“Well,” I said, “that may give you peace of mind, I suppose, but is it wise?”
“I say again, I do not believe the theory.”
“It’s up to you,” I said, shrugging. I couldn’t save him against his will. “How is your health, Comrade Drakotny?”
“Good. Excellent.”
“No high blood pressure, no heart strain?”
“None.”
“Fierlinger, Lina, and Krajcin say this?”
“I have not asked them. I say it.”
“A little expert advice would help. I suggest you bring in another doctor, somebody quite independent of the other three. Just as a check.”
Power, magnetism, and general attractiveness to disciples can sometimes lead to the obstinacy of a mule. “No,” Drakotny said.
I nearly left it at that but decided I would try just once more. “How do you feel in yourself?” I asked.
“Very, very fit.”
“No loss of appetite?” I hazarded. “No dizziness, no chest or arm pains, no feeling of fullness in the head, no indigestion, tiredness, constipation … diarrhoea?”
Comprehensive wasn’t the word; he simply had to have one or other of those symptoms at his age. It’s quite surprising how often suggestion works in the field of medicine. Drakotny said, “I have none of these,” but he didn’t say it as stoutly as he’d made his earlier denials and I saw, or fancied I saw, a vaguely troubled look in his face. After that, I did leave it. Drakotny was glad enough to be done with it, but I guessed he would brood later and that three medical gentry were as of now under the slightest of clouds … I hoped, if all this ended in their dispatch to the salt mines, that they really were as guilty as all hell.
As for me, I was still in the hot seat. Drakotny still had things on his mind and I reckoned one of them would be Miss Strecka. I was right. He took time to work around to it, moving as he did by way of a denunciation of the perniciousness of Western ideas and so on penetrating Communism’s maidenly and innocent modesty; but he got there in the end, proceeding via the fact that the Czech universities had been instructed to reduce to a minimum their academic contacts with the West. That had been Drakotny’s own personal order, transmitted via the Ministry of Education — Yugoslavia, he said, had done the same thing.
I asked why.
“We must resist the infiltration of alien ideologies into our countries. Already there has been a purge of senior university staffs — not a searching enough one, since we missed Pavol Krajcin. More will shortly be done, however.” He added sententiously, “The Party, you see, must separate itself from those who have divorced themselves ideologically from the Party!”
“Rude Pravo” I said.
He seemed surprised. I told him I did occasionally read the foreign press and I happened to have remembered that quote. It was after this that the key emerged, and the key was drugs. Drakotny, and I didn’t blame him, disliked drugs intensely and saw them as a purely Western manifestation; and here, self-interest came into the open. Drugs had been the ruination of a woman who could have been so useful and so rewarding to an ambitious Communist: Nada Strecka.
“You will know about this,” Drakotny said. “This is, of course, inevitable. It does not embarrass me. We are men together.” He was referring now to the fact he had taken unto himself a mistress as well as an agent. “The strains of office, of command, of responsibility … with the best of wills, our wives are never enough, though it is in their natures to think they should be. Also, in reverse, wives need other men from time to time — it improves them for their husbands. This is nature. It is not of this I speak.”
Then get around to it, I thought irritably, I’m on tenterhooks to know my own personal fate and to hell with your sex life. He went on, “It was politically necessary for me to disengage. You will understand this also, as a man of affairs. This led by normal process to the arrest of an agent who had fallen into line with the West. I could not compromise my own position by seeming to condone what Miss Strecka had done. But I confess to being unhappy with the results. While in police hands, she cannot be allowed to continue taking drugs. This is obvious. Yet, as you know, it is dangerous to health for an addict to stop suddenly.”
“Sure,” I said. “Can be fatal. Can’t you issue a special directive?”
“It would be possible,” he said. “Possible, but not very politic. Oh, no.” I remembered what Nada herself had said about the pressures on Drakotny. “Imagine. Think of this for yourself. I, Drakotny, acting as the Prime Minister at this moment, loyal to International Communism, to be known to allow access to drugs to a former mistress in custody! No, no. This could not be done.”
“Then what can?” I asked. I already had a premonition; a nice one.
Drakotny walked back to his window and stood there for a while, looking down into the Castle grounds. A flurry of snow blew off a roof somewhere; the sky was darkening again. From the distance I heard bells. It was very Christmassy. Then the strong man of Prague came back towards me and said, “This is what can be done. I shall change my decision, and allow the release of Miss Strecka. Then —”
“I thought only women changed their minds so often, Comrade Drakotny.”
He smiled then; it was the first time, and it really transformed his face. It became human, almost good-looking, almost friendly. It added a lot to my good impression of him. He said, “Ah, Commander Shaw, surely you know this, that a leader must always have something of the woman in him as well as the man! So I change my mind. I am told there is some sympathy between you and Miss Strecka.”
“Are you indeed?” I was being cautious; I didn’t want to taint the girl with capitalistic tendencies any more than she was tainted already.
“Come, be honest with me, as I am being honest with you! You have feeling for Miss Strecka.”
I nodded; that wasn’t her fault. “That’s right enough,” I agreed. “I have. She’s a nice girl.”
“Yes, a nice girl, for whom I, too, have still some feeling left. This is why I wish to ask of you a favour, Commander.”
“Of me?” I’d had that premonition, but this was a time for caution and surprise. “Did I hear you right, Comrade Drakotny?”
“Very right. You also are to be released. I have no charges to make. I enlist your help. Not only in the seeking of my enemies, whom I do not believe to be my doctors, whatever you say, but also to watch over Miss Strecka and wean her gently from these filthy Western drugs. You agree?”
“I don’t have much choice, do I?” Frankly, I was overjoyed. Freedom was lovely, especially freedom with the seal of Drakotny’s approval — until he changed his mind, of course — and so was the weaning of Nada Strecka. “How do I get her a supply?”
“I shall see to that.” Drakotny looked at his watch; I had the idea he was rushed for time. “The good Fräulein Frossen will soon receive parcels. I leave Miss Strecka in your hands and hers. I think that is all, Commander. When you have news, of any sort — you understand? — you will go to police headquarters and ask for a Colonel Starke. He has access directly to me, and can be trusted.”
I got to my feet, slowly. I supposed that in a sense I was Drakotny’s man now. It was a curious feeling after all these years, to be helping the Commos. Unnerving, too. They had a short way with failures, and if Fierlinger, Lina, and Jan Krajcin turned out not to be the villains of the piece after all, I certainly didn’t know who the hell was. I said, “Don’t forget what I told you, Comrade Drakotny. About your health. See a doctor. Have a checkup. Don’t put it off. Do it today!”
He waved a hand at me, in friendly dismissal. I turned away, wishing to God he would take my ideas more seriously, then I stopped and looked back. “Comrade Drakotny,” I said, “you referred to Miss Strecka as … an ex-mistress. I wonder … would you mind telling me, just how ex?”
He smiled for the second time. “In the circumstances, I shall tell you, Comrade Commander: in the way you mean it, very ex. As you in the West would say, the ditch is you
rs!”
“Field” would have sounded better, even in Czech, but still. I walked out of Drakotny’s splendid apartment on air, more buoyant than I’d been in years, cocking a metaphorical snook at the bald-headed man, who had me detained while he answered a summons to Drakotny. He came out looking chastened and dismissive. Then I headed out of the Castle grounds as fast I could make it. It wasn’t until I was walking towards the gates that I wondered why Drakotny was bothering about the drug addiction of someone who was so very ex.
11
Fred Bassett and the Frumms as well as Nada Strecka were on my mind as I went out, a free man, and looked back at the sentries at the gateway in the ornamented black iron railings. While with Drakotny I had thought of pressing for a general release for Bassett and the Frumms, but had decided not to do so just then. It could be fatal to crowd Drakotny too far, and a better time would come. Meanwhile, I had scarcely gone a couple of hundred yards on my way before I became aware of what I had expected: the tail. I didn’t fool myself that Drakotny’s trust in me was all that genuine. I would be under surveillance right the way along the line from now, and every movement would be reported back to Security Police headquarters. One move that Drakotny, or this Colonel Starke, didn’t like, and I would be back inside. Drakotny hadn’t said so, but he didn’t need to. Taking no chances now with my precious liberty, I headed, in accordance with what had appeared to be Drakotny’s orders, for Fräulein Frossen’s.
The old lady was not at home when I knocked; she was probably doing some last-minute Christmas shopping, I supposed, though for all she knew she was in for a lonely enough time. I was right, as it happened; after I had been mooching around for ten minutes or so, enjoying the spectacle of my tail trying to vanish without going too far away, I saw the black bundle coming along the street clasping two large baskets. When she approached and saw me, her whole face lit with gladness. She set the baskets on the snow and took both my hands in hers. Her face was working and she was unable to speak, so I spoke for her.
“You’ve been shopping,” I said, glancing down at the baskets. They were filled with festive-looking stuff, including a half-bottle of Riesling, and some carp, which the Czechs regard as a Christmas dish. “Are you expecting anybody?”
“Miss Nada,” she said simply. “All the time, I pray for her … pray that they let her out in time for Christmas. I know my prayers will be answered. That Drakotny, he loved Miss Nada once. He surely cannot —”
“It’s all right, Fräulein Frossen,” I said gently. I bent and picked up her baskets. “I’ve got good news for you. You’ve prayed well. Miss Nada will be home — any time now. I hope you’ve got enough here to feed me as well?”
She clasped her hands, her eyes brimming with tears again. “Oh, yes, yes! I am so glad, so glad … you are sure everything is going to be all right?”
I said, “Everything’s going to be fine, just fine … by personal order of Comrade Drakotny himself.”
Trembling, she fumbled a huge key into the old-fashioned lock and we went into the house. Once again, there was a fire flickering in the sitting-room upstairs, but the place had a different feel, as though someone had shifted all the furniture. I warmed my backside for a while, then went over to the window and looked down. The day was darkening now and the sky was heavily overcast, a greyish pink indicating the further snow to come. The lights were springing up all over; it was a pretty scene. There was peace in the air at last, and the sound of bells, Christmas bells. In a doorway opposite, my tail hunched his shoulders into a dirty, caped raincoat. He must have been freezing; either he was a lousy weather forecaster or the State didn’t run to nice thick greatcoats. Not that I cared.
There was a knock down below and Fräulein Frossen, who, after giving me a generous meal, had been sitting with me by the fire and growing more and more anxious as time passed, got to her feet. I said, “Sit down, Fräulein. I’ll go.”
“No,” she said. “It is Miss Nada. I must welcome her myself. I insist, Herr Commander.”
I shrugged; she should be safe enough. “All right,” I said, and off she went, a hurrying old bundle of decaying black. I moved to the door and listened as she released the chain. Then I drew a deep breath of sheer relief. It was Nada. I’d been worrying myself when she didn’t come, though I’d done my best not to let the old lady see it. The two of them came up the stairs and into the room and then I saw the gnawing fear in the old lady’s eyes and the haggardness of Nada’s face. Skin-popping time was here again. There was a snag, though: the supplies hadn’t come yet. Unless Nada had some with her.
I went over to her and took her hands. She was shaking like a leaf, all over, and she looked feverish. In a harsh voice she asked, “Where’s the stuff, where is it?”
I said, “It hasn’t come yet, Nada.”
“Oh, God.” It was a flat sound, a sound of the final desperation when all hope is gone. “God, God, God.”
I caught Fräulein Frossen’s eye. I asked urgently, “Is there any in the house?”
“None,” she said. She clasped her hands, looking anguished. “The police took it when they came. They searched everywhere with a toothcomb. All the secret hiding holes, they found. It is all gone.”
I nodded, and looked down again at Nada. I was holding her tightly now. I said, “You’ll have to take a grip, Nada, and just wait. I’m sorry. There’s nothing else anybody can do but wait.”
“I can’t wait, I can’t —”
“You must!” I spoke harshly now; I had no idea how to cope with a deprived addict, but felt that the only hope lay in sheer firmness — brutality, if necessary. “Did Drakotny tell you?”
“He said he would send a supply.”
“He told me that too. It’ll come, Nada. Just hang on.”
“When it does,” she said in that terrible flat tone, “you won’t give it to me. You bastard.”
I shook my head. “You’ll have it. That’s a promise. I loathe this thing that’s got you, and so does Drakotny. He wants me to get you off it. That’s what I want to do. But I know it can’t be done all at once. You’ll have your shot the moment it gets here. Hang on hard to that, Nada.”
She gave me a filthy look and a second later her knee came up and I felt an agonizing pain in the crutch. She broke right away from me; she seemed to have immense strength. She ran for the door — I don’t know what she had in her mind to do, maybe run to Drakotny — but the old woman got there first and threw her body against the door. That gave me time to grab Nada again. I grabbed her from behind and pinned her arms down hard, and pulled her backwards. Lifting her off her feet, I carried her, while her legs thrashed around like flails, to the sofa, where I dumped her and then sat on her. Sweat was streaming from me by this time and I was in a jagged mood, though I was still desperately sorry for her. My temper, my hate, wasn’t for her, it was for the filthy pushers whose greed had got her hooked in the first place. I couldn’t understand why the whole world couldn’t get together on this and institute the death penalty for drug pushers. Murder may or may not be due to a deprived childhood, or whatever it is the do-gooders say; but you can’t pin that label on the drug pushers.
I held Nada down while she screamed at me, screamed filth and blasphemy. Fräulein Frossen was on her knees, praying, with tears running down her old, seamed face. It was a really dreadful scene. I had some vague idea of how Nada would be feeling — just a sketch outline of her wicked turmoil. There would be a blinding headache, just as a starter. There would be physical weakness — already I could feel the spurt of strength was gone, that all her vitality was ebbing from her body — and soon nausea and vomiting. Every muscle would play her up cruelly, and there would be cramp, and diarrhoea; she would stream from eyes and nose and her twitching and jerking would reach beyond all control.
From my sitting position, I joined Fräulein Frossen in prayer. As Nada weakened, I shifted, so that I was sitting alongside her instead of on her. Her screams soon dwindled to heart-rending moans, and th
en she retched. I called to the old woman who took one look and then hurried off, and came back with a basin, which she held to Nada’s face. Nada started vomiting and it went on and on and on. It was just a green bile. I felt she was going to die. Perhaps she was more hooked than I’d thought, after all; or perhaps, in spite of the horror, her symptoms were mild compared with those of other addicts. Because she didn’t die; she just went on vomiting and making the most terrible noise. I found I was shaking myself, and some of it was due to a rising hatred for Drakotny for not keeping his promise of supply. I began to think perhaps he had intended this all along, that all he was doing with us was to perpetrate some ghastly joke, a revoltingly cruel deception.
But I was wrong, for two hours after Nada’s sickness began, another knock came at the door and I went down at a rush. There was a young girl waiting, a girl of no more than fifteen or so. She asked, “This is Comrade Strecka’s house, yes?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I have a package for her.” She thrust a small parcel at me, a parcel wrapped in white paper and sealed with red wax, just as doctors in Britain once sealed their medicine bottles. “Please sign.” She produced a book, and I scrawled a signature, and thanked her. I slammed the door and ran upstairs again, and ripped the parcel open. There was a phial of heroin tablets, and some cocaine, and a hypodermic with a supply of needles. I looked at Fräulein Frossen. She took the package and with surprising familiarity she shook out two tablets of heroin and dropped them into a small bottle that was also in the package. Then she added a small quantity of cocaine and went out of the room. When she came back she had added water to the bottle. She lit a match and held it beneath the bottle, heating the mixture until the tablets had dissolved. I caught her eye, and she shrugged, and said, “Miss Nada has shown me how to do this, you see. It is something I detest, and which normally she does for herself, but for her health it must be done by me now, so I do it.” She screwed up her eyes, fitted a needle to the hypodermic syringe, and she put the tip into the bottle, and the plunger sucked up the liquid. She squirted a little into the air. She said, “Miss Nada will inject herself,” and for the first time, so intent had I been on these preparations, I realized that the girl had quietened and was staring at the old woman with the intent, slavering expression of a starving dog waiting under the table for a titbit. She was still shaking, but nothing like to the extent that she had been earlier. It was amazing.
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