Pavel Kohout - The Widow Killer

He learned from the grateful escort commander that for now they were rounding up the local Germans at a nearby primary school. This information triggered an instinct that was often more reliable than logic. The widow killer’s choice of victims had never made the slightest sense, so why should the mass murder of Germans be any different? As the superintendent had once told him, intuition carries the same weight in police work as a lifetime’s worth of experience, good organization, and dedication.

Why would Rypl, why would his hatchetmen leave this Eldorado, where the sort of mass psychosis he’d just seen would be congenial to butchers with primitive notions of revenge? Yes, he felt, they were here somewhere, but as he drew closer he realized it would be easier to find than to catch them. They must not frighten the gang away prematurely.

In front of the school where the column had disappeared, he instructed Litera to go wait for their reinforcements at the designated spot and bring them here as inconspicuously as possible.

Then Litera grabbed his sleeve and whispered excitedly, “There!”

“What…?”

“A Mercedes… didn’t they say it had Berlin plates?”

“Yes….”

The car stood right opposite the entrance to the school, which was guarded by two youths; the policemen decided not to approach them.

“You go ahead,” Morava urged. “Meanwhile I’ll figure out what to do first.”

“Don’t you want to wait for us? So he doesn’t kill you first?”

“He doesn’t even know me. At most I’m a policeman he saw at the barricade.”

“Do you have your pistol?”

“Yes.”

Both simultaneously remembered the shot he had loosed by accident in the car. Morava laughed.

“No fear. In an emergency I’ll try to bite him first.”

Litera did not find it as amusing.

“He’s got a small army with him.”

“That’s why I have to try to find out unobtrusively what their role is here. One advantage is that people will hardly join forces with a depraved murderer of Czech women.”

“But how will you convince them?”

“I’ll worry about that later. You’d better move along; our men might be there already.”

Litera hurried off. Morava then slowly moved toward the Mercedes. Crossing the street next to it, he inconspicuously peered inside. Nothing caught his eye.

At the gates, he was shocked to find that the two guards, SS-gun-toting Czech youths in white armbands painted with the large letters RG, would not let him into the school.

“Who instructed you not to admit the police?” he asked incredulously.

“Our commander,” the left-hand one said.

“Call him out here!”

“Get lost, you kolou ,” the right-hand one advised him, “before we blow you away!”

What’s a kolou ? he wondered, baffled.

Mlove,” Grete said, “know what I’ve decided?” “No….”

Buback could still see the horrible scene at the train station of his childhood, and the trek behind him had pushed him to the limits of his strength. He had seen unmistakable signs of the coming hunt for German civilians and avoided the last barricade by clambering over courtyard walls.

“Guess!”

He had found Grete lying prone on the bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling, and let her be. He looked quickly around for an empty bottle before remembering that there was not a drop of alcohol left.

“I give in…”

“I’ve decided how we’re going to live until, as they say, death divides us.”

What must go through her head here, alone in this dilapidated hideout! He threw off his wet raincoat and then his soaking jacket, lay down beside her, and tucked his arm beneath her head. For the moment he tried to put his recent experiences out of his head.

“Tell me. How?”

“We’ll go to Sylt together.”

“Aha… and why precisely…?”

“Because that was the last place you were happy in peacetime. And a little way from there, in Hamburg, mussels from Sylt kept me happy for years. We’ll go back there to recapture that happiness, and once we find it together, you’ll take a picture of me in the same place you photographed them. The circle closes, and another begins. We’ll be in Germany, but almost not in Germany. Trying to be different Germans than we were before.”

It relieved him that she was not cowering in fear, but this strange state of peace disturbed him as well. She laughed dreamily at the ceiling.

“We can start to give humanity back the greatest thing we took away.”

“Which is…”

“Goodness. At least you fought wickedness a little bit; I never even tried. As a nation, we Germans gave the world great music, great literature, great laws, and great evil. Evil became our music, our language, and our laws, until finally it came to embody Germanness. Humanity has a short memory; usually it fades in a few generations, but we’re imprinted on it for all eternity. I’ve always regretted that I don’t have children and never will, and now? You know what?”

“Now you’re glad?”

“Now for the first time I’m truly unhappy as a result, can’t you see? We’ll never be able to make restitution for what was done in our name; our children’s children might have a chance.”

He closed his eyes and again saw that carefully arranged German harvest, a perfectly formed rectangle of freshly reaped bodies.

“You’re right….”

“We, and they after us, will have to replace that stolen goodness.”

“But how?”

Now she smiled victoriously like someone who has solved an impossible puzzle.

“Each of us will have to find his own way. I’m going to dance again.”

“Where?”

“Everywhere!”

“I don’t understand.”

“Didn’t you like it when I danced for you? Didn’t you like it so much there were tears in your eyes? Germans have had their fun, shouting and shooting, so now I’ll dance for them. I’ll go, stop somewhere, dance, and move on. Don’t you think they might like it too? And maybe they’ll be better for those tears than they were before.”

Now he bent worriedly over her and saw that her usually clear eyes were cloudy and runny.

“Grete, what’s wrong?”

“What do you mean, love?”

Finally he thought to touch her forehead. It was burning. What frightened him, though, was that her cheeks were their normal color.

“Are you ill?”

“No, no….”

“It’s as if you have a fever!”

“But I don’t. So what do you say, love? Are you looking forward to Sylt?”

On a hunch he jumped up and gave the room a routine once-over. Nothing. There was a trash basket underneath the sink. He emptied it onto the floorboards and combed through the contents, picking up a cobalt blue bottle. It gleamed empty against the light. He uncorked it and sniffed. There was a faint smell of camphor. In a second he was at Grete’s side.

“What is this?”

“What…”

“What was in this?”

Her eyelids closed heavily.

“Grete, speak to me!”

He slapped her cheeks, at first lightly, but when she didn’t react, harder and harder until the pain brought her back to consciousness.

“Ow!”

His right hand did not stop.

“Ow, Buback, it hurts….”

“Tell me!”

“Pills. ..”

“What kind?”

“Sleeping pills…. Swiss ones… he gave me some from his…”

“Who?”

“You know… Meckerle….”

“How many did you take?”

“What was left….”

“How many?”

“Dunno… maybe five… or ten…”