Republic Of Whores

by Josef Skvorecky

  “Make it snappy!”

  The fateful key was found and slipped into the lock. Inside, they could hear the sounds of someone thrashing about, while the cot creaked and groaned. Then there was a suppressed yelp of panic. For a while longer, Danny tried to pretend the lock was stuck, but the Pygmy Devil impatiently pushed him out of the way and unlocked the door himself. He flicked on the light. The naked bulb cast its dim glow over the spartan cell. Standing at attention beside the cot was a red-faced Lieutenant Malina, in an unbuttoned tunic and trousers with the fly open, capless, revolverless, and staring at the Pygmy Devil with horror-struck forget-me-not eyes. Behind him, on the cot, lay Sergeant Babinčáková, covering herself modestly, if incompletely, with a crumpled green sweatshirt.

  For a moment it looked like a diorama: the Pygmy Devil, the naked sergeant, and the lieutenant, with the pale tank commander looking on helplessly in the background. Then Malina, obviously addled by fear, pulled himself up to stand at full attention and declared in a sonorous voice, “Comrade Major, during my watch in the guardhouse there has been nothing special to report. Officer of the guards, Lieutenant Malina.”

  “Bring your pistol and come with me,” said the Pygmy Devil icily. “You,” he said, addressing the sergeant, who had assumed the position of a reclining Venus, “will remain here.” And to Danny: “Lock the cell.”

  While the other two men walked out of the cell and strode briskly down the corridor towards the command room, Danny winked at the sergeant, who was frowning but still had the presence of mind to stick her tongue out at him. He clasped his hands together in a gesture of begging forgiveness, and locked her in the cell. Looking down the corridor, he saw the stunned figure of Lieutenant Malina silhouetted against the light, tottering after the major, his service revolver swinging back and forth on its belt. Bamza, who was standing beside Danny, leaned over and whispered hoarsely, “He’s going to have to eat a whole pile of shit, man.”

  “So are we,” said the tank commander quietly, and started off after the lieutenant. He heard Bamza behind him wheezing, “But we don’t know nothing, do we? As far as we know, he went out to check on the sentries.”

  “And who locked him in?” Danny shot back as he closed the grille.

  “Oh shit, you’ve got a point there!” said Bamza gloomily. They both stepped into the command room. The Pygmy Devil decided to sit on the table, for effect. He raised his buttocks and felt awkwardly for the edge of the table, but couldn’t reach it. He tried standing on his toes and wriggling his behind, but that didn’t work either. He was enraged. He turned scarlet and sat down on a chair, hungry for blood. The chubby lieutenant stood stiffly at attention in front of him. He hadn’t dared do up his tunic or close his fly, or even buckle on his revolver. His eyes were wide with fear, and greasy beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. Danny remained to one side. The Pygmy Devil looked from one to the other, then said to Danny, “Send your assistant out of the room.”

  This could mean only one thing. The officer and the non-com would be served, in the absence of ordinary soldiers, what was euphemistically referred to in regulations as “a verbal reprimand”. Danny turned to Bamza and said, “Go next door.”

  “As you were!” shrieked the major.

  Danny turned to face him.

  “Don’t you know how to give an order properly, Comrade Tank Commander?”

  “I do, Comrade Major.”

  “Then why don’t you do it properly?”

  You swine, thought Danny, but he swallowed his disgust and uttered the only sentence possible in the situation:

  “Comrade Major, request permission to give an order to Private Bamza.”

  “Permission granted.”

  “Comrade Private,” Danny said with theatrical severity, “go to the other room!”

  Bamza scowled, then wheezed hoarsely: “Yes, sir!” He clicked his heels together and left the room. The silence grew. The others could hear the sentry making his rounds in the courtyard.

  With some effort, the Pygmy Devil crossed his legs, stretching his breeches tightly across his genitals, then just sat there drumming his fingers on the table-top. In his tiny, close-fitting outfit, he looked like a child whose parents have perversely dressed him to look like an adult. His small eyes radiated evil, and the evil focused on the innocent, rosy face of Lieutenant Malina, who stood beside Danny like Lot’s wife.

  “Comrade Lieutenant,” the Pygmy Devil began, “is this your idea of the proper way to carry out guard duties?”

  A dramatic pause. The lieutenant opened his mouth wider and emitted a sound somewhere between a belch and a death rattle. Then silence again. Over the silence came the grand, overwhelming question: “How is this possible?”

  Danny noticed that Malina had turned almost brown, as though he were about to have a heart attack — which, given his age, was hardly likely. His adam’s apple rose, he swallowed, and once more he emitted that strange acoustic expression of consternation. The little major drummed his fingers on the table, while outside the window they could hear the sharp footfalls of the sentry. The rhythm of his metallic steps and the rhythm of the major’s drumming were out of phase. The lieutenant emitted another sound. The Pygmy Devil stopped drumming, gave a short, final, four-finger roll, and then, to Danny’s great delight, began tapping his fingers in time to the footfalls. It was a strange duet, almost like African drumming. Again the Pygmy Devil said, “How is this possible?”

  By now the veins on the lieutenant’s forehead were prominent; drops of perspiration ran down his cheeks and dripped onto his buttoned tunic. The wretched officer gathered all his strength and said hoarsely, “I don’t know.…”

  “What did you say?” squealed the Pygmy Devil. “Are you a sleepwalker? Don’t you know what you’re doing? How could you abandon your post like that?”

  The lieutenant muttered something hoarse and inaudible.

  “Are you a sleepwalker?”

  “No.”

  “Then how is it possible that you abandoned your post?”

  “I don’t know.” The lieutenant’s voice sounded desperate.

  “How can you stand there and say, ‘I don’t know’?”

  Silence. The lieutenant, whose complexion was now as dark as a glass of Malaga, cleared his throat, but all he could say was another “I don’t know.”

  “Are you an officer? Can’t you speak? Can’t you face the consequences of your actions? Well? Answer me!”

  “Yes,” said the lieutenant.

  “Yes what? Can you or can’t you?”

  “No.”

  The little major went into another fit of rage. “Yes or no?” he screamed.

  “Yes,” mumbled the lieutenant, and then, as though afraid he’d given the wrong answer, he quickly added, “No.”

  “Comrade Lieutenant, I am not here for your personal amusement. Have you any idea what lies ahead for you? Have you any idea what you’ve just done? Or don’t you?”

  “Yes,” said the lieutenant.

  “Yes you don’t? So you don’t know?”

  “No,” said the lieutenant quickly, but as soon as the word was out, he hurried to correct himself. “I mean yes.”

  The major was about to shout at him again, but instead he took off his cap and set it on the table. He took a big khaki handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead, and began again, forcing himself to be calm. “Look here, Comrade Lieutenant. Just tell me, slowly and calmly — what led you to abandon your post?”

  Lieutenant Malina swallowed. The Pygmy Devil’s face twitched, but he waited for the answer. The lieutenant gathered his strength to reply; a rough sound emerged from somewhere deep in his voluminous chest and, with some effort, Danny could distinguish the words “Comrade Babinčáková”.

  “So,” said the major. “A woman, in other words. Tell me, comrade, do you know what a soldier’s greatest enemy is?”

  “No,” sighed the lieutenant.

  “Women,” said the major. His voice was hard,
the voice of experience. “I’m not referring to our own women, at home, whose security we are safeguarding here. I mean other women. Do you know the kind I mean?”

  “Yes,” admitted the lieutenant.

  The major snorted, pushed his cap back on his head. “Women like that lead a soldier astray,” he said, in the voice of a disciplinarian. “They weaken his vigilance. They make him inattentive to his duties. They encourage him to reveal military secrets. Consciously or unconsciously, they make a soldier the conscious or unconscious agent of the enemy, do you understand me? And the same things apply to Sergeant Babinčáková.”

  “No!” the lieutenant blurted. The intensity of his protest surprised the Pygmy Devil.

  “What do you mean, no?” he said.

  Malina blushed until his complexion was almost black, then swallowed and said in a croaking voice, “She didn’t want me to — to — reveal any — secrets. It’s true I wasn’t being very vigilant, but all she wanted was — was —” He stopped, groping for the right word.

  “Come on, out with it.”

  “— just —”

  “She just wanted what? Answer in a complete sentence.”

  But the lieutenant didn’t answer in a complete sentence. With an overpowering sense of shame, he mumbled something scarcely audible, something that sounded like “sexual intercourse”.

  “And you can stand there and say this, just like that?” said the Pygmy Devil, as though he couldn’t believe his ears. “You’re a perfect example of what’s wrong with this army. Oh, I know. You think that because your term of service is over in a few weeks, you can get away with anything. But you’re wrong, you’re terribly, terribly wrong. It won’t be a few weeks now, comrade, but a few months. This kind of dereliction of duty must be severely punished, or pretty soon we wouldn’t have an army at all, we’d have one big brothel. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Comrade Lieutenant.”

  The Pygmy Devil stood up and his cheeks were flushed with red. “You, a son of the working class, who put you in a responsible position, and this is how you behave. This is unforgivable, Comrade Lieutenant. This is treason against the working class. Are you aware of the implications of your disgusting, loathsome, and filthy act? Are you aware that you deserve the strictest possible punishment?”

  “Yes,” said Malina meekly. In civilian life he had been a cook, and he had hoped to be one in the army as well. But because he’d been a good cook from a once unemployed family, his positive vetting report was excellent, so he was destined for greater things. Thus Malina became the commander of a tank troop, and in the mess he was compelled to eat the disgusting fare served up by a recruit who in civilian life had been an accountant with a tailoring co-operative.

  “And you, Comrade Tank Commander,” added the Pygmy Devil. “You blithely undo your belt, lay aside your weapon, and allow this kind of thing to go on.”

  “I was obeying orders,” Danny protested.

  The major exploded again. “Do you know the regulations?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Do you know that you are within your rights to refuse to obey an order that goes against the interests of the people? I would say that is precisely the case with the orders that Lieutenant Malina gave you.”

  “No,” said Danny impudently. “First I have to obey the order, then I can lodge a complaint.”

  The major was suddenly unsure of himself. Was there really a regulation about not obeying orders, or was it just wishful thinking? Finally he concluded that he must be right, since he was the officer.

  “You don’t know the regulations very well,” he said. “You do have such a right. Why didn’t you exercise it?”

  “I intended to lodge a complaint.”

  “When?”

  “When I came off duty.”

  “Don’t tell me fairytales!” shrieked Borovička. “I know you, I can just imagine you lodging a complaint. But don’t think we don’t know all about you. You’re relying on your cleverness to get you through, but you’re making a mistake.” He hated NCOs with university degrees. He knew they were laughing at him inside, and it was too much. “You’re making an enormous mistake,” he exploded. “Our People’s Democratic Army will expose you to the light of day! We know who the class enemy are! And we will make short work of them! We’ll show them where their true place is! And it’s not here, Comrade Tank Commander, with the guard unit. Enemies of the people do not belong here.”

  “Comrade Major, I’m going to lodge a complaint against you,” said Danny, surprised by his own pluck.

  “A complaint?” The major turned as black as Malina had been a few moments ago. “You go right ahead and complain, Comrade Tank Commander. You will be entirely within your rights. But don’t think you’re going to use those rights to undermine the fighting spirit of our People’s Democratic Army. The two of you make a fine pair. But we’ve been watching your battalion and its strange morale for some time now, and I can tell you, we’re not going to leave it at that. Your men are shiftless, negligent, and insubordinate. They read trash and worse. But we will take measures, comrades, and I assure you they will be harsh measures. Bolshevik measures. And then you’ll regret it. But by that time it’ll be too late.”

  The Pygmy Devil stood up and straightened his uniform with an abrupt gesture. “When you go off duty, both of you will report to your superior officers,” he said brusquely, and marched out of the room.

  When the sound of the major’s boots had died away in the courtyard and the night had swallowed up his tiny, malevolent spirit, Malina turned with an embarrassed smile to the tank commander and said, “There’s going to be hell to pay.”

  “It won’t be so bad,” Danny reassured him, although he knew it would. He felt sorry for the frightened lieutenant, and wanted to put his mind at ease.

  “Why didn’t you come and get me?” asked the miserable officer hopelessly.

  “It was impossible. He was in here before I knew it.”

  Bamza walked into the room. “Whoo-eee,” he said. “There’s going to be hell to pay!”

  And then, with the generous, easy grin of someone who is too unimportant for anything to happen to, he turned to the lieutenant and asked with genuine interest, “Well, Comrade Lieutenant, did you at least get laid?”

  4

  THE ARMY CREATIVITY CONTEST

  Danny did not report to his commanding officer as ordered. It was late Friday afternoon, and he felt the tug of Prague. Not only was Lieutenant Pinkas spending the weekend at home with his family, but Danny had read in an army newspaper that in the auditorium of the Nth Division there was going to be a gala evening that night for winners of the Army Creativity Contest. The winner in the poetry division was Robert Neumann, Lizetka’s husband, so it was clear that he wouldn’t be home with his wife. And though the tank commander was now under the spell of a new and quite different poetry — the poetry of tracer bullets and stars above the shooting range — he didn’t want to waste this new chance to try the marital fidelity of that strange woman, Lizetka.

  To avoid possible complications with Captain Matka, he used the underground railway that the men of the Seventh Tank Battalion usually took to freedom. As soon as his shift in the guardhouse was over, he went straight to the attic in battalion headquarters where the wardrobe was kept, donned his walking-out uniform, determined from the duty officer that the CO was at supper, picked up an exit permit from the duty officer, forged the captain’s signature on it, then called on Private First Class Dr. Mlejnek, the battalion scribe. Using a skeleton key, Dr. Mlejnek opened the steel strongbox containing the unit’s official stamps, and took one and stamped the falsified document, thus confirming its authenticity. Then the tank commander took refuge in the gathering dusk along the path that led among the barracks to the railway station. Despite the splendid forgery, he left the base not via the main gate but by a less hazardous route across the small park behind the baths, and through a hole in the fence below the tracks. He crossed a shallow stream and
, sticking close to the hedgerows between the fields, finally reached the highway to nearby Lysá.

  It was evening now and growing dark, and trucks from the base drove past him. He could have hitched a ride, but there was plenty of time before the train left for Prague, and he felt like walking. The road led westward towards the town over a ridge of undulating hills. The evening was warm and full of colour, like the recent night when he’d carried the basket of plums home for the lieutenant’s wife. Like every autumn night for the past ten or fifteen years, this night held a poetic enchantment that was related as much to his glands as to the weather. His mind was buoyed by his success with Janinka, but, rather than being filled with tender thoughts of her, he felt charged with a dynamic sense of determination to press his luck with the tantalizing, exasperating Lizetka.

  When he reached the first houses on the outskirts of town, night had fallen and the streets were dimly lit by a few isolated streetlamps. A military police jeep was parked in front of the Žižka Inn. Beside it, two abject and rather drunk soldiers were just being relieved of their passes by a lieutenant in a smartly pressed uniform. A corporal wearing a service armband stood discreetly in the background, trying to convey to the victims through body language that there was nothing he could do about it. The lieutenant tried to catch out the tank commander, but wilted when he saw that all the signatures and stamps on his papers appeared to be in order. He merely told Danny to straighten his tie and tighten his belt, then drove off into the darkness in search of further victims.

  Thus Danny was able to board the Prague express, and at half past eight he was ringing the doorbell of Ludmila Neumannová-Hertlová, known to all her suitors as Lizetka.

  * * *

  There was a rich variety of faces on the stage. The voices orated and declaimed or mumbled and whined. Some authors, adopting the parade-ground manner of a sergeant-major, bellowed their poetry into the smoke-filled hall, while others were barely audible and were lost in the creaking and scraping of chairs.