Republic Of Whores

by Josef Skvorecky

  Matka turned about smartly and marched out of the room, followed by his suite. Danny stayed behind. The soldiers condemned to try for the badge that army brochures referred to as “every man’s pride” began to curse heartily.

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later, a group of about thirty soldiers were crammed together at the back of the room in the political department, as far as they could get from the table at the front where the examination committee sat. They were bunched up, body to body, their backs tight against a row of cupboards that divided the room in two. In the centre of the cupboards was a narrow opening that led to a gloomy area full of dust-covered piles of ancient reports and fetid tin cans that had once held food. In front of the soldiers, rows of unoccupied chairs filled the otherwise empty space, and at the very front, alone, Private Poslušný sat hunched over, right under the noses of the committee, cramming from a crib card hidden in his boot. The committee, chaired by Lieutenant Prouza, sat behind a long table beneath official portraits of statesmen, while Růžička and Hospodin, in their role as observers, had placed themselves modestly behind a writing table at the window.

  Lieutenant Prouza stared silently at the men’s strange expression of shyness, while his daemon whispered in his ear: You must overcome the mistrust the comrades sometimes feel towards you. Often soldiers are ashamed to admit an interest in literature because they fear ridicule from others. You must gain their confidence through the appropriate behaviour. He stood up. “I’d like you to move forward, comrades,” he said cheerfully. “There’s plenty of room, and I won’t eat you.”

  But the soldiers refused to budge, and the gap between officers and men — an abyss, really — remained as large as ever, while the absurd, lonely figure of Private Poslušný, a model soldier with a Youth Union button on his tunic, cowered in front.

  “Please move forward, comrades. Don’t all jam into the corner.” Prouza wanted to say something encouraging, something human, so he told them, “As the great Stalin said: ‘With our new forms of work, you know, we are more or less rebuilding the old system of education on, as it were, the basis of comradely co-operation between the teacher and the pupil.’ None of us here is driven by the desire to give any of you a hard time, as they say. All we’d like to do is have a friendly discussion about books that everyone in the Union of Youth should know to help him develop and grow further.”

  The stony mass of silence at the back of the room remained unmoved. Danny, who was sitting beside the lieutenant, came to his assistance.

  “Come on, boys, move your butts a little closer. There’s no point jamming yourselves into a corner. It won’t do you any good anyway. So come off it.”

  But the lieutenant felt that this approach was inappropriate. To erase any negative impression the tank commander’s appeal might have made, he added quickly, “How would it be, comrades, if some of us up here were to come down there and sit with you, so you wouldn’t feel as though you’re at an examination? We’ll come and sit with you and just discuss things with you, because in the end that’s the real meaning of the Fučík Merit Badge.”

  Again there was no response. The lieutenant had almost lost heart when suddenly the door flew open and in came Sergeant Semančák, out of breath and carrying his own chair. He looked about the room to determine who the highest-ranking officer was, put the chair down on the floor, and sang out: “Comrade First Lieutenant, request permission to join the group.”

  “By all means,” said Růžička, from behind him.

  “Are you coming to try out for the Fučík Badge, Comrade Sergeant-Major?” Lieutenant Prouza asked pleasantly.

  “I sure am,” said Cash, and the trusting enthusiasm that radiated from his voice renewed the lieutenant’s hopes. Semančák put the useless chair in the corner, sat down beside Private Poslušný, and looked expectantly at the committee.

  “There, you see, comrades?” said Prouza. “Comrade Sergeant-Major came right up here to the front and took a seat. Now, all of you move in closer, so we can begin.”

  Cash turned around and addressed the crowd: “Come on, comrades,” he sang. “There’s nothing to fear. Plenty of room up here. Come on now, up you come.”

  The glowering cluster of soldiers began to move at last. The first to unstick himself from the cupboard at the back was the political agitator, Mácha. Perhaps some ancient awareness of his responsibilities moved him to do it. He was followed by Mengele, Kobliha, Bamza, and several others. Poslušný and the little sergeant-major remained alone in the front row, but the abyss that had threatened Lieutenant Prouza’s fondest hopes began to fill up quickly. Despite their dirty boots, their oil-stained uniforms, and their unshaven faces, the men didn’t look as formidable as when they’d been crammed into the corner. They were just young people, and their officers simply hadn’t been able to get close enough to them. Prouza was filled with a pleasant, visionary feeling: this could well be a watershed in the life of the Seventh Tank Battalion. He took a deep breath, expanded his chest, looked around at the assembly with fire in his eye, and initiated this historic turnaround:

  “Comrades! We have come together here, as it were, to take stock of how we have managed to carry out the pledges we have all made to attain the proud title of bearers of the Julius Fučík Badge of Merit, a man who over and over again, as it were, exhorts us, as Comrade Lenin ultimately put it, to study, study —” He paused and then, remembering something, added, “Study!” That was well put, he thought, but there was still something missing:

  “We have to study, and study hard. As Fučík said, we have to catch up to and surpass, in every way, the capitalist powermongers, so that we may break through and crush the enemies of our country and our people’s democratic system, so that we can, as it were, learn to do and know what we can be taught by the people and their great leader and teacher Generalissimo Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin — and Comrade Malenkov” — he quickly added the name of the deceased immortal’s successor — “and so that we will, in the end, fulfil the tasks of our combat and political training as we enter the year nineteen hundred and fifty-three. So, comrades!” he said, taking a breath. “And now, to start, to get the discussion flowing, as it were, let’s take something from the reading list. Are we in agreement, comrades?” He turned to the committee with the vague feeling that his introductory remarks had not come off as well as they should have. The committee nodded.

  “Let’s begin with a book you’ve all read, and perhaps even seen at the movies — Far from Moscow. Which of you has not read it, comrades?”

  He had deliberately begun with a trick from the pedagogical arsenal of the unforgettable Major Kondráč. We know from experience, this exemplary teacher would say, that if we ask soldiers which of them knows, has seen, read, or heard of something, they will all remain silent, and that if we ask them which of them does not know, or has not seen, read, or heard of etc. etc., they will often remain silent as well, but in the latter case we have at least constructed a natural springboard to further questions. For instance, we can come back and say, “Well, in that case, how would it be if you, comrade,” and point to a specific comrade.…

  “Well, in that case,” Lieutenant Prouza said into the dark silence that filled the room, “how about telling us something about the book —” and he looked around, giving the soldiers a moment to think about an answer. “Just use your own words, as you remember the book. How about —” and he searched the faces in front of him, some of which were dumb and frowning, others screwed up into what was meant to look like an attempt to remember, and still others staring intently at the ceiling. Three or four of the candidates were suddenly overcome by an urgent need to blow their noses loudly and thoroughly. The lieutenant’s eyes came to rest on the contented career sergeant in the first row. Should I try him? Cash was smiling with trusting eyes, apparently delighted at the prospect of another easy medal, but the lieutenant interpreted his optimistic look differently. Here is a career non-com, he thought. He must have prepared pro
perly for this test. His example will encourage the others.

  “Well then, Sergeant-Major, why don’t you tell us what you remember about the book.”

  Semančák’s response was not what the young officer had expected. Obviously terrified at being singled out, he turned pale and began to stutter incoherently. “Far from Moscow is — well, like they say, it’s — uh, the thing about it is, I mean — it’s a book, right? — where the guy — the writer, I mean — he writes about, the thing he tells us is all about the stuff — uh, the stuff that goes on over there, you know, far from Moscow, I mean a long way from Moscow, which is the capital city of the — uh, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.…”

  Danny, who was trying desperately but unsuccessfully to remember what Far from Moscow was all about, was at this point lost in the memory of a rather dirty and totally unprepared urchin he had been examining in zoology once, during his brief pre-army career as an elementary-school teacher. He’d challenged the boy to tell the class what he knew about the Indian elephant. The grubby pupil had started hesitantly, “The Indian elephant … is an … animal that … lives in India.…” Here he had left a long pause, before suddenly launching into a fluent explanation: “India is a country where capitalists still exploit workers. Exploitation means —” and he had droned off a perfect Marxist definition of exploitation, which was all Danny had learned that day about Indian elephants.

  He shook his head and returned to the present, where Cash went on droning, “and he wrote about how it was over there, back then, I mean when they were — well, they were working, right? — I mean not very well, because like I said, they were a long way from Moscow, right? But these people, they worked there a long time, but not all of them were too good at — uh — at what they were doing, except for these guys — I mean, they — well, anyway, they figured out that they had to do everything, like for themselves — work, I mean — everybody who was — uh — and there weren’t no more capitalists to — uh, exploit the peasants any more — and so they had to, well, do even better at, you know what I mean, reaching the whaddayacallums — the norms I guess is what they say, because everything belongs to the people, right? And so from then on they came up with a lot of good ideas on how to — uh, how to make things better and stuff like that, so they made all these socialist pledges, because in those parts it wasn’t just that the people knew — but like the priest told them they’d rot in hell if they worked — so I mean even the kulaks and even the guys doing sabotage, I mean they all went — went to — to those parts that were — well — a long way from Moscow, the capital city of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics —” Danny suddenly realized that Cash had given them the gist of the universal story which was repeated, with minor variations, in novel after novel, and in that sense his answer could be classified as correct.

  But Prouza, instead of accepting Cash’s digest, headed doggedly towards disaster. He hadn’t expected such inarticulacy, or such ignorance of the book. After all, there was nothing in it about priests. Or was there? He was suddenly unsure of himself, realizing that he too had forgotten exactly what the book was about.

  “Can anyone be more specific?” he said, looking around at the scattered assembly.

  No one volunteered.

  “No one?” he asked, disappointed, and rested his eyes on Sergeant Mácha. Mácha had been blowing his nose when the questioning began, and he had stopped when Cash started to speak, but when it was clear that he would soon run out of breath, Mácha had pulled out his handkerchief again and begun using it for as long as seemed prudent. Now, just as he was putting it back in his pocket, he became the committee chairman’s next victim.

  “What about you, Comrade Sergeant? Wouldn’t you like to help the comrade sergeant-major out?”

  “Sure,” said Mácha sadly. “The novel takes place in — in —” and he thought hard, then made up his mind — “far from Moscow, in the Kyzl Kum desert.”

  “I think you’re mixing it up with —”

  “I know! I kind of overshot. It takes place in — in —”

  “Would it be Siberia?”

  “That’s it, Siberia. And the Party secretary, he — he organizes the work details there. According to new methods.” Mácha was sure of himself now. “The workers there work by the old methods, but the Party secretary persuades them it’s better to work by the new methods. A few of the workers are, are politically clueless, and they don’t like the new methods because they think it makes them work harder, but this guy, the secretary, he shows them that if they set things up properly, they won’t have to work their butts off. And that’s how they manage to meet the plan and — and —”

  “Good!” said Prouza. “So they erect the building in less time. Do you remember how they do that?” He was hoping the well-read sergeant would remember now, because he suddenly realized that he couldn’t even remember — and this was terrible — what it was they were supposed to be building. The sergeant did not disappoint him.

  “They erected it in less time because using the old methods they would have finished it a lot later the way they had it planned, but with the new methods, and using the shock-worker movement, giving prizes for extra work, they built it in less time because they could start production a lot sooner than they planned it according to the old methods they made the plan by, which would have been a lot later —”

  “That’s right! And can you tell us what importance this had for the Soviet Union, that they were able to build things faster? Perhaps you could answer that, Comrade Private?”

  Private Mengele got to his feet. After a long pause, he answered, “Well, it had great importance.”

  “Of course. But what did it allow them to do?”

  “It allowed them to” — Private Mengele hesitated, then went on — “to increase productivity —”

  “Yes, that’s exactly right! They could ultimately increase the productivity of work and increase the norms as they fulfilled the plans. There, you see, comrades? It’s not that difficult! You mustn’t be afraid of literature.”

  Encouraged by the success of his dialectical method, Prouza next asked the assembled students about a book he presumed would be more familiar to them than the Russian novel. After all, the badge they were going to earn that day was named after its author. But when he enquired about Report from the Gallows, only one man raised his hand — Sergeant Mácha. It came out that he’d only read an article on Julius Fučík in the current issue of the magazine The Czechoslovak Soldier. Challenged to reproduce its content, Mácha proved that his knowledge of even the brief article was hazy. “It was called,” he said, “ ‘Julius Fučík — Soldier’. Fučík” — he thought hard — “Fučík served in the army during the first pre-Munich bourgeois capitalist republic and he took part in illegal political agitation among the comrades.”

  Prouza nodded and the sergeant felt encouraged. “He can be an example to us political workers about how to work with other comrades.”

  He looked questioningly at Prouza, who nodded and said, “That’s right.”

  “In fact,” the political agitator continued, more confidently now, “he was one of the first political agitators.”

  “Excellent, Comrade Sergeant,” said the lieutenant. “Julius was, in fact, in a manner of speaking, one of our first political agitators, right inside the capitalist army of the pre-Munich republic. And now, Comrade Sergeant, what should we take from his work as a model for our own?”

  The sergeant, now utterly sure of himself, answered firmly, “This Fučík told the comrades how to make army life easier. He told them that, like, when an officer gave them an order to sing, they should do what he said, but only so they didn’t get forced to do pushups, because they had to save their strength for the real struggle once they went back to civilian life. He always stood up for the soldiers against the officers and the ball-busting — as the soldiers in the capitalist bourgeois army used to call it back then, and — and —”

  The lieutenant quailed.
Mácha’s interpretation of the article was materially correct, but somehow his verve gave it a meaning that lost sight of the correct point of view. He knew his facts but he hadn’t grasped them from a class perspective, whereas Lieutenant Prouza was able to give a class perspective even to problems he knew nothing about. Like many of his colleagues, the lieutenant could find the politically correct point of view in a situation without knowing any details whatsoever, and knowing that gave him a calm self-assurance. “Back then, that was certainly the right approach,” he said. “But in what way can we use Julius’s work as a direct model, in a sense, for our own work today? Do you see what I’m trying to say, Comrade Sergeant?”

  Mácha looked less than entirely sure. “Well, in — like, in the way he always defended ordinary soldiers against officers — I mean —”

  Suddenly the figure of Lieutenant Růžička rose behind Prouza. So far Růžička had remained silent, but now he had decided to rescue the hapless fledgeling officer.

  “Wait a minute, Mácha,” he said, and turned to the young lieutenant. “Comrade Sergeant has the right idea, you just have to get him to be more precise. Mácha, what do we say the first republic was?”

  Faced by his immediate superior, the agitator’s eloquence and loquacity faded. “A bourgeois democracy,” he said curtly.

  “And what else?”

  “Capitalist.”

  “And what do we say the ruling class was?”

  “Capitalist.”

  “And who served in the army?”

  “The people.”