The Cowards

by Josef Skvorecky

  We were back on Jirasek Boulevard again and I didn’t feel tears in my eyes any more. It disappointed me to feel there weren’t tears in my eyes any more. We marched along the right side of the street. It was practically deserted and my feet were hurting me now and I was hungry and cold. The uprising wasn’t fun at all any more. This whole damn uprising against the Germans and Dr Bohadlo’s military games. If other people wanted to play war with him I didn’t mind, but I was fed up with the whole thing. A platoon of Germans, armed to the teeth, came towards us. For a minute I felt tense and wondered what was going to happen. But they didn’t pay any attention to us. They just passed by and I noticed them peering out at us curiously from under their iron helmets. Of course. Dr Sabata had arranged a truce. We marched down the street towards the station and past the County Office Building and over the bridge and back to the brewery. Mrs Manesova was standing by the gate with a package. Dr Bohadlo didn’t even so much as glance at her, though normally he would have greeted her courteously. But now he was on patrol. He strode straight towards the gate. The sergeant opened it.

  ‘Here you are, Benno,’ said Mrs Manesova. ‘You think it’ll be enough for you?’

  ‘Yeah. Thanks,’ said Benno and took the package and then we were in the courtyard again. I turned around and saw Mrs Manesova standing at the gate looking at us through the bars. But Benno was already unwrapping the package.

  ‘Company, halt!’ said Dr Bohadlo and wheeled around to face us.

  ‘All right, boys, there’ll be fifteen minutes’ rest and then we go out again.’

  ‘What time is it, Doctor?’ said Haryk.

  ‘Quarter to two. Just time for one more round.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Wait here for me. I’ll be right back,’ said Dr Bohadlo and walked off. We leaned against the shed. My feet were hurting bad.

  ‘You going to let us see what you got?’ said Haryk.

  Benno unwrapped the package and took out half a roast rabbit.

  ‘I’ll eat this myself,’ he said. Then he pulled out a long hunk of salami and a couple of bread-and-butter sandwiches. He gave me one and one to Haryk and told us to cut the salami in three. We divided it up and started eating. The salami tasted wonderful. We stood there and watched what was going on in the yard. Apparently everything was running smoothly. The patrols came and went, wet and hungry. Men in officers’ capes crossed the yard now and then, carrying sheets of paper, and guys in red-and-white armbands crowded under the eaves around the buildings and sheds. A stream from the main building’s rainspout trickled along the pavement towards the gate.

  ‘See anybody?’ said Haryk.

  ‘No,’ I said. All the boys we knew were out on patrol apparently.

  ‘I’ve got an ocean inside my shoes,’ said Haryk.

  ‘Me, too.’

  We didn’t say anything. After a while, Haryk said, ‘Boy, this really pisses me off.’

  ‘Me, too,’ said Benno.

  ‘They can stuff this whole business. I sure didn’t think it was going to be like this.’

  ‘Some fun,’ I said. ‘All we’ll do is catch cold and then we won’t even be around for the liberation.’

  Dr Bohadlo reappeared. ‘Well, boys, all rested up?’ he said.

  Benno growled.

  ‘All right, let’s go,’ said Dr Bohadlo energetically, and he turned his rump towards us again. His fat hiker’s calves got on my nerves. I was already aching all over from this marching around and I couldn’t see any point in it. If we meet Irena, all wet and unarmed like this, I’d really look like a fool. Dr Bohadlo flung up his arm; we fell into formation behind him and started off on another silent tramp. It was an awful bore. We went through town in a steady rain and finally tottered back to the brewery, half dead and soaked to the skin. Dr Bohadlo still looked fresh though.

  ‘Can we go home now?’ I asked him.

  He smiled. ‘Home? Why, no. You’ll be staying in the barracks, boys.’

  ‘Barracks? Where?’

  ‘Here, in the brewery. Now you’ve got three hours’ rest and at six we start off on patrol again.’

  ‘Are we going to get something to eat?’ said Benno.

  ‘Go over to the warehouse. There’s tea there. And everybody report back here by six. Right?’

  ‘Right,’ said the three boys we didn’t know.

  ‘Dismissed,’ said Dr Bohadlo.

  The boys clicked their heels and snapped to attention.

  ‘Adieu,’ said Benno.

  Dr Bohadlo walked away.

  ‘What say we go get some tea?’ I said.

  ‘Why not? But where?’ said Benno.

  ‘I don’t know. At the warehouse.’

  ‘Which warehouse?’

  ‘Don’t know. Let’s ask.’

  Jirka Vit was just going by with some kind of papers. They’d apparently made him a messenger boy.

  ‘Hey, Jirka, where’re they giving out tea?’ I yelled after him.

  ‘Over there,’ he said and pointed to a big open door where a couple of guys were standing.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, and we went over.

  It was dark with just one dim light bulb in the ceiling, and in that dim light you could make out a few shadowy figures going out through another door in the back of the building. Some sort of machines were stored off to one side in the dark. We opened the back door and in the light ahead of us saw a big arched room crowded with guys in rain-drenched clothes holding steaming cups and plates. In the back, white steam rose to the ceiling. We elbowed our way through the mob and I saw Mrs Cemelikova in a white apron standing beside a big pot ladling out tea. There was another door in the back and two fat women were just bringing in a big tray piled with bread. Then in came Dagmar Dreslerova, also wearing a white apron and a dish towel. She went over to Mrs Cemelikova and said something to her. Mrs Cemelikova nodded and Dagmar turned. She looked pretty good in the middle of all that kitchen crew. I looked around to see if Irena was around somewhere. But she wasn’t. We stood in line for the tea and slowly moved up towards the pot. I picked up a cup and Mrs Cemelikova poured in a ladle of ersatz tea for me and I said hello and thank you and she gave me a nice smile and then I got a slice of dry bread from Mrs Skocdopolova who was standing next to her. I stuck the bread in my pocket and we went around the corner. Somebody called to us. I turned. It was Lexa and he was sitting by the wall with Pedro on an upturned crate. We went over to them.

  ‘Hi,’ said Haryk.

  ‘Hi,’ said Lexa. ‘Well, have you already done your patriotic duty?’

  ‘That’s right. And now we’re coming to fortify the inner man.’

  ‘Not much to fortify yourself with here.’

  ‘Well, here goes anyway,’ said Haryk and sat down next to Lexa. The next crate was empty and we pulled it over. Benno and I sat down opposite them. New guys kept crowding around us, wet and steaming, clutching their steaming cups. It reminded me of when they used to butcher at Count Humprecht’s big farm where I’d gone once on a work brigade during vacation. They’d done that in a cellar, too, all murky and dark just like this one. Beside me, Benno noisily slurped his tea and Pedro and Lexa gnawed at the dry bread. The tea was hot and I thought about the past and the feeling I’d had when I was a little kid in bed and used to make a snowy igloo out of my eiderdown quilt, or how I’d lie there while Mother and Father were still reading and pretend I was camping, but in a meadow, and the feeble light of Father’s bedside lamp was the dying light of the campfire. So there we sat in the steamy half-light and one shadow after another flitted across the faces of the boys in front of me and shadows danced and flickered and shifted on the wall beyond and I thought about the Countess Humprecht with her hawk-beak nose and the big dusty room in the castle and about me teaching her how to play the piano instead of working on the harvest and about her legs in her riding breeches, and my thoughts roamed out over the fields around Rounov with the girls in their bright-coloured dresses and to the pheasants and the tree-lined dr
ive and I saw the Gestapo taking the young Count Humprecht away that night before I was supposed to leave and then I remembered the Queen of Württemberg and Irena and it started all over again, like always. Those thoughts and memories wouldn’t leave me alone and none of them had anything to do with anything I’d ever learned in school.

  ‘Not bad, if you want to vomit,’ said Lexa and put his cup down on the floor.

  ‘Boiled socks,’ said Benno.

  ‘Think your old man drinks this stuff, too.’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ said Pedro. ‘The command gets black coffee.’

  ‘What do they want with us anyway?’ said Haryk.

  ‘We’re maintaining peace and order.’

  ‘And who’s disturbing it?’

  ‘Communists,’ said Pedro.

  ‘I’d like to see ’em.’

  ‘Yeah, but they are. Seriously,’ said Lexa, ‘this afternoon they tried to loot the munitions train down at the station.’

  ‘Who said?’

  ‘Dr Sabata was there and got into a hassle with them.’

  ‘Well, did they finally loot it or not?’

  ‘No. The guards wouldn’t let them get in. They tried to talk the guards over and bribe them with booze but they wouldn’t let them in.’

  ‘Sabata told you that?’

  ‘No. Old man Cemelik told me. Now they’re scared shitless that the commies are going to try and pull something tonight. They say they’re going to step up the patrols.’

  ‘Are they going to give us guns?’ I said.

  ‘They don’t give a shit about us,’ said Lexa.

  ‘But we’re supposed to go fight the commies, right?’

  ‘Sure. For the sake of the nation.’

  ‘What a mess! What a goddamn stinking mess,’ said Benno.

  ‘I’ll second that motion,’ said Haryk.

  ‘Nobody mentions the Germans any more, I guess.’

  ‘No. They’ve pulled out already.’

  ‘So what the hell are we still farting around for?’

  Lexa grimaced. ‘Because there haven’t been enough heroic deeds performed yet, that’s why.’

  Suddenly people were shushing each other and the room quieted down and you could hear Mrs Cemelikova saying in her shrill voice that all those who’d finished their tea should kindly make room for others. We picked ourselves up and took our cups over to the table. The hungry feeling I’d had was gone. We went out through the dark room with the light bulb in the ceiling and found ourselves back out in the yard again. In the meantime it had stopped raining but the sky was still overcast and mist from the woods hung low over the brewery. Men were strolling around the yard in clusters, their hands in their pockets, looking as if they had nothing to do. There wasn’t a gun in sight.

  ‘What the hell do they want to do with us anyway, keep us on ice?’ said Haryk.

  ‘Looks that way,’ said Lexa.

  ‘Didn’t old Cemelik say when he’d let us go home?’ asked Benno.

  ‘When the danger’s over and everything’s safe again.’

  ‘And all we’re going to get is tea?’

  ‘Bread, too,’ said Lexa.

  ‘Look, I say we clear the hell out,’ said Haryk.

  ‘Yeah, but how?’

  ‘Over the fence.’

  ‘They got guards all over the place.’

  ‘Just like in a concentration camp,’ said Benno.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘You mean we’re just supposed to hang around here all day until …

  ‘You’re in the army now,’ said Lexa.

  ‘We got screwed,’ said Benno.

  ‘Jesus bloody Christ,’ said Haryk.

  ‘Shit. Just one big shit,’ said Lexa.

  None of us said anything for a while. Then Haryk said, ‘Hell. Next time they send us out on patrol, I’m taking off.’

  ‘And the next thing you know you’re up in front of a court-martial for desertion,’ said Lexa.

  ‘Oh, don’t feed me that.’

  ‘You don’t think they can?’

  ‘But the whole thing’s a farce!’

  ‘Except they take it seriously.’

  ‘Like hell.’

  ‘Sure. Just ask old Cemelik.’

  ‘What can they do to me?’

  ‘They’ll put you in jail so long you’ll come out on crutches.’

  ‘Nuts.’

  ‘And you’ll never be able to go to college either.’

  ‘Old Cemelik said that?’

  ‘Yeah. I asked him because I wanted to clear out, too,’

  ‘To hell with the whole thing,’ I said. ‘Let’s go over and sit in the shed.’

  ‘All right,’ said Lexa, and we started off. The shed where I’d sat that morning with Rosta was empty – except for Rosta, sitting on his old perch. We climbed up on a pile of logs and sat down. It was cold in there, but the darkness inside the shed and the bright view outside gave me the same good feeling I’d had before. I slid over next to Rosta.

  ‘How’s it going?’ said Rosta.

  ‘And with you?’ I asked.

  ‘Did you see Dagmar?’

  ‘Yeah. She’s looking fine.’

  ‘I was talking to her.’

  ‘Yeah? Well?’

  ‘I told her again.’

  ‘And what did she say?’

  ‘The same as always.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘That I hoped she’d remember me in case anything happened to me.’

  ‘What’d she say to that?’

  ‘She said I got on her nerves.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘That I got on her nerves.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because there were more important things to think about now and because she was getting pretty fed up with that kind of talk.’

  We didn’t say anything for a while. Then I said, ‘You know something? She’s just stupid.’

  ‘No, she isn’t.’

  ‘She is, too.’

  ‘She is not.’

  ‘She is. Or else she really doesn’t give a damn about you and is just giving you a rough time.’

  ‘That’s more like it.’

  ‘Girls are bitches,’ I said.

  ‘They sure are.’

  ‘I know the sort of more important things she’s thinking about these days.’