Pavel Kohout - The Widow Killer

Yesterday, he was sure, had been a milestone in his life just like the day he punished that floozy in Brno. With one difference: back then he had failed miserably, thanks to his own incompetence, and withdrawn into his shell for years; it took him from February until the black April day when they nearly caught him to crawl painfully out again. Still, since the uprising began yesterday he’d done better than he’d ever dreamed, and now he was awash in self-confidence, just like that rookie on the Brno shooting range years ago.

Most of all, he FELT GREAT. Although he had devotedly followed HER orders, he had always been prone to treacherous attacks of lethargy. Now he knew their source: society’s hypocritical morality had forced him to hide. It called righteous purges a crime and had him pursued like a beast, hoping to wreak its sorry retribution on his neck. The same society, however, had now declared open season on its occupiers, and he was its tool of punishment.

I AM THE NATION!

On the way to the bathroom he gave the others a military wake-up call; before he could shower, he found them blinking sleepily in the kitchen. Real coffee (which they’d found here, of course) revived them, and Lojza remembered the German in the bedroom.

“Anyone like seconds?” he asked.

The boy turned red as he shook his head; clearly he was afraid of any further humiliation.

” ’snot really my thing,” the stoker admitted. “I have to feel a woman all around me.”

“Well, I’ll just jump on ’er for a second and then we’re off,” the bald man said. “Sure you don’t want any, Ludva?”

This time he was ready.

“Actually I do,” he said, “but once you’re done, and my own way. Let me know.”

When Lojza reported a short while later that he’d had his fun and was looking forward to the show, even the others could not hide their curiosity. The night had not been kind to the German; she certainly hadn’t slept and the uncomfortable position had exhausted her perhaps even more than the men’s lust. When all of them entered the room again, she did not even open her eyes.

“I know,” Ladislav guessed. “You’ll do her dressed, so you won’t get dirty.”

He grimaced ironically at the stoker.

“Look at me!” he ordered her in German, the way he had done to the baroness in February, and to the rest in Czech thereafter.

So she listened, and he once again saw in her eyes animal fear splintering into humble resignation, as if he were her only hope.

Suddenly he was hungry to SHOW THEM ALL OF IT. In the theater where he’d worked, he had never understood how a grown man could take satisfaction in performing, but now it was exactly what he longed for. Of course it was primarily the boy he wanted to see it, Pepík might be his first apprentice.

WATCH OUT!

A red light flashed in his brain. Was he really out of danger? Someone might recognize him and try to make him into a run-of-the-mill murderer. With one witness still at large (whom he couldn’t forget), could he afford to hang three more around his neck, including an adolescent?

I’M NO FOOL!

After all, he could show them another way, similar, but a bit more ambiguous. He’d just neutralize that perfidious dove, where her depraved soul would try to hide!

He checked that her mouth was still well gagged, and placed the point of the knife beneath the nipple of her breast.

“This is how I do it,” he said.

He began to press, gently but insistently. The sharp blade broke the skin, leaving only a red line. Her body tensed as far as the straps permitted; the sound that emerged from under the gag was more like a long brass tone with a mute.

Yes, now he was really aroused, truly aroused like a man who determines life and death, but his hand remained firm, pressing evenly on the haft even while the woman struggled ever more fiercely. Her eyes seemed to flow over, but so did those of the men, he noticed with satisfaction. No one breathed a word; motionless, they followed the slow plunge of steel into her breast.

Then, finally, his sense of touch told him the tip of the knife had reached her heart. Normally he stopped here to come back to it after he had finished the rest. He paused now as well, but only to release his fist for a moment and show them the blade stuck firmly in her flesh. The German had meanwhile closed her eyes; she was trying to escape, to flee from him in spirit.

The other three men were pale. He could not risk it; their wonder might turn into disgust. He grasped the handle again with his fingers and guided it in as deep as it would go. The body immediately slackened. He ripped out the knife, and to his surprise, there was not a drop of blood on the blade.

“What the…,” Lojza whispered.

That was all anyone said.

As he undid the straps to wrap them back around his waist, all of them solicitously helped him, one at each corner of the bed. Then it was he who used the stoker’s joke:

“Well, the morning’s still young!”

To dispell the shock, he had them count up their money. When he’d left the runt’s yesterday for the radio station, he’d completely forgotten he was broke. Events had taken the other three unawares as well; the older two had a couple of crowns, the boy not a coin to his name. They searched the apartment, but the Germans had cleverly removed their marks and jewels to a safer place in the Reich. In the woman’s purse they found a handful of crumpled Protectorate crowns; it would have to do for the time being.

“So what,” he reassured them. “The harvest’s just starting; we’ll do our reaping somewhere else.”

As they were putting on their guns in the entrance hall, the bell rang. His throat caught, but immediately he realized the advantage was on their side. He nodded to Ladislav and Lojza to stand with him opposite the front door, and to the youngest to go open it. The boy showed his cleverness; as soon as he had done so he dropped lightning-fast to the ground to give them clear aim.

The two men in front of them, one in a police uniform, the other in civilian clothes adorned with a helmet and bayonet, were suitably horrified.

With the reaction of his comrades to the bedroom scene, he felt confirmed as their leader.

“What do you want,” he asked sharply.

The civilian could not stop shaking, but the uniformed man was not as green and quickly found his tongue.

“We’re securing German apartments. And what are you looking for here?”

“Nothing. Quite the opposite. My friend had to pay back a debt.” He turned to Lojza, who bared his gap-toothed jaw.

“So you’re the council for the protection of Krauts,” the bald man spat.

“We have no interest in protecting them,” the policeman retorted. “Our job is to secure property and deliver the Germans with any necessary belongings to Girls’ High School, where they will be concentrated for the meantime.”

“Best this lady can hope for is concentration in a mass grave.” Lojza laughed.

The man remained businesslike.

“I am required to uphold certain directives. The Red Cross will take charge of German civilians in Prague, according to international—”

“Where was your Red Cross when those pigs kicked out my teeth,” Lojza shot back angrily.

“The newly resurrected Czechoslovak Republic will be a country of law. Private reprisals have no place here,” the policeman insisted.

He knew the other three were waiting to see what he would say or do, and it made his blood boil to hear these platitudes again.

“This lady knew she was guilty. She committed suicide.”

“How?” The pest would not be satisfied.

SHOULD I DEMONSTRATE ON THEM?

He suppressed the temptation. There might be more of them hiding here; only the STRUGGLE AGAINST THE KRAUTS could give him and his men a sacred mission, and he did not want to lose it.