by Tyler Keevil
Fortunately, I had a lot going for me. Firstly, that I was a foreigner, Canadian. That I am friendly and always give off a feeling of wanting to help, in any way I can. That I have a bumbling, clownish persona often drawn on when in trouble with authority figures of every sort. It’s second nature, instinctual with me. I said I did remember you, the British woman. That you came to class for a couple of weeks, that I even ran into you the day you were leaving the school. I acted eager to help, pretended to be concerned. I said I had a brief chat with you then, and it sounded as if you were involved in something, that you seemed distracted, troubled. I told him I hoped it wasn’t anything serious. Is she all right? I asked, repeatedly.
He assured me you were okay. He looked disappointed. In me, in the information I could not provide. If he’d been alone, I might even have been convinced he was a real policeman.
But the other man, the one who did not speak, was wearing wire-rimmed glasses with yellow tinted lenses. He had a thin mouth, and very long, slim fingers. He spent the entire time watching me. You had told me enough for me to suspect this was him – the musician and surgeon. The one Valerie called Pavel.
I worried that he could see through me. Was looking at my organs. Considering how they could be accessed, and surgically removed. Weighed and dissected and studied for signs of my honesty, or my duplicity. The book of anatomy was sitting on the table, where Gogol had left it, and seemed painfully incriminating.
I would like to think I fooled them. I want to believe I did, that I gave nothing away. If I had, I have to admit, I would find it hard to live with myself, and the knowledge of how I’d let you down.
part three
waterways
Marta is waiting on the boat, standing with her arms crossed, at the stern, looking towards the bridge. The engine already running, billows of smoke rumbling up into the cold dark. Not long before dawn – seven in the morning – but it may as well be night; there’s no light on the horizon. Flakes of snow falling gently, and sticking to the ground, where a thin layer has built up, maybe half an inch thick. The steps to Marta’s jetty have been cleared and salted, but all the same you are mindful of Gogol. You descend ahead of him and reach back to hold his hand, help him balance. The steps look as old as Charles Bridge, the centre of each one bowed, carved out by the passing of time, by hundreds of thousands of feet. All those years, all those generations, all those people long dead, in whose footsteps you follow.
You can remember being the woman who idly fantasised about being dead, leaping from this bridge, into this river. But you can’t fathom it now. It seems foolish, juvenile. It has the same unreal feel as looking back on a childhood memory, or some of your times with Tod. Third-person images. As if it happened to somebody else. A you that’s no longer you.
From Marta, you don’t know what to expect – curiosity, chastisement, uncertainty? But she simply greets you and treats this as she might any other morning excursion; she has even put up her chalkboard sign, with rates and times. That seems smart. Proceed as if it’s simply another day. Business as usual. From the jetty, you hand her your duffel bag, which she hefts on to one of the rear seats. You then grip Gogol under his armpits and hoist him – so light in your arms, your hollow-boned boy. Pass him across the gap to the gunnel, where Marta is waiting to receive him. Once he’s aboard, she instructs you to untie the lines, which you do, recalling the routine from last time, and tossing them aboard without being directed.
As you do, you hear her make a clicking sound at Gogol, to get his attention, and she asks him something in Czech. Then, seeing that he doesn’t understand, she tries again, using different words, a different language.
This time he smiles, answers back. The confident sound of his voice a surprise.
‘I know some Ukrainian and Russian,’ she tells you. ‘For the tourists.’
It occurs to you that Marta knowing those languages might make her one of them, that she – as a landlady, a property owner – could be knit up with them somehow. An irrational fear. You don’t even know if they’re Russian. Valerie said they were from here, there, everywhere. As if they are too diabolical to belong to any one country.
Besides, you’ve already put your trust in Marta. Gogol is already aboard. She extends her hand. You take it, hold it, each of you grasping the other’s wrist. You leap across the water to join them, pat her shoulder by way of thanks. The deck is stable, cleared of snow, with a pebbled grey paint that provides grip. The boat, untethered and caught in the current, begins to drift away from the jetty.
Marta asks you to stow the lines as she goes to take the wheel. When she eases forward the throttle and begins to turn the boat around, the noise of the engine sounds perilously conspicuous in the morning quiet. The banks of the Vltava are lined with neoclassical buildings, most of them hotels or apartments. All those windows. All those drawn curtains. All those potential eyes, peering down on you.
You take Gogol into the wheelhouse. Just in case.
You huddle beneath the fibreglass canopy, which provides shelter for Marta’s clients in the event of rain or snow. Still exposed to the air, but warmed by the heat of the engine. The bench seats can accommodate several passengers, but of course you and Gogol have one entirely to yourselves. You sit together and peer out at the buildings of Prague sliding past, screened by a veil of soft-falling snow. The fluttering flakes land on the water surface and linger for a few seconds, hovering like water bugs, before melting, dissipating. The river doesn’t smell – it lacks the thick mud-stink of summer, or the mulch-stench of autumn. The cold has frozen any scents right out of the air.
The boat glides over the glassy surface like a sled on ice. You pass beneath another bridge, and past Letna Park. In the middle of the park, visible for miles, even in this dim morning light, is a giant sculpture: a red metronome, fully-functioning, seventy-five feet high. You’ve seen it before, but have never learned its meaning or purpose – and this morning it seems ominous, slow-ticking the time as you drift by. Beyond, more bridges and the sweeping oxbow bend that encloses Praha Seven. You are heading north out of the city. Downriver. The opposite direction from which you travelled with Marta previously. The river is about five hundred metres across and as the buildings of the city give way to fields and stands of poplars, you feel safer than at any time since picking up Gogol. All that water, between you and shore. Between you and them. Like a moat. Impossible to cross. The boat your little castle. This was the right decision, the best way out. The only way out, maybe. You are impervious, for a time. At least until you dock again.
Over the noise of the engine, you thank Marta for doing this. She looks back at you as if she doesn’t understand. Then you realise she understands the words, but not the need for thanking her. She just waves a hand. It’s nothing. ‘But,’ she adds, ‘you will tell me.’
She means what’s really going on, and what you’ve gotten her involved in. She isn’t asking you to tell her now. The noise of the engine, the presence of Gogol, prevents further discussion of the matter. You have time to think, to consider how much she needs to know, how much she should know.
Gogol taps your knee, leans over to whisper something to you. His main English word: where? Not where are we, you presume, but where are we going? You explain that you – the two of you – are going to a place called Germany. That it will be safer there.
Marta, overhearing, reaches up to a shelf above her windscreen and brings down a book. It’s a map book of the waterways in the Czech Republic. Locking the wheel, she lets the boat steer its own course momentarily while she flips through the pages, soon finding the one she wants, before handing it to you. It’s the two-page spread depicting the area around Prague.
You hold it open on your lap, point out to Gogol your approximate location. The map is deliberately simplified, with limited detail of the topography, not intending to show any differentiation between buildings, or streets. Prague is a pink blob, around which snake the various streams and tributaries of the Vlta
va. It is startling, the complexity and number of waterways, so many usually left out of regular motorway or tourist maps. The whole image reminds you of the book Gogol was studying the night before – a heart in close-up, with the accompanying tangle of blood vessels, some wide and vital, arterial; others thin as capillaries. Our circulatory systems, at least in that respect, seem to mimic the natural water systems.
You trace your finger along the large vein of the Vltava – for Gogol’s benefit as much as your own. Pause at the junction, north of Prague, where it meets the Elbe, then continue further west along the Elbe, past Litomerice, and Ústí nad Labem, and Dečín, and beyond to Germany. To see what lies in that direction you have to turn the page. Dresden is quite near the border – another pinkish heart, entangled with the veins of waterways, roadways. You tap it, showing Gogol. There. We are going there. You don’t explain it’s only a waypoint, the place you’ll have to disembark, find other transport – it seems too complicated. Besides, you harbour the hope – the belief – that if you reach Dresden, get out of the Czech Republic without them deducing your plan, then you will be safe. You will make it out.
You half expect him to ask about Disneyland, but he doesn’t. Just bites his lip and stares at the destination. Maybe he’s come to understand that Disneyland doesn’t factor into this. He’s too perceptive, too attuned, to have not guessed much more is at stake than that.
You lean forward, ask Marta how long the journey will take, having to raise your voice over the engine. She tells you tourist cruise boats do it in seven days – when puttering at a leisurely pace of ten or fifteen miles a day, stopping in all the cities. You should be able to comfortably do it in two days, with one overnight stop. You nod, relieved. The scale of the map made it look much further.
You ask her if you and Gogol can stand by the bow. She nods, gestures to encourage you. You take his hand and lead him out the back of the wheelhouse, around the side – where the deck is narrow, only about two feet across – and up to the foredeck. You stand together and look down at the water parting silkily around the prow. The reflection no longer shows any buildings. Only trees, hills, openness.
Two days. Just two days to safety. And from there: Britain, Wales, Ceredigion. Home. A new life. You put your hand on Gogol’s shoulder. Staring far ahead along the smoothly flowing river, you can almost see it, like a mirage reflected in the water surface.
terezín
At lunch you stop near Litomerice. Marta adjusts the throttle and rotates the wheel, deftly turning the boat a hundred and eighty degrees, so the prow is pointed upriver before she drops anchor. Currents push the boat back until the anchor chain goes taut, holding you in place as the river flows by. It’s snowing harder now and the cloud layer has thickened. There’s no definition to the sky. No sense of freedom, like when you last left Prague. This time it feels as if the inversion layer has expanded, followed you. You’re making progress, you’re moving, but you can’t escape the sense of claustrophobia and confinement.
Marta has brought lunch: ham and coleslaw sandwiches, crisps, a can of Coke for Gogol, beer for you and her. You go below deck, where there’s a small cabin, typical of what you’d find in an old trawler. The galley is just big enough for two adults and a child, with a square table on a single post, and bench-seats. A two-burner camp stove. Directly opposite, a hatch opens into a V-shaped sleeping berth nestled at the prow of the boat.
The meal begins in silence, the only sound that of chewing and slurping echoing the lap and slop of currents against the hull. Gogol eats far more slowly than you have come to expect. At first you think this is due to the fact that he is simply no longer starving. But he is also distracted, gazing vacantly around the cabin. Another new experience. He’s never been on a boat before, and to him the existence of this small living space tucked within it must be amazing – a magic trick.
Marta asks him something in Ukrainian and he shakes his head. She asks another question, and he swallows, nods vigorously. You look at her, curious and a little envious. She can communicate with him in these simple ways that have eluded you. She explains to you that she asked him if he has ever fished, and if he would like to.
Then it’s Gogol’s turn to ask her something, his voice a quiet but firm warble, looking from you to her. You pick out a word that sounds like ‘Maty’. Hearing it, Marta’s face creases into a smile. A soft chuckle. She shakes her head, no. She says Gogol wanted to know if she was your mother. Unabashed, he asks something else. That same word. Maty.
This time she doesn’t answer right away, but looks to you. Explains that he asked if you are going to be his mother. Her tone, in passing this on, is cautious, neutral.
‘Yes,’ you say, unquestioning. ‘I will be.’ It sounds like a vow. Then, you ask her how to say it in Ukrainian, so you can convey it in his language, his words: Ya tvoya maty.
He smiles widely, showing his tarnished teeth, and it feels fierce and bright and warm as sunlight.
‘Dobrý,’ Marta says, and drains the rest of her beer in toast. ‘Now, we fish.’
With a delicate burp she stands, and pulls herself up the stepladder that leads to the wheelhouse, going out on deck. You put your own beer aside, not willing to risk losing an edge, sinking into complacency. While you and Gogol finish eating, you hear her up there, opening and closing compartments, traipsing back and forth. Getting the fishing gear ready – the same as when you went on your day jaunt, the widow’s expedition.
As these preparations take place Gogol keeps sneaking shy glances at you. Painfully pleased at the prospect of staying with you, being in your care – not just for the present, but indefinitely.
When everything is ready, Marta returns and motions for Gogol to follow, which he does – leaving the remains of his sandwich. You take it up after him, along with his can of Coke, the act feeling somewhat motherly already. Marta has readied two rods at the stern. She demonstrates to Gogol how to bait the hooks: slicing chunks of sausage with her fisherman’s knife, sliding the meat over the barbed hook, and then tossing the float, weight, and bait overboard into the water. The reel makes a ratchet-sound as she spools out lengths of line, sending the little red float bobbing downstream – the strand of filament thin and delicate as spider web.
With the other rod, she repeats the process but gets Gogol to help. He is avid and eager, a swift learner. Once both lines are out, she shows him how to hold his rod – with one hand above the reel and the other below, so it won’t be pulled from his grasp. Then she fits her own rod into one of the holders on the stern. Tells him to call her if he gets any bites. He nods, eyes still on the lines, accepting his duty with solemnity.
With that done, Marta turns to you – gestures to the bow. The two of you go up there and stand leaning against the gunnel, from where you can still see Gogol. Marta produces a pack of cigarettes, offers one to you, and lights them both. Your first exhales hang in heavy clouds around you. There’s no wind at all, and the river surface appears stagnant. Marta cuts a hand through the smoke decisively, and says, ‘Now, you must tell me what is happening.’
You have been thinking about this, waiting for this. There’s no reason not to tell her the truth, unless you don’t trust her. And if that was the case you wouldn’t be on this boat. So you explain, in as concise a way as you can, about meeting Mario and accepting the job and crossing the border and picking up Gogol and realising that they intend to kill him and your decision to not let that happen. You are getting well-versed in the tale, and though it should be shocking, the way you relate it is straightforward, factual. This is simply what has occurred, and where you are at.
You expect Marta to ask about going to the police, but she doesn’t and you wonder if, over here, corruption is more commonplace – and your decision not to seek help from the authorities therefore an obvious and sensible one.
Marta folds her arms, gnaws angrily on the butt of her still smouldering cigarette. ‘We will get you to Dresden,’ she says. Then adds something to herself,
in Czech, before translating: but will that be far enough? You ask if she thinks they will follow you there, and she snorts – loud and pig-like. She says that, regardless of where Valerie claims they are from, they are most likely Belarusians, or Chechens. It’s clear they’re powerful and established and can’t allow you to cross them without repercussions. And if they’ll kill a child, then they’ll do anything. Whatever it takes. Such people always make you pay, eventually. She states these things with a certainty and bitterness that implies she speaks from experience. She’d told you her husband died of heart failure, that their business was going under. But now you wonder: what made his heart fail? Maybe he took on a bad loan, which he was unable to pay back. Maybe he was in debt to people like Valerie and Pavel. People who found other ways to make him pay.
If so, she doesn’t confide in you, and you don’t pry; it’s not the past that matters now. In looking ahead, and thinking it through, it occurs to you that Marta could rent you a car in Dresden. Your money, her name. You suggest this and Marta has no problem with it. She is going to help, any way she can; she is committed. But she also seems to understand what you are up against. Having discussed it in such plain terms, the severity of the situation is clear as the frozen air, to both of you.
You glance to the stern, where Gogol is dutifully manning the lines, looking too small for the adult deck chair. You admit to Marta that you can’t understand it. Can’t fathom it. How this could be something they want to do, and presumably have done – the murder and mutilation of people, of children, for body parts. Marta gazes at you for a long time, either considering your words or how best to respond. She points with her cigarette, off the starboard side, towards shore. Beyond the sedge grasses and nearby wheat fields, some buildings are visible in that direction. That is Terezín, she tells you. You have heard of this place?