Peter Pišťanek - The End of Freddy

“Yes, that’s how it is,” agrees the captain. “You know what? I’d like to invite you for a nightcap. Will you have the last drink with me?”

“Why not?” says Tina and turns to Urban. “Let’s do it, right?”

“What’s still open now?” Urban thinks aloud. “Yes, Beránek’s Refreshment Room . But we’ll have to cross to the other side.”

“I don’t want to go there,” says cousin Tina. “It’s full of smoke. I vote for Slavia . At least they’ve got air conditioning.”

“Yes, that’s a good idea,” the captain agrees.

Of course, the Café Slavia is closed.

“Nothing doing,” says cousin Tina. “It wasn’t meant to be, I suppose. We shall certainly meet again. Can we drop you off in our taxi?”

“No, thanks,” said the captain. “I live in Smíchov. The underground gets me there in five minutes.”

“Well, then we’ll see you to the underground station,” suggests Tina.

They turn round and slowly walk back, to Palacký Square.

“You know,” says the captain after a while, “I have the feeling that we haven’t just met today but have known each other for years.”

“Yes,” says the cousin Tina. “I have the same feeling.”

Urban feels a bit of a gooseberry and hangs back at least a few steps.

“It’s a pity you have to go abroad,” says cousin Tina. “I’ve never heard anyone talk so interestingly about Prague. When you come for a short holiday you must call me.”

“I’ll certainly do so,” says the captain. “Now that I know you, it’s not going to be so easy to go.”

And so on.

He says goodbye with a long handshake.

“So long, mate,” says Urban, shaking his hand, too. “When you get back, you must visit us and tell us more. And we’ll buy that book.”

He uses the plural on purpose, so the bloke doesn’t get any ideas.

The captain runs down the stairs. Halfway down he stops, turns round and waves to them. Then he vanishes in the underpass.

Tina is moved.

“As if we were seeing a friend off to do military service,” says Urban to lighten the atmosphere.

“Call a taxi, please,” says cousin Tina. “My mobile’s dead. And don’t get jealous, please.”

“But he was making a pass at you in front of me,” says Urban. “How can I not be jealous!”

“You’re my cousin, not my husband,” says Tina. “And anyway, it was quite different. Everything was on such a high spiritual level that it couldn’t have affected you.”

“Should I take offence now?” asks Urban, bewildered.

“It’s a pity you meet some people only when it’s too late,” says Tina, and Urban ponders what she meant by that.

“Just have your fun, my girl,” he thinks. She can have esoteric discussions with other men, but when she feels like good-quality sex, it will be with him, the ever ready, dependable and discreet Video Urban.

* * *

Kubeš drives out of Prague on Sunday afternoon. He takes the Brno motorway. After a few kilometres, he turns off towards Velké Popovice. The ineffable beauty of the countryside he passes through enchants him. Every now and again he stops the car and revels in his surroundings. He stops for lunch near Žampach, in the Hotel Troníček, which he reaches by leaving the highway and going all the way down to the river Sázava. The hotel dining room reminds him of restaurants in port cities of England and Scotland when he was in the merchant fleet. It is old, dark, and meticulously clean. From outside comes the roar of the weir. Kubeš orders steak with lingonberries and a small Gambrinus beer. Then he resumes his journey: over the steel bridge near Kamenný Přívoz in the direction of Lešany. He has a detailed map of the Sázava region, but just to be sure, he asks in the village pub in Lešany about the way to the military base.

“You want to see the military museum, do you?” says a man in overalls sipping his beer in front of the pub. “There’s no military unit there now. Almost no soldiers any more. I’d know about it, I used to work there. I was a civilian buildings caretaker. Now there’s a museum of military technology.”

“I know that,” says Kubeš.

“And is that where you want to go?” asks the helpful villager.

Kubeš nods.

“Look,” the man explains. “You head down there until you hit the fork at the pond, then you turn left towards Krhanice. And to get to Krhanice you turn onto this narrow road before the bridge over the Sázava. You’ll see a sign ‘Military Museum’. That road takes you to the old base. Got it?”

Kubeš thanks him, start his Škoda Favorit and moves off. He drives slowly, looking round. The old military base’s sleepy village look fills him with mixed feelings, idyllic and depressed. As if generations of soldiers, who all these years lived, suffered, drank beer, went AWOL, and drove to exercises, had left in this location some eloquent but unidentifiable trace. And the entire area was steeped in the smell of camouflage uniforms, blank ammunition, duty assignments and black boot polish.

Soon in the distance, at the end of a lane, he spots buildings. This is the Museum of Military Technology. He sounds his horn at the gate. An elderly man comes out, clearly a retired local earning extra as a museum receptionist. He looks at Kubeš with suspicion. He checks his documents.

“Well, you go to the mobilisation warehouse,” he mumbles and opens the gate. “Go straight down this road, round the canteen and stores, to the other gate. You show your papers there. We’re just museum staff here.”

The receptionist shows him the way to go and the asphalt road that cuts through the thick pine wood around the barracks.

Visitors to the museum use this narrow road. Kubeš drives slowly. He passes by a sign warning museum visitors that the area further down is guarded and not part of the museum.

Mobilisation warehouse, Kubeš thinks. What an excellent cover for a secret training facility of any kind, including the navy!

At the second gate stand military policemen in camouflage uniforms. A glum second lieutenant checks his documents, then salutes him.

“All in order, naval lieutenant,” he says quietly, so that visitors to the museum can’t hear him as they take refreshment at the snack bar.

“Aha, so they’ve already given me naval rank,” Kubeš realises with mixed feelings. It felt the same when he was promoted sergeant during his compulsory military service, after he had graduated: he pretended to be angry, but actually he was proud of his promotion.

“Go straight down and stop at the first crossroads,” says the second lieutenant. “Turn left and stop at the first building. That’s headquarters. Report to naval captain Vacula. He’s the quartermaster and registrar. Welcome to the Museum training base, sir!”

Naval captain Vacula is a jovial and sociable alcoholic, like most headquarters dry-land rats.

“Listen to me, my good man,” says Vacula in a voice that suggests that he is now repeating something he has said several times this day. “Every one starts at the rank stated in his military ID. You went home after basic military service as second lieutenant in the reserve. And three years ago you were promoted to lieutenant. Have you been on manœuvres?”

“No,” says Kubeš. “They just sent me a promotion notice.”

“Oh well,” sighs Vacula. “You’re now naval lieutenant engineer Kubeš. Of course, you realise your rank is secret for now. Here’s a comparative table of naval and army ranks for you. You’ll note some variations in it.”

Vacula hands back his military ID and adds a photocopied flyer.

“You can study this later,” he says. “Now go and settle in, my friend. Go up the hill, and the last barracks before the medical centre is the officers’. You came by car? You can leave it parked behind the kitchens. You won’t be needing it for some time. The barracks duty officer will show you your room. Then you’ll get your uniform and kit. And afterwards you can take a look round. You might like to look at the museum, too, it’s quite interesting. But you have to get a move on, because a little welcoming party starts in the officers’ mess at seven.”