Fires in the Dark

by Louise Doughty

  ‘Of course, sir,’ said the boy, gesturing towards a seat.

  Yenko sat and lit his last cigarette. After two puffs, he stubbed it out gently by wheeling the lighted end against the edge of the marble ashtray. He would save the rest until his coffee arrived. As it came, he was standing, readjusting his trousers. His good pair had been ruined in the fighting and he was back to the old brown pinstripe which were ill-fitting and, in this heat, uncomfortable. He thanked the boy and sat down, feeling an ache of nostalgia for the war days, when he had been a businessman. Had it really been so bad, the fear of being caught? I am forgetting already, he thought. But that was the thing about such extremity. It wasn’t possible to recall an emotion such as fear or pain, not accurately. They could only be felt in the real, the here and now. Once they were past, you could never recapture their precise flavour, thank God, otherwise you would go mad. Time to stop feeling guilty, he thought, as he sipped the coffee. I did what I could. Let’s leave guilt to those who have good reason to feel it. God knows, there are enough of those. He re-lit his cigarette. An image came into his head, unbidden; the crow in the doorway. He closed his eyes. Leave me be! He finished his coffee hastily and stood, looking down at the table, wondering whether or not he had paid. It came to him that he hadn’t.

  As he left the café, a young man in a leather jacket and cap stopped him and handed him a leaflet, saying as he took it, ‘Long live Comrade Stalin!’

  *

  There were gangs of men at work in Celetná. Most of the rubble had been cleared from the street, now passable with care, but several damaged buildings were still surrounded by rope cordons. Here at least, there was no pretending that there hadn’t been a war.

  The easiest place to walk was in the middle of the road. On the pavements there were still piles of rubble and cobbles stacked against the walls, waiting to be replaced in their proper order. The war was the cement that held people together, Yenko thought, as he picked his way carefully. Now we are all loose stones. We must each find our place.

  As he turned the corner into Ctibor’s alley, he saw that two men were standing in front of the old shop. The door stood open, and they were nodding to each other. He glanced at the men as he passed beneath the low stone archway and through the courtyard. They ignored him. As he mounted the staircase of Ctibor’s block, he saw, at the top, two wooden crates and a small suitcase. He walked along the corridor to Ctibor’s room. Mrs Talichová had propped open the door to her apartment and the corridor was full of light. She was brushing the floor with a broom. Her husband was also inside, seated at a table near the window, dressed in a string vest, holding up a small mirror with one hand and shaving with the other. He was humming to himself. A boy that Yenko hadn’t seen before sat on the opposite side of the table, head in hands, reading a newspaper.

  Mrs Talichová looked up at Yenko as he stopped in her doorway, then resumed her brushing. As he turned away, she said, ‘He’s been back for over a week, you know. He’s been asking after you.’

  The door to Ctibor’s room was also propped open. Inside, the shutters had been hooked back and the windows flung open. The room was full of light. Ctibor’s tins and mugs were gone from the shelf above the sink. The bed had been stripped and the eiderdown and blankets folded and tied with string. Ctibor himself was standing over a large suitcase that was resting on the bare mattress. A pile of clothing lay next to it.

  He turned as Yenko entered. ‘I finally managed to open that damn window,’ he said, ‘with Mr T’s help. I told them they can have this room when I’m gone.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Believe it or not, it’s bigger than theirs.’

  Ctibor had a large, yellowing bruise on his forehead. He seemed a little less bulky. Otherwise, he looked unharmed by his experience at the hands of the partisans. Yenko sat down in the armchair, as he used to do in the war days. Automatically, he patted his pockets, remembering he had just smoked his last cigarette. He leaned back in the chair and then leaned forward again. ‘You’re leaving,’ he said, redundantly.

  Ctibor continued packing. ‘I hear you’re a war hero these days.’

  Yenko gave a short exhalation of surprise. ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Mrs Talichová, of course. You should go to the Town Hall and get accreditation. They’re giving out certificates to partisans and Resistance workers. You never know when it might come in handy.’

  ‘Ctibor, Uncle …’

  ‘Of course, who knows how much those bits of paper are going to be worth? They’re probably selling them on the black market already. You might be fixed up with one, I suppose. Sorry. That was a cheap remark. Beneath me.’

  ‘Ctibor …’

  ‘But then your line of work is going to keep going for quite a while, I’d say. I heard about Jan Blažek, by the way. I can hardly believe it. You don’t know who to trust these days.’

  Yenko sighed, resting his elbows on his knees and letting his head hang.

  Ctibor still had his back to him but he paused in the act of folding his voluminous dressing-gown and said, without turning, ‘I suppose there is nothing I can say to persuade you to come with me?’

  Yenko shook his head and said, ‘No.’

  Ctibor was standing very still.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Yenko added, then asked, ‘What will you do?’

  ‘I’m going back to Kladno,’ Ctibor said over his shoulder. ‘I still have one or two friends there. The German families are all leaving and I should be there to claim the farm. I don’t want it, actually, but I’d like to be in the area, just in case there’s any news about Sarah.’ He sighed. ‘If I can sell it, then I’ll buy myself a little cottage somewhere nearby. Who knows? Maybe I’ll even plant a couple of trees.’

  For a long time, there was silence between them. Then Yenko said, ‘This room looks different with the window open. It’s hot outside. The evenings are long. It’s clear now but I think it’s going to cloud over. It will rain before nightfall.’

  ‘I haven’t been out today.’

  ‘They are still piling up the cobbles. There is scaffolding over the Astronomical Clock.’

  ‘That’s been there for a while,’ Ctibor said, as he resumed folding his clothes.

  Yenko watched him finish his packing in silence.

  ‘For a man who prided himself on having few possessions I seem to have an awful lot to cram into this suitcase …’ Ctibor said. He threw down the lid and tried in vain to fasten the catch. Yenko rose to help but Ctibor waved him back to his seat. He turned and plumped himself down on the brimming case, bouncing gently. The bed springs creaked in protest.

  ‘The war is over,’ he said contemplatively, bouncing lightly. ‘And now that the fighting has stopped, us victors can start a little competition. It’s a competition called, Who Has Suffered Most? Shall I tell you the rules?’

  Yenko smiled grimly and said, ‘I think I can guess.’

  ‘The rules are, anyone who talks about their suffering wins. The ones who talk about it loudest and longest will not, of course, be the ones who have suffered most. Those ghosts coming back, you know the ones I mean, the camp people and the soldiers with legs and arms missing and craziness in their eyes. Do you think there is even the language for what has happened to then? But Mrs Hubičková downstairs? You can’t get past her door without her coming out of the apartment and telling you how she risked her life to warn the Jewish family across the road and how for the whole of the war she was convinced the Gestapo would knock on her door at any minute. Know what she did? Ste heard the father had been arrested: he worked with her husband at the paper mill. So she wait over the road and told the mother and three children to pack their things and scram before they brought trouble down on the whole street. She was frightened about her own skin and the china dog collection she keeps on the windowsill but …’ Ctibor threw his hands in the air, ‘that woman will be convinced for the rest of her life that during the war she saved a family of Jews.’

  You saved me, Yenko thought, and for th
e rest of your life, you will be convinced you didn’t do enough.

  Ctibor sat glumly for a few moments, although the sides of the suitcase beneath him were showing clear signs of strain. ‘I’m not immune, you know,’ he said after a while. ‘When Mrs Talichová’s boy came back – he was one of those ones got taken to the Reich. Well, their boy came back just yesterday, a strapping lad, and I passed him on the stairs and I thought, what do you know? You were safe in Germany working away at your factory, making the guns they used to shoot us, the steel to make them strong. What can those boys know of what it was like for us under occupation here, always waiting for the knock on the door? Know what?’ Ctibor lowered his voice again. ‘I heard them having a row last night, the three of than, the very first night the boy is home. Doors banging, the father shouting. And the boy comes out and storms off down the corridor. At the top of the stairs he shouts back, loud enough for the whole building to hear, You’ve no idea! Nothing has happened in Prague! You’ve hardly had a single bomb! You should have heard it over our heads! You should have seen the things I’ve seen!’

  Ctibor paused, then lumbered down from his unfortunate suitcase. ‘Who Has Suffered Most?’

  As he lifted the suitcase to the floor he said sorrowfully. ‘If only you would come with me, František.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t understand …’

  Yenko was silent. What could he say? Ctibor had saved his life, but he had been a boy then and now he was a man, with a man’s responsibilities. No man could call himself a Rom without a family and people to care for. I am my father’s son, after all, he thought, and felt a sudden warmth spreading through his veins.

  ‘Ah well,’ Ctibor said resignedly. He picked up his case and half-carried, half-dragged it towards the door. When Yenko rose to help him, he waved him away again. ‘In the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Blessed Holy Virgin …’ he muttered between his teeth. ‘It is good to be leaving Prague.’ Yenko stood and watched the old man as he struggled stubbornly down the corridor, bumping his large suitcase against the doorposts and cursing as he went.

  *

  Yenko strode back to the Little Quarter over Charles Bridge, pausing to look down the river in the early evening light. He still felt the new feeling, strange and peaceful. It seemed odd that the city was no different from how it had been an hour ago. The river was flowing as it always did. He realised that he had come to love the river.

  As he approached the grand apartment building, he saw Marie sitting on the step of the building opposite. She was leaning against a stone portal with her head hanging slightly and her eyes closed. Her hands were crossed in her lap, resting in the folds of her long grey skirt. Her blouse hung loose on her shoulders. She needs to put on weight, he thought. I must talk to her about it.

  He stopped in front of her and she raised her head. She stared at him, her black eyes wide in her clear, small face. She scrambled awkwardly to her feet and he held out a hand to help her up. As they walked up the street away from the building, she said, ‘We should go in. They’ll be wondering where we are.’

  Yenko tucked her arm beneath his. ‘Your father knows I will look after you.’ They began to walk up the hill, crossing the square and turning left. ‘Can you manage a climb, do you think?’ he asked.

  She looked up at him and nodded.

  After a while, they reached the huge, grassy slopes of the Petřín Hill, rising steeply above the city in an optimistic, upward flush of green. The lower slopes had been dug up to grow vegetables and there were dismantled German artillery positions dotted around, guarded by Czech soldiers with open shirts. As they climbed higher, they saw that amongst the trees were little encampments of refugees, makeshift tents made of ropes and blankets and groups of women gathered around small bonfires. If we get thrown out of the apartment while the weather is still good we could come here, Yenko thought. This would suit us just fine.

  They climbed higher and higher in silence, Marie panting gently. Yenko slowed his pace. He had been eating properly for two years – she had not – but she was determined, and when he asked her if she needed to stop and sit down, she shook her head and said, ‘Let’s go as high as we can. It’s good to be away from people.’

  They were still some distance from the top of the hill when she stopped and heaved a breath. ‘All right, my friend. You have won.’

  He took her hand and led her into the trees, along the hill, until he found a spot where they were enclosed around but still had a view looking down over the city. They sat and leant either side of a tree, recovering. He handed her his handkerchief to wipe her face and neck. The trunks of the trees surrounding them were green with moss. Dappled light filtered through, greenish too.

  When he had caught his breath, he said, ‘I must pray, first.’

  She looked at him, then nodded.

  He rose, walked a few paces away, then knelt down on one knee and clasped his hands, copying the stance he had observed in his father. He pursed his lips, trying to remember the old words. Sun and moon bear witness … He closed his eyes. ‘Te šai vrakeren mange o Kham thai o Chon …’ he began. ‘Sun and moon, bear witness. Witness this union, and tell God. Tell him I knelt to Cleanse myself and offered him this vow. Dear God, I hereby renounce my gadjo ways. If you give me Marie, and she is virgin, I will live from now as a true Rom. She is not tutored in the true Roma ways but I will teach her as much as I can.’ He paused to clench his hands together more firmly. ‘Dear God, I hereby renounce my gadjo ways. I will eat with my fingers so I do not contaminate myself with their implements. I will not eat their foul meat, nor drink their alcohol without offering the Ancestors a libation. I am sorry for the things I did when I was a gadjo. I am sorry I cheated and lied when I worked with the black-marketeer Blažek. I am sorry I told that woman in Beroun that her father’s watch was worthless, because she looked so upset and wouldn’t sell it to me anyway. I am sorry …’ He clenched his eyes tight shut against the sun. ‘I am sorry I killed the old couple in the shack.’ He paused and opened his eyes. White light. No, it wasn’t true. He wasn’t sorry. If he hadn’t killed them, he wouldn’t be alive now. He glanced back at Marie. She sat waiting, not looking at him. ‘Dear God, this is all I can say sorry for. I am sorry that I did not admit to myself, before now: I did it to live, but it was vengeance too. There is hatred in me. I think I will always carry it around with me. I cannot put it down.’ Was it enough, to acknowledge something, even if you weren’t truly sorry for it? He groaned aloud. He could feel in his bones; it wasn’t enough. He looked up at the sky. The summer sun beat down, relentlessly. Where was God? Where was he when they were all dying in the camps? ‘Te šai vrakeren mange o Kham thai o Chan … Sun and moon bear witness …’ He dug his fingernails into his clenched hands. ‘I am not repentant, but I know what I did. I know what it means. I am a man. I will, I will …’ He heaved a sigh. ‘I will take care of Marie, and her parents, even though as a Romni she should care for my parents. Mine are dead. I will take on my shoulders Marie and her mother who is like a little, old child, and her father, who I despise. I will protect these two old people that I do not care for, for Marie’s sake, and because I killed the old couple. When we are thrown out of the apartment I will build us a shelter on this hill. I will work in some gadjo’s factory if I have to …’ He paused again. ‘Don’t ask more of me, O Del. You took my family and all my people away from me. How can you ask …?’ It was enough. He was empty of words. He looked up at the sky, despairing. There is nothing there, he thought.

  He returned to Marie, wearily. She looked up at him from where he sat. He removed his jacket, and laid it on the patch of bare earth immediately in front of them. He gestured with the flat of his hand, an expansive gesture, that she should lie down.

  She looked at him calmly, then obeyed.

  As he parted her legs and knelt awkwardly between them, pushing up her skirt, he smiled down at her, to reassure her. Her expression was small, scared and resolute. He paused, a slight question in his look,
and she gave an almost imperceptible nod. Then she lifted her hips from the ground so that he could push her skirt up further. He half-lay down, supporting himself with one hand flat on the soil while he unbuttoned his flies.

  He wondered briefly whether he should kiss her mouth, the way a whore in the New Town had once taught him. It felt like the right thing to do, but he didn’t want to risk offending her. He didn’t know how to behave with a good Roma girl – he had only ever slept with gadji whores. Marie was lying perfectly still with her eyes closed. He closed his own and thought of a small, black-haired woman he had picked up on New Year’s Eve. She had worn a peach-coloured silk camisole and matching French knickers, the feel of them as smooth as water.

  As he pushed into Marie, she cried out and he clapped his hand over her mouth. He finished quickly, then knelt up, pulling her skirt back down for her and buttoning his flies. She lay quite still. As he resumed his sitting position, leaning back against the tree, she sat up and he saw she was still grasping his handkerchief. She turned away from him, and tucked it under her skirt. Then she shuffled backwards so that she could lean against the tree, next to him.

  He dared not look at her. He sat with his knees raised, looking out over the city. The river was a bright ribbon of winding blue, the buildings white and terracotta shapes. People were tiny.

  The ground sloped sharply down, away from them, covered with clusters of spiky yellow flowers. He wished that one of them was within reach, so that he could pluck it for Marie without rising. He did not want to move until she spoke.

  She was silent for a long time and he thought, I have misjudged it. I thought she wanted me, but I have insulted her.

  Then she said, ‘I will learn.’

  He picked up her hand from where it rested on the soil between them and said, ‘Don’t be afraid of anything. That is my first order to you as your husband.’ He had been sincere, but at the word husband, they both burst into snorts of childish laughter.