Jim Shepard - Lights Out in the Reptile House

Stasik smiled and then put his hand to his mouth.

“I don’t want to go there,” Karel said, astounded Kehr had to be told that.

Kehr looked at him. “I’m asking you a favor,” he said.

“I can’t,” Karel said.

Kehr shook his head at his lamb. He sawed gently at it with his knife. He said Albert had no idea about what had happened the other day. They’d done nothing to him. As far as he knew this was a routine search. It was being handled by a member of the Security Service and they were directed to share what they found with the Civil Guard.

Karel put his hands on his cheeks and rubbed them and looked over at Stasik, who was interested only in his food.

“Which considering the imbecile in charge won’t be much,” Kehr said. “But you never know.”

“Why can’t you pick it up?” Karel said. “Isn’t it top secret or something?”

“This is not a discussion,” Kehr said. “And we aren’t errand boys.”

“I don’t want to go there,” Karel said. “I don’t want to face him.”

Kehr nodded as if he understood completely. “A favor,” he said.

The Security Service officer who came to the door at Albert’s house was Holter.

“Look who it is,” Holter announced. “Karel Roeder.”

Karel stared, open-mouthed.

“It’s Karel Roeder,” Holter called over his shoulder, as if a good party were now getting better. He held the door open. “It’s Karel Roeder, and he can’t close his mouth,” he added.

Karel came in. “I tried to find you at the parade,” he said. “Didn’t you see me? You’re in the Security Service now?” He wasn’t sure he was making any sense.

“However my country can use me,” Holter said. He wasn’t wearing a uniform.

“I have to pick up the stuff for Officer Kehr,” Karel explained, dazed. He was standing in the hall, not wanting to go any farther. The tea cozy was off the phone and the magazine racks in the living room were empty.

Holter made a series of affirmative noises and led Karel into the kitchen. Albert was at the table. The kitchen cabinets were untouched.

Karel stood where he was, awkwardly.

“You know each other, of course,” Holter said.

Albert scratched the bristle on his Adam’s apple with his fingernail.

Karel couldn’t tell, but thought Kehr was right: Albert didn’t know.

He turned to Holter. “My father,” he said. “Did you see him? Did he join the Civil Guard?”

Of course, Holter said. What a question.

“The messenger arrives,” Albert said.

Karel’s face burned. He said hello.

Holter suggested Karel sit. His group would be finished in a minute.

Karel could hear people upstairs. Albert seemed tired and disgusted, but Karel could see he was listening, too.

“So,” Holter said. “Feel free to engage in zoo talk. Pretend I’m not here.”

“I’m allowing my house to be searched,” Albert said. “Like a good citizen. Do I have to submit to this as well?”

Holter shrugged theatrically. Karel looked away. There was banging upstairs. Holter drummed his fingers on the tabletop.

Karel stole occasional fearful looks at Albert, who seemed to be contemplating something disappointing. Holter studied his fingers. He had large moist-looking fingernails that were closely bitten down. He wandered the room and then sat on the table edge between them with a leg dangling and a foot on the floor in an imitation-jaunty pose that irritated them both. “Have you been listening to the radio?” he asked Karel conversationally.

“Now don’t you start,” Karel said.

Holter knitted his eyebrows and gave up. His complexion made Karel wonder if blood could back up and pool. He said he’d been going to ask if Karel had heard about the assassination in Naklo. Subsecretary Wissinger, who maybe Karel had just heard right here in town. He’d been giving a speech about the Old Guard — what else did he ever talk about? — and asking that those executed for assassinations during the days of the Republic be commemorated from here on in as war dead. Apparently he’d been waiting for applause on that suggestion when he’d been shot.

Albert snorted, and Holter shot him a look so penetrating it frightened Karel.

It was sad what was happening, Holter said, after a pause. Everywhere it was the same. Where was the respect? Where was the order? The more they worked, the more there seemed to do.

“I need to be at the zoo before nine o’clock,” Albert said. “Some of the nocturnals need special care.”

Holter looked at him. “People don’t realize that police have a hard time of it in a police state,” he said. “And what is it, really, that we want? We’re not asking our citizens to love us, or even love one another. Just to do their duty.”

When no one answered he swung his leg down and walked to the window. He peered at his reflection. He pushed tenderly on his cheek with two fingers. “It’s always the same tooth,” he said sadly. He made a sideways squeaking noise and opened and closed his jaw. He looked over at Karel as if testing his eyesight.

“But what you got is what you got,” he said. “Life is work. In bad times you work for nothing. In good you get a little something out of it.”

They could hear the others coming down the stairs. Two young men tramped into the room. They were also in street clothes. All that was left was the crawl space, one of them said. Holter nodded, and they left. After a pause Karel could feel them bumping around beneath his feet.

A lot of false travel papers had been turning up, Holter said to Albert apologetically. Duplicate birth certificates, fraudulent work papers. He crossed the room to the kitchen cabinets and turned, his back to them. Albert didn’t have anything like that to worry about, did he?

Albert didn’t answer.

“Rude question,” Holter said. “Of course not.”

“Yesterday one of my assistants’ house was set on fire,” Albert said. “Now he and his family are out on the street. The neighbors said the men wore Party pins.”

“That sort of arson is really planned and executed by big-city types,” Holter said. “We’re fairly helpless in cases like that. It’s pointless, but who can tell them that? Or maybe they were partisans seeking to blame us. Who knows?”

He turned to Karel. “Do you?” he asked.

“No,” Karel said, startled.

Albert shook his head, and Holter looked over at him with amusement. “I don’t understand why a citizen who respects the law would support the partisans,” he said. “I mean, everyone has his passion for reform in the early going, but most of us realize we’re just wasting time and energy better spent in other directions. And who are the partisans trying to reform? Did you hear the joke about our countrymen who wanted to seize the train stations but couldn’t because they hadn’t bought tickets?”

“Couldn’t you be helping them with whatever they’re doing?” Albert asked. “Do you have to torment me?”

“One more story, not from the radio,” Holter said. He pulled a chair out and swung it around and sat on it backward.

Karel found Albert looking at him and had to look away, at his feet, at the table. What was happening here? Why had he been sent here? He understood something sadistic was going on but didn’t know what or why.

“For months we knew a lot of people who’d gotten away from here were in hiding in the capital, in bunkers and mazes built out of subbasements, wine cellars, storm drains, everything. Informers told us that much and showed us one or two. Big question: how would we find the rest? Kuding, Lenz, Kruse — remember them? — they were all down there somewhere.”

Albert looked away, agitated. “It’s eight-thirty,” he said.