Pavel Kohout - The Widow Killer

“Why not call the studios and have them play music for a while,” suggested a pitifully pale woman slumped weakly on the tiles, her back propped against the wall. “Everyone’s heard the broadcast anyway, and we’ll never get out of here unless—”

“Chin up, Andula!” a colleague interjected. Another employee added, “The Germans know they won’t just be able to escape, not at any price; all of Prague is sharpening its knives for them.”

Finally the German fire began to quiet down. The phone rang; the director was waiting for them. The negotiators should put their hands behind their heads; they would be searched on arrival.

Morava left his pistol and holster and proceeded to the steps. His footprints remained in the fine plaster dust just like in snow. He was the first to crawl over the office-furniture stockade. The maneuver required both hands, but he was not afraid.

“At least,” he said to himself in a low voice, “I’ll be with you sooner, my love.”

When they finally ran up and showered him with praise for his amazing courage, he experienced a remarkable feeling. I DID IT!

It made him even happier that this time he hadn’t had to hide his deed; quite the opposite:

I CAN DO IT IN PUBLIC!

He was terribly sorry that SHE could not have seen it herself, but he was sure that SHE knew, if SHE hadn’t in fact been leading him.

Even the boy with wire-rim glasses who hurried over from the garbage can couldn’t spoil his mood.

“Sirs,” he said in a trembling voice, “he’s alive.”

In their ensuing silence they heard a weak moan from outside.

“Let him enjoy it, then!” he answered the kid. “Like we enjoyed living with them for six years. Or do you feel sorry for him?”

“Stomach wounds are extremely painful…. You see, I’m studying to be a doctor, and—”

Before he could think of a way to regain his new admirers, a well-muscled man in overalls grinned at the kid.

“Then finish school and cure him! Or finish him off, once you have something to do it with. Personally, I wouldn’t waste my ammunition on him. So what next?” The overalls turned to the group. “The evening’s still young!”

And he felt everyone’s eyes resting on him. They looked up to him the way he had once looked up to Sergeant Králik, he realized proudly.

I’M THE BEST ONE HERE!

It was time to consolidate his leadership.

According to the technician, the entrance by the garbage cans was thinly guarded because the Germans thought it only led down to the archives. But from there, he assured them, you could get upstairs to the broadcasting rooms where the calls for help were coming from.

He took one grenade along with the soldier’s submachine gun, which naturally fell to him; the other grenade he gave to the man in overalls, who, he learned, had also been in the army. Both rifle owners followed them into the basement; after them came a couple of empty-handed men hoping to find some weapons as they went.

The hallway turned two corners and then brought them to a narrow staircase leading upward. They walked so slowly and quietly that they heard the steps and German voices approaching from above before the soldiers found them. Was it just a coincidence that once again he and his men were ideally positioned for an ambush? The archive was overflowing with old tape recordings, and its hallways were lined with narrow shelving housing columns of round metal cases; here, just behind them, was an alcove they all fit into.

Rypl, his sergeant reminded him, in concrete your bullet will likely hit you on the rebound; a blade’s your best bet… After all, it was Králík who’d instructed him in the use of knives when they’d visited his brother’s slaughterhouse. ..

Today, however, he had another idea, his own. He motioned to his supporter to put his weapon down and, turning to the others, mimed grabbing someone by the throat.

There were two Germans, evidently convinced that the basement was still clear: Their submachine guns hung over their shoulders as they headed for the stairs to have a smoke. They had no chance against the half dozen or so men who suddenly fell on them. In a couple of seconds they felt their backs slam down on their gun barrels and gasped to find at least three Czechs kneeling over each of them.

He was crazy, he shuddered in retrospect, to jump on them practically empty-handed with a bunch of strange men; it could have backfired badly. And yet here they lay, rank-and-file SS storm troopers, both wide-eyed rookies.

Yes, Mother, TODAY IS MY DAY!

“What should we do with them?” he asked the one who had taken his side; now the man showed his hands, large as shovels.

“Tie ’me up and guard ’me,’ the tram driver said. “There are rules about prisoners, aren’t there?”

He knew them from even his own short war and momentarily considered using two of the straps girdling him — but would he definitely get them back? And after what happened to the poor runt who’d had to return them…. One thing was certain: They couldn’t drag the Germans with them, nor could they leave them here with inexperienced guards. So he made his decision.

“Where’s the toilet?” he said, turning to the man from the radio.

“We passed it as we came in.”

He left his regiment by the steps, guarded by two newly acquired submachine guns, and nodded to his new ally. The Germans went in front of them, hands crossed high on their backs, the way Králik had taught him. The best way to stiffen them up, Rypl, as every schoolteacher knows! The archive toilets were hidden in a small side hall. Beyond the urinal was a stall with a toilet bowl; the yellowed door ended about a foot from the ceiling. It was perfect for his next idea.

“Hinein!” He pointed the gun muzzle at them. “Both of you, inside!”

They squeezed into the narrow space; the second one chuckled uneasily. He slammed the door behind them and asked his guide, “Is there anything to wedge the handle with?”

The man reached into a corner and grabbed a broom standing in a bucket with a rag. Deftly he propped it between the stall door and the wall. Did he already know? He looked so eager!

He nodded for him to go out into the hallway first, and eyeballed the size of the gap above the stall door. Then he pulled the pin from the grenade, silently counted to three, and hurled it into the stall. He heard a double scream, but he had already slammed the washroom door and pressed himself against the side wall.

The explosion jammed the door shut. Too bad. He would have liked to look. An admiring smile crossed his companion’s face, and he made a further discovery.

I HAVE A FRIEND!

On the corner of Bredovská Street, which was guarded by two light storm-trooper tanks, Buback was assaulted by the pungent stench he had smelled during each post-Normandy retreat. In the courtyard, a huge pyre was burning; files with documents from various departments were heaped on it. Why, he wondered for the first time: Why burn the only proof that even in these infamous walls they had proceeded strictly according to regulation? Except that was the problem.

The German nation was not the only one ever to place its own interests above the legal norms of the civilized world. However, it seemed likely to be the first one condemned for applying its laws strictly and thoroughly, because ius germanicum, which allowed the death penalty for a critical word or a hook-shaped nose, had now thrown the greater part of a civilized continent back into the Dark Ages.

It had always consoled him that the paragraphs he enforced defended the time-honored values for which mankind created laws, even if they were part of that greater German legal code. He had been practically the only officer at all his previous postings who had not needed to cover his tracks. But was that enough to let him shrug off responsibility for what the burners were trying to hide?