Pavel Kohout - The Widow Killer

“Excuse me, sir.” Morava could no longer contain his outrage. “This is a fanatical killer you’re talking about — a butcher of defenseless women. If you’d come forward to the police earlier, you could have saved six lives.”

“I know,” he wheezed like an asthmatic. “I know, gentlemen, and this is my mortal sin, which I will answer for one day. But surely you can understand I don’t want to compound it—”

Before Morava could boil over, the German interceded in a calm voice.

“In cases such as these, won’t the church grant some sort of dispensation?”

“I’d have to request it…,” the priest responded.

“Why didn’t you do it long ago?”

The cleric was struggling to undo his collar, but his fingers would not obey him.

“I guess… out of shame that a holy picture could lead someone to such a monstrous act…. Could you please open the window?”

Morava stood up to grant his request, but remained merciless.

“So why are you telling us now?”

“Those horrible murders…. How could I live with it…?”

“And how will you live with what he does next? If we don’t catch him in time, he’ll do it again soon. The conditions are perfect for it.” Yes… yes….

He’s having a stroke, Morava realized, his heart in his throat, but he did not feel even an ounce of compassion, only a powerless rage that that human animal would wreak further havoc, unpunished and unrecognized. The crisp April air streamed into the room, but the priest’s face had turned the color of ashes.

“Your Reverence,” Buback spoke almost soothingly, playing the time-honored role of “good cop,” the carrot to Morava’s stick, “do you think you could ask for that dispensation today from your diocese? I’m sure they’d be glad—”

At that the priest of Klá terec truly fainted. Neither of the policemen managed to catch him as he fell. They summoned the housekeeper, who calmly sat down, crossing her bowling-pin legs by his head and placing it on her lap. Gently she slapped his cheeks.

“Venda! My little Venou ek! Don’t worry about it, you had no choice!”

A scene from a mediocre anticlerical farce, Buback thought to himself, but quickly realized his error. The housekeeper turned out to be the priest’s sister, who had come to work here after her husband died. She told Buback that her sorely tried brother had asked her whether he should go to the police or not, but had not even told her that the murderer and the thief were one and the same.

They helped move the priest, who soon came around, into the bedroom, and then had to bow to her insistence that they leave him in peace today. He had high blood pressure, she insisted, and further disturbance could strain his heart; they could probe more later. Of course, she was right, and so they agreed with her over the remains of their now cold coffee that they would come again tomorrow, either to take him to the diocese or bring someone from there to him.

On the way back they were mostly silent; both knew that it was pointless to talk until the next day. The younger man, sitting beside Buback in the back seat, was obviously suffering from a deep depression. Buback could certainly sympathize: Grete was today’s bait. Her spontaneous offer and his efforts to insure the trap was safe had made him assume she found it an exciting role, and nothing more. Only early this morning had she confessed that each time she walked through the cemetery gates she could feel her backside clench — she showed him her closed fist — this tight!

“Come on, why?” He tried to reassure her. “You know how thoroughly we’ve tested the scenario.”

“Too thoroughly, if anything.” She grimaced. “What if this show doesn’t run the way you’ve written it?”

“He’s the one who wrote it — five times already,” he objected. “They all opened the door themselves. You won’t even come into contact with him.”

“You don’t think so? I hope you’re right.”

“Then there are still two men inside with pistols.”

Grete freed herself from his embrace and went to light up. Sitting in her favorite position — knees against her chest — she exhaled the smoke and laughed awkwardly.

“Today I imagined that for some reason they weren’t there.”

“You have a sick imagination,” he rebuked her, and was instantly afraid he had insulted her.

“Forgive me. It was silly and mean of me to take it for granted. It never occurred to me what must be going through your head. I’m an idiot.”

“No! You’re wonderful both as a lover and a person. You really have only one flaw.”

“Which is?”

“Oh, love, I told you before: think it over.”

Now Buback turned to his companion. Their driver, Litera, knew barely enough German to say Gootin tock or Owf weeder zane, so he did not worry about him understanding.

“Mr. Morava,” he said, addressing him as a civilian, “does your fiancee ever feel frightened as she plays the widow?”

Surprise reflected from his neighbor’s face.

“I was just thinking about that.”

“So she does, then.”

“I don’t know. She says not, but maybe she just wants to reassure me. Does Mrs. Baumann?”

“Today she told me she’s afraid the safeguards will fail.”

“How could they?” Morava was uneasy again.

“I’m with you; I don’t think they can. Anyway, she let it pass.”

Buback remembered how, and was filled with joy at the thought that tonight he would hold her in his arms again.

“Still, I’ve got three people to worry for,” the Czech said. “We’re expecting a child, you see. ..”

Buback was amazed. How could they do this? An apocalypse was coming, and these two were having a baby right in the middle of it. With Jitka promenading herself every other day as bait for a murderer? He gazed into the young, tense face and was surprised how deeply touched he was by another man’s problems.

“When?” he asked, so he would not just be staring.

“By all the signs, just before Christmas.”

Sometime between today and Christmas — probably sooner rather than later — the battle of battles would take place. Did the boy have any idea? And what did he expect from it personally? Why not ask him? He could answer as he liked.

“Do you think it’ll be born in peacetime?”

The Czech stared right back at him.

“Yes.”

“Any feeling how the war will end?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to tell me?”

“Yes,” his neighbor repeated for the third time. “I think the Reich will collapse fairly soon.”

“And aren’t you afraid it might be disastrous for your people? They say dying horses kick the hardest.”

In return he got an unexpected counterquestion.

“Don’t you want to live?”

“Of course I do,” he said without thinking, and again remembered Grete at night.

“Well, I think it threatens Germans more than Czechs. You’re the only German I know to any degree, but you can’t be the only one who feels that way. I’m counting on people like you to prevent it.”

“Aha… but how?”

“By capitulating in time, how else?”

Morava expressed this without the slightest embarrassment or hesitation. Buback was at a loss for words.

“Do you really trust me that much?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Sometimes a person just has to decide. And I’ve decided to believe you.”

“But why?”

The Czech was ready with an answer; he seemed firmly convinced of what he was saying.

“My fiancée — actually, she’s already really my wife, it’s just we haven’t gotten married yet on account of the war — she says that a man’s partner is a reflection that doesn’t lie. Both she and I are very fond of Mrs. Baumann.”