Pavel Kohout - The Widow Killer

Beran added that the Czech National Council was trying to contact the Ko ice government by radio, but they were not expecting a response before evening; there was no sense wasting Buback’s time. A new letter of transit with a minor Czechification of his identity would open a path through Czech Prague for him….

He took it and read his Czech name.

ERVÍN BUBÁK.

In the middle of the city the barricades were still up; the German guards were letting local residents past, and Buback got through with them on the way to and from Bredovská Street. He wrote the absent Meckerle a short but emphatic note and then set off for Grete with the lieutenant general’s present. Ever since he got the pistol he had been berating himself for not thinking of it on his own. But how could he have known she was a crack shot?

Meanwhile, May turned rapidly into a dank autumn; it began to rain again and the temperature continued to drop. Yesterday’s enthusiasm had evaporated from the streets. The long wait had divided Praguers into two camps. For one group, the war had ended, and they grumbled that the rest kept playing soldiers and tearing up the streets; who would fix things afterwards, and when? The others were busy fortifying and strengthening the barricades.

The dead-end street was devoid of life again; did anyone live here? This time he went straight to the door without stopping and confidently unlocked it; it seemed the least conspicuous entrance. He knocked their agreed signal inside on the wooden banister, but his heart leaped into his throat when Grete did not respond. He bounded up the stairs two at a time, all the while ruing leaving her alone in this murder-stained house.

“Grete!”

Silence. Would she too be lying on the floor just through the kitchen doors? He whirled in panic and might have injured himself on the steep steps if her muffled voice had not stopped him.

“My love…!”

She crawled out from beneath the bed like a small animal from its lair.

“If you didn’t know I was here, you’d never find me, would you?”

She must have seen the horror in his eyes.

“Don’t be angry at me, love.” The words tumbled out of her. “I just wanted to be sure; strange, I’ve known for so long that this war was wrong and that Germany would lose it, but only now did I realize what that’s going to mean for me — that charlatan Hitler seemed so strong that even I was fooled; I thought after his defeat the curtain would fall and we’d simply start a new number without him. .. It never occurred to me that a time would come when Europe’s hatred would turn against me, personally, that it would be I, Grete Baumann, who would foot the bill for the Germans who murdered; I should think it’s only just, but I feel it isn’t, my love… and now, when I have you, I’d finally like us to have a couple of happy years together, until… Look what’s happened to me!”

He watched, distressed by her fear, as she quickly unbuttoned her long linen dress and pulled down her stocking. Baring a long, slender leg up to the hip, she pointed blindly with a finger, never letting her pitiful glance leave him.

“Here…!”

“I don’t know what you mean….”

“Can’t you see,” she practically moaned at him.

He brought his eye down to the place and finally spotted something: dark blue lacework delicately embroidered on a small square of lighter skin.

“And what is it…?”

“My veins have burst!”

He was so relieved he dismissed it with a wave.

“If you hadn’t shown it to me…”

“Buback! If the world weren’t falling apart around us and you had time to observe my legs the way you used to, you’d have caught it yourself. That’s how it all starts. Take it from a former dancer who’s seen the crippled legs of colleagues cut from the troupe before forty, except I wasn’t even twenty at the time and thought I was immortal.”

Now he understood: In her precarious solitude the theme of age had become a bulwark against the fear of death. Gratefully, he too switched gears.

“Did you find anything else?”

“Yes.” She slid out of her dress, stripped off her white shorts, and turned her back to him. “Here!”

He scoured her beautiful figure but could find no flaw in it, and told her so.

“Come closer.” She pulled him by the hand to the angled window. “Do you see those shadows?”

Logically there had to be some.

“Yes, so?”

“You see, you do see them!” she tormented herself triumphantly. “They weren’t there not long ago. My flesh is sagging.”

“What else?”

“My chin. It was totally firm. And now…” She pinched the skin under her chin between her fingertips. “Watch me pull on it!”

“You can stretch even the firmest skin that way.”

He demonstrated on his wrist.

“We’ll have to make love more often again,” he said, “and you’ll be even prettier all over, with your veins and wrinkles and everything else.”

“Where do you see wrinkles?” she snapped, wounded. “I don’t have any wrinkles!”

This spontaneous manifestation of female vanity made them both laugh.

“Except there’s a catch, love,” she quickly turned serious. “I can’t now, not much. Suddenly I can barely feel you. I can’t relax. First we have to survive the war. That means getting out of here. And if we’re separated, finding each other again.”

Now she was speaking from her heart.

“Do you have an idea?”

“Yes, I have a plan.” She was animated again; the image of their meeting had banished thoughts of farewell. “The train station. The railways will be the first thing they repair. It’s the easiest place to reach and the safest place to wait; there are always lots of people there.”

“But where?”

“You choose.”

“Do you have any relatives?”

“You’ll be the only one, if you ever marry me.”

“Likewise.”

“All the easier to choose. Hamburg’s too far, Berlin and Dresden blown to smithereens and nothing but sad memories. What’s closer and not completely in ruins? Munich! Yes, love, we’ll meet in Munich, what do you say? I’ll be there a week after the war ends at latest, and won’t move from the station until you appear.”

Naked from displaying her supposedly aging body to him, she shuddered from the cold. And once again sorrow broke through his love and tenderness, sorrow that even together they were so alone against the war, and that despite his efforts and her hopes this might be the last time they would see each other.

“I’ll do everything I can,” he began carefully, “but I might be delayed longer than you think…”

“A month? Two…?”

He would have to tell her.

“Defeated soldiers will face imprisonment.”

“But you’re not a soldier!”

“All the worse for me that I am what I am. It could take a while before the Allies are satisfied that not everyone in the Gestapo building worked in the Gestapo.”

“How long, then?”

He did not have the heart to say what he really thought.

“Half a year, a year…”

Even that was enough to horrify her.

“No!”

“You know what?” He tried to reassure her by focusing again on their reunion. “If I don’t return in four weeks, and you find work and an apartment somewhere else, look for me in Munich at the station the first Sunday each month at twelve, agreed?”

“The first and third Sundays!” she announced.

He nodded, but couldn’t imagine in his wildest dreams that Grete, with her physical nature, could hold out alone for long, much as she might want to. He and Hilde had not needed to be close by. Even across the boundaries of distance and time their memories held them together. Grete’s love demanded animal warmth; without it she would cease to exist. Her confession was foremost a warning not to leave her alone. But he loved her for this weakness as well.