Pavel Kohout - The Widow Killer

The outsiders’ entrance attracted no attention; the guardsmen were apparently engrossed in the task at hand. On the rings nearby, the hanging man had just gotten a slap hard enough to start him swinging again.

“Make sure you remember all your stashes,” the man with the paper encouraged him in German. “If we find any more in your apartment you can kiss good-bye to any hope of ever seeing your family again.”

“We had all our valuables with us,” the swinging man rasped brokenly. “You already took those….”

Morava forced himself to suppress his emotions and scour the ghastly scene for his man.

It was clear that Svoboda was also on the brink of exploding.

“Put a stop to it,” he ordered Lokajík. “Have them unbound and taken away. Then I want to have a talk with all the Czechs. And introduce me!”

The surprise order was not welcomed, but it was carried out. Morava, however, was already sure that Rypl was not in the gymnasium, and Litera, Mátlak, and Jetel shrugged in unison as well. However, he saw an unfamiliar bald man hastily leave the room through the doors opposite. There had been someone similar in the radio station gang….

“Where do those doors lead?” he asked Lokajík.

“To the stairs to the auditorium, to the cellar and the toilets….”

“Have a look there,” he requested Litera, “but be careful….”

When only the Czechs were left and Svoboda had been introduced to them, he repeated roughly what he had earlier said in the entrance hall, but this time his voice rang sonorously through the large gymnasium; he must have been wonderful at political rallies. Morava noticed admiringly that even with these frustrated torturers the Communist did not mince words.

“Instead of revolutionary justice,” he finished, “youVe reintroduced the rule of torture, like in the Middle Ages!”

The guardsmen’s initial respect for his position and appearance dissipated; they progressed from muttering to open disagreement. Even then the man in black managed skillfully to keep control.

“I am stopping all interrogations in this form. Procure some water and food for the interned. Then take personal details and question them, but in a civilized fashion. The guards we send to confiscate items from the apartments will find everything anyway. Or was anyone planning to make a private visit?”

Morava watched the gymnasium quickly divide into three camps: One group was visibly ashamed, another was hissing like wounded geese, and a third seemed deeply indignant.

“Look here.” One of the note takers shoved his papers at Svoboda. “Every German mark, every ring, everything is recorded; I’m no criminal, I’m a patriot, and this is justified retribution!”

“Maybe not you, comrade,” Svoboda responded, “but opportunities like this make criminals. We Communists will not permit people to muddy the waters and then go fishing in them for property that rightfully belongs to the whole nation.”

To further his own goal, Morava quietly asked him, “Where’s the commander?”

The black-garbed man rephrased the question. “Who’s in charge here?”

“Captain Roubínek.”

“They didn’t tell you the RG doesn’t take old officers?”

“He was a partisan. He brought a whole group here from the forests.”

“And where is he?”

“They’re in the cellar… interrogating Germans….”

He! They! Now Morava was sure, but suddenly he felt nervous: Where was Litera? Why wasn’t he back? He had RypPs photos too!

“Should I go fetch him?” Lokajík asked ingratiatingly.

“We’ll drop in ourselves,” the envoy decided. “Meanwhile put things in order here, comrades!”

His speech had impressed Morava.

“Could I ask you for a couple of words in private,” he requested of the Communist.

“Of course,” Svoboda answered, still a bit defensively, “but quickly.”

A few steps were enough to give them a noisy solitude. Morava looked him straight in the eyes.

“Call me a kolaborant, or a kolou , as they now say, but for the last three months my only ’collaboration’ has been hunting a depraved murderer who sadistically tortured six women to death, killed three more people, and is now murdering Germans on a conveyer belt. That lieutenant of yours claimed that they’re killing people here as well; I think we’ll find the perpetrator in the cellar masquerading as one Captain Roubínek.”

Svoboda listened intently to him without interrupting.

“I want to secure him and present him to our witness so he can be convicted. But he’s already in charge of his own well-armed gang and has infiltrated your peacekeeping forces, apparently all the way to the top. Will you help us?”

The Communist tried to digest this.

“Are you absolutely sure?”

“Absolutely!”

“That’s terrible ”

These new Job-like tidings shook Svoboda, coming so soon on the heels of everything he had observed in his short time here, but he appeared to accept them.

“What do you suggest?” he asked, practical once again.

“He’s the only one we know by name; we just have descriptions of the rest, and by now there may be more of them. The killer must have a diabolical charisma that attracts anyone who, deep in his soul, is a deviant; he knows how to unleash their blood lust. Mr. Svoboda… I don’t know how to address you, I’ve never been interested in politics, but at the beginning of the Nazi era, all the psychopaths who had been waiting for their moment suddenly ran riot. I’m afraid now the stench of bloodletting is luring them here, even if many don’t yet know they have it in them. What will it do to my homeland? And to your ideals?”

The dark-eyed man watched those leaving either nod respectfully or look angrily past him.

“I approve of any action that will remove this threat,” he then said. “But what’s the best way to carry it out?”

“Are your escorts reliable?”

“I’ll vouch for them. Comrades from the Resistance.”

“Then with us, my men, and those two soldiers“—he added them to the group as if it were self-evident and met with no objection— “that’ll be enough. My colleague went off to find them; once he returns, we can decide how to take them.”

The gymnasium had meanwhile emptied out; those who had not cleared off in a huff were busy shepherding the Germans from the cloakroom cages into classrooms. Only the group that had first met out on the street remained. Litera was still missing. Morava repeated his news for the rest of them in more detail, and Svoboda added a fiery conclusion.

“On the threshold of our revolution, which will secure peace and prosperity for our people without exploitation, we have met a great danger, one which has destroyed many progressive movements before us: Parasites and even ordinary murderers have slipped into our ranks amid the warriors. Despite the differences of opinion among us, I believe we are all of one mind on this matter. Where is your colleague?’’

Litera was still absent.

“I don’t know,” said Morava uneasily. Suddenly a foreboding gripped him.

“I’ll go have a look,” Mátlak offered, removing his safety catch.

“No.”

“Why not?”

I’ve already risked too much, he feared. And someone else’s hide,

at that

“We’ll all go; can I lead?” the sergeant asked. “I’m trained in house-to-house fighting.”

Spring man was about to object, but Svoboda cut him off.

“Lead on.”

Morava appreciated the Communist more and more. Unexpectedly he’d found a firm supporter in this man.

The sergeant described to them briefly how they should cover each other.