The Cowards

by Josef Skvorecky

  I turned down the tree-lined street towards the workers’ district and there, among the shadows, I saw the flash of a girl’s light dress that was cut in half at the waist by a dark-sleeved arm, and as the couple strode quickly down the path towards the woods the starlight lit up a blonde head I recognized right away. It was Dagmar Dreslerova, but the guy with his arm around her waist wasn’t Kocandrle. I stepped back into the shadows and watched. They cut across the meadow towards the clearing in the woods where I’d dozed off just a few minutes before. The guy boosted her along up the slope and then all of a sudden they stopped and threw their arms around each other. His cap fell off and his red crewcut flared up in the starlight. I stared. He was wearing what looked like a wind-breaker. Then they pulled apart and Dagmar raced on up towards the clearing, the guy right behind her. He had narrow hips. Jesus! Of course. It was Siddell, my Englishman, the one who said he’d just gone out for a walk. Hell, he sure didn’t lose any time. Less than half a day and more than half-way there already. The last thing I saw was the two of them tumbling down on to the grass and Dagmar’s white knees gleaming in the starlight.

  I turned and went on down the road through the workers’ district. So that was girls for you. Well, so be it. Under the shadows of the blossoming trees small bunches of people, many of them in shirtsleeves, were standing listening in silence to the distant sound of the guns. From the other end of the workers’ district you could hear a woman giggling and a man’s laugh booming out through the dark. Some beginner was practising on a bugle in one of the old apartment houses. I walked along next to the factory wall. Lewith’s cafeteria on the other side was still lit up and through the barred windows I saw somebody’s green-uniformed back. The doors downstairs were open and in the pale light of a single bulb stood a cluster of guys wearing caps, talking to some Russian refugees. I kept on going. The main smokestack of the power station loomed up in the sky. Betelgeuse stood balanced and glowing right on the tip of the lightning rod. Gunfire rang out again from the east. Mr Pitterman was standing in a doorway with Rosta. They were both gazing up at the sky and listening.

  ‘Good evening,’ I said.

  ‘Good evening,’ said Mr Pitterman.

  ‘Hi,’ said Rosta. ‘Where’re you off to?’

  I stepped up into the doorway. ‘Hear that?’ I said.

  ‘Yes. They’re getting pretty close,’ said Mr Pitterman.

  ‘I’ll say,’ I said.

  ‘They’ll be here tomorrow. Dad’s already got his red flag all fixed up,’ Rosta said.

  ‘Well, you know how it is,’ said Mr Pitterman, embarrassed. We were standing in the doorway to Mr Pitterman’s house. Besides that place, he owned five others on Jirasek Boulevard, plus a store and an electric mangle.

  ‘Yeah. They may come in pretty handy,’ I said.

  ‘You have one, too?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A red flag.’

  ‘No. But we don’t own our own house either.’

  ‘Rosta thinks it’s all just a joke, but it isn’t,’ said Mr Pitterman.

  ‘They’ll take everything away anyway, Dad. Because you’re a bourgeois and a capitalist,’ said Rosta.

  ‘You keep quiet! You’d do well to learn where to just keep your mouth shut, Rostislav!’

  ‘You going over to the brewery tomorrow?’ I asked.

  ‘Sure. Listen …’ Rosta grabbed my arm and pulled me back into the hallway. ‘I wrote one, too.’

  ‘Huh? One what?’

  ‘Well, what … what we were talking about over at the brewery.’

  ‘Oh, your will,’ I said.

  Rosta looked at me. ‘You think maybe I shouldn’t have?’

  ‘Well, sure. Why not? You can’t lose anything by it,’ I said.

  ‘Look, I know Dagmar’s a tramp,’ said Rosta. ‘But still …’

  ‘If you know that, Rosta,’ I said, ‘you know a lot.’

  ‘Well, sure I do,’ he said. ‘Still, she’s a good kid and I’ll bet if anything ever happened to me, she’d feel pretty bad about it, wouldn’t she?’

  ‘She sure would,’ I said.

  ‘Aw, hell, I don’t know. She goes around telling me I’m nuts and that there’re more important things to worry about now, but that’s where I think she’s wrong. It’s the only thing – I mean, what’s between her and me – it’s the only thing that does count. Not for her maybe but it sure is for me.’

  ‘Well then, it’s a good thing you wrote it,’ I said. ‘Maybe you’ll need it.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘I was just up at the castle. From up there Germany’s nothing but fireworks.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said and then added, ‘so maybe Dagmar’ll be sorry after all.’

  ‘I’ll say she will,’ said Rosta.

  ‘Well, I’ve got to go. Good night.’

  ‘See you,’ said Rosta.

  ‘So long,’ I said and walked back out to the boulevard which was empty now. I got home, unlocked the outside door, and went upstairs. Everybody was already sound asleep. The door to my room was closed. Mother’s voice came from the bedroom.

  ‘Danny?’

  ‘Yes,’ I whispered.

  ‘That Englishman hasn’t come back yet.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘He won’t be back for a while.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Well, I saw him,’ I said. ‘He … he’s out having a good time, that’s all.’

  ‘Gracious me,’ said Mother. ‘Already? And nothing happened to you? You’re all right, Danny?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said.

  ‘I made up your bed on the kitchen couch.’

  ‘Fine. Good night.’

  ‘Good night.’

  I went into the kitchen and slowly undressed. Then I lay down on the couch and pulled up the blanket. The couch stood by the wall under the window and through it you got a wonderful view of the sky. I looked up and saw Betelgeuse glowing red above me again. It was following me. I started mulling things over again – Irena and then Dagmar and then tried to think about the revolution and shooting, but couldn’t keep my mind on it and looked out the window at Betelgeuse which was almost directly above me and started thinking about that girl I was going to meet in Prague but somehow I couldn’t quite picture her but that didn’t stop me from thinking about her anyway and I was sure she existed, she had to, and I could feel she was there, coming towards me, like out of the sky and wearing that red Betelgeuse around her neck on a little silver chain, and exactly what colour her eyes were I couldn’t say but she was wonderful and I saw her but didn’t know a thing about her except that she’d probably turn out to be a bitch, too, and then I fell asleep, sound asleep, a sleep without dreams.

  Wednesday, May 9, 1945

  The next morning, as soon as I walked out of the door of our building, I was caught up in a regular maelstrom of people. The German Army was pulling back from the frontier. The streets were packed. There were Germans in dusty uniforms, some armed and some not, and a few on bikes, all heading west as fast as they could go. And there were refugees – swarms of them. And townspeople. While I stared, Franta, the glassmaker, burst out of the house next door with his shirtsleeves rolled up and made straight for the Germans, grabbed for a rifle slung over one soldier’s back and started yanking at it. The German tried to push him away – but not very hard – then unhitched the strap and let the rifle fall, and the next minute Franta had already picked it up and was heading back to his house, holding the rifle up high in both hands. This sparked the crowd. From both sides of the street, people moved in on the Germans, scrambling to lay hands on a rifle, but the Germans closed ranks and trained their guns on the mob. They stood in a huddle bristling with muzzles; the mob stopped, then just stood there swearing at the Germans. The Germans moved on again and the crowd let them pass and, when they’d gone on, followed along behind. I tagged along, too. Looking at the backs and rumps of those guys tramping in front of me in their
tight jackets and bulging pants, I thought they looked awfully well fed. So this was our uprising. I trailed merrily along behind them and every once in a while caught a glimpse of the grey German helmets and guns near the street corner now. The crowd of guys just ahead of me were still yelling and shaking their fists. We’d already reached the anti-tank barricade at Novotny’s and there the Germans had to slow down a bit to get through the barrier. One soldier halted and waited for all the others to pass through. Then one guy jumped him and tried to wrest his rifle away from him. The crowd seethed. Two other Germans turned and lifted their submachine guns. I caught a glimpse of their faces for a second – expressionless and exhausted – and then both of those guns held ready to fire into the crowd. Then somebody yelled and the rear of the crowd started pushing up against the front. That blocked my view. All I could see now were those fat backsides working their way forward. Then two shots rang out, one right after the other. Immediately the crowd started to scatter. The guy in front of me turned and piled into me full force, sending me sprawling on the sidewalk. First all I saw were stars and then people racing off every which way and in no time at all the street in front of me was deserted except for those two Germans with their submachine guns. They were still standing by the anti-tank barrier. One of the muzzles was still smoking and the third German was still holding his rifle and they all just stared blankly in front of them. I sat there, dazed, staring right back at them. One of them glanced at me, but then quickly turned to the others and said, ‘Los! Gehn wa!’

  ‘Warte, Fritz,’ said the one with the rifle and, leaning it up against the barrier, he adjusted his helmet. It had been knocked crooked, probably when the guy from the crowd tried to grab his rifle away from him. The other two stood there, watching him. I looked around and saw Mr Habr and some other guys flattened up against the walls at the entrance to the bank, eyeing the Germans. Suddenly, all around it was quiet as a tomb and it seemed to me I must look pretty ridiculous sitting there in the middle of that empty street, just staring at those Germans. So this was an uprising. The German straightened his helmet, then all three of them turned and, draped with hand grenades, moved on. As soon as they’d disappeared beyond the barrier, people swarmed out of the doorways and a big crowd gathered around me.

  Mr Habr hurried over. ‘Are you hurt, Mr Smiricky?’

  I scowled and got up. The crowd pressed in and stared at me.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘When you all took off, somebody ran into my stomach, that’s all.’

  You could tell they were disappointed. Nobody had been hurt. The Germans had just fired into the air. The crowd broke up and drifted away. I went around the corner to Haryk’s place. A family of gipsies was cooking something in a kettle over a little fire under a bunch of trees on Jirak Square. I rang the doorbell and Haryk leaned out the window.

  ‘Hi,’ he said.

  ‘Throw down a key,’ I said. Haryk disappeared and in a little while leaned out again.

  ‘You going over to the brewery?’ I asked.

  ‘We’ve got to,’ said Haryk, and tossed down the key. ‘Come on up. I haven’t finished breakfast yet.’

  Upstairs somebody was playing ‘Heartbreak Blues’ on the piano. I opened the door and there was Lucie sitting at the piano, wearing a striped dress. Haryk was sitting at the table behind a big mug of coffee and Pedro was stretched out on the couch.

  ‘Greetings,’ he said to me. Lucie stopped playing and spun around towards me on the piano stool. She spun too hard, though, so she had to spin it back down a little.

  ‘Hi, Danny,’ she said.

  ‘Hi. Are you going over to the brewery, too?’ I asked.

  ‘No.’ She cocked her head to one side and, in an affected tone added, ‘Women have no business in a place like that.’ Her bare feet looked pretty in her white sandals.

  ‘Well, I don’t agree with that,’ I said. ‘So what are you going to do for your country?’

  ‘I volunteered as a first-aid helper.’

  ‘Jesus,’ I said. ‘I hope I don’t get wounded.’

  ‘Irena volunteered, too,’ said Lucie.

  ‘She did?’

  ‘Yes. We went over to sign up together,’ Lucie kept her face very blank and non-committal.

  ‘Well, then, guess I’d better let myself get wounded – but not too seriously.’

  ‘Oh? Why not?’ said Lucie. She sounded disappointed.

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘I thought you’d suffer anything for Irena.’

  ‘Well, sure. Within reason.’

  ‘Would you let them cut off a leg, for instance?’

  ‘A leg? Sure,’ I said breezily.

  ‘Or an arm?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Both arms?’

  ‘Gladly,’ I said, but as soon as I’d said it I realized that’d be a dumb thing to do because then I couldn’t even touch Irena.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘One arm but not both.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘One would be enough, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘But what if you had to lose both?’

  ‘Why would I have to lose both arms?’

  ‘Well, just supposing.’

  ‘Oh well, then, if I had to choose then I guess I’d rather lose an arm and a leg.’

  ‘But I want to know whether you’d give up both arms,’ said Lucie, swinging around on the piano stool and stretching out her legs.

  ‘Well, okay. Sure,’ I said.

  ‘But you had to think about it first, didn’t you?’

  ‘Well, it isn’t so simple – losing both arms.’

  ‘You should have said yes without even giving it a second thought.’

  ‘Well, but I said I would, didn’t I?’

  ‘You’re just like Haryk. You’re all the same.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Haryk chimed in.

  ‘Well, aren’t you?’

  ‘No,’

  ‘Oh no?’

  ‘Well, how do you mean – the same?’

  ‘Well, for example I want you to shave off those awful-looking sideburns and you won’t do it.’

  ‘And I don’t want you to dye your hair and you don’t pay any attention to me either.’

  ‘But you’re supposed to listen to me.’

  ‘Oh, well isn’t that interesting? Why me and why not you?’

  ‘Because you’re a man,’ said Lucie and turned back to the piano. ‘Or at least you look like one,’ she added and she started playing ‘In the Mood’ real fast, the way she’d heard it played over ABSE, the American Broadcasting Station in Europe. She played well. Her slender fingers with their red nails played a hard, sure bass boogie. She wore a wide blue bracelet on her bare wrist.

  ‘What a woman!’ Haryk said to the two of us. You could tell he was bragging. And she really was something to brag about, too. Lucie was as silly as every other girl but she really knew how to play the piano and dance boogie like nobody else and she took ballet lessons and she was awfully pretty. I liked her a lot. Irena didn’t know how to play the piano. All she could do was plunk out some bad Beethoven or stuff like that, but she didn’t know ‘Heartbreak Blues’ or ‘Canal Street Blues’ or ‘West End Blues’ like Lucie did and which Irena never did and when Lucie played she looked like Mary Lou Williams, only prettier. And Irena didn’t dye her hair either or paint her fingernails like Lucie and she didn’t have a swell house with a swimming pool below the castle, but then again I remembered the cliffs and how I’d clung to the rope together with Irena that time at Spider Rock and all those evenings and nights I’d spent with her up there on the cliffs, but then Lucie started playing ‘Nobody’s Sweetheart’ and I was all wrapped up in her again and didn’t know for the life of me who I really had a crush on. Oh to hell with it, I said to myself, and went over to the couch where Pedro was sprawled out and sat down next to him. Pedro pulled in and let go a big long yawn.