Pavel Kohout - The Widow Killer

For now he ordered them to drive just a couple of blocks further; the cops weren’t organized enough to comb the whole city in this confusion. Here in Pankrác there were more Russians in German khakis than local inhabitants. They hung from tank turrets and hid behind the shields of cannons and machine guns, oblivious to the prolonged downpour that had driven even most of the insurgents to shelter, their tense alertness a sign that the fight went on.

No, the war was not over, and it would be crazy to leave Prague prematurely; being first in the border regions could mean being first to die, and that definitely wasn’t what he had in mind. But where could they wait? Sleeping in the Germans’ old apartments meant risking discovery; covetous neighbors or official confiscators might find them. He was about to ask the boy to take them home — at least he’d see how the kid handled his mother — but then a new idea hit him.

RIGHT UNDER THEIR NOSES!

The last places they’d look were where he’d punished those whores. The embankment suited him best, except the dead caretaker was floating just beneath it, maybe even caught in the weir. The closest was the apartment where he’d spindled those two lesbians, but as they pulled up they saw a gaggle of people carrying the dead out of the house; well, there you go, in this case he’d just beaten the SS to the job! Of course, this morgue was now too lively for a hideaway.

Then his idea ripened as he remembered what flashed through his mind on the barricade.

THAT HOUSE!

That grubby house on a dead-end street where they set their trap for him! Whether it belonged to a policeman or someone who lent it to them for their dirty tricks, he’d see they got their deserts. First, though, the guilty party could be of use to him, like the half-pint on the train.

Of course, he didn’t tell his foursome the whole story. HE didn’t have to explain.

“Some kolous i live there,” he informed them tersely. “If they’re not home, we can catch a few winks till our clothes dry out, and if they are home it’s their bad luck!”

He found the house by directing them to the cemetery and from there recalling step by step how he’d followed that whore a week ago. It was satisfying to approach it this time not as a foolish fox blindly chasing the bait into a trap, but as a victor and avenger. An idea for a new punishment was growing in his mind as well. He’d thought of it this morning for the first time, but it had already captivated him as completely as the picture in the rectory once had.

IT’s MINE! ALL MINE!

A work of his own imagination. And this morning, when he saw a gas canister attached to the Mercedes’s mudguard, he knew it was foreordained.

Although hastily boarded up, he could see through the window that the house was lived in. All the better! He got out of the car first and rang the bell. When nothing happened, he rang twice, and, after another pause, thrice, pressing the bell somewhat longer each time.

He could feel their curiosity behind him, but also their deference.They simply waited. And he did not hurry. He remembered, long ago, the way SHE had read him the fairy tale about the boy and the giant.

FEE FIE FOE FUM!

Four long rings. Suddenly the drumming of the rain ceased and footsteps resounded from within.

What could she owe me, he mused, once Grete had fallen swiftly into sleep. As he lay by her side and gradually recovered from the day’s events, he fought a fatigue so strong that at times it robbed him of consciousness. Had time stopped? This day seemed as long to him as the whole war.

He forced himself to stand and noiselessly opened each drawer in the attic, until, to his surprise, he found what he needed: paper, even writing paper! And the fact that it was pink and decorated with a rather precious forget-me-not bothered him least of all.

He had never dared capture in words anything other than facts for work reports; thus he had never in his life written a love letter. When the war separated him from Hilde, his letters from the field contained only the superficial events of his life; the law of military confidentiality made this the easiest course. They both left their feelings for personal meetings.

Hilde’s unexpected death taught him painfully that these might end with no warning. How terribly he had later missed those lines that might have given him back the sound of her words, breathed life into a dead photograph. And so he felt dogged by the need at least once to write Grete what he hadn’t been able to tell her.

“My love,” he began with Grete’s favorite appellation, “my briefest and yet greatest love! Even though I can never understand why of all the men who admire you, you have chosen me, I am happy. If by some chance I pay that highest price for Germany’s debt, I want you to know—”

“What are you writing?” he heard her say.

She looked sickly, but tranquil; only there was an unfamiliar gleam in her eyes, as if she were preparing herself for something exceedingly grave.

“A letter…,” he answered, confused.

“To whom?”

“To you,” he confessed.

“Aha… and what are you writing to me?”

“You can read it. But not right now.”

“I understand,” she said, “yes, I understand…. But you should know first what I was really so afraid of that I tried to leave you and go I don’t know where. ..”

“What was it?”

“That we’d both survive.”

He thought he had misheard.

“That we both wouldn’t survive. ..”

“No, the opposite! That we’d survive, and you’d finally learn…”

“Learn what?”

“Buback.. love! You listened so patiently to my stories for so long, try just once more not to interrupt, no matter how much you want to. Promise me!”

It was less than fifty days since he first furtively scrutinized her in the sharp light of the German House air-raid shelter. An eternity seemed to have passed since that meeting. Fifty days ago, he admitted shamefully, he’d still believed in the possibility, however small it might be, that Germany could avoid a total and dishonorable defeat. And when he had despaired on realizing the truth, Grete had led him away from the pistol that would have ended his pain. Today it was she who had reached rock bottom.

“I promise!” he said.

“My love… as we were on our way here — it was only yesterday, but I’ve aged since then — I noticed that view, those breathtaking towers, and imagined the stony desert that awaits us at home; Germany lies in rack and ruin, defeated and humbled for generations, because revenge is sweet and the world is itching to enslave us as punishment: poverty, cold, and bondage will dog us till the end of this century and beyond, and I, unfortunately, am one of the many German women who let our men degenerate into barbarians that make your widow killer look like an amateur… now I can’t remember which Greek poet said withholding pussy can become a weapon, forcing men to give up war so they can fuck again — what rubbish! — after all, millions of German women quivered with impatience to see whether their men would send French perfume or Russian furs from the occupied territories, and millions more, like me, convinced themselves they lived only for love, and hate had no place in their lives, so I too played my part in the destruction of our world, and now I’m going to fix it by dancing on Sylt?… oh, love — and pay attention now— that too was the fruit of my sick imagination, just like all the tales I fed my best lovers, so they would keep me as their femme fatale: the tale of the loving young husband, the tale of the mysterious Giancarlo or Gianfranco, whatever it was, and the tale of my tragic love for a theater star — because, you see, Hans finally chose his boyfriend over me, and if they haven’t perished then they’re still secretly in love; that mafioso Gianwhateverhisnamewas from Rome slept with me once in his elegant hotel and then disappeared, while I spent the remaining nights with the hotel chauffeur, who would bring me back after midnight to the pensione in a silver Lancia to the envy of my colleagues, but not, unfortunately, of Martin Siegel— to my sorrow he loved his beautiful wife from the very beginning to the bitter, dogged end, which his devastated spouse described to me so vividly that those adventures gradually became my own past, the kind I wished I had; I was so wild with grief that when this wound on my neck came up I completely blocked out my father the tinsmith, who when I was a child accidentally burned me with a blowtorch — yes, love, this truly is the truth, and in the end I served up all these lies to the first man I ever called my love, because he was the only one worth it, the only one who persuaded me to give up the sure for the unsure, and now, finally, has convinced me to entrust him with my true fate: that of an unsuccessful wife and a dime-a-dozen dancer— when I realized you were the only one who ever really loved me, and as your debtor I decided — and listen closely — to be worse in your eyes than I made myself out to be, so I could therefore be better than I am; do you understand me, love?”