from nails over the window. Through a gash I caught a glimpse of the sky and I fancied there was more snow around. I lay for a moment, thinking. Then the girl awoke, and stirred her body. The bed covering fell aside; she was naked, and very lovely. Our eyes met and she smiled and said something in her own language that I couldn’t quite catch. I said, “I’ll be off soon. Can I have a wash — or not?”
“There is a cold tap,” she said. I nodded and got to my feet, and stripped off my jacket and shirt, which I flapped about a bit to freshen them up. She told me where the tap was, and I went in search. It was in the passage outside, over a discoloured sink. The cold was wicked, but I soused my head and face and felt cleaner. There was no towel. I went back into the girl’s room and borrowed a comb for my hair, then flapped about till I was more or less dry. I dressed. I said a few words of thanks to the girl and then I left. Neither of us knew who the other was and neither asked. When the news broke in the papers that I was missing — if it did, and being a Communist state it just might not, for various reasons — the girl might tick over, but then again she might not. In any case, I knew she wouldn’t stick her neck out by going to the police. They don’t like any of the exponents of private enterprise, in totalitarian states!
When I got outside I just walked, huddled into my thick overcoat with the collar turned up around my stubble. I loathed not shaving. I didn’t know if I was heading in the right direction, and I wasn’t going to ask around here. After a while I came into less desolate surroundings and found respectable people, people walking to work, and cars going along at a godalmighty rush. I found young men and women, students I fancied they were, selling newspapers. I asked the way to the university. And as I walked along in the direction indicated I thought about Bassett, who would shortly be explaining me away to our fellow tourists — and to Miss Borjorac. Bassett would be in a real stew, terribly embarrassed. Miss Borjorac would be quite beside herself at the thought of losing a tourist who had most probably been murdered in the brothel district. I hoped they wouldn’t cut off her head, or bundle her away to Siberia.
5
Pavol Krajcin was not a particularly easy man to contact. I had never expected he would be, hence my problem — now, I hoped, resolved. I had had no alternative but to vanish, once the tourist party had served its purpose of getting me into the country; it was the only way, but it did present obvious difficulties of its own, difficulties that I could only hope Pavol Krajcin would be able to overcome. I believed he probably could and I had this trust because I knew Max so well. He hadn’t uttered a single promise to commit Pavol Krajcin and he hadn’t even indicated how the Professor of Moral Philosophy could be useful; but I knew that when Max gave an agent a name under the circumstances in which he had given me Krajcin’s, then that name could be regarded as a pretty good bet. A kind of banker.
Nevertheless, Krajcin certainly could not be approached openly. Nor could I telephone him at the Charles University where he worked. As for a home number, I had already checked that he was not listed in the directory. Just to add to my difficulties, I didn’t even know what he looked like, though I don’t suppose it would have helped all that much if I had; I could scarcely hang around the place all day, waiting for him to emerge.
I went into a café while I worked it out. I had two cups of hot, strong coffee and a bread roll. As usual with me, a cigarette completed breakfast. When I went out into the street again I was still no nearer a solution, except that I was beginning to feel a desire to stick my neck out and use the telephone to Krajcin’s university department after all. I was suffering from a feeling of pressure, as if the clock and Drakotny were both breathing hard down my neck. And I knew that without some kind of a starter such as Pavol Krajcin I wouldn’t have a hope of getting anywhere at all.
It was while I was wandering, more or less aimlessly now, in the direction of the university that I became aware of the footsteps behind me. They could have been anybody’s, but my sixth sense gave me the warning that I had a tail. They were not the only footsteps, for the street was far from empty, but they were the only set that was staying behind me and stopping when I stopped. After a while I turned into a shop doorway and looked round and I saw Nada Strecka. My heart gave a jump. She stopped as well, and looked in the window. It happened to be a food shop. She moved nearer to me, slowly, her eyes on long bread rolls, invitingly displayed. “Well met,” she said. I saw no movement of her lips. I didn’t answer, because I had seen from the corner of my eye that a policeman had chosen this moment of all moments to come along the street, from the direction we had both come in. But he gave us no more than a glance as he went by. Nada Strecka spoke again. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
“You expected me to come, then?”
She nodded. “I never did believe your people had really dropped this. The dangers are far too obvious.”
I said, “Well, you’ve found me.”
“Yes. I thought you might come around this way.”
“The university?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Think!”
I thought; not for long. Universities contain students and intellectuals. The world over, they act as an opinion gauge and as a focal point for anti-Government movements. It’s in their nature, of course. And this one also contained Krajcin, so the girl wasn’t far out. I said, “Okay, okay, point taken. You don’t happen to know a university professor, a man called Pavol Krajcin, I suppose?”
She shook her head. “No. Do you?”
“By name only. Look, Nada. How’re things with you? I mean … well, didn’t you have any difficulty at the frontier?”
“Yes,” she said. Then she caught her breath, and glanced over her shoulder, and I looked too, and saw the policeman coming back. Speaking very fast now Nada said, “Tonight … not before eleven o’clock — 15 Olomouc Street.”
“Right,” I whispered back. Then I took a chance, and got it in before the policeman was near enough to see or hear. “Contact Professor Krajcin — even though you don’t know him personally, you’ll have a better chance than me and I have to talk to him. It’s vital.” Then, hunching my shoulders deeper into my coat, I turned away, leaving the shop door with a lingering glance at all the foodstuffs, and walked on past the cop. I was aware of Nada moving off in the other direction. I looked back from farther on and I saw Nada going away from me at a brisk pace, with the policeman in rear. I didn’t know if he was following her or not, and I thought it might be inadvisable to hang around and make sure.
*
It was a lousy day for me and I thought it would never end. I had nowhere to go and I was damned cold and wet. It snowed intermittently, and in the intervals it sleeted, and a bitter wind blew up and howled along the streets and alleys and across the squares. I worried a lot about whether Krajcin would get the message, and if he would co-operate if he did, and I decided it could be doubtful, since I hadn’t had the opportunity to pass anything comprehensive to Nada Strecka. From time to time I thought of Bassett and the others, snug in the hotel or walking around the Castle under Miss Borjorac’s protective wing, unless of course the schedule had been thrown into confusion on account of my vanishment. When the evening papers were on the streets I bought copies and read them in a small and rather dirty restaurant where I had a meal. There was nothing about me, nothing at all. I had half expected a total silence so I wasn’t surprised; and naturally I was much relieved. It made life a trifle easier for me. Also, it seemed to me that Miss Borjorac had probably accepted, and duly reported, Bassett’s story, which for a cer
tainty would have been that he believed I had been murdered, with robbery as the motive. He’d been scared enough himself when I’d told him what could happen — and, of course, it could and did happen. I’d laid it on thick for my own reasons, but men did get murdered in the red-light district and I knew it, and so, naturally, would the authorities. I could just hear Bassett: “By gum, Miss Borjorac, that poor devil warned me and then it was him got done in. Shows that kind o’ thing doan’t pay off, eh? Catch me muckin’ about like that, by gum, I doan’t know, really I doan’t … I just went with him to keep an eye on him like, and he went and gave me the slip …”
Yes, it would be something like that. And as for me … well, I would be written off as a degenerate tourist from a capitalist country, a seeker after dirt who had got his just deserts, and the Press would go on keeping quiet about it because the West wasn’t supposed to know, officially at any rate, that the clean sanctity of Communism permitted such sullying things as red-light districts …
By the time 2300 hours were announced by the striking timepieces of the city, Bassett’s feet of the night before had nothing on mine. They were too numb to feel much actual pain, though, as I made my way towards Olomouc Street, which I had identified earlier on the east side of the Charles Bridge over the Vltava River. Not easy to find, and I’d had to ask a couple of times, but now, as the appointed time drew near, I was able to go straight for it. It was 2310 when I banged on the door of Number 15, and almost immediately it was opened up, though only to the length of a chain. As the crack appeared an elderly female voice asked who it was. I said, “The names Shaw,” and then I heard Nada Strecka’s voice giving me the okay. The door opened wide enough to let me in, and was at once shut, locked, bolted, and chained behind me. A light went on. I was in a long passage, with stairs rising from the end. It looked poor but clean and there was a wholesome smell of furniture polish. The old girl who had let me in seemed to be a relic of the distant past. I doubt if she was a day less than eighty, though her carriage was erect enough. She was dressed entirely in black, in an old-world dress with a full skirt that fell to her ankles, and from the way she stood, with her hands folded neatly in front, I guessed she was probably a servant, a retainer from more spacious days. Nada made no introductions but gestured me along to the stairs, and up; and up I went, ahead of Nada, with the old lady trundling along behind. When I reached a landing, Nada directed me into a room opening off to the right. I went into a cheerful scene: big, friendly chairs, a fire flickering in the grate, and on a small table, a bottle of Scotch whisky, which must have cost a small fortune, and some glasses, with a jug of water.
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