On the tenth of January, after work, I stopped at the bank to get some cash. I wanted to buy fabric for a suit for Rudolf. But when I got to the fabric store, it was so crowded with people fighting over bolts of material and there was so long a line at the cashier’s desk that I walked out in disgust. The same scene was being played out in most of the stores in Prague. The city once again looked like an anthill that someone had stirred up with a stick. People were rushing nervously through the streets and forming long lines on the sidewalks in front of every store.
It was clear that a rumor of another currency devaluation had spread through the grapevine again. Sometimes these rumors were instigated by the Ministry of Domestic Trade when warehouses began to pile up too much defective merchandise that no one wanted to buy. A hint here and there that a currency reform was being contemplated would suffice to send people out into the streets buying up anything they could lay their hands on before their savings were either devalued or entirely lost.
I caught a streetcar home where Mrs. Machova was playing with my son. Ivan was already attending nursery school by then. He took after his father in almost every way. He was a quiet, serious child, intelligent and happy. He seemed entirely unaffected by the atmosphere of our home which, at the time, was not exactly cheerful.
After dinner, when we had put Ivan to bed, Mrs. Machova and I began to grumble about the situation in the stores and were going strong when Rudolf came home. We attacked him together. This is intolerable so many years after the war! It’s almost worse than under the Occupation! How much longer can it go on?
“It’s all because people have given up expecting anything good from this government,” said Mrs. Machova. “Our government has no intention of taking care of us. It only harasses us. Whenever the Central Committee meets or the government is in session, people just shudder and wonder what kind of shabby deal they’ll come up with next.”
Mrs. Machova was one of those people on whose behalf the Party had made the revolution. She was the daughter of a poor peasant, the wife of a blue collar worker, who herself had worked hard all her life. She had had only an elementary school education but she was perhaps the wisest, most astute woman I had ever met. Rudolf, too, had endless respect for her. Her voice, he understood, was the authentic voice of the working class which everybody talked about but to which no one actually listened.
Wearily and unhappily, Rudolf tried to pacify us but, by then, my last reserves of patience were gone. After Mrs. Machova left, he tried to take me in his arms for a reconciliation and a good night kiss. I turned my head and pushed him away. For the first time in our life together we went to sleep without making up, without a word.
We did not speak to each other the next morning either but that was not unusual; I started work at seven, Rudolf got up one hour later. All day long, I felt unhappy about my unkindness and my stubbornness the night before, and I resolved to set things right. The constant tension and fear had so exhausted and transformed me that I could barely recognize myself. This can’t go on, I decided. I must get a better grip on things or else there won’t be any living with me. I have to stop being afraid. I have to get rid of these premonitions. I’ve survived worse without turning into a repulsive shrew. I will simply not give in to my moods anymore.
Heda Margolius and four-year old Ivan on Na prikope Street, Prague.
That afternoon, I took my son for a long walk. I bought fresh flowers for the house – florists were the only shops that had no lines before them – and that evening I started planning my new life. I would exercise every day, beginning today. I would see my friends more frequently; I would be sure to go to the theater and to concerts more often; I would spend more time with my son.
I called Rudolf at the office and asked what time he would be home. He told me that he still had piles of work on his desk but that he would try to hurry. I put Dvořak’s Humoresque on the phonograph together with some other records and took our copy of The Good Soldier Schweik from the bookcase. Tonight, I thought, I’ll have a quiet pleasant evening.
I called Rudolf again at ten o’clock.
“I haven’t finished yet,” he said. “It’ll probably be another late night! Go to sleep. I’ll come home as soon as I can.”
I went into the bathroom, did half an hour of honest exercise, spent another quarter of an hour in a hot bath, and tried to talk myself into feeling light-hearted and gay. Everything always depends on the attitude one brings to things. From now on, I’ll look at all of our problems with a cool detachment.
But I could not fall asleep. Shortly before midnight, I got up and took two tablets of aspirin. At one o’clock, the doorbell rang.
Marenka, the young woman who had been living with us since I had returned to work and who helped take care of Ivan as well as the household, burst into my bedroom and stammered, “There are five men at the door and they have Dr. Margolius’ briefcase!”
The world tilted and I felt myself falling, bound hand and foot, down, farther down, tumbling ever faster into a bottomless space. And then I snapped awake. So here it is. I knew it had to come and here it is. Here it is again.
It was a strange moment. I found myself accepting horror and disaster as though an old companion who had taken leave of me for a while was now back beside me. And then another familiar sensation took hold of me – that inner bracing of strength we discover when the worst has happened, when we know there is no way out and there can be no help coming from anyone but ourselves. It springs from a source so deeply hidden that we are unaware it exists, but it always comes to the rescue when life bares its fangs and attacks.
I got out of bed, put on my slippers, and combed my hair. The only unusual thing I did was to put on Rudolf’s robe instead of my own. It reached all the way down to my ankles, covering me completely.
I went out into the living room and, sure enough, there were five men standing there, one of them holding Rudolf’s briefcase. They greeted me with exaggerated courtesy, announced that my husband had been arrested, and that they had been authorized to carry out a search of the house. I told them to go ahead and then turned around intending to go back into the bedroom, but they stopped me and explained, again very politely, that the law required my presence during the search to ensure that everything had been done in an orderly way.
So I sat down in a chair, lit a cigarette, and watched the comrades get to work. Their search was thorough. They moved systematically from room to room, opening drawers and closets, examining every one of several hundred books, unfolding and reading every scrap of paper. They looked under the rugs and among the dishes. They searched every piece of clothing in our closets, fingering the seams. They inspected our shoes and toiletries. They set aside a few things – foreign-language publications evoked their greatest interest.
A few days earlier, someone had brought us several packages of Albanian cigarettes. Each one contained a little leaflet with an inscription in Albanian. Because the group of words ended with an exclamation point it probably was some slogan like “Long live the working class!” but my visitors collected the leaflets carefully and added them to their pile.
The man who appeared to be in charge read all my private correspondence, uttered a few appreciative remarks as to the literary quality of the letters, and confiscated one or two of them. He paid particular attention to my diary, which was a few years old and in which I had kept a record of my son’s measurements and weight. Those numbers evidently impressed him as some ingenious code; when he put the diary onto his pile, he gave me a particularly devastating look. I remained seated in my chair wearing Rudolf’s robe, trying not to smoke one cigarette after another.
I only spoke up when they started for the nursery. What if the boy wakes up and sees five strange men rummaging through his toys? Who knows what consequences such a shock could have? I gave them my word of honor that the room contained nothing but Ivan’s things. They insisted that they had to search the whole apartment but promised to be as quiet as possible. The
y kept that promise and searched the room so expertly that Ivan never once woke up.
Marenka’s room was next. She had gone back to bed after waking me. Now one of the men opened the door to her room and she got up, protesting. When he began rummaging through her possessions she showered him with such biting comments that he emerged blushing bright red. I have often since felt grateful to Marenka for her performance, but of course as a member of the exploited proletariat she could get away with it.
They saved for last the room that contained my desk, and in it our most important documents and valuables. They included a special file of my correspondence with friends who now lived abroad, especially in England. It was Rudolf’s wish that I keep all their letters as well as carbon copies of my replies in a separate file so as to be able to prove, if ever necessary, that they contained no objectionable material.
But now everything would be considered objectionable. The simplest sentence could be construed as a secret code and the mere fact that I had kept regularly in touch with the West would certainly be turned into damaging evidence against Rudolf. I waited dejectedly for the glee with which they would pounce on this booty. The man who opened the compartment in which the file was kept was the only one who had been openly hostile to me throughout the proceedings. The four others had been ostentatiously polite, but this fifth man kept glaring at me and dropping such rude, insulting remarks that finally the leader of the group rebuked him. My heart sank as this ferret took the dangerous file into his hands. I braced myself. He opened it without batting an eyelash, closed it immediately, and pushed it far back into the compartment, behind some odds and ends. I could not believe my eyes.
Meanwhile the man in charge was digging through the drawer which contained our cash and two savings account passbooks. He announced that he was obliged to confiscate all of it but set aside one bill which he left in the drawer. It was a note for one thousand crowns, then worth about twenty dollars. I pointed out that the cash he was confiscating included my previous month’s salary and that both savings accounts were in my name. He replied politely that he was only following orders; I had the right to request the return of my personal property at a later time.
He took all of Rudolf’s documents, his camera, his car keys, his garage key, and various other small things. Then he turned to look for my handbag, but before he could reach it, the boor snatched it up with another snide remark, carted it off to the light of the lamp, and opened it. I remembered the ten thousand-crown bills that I had withdrawn from the bank for Rudolf’s suit. They were still in my handbag, in an open envelope. The man busied himself with my things for quite a while. He inspected my compact and my change purse, muttered some more unpleasant things, pulled out my brand-new calendar which as yet had nothing written in it, and threw it on top of the pile of confiscated items. Then he snapped the handbag shut and dropped it on a table.
By that time it was nearly six in the morning. One of the men wrote up a report for me to sign and then, finally, they left.
I wandered from room to room for a while, trying to gather my thoughts. Poor Marenka sniffled in the kitchen over a pot of coffee. I don’t think she liked me very much, but she adored Rudolf.
I have to pull myself together, I thought. I have to be calm and self-confident so that it is clear to everyone that I am absolutely certain of Rudolf’s innocence. I must not think of how he must be feeling or what they might be doing to him. I have to concentrate on finding the best way to help him. First, I go to the office and tell them what has happened. Then I go see every influential acquaintance we have.
Only then did I realize how few influential people I knew well enough to ask for help. First of all, I decided, I would call Rudolf’s boss, Minister of Foreign Trade Antonin Gregor. After all, Rudolf was his immediate subordinate, his deputy minister. He could not have done anything without Gregor’s authorization. Gregor was routinely informed of every move Rudolf made – he had to stand by him. And the other deputy minister, Jonas, had always treated us like close friends, if not relations. He would hug me whenever we met. I would call both of them as soon as their offices opened. I threw off Rudolf’s robe, dressed, and forced a cup of Marenka’s black coffee down my throat. Before I left, I went into the nursery to check on Ivan. He was fast asleep, smiling, his cheeks flushed. Nothing had touched him yet.
At that time my editor-in-chief was Jura Zajonc, a bright, good-natured young man who came from a long line of miners. He was, of course, a dedicated Communist, but I had always suspected he had a mind of his own. Walking into his office with my news was not exactly easy, but I thought it lucky to be delivering it to him.
Jura listened to what I had to say in silence, pondered it, then said, “We have to hope that this thing will somehow be resolved. I don’t know your husband but I do know you. For the moment, I see no reason why you shouldn’t stay here and go on with your work.”
“Do I have to let the whole office know?”
“I wouldn’t say anything to anyone yet. What if your husband comes back home in a few days?”
Had I been able to smile that day, it would have been at that moment. If Jura thought it possible that Rudolf could come home, why couldn’t it happen? Maybe they would discover that they had arrested a totally innocent man. And Rudolf had been so confident that he had overlooked nothing, that he had made no mistakes.
I went into my studio and dialed my first number.
“May I speak with Comrade Minister Gregor?”
“Who’s calling?”
“Mrs. Margolius.”
“The Comrade Minister is not in.”
I dialed the second number.
“May I speak with Comrade Deputy Minister Jonas?”
“Who’s calling?”
“Mrs. Margolius.”
“The Comrade Deputy is not in.”
Maybe it was true. Maybe they were both in meetings. I would call back later in the morning. Meanwhile I would go to see Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Vlastimil Borek. He was a distant relative of Rudolf’s and very fond of him. Borek was an older man, a highly respected prewar Party member and a former newspaperman who knew everyone who mattered. Later that year, during the trials, he would behave badly, testifying against his colleagues at the Ministry. Soon afterward he would die under rather mysterious circumstances; his own wife could not be sure whether or not his was a natural death.
I called Borek and could tell from the tone of his voice that he had not yet been informed. I asked whether I could see him right away and, surprised, he said, “Come on over.”
When I told him about Rudolf’s arrest, Borek turned pale. He tried to pull himself together, but for a few moments, all he could do was repeat, “So he too... he, too...” I was not sure what he meant by that. We talked, and I begged him to use his influence on Rudolf’s behalf. He promised solemnly to do all he could.
I hurried back to my office. I must not give them any reason to fire me, I thought. I must work harder and better than ever. I stayed in my studio that entire afternoon. I knew how worn out I looked and I wanted to avoid any questions. Every hour I stopped my work to call the Ministry, but none of Rudolf’s colleagues were in, and finally I had to admit that this was no coincidence. None of them would speak with me. Even if I somehow should manage to reach them, they would do nothing. They were all terrified and trying their best to avoid showing any semblance of sympathy for Rudolf. None would lift a finger for him.
After work I stopped at a telephone booth and called Pavel Eisler. He was the best and staunchest friend I had and a man of great political insight. He was an economist by training, who had worked at the United Nations under Gunnar Myrdal after the war. When he had returned to Prague, his connections had at first been greatly appreciated; a few years later, they had become dangerous liabilities. Now he was performing unskilled labor in a factory, earning next to nothing and anticipating arrest at any moment. No one understood how it had happened that he remained free for so long. The only poss
ible explanation was that his wife was the daughter of Lord Layton, an influential Englishman and a personal friend of Winston Churchill – clearly someone who could cause a great deal of trouble were his son-in-law to be arrested.
Even so, I knew Pavel’s situation was precarious and I did not wish to make it worse by drawing attention to his friendship with Rudolf. When he answered the phone I tried to disguise my voice. “Pavel, my husband went to see Eda,” I said softly. “I feel lonely. I’d like to talk but don’t know if you have the time.”
There was a moment of shocked silence and then Pavel shouted, “Heda, you fool! Of course we have to talk! Come over right away!”
“I’d rather come in the evening.”
“Fine! Come in the evening.”
I went home. Mrs. Machova, whose infallible instinct led her to turn up at our house when we most needed her, was in the kitchen talking with Marenka. I could see that both of them had been weeping.
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