Lawrence Block - The Canceled Czech

The night was threatening to last forever. Finally Neumann glanced at his watch, hauled himself to his feet, and announced that it was time for bed. “Herr Tanner must be tired,” he said. “And tomorrow will be a busy day for us all.”

I wished them both a good night and went upstairs.

I used to tell people the whole thing, about not sleeping, the wound in Korea, the effect it has had on my life, the medical opinions I’ve received, everything. I learned before very long that this was a mistake. All I ever accomplished was the dubious pleasure of having the same conversation five or six times a day, with no particularly interesting variations. Will it shorten your life? Yes, probably, but let’s talk about something else, shall we? What do you do with all your time? Read, write letters, work, play baseball, learn languages, dally with girls. Don’t you get tired? Of course I do, you idiot. Did you ever think of going on television, something like To Tell the Truth or I’ve Got a Secret? No. Never.

So I didn’t bother adding the interesting fact of permanent insomnia to the Neumann storehouse of interesting facts about Evan Michael Tanner. Instead I went upstairs to my room, closed the door, and stretched out on the bed to finish Czechoslovakia : A Nation in Name Alone. I couldn’t keep my mind on what I was reading but I went through the book anyway and finished it in about half an hour. It was the usual sort of diatribe, but I came out of it with three or four good points for my speech to the Bund.

I closed the book, got out of my clothes, turned down the bed, flicked off the light, and stretched out on my back. My eyes were tired and my leg had begun to bother me again. I closed my eyes to concentrate on empty black space and saw nothing but Greta, eyes half-lidded, body bare, mouth delicately obscene. I tried blinking the image away. There are several good Yoga techniques for blanking the mind, and I tried all of them, and none of them worked.

So I went through the various muscle groups, relaxing them in turn, and I was not particularly astonished to find that there was one particular muscle group which stubbornly refused to relax, an island of unrelieved tension in a sea of tranquility.

Until finally the doorknob turned and the door eased soundlessly open and she entered my room. I could not see her in the darkness but I knew it was her. The smell of her filled the room.

I didn’t move. She padded softly across the room and stood for some silent moments by the side of the bed.

“Evan? Are you asleep?”

I did not say anything.

“I couldn’t sleep, Evan. I tried, but I just couldn’t. Are you asleep, Evan? I think I know a way to wake you-”

She lifted the bed sheet, drew it down. Her hand, soft, cool, trailed down over my chest.

“Oh!” she said, delighted. “You’re not asleep at all, are you? You were only pretending!”

And she rolled her fine Aryan body on top of me.

I touched her and kissed her. She panted and squirmed and giggled. I thought of the cold shower I had taken earlier; I might as well have tried to put out a forest fire with a cup of water. She’s a Nazi, an inner voice cried, albeit weakly. Politics make strange bedfellows, a stronger voice retorted. And that particular dialogue ended, and another wordless dialogue took over.

She had switched on the bedside lamp. I was lying back with my head pillowed on the sweet warmth of her thighs. Her golden hair hung down free, framing her breasts and brushing my face. Her hands, which had raced so trippingly over the keyboard to play the “Horst Wessel Lied,” now raced just as trippingly over me.

“It’s asleep now,” she said.

“I’m not asleep.”

“Not you. It.”

“Oh.”

“It was awake when I came in, and I have put it to sleep. Will it sleep for very long?”

“Not at this rate.”

“Good. You know, I expected it the minute I saw you. That’s why I was so excited.”

“Expected what?”

“That you were Jewish.”

“What?”

“Oh, don’t worry,” she said. She giggled. “I won’t tell anyone, Evan. Because then I would have to tell Papa how it is that I know, and he would be very angry. He would whip me. Here, and here, and-”

“Yes, I know. I’m not Jewish.”

“But of course you are.”

“No, I’m not.”

“But” – her fingers moved – “this is the proof, is it not? Jews are fixed this way and Germans are not. A rabbi does it, no? I always wondered what he did with it afterward.”

“In America,” I said, “that particular – uh – operation is performed on almost everyone. In the hospital. By a doctor.”

“You are joking with me.”

“I’m not joking.”

“You are telling the truth?”

“Yes.”

“And this is done to everyone in America?”

“Almost everyone, nowadays.”

“By a doctor?”

“Yes.”

“Do they have to use a Jewish doctor?”

“Any doctor can do it. Greta-”

“And you’re really not Jewish?”

“Really. Greta-”

“Oh.”

“Is something wrong?”

“No, I guess not. But I was certain that you were a Jew. I thought so from the beginning, and then when you told me your name – Evan – I thought it was like Ivan and that you were a Russian Jew. Why are you laughing?”

“I’m sorry.”

“And then now, after we did it, I was sure of it. I never enjoy it that much except with Jews.”

“You…”

She shrugged. “My father would kill me.”

“He probably would.”

“I knew he would. I share his feelings on race completely, Evan. You must believe that I do. But in the dark, and lying down, it is a different matter. I don’t know why. It just happens that way.”

None of this is really happening, I told myself reasonably. I suffered a concussion when I leaped from the train, and I have been dreaming all of this. The girl and her father do not exist. None of this exists. It is all a dream, caused by a devastating blow on the head. In time it will all pass away.

“Evan? Do you think I am terrible?”

“No.”

“I can’t help myself, really. And I don’t think they should be exterminated. I think that is a bad idea, extermination. What is the point of it?”

“The purity of the race-”

“Ah, but I have an answer for that!” Her eyes lit up. “Not extermination but sterilization. Do you see? And then a girl like myself could have Jewish lovers whenever she wanted and be very very happy all of the time and never have to worry about becoming pregnant. The race would not be polluted with Jewish blood, and yet I could have my pleasure, and… You are laughing at me, Evan.”

“I’m laughing at everything.”

“You will not tell my father?”

“Of course not.”

She changed position, stretched out beside me. “You’re very nice,” she said. She kissed me, and her soft hand resumed its dalliance. “I think it is a marvelous idea, that everyone should have this operation. It must have been a Jewish trick, but I think nevertheless that it is a good practice. So naked it is, and so defenseless.”

“Unprotected.”

“Yes.”

“But dangerous when cornered.”

“Ahh!”

“Do you realize what would happen if your father were here?”

“Oh, but he’s sleeping. He will not-”

“But if he did.”

“Oh-”

“He would whip you.”

“He would, yes, he would.”

“He would whip you here-”

“Yes.”

“-and here-”

“Yes, oh, yes-”

“And even here-”

“Ahhhh-”

When she finallyleft I went through the deep relaxation ritual again, this time with considerably more success. After twenty minutes of it I got dressed and went downstairs. I found a handful of books that looked interesting, including one in Czech; I could speak the language well enough but hadn’t read it intensively in some time, and wanted to brush up on it before we went to Prague.