Pavel Kohout - The Widow Killer

He’s looking past me at her chair; he can’t turn me down! Morava felt sure he had won.

Beran stood up and went to close the door. Then, unusually, he sat down on his desktop and stared through Morava at the wall. The detective had never seen his boss this way.

“It’s a point of honor for the police, if you’re interested, to protect Prague from both the Germans and its own citizens,” Beran began. “Using only our own modest forces we’ve met the demands of our political and military leaders: an impassable city, the Germans in it momentarily paralyzed. The sad thing is, the Czech delegation fell apart before they ever came together.”

He saw that Morava did not understand.

“I think of myself as one of a dying breed of civil servants, who stood apart from factions so they could serve the community. I’ve been involved in this for weeks, as you know, and, in my neutrality, I’ve been more and more horrified at what I see. It was clear to both sides that an uprising would increase the chances that Prague would be destroyed, and it had no real military value given the massive front movements. But there was still a political value in deciding whether to rebel. The winning side will be the one that’s best at anticipating the pious wishes of whichever Allied force ends up in control here. Finally, the democrats started it off; they bet on the Americans, encouraged by their quick advance, but now they’ve got the losing hand. At the moment the Communists hold the trumps, because the Western Allies have stopped outside Plze .”

“No…!” A gasp escaped Morava.

“Yes. The Big Three have apparently decided that the Red Army will liberate Prague. I take it I don’t have to tell you what the consequences will be.”

“I had no idea,” Morava admitted honestly. “When will they get here? It’s just a hop from Dresden and Linz; those claws would cut Schörner off from the rest of the Reich and that would end the war.”

“Remember the Warsaw and Slovak uprisings,” Beran answered glumly. “They let them bleed to death.”

“On purpose? But why?”

“A liberator never likes it when people free themselves first. They don’t get the gratitude they need to stay in power.”

Morava was shaken.

“So the Communists have renounced the uprising?”

“On the contrary. They’re trying to seize control of it.”

“How?”

“Very simply. They didn’t start it, and now they’re claiming they’re obliged to salvage what they can. If it’s successful they’ll be the ones who give the Soviets the keys to Prague. If we’re defeated, they’ll claim the democrats are soldiers of fortune who are responsible for needless losses and damage. Today they blocked the decision to offer the Germans an unhindered retreat to the west in return for capitulation. Suddenly they were calling it a separate peace that would disappoint the Allies — read: the Soviets. As a result we’ll be fighting a force that outguns us many times over.”

“So it’s a cynical game?”

“Why cynical? History proves that the worst atrocities are always committed by the keepers of a sacred truth, who truly believe in their mission. And that mission includes destroying all other truths — which, of course, are nothing but lies — along with anyone who supports them.”

The telephone rang.

“Good to hear your voice.” Beran sounded relieved. “When it hit I was really afraid for you. Yep, be right down.”

He hung up and gave a sad grin.

“Brunát is supposed to bring me to the council meeting. More bull… bullyragging, apparently.”

“I’ll hold down the fort here.”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort; you’re going to sleep. Have you forgotten what a day you’ve had?”

He remembered. His wife and child’s funeral. And a bit of war. Suddenly an unbearable heaviness rolled over him. Beran took him by the arm almost tenderly.

“Get up, Jan… can I call you by your first name? I’ve been meaning to ask for a while, and I may not get the chance again. Get up and go lie down. You’re absolutely right; the best thing you can do for your country is catch him. I’ll give you Litera.”

Then a listless stroll past Jitka’s desk.

Then bed, and a fall into darkness.

Then the dream about Rypl, and his mother.

Then waking up with the picture of his mother and Jitka.

Now a sharp memory of his conversation with Beran.

And finally the hope that when he managed to fall back to sleep he would meet those two dear beings again.

Once they had cut a path through all the rubberneckers and cowards they found a skinny redhead tagging along, who had picked a Panzerfaust from the arsenal the Germans left.

” ’scuse me, can I come with you? You’re tough guys; you can make the Nazis swallow anything, hairs and all!”

“C’mon, you’re not even fifteen yet,” Lojza probed.

“Sure I am.”

“Don’t try it. If you wanna come, own up, we don’t take liars.”

“I will be in six months,” he admitted, “but nothing fuckin’ scares me.”

“Your parents let you go?”

“Pop bit it and my mom can go fuck herself,” he explained maturely. “She had her way I’d be wearing a skirt.”

This caught his attention.

“You an only child?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“She ever beat you?”

“Like to see her try! She knows I’d send her flying.”

He was confused.

“You’d hit her…?”

“Why not? Not like I asked to be born. And I don’t give a shit if I survive, either. So why should those fuckin’ Nazis live? Well, can I come?”

“Why not,” he said to the other two. “Maybe he’ll learn a few new words too.”

He would watch the boy. He had to figure out HOW HE GOT FREE FROM HER.

They were a scant two hundred yards uphill from the radio building when the crescendo of a motor caught their attention. At first he thought it was a tank and his eyes darted to the boy’s Panzerfaust, but when he turned around, he saw an unusual-looking airplane appear above the buildings. A large cigar separated from it and dropped toward the ground. Immediately a detonation rolled past, so powerful that it shook the cobblestones beneath their feet. Lime-white dust rolled upward from the radio building, and tiny bits of concrete whizzed through the air toward them.

“Good fucking show!” the boy rejoiced. “That’s what they get for taking the Nazis’ side.”

Everyone had to laugh at that.

Garlanded with guns, they trudged uphill along the main avenue side by side. The people hurrying downhill to help moved respectfully aside to let them pass. The fighters soon realized they would not have much fun that day. The citizens of Prague had gone crazy; their latest hobby seemed to be prying up and hauling around paving stones. Rain began to pour down, and in a wide area around the barricades the naked roadbed quickly changed into mud under the countless footfalls of their builders.

They were not dressed for this work.

“Where do we go for the night?” asked the youth, who had told them to call him Pepík.

“I’m from Brno,” he said, half truthfully. “I don’t have an apartment here.”

Ladislav lived on the opposite — and therefore inaccessible — side of the city, Lojza had found a new guy at his girlfriend’s, and there was no question of going to the boy’s mother’s. After a long while the caretaker on the embankment flashed through his mind. Why not finish him off and then stay there…?

“For God’s sake,” Lojza said, lighting up, “there must be loads of empty apartments from the Germans. I know one that’s pretty close, in fact. Belongs to the director of a glue factory — where I worked till the bastard handed me over to the Work Exchange. Everything that happened to me after that was his fault.”