Pavel Kohout - The Widow Killer

She fell silent, but the question shone on in her gray eyes.

He had to answer, he wanted to, but he didn’t have the right words, the ones that would express the feeling now filling him: that in her confession of false confessions he had found, after all his losses, the only worthwhile trace of his earthly wanderings.

“You don’t respect me at all any more, do you…” she blurted, shattered, “but I simply had to…”

At that moment he knew precisely how to say it, but before he could speak, the bell below jangled.

“Who is it?” she asked fearfully.

“I don’t know….”

“Does Morava know our signal?”

“He might have forgotten….” He wanted to calm her down, but did not believe it himself.

Someone gave the bell two long rings.

He could see fear taking hold of Grete and took action.

“Clothes! Quickly! And under the bed, with the pistol. Don’t show yourself until I tell you to.”

“But what if they—”

“I’ll manage.”

“But…”

A triple long ring.

“Do it!”

“Yes….”

“And no panicking. You’ve got a weapon.”

Yes

He waited for her to dress lightning-fast and disappear beneath the bed, which he managed meanwhile to make up. Anything of hers he saw he shoved over to her with his leg. Finally he was satisfied nothing would give away her presence.

The fourth ring caught him on the steps. Only now did it occur to him that they hadn’t said farewell. But why should they have — why did he even think of it — he’d be back with her in a moment. It might be Morava’s driver, probably with the food, but if not, both Buback’s documents would, after a certain time, secure his safety with either side.

He opened the door wordlessly, waiting to see whether he should speak German or Czech.

When he saw the man at the bell, he knew it did not matter.

Morava cried as they brought Litera out. The tears he had held back since Jitka’s death, so completely that some were scandalized, now streamed down his face; he could not see the steps and had to hold on to the cellar wall.

He felt his colleagues gradually take him by the shoulders and try to calm him, but the dam inside him, built with all his strength to fend off precisely this limitless despair, had finally broken.

The reason for his disintegration was simple shame. He had betrayed Litera because he had failed in his craft, acted like a rookie in sending an unsuspecting man to a pointless death.

Now he had found a powerful ally willing to set all the loyal Communists in Prague on RypFs trail to stop his rabble from cropping up somewhere else. But instead of rejoicing, he was mourning the third death on his conscience. And three times, he repeated to himself in shock, three times the killer had been within his reach. Who else would pay for his incompetence?

Instantly he thought of Buback and Grete. Morava knew he was their only hope against the coming fury. And a new horror seized him.

To his own amazement, he had seen an old saying confirmed several times: A murderer does return to the scene of the crime. If so, Rypl too might be tempted to hide his band in the apparently deserted house….

Eyebrows rose as what a moment ago had been a broken man now straightened up and called out to Svoboda.

“It’s an emergency! Two cars and ten men!”

At first he took him for a copper still sniffing around for something, and he’d have had his knife ready if that idiot of a stoker hadn’t panicked and left it in the lady. Then they took a good look at the guy and gaped: They’d caught a rare specimen, a real Gestapo officer!

From the first the German was stonily silent, but he had no intention of asking any questions. The less his men knew, the better; at any rate they’d see living proof that the Krauts had been hunting for their leader.

The loss of his knife was a symbol that the olden days were over. He wanted to use this creature for his latest idea.

A NEW PURGATION.

He would reenact the words of Scripture that SHE used whenever SHE remembered the Hungarians who had wounded him.

BURN THAT ROBBERS’ DEN!

Why not extend it to Krauts as well? Why not frighten away the darkness they had brought here — with their own torches?

He had the Gestapo killer bound with his straps, unwinding them for the last time from his body; they too deserved a fitting farewell. Then the men gasped as he strung the Kraut up by the feet from the lamppost, which stood rusty and bulbless in a time of blackouts.

Darkness had just begun to fall on this long day, and he looked forward to seeing all of them and the whole neighborhood nicely lit.

“The canister,” he ordered.

The pain quickly passed from his bound ankles, which bore the weight of his whole body, and the blood thrummed more and more pleasantly through his head as it hung toward the ground; strangely enough, he felt curious, as if this were not happening to him, but to someone who would not be harmed by it.

As he turned slowly there and back, there and back, he glimpsed unusual scenes from this birdlike, froglike perspective: there — above his head, the pavement moved, shimmering after the rain; now back— he made out a distorted lilac bush, whose flowers had just begun to emerge; there again — he spotted guns leaning against the wall of the hallway; back — he saw one man working as the rest stood guard.

The pleasantly sharp smell of wet earth and greenery was supplanted by a pungent stench. He could guess its purpose, and because they had not gagged him, he was curious whether or not he would scream. The fumes made him feel dopey and light.

The only real surprise was that there was nothing especially noble about the end of his life. He should think about someone, that was it!

But he couldn’t remember a name or even a face….

He slopped all the gasoline carefully on the rolled-up pants legs, the flannel shirt, and finally the hair.

Everything was ready, but he deliberately drew out the ritual so as to appreciate every detail.

That time in Brno, at the rocky beginning of the road that led him here, he had been so anxious and hasty that later he only remembered the disgusting parts.

He wanted to remember what made today festive and unique. He wasn’t just a flunkey from the theater cellar anymore; now he stood on the stage, admired and feared, with a show far beyond what anyone here had ever seen.

I’VE REACHED THE GOAL, MOTHER!

“Matches!” he requested, and was even pleased that no one obeyed; they were all rooted to the spot.

He pulled out the box he had found in the kitchen.

He swung around to face the man who had stood in the doorway. From up close he followed the fingers as they removed a single match from the box, closed the box again, and put the tip to the striking strip.

Then something moved in the doorway, someone — his eyes were smarting, and he couldn’t see who it was — left the house and came toward him.

Scrape. The match head leaped dazzlingly into flame at his side. Somewhere nearby the men shouted a warning.

The figure raised a hand with something gleaming to the man’s head.

In that endless second before he burst into flames, Buback saw a brain splatter.

What Morava saw from the car looked like a giant gas cooker gone up in flames with a bang. Then he saw a burning spindle, a woman shooting, and four men in flight. In the clear flame a figure appeared, as if dipped headfirst into glass.

Now they were out of the car and could hear skin crackling in the deathly silence of the fire.

Grete Baumann, the gun still clutched in her outstretched hand, stared motionless into the flame.

The body in it began to shrink, moving twitchily about as if it were exercising. When the straps burned through, it jumped down and smothered Rypl’s corpse in a glowing embrace.