The Cowards

by Josef Skvorecky

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Haryk and he expertly began to paint over the German inscription.

  ‘Careful,’ said Mr Moutelik, looking up at him. Haryk calmly went on painting. But all of a sudden, a thin trickle of black paint dribbled off the brush and dripped down the signboard over the Czech letters.

  ‘Watch out!’ shrieked Mr Moutelik. ‘Wipe it off, Haryk!’

  ‘I don’t have anything to wipe it off with,’ said Haryk.

  ‘Wait a second,’ called Mr Moutelik. ‘Rosie! Hurry! Bring a rag!’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Rosie, looked up in amazement, then disappeared into the store. Haryk sat there on the ladder and didn’t do a thing. We waited. Rosie didn’t come. Haryk shifted the brush to his other hand and tried to rub off the paint with his hand. But he only made it worse.

  ‘Careful! No! Don’t do that!’ cried Mr Moutelik. ‘Here comes Rosie! Hurry up!’

  Rosie rushed back with a rag and handed it up to Haryk. Haryk took the rag and rubbed. The Czech inscription and Mr Moutelik’s huge signature were veiled in a grey film. Mr Moutelik looked grieved.

  ‘Wait a minute, Harry, old boy,’ he said.

  ‘It won’t come off,’ said Haryk.

  ‘Leave it be.’

  But Haryk kept on smearing the paint over the sign.

  ‘Leave it!’ Mr Moutelik said heroically. ‘Anyway, I’ve got to have a new signboard painted. This is just temporary.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘This is just a kind of symbol, right?’

  ‘Exactly, Danny,’ said Mr Moutelik. ‘A symbol of the evil past’

  Haryk slid down off the ladder and Benno and Lexa brought it down on to their shoulders.

  ‘There we are,’ said Haryk. ‘Sorry, Mr Moutelik …’

  Mr Moutelik waved his hand.

  ‘Ah, don’t give it a thought. What do I care? So what? At a time like this! Thanks, boys. Thank you.’

  ‘You’re quite welcome,’ said Haryk. We all said good-bye to him and then shoved off from the store. Haryk hurried on ahead. When we were out of earshot, Haryk turned to us.

  ‘Man, I sure made a mess of that, didn’t I?’

  ‘You’re telling me,’ said Lexa.

  ‘Wait and see, he’ll send you a bill for his new sign yet,’ said Benno.

  ‘I wouldn’t put it past him,’ said Haryk.

  We strolled on towards the square. I walked with Pedro. Benno and Lexa were in front of us, carrying the ladder. The square looked like an anthill. People were walking back and forth in their Sunday best, pretending to be very jolly. Some were. But lots of them weren’t. At least not all that jolly. It wasn’t over yet. Nothing was certain yet and God only knew how it was going to turn out. The Russians were heading this way from the east. Still, everybody was acting as if they were jolly. An incredibly long flag was already hanging from one church steeple like a red and white noodle. Another was just being hung from another steeple. They were shoving it out through a window in the belfry like an anchor rope. It was a yellow and white flag. Some guy next to me started to cheer.

  ‘Long live the Czechoslovak Republic! Long live President Benes!’

  He looked drunk. When the yellow and white flag flapped out, he stopped and stared.

  ‘What’s that?’ he said.

  I leaned over and said, ‘It’s the Pope’s flag.’

  ‘That?’ he said, turning towards me. ‘So that’s the Pope’s flag, is it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Then the guy began to cheer again. ‘Long live the Pope! Long live Jesus Christ! Long live the Czechoslovak Republic!’

  We made our way across the square. All of a sudden a murmur ran through the crowd. Somebody was cheering, though it sounded pretty timid for a real cheer. I looked up and saw a huge flag majestically fluttering from the turret of the castle. The Czech flag. The sun was shining on it and the cupola of the castle was bright red; the hill on which the castle stood was bright with lilacs in bloom. It was like a picture on a candy box. An extremely patriotic picture. A picture to remember! It would certainly inspire Mr Leitner to paint it, working in a bunch of people in Sokol dress and the little girls in old-fashioned peasant costumes, and over in one corner, Alois Jirasek. No. Alois Jirasek in one corner and Bozena Nemcova* in the other. President Masaryk in the upper left hand corner, President Benes in the right and at the bottom Alois Jirasek and Bozena Nemcova. And then he’d display it in his shop window. And Mr Machacek would use it for the frontispiece of his History of the Kostelec Revolution. Yes. That’s how it would be. Everything’d be worked in, everything would be preserved. In word and picture. The revolution was in good hands. It sure was in our town anyway. All of a sudden the crowd behind us started laughing. I looked around. People were shoving and shouting, ‘Watch out!’

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Haryk.

  Somebody up front turned around and called, ‘Watch out! They’re going to throw Hitler out!’

  I got the idea. We were standing in front of City Hall on the paved square where they used to have band concerts and speeches. I looked up. The building’s main tower was very high and the top looked awfully small when you looked up at it from down below. Somebody was leaning out of the little cupola and holding something in his hands. He displayed it to the crowd below. It was the bronze bust of Hitler that used to stand in the main lobby of City Hall and the sun gleamed against it. ‘All right, let ’er go,’ somebody yelled, and everybody laughed again. Then somebody came racing out into the square. It was Petracek who worked out at the Messerschmidt plant. He was waving his arms and yelling to quiet the crowd.

  ‘Now then, everybody,’ said Petracek. ‘Let’s help him off on his long way down! Get ready!’

  The crowd was with him. From the crowd came a long, drawn-out ‘Get setttt …’ The man up there holding the bust caught on too, and after lifting up the bust with both hands as high over the railing as he could, he waited. Petracek sprang off to one side. Then somebody shouted and the whole crowd joined in with a thunderous ‘Go!’ and that same second, the man in the tower let the bust drop. It fell through the crisp air and glittered in the sunshine. There was absolute silence. The bust sailed down and smashed on the pavement like a flower pot. It wasn’t bronze at all, just some cheap ersatz material. The people broke into cheers. I could still recognize the tip of Hitler’s nose with the little moustache underneath, and then even that was gone as the crowd rushed forward and trampled the pieces to dust.

  ‘Let’s go, gang. We’ve still got work to do,’ said Benno.

  We started off. The flag on the castle was still flying and snapping in the sunshine. I suddenly thought of the Queen of Württemberg as I elbowed my way through the crowd. What do you suppose the Queen of Württemberg was doing? She was probably scared. We made our way over to the other side of the square. Things certainly looked as if the war had been already won. I didn’t find it fun any more. We stopped in front of Manes’s shop. Benno set up the ladder and started to climb. He looked like a big blown-up white balloon. People were still streaming around.

  ‘Hey, listen,’ I said to Pedro, ‘I’m going down to the post office to see if maybe they know what’s going on in Prague.’

  I said it because it just occurred to me that maybe Irena was on duty now, and because I wanted to be alone.

  ‘Okay,’ said Pedro and I turned and headed off the other way. Happy faces streamed against me and laughed in my face. I gave them a mean, squinting, scornful look. The flag was still flying from the castle. To hell with the Queen of Württemberg. To hell with everything. To hell with the Württemberg queen. She could go jump in the lake. She wasn’t worth anything to anybody anyway.

  I wanted to see Irena and so I walked towards the post office. Out in front, a crowd had gathered. I pushed through the crowd. There on the sidewalk in front of the post office was a platoon of German kids, armed to the teeth. It was a wild sight. They couldn’t have been more than fourteen years old and their helmets were so big that only the
tips of their noses stuck out underneath. And out of their helmets’ shadows their little eyes gleamed scared and embarrassed and confused. You could see they were only little kids despite the potato-masher grenades and submachine guns they had draped around them – Hitlerjugend. They didn’t say a word and they didn’t know what to do. There was a wide space between them and the people who encircled them, swearing at them. I heard some really good swear words and saw clenched fists. I shoved my way up front. The Hitler kids wore mud-caked boots and they looked exhausted. Just then somebody jumped out of the crowd and tore a submachine gun out of the hands of one of the kids. Somebody else yelled, probably an order, and the cluster of soldiers bristled with guns. They peered around with their hollow black eyes and I felt an unpleasant tightening in my belly. Jesus. It was like I already had a bullet in me. It didn’t feel good at all. I realized it must be pretty damned unpleasant to be wounded. I drew back impulsively, but suddenly stopped. Christ, what if Irena was watching from somewhere? I didn’t want her to think I was scared. It was silly to be scared. I looked around, but I couldn’t see Irena. Everybody was moving back now. I was standing all by myself between the retreating crowd and the bristling platoon of Germans. That was fine because now I could retreat too. I stuck my hands in my pockets and turned. I got that same feeling again, only this time it was in my back. My nerves grew taut. But I wanted to act casual. I moseyed along after the crowd. A sharp German command rang out behind me and I stiffened. Again my impulse was to drop to the ground, but I controlled myself. Nuts. They’d hit me anyway. The thing was not to get scared – and, especially, not to let it show. I made a face at the people in front of me as they moved backward. They stumbled and pushed frantically against the ones farther back who couldn’t see and so didn’t know what was going on. Nobody said a word. People gaped at me in amazement. I ambled after them nonchalantly, a prickly feeling running down my spine. Then, as if somebody had barked out an order, all those faces suddenly focused elsewhere and stopped retreating behind me. I heard the shuffle and scrape of many boots. I looked around. The German kids, their submachine guns trained on the crowd, were moving off without a word. The throng in front of them parted swiftly, like the Red Sea opening for the Jews.

  ‘Take their guns away from ’em!’ some brave soul yelled from the rear of the crowd, but nobody seemed to want to try. I watched the platoon go. Two little runts brought up the rear in oversized boots. A funny sight, that pair. Still, they had their submachine guns and the guns were loaded and that inspired respect. Again the curses began to fly. By then, though, the Germans had already disappeared around the corner. The crowd milled and followed. The post office square emptied out. I turned around and saw Irena, looking out the first floor window. She saw me and smiled.

  ‘Hello, Danny,’ she called. She was wearing a white blouse with a tricolour pinned on it.

  ‘Hello, Irena,’ I said and strolled over to the window.

  ‘Did you see that?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Spooky, wasn’t it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Those kids. Why, they’re no more than children.’

  ‘Oh, them. Yes, you’re right. That’s all they are.’

  ‘Who’d you think I meant?’

  ‘I thought you were talking about the people.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, the people.’

  ‘I don’t understand you.’

  I grinned, ‘All those big heroes.’

  ‘Oh, them. But what did you expect them to do without any guns?’

  ‘I know, but …’

  ‘But you think of yourself as a hero, I suppose?’

  ‘Naturally,’ I said. Apparently she’d seen me after all. I’d have to make the most of it but the best way to play it would be to make myself look like a fool; otherwise I’d have to think up some logical explanation and I didn’t feel like thinking logically. All I felt like doing was looking at Irena and kidding around with her.

  ‘Well then,’ she said, ‘why didn’t you do something?’

  ‘I wasn’t in the mood.’ I raised my eyebrows and gave her my Clark Gable look. It always seemed to me he didn’t know how to do anything except twist his mouth around; still that was enough to impress women. At least in the movies. I discovered in real life, too, that that’s usually about all you need. In most cases anyway. So now I twisted my mouth at Irena and went on.

  ‘Why should I act like a hero, anyway? What’s the point?’

  ‘Well – to … to show you’re not afraid.’

  ‘And why should I need to do that?’

  ‘Why, to prove you’re a man.’

  ‘There’re other ways of proving that,’ I said inanely, and waited to see how Irena would react. She reacted just the way I expected her to. She was dumb. But I loved her.

  ‘Now that’s enough,’ she said, so I’d understand that she’d understood. It never even occurred to her that she hadn’t really. Apparently her head wasn’t really equipped to understand. Girls’ mental equipment is generally pretty primitive. It would have been nice to know there was at least one girl in the world who could understand something. Not just what a person says, but what he means, too. And that maybe he means something entirely different from what he says. And that he says it for completely different reasons than he says. It would have been nice to know there was at least one girl like that in the world. Anyway, then I switched over to the track Irena’s little brain was running on.

  ‘Or maybe you think there isn’t any other way to prove it?’ I said.

  ‘Oh well, sure there is, but that’s about enough of that now, don’t you think?’

  ‘The other proofs are more fun, though.’

  ‘Danny, that’s enough now. Just stop or I won’t say another word to you.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, and flashed her another one of my Gable grins. But it gave me a cramp in my cheek muscle and I had to hurry and hold my hand under my nose and massage it as though nothing had happened. Luckily, the cramp went away almost immediately. Irena hadn’t even noticed it. It was all right.

  ‘Well, so we’ve got our freedom back again, huh?’ I said.

  ‘No, now, be serious. You make a joke out of everything, Danny,’ said Irena.

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘You do.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Go on, I know you.’

  ‘Think so?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Well, I’m not so sure.’

  ‘Oh yes I do.’

  Irena was a grown-up young lady. She’d gone through puberty but not very far beyond. Breasts and periods and a whole way of thinking. So she knows me, does she? That was good, too.

  ‘Well, that’s tough,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That you know me so well.’

  ‘Why’s it tough?’

  ‘Well – since you know me so well I can’t have any secrets from you, can I?’

  Irena laughed.

  ‘I don’t know you all that well, Danny. You don’t need to worry.’

  ‘But you know me pretty well, right?’

  ‘Oh – pretty well, I think.’

  ‘And what do you know?’

  ‘Hmmm?’

  ‘What do you know that’s so special about me anyway?’

  ‘Special? Well, you’re awfully conceited, for one thing.’

  ‘Aw, go on.’

  ‘You are, Danny.’

  I acted like this had really sobered me up, then I looked into her eyes.

  ‘No, Irena. I’m not conceited. Not at all.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, I still think you’re pretty conceited, Danny.’

  ‘I’m not, though.’

  ‘And I say you are, though.’

  ‘No. And I’ll tell you why you’re wrong, Irena. Because there just so happens to be something I don’t think is true about you, and you know very well that it’s true ab
out me.’

  ‘Yes? What?’ she said. Her eyes lit up when I switched to this other tone. We’d just been kidding around before, but now I’d struck a deeper chord. Now I’d touched on something that lay beneath all that kidding which was serious. At least that’s what her biological feelers told her. Her fine little biological-psychological-acoustical feelers. I didn’t contradict her.

  ‘What is it?’ I said slowly, and moved towards the wall. I lifted my arms and leaned up against the wall under Irena’s window.

  ‘You know, Irena,’ I said.

  She smiled wisely, the smile she kept handy for such occasions. It was a tender smile. Then she reached out and gently caressed the back of my hand.

  ‘You know very well, Irena,’ I repeated. ‘I’m in love with you.’

  She stroked my hand again. Then she whispered, ‘I know.’

  I held on to her fingers.

  ‘Irena, I’m terribly in love with you. Everything I do is just for you.’

  ‘I know, Danny.’

  ‘Look, this whole war and the liberation and everything won’t really have any sense for me if you …’

  I stopped right there and, instead of talking, squeezed her hand.

  ‘I know, Danny.’

  ‘Irena, couldn’t you …’

  She pressed my hand, ‘No, Danny. Shh! Don’t let’s talk about it.’

  ‘Well, why not, Irena?’

  ‘You know I – it’s simply impossible.’

  ‘I know it is, Irena. But it’s … awful.’

  ‘Danny.’

  ‘All right, I won’t say any more about it.’

  ‘But don’t be angry with me.’

  ‘I’m not angry with you. How could I be angry with you?’

  ‘In matters like this, a person’s simply helpless, you know that.’

  ‘I know, Irena.’

  ‘I think an awful lot of you, Danny, really. But –’

  ‘You’re in love with Zdenek.’

  She looked straight at me. Now it was getting very serious. Now she was going to make me face up to the facts, for about the sixth or seventh time.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  I squeezed her hand and gulped. I gulped so my Adam’s apple would wobble and I made the corners of my eyelids twitch. I bowed my head slightly to one side and tears came to my eyes. I squeezed her hand.