The Cowards

by Josef Skvorecky

  I shoved ahead and, since nobody knew who I was, people respectfully made way for me and stared. Mrs Vasakova was lying on the sidewalk. Actually, only her feet in her little white shoes and her legs as far as her knees and then just a mass of ripped flowered material and scraps of blue cloth and blood and then all that was left of her in her flowered dress. Two Englishmen were kneeling beside her, the redheaded Scotsman holding her head up, the tall, handsome one with the bandaged head holding her hand. Neither knew what else to do. It took just one look to see there wasn’t much that could be done. Silent and stunned, the people crowded around. I quickly knelt beside her. The Englishmen looked at me. Their eyes were calm and suddenly it struck me how hard their eyes were. They looked at this differently than the shocked crowd did. For them, this was nothing new. At the same time, however, they seemed to know, far better than anybody in that crowd, what it meant.

  ‘Has anyone gone for a car?’ I asked in English.

  ‘Yes,’ said the Scot.

  ‘Isn’t there a doctor around?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where’s her husband?’

  ‘At the hospital.’

  I looked quietly at Mrs Vasakova. She wasn’t screaming any more, just whimpering and her face was drawn with pain. Her breast under the thin dress rose and fell unevenly but she still looked young and pretty. Poor Mrs Vasakova. I looked at her suffering there and everything around faded out and I saw her again in a white pleated dress smiling at me over a coffee cup and her bright eyes sparkling at me those Saturday evenings at Sokol Hall, and our casual chats about the war and shortages of food and me whispering some political joke to her and everybody bending our way to hear and I could feel her warm face close to mine and the interest in her eyes looking into mine, not in the joke but in other things, and I could see how it pleased her to have me flirt with her. She was about five years older than I was and about twenty-five years younger than her husband and she never would have let me get anywhere with her, not really, but she was pretty and she liked me and when we’d say good-bye and I’d kiss her hand, I could feel how she’d press her hand against my lips and once, when it was dark and her husband was saying good-bye to my mother, she turned her hand palm up and, when I kissed it, caught hold of my face and squeezed it in her hand so hard I saw stars, but then I was overcome with a feeling of joy that she’d done it and afterwards I watched her get into the car with her husband and saw her give a little wave and her smile glimmered in the dark and Father waved frantically because he thought it was meant for all of us but I knew it was just for me, and then I went out for a walk and felt wonderful and didn’t think about Irena all that night because all I could think about was Mrs Vasakova. I thought about her and now there she lay, as pretty as ever, and it was all over, her mouth pulled down in an arch of pain and blood spilling out of her stomach. A crimson puddle glistening on the sidewalk and the blood kept running out of her. I looked at her face and real tears came to my eyes.

  ‘Poor lady,’ I said. ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘The plane,’ said the Englishman with the bandaged head. I just knelt there speechless for a minute. Then I said, ‘Isn’t there any way to stop the bleeding?’

  ‘No,’ said the Englishman.

  ‘You mean …?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Englishman and fell silent, too. Then he said softly. ‘She’ll die before we can get her to the hospital.’

  A car honked and brakes screeched. The crowd parted. It was Jozka the baker’s car, a light delivery truck. Jozka jumped out from behind the wheel and ran over to us.

  ‘Let’s put her in the back,’ he said.

  ‘You have anything we can lay her on?’ I asked.

  ‘There’re some empty sacks in the back.’

  I turned to the Englishmen. ‘Can you lift her?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said the Scotsman. ‘It would help, though, if there was something we could put under her. A sheet would do.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. I turned to the crowd. ‘Does anybody have a sheet we can lift her with?’

  ‘Just a minute,’ called the fat woman and she ran into a house.

  ‘She’ll get one for us,’ I said to the Englishman. ‘She’ll be right back.’ We waited. It was quiet. In what seemed like a second, the woman reappeared with a sheet. She gave it to me. Her face was wet with tears. She looked badly shaken.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘Put it down beside her,’ said the bandaged Englishman.

  We spread the sheet out on the sidewalk. The Englishman took hold of Mrs Vasakova under her arms, the Scotsman around her waist.

  ‘Could you lift her feet?’ the Scotsman asked me.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, and did. I was scared to death her body wouldn’t be able to take it. When we lifted her, she started screaming again, but feebly now. We laid her on the sheet. A guy stepped out from the front of the crowd to help us. We lifted the sheet by all four corners and slowly carried her over to the truck. Blood dripped through the sheet on to the cobblestones. Jozka ran around the side of the truck and opened up the back. There were empty sacks inside. He climbed in, quickly piled them up to make a bed for her, and then, very skilfully, the Englishmen crawled up and lifted Mrs Vasakova inside. The guy from the crowd and I held her legs until they’d slid her all the way in.

  ‘All right. Drive fast,’ I said to Jozka. ‘You go with her. I’ll see you later,’ I said to the Englishmen.

  They nodded and bent over Mrs Vasakova. Jozka shut the door and jumped in behind the wheel. As the little truck moved off the crowd stood wordlessly on the sidewalk, watching it go through the underpass and turn off towards the high school. There was a big pool of blood on the sidewalk. It reflected the sun. I stepped on something and when I stooped over to look, saw it was a big bent anti-tank bullet from the plane’s machine gun. The street seemed quiet. Then I realized the quiet had broken. I glanced around. People were running in from the square. They were all dusty and sweating, women and children and old man Baudys dressed up in his Sokol costume and carrying a furled flag.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I yelled to a guy who’d run up to one of the houses and was opening the door.

  ‘The SS! They’re coming in from Prussia!’

  ‘Were you out at the border?’

  ‘Yeah. And it wasn’t true. The Russians weren’t there.’

  ‘What was all that shooting about?’

  ‘SS tanks.’

  ‘Anyone killed?’

  The man waved his hand. ‘You can’t even count ’em. One tank drove right into the parade out by the customs house. Right into a whole line of kids.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ screamed a woman next to me. The man beside her exploded. ‘Who the hell was it then who said the Russians were coming anyway? Who started that rumour?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said the man at the door, ‘but if I find him I’ll flay him alive.’

  ‘And what makes you so sure the SS will be coming through here?’ I asked calmly.

  ‘Because you can hear the gunfire already, just over the border in Prussia. There’s a full-scale battle going on over there.’

  Just then the big hollow voice of the public address system sounded. ‘Citizens,’ it said, ‘retreating German tanks are approaching the frontier. We call upon all men capable of bearing arms to report immediately to the local Czechoslovak Army Command Headquarters at the municipal brewery. We repeat,’ and the voice blared on into the noise spreading through the streets as frightened people ran and shoved and swarmed with confusion. ‘Women and children should take refuge in the air-raid shelters. It is possible that the town maybe bombed,’ intoned the announcer, and all around there was the shriek of women’s voices. I saw them snatching up their kids and running. All of a sudden, a bunch of men in green uniforms appeared in the milling mob, hurrying against the main current of the crowd. Russian prisoners of war. People tried to make room for them. The confusion was tremendous. I looked around. Haryk was standing next to me.


  ‘Let’s go!’ I shouted, and we both started to run. A couple of men started running along with us. This is what I’d been waiting for, the thing, a voice inside me said. And it was a great feeling. The voice over the loudspeaker went on: ‘Citizens! Your city is in danger. Defend it against the Germans! Death to the German occupation forces!’ We ran for the square. Russians with the white SU on their backs were charging along ahead of us. A few people had already panicked and hauled in their flags. Red and red-and-white flags flapped over the heads of the crowd and a cloud slid over the sun. I looked up. Clouds were gathering in the west. We got to the square. It was chaos. Women and children from the refugee camp had thronged into the church and, outside, men stood in little bunches. Others were racing towards the brewery and, meanwhile, people from the welcoming delegations poured back across the square from the border. A group of French and Dutch POWs joined us by the church. We ran across the square and hurried on down the narrow main street. The sun was completely hidden by clouds now and the street was as dark as at dusk. People with pale, frightened faces were rushing in every direction and bumping into each other. We ran along the right-hand side of the street. A brightly-polished tuba loomed out above the crowd we were struggling to make our way through; it bobbed past, heading in the other direction. Everybody was moving faster now. The public address system went on blaring above the murmur and cries and shouts of the crowd. Somebody was already taking down Novotny’s banner – the one that had stretched all the way across the street with the inscription WE WELCOME YOU! We got caught up in the jam in front of the anti-tank barricade. Two streams of people, trying to get through the narrow passage, collided there. From both sides, people were crawling over the barricade. We were shuffling forward when I noticed a girl wearing a Red Cross armband coming out of a side street. Then I saw that it was Irena. In her white dress she stood out against the dark background of the street. She crawled up and over the barricade and jumped down. Her skirt flew up a bit so I could see her legs above her knees.

  ‘Irena!’ I shouted. She looked around, then saw me. I ran over to the other side of the street, elbowing my way through the people.

  ‘Irena!’ I said, and took hold of her hand. Her hand was warm and soft and she looked at me wide-eyed. She was beautiful. The crowd moving in both directions along Jirasek Boulevard veered and eddied around us. She was wearing a red-and-white polka-dot kerchief. ‘Clear the streets!’ the loudspeaker boomed. ‘German tanks are just passing through Chodov!’ Irena smiled at me. I noticed how little and pink her ears were, and the tiny holes pierced in the lobes.

  ‘Irena! Darling!’ I said, though in all that noise she probably didn’t even hear me. Still, her voice sounded awfully faint when she asked, ‘Are you going to the brewery?’

  ‘Yes,’ I practically shouted. A big guy blundered into us like an ox. Irena held on to me. I held her close. It was growing darker and darker. Grey clouds were piling up above the houses and the wind was rising. Dust and papers swirled around people’s feet.

  ‘Good-bye, Danny,’ Irena said. Her face looked white, her cheeks were flushed. The wind blew dust in our eyes. I closed mine. Somebody was yelling from over by the barricades; I couldn’t understand a word. I opened my eyes and saw that Irena still had hers closed.

  ‘Good-bye, Irena!’ I said quickly. She made a face from all that dust in her eyes. I kissed her quickly on her red lips and stood back. She opened her eyes and tried to look around. A couple of women rushed between us. I caught one more glimpse of her as she stood on her tiptoes and rubbed her eyes and looked after me. I blew her a kiss. Then the wind rose again and the dust and the trash swirled up again.

  ‘Come on,’ I heard Haryk say, and felt him pulling me along by the hand. We threaded our way back over to the other side of the street to the anti-tank barricade. Men were scrambling over it. The place was swarming with people’s rear ends, then I saw somebody’s shoes, their soles right in front of my nose, and then I was climbing over the barricade myself. Mr Panek, the schoolteacher, was next to me; we jumped at the same time. I turned. Haryk landed right behind me. We started to run. It was dark on the street and windy. We ran faster. I saw my parents looking out the window at our place but I pretended I hadn’t seen them. I had to squint; the wind was blowing right in our faces. The crowds were all moving in one direction now, rushing along towards the station. Mr Pitterman and Rosta were standing at the entrance to Pitterman’s arcade; they looked undecided; they were staring at the crowd. We came closer. You could see how confused and unhappy they were. When we were practically on top of them, I called out to Rosta but he didn’t hear me. Suddenly people rushed out of the arcade, bumping into both Pittermans from behind. Mr Pitterman staggered, nearly fell, then was swallowed up in the crowd. All I could see was his bald head being borne along by the streaming throng. Then I looked around and saw Rosta’s blond head bobbing behind us. We clattered past the Hotel Granada, under the railroad underpass and up to the bridge. The first drops of rain were starting to fall. I was feeling great. As we dashed across the bridge it started to pour. The crowd thinned out now that there was more room. A few men were turning in towards the Port Arthur. We ran up to the brewery gate just as a ten-ton truck, loaded with people was pulling out. I stopped. The guys packed into the truck were all armed. Then I recognized them. It was the mountain climbers. I caught sight of Zdenek with his Tyrolean hat and a rifle. The rain started coming down in buckets and the men in the truck swayed back and forth and, as the truck drove by, I turned to look again and saw the back of some of the guys standing on top. One was carrying a submachine gun and wearing an armband, but it wasn’t red and white with gold lettering. It was plain red. I stood there watching but then somebody gave me a shove and we hurried into the yard. A line of vehicles stood in the driveway in front of the main building – trucks of all sizes and cars. Guys carrying rifles were piling in. In the field by the icehouse three trim columns of kids stood facing Sergeant Krpata who was waving a revolver over his head. Some of the kids were armed. Then Krpata roared some command, jerked down his arm, and the whole company put their left feet forward and started marching off towards the gate. At the gate, people stepped back to let them through and Krpata, looking awfully pleased with himself, led his company out into the street. I ran along the row of trucks. The first one was just driving off towards the gate. It was already loaded with people. I saw Mr Krocan standing by the next truck, but he wasn’t wearing his uniform any more. He stood there, in his shirtsleeves, no longer wearing his cap, beside a man who had on another of those plain red armbands. Guys were scrambling up into the trucks, holding their rifles out carefully in front of them. I pushed through to the next truck.

  ‘Where’re they passing out the guns?’ I yelled at a man who held a German bazooka in his hands.

  ‘At the armoury,’ he yelled back. I ran over to the armoury. A bunch of men was just coming out of the door, some of them in uniform, and I recognized Captain Kuratko, and they were carrying somebody. A line of guys shuffling in through the door of the armoury turned to stare.

  ‘Who was that?’ I asked as I got in line.

  ‘Colonel Cemelik,’ somebody said.

  ‘Was he wounded?’

  ‘No. A stroke, apparently.’

  I was shoved from behind into the armoury. A couple of soldiers stood behind the long tables and also some more guys wearing red armbands and the janitor from the high school in his Czech Legion uniform and they were all passing out weapons. Nobody was writing anything down now. The line moved fast and once you got your gun you went right on out. Dear God, I said to myself, dear God, please let me get a submachine gun. There were only three guys in front of me now. They handed a rifle to the first one, a rifle to the second one, too, and then I saw a soldier give a string of grenades to the guy right in front of me and then it was my turn and the red-cheeked kid with the sergeant’s stripes was handing me a beautifully polished submachine gun with two clips and I grabbed it, said thank you, and
ran out.

  ‘Hey, wait!’ I heard Haryk call out behind me. I slowed down and slung my submachine gun over my shoulder. The place was swarming with people; mud splashed as they slogged across the yard. Haryk ran up to me, holding a rifle with a bayonet fixed to it.

  ‘Hey, did you see that?’ he said to me.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Those guys … with those red armbands.’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘They’re communists.’

  ‘Could be,’ I said.

  ‘Well, we’re really in for it now,’ said Haryk. ‘They’ve taken over.’

  ‘Jesus,’ I said. ‘You think maybe they shot old Cemelik?’

  ‘No,’ said Haryk. ‘He went off all by himself. He didn’t need any help from them.’

  ‘Let’s hope so anyway,’ I said.

  ‘Look,’ said Haryk, ‘what say we clear the hell out of here?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said. ‘We can’t do that now.’

  ‘Benno was right after all,’ said Haryk.

  ‘Like hell he was,’ I said. And even if he had been, it was too late to try to back out now. The best thing to do was get right into it. Even with the communists.

  ‘Let’s go,’ I said. We were running towards the trucks when I heard somebody whistle our signal. I looked around and saw Lexa and Venca Stern standing with their rifles next to one of the trucks. We went over.

  ‘Hi,’ said Lexa. ‘Where’s Benno?’

  ‘He skipped out,’ said Haryk.

  ‘You heard old Cemelik had a stroke?’

  ‘Yeah, is it true?’

  ‘It’s true all right. It happened when that fighter came over.’

  ‘Up you go!’ somebody yelled in my ear and I saw Venca scrambling up into the truck. Lexa followed him and then I shifted my submachine gun over to one side and swung up, too. Haryk climbed in behind me. We were standing way at the back and two guys behind the truck lifted the tailgate and slammed it shut. I heard somebody yell ‘Move!’ Then with a lurch off we went. We drove slowly along the driveway towards the gate. Men who’d probably got there too late to get issued a weapon were sprinting across the courtyard in the drenching rain. We passed through the gate and when we got out on the road the driver stepped on the gas. The truck started swaying and we hung on to the tailgate to keep from falling. We went over the bridge and I looked up at Irena’s window and then we turned right, on to the highway that leads to the border.