Prague Noir

by Pavel Mandys

  There weren’t many entries. It looked as if Auntie wrote in it only occasionally—perhaps only when she came in the room for a valuable piece to sell to prevent the nationalization of her house. It didn’t take Hedvika long to make it to the final entry.

  January 17, 1974

  Šimek was snooping again. I know that he suspects something, and he knows that I know. But he won’t find anything. This hideout is difficult to find, and while I am alive he won’t get any opportunities. Let him sweat trying to figure out where I keep getting all the things which always, at the last moment, save our ownership of the house. Let him threaten me, let him keep on waiting for me in the niche above the stairs, let him try—he’s not going to get anything out of me, even if he were to push me down those stairs. I will always try to do everything I can so that our little Hedvika can inherit from me as much as possible—so that she keeps the secrets of this house through her childhood, but also so that she can remember it when she really needs it. Our Hedvika, she is the future of the unfortunate Mautnic family; our Hedvika—a child with bright eyes and an open mind, who will one day finish what I have started. She will reclaim the collections, publish my studies whose authorship was denied to me by that pack of academics, chauvinistic sycophantic friends of the deceased baron. She will bring back to the house of Mautnic justice and order. Our Hedvika, she will pull it off one day . . .

  March 31, 1998

  It has taken a year and a half to be able to add this entry to the previous ones. But finally—the waiting is over. The house looks like new, everything has been restored to its original condition, and downstairs, where there used to be a shop with paint, I have opened an exhibition hall.

  The exhibition is called “The Life and Work of Baroness Mautnic.”

  The opening was attended by many people from the neighborhood, but also complete strangers, and even the press. From upstairs, Doctor Šimek came too. Gnarled in his wheelchair, his face puckered like a rotten potato, shooting thunderbolts from his eyes—at the walls with exhibits, and at me as well. However, he congratulated me with a heartfelt zeal as if he has never wanted anything else but welfare for the Mautnic family. And so I offered him, with the same heartfelt smile, a glass of wine, and waited until the last drop slithered down his throat, tight with rage, and then I bent down to him and whispered: “How could you be so inept? It was all so simple!”

  The profanities he wheezed out cheered me up, unlike the indignant visitors among whom the aghast goblin Šimek Jr. tried to maneuver the wheelchair back to the elevator. “I will show you yet!” he threatened before the door closed.

  I worry that he won’t get the opportunity to fulfill those threats. The magic of the thorn frog may have weakened a little through the years, but the heart of Doctor Šimek has weakened too. By the next day, the news of his fatal heart attack had spread all over the house. At his age, it didn’t surprise anybody . . .

  You would have enjoyed that evening, dear Auntie.

  All the Old Disguises

  by Markéta Pilátová

  Grébovka

  I’m returning to Prague. The big return for the big bucks. But what am I doing here, really? I was Vilda’s partner. And now I’ve been invited back here by his grandson. It’s so unreal that it’s almost ridiculous. I do not know exactly what it is he wants. He simply paid for my plane ticket. He only wants to tell me something. And I will not say no to a visit back to Prague, to the city where all the disguises are buried. I will walk through the Jewish Quarter; I will have a crappy cup of coffee in one of the coffee shops and then . . . we’ll see. We’ll see what the grandsonny wants.

  I look like Robocop. I have always stood out. It didn’t matter if my suits were tailor-made; however much they tried, I have always looked like a gorilla dressed as a man. “You’re too big, try not to hurt anybody,” my Mom used to urge me. And then later, when I hit puberty, I realized that in the big skull of mine there’s much more going on compared to others. I realized it slowly but surely. I breezed through school with a thumb up my nose, but I looked like I could easily beat the crap out of Godzilla. So nobody ever suspected me of having more of a brain than themselves. Only the old physics teacher Macek realized it—he urged me not to be too vengeful, because I could easily cause all sorts of ugly things to happen.

  I haven’t been here for something like thirty years. Perhaps more—but who’s counting? And when Vilda’s grandson wrote me, I was not curious. I was not curious at all to see those melancholy stone houses and the pungent, murky river about which Smetana composed all that puffy music. I don’t suffer from nostalgia or the desire to fart on the frozen dirt here. And my memory is very good. My mind palace, where I go to reflect and spit into the dirty water under the Charles Bridge. And if you do not know what a mind palace is, then go and read Cicero. I have no home, and that makes my job easy. And I have always been busy with work. No thanks to God. None at all—I’d rather do nothing and watch detective stories, or read Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In any case, speculating with stocks had never appealed to me, nor translating Roman philosophers and quantum physics, which Macek wooed me to study. It was more boring to me than even organic chemistry. And then I discovered that I was interested only in being smart and getting paid for it. Vilda and I came up with a few new machines. We built a huge factory for those smart machines and had plans and branches. Everybody everywhere needed our turbines and metal blades. Finally, something that truly tantalized me.

  It was a long time ago when we were building our empire . . . but Vilda was a Jew, and he did not want to move. Not even when it became clear that the Nazis had decided his time was up. I ran fast; he stubbornly stayed. And then I bailed him out of the concentration camp. Back then it cost us all our money. But it had become quite clear that nobody was interested in reporting on Buchenwald to the rest of the world, and so on his way to the United States, Vilda got finished off somewhere between Lisbon and Havana. Allegedly by an SS doctor who was sent on the boat with him. Apparently the insulin dose he injected Vilda with was a tad too much. It doesn’t matter what had really happened, because when all the truth about the camps came out after the war, it became very clear that Vilda had no chance. In 1941, not one of those bastards was interested in some wealthy Jew—whose money ended up in their pockets—talking to the White House about his experiences in Buchenwald and Dachau.

  And then I did not return back home. I quite simply cast everything aside—the war, Vilda, factories—and I started doing something completely different. Vilda would be surprised. He always claimed that I was a bit of a scoundrel and that I was wasted on business. In fact, it wasn’t until after the war that I started doing what he always recommended I do. It didn’t pay as well as when one engineers machines nobody else has ever designed; on the other hand, it was quite enough. I was able to dig around in languages, change accents, travel all around the world. I was so conspicuous that nobody was ever able to connect me with what I was really doing. It’s so conspicuous that it is rendered inconspicuous, as my dear Sherlock Holmes might have said. Peculiar how we are always drawn to book characters we can never resemble. Maybe it’s enough that we want to resemble them?

  I had always lived exactly as I wanted. Mom used to say: “Never live according to others, because others have no good intentions.” Mom was an innkeeper, almost as large as me; she smelled like goulash and stank like a spigot, and when one of the regulars slapped her butt, he was still collecting his teeth the following day. So she was certainly worldly, and I always took her advice to heart—if I did not, I could not sit down for a week. The only person who had always had good intentions with me was Vilda.

  Maybe his grandson wants to hear this old history? What use would it be to him? I found out that he returned from the States to the wild East after the revolution in 1989, and worked as an economic consultant to some government minister with a violet tie. The clown had studied economics—Vilda would probably not approve all that much. He did not approve of schools; he dete
sted educated people because he himself was not educated. He did like intelligent people, for sure, but naturally intelligent people who do not need to sit around reading books for five years to understand what they’re supposed to do in life. Vilda started at his parents’ shop with feathers, then he worked for my mom as a busboy, and all the while he was designing machines—coming up with technical improvements which, once he showed them to me, left me inspired. We both knew we were made for each other. And now his grandson has started to do serious business in Prague. He’s bought a few Communist bars he wants to refurbish into posh establishments and maybe he feels he should get back his grandpa’s factory. All options are possible as I have confirmed so many times. But I do not want to be surprised. I really dislike surprises. And so I keep on wondering, What does this boy have on his mind?

  From the pictures I got, he is the spitting image of Vilda. Thin, a hollow face with black eyes; underneath, a hook for a nose. I am sure, however, that Vilda would hate him. But perhaps I am not being fair, allergic as I am to everything that belongs to Vilda’s family. Still, Vilda simply never liked these careful, uninspired types. When I was looking through those pictures, I saw a guy who at once knew and didn’t know the ropes. He didn’t know himself. You can see that by the way he looks into the lens. The body language and all those observation techniques can be cut in half if you just look carefully into the eyes. Hands, body composure—all of that can be controlled and learned. Except eyes. Those who are self-possessed have calm in their eyes. This one’s eyes are like gas burners incinerating him from the inside. And that’s not good. But I am curious—that has always been my biggest problem.

  * * *

  He arranged a meeting with me in a tavern near Grébovka. That choice is already, shall we say, significant. Next to it was Vilda’s villa, which contained that immense collection of sculptures, almost to the point of a fetish. He had to put all that dough into something. And then he stayed—because of his pride. Stupid pride. This all goes through my head as I order mediocre wine from local cellars, which they pour so proudly—this swill they make out of what has been growing here on the hill since Charles IV. Well, one should always taste what the locals are trying to make. I do like the view, though. Through the smog, I can see a piece of Prague as I used to know it. As I see it even today, whenever I reminisce. Sometimes I sketch Prague with a charcoal pencil and every detail is where it’s supposed to be. Church spires and flocks of pigeons under cloud lines. The only thing I can’t get into those drawings is the smell of the streets. That smoky, foggy scent with a tinge of the gutter, each spring colored with lilac. Light spots from the streetlamps are starting to softly circle around the park. It’s still quite cold, which is further accentuated by a fine drizzle. In the park, fitness nuts are running about in colored jackets; in the late afternoon they swarm under the lamps like moths.

  The tavern is stylish, but utterly empty. Perhaps people drink here only on weekends—like everywhere else, where during the week people make money so they can then pour it down their throats in the two days they are off. In any case, I am sitting here alone, gazing into the large jar full of corks that seems to be obligatory in every good establishment serving wine. He came up to my table silently, like a greedy tomcat. Expensive briefcase; cheap shoes. I didn’t ask him how he recognized me, because everybody knows me. My hair is gray but my physique hasn’t shrunk or dried up with age. We greet each other and I do not feel like telling him to get to the point. I enjoy long negotiations; I like watching people’s eyes. How they change, how the pupils narrow or widen. I am, however, absolutely taken aback by his likeness to Vilda. How he moves like him. As if somebody stabbed me right in my heart with a thick, blunt, corroded needle, and thoroughly dug it in there. His son didn’t resemble him this much. He’s been dead for a long time; cancer got him when he was still young, and so it is possible that I actually do not quite remember what he looked like. The grandson is more than just Vilda’s carbon copy. He even speaks like Vilda. First it confuses me. Then I get used to it. He makes too many unnecessary pauses and probably thinks that gives the impression of smartness and depth. The same mistakes. Can’t those genes be distributed in a better way? He starts telling me something about himself, as if that should interest me. This type of information hasn’t polluted my brain for a long time. I only listen to the manner of his speech. It’s not like a greedy tomcat anymore. It’s an anxious dog. I don’t need to consider the inconsistencies in his life story to understand that he has carefully invented and designed it in his head so that he can later retell it at any time to anybody. “Well, thanks for the info,” I say politely.

  He’s sitting and smoking. That does not quite fit his image of a clean-cut young man. Apparently, he heard that me and his grandpa . . . ehm . . . that we were very close. That, we sure were. “I didn’t invite you here by chance. I mean here, to Grébovka.”

  “Even an idiot would be able to figure that out,” I answer.

  He just about sloshes the expensive wine on his cheap shirt. He doesn’t quite know what to do with me. He’d like to come out with it, but I don’t feel like hearing it yet. We’re silent. “You haven’t been here since the end of the war?”

  “What would I do here?”

  “I don’t know, I wasn’t born here—but the place has always draw me in. I wanted to know the places where Grandpa and Grandma lived.”

  “People are all different.”

  Again, a pause. In his eyes, the nervousness is starting to morph into anger. “Your Czech is still excellent.”

  “That’s possible, I still read Czech news on the Internet.”

  “Apparently you’re a polyglot.”

  “Not really, I just like Latin. Since my school years. And once you learn Latin, all the other languages are fun.”

  “They’re after me.”

  And it was out. A bit too fast for my taste. He tells me he has a feeling that somebody is watching him.

  “Why don’t you hire security?”

  “I don’t trust anybody.”

  “But I wasn’t your grandpa’s bodyguard.”

  “I know; you were partners in your business. Grandma said that you also . . . that you were really close.”

  “Yes, we certainly were. Your grandpa went both ways, as did many others in those times. The time before the war was fiery, hedonistic . . . no careful consummation like now.”

  I watch his pupils. They have widened with disgust. Grandma surely informed him in much more detail.

  “Why should I help you? Because of Vilda? Because you’re his grandson? Don’t be ridiculous. You yourself do not believe something like that could interest me.”

  “Allegedly you killed his murderer. Grandma said so.”

  “Yeah? And when did she tell you? On her deathbed? And even if I did—it was war back then. One Czech simply killed the Nazi who killed his friend. That’s all. I cannot protect you, kid, because I don’t even know why they’re after you and why I should bother. But thanks for the talk and the trip to Prague.”

  He was right. I ferreted out Vilda’s killer. For that, I used all sorts of skills. In Argentina, where that bastard with the syringe who gave Vilda an overdose of insulin ran for cover, I sent him over a cliff in Buenos Aires, behind the Centrangolo station. And maybe he didn’t inject it; maybe he came clean, because my torture was a tad more effective than their war torture. Anyway, he fessed up, and even if it was under duress, I did not care—that guy worked in a concentration camp as a doctor. He probably wasn’t really taking care of patients there. I shouldn’t have told Zdenka. It only affirmed her belief that it was wasted money back then. I will never forget how she begged me not to rescue Vilda. What will be left for us? she whimpered like a kicked dog. I hated her. And she was right. She was left with nothing. But compared to me, she didn’t know how to take care of herself. She had a hard time in the States. No longer young, with a child to take care of. I didn’t care how she scraped along. I was not interested. She ce
ased to exist for me the moment she didn’t want to save Vilda. And now I should save her grandson.

  “So, get to it—who is after you and why do you believe that I could do something about that?”

  “It’s about that factory of yours here. All the land and the workers’ houses. I would like to apply for restitution. With you, of course. And perhaps that’s why somebody is following me. It’s a huge amount of money.”

  “Did you say restitution?”

  He uttered the word the same way a hungry dog eats a fancy piece of brisket. Every syllable in that foreign, hopeful word was full of mad desire. Now all I am interested in is how he wants to accomplish this. What his plan is. It’s turned out quite nicely. I will let him utter the word one more time to make sure. Then I have to gain time. It’s quite late, it became dark a long time ago, and this park is not very easy terrain—all uphill or downhill, and I am over eighty. I have to gain some time. I have to create it. And then I have to provoke this sweetheart. Hit the bull’s-eye.

  “I do not understand why it is that you should get anything back. You’re a grandson; you do not deserve any of Vilda’s or my money. You’re a nobody who emigrated here from the States because you wouldn’t have made it there. You are a consultant to a rookie who knows jack about capitalism, and you think that that’s a career. And now, when everybody asks to be restituted, you should get something? Why? Because thanks to some cosmic irony your name is Šantavý?”

  He’s listening to me, his eyes burning with an enraged, cold flame. Vilda’s eyes could burn like this before the war. Just a bit more, just a bit more oil for the fire and he will lose it, and I will learn how he has everything planned out. He doesn’t have a gun, though: when he came in, I carefully looked him over. He is not the type who could shoot—too nervous to carry a gun. A small fish who has only started to attend the mafia day care. He’ll have somebody do it for him. Somebody who has not come yet. He hasn’t given him the sign yet. He still needs something. That’s why he keeps himself in check. I have to get to the next step hellishly fast so that I can learn from his eyes where that somebody—who is going to do his dirty job for him—will be coming from.