Саймон Моуэр - Prague Spring

‘When’s that guy from the embassy going to ring back?’

‘Why don’t you ring him again?’

‘Because he’s too busy to take my call.’

‘You don’t know that.’

‘That’s what she said. Anyway, maybe he already knows.’

They have been bickering like this ever since they came back to the flat. What else is there to do? Once it was different. Once there was that mutual attraction of a kind, but it was always a fragile thing, and now they are kept together by no more than the kind of tension that keeps oil droplets together in water – a shared reaction to the unintelligible world around them. Outside in the streets people argue with tanks in a language they cannot comprehend; here in the cramped living room the TV shows a serious young woman talking to the camera in a blizzard of incomprehensible Czech. Whenever the transmission goes off the air, James retunes it to another channel and the picture returns. The announcer appears to be sitting in a room with bare walls, except for the Czechoslovak flag that has been roughly draped behind her. Every now and again she is interrupted by poor-quality film of tanks in the street. A bus lies on its side and one of the tanks goes at it like a petulant child, bashing it again and again, trying to climb over. People jeer from the sidelines. The building beyond the fallen bus has československý rozhlas across the front. They wonder whether a figure, caught for an instant on the edge of the picture, is Lenka. They wonder where she is now.

Ellie says, ‘We can’t just sit here on our bums.’

But James perceives the world differently. On his bum is precisely where he wants to be. He has a headache and his right ear is still singing from the crack of the bullet that almost killed him. Sounds are muffled on that side, as though he might have a perforated eardrum. It’s like observing the world from inside a glass tank, sounds coming to him deadened and occluded. ‘The embassy said stay put.’ He puts on an exaggerated accent, like the Queen doing her Christmas broadcast. ‘We are recommending all British citizens remain indoors if they possibly can. We will inform you of developments as soon as we are able.’

‘Well you can stay if you like. But I want a breath of fresh air.’ She gets up decisively.

‘Don’t be stupid, Ellie. You can’t go out by yourself.’

They argue about that, too. Why can’t she go out? He could if he wished. Girls against boys. But he won’t go with her because he’s got this ringing in his ear and this ache in his head and because he’s bloody well going to wait in the flat until either Jitka or Zdeněk come back to tell them what the fuck is happening, or that guy from the embassy phones.

‘You’re frightened.’

‘Of course I’m fucking frightened. I’ve seen Lenka shot—’

‘We don’t know that.’

‘— and I nearly had my own head blown off.’

‘Well we’ve got to get something to eat. There’s that shop just round the corner. Potraviny or something. We can try there. It’ll only take a few minutes.’

While they’re arguing the phone rings. James picks it up gingerly, expecting more incomprehensible jabbering on the other end, but it’s Jitka’s voice that sounds in his ear, his good ear, the one that still works properly. ‘Is that James? Is Zdeněk there?’

‘No, he’s not.’ This is the woman who just two days ago let him kiss her on the mouth and cup her breast in his hand. He wants to use a term of endearment, to let her understand what he feels for her despite his being entirely unworthy of her interest. But only the banal comes to him: ‘What’s happening? Where are you?’

‘I’m with Lenka. Tell him that. Tell him not to do anything stupid and to come round as soon as he can.’ Stoopid. That American intonation to her English. ‘Have you spoken with Sam at the embassy?’

‘I couldn’t get hold of him.’

‘Well try again. Tell him about Lenka.’

‘What do I tell him? Where are you? Where should I say?’

There is an edge of impatience in her reply. ‘Na Františku. Didn’t I tell you?’

‘What? No, you didn’t.’ He scrawls nafrantiskoo on the pad beside the phone, not knowing whether he has got it right or what it means. ‘Can you repeat that?’

There’s silence on the line.

‘Hello? Are you there?’

Her voice comes back. Perhaps the line is faulty. ‘I thought I told you. I’m sorry, it’s been difficult.’

‘People have been ringing but no one spoke English. What did you think you’d already told me?’

‘ Nemocnice na Františku – it’s the hospital. I thought I already told you. I’ve been ringing round.’

‘How is she?’

‘I can’t talk now. There are others that want the phone.’

‘How is she, Jitka?’

She speaks rapidly, quietly, almost whispering. As though telling it softly might mollify her words. ‘She’s unconscious. It is not certain. Here it’s chaos, like war zone. I must go.’ And the phone goes dead.

He puts the receiver back on the cradle. Ellie is staring at him. ‘How is she, James?’

‘She’s unconscious.’

‘Still unconscious? How serious is it, James? Didn’t you ask her?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know how serious. She was in a hurry. Jitka, I mean. She was in a hurry because others wanted the phone. She didn’t say how serious.’

‘You should have asked!’

‘I didn’t have a chance. She rang off.’

She screams, her face contorted as though with pain, ‘But you should have asked !’

They’re trapped in a strange flat a thousand miles from home and familiarity, with people dying around them, and she’s screaming: Why didn’t you ask? Why didn’t you ask?

The nearest bridge was blocked to traffic by armoured vehicles, but people on foot could pass. Across the river, Kampa island was an oasis of quiet, but there was more armour in the wider streets of the Malá Strana and tanks in the square around the church of Saint Nicholas. He wondered whether to check on Egorkin and Pankova but decided against it and instead crossed the square and made for the narrow road leading to the embassy.

Little had changed there. The armoured car still blocked the cul-de-sac, soldiers still stood on stolid duty, the grim-faced official from the interior ministry was still there, the Union Flag still flew over the gatehouse. One of the soldiers moved to block his way, but the Czech official muttered something and the Russian stood aside. At the end of the cul-de-sac the gates opened just as he reached them, as if someone had been watching his progress up the alleyway through a peephole. Inside the gate was the reliable face of Derrick, the security man.

‘You made it back.’ He made it sound as though Sam had just been through the front lines of some kind of trench warfare. ‘What’s it like out there?’

‘Chaos. The Russians have come looking for a fight but all the Czechs want to do is argue. It’s a rather uneven contest.’

‘Who’s winning?’

‘The moral conflict or the military one?’

Derrick sniffed. He was a straightforward sort of man. ‘Not much point in winning the moral one if you’ve lost the battle.’

‘I’m afraid you’re right.’

In the courtyard there was activity round the embassy cars and talk of a convoy being organised to evacuate non-essential staff. A story was going round that the transport ministry was arranging a train to get foreign visitors out to Austria or Germany. Sam looked in at Whittaker’s office and gave a brief account of how things were in the Old Town. Eric listened with feigned patience. ‘You haven’t heard the latest,’ he said when Sam had finished. ‘It seems the powers that be have finally pulled their fingers out.’