Republic Of Whores

by Josef Skvorecky

  “Charasho,” replied the sergeant in Russian, and saluted Lieutenant Hospodin, who disappeared down the stairs before the soldier could remind him that he needed music in order to do the dance.

  “Jebemte hegedüss!” cursed the victim, in a combination of Polish and Hungarian vulgarity. Then he went back to the barracks to polish his shoes.

  Hospodin rushed down the stairs and ran along the corridor to the exit. In the doorway he bumped into Sergeant Krajta, whom he had last seen locked up in the mess hall with the others.

  “Comrade Sergeant, why aren’t you practising with the choir?”

  “I had to make a bowel movement,” said Krajta.

  “I want you to tell an interesting story at the farewell event,” the lieutenant told him, encouraged by the lack of resistance from Sergeant Omámený. He had a vague memory of a long-ago evening on one of their exercises when he had been hidden under a tank, and had heard Sergeant Krajta speaking through a hatch in the floor and telling an infantry corporal, who had sought refuge from the rain inside the tank, the contents of a pornographic book. At the time he had thought (with some envy) that Krajta was recounting a personal experience.

  “I don’t know any stories, Comrade Lieutenant,” said Sergeant Krajta.

  “Krajta, you’re lying.”

  “But all I know are dirty stories —”

  But the lieutenant was already hurrying somewhere else, so Krajta only heard him shout over his shoulder, “Then tell a dirty story.”

  “What’s a body to do?” said the sergeant to a greenhorn who was on duty in the corridor. “An order is an order.” And he retired to the latrine to spend a pleasant half-hour reading a sadistic detective novel called Kill the Killer, borrowed from the private library of Dr. Mlejnek, which was doing more business than the official Gottwald Library.

  * * *

  The lieutenant ran on around the building to the offices of the political department and, in a mood of desperation, set out to put together a program. After five tries, he managed to type it with a minimum of typos and spelling mistakes.

  FARWELL EVNING

  for the men and NCOs of the 7th Tank Batallion

  CULTURAL POGRAM

  1. Marsh of the Tank Corps — sung by singers cercle

  2. Goodby to Our Second Home — a resitation by Tnk.

  Com. Maňas

  3. Speech by Comp. CO

  4. Bandids Dance — by Sgt. Omámrný

  5. Beware! The Enemy Is Listening — a play staring Tnk. Com. Maňas and Lnc. Cpl. Lakotuš and a female comrad

  5. A couple of duets — sung by Sgt. Kobliha and Corp.

  Pískal.

  6. Populer storyteling — Tnk Comdr. Maňas and Sgt.

  Krajta.

  7. Stalen’s Falcons — sung by the singers cercle

  After the cultural progam their will be a dance with Comrades from the Czechoslkvak Union of Youth.

  THE END

  * * *

  Fate arrived the following day, in the persons of the Pygmy Devil and Major Sádlo. They sat at the head table in the battalion’s mess hall. The room was fully illuminated for the occasion, and the tables were arranged in a large U, with space in the middle for the performances to take place. The whole battalion entered the room, in dress uniform, for the last time, to eat the last ceremonial wiener schnitzel with potato salad and wash it down with an official glass of wine (rationed to one per man) and an unofficial, indeterminable amount of hard liquor smuggled in from the village and hidden under the tables.

  The married officers brought their wives. Captain Matka came with a tired-looking woman who, in keeping with the moral demands placed on the materially secure officer class, was pregnant for the sixth time. The iron Lieutenant Pinkas was there with his sweet wife, Janinka, in a black dress, with red lips and gazelle-like eyes that constantly drifted towards the table where the NCOs sat. The sadness in those eyes, which had been gradually disappearing over the last few weeks, was there once more. The arrogant First Lieutenant Bobby Kohn, whose leg was still in a cast, came with a very pretty, loose-looking woman. The foul-mouthed First Lieutenant Kámen was there with a plump wife who brought the men a basket of cheese pastries she’d baked herself. And finally, the pips on their epaulettes polished brightly, came the commanding officers of the individual squadrons: the eager-to-please Lieutenant Hezký, clapping members of his squad on the back in an awkward attempt to be friendly and asking them jovial questions in his nasal voice, like “Tell me, then, who’s the minister of the wood processing industry?”; the inconspicuous Šlajs, who sat silently at the end of the officers’ table and drank, unobserved, two of the bottles of cognac meant for the honoured guests; the smart-alecky Jakubec, who took a seat right next to Major Sádlo’s wife and, in the course of the evening, penetrated her defences and arranged a date with her the following Sunday in a Prague nightclub; and the easygoing Grünlich, who devoted all his attention to the food. Finally, there were both the political officers, with faces like the Mask of Conscience from a medieval morality play.

  * * *

  Someone tapped a fork against an earthenware bowl until it cracked, and at the midpoint of the officers’ table the Pygmy Devil stood up to make himself a head taller than the officers around him. The hum of conversation in the hall died down, the Pygmy Devil thrust his chest forward, and, while the wiener schnitzel in the kitchen grew cold and the bootleg alcohol under the table grew warm, he began a rant at the assembled soldiers in his grating falsetto.

  “Comrades! You have gathered here at the order of your commanding officer so that you may celebrate, in a way fitting to men, the completion of your honourable service to our People’s Democratic Army, a service all the more honourable in that most of you have served six extra months in addition to the compulsory twenty-four-month basic training. You did so with enthusiasm,” he told them angrily, “though some of you did not do so with the kind of enthusiasm we expect to come naturally to a soldier of the People’s Democratic Army. Those who have not carried out their orders with enthusiasm,” and he raised a clenched fist above his head, “have lost the right to be considered as belonging to your ranks!” By now, he had worked himself up into a proper lather and was beginning to hit his stride: “The people and the working class, the government and the mother Communist Party,” he thundered, “will not permit discipline in the army to be disrupted by subversive elements. You have been in the army for thirty months, and you must have seen that it is far too short a time for soldiers to learn how to properly operate a machine as complex as a T-34 tank. A three-year basic training period is necessary!” His voice had risen to a screech, but since most of the soldiers in the room were unaffected by this dire suggestion, it failed to evoke the desired sense of terror — except in a first-year recruit who was standing by the kitchen door with a plate of wiener schnitzel in his hands. On hearing the major’s remarks, he began to tremble so violently that he dropped the plate on the floor. After the excitement had died down and the wiener schnitzel had been taken back to the kitchen to be wiped off with a damp rag used for mopping the floor, the Pygmy Devil continued. “The working people will soon see that a three-year period is utterly necessary, and the people’s will is sovereign. Those with the proper political consciousness will go into the army with enthusiasm, and they will spend the whole three years absorbing and mastering the techniques of warfare. There will always, of course, be those who do not do their duty with the kind of enthusiasm expected of a soldier in our People’s Democratic Army. But such men will feel the hard fist of the people coming down on them, and it will compel them to carry out their duties with enthusiasm. And if that does not work, they will be ejected from our People’s Democratic Army. And they will not be missed, for this will ensure that those who remain carry out the orders of their commanding officers with even greater enthusiasm, and if they don’t, the people will deal with them promptly. And the people will soon see that a weapon as complex as the famous T-34 tank requires a three-year t
raining period.…” The Pygmy Devil was getting tangled up in the vicious circle of his arguments. “They will go with enthusiasm … there may be such people … will force them to … and if they do not … will get rid of them, comrades,” and with these words, or scarcely perceptible variations of them, the Pygmy Devil concluded his ten-minute rant. The officers applauded politely, joined by Tank Commander Maňas and Sergeant Omámený from the rank and file. The only disruption to the mood of serious, disciplined discourse was the drunken voice of Sergeant Líbezný, of the regular army, who responded to the major’s threats by bellowing, “Long live the U.S.S.R.!” When Sergeant Krajta yelled at him to shut up, he added in a darker tone: “Long live our great friend and defender, our leader and teacher, and our dear liberator, the humiliator of our hated occupiers, the great, wise, magnanimous and immortal, the one and only Generalissimo Josef Thesonofabitch Stalin!”

  Fortunately for Líbezný, his bad pun was lost in the clatter of cutlery and plates and the hum of excitement as the new recruits came fanning out through the hall with trays of wiener schnitzel. The clinking of spoons (except for Tank Commander Maňas, only the officers used knives and forks) grew in volume and the sound rose and echoed off the wooden ceiling, where garlands of dusty paper flowers converged in regular loops on a large red star behind the head table. To the right of the star was a portrait of the incumbent President Zápotocký, and to the left was one of the minister of defence, General Čepička. Both men were in uniform and bedecked with an alarming number of medals, and both were rendered in the kind of fading focus that daguerreotype photographers in the last century loved to use. In the middle of the red star, Sergeant Remunda had pasted a truncated portrait of Stalin. A portrait of the recently deceased President Gottwald hung suspended from the star on a piece of string, for symmetry and hierarchy.

  * * *

  While the men of the Seventh Tank Battalion demolished mountains of wiener schnitzel without flinching, the beautiful Janinka pecked away at her cutlet like a sparrow, her eyes lost in distant contemplation. Tank Commander Smiřický failed as a lover by not displaying a similar lack of appetite, but he did observe the rules of eye-play. He felt sorry that things had to end this way, yet at the same time it meant freedom; he was not yet acquainted with the relativity of life. The uncertain promises of Prague beckoned from a distance, and waged an unequal battle with the charms of the first lieutenant’s wife.

  Neither of the political officers enjoyed his meal very much. They too pecked at the meat like birds, casting nervous sidelong glances at Captain Matka. The captain ate heartily, but his stomach wasn’t bottomless, and at last he remembered what they were there for. Belching slightly, he leaned over and pronounced the fateful sentence: “All right, Růžzička, how about the program?”

  And so, feeling like men mounting the guillotine, Růžička and Hospodin got up from the table and began assembling the remnants of the day-old singing group. They formed them in ragged array in the space between the tables and then, their voices trembling, announced that the mass cultural program of farewell to army service was about to begin. The chorus stood facing the head table, directly opposite the Pygmy Devil, who had spilled dollops of mayonnaise on his tunic and had the demeanour of an angry hornet. The chorus of the Seventh Tank Battalion began singing an atonal rendition of “The March of the Tank Corps”, a version of the famous “March of the Security Forces”. The result was somewhat absurd, but nevertheless dear to the ears of Captain Matka.

  Once again we’re marching homeward

  From the mountains of the east,

  Youthful tankists all assembled

  Ready for the imperialist beast.

  This is what most of the chorus sang, but the group around Sergeant Krajta seemed to be deviating from the text, something that only the oversensitive ears of Lieutenant Hospodin picked up. Instead of “from the mountains of the east” he thought he heard some of them sing “from the brothels of the east” — but the words were tactically drowned out in a thunder of hoarse voices that could barely carry the melody, let alone deal with harmony.

  * * *

  Aside from the musical qualities of the chorus, the song fully expressed the momentary feelings of the singers, and the intensity of their rendition overcame any shortcomings in melody and harmony. Fortunately the Pygmy Devil had no ear for music. Major Sádlo listened, and in the folds of his brain where his centre of musicality should have been, he began to suspect that the Seventh Tank Battalion choir did not quite measure up to the standards set by the divisional choir (called The People’s Fist, but sometimes referred to privately by its own members as A Fist in the Face), which performed mainly at local festivals in the surrounding villages. But he hid his uncertainty behind a firm expression approximating intelligence, and when the tonal torment was over, he applauded politely.

  The space between the tables was cleared and Tank Commander Maňas got up and tried to put on a look of inspired enthusiasm, but the effect was marred by his sensual lips and his epicurean paunch, which had grown considerably during two years of activity that had been largely ideological. He struck a pose meant to express confidence, with the thumb of his left hand hooked over his belt and his right hand poised for any gesture that might add drama to the poem. Then he began reciting his creation:

  Let cannon thunder and let mines explode;

  Beneath our tank-treads we will crush the foe.

  The red flag shall above the tumult wave;

  The Seventh Tank Battalion’s on the go.

  Captain Matka responded vigorously. Breaking a second earthenware dish with an energetic blow from his fork, he rose to give one of the serialized talks that had been a source of merriment all year to the decadent elements of his battalion. Růžička and Hospodin both hoped Matka would say something so spectacularly stupid that the glaring inadequacies of their program would pale in its blinding light. But he disappointed them all by speaking unusually briefly and intelligently:

  “Comrades,” he said. “On the very eve of your celebrations, we have some good news. One of the United States of America, Ecuados, has withdrawn from the American union. Comrades! The imperialist camp is falling apart. The collapse of the U.S.A. has begun! The contradictions inside the imperialist camp are destroying the camp of imperialism!”

  This stunning piece of news left most of the soldiers unmoved. Of all those present, only Private First Class Dr. Mlejnek was able to put the news in its proper perspective. As the only regular reader of The People’s Defence, he alone had noticed a tiny item saying that Ecuador was withdrawing from a pan-American trade agreement on the commercial exploitation of turtle dung. The other members of the battalion, or at least the officers, thought the captain’s valedictory address highly successful, ideologically; Major Sádlo decided that he would use the information in tomorrow’s ten-minute pep-talk.

  * * *

  The program continued relentlessly. An unsuccessful attempt at a Slovakian brigand’s dance by Sergeant Omámený was followed by Tank Commander Maňas’s play, Beware! The Enemy Is Listening! It was a symbolic drama, or at least it made liberal use of symbols. Lance-Corporal Lakatoš, the amiable Slovak who had been cornered into one of the main roles, appeared in a shiny rubber suit borrowed from the chemical warfare unit and a hat with a little brush in the hatband pulled low over his eyes (both the hat and the coat were generally recognized emblems of subversion). Maňas entered from the other side with an exaggerated, cocky step and a flower in the lapel of his uniform (to indicate that he was on leave). As he walked across the space between the tables, he stopped in front of the Pygmy Devil, pulled a lighter out of his pocket, and tried to light a cigarette. The lighter worked, but because it was supposed to symbolize a lighter that didn’t work, the nervous Lakatoš stepped up to Maňas and, with trembling fingers, broke three matches before managing to light the cigarette that had already been lit. He said, in a voice that was noticeably strained:

  “So how about it, soldier-boy? Taste
good? Taste good?”

  Troop Commander Maňas shot back curtly and professionally: “Yeah, sure it tastes good.”

  The dialogue took off from there.

  The spy: “I was in the army once, too.”

  Maňas: (crispy and coldly) “That so?”

  The spy: “I swear to God. In the First Republic. Everything was different then.”

  Maňas: “I’m sure it was.”

  The spy: “Back then I was issued ten cigarettes a day.”

  Maňas: “Really?”

  The spy: “How many do you get now?”

  Maňas: (cautiously) “Enough to satisfy me.”

  The spy: “You a heavy smoker?”

  Maňas: “Depends on what you call a heavy smoker.”

  The spy: (forgetting his lines) “Uh.…”

  Maňas: (prompting in a whisper) “Leave.”

  The spy: “And what about leave — do they give you enough leave?”

  Maňas: “We have enough leave to satisfy us completely.”

  The spy: “Me, I.… Me, I.…”

  Maňas: (whispering) “Me, I had leave every day.”

  The spy: “Me, I had leave every day. Well, goodbye.”

  With this, Lakatoš abruptly brought the first scene to an end. The script was much longer, but he had forgotten the rest of his lines, and decided the audience knew enough already to see what the point of the scene was. So he touched the brim of his hat with his fingers and walked off with a feeling of relief. The point was now supposed to be driven home by a young woman in a blue shirt and a (Soviet-style) movie-star figure, who shyly approached Tank Commander Maňas. He stretched out his arms and cried, “My word! Márinka! Look at you, Márinka, you’re as fresh as a tank after a general overhaul.”