Republic Of Whores

by Josef Skvorecky

“And who were the officers?”

  “The capitalists.”

  “And today?”

  A light finally went on in the sergeant’s head. “Today we say,” he replied quickly, “that officers are sons of the working class.”

  “And the people what?”

  “Rule.”

  “And therefore there is no what between the officers and the men?”

  “Gulf,” sighed the sergeant with relief.

  “That’s right,” said Růžička. “And therefore, was Fučík correct or incorrect to urge the comrades to carry out orders only formally?”

  “Correct.”

  “Whereas today is it still correct to urge the comrades not to carry out their duties, to avoid responsibilities, not to take part in exercises, to neglect their political growth?”

  Růžička’s tone of voice left no doubt as to what the proper answer was and Mácha responded with utter certainty: “No, it isn’t.”

  “So Julius Fučík, who was really our first political agitator, provided what example?”

  “His example was,” said the sergeant — beginning bravely, but then lapsing into some confusion — “his example was — he encouraged the comrades to carry out their duties — to be politically aware — to take part in exercises and be ready for combat —”

  “Yes, comrades,” concluded Růžička, who was no longer listening to Mácha, but was preparing a few grand, ceremonial phrases to wrap things up. “Julius Fučík was able to fire up the comrades with enthusiasm for socialism and for the struggle of the working class. As the great Stalin himself said, ‘Those who wish to fire others up must burn themselves.’ And Julius Fučík burned, comrades, and he fired up the weaker comrades. And we too must burn, comrades, and inspire the weaker comrades to carry out their duties, to follow orders, to be politically and physically prepared for combat, to be disciplined, to exercise with all our might, because, as Kutuzov has said, the more sweat on the training field, the less blood on the battlefield.”

  “Amen,” said Private First Class Dr. Mlejnek. As a member of the committee, he had spent all this time scribbling notes under the table on the most interesting statements made by the men and the officers, so that he could offer them to Sergeant Krajta for his Czechoslovak Army Folklore in exchange for an old issue of Amazing Stories.

  “And that, Comrade Lieutenant, is how you must guide the comrades to the correct answer.” With those words, Růžička swept triumphantly out of the room with the air of someone who had done his duty well, leaving Prouza to face thirty soldiers alone. Prouza felt humbled by Růžička’s masterful performance. There was so much more he had to absorb, to make truly his own. There was so much he didn’t yet know how to do. He looked around the assembly, and suddenly he lost the will to continue in the role of chief inquisitor. He resorted to a trick used by all pedagogues who have run out of inspiration or forgotten their facts. He turned to the committee, which up until then had maintained a non-committal silence, and asked: “Do you have any questions, comrades?”

  This jolted the committee out of its lethargy. The first to come to his senses was Dr. Mlejnek, who singled out Private Bamza and said, “Have you, Comrade Private, read anything by Jiří Wolker?”

  It was not an idle question. Dr. Mlejnek knew that several evenings ago, in the barracks, a whole crowd of these men had read Wolker’s poem “The Ballad of the Unborn Child”, although not, of course, in preparation for the test. He knew, too, that Bamza had read a certain passage from it out loud to the others.

  “You mean, have I read anything by Wolker?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Yeah, well, I read that — what d’you call it — that ballad about the aborted kid, right?”

  “The unborn child.”

  “Right, the unborn child.”

  “And how did you like it?”

  “I liked it okay.”

  “Anyone else read it?” Dr. Mlejnek turned to the group. It mumbled in affirmation.

  “And who can tell us what it was about?” asked Dr. Mlejnek, raising a more complex question.

  The hand of the ill-fated Private Bamza flew into the air. Lieutenant Prouza half rose out of his chair, intending to stop him from speaking, but then thought better of it and sat down again. Dr. Mlejnek nodded to the private.

  “It’s all about these two dough-heads who fall in love,” declared Bamza, “and he knocks her up but they’re both poor, right? So she has to, you know, get rid of it.”

  “Good. Has anyone read anything else by Wolker?” asked Mlejnek quickly, hoping to shift the discussion to a safer theme. But Lieutenant Prouza’s daemon seized him once more, against his will. It can’t be left at that, he thought. A poem that raises the issue of how capitalist society destroys everything pure, including love, should be fully exploited for its pedagogical benefits. The lieutenant raised his hand and interrupted Dr. Mlejnek.

  “Excuse me, Comrade Private. Comrade Private, you described the subject matter of the poem correctly, as it were, but what do you think the poem tells us about the present, about today?”

  Bamza looked at the lieutenant with sullen eyes.

  “D’you see what I’m getting at?” Prouza pressed. “What was the poet, as it were, trying to criticize?”

  Bamza stared at him without a flicker of comprehension.

  “What I mean is,” the lieutenant continued, groping for ways to rephrase the question, “can such things happen even today, in our People’s Democracy?”

  A dark cloud filled Bamza’s eyes. “You mean, do guys still knock up unmarried women?” he said warily.

  “Well no, not that — of course, I mean that too, I mean yes, such unfortunate practices still survive here and there, but what I meant —”

  “Oh, I get you. You mean, do women still have to get rid of it, right?”

  “Something like that. What I was really thinking of was whether young people still have to resort to such extreme measures, do you see? Are such things still necessary in our People’s Democracy?”

  By this time Bamza’s scowl was intense. “Well, yeah, sometimes, yeah.”

  “But for health reasons, of course. Is that what you mean?”

  “Well, yeah, sure, there’s that too,” said Bamza. “Or like when a woman’s pregnant and a guy walks out on her and she don’t want to live with the scandal —”

  “But try to understand me, Comrade Private. Do people still have abortions today because they can’t, as it were, afford to keep the baby?”

  “Yeah, sure they do,” said Bamza without hesitation. “Where I come from in Žižkov there was this guy who had eleven kids, all boys, and this spring his wife got rid of the next one because he said, like, who’s going to feed the little bugger, and besides, he’d named all his kids after the twelve apostles and the only name left was Judas and that’s a hell of a name to hang on anyone, and anyways the priest would never of christened it that, and he couldn’t give it any other name because it would of screwed everything up and he was all nervous about having an unchristened kid because he was a devout Catholic and so —”

  “Comrade Private!” said Prouza, interrupting the tide of words. “That’s possible, of course, but it’s not typical, as it were. And the poet wasn’t writing about cases like that, because literature has to represent what is typical and positive. Do young people today who love each other and want to start a family — do they have to resort to such methods?”

  After a short, gloomy pause, Bamza admitted that they didn’t.

  “There, you see?” said the lieutenant. “And why did young people in the past have to resort to abortion?”

  “Because they were poor.”

  “Right. You see, all you have to do is think about the poem a little. Now, why were they poor?”

  “Because there was a depression,” replied Bamza.

  “Right again. And can there be a depression today?”

  “No.”

  To Prouza’s great relief, Serge
ant Mácha stepped in. “There can’t be a depression today,” he said, with the assurance of an expert, “because today the people own the relations of production. There used to be depressions before, because the relations of production belonged to the capitalists.”

  There was something that didn’t seem quite right about his reply, but Lieutenant Prouza let it pass. “But in the end, concretely, as it were,” he said, “to whom do these, ah, relations of production belong?”

  “To the people,” replied Sergeant Mácha resolutely.

  “Whereas before? Someone else answer now — Comrade Sergeant?” and Prouza pointed to Kobliha.

  With equal resoluteness, Kobliha replied, “Before, they belonged to the capitalists.”

  “Yes, comrades,” Prouza concluded. His tone was tragic. “Now do you see what meaning this poem has, ultimately? It directly demonstrates how, during the capitalist republic, even love, as it were, was joyless and wretched, and how, ultimately, young people got married for reasons quite different than today. Now, can anyone explain to us the motive force under capitalism, when two young people wanted to get married?”

  “Money,” Sergeant-Major Semančák piped up.

  Someone at the back snickered, but the lieutenant nodded. “Correct, Comrade Sergeant-Major. And today?”

  The present-day reasons for getting married seemed quite beyond the comprehension of the tiny Semančák, and Sergeant-Major Soudek had to answer: “They have to be fond of each other, right?”

  “Yes, comrades. Under capitalism, the woman was not much more than a burden, as it were, to the man. Her only duty was to bring him a dowry. We say that the bourgeoisie desocialized the wife’s role. Today, under our people’s socialist system, the relationship between men and women has changed from the foundations up, as it were. Nowadays, men look for something quite different in women. Take you, Comrade Private,” he said, addressing Bamza. “Suppose you wanted to get married. What would you most value about your girl, ultimately?”

  Bamza looked dreamily at the lieutenant and seemed to be hesitating.

  “Well?” said the lieutenant encouragingly. “What about … this, as it were?” and with the fingers of both hands he tapped the centre of his chest. It was a gesture intended to indicate purity of heart, but it was hardly Marxist; it harked back to a distant period in his life when he had been as enthusiastic about the catechism and serving as an altar boy as he now was about military pedagogy. “What about this?” he repeated, questioningly.

  “Tits?” replied Bamza, warily.

  The reply threw Prouza off balance, but it brought new life to the wilted assembly. A hum went round the benches and a trumpeting sound came from the table where the examination committee was sitting. This was Dr. Mlejnek using his handkerchief.

  “No, no, legs are the most important,” Střevlíček suggested. It was the first time he had spoken.

  “What’s so important about legs?” retorted Soudek disdainfully. “You can’t see their legs in the dark.”

  “You can’t see their tits either,” objected Střevlíček.

  “But you can feel them,” countered Soudek.

  “You’re not going to spend all your time in bloody bed with her,” said Mácha, making a political point. “You’ll be going on walks with her, right?”

  “If walking’s all you want to do, then wooden legs would be good enough,” Soudek shot back.

  “And a dowry’s important too,” Semančák added. “An eiderdown, bed linen, even a little money in the bank wouldn’t hurt.”

  “The hell with that,” said Bamza, by now an experienced literary critic. “They bring in currency reform and your bank account’s worth dick. A house is more like it, right?”

  “Listen to this smartass,” called out Mácha, as though Bamza had struck a nerve. “Put money into a house? Today?”

  “But you got equity in a house.”

  “They’ll nationalize your equity when they nationalize your house,” said Kobliha.

  “They haven’t yet.”

  “Don’t worry, they will.”

  As Lieutenant Prouza followed the discussion, he felt more and more like Alice in Wonderland. His brochures had not anticipated such a situation. A weak groan escaped his mouth, unnoticed by the candidates for the Fučík Badge. As though all restraint had left them, they expanded on the theme, going deeper and deeper into it until Lieutenant Hospodin intervened. Hospodin had remained silent for a long time, not because he was bewildered by the turn the discussion had taken, but because he too was deeply interested in the problem. At last, however, he remembered his responsibilities, stood up, and called out, “Just a moment, comrades.”

  The animated faces of the debaters turned towards him, and hardened once again into expressionless masks. “What the comrade lieutenant was getting at was, what is a woman today supposed to be like from the point of view of socialist morality?”

  The room was silent.

  “Well?” asked Hospodin. “What kind of spiritual qualities would you look for in a woman? Soudek?”

  The sergeant-major hesitated. “I — I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “I mean from the psychiatric point of view,” explained Hospodin, who was a self-taught baker in civilian life.

  “I —” Soudek shrugged his shoulders.

  “Her character, if you like,” added the lieutenant, trying to be more down to earth.

  “Oh, I see,” said Soudek. “Well, she should be wholesome.”

  “That’s important,” allowed Hospodin, “but it’s hardly the most important thing. What are the principles of socialist morality that every girl must live up to? Just remember, now, we studied it in a brochure called ‘Towards a Higher Socialist Morality’.”

  “I know!” cried Sergeant Mácha. “She has to be faithful to the people and —” He gave a sidelong glance at Hospodin, who nodded encouragement.

  “She has to be faithful to the people and the people’s democratic system, she has to help her husband, she has to … to.…”

  “What kind of relationship must exist between husband and wife?” asked the lieutenant.

  Mácha tried to recall the correct answer but couldn’t. It was Private Bamza, frowning like a thundercloud, who put his hand up.

  “Yes?” said the education officer brightly.

  “It has to be legitimate,” Bamza declared gravely and gloomily. He obviously meant it, but Hospodin took the answer as an impertinence and lashed out at him.

  “This is a serious discussion, Bamza. Keep your jokes to yourself.” And thus, without being aware of it, he planted in the reactionary soul of this proletarian from Žižkov the unshakable conviction that Communism, in its depravity, was against the institution of marriage.

  * * *

  At that moment, relief, like a deus ex machina, came in the form of Captain Matka, who flung the door open and stepped briskly into the room in his overstuffed riding-pants. Glad to be distracted from a discussion that was going nowhere, Hospodin yelled, “Attention!” at the top of his voice, took two loud steps towards the captain, who casually raised his hand to his cap, and announced: “Comrade Captain, the candidates for the Fučík Merit Badge are carrying out their tests. Number present: thirty-five. Education Officer Lieutenant Hospodin.”

  “At ease, Comrade Lieutenant,” said Matka. He sat down informally on the edge of the committee table and asked, almost affably, “Well, boys, how’s it going?”

  The candidates said nothing. Some of them, with weaker nerves, grinned vacuously.

  “It’s going well, Comrade Captain,” Mácha reassured him.

  “Well then, I’ll just listen in,” said the captain in a jovial tone. He was in an exceptionally good mood that seemed imbued with an almost democratic spirit. “I’ll listen in, and maybe I can learn something. We’re going to be under fire here ourselves tonight.”

  All the anxiety created by the commander’s arrival melted away, and Lieutenant Hospodin grinned. The captain addressed him in a
friendly tone: “Please continue, Comrade Lieutenant.”

  “Yes, Comrade Captain.” The former baker turned to the men and said, “Now we’ve done Jiří Wolker from the point of view of his poems.” Then he had a bright idea, based on the age-old tendency of officers to exploit the abilities of their underlings for their own glory. He turned to the committee and said, “Do you have any other questions about Comrade Wolker, comrades?”

  The committee had none.

  “Now then, Comrade Tank Commander, would you mind carrying on?”

  And so Danny was shaken out of the generally pleasant role of amused onlooker, and took the matter into his experienced impostor’s hands. To bring the tests to a successful conclusion, he used a method he had perfected in the school in Hronov, whereby information can be elicited from utterly ignorant people.

  “And now, comrades, let’s analyse the book by Alexander Fadyeyev called The Young Guard,” he said. “As you recall, it’s a famous book about the underground resistance of young Soviets against the German occupiers. Now, bearing in mind the title, who led this underground resistance? Sergeant Mácha?”

  Mácha stood up and said that Soviet youth had led the resistance. Was Soviet youth satisfied with merely passive resistance, or did they struggle actively as well? Tank Commander Hykal replied that their resistance was active as well. Then Danny asked what active resistance was, as opposed to passive resistance, which meant that no acts of sabotage were committed and no guerrilla warfare was waged, and Sergeant Kobliha correctly defined it as resistance in which acts of sabotage were committed; he even added, without being prodded, that the guerrillas also blew up bridges. In this way the committee disposed of The Young Guard.

  Employing the same simple technique, the committee went on, during the next hour, to dispose of most of the books on the reading list. Even the captain joined in the discussions, and the impression left was that the candidates were, on the whole, well prepared.

  At the end of it, Danny asked Lieutenant Prouza, who had been sitting on his chair like a body without a soul, if he had any further questions. Prouza had none. The tank commander turned to the captain with the same question, and he, flattered that the discussion had given him the chance to show off his experience in combat training, began to talk about a book called The Story of an Ordinary Man, about a heroic Soviet fighter pilot who returned to duty after both his legs had to be amputated, and continued to shoot down German Messerschmitts like so many clay pigeons. Matka compared the heroism of this hero to the heroism of Sergeant Blahý from the Tenth Tank Battalion, who, despite a high fever, had driven the squadron commander’s tank during manoeuvres so that his squadron wouldn’t lose marks in the final evaluation. Unfortunately, the men in the captain’s battalion already knew the story from personal acquaintance with the heroic sergeant, who made no secret of the fact that the real motive behind his heroism was the promised dropping of charges of stealing boxes of sugarcubes from the battalion’s kitchen and selling them to black-marketeers.