Prague Spring

by Simon Mawer

  “I don’t see how my feelings come into it.”

  Egorkin gave a dry laugh. “That is because you are not yourself. You are just a representative of a government. A functionary. But I am an artist, representing no one but myself. I deal with the emotions and the soul. You heard us play yesterday evening. Didn’t that speak to your soul? And to the soul of the woman at your side?”

  “I’m sure it did.”

  “Are you in love with her?”

  He thought of Lenka, waiting in the hotel room, and then of Stephanie in her parents’ house in England. He thought of loyalty and betrayal, of passion and affection, of desire and love, all those abstract nouns that were so difficult to pin down and were so inimical to diplomacy. The trouble with diplomats, Steffie had once told him, is that you never know what they’re thinking. He made to get up. “As I said, my feelings have nothing to do with it.”

  Egorkin put out a hand to restrain him. “Listen to your soul and help us, Mr. Wareham. I am begging you.”

  Sam stood, trying not to give the impression that he was abandoning the man. “I will do what I can, Mr. Egorkin, but I cannot promise anything. You have my phone number if you need it. Where are you staying in Prague?”

  “At the International Hotel.”

  “If I have anything positive to tell you, I’ll contact you there.”

  “We are watched. All the time, we are watched.”

  “Then maybe you can phone me. At the embassy. Give me until Wednesday next week. But as I said, I really cannot promise anything.” He smiled, sympathetically he hoped, and walked away. Lenka would be wondering where he had got to.

  33

  A reception at the ministry of foreign affairs, to celebrate the fraternal visit to Prague of Nicolae Ceauşescu. Tito had paid a flying visit a few days ago and been greeted by ecstatic crowds. Now it was the turn of the enigmatic leader of Romania.

  The British ambassador had been invited and so had Eric, but the Whittakers were away in Austria for the weekend and Eric was damned if he was going to ruin his break for some tiresome duty bash. Sam would stand in for him, wouldn’t he? Wave the flag alongside His Excellency?

  * * *

  Sam rang a contact at the protocol section of the ministry and got Lenka’s name added to the guest list in place of Madeleine Whittaker. “You can write a piece about it for one of your journals,” he told Lenka, and she appeared delighted at the possibility. These days anything seemed possible, even someone like her, with her family history, being admitted to the purlieus of power. They shunned driving and instead walked up the long slope of the Castle Hill. Lenka was once again wearing the dress and shoes they’d bought in Munich. She appeared excited at the prospect of even being in the same room as Dubček. “I might even get a chance to talk to him,” she said with childlike enthusiasm.

  In Hradčany soldiers were on duty at government buildings and policemen were marshaling the traffic. Sam and Lenka joined a queue shuffling forward to be admitted to the portals of the Černín Palace. Sam could feel Lenka tense beside him as their names were checked against the guest list, but then they were in, wandering past gilded columns and Flemish tapestries with the other milling guests. There was no receiving line—apparently their hosts were still in private discussions in the Hrad, but the ambassador was already there, in conversation with a South American counterpart. He detached himself and came over to be introduced to Sam’s guest. His bright, beady eyes didn’t miss a trick, either at bridge, which he and his wife played mercilessly, or in the complex social intercourse of the diplomatic world. He was, he claimed as he smiled on her, delighted to make her acquaintance.

  “Lenka’s a student,” Sam explained.

  The ambassador’s smile was benign. “Everyone seems to be these days. Surprised there’s anyone left to do any work. How’s Stephanie? Sorry she had to leave us.”

  “I haven’t heard from her for a while. I believe she’s fine.”

  “Belief is a great comfort, Samuel. I think it is what is sustaining our hosts at this very moment. One wonders”—glancing round pointedly—”where they might be.”

  “I believe they are still locked away in talks.”

  “There you are again. Belief. What would we do without it?” He laid a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “But please don’t let me bore you with my prattle. Go and circulate. Show Miss Konečková what fun we in the diplomatic corps have.”

  “I don’t think I like that man,” Lenka said as the ambassador moved away.

  “He’s all right. He’s just a Wykehamist, that’s all.”

  “A Wykehamist?”

  “It really doesn’t matter.”

  “Anyway, whatever he is, he did not have to mention Stephanie.”

  Sam laughed. “Oh yes, he did.”

  They moved through the crowd, nodding greetings here and there. An American diplomat whom Sam knew came over. He was part Czech in origin, part Czech, wholly Jewish and every bit American, his family surname Růžička translating into Rose when his grandfather passed through Ellis Island in 1888. Harry Rose. He looked approvingly at Lenka. “A real live Czech? As rare as hen’s teeth at an event like this. Where did Sam find you?”

  “I found him.”

  “Touché. You know what?” That was how he always started his stories. You know what? “Believe me, this is true. East German intelligence just reported American tanks crossing the border from Austria. Yesterday or the day before, this was. Invasion! Outrage! Claimed it was NATO belligerence, for Christ’s sake. Tried to get the Soviets interested in starting World War Three. The reality? They were old World War Two relics, props for some damn war film they’re making at Barrandov, can you believe it?” He basked in their laughter. “It’s true, it’s true. We’ve got the whole lot here—Ben Gazzara, Bradford Dillman, Robert Vaughn. Half of Hollywood. You know these guys?”

  “I know the man from U.N.C.L.E.”

  “That’s him.”

  “What is uncle?” Lenka asked.

  “It’s some James Bond–type TV show.”

  “United Network Command for Law Enforcement,” Harry said with glee.

  “There is such a thing?”

  Harry laughed, entranced by Lenka’s credulity. “You mustn’t believe everything you see on TV.”

  “James Bond fights SMERSH, and there is such a thing as SMERSH. Smert shpionam, death to spies. In Czech we say smrt špionů.”

  “Well, this lady sure knows her stuff. You’d better watch your back, Sam. Hey, and we even have Shirley Temple, would you believe it?”

  “Shirley Temple’s in a war film?” Conversations with Harry lurched from the improbable to the unbelievable and back again within a couple of sentences.

  “No, she’s here for some convention or other. Probably singing ‘The Good Ship Lollipop’ to a plenary session. I’m surprised she didn’t get an invite to this party—she has political ambitions, apparently. Wants to be a senator, wants to be president. Film star for president? Who the hell knows? Weirder things have happened. I mean, here we are meant to be representing the free West and our main concerns when the balloon goes up will be what the hell to do with half of Hollywood.”

  A disturbance at the entrance announced the arrival of the hosts. People scurried to see. Svoboda came first, white-haired and red-faced, then Dubček, tall and awkward, like a heron in a stream worried about fish. Beside him was the dapper figure of Nicolae Ceauşescu. The trio came though the press of enthusiastic guests, smiling and nodding, pausing briefly for Dubček to exchange words with someone. In the background, observing all through horn-rimmed spectacles, was the Soviet ambassador Chervonenko.

  A member of the ministry staff came over. “Mr. Samuel Wareham,” he said, “I am so sorry that Mr. Whittaker could not be present but it is good to bump into you again. That is the right expression, isn’t it? To bump into someone?”

  “It certainly is.”

  “And this lovely lady is…?”

  “Miss Lenka Konečko
vá.”

  “Ah, yes. I know about Miss Konečková.”

  Lenka’s embryo smile died. “You know about me? What does that mean, exactly?”

  The man pondered her question for a moment. All around him there was the press of guests, reaching for the buffet. “I have read some of your articles, of course. That student newspaper, what is it called?”

  “Student.”

  “Ah, yes. Not very imaginative.”

  “The name of the paper or my articles?”

  “Oh no, your articles are very imaginative.”

  “We are all imagining a world where you may speak your mind, aren’t we?”

  The man turned to Sam with a wry smile. “Your lady friend is very beautiful, Mr. Wareham. But she bites. You must keep her on a tight lead.”

  “I’m not on anyone’s lead, thank you.”

  Sam took her arm and eased her out of the crush. Lenka’s fury heightened the color in her cheeks yet turned her eyes glacial. It was a disturbing combination. “I don’t think picking a fight with a senior functionary in the interior ministry is the best way of passing the evening,” he said. “Let’s go and find ourselves something to drink.”

  “What is that man’s name?”

  “Kučera. Petr, Patrik? I can’t remember.”

  “How do you know him?”

  “You meet all sorts in my line of work.”

  “What a horrid job.” She looked round the crowded room as though to get her bearings. “Now let’s go and speak to the First Secretary.”

  “The First Secretary? Don’t be daft. They won’t let you near him.”

  “Daft? What is daft?”

  “Silly, stupid.”

  “It is not silly. Or stupid. He is meant to represent the people, is he not? I am the people.”

  “Actually he represents the Communist Party, which is a very different thing.” But she was already away across the room, pushing amongst the crowd to where the Czechoslovak and Romanian officials were making a little festive scrum. Sam hurried after her. He reached the edge of the group just as she achieved the middle.

  “Comrade Dubček,” he heard her say. Someone tried to move her back but Dubček put up a hand to stop him. “I just wanted to tell you that we are all behind you,” she said. “You are surrounded by all these officials who keep you from mixing with the ordinary people, so I thought you ought to know.”

  He smiled benignly on her. “And what is your name, miss? You appear to know mine—I feel I ought to know yours.”

  She hesitated. She was normally decisive, but this time she did hesitate. And Sam knew exactly what she was going to say before she even uttered a word.

  “I am Lenka Vadinská.”

  There was a terrible stillness. The name sounded in the silence like a funeral bell. People shifted away as though leaving space at a graveside. Lenka and the awkward, smiling Dubček were left alone.

  “The daughter of Lukáš Vadinský,” she added, just to make things clear.

  If it had been a common name, a Novák or a Novotný, perhaps, maybe nothing much would have happened. Perhaps Lenka would have been forced to explain, and thus the potency of the name would have been dissipated among the words. But she didn’t have to explain. Vadinský is not a common name and Lukáš Vadinský was beyond any confusion or doubt.

  Dubček spread his hands helplessly. “He was a good man. He didn’t deserve what happened. No one did. I want to ensure that such things will never happen again.”

  “No one doubts your sincerity, Comrade First Secretary. The question is, will the Russians let you?” She waited for a moment as though for an answer, then turned away. People stood aside and let her through. Behind her there was a sudden outburst of talk, random things said about the splendor of the rooms in which they found themselves, the magnificent Flemish tapestries on the walls, the excellence of the food, the quality of the wine and, of course, the eternal friendship of the Czechoslovak and Romanian peoples. While the Russian ambassador watched impassively.

  Sam caught up with her as she reached the door. He grabbed her by the arm. “What the devil was that all about?”

  “Did I offend your diplomatic sensibilities?”

  “You treated him as though he were to blame.”

  “He was to blame. They were all to blame. Dubček himself believed in the whole system. He used to think that Stalin was wonderful, the father of all working people.”

  “But he’s a man of goodwill, you know that. He wants things to change.”

  She pulled away from him. They went down the stairs into the pillared entrance hall. Uniformed staff watched them go. Outside, where the fleet of diplomatic cars waited, she finally stopped and turned to him. “That’s the first time I’ve ever used my father’s name. The first time.” Her expression hesitated between defiance and tears. He put his arms around her. The hard bones of her shoulders seemed suddenly fragile, as though they might snap if he squeezed too hard. “All my life I was made to feel ashamed and now I feel proud.” She blinked tears away, looking directly into his eyes. “Will you get into trouble?”

  “For what?”

  “For introducing a subversive into the halls of power.”

  He laughed softly, breathing in her scent, that mixture of things that he still couldn’t fathom. “The ambassador will probably summon me to his presence and give me a ticking off. Rocking the boat, he’ll warn me about rocking the boat. They don’t like people rocking the boat. Very nautical, the British.”

  A policeman came over and told them to move on. The strange thing was, he did it politely, with a smile. That’s what had happened in the last few months. People had learned how to smile, how to be polite, how to be helpful. Service with a snarl, so characteristic of the past, had been given a facelift. They walked along towards the Hrad and then down the hill into the Malá Strana, into the soft glow of gas lamps and the weight of history that pervades the streets of the Little Quarter. That whole ancient part of the city seemed to have its breath held as they went down towards the river and the modest Renaissance building where his flat was.

  Once safe inside, she asked if she could use his typewriter. “What is the expression? Make iron while it’s hot.”

  “You mean you’re going to write something?”

  “A fejeton for Literární listy. They’ll take this, I’m sure.”

  Fejeton, feuilleton. He’d never taken her writing seriously, in fact he’d never seen her write and had only glanced at one or two pieces that appeared under her byline in the student magazine. But now he watched her sitting at his portable, hammering at the keys, cursing when she couldn’t find diacritical marks and had to reach for a biro to ink them, and he found himself convinced by her energy.

  WHAT’S IN A NAME? Lenka typed.

  What’s in a name? Juliet wondered, seeing Montague as her enemy but Romeo as her love. That which we call a rose, she observed, by any other name would smell as sweet. These days we have other, less poetic concerns than Juliet of the Capulets. It is not so much a matter of whom can we love but how can we circumnavigate the obstacles of bureaucracy and oppression when burdened with a name that offends the powers that be. So for years my name — the one appended to this article, the one that I have employed throughout my school and university days, the one that my friends know me by — has not been my name but my mother’s maiden name, borrowed from her for the sake of convenience and deception. It was only today, for the first time in my conscious life, that I used the name that my father bequeathed me, a name that throughout my childhood and youth, like a deranged self-loathing Juliet, I attempted to cancel from my life just as surely as my father was canceled from the life of the Czechoslovak Republic. That name is Vadinský. Lenka Konečková is really Lenka Vadinská.

  What’s in a name?

  When I was at university — always under my borrowed name of course — I spent some time in the archives of Terezin for my thesis on the role of the Party in the antifascist struggle. Within the sa
d lists of those admitted to the ghetto I found some thirty Vadinský/Vadinskás, all of whom died in the ghetto or were taken away in one of the transports, some to Treblinka, some to Auschwitz. Amongst them were my paternal grandparents, whose names are even now to be found on the wall of the Pinkas synagogue in Josefov.

  “You never told me.”

  “It was obvious, wasn’t it? A Jewish father, you know that. Therefore Jewish grandparents. Therefore dead at Auschwitz or somewhere similar. That is what happened here.”

  He left her side and walked over to the window. The strange medieval shadows of the bridge towers were a contrast to the clatter of keys behind him. He thought of what he didn’t know about Lenka, which was almost everything. And then wondered how much you need to know about someone before you fall in love. Probably, he supposed, almost nothing. What did Romeo know of Juliet? Just enough to get both of them killed in the most idiotic way imaginable.

  What’s in a name?

  At least those grandparents have a memorial of some kind, even if their ashes were scattered to the winds or blown away in a puff of smoke. But my father? After much complaint my mother was eventually given a death certificate by the authorities, and, this year, even a medal of some kind. The death certificate stated baldly the date on which he was killed, but there is no mention of what happened to his body. However, there’s a story going round that the ashes of all the principal victims were dumped secretly in a lake in the Sumava region.

  Then there’s another story, that on the way to that lake, the car carrying the remains actually slid off the icy road some kilometers before reaching its destination. It was midwinter and everyone knows what a Tatra is like on slippery roads — it’s that rear engine that does it. So there they were, two members of the security service — let’s call them Švejk and Brouček — stuck in a snowdrift in the middle of the countryside in the middle of winter. It is getting late, the snow is coming down and the rear wheels are spinning uselessly. So Švejk (or was it Brouček?) has the brilliant idea of shoveling the ashes of the people’s enemies under the rear wheels to give some traction in the snow. Thus, in a cloud of flying bits and pieces did Slánský, Clementis, London and all the others, including my father, contribute to the extrication of two members of state security from a snowdrift.