Pavel Kohout - The Widow Killer

“A bit of a drubbing will squelch any suspicions that we’ve recruited him as an informer; that’s what you want, isn’t it?”

He grudgingly admitted that it was; he just did not know how he would explain it to the man’s daughter. He stood up, so as not to put his discomfort on display.

“Thank you, Obersturmbannführer; it will make my work considerably easier.”

“It’s nothing, really,” Hinterpichler grinned smugly. “Pig slaughtering is probably part of the local culture; we’d have to hang all of them. Better to punish a few randomly and keep it under control that way.”

Back in his old office Buback breathed deeply in and out a few times, but could not calm down. Getting angry at himself helped; it was an old habit that had pulled him through many a life crisis. Have I lost my mind? Why am I behaving like an adolescent? He had the switchboard put him through to the Czech criminal police and instantly heard her voice (what was so special about it? Yes! Now he knew: She always sounded like she was just waking up).

“Buback here,” he managed to say impersonally. “Is this Miss Modrá?”

“Yes….”

“You were kind enough to accept my invitation for dinner tonight.”

“Yes…”

“Would half past seven suit you?”

“Yes…”

“Where shall I pick you up?”

He noted the address and closed the conversation as officially as he had begun it.

“Please inform Mr. Morava that I expect him in my office at Bredovska Street as soon as possible.”

He hung up none the wiser about what he was after that evening. Having no other work at the moment to distract his attention, he continued to fret over it.

He had no illusions that any normal Czech woman would, given the current situation, fall in love with a German, much less a Gestapo agent (she would certainly think he was one, and he was not allowed to disabuse her of the notion). And he was almost a quarter-century older than her — easily enough to be her father. He probed deeper, asking himself what led him to hope against hope, and realized what it was. In these five years of war he had met countless people in extreme situations, and more than once had seen relationships develop that would be completely unthinkable under normal conditions.

After all, the situation in the Protectorate could (and apparently would) become so dire overnight that the father’s savior might well become the daughter’s only protection as well. He could even remove her from Bartolom jská before Meckerle’s strike against the Prague police— which he would help prepare.

But, for God’s sake, how should he behave tonight? This Czech twin of his Hilde, just like her predecessor, lowered her eyes every time he entered. What if he tried to overcome that shyness in a stroke, as he’d done in his first life in Dresden…?

He cut short his musings when Beran’s boy entered. Buback had pretended to have desk duty here today, as if he had to explain why they were not meeting in his office at Bartolom jská Street. This ploy made him even angrier at himself, so he was not particularly pleasant to Morava, which irritated him further. It’s a vicious circle; discipline, Erwin. He concentrated on the official announcements Morava had provided him with, and saw that the drafts were fine. Approving both texts without changes, he ordered Kroloff to arrange for the publication of the shorter one tomorrow in all the German papers across the Protectorate.

With this they were done, but the kid remained seated. Earlier he had conducted himself in a calm, efficient manner, but now his eyes searched Buback’s face with a tense expression.

“Is there something else?” Buback queried.

The Czech shook his head and stood up awkwardly, but before he took his leave and turned toward the door his face flushed red. What was on his mind? Another request for help? Then why didn’t he say so? Meckerle had basically given him a green light; he could help in other matters as well, as long as the Gestapo’s magnanimity didn’t become too obvious. The more personally he could intervene on behalf of Jitka Modrá, the happier Buback would be to work toward the success of his mission.

Remembering her diverted his thoughts again down that same channel with an insistence that almost frightened him. How could this be? A month ago only Hilde had existed for him; even dead, she had filled his life and blocked even the slightest flicker of other emotions.

He felt it again that evening, as the girl appeared beneath the blinded lantern in front of her house, on a suburban street his driver had spent ages searching for in the darkened city.

Her placid beauty (he could describe it no other way) was even more vivid in the near-darkness; her eternally sleepy voice moved him, though she was merely explaining that she had not been waiting long; no, she had just come outside, because it occurred to her they’d have trouble finding the house. He opened the rear right door for her and then got in on the other side. What sort of rare perfume was she wearing, he almost asked, before he realized that it was the smell of soap.

Of course, he did not intend to take her to German House, although they could have eaten there without ration coupons. He opted instead for Repre, visited mainly by the few Czechs who could afford it (collaborators, he thought with a certain malicious glee, who’d bet on the wrong horse). He remembered the famous turn-of-the-century restaurant from his childhood, when he had eaten New Year’s and Easter meals there with his real mother. Just after his return to Prague he had come here to jog his memories of her; it had still made him feel sentimental, but inside it had been empty and deserted as a burgled home.

But not now, not now. Beneath the restaurant’s glowing chandeliers, he led the girl in the long black skirt and white blouse to their reserved table, and the tension that had gripped him since morning blossomed into a feeling he had not had in months: joy, so strong it caught at his throat. He was grateful when the headwaiter — who could hold up both ends of a conversation — stepped in. The girl had no special requests, so he recommended the Vienna sliced sirloin tips for both of them. However, she flatly refused Buback’s ration coupons and pulled out her own.

The ritual seemed doubly absurd in a fancy establishment: the head-waiter pulled scissors from the tail of his frock-coat and cut off squares representing decagrams of meat, flour, and fat. Buback squirmed at how much smaller the Czech rations were than his. Either it seemed natural to her or too awkward to mention; she carefully placed the remaining tickets into separate compartments in her plastic purse, clasped her hands on the table, and turned her great brown eyes on his with an unspoken question.

“Gnädiges Fräulein,” he then said, “I took the liberty of looking into your father’s case; I’m interested in the well-being of the Czech police, since we’re cooperating so closely. I can assure you that his only punishment will be a fine and that hell soon be released. However, to be completely honest with you, I could not prevent them from. .. They didn’t exactly handle him with kid gloves, I regret to say. What’s important is that nothing more will happen to him.”

“My father is strong,” she said simply.

“Anyway,” he added, as if to excuse Hinterpichler’s idea, “now no one will suspect him of buying his way out with a relatively mild punishment.”

“No one in our town would ever think that.”

He admired that directness in her; it did not strike him as haughty. When she was sure of something, she expressed it in the simplest possible way. This too he had only ever experienced with Hilde.