by John Boyne
CZECHIA
A.D. 1939
BUT HOME, when I finally returned there, seemed an unfamiliar and far less welcoming place than it had once been. Arriving in Prague, there was a palpable sense of fear in the railway station as I disembarked, and the rush of people attempting to board the train as it continued on toward Western Europe surprised me. I could feel the apprehension all around me, could see it in the faces of my countrymen, could smell it in the air. On the journey, everyone on board had been feverishly reading newspapers, all of which featured articles about President Hácha and the German Führer on their front pages. Looking around anxiously now, it was hard to see through so large a crowd but, thankfully, my brother Jezek stood out. He towered over everyone else, both in height and build, and his extraordinary red beard appeared fuller and more luminous than ever. When he fought his way through the throng, he wrapped his enormous arms around me, practically lifting me off the ground.
“So many people,” I said as we made our way toward a taxi rank. “But everyone seems to be boarding trains to leave, as if the city is emptying entirely.”
“Because they’re afraid, Brother,” he replied. “They want to get as far away from here as possible. There’s talk that the Luftwaffe are preparing a bombing campaign for Prague and will put it into action if Hácha doesn’t capitulate. What do you expect them to do, sit around listening to concerts every evening?”
“Will it come to that?”
“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “Most of us think he’ll give in any day now. And then we’ll wake up the next morning to find German jackboots marching across Wenceslas Square.”
The idea of my country being overtaken by our once-peaceful neighbors would have seemed preposterous only a few years earlier. Now, any other scenario seemed equally unlikely.
“And Radek?” I said. “How does he feel about all of this? Does he want to get away, too?”
“No,” he said, laughing a little. “If anything, he seems oblivious to most of it. Your son’s head is full of numbers, nothing more. He sits in his office at the university all day long, working on mathematical equations, staring at the sky, making notes about the sun, the moon and the stars, and barely even noticing what’s happening in the world around him. I doubt he even knows who Hitler is.”
“Still, I’d prefer that he lose himself in academia than join the Resistance,” I said. “How does he feel about my coming back anyway? Has he said anything?”
“He’s looking forward to seeing you,” said Jezek, with a note of caution in his tone. “But remember, it’s been many years and he’s changed a lot. He’s not one to display too much emotion either, so don’t expect any great shows of affection. That’s not the type of boy he is.”
I nodded, feeling a sense of guilt mixed with anxiety. Jezek and his wife had been good enough to take care of my son while I was in prison but he had pointedly refused to visit during that time. The truth was, he could walk past me in the street and I wasn’t sure that I would even recognize him.
“And you are well?” I asked. “And Ulva?”
“We’re fine,” he said. “My guns are loaded and I’m ready to shoot anyone who even tries to set foot in my apartment uninvited.”
“Your wife hasn’t tried to dissuade you from such actions?”
“On the contrary, she’s the one who bought the bullets. And she’s a better shot than I am.”
We got into the car and Jezek named a café on the banks of the Vltava, near the Jiráskuv Bridge. As we drove along, I felt reinvigorated to see the streets of the city once again. It had been so long since I had been here that it felt like coming up for air. At last, my adventures and misadventures could be put behind me. All I wanted now was to rebuild a relationship with my son and settle down to a quiet existence. I only hoped that Herr Hitler would not do anything to threaten that.
When the taxi pulled up outside the café, Jezek paid the fare then threw his arms around me once again, handing me a key to his flat and telling me that he would see me later.
“You’re not coming in, too?” I asked in surprise.
“I think not,” he said. “It’s probably best if the two of you talk without me.”
I glanced through the window. It was lunchtime and busy inside and I didn’t see anyone who immediately resembled my son.
“But—” I began, turning back to him, but he cut me short.
“No, Brother,” he said. “This is something you must do alone. Don’t worry. He’s a good boy. He has more in common with you than with me or our father. You’ll be fine.”
I watched him as he trundled down the street. Before I could step inside the café, I was almost knocked over by a family carrying six suitcases and doing their best to hail a taxi, although each car that drove along the street passed without stopping. The woman had tears streaming down her face.
Taking a deep breath, I placed my hand on the door and pushed it open. Looking around, I scanned the faces of all the young men until, finally, in a corner by the window, I noticed one sitting alone, his head bent low over some textbooks, and I knew that it was him. I kept still, watching him for a few moments, wanting simply to observe my son while remaining unobserved myself. Only when a waitress approached to offer me a table did I make my way over and stand before him.
“Radek,” I said, and he looked up, propping his spectacles up along his nose, and stared at me with an expression of bewilderment on his face, as if he had forgotten that I was even coming.
“Father,” he replied eventually. “My apologies, sir. I was lost in…” He indicated the books and jotters that lay open before him. “All of this. Please,” he said, nodding toward the chair opposite him. “Sit down. You’re most welcome to join me.”
I hesitated, the formality of his tone surprising me. I had expected him to stand up, to embrace me or to allow himself to be embraced, but no. He remained exactly where he was, clearing some of his things to one side but, I noticed, glancing at one of his pages before making a quick note and turning it over. Only when the waitress poured us both some coffee did he smile and give me his full attention.
“You’ve grown,” I said, taking him in. He looked to be of average height with a slim build. He was quite handsome, with blond hair and prominent cheekbones, his face reminding me a little of his mother and a lot of my father.
“Well, of course,” he replied. “It’s been ten years. It would not be natural if I had stayed the same.”
“No,” I said, smiling, only it seemed that he was not trying to be humorous, for his face remained solemn.
“Well, it’s very good to see you,” I said.
“And you,” he said. “I’ve thought about you often.”
“Your letters meant a lot to me. When I was in prison, they kept me alive.”
“Of course. I thought it important to keep up communication with you, for I assumed that we would meet again one day and it would be ridiculous to try to catch up on ten years of stories. Now we don’t have to.”
I stared at him, uncertain how to respond to this.
“You were working?” I asked, indicating the books lying on the table.
“I was,” he replied. “Mathematics. As I think you know, it’s my field.”
“What is it about it that you enjoy?”
“The order that can be found in numbers,” he said without hesitation. “Every problem has a solution and it is the job of the mathematician to make that solution as elegant as possible. Numbers never surprise you. They hide their secrets, but a good investigator can always decipher them. They don’t change or let you down. They never abandon you.”
“I was never very good at mathematics,” I said, ignoring this last remark. “I was always more of a creative person.”
“I remember,” he said.
“Perhaps I’ll be able to return to my craft soo
n.”
“Now that you’re free, you mean?”
“Now that I’m free,” I agreed.
He smiled and took a sip from his coffee. “And you think you’ll be free here?” he asked. “That’s rather naïve of you, don’t you think?”
“But why not?” I asked. “Prague is my home. If I cannot be free here, then where else can I go?”
“They’re coming,” he said. “The Germans, I mean. They’ll be here very shortly. And it is likely that we will all lose our liberty.”
“I don’t think it will come to that,” I said. “The President has said—”
“The President has suffered a heart attack,” he told me. “And he has betrayed us all. Anyway, we shall see,” he continued, waving a hand in the air and dismissing this. “That said, we don’t have as much to worry about as some. The Jews are in the most danger. They would all be advised to leave as soon as possible.”
“And you’ve been living with Jezek and Ulva?” I asked, changing the subject abruptly. I did not want to get too involved in politics, preferring to discuss our family life.
“I have, yes.”
“They’ve been good to you?”
“Very kind. They’ve treated me as if I were their own son.”
I nodded. I was glad to hear it but, still, the remark stung a little.
“Do you want to know why I did it?” I asked.
“Why you did what?”
“Why I killed that girl?”
“I know the story,” he said. “And, in my opinion, you were right to kill her. She murdered my mother so her life should have been forfeited in return. I admire you for what you did.”
“You shouldn’t,” I said. “She did not deserve such an ending.”
“Well, it can’t be changed now.”
“You’re so…serious,” I said, leaning forward and lowering my voice. “Are you angry with me?”
“Not at all,” he said, shaking his head and attempting a smile. “I’ve been told this before. That I’m serious, I mean. People find it off-putting. They believe that I’m unfriendly but I’m not. It’s just my manner. It’s deceptive.”
“Very different to when you were a child, though. You were quite lighthearted then.”
“Indeed,” he admitted. “But I’m not a child anymore. And these are not lighthearted times. You missed out on the years between then and now. I’m not the same person as I was.”
I nodded and looked away, tapping my fingers on the table. I had hoped for some cathartic moment between us, some exchange of words of love, but it felt as if he was simply welcoming me back into his life while barely recognizing that I had ever left it.
I glanced at his books and tried to find a subject upon which we might connect. “Your mathematics,” I said. “What particular branch are you interested in?”
“Rocket propulsion,” he said.
“I’m sorry?”
“Rocket propulsion,” he repeated.
“And what is that exactly?”
He sighed, as if he couldn’t quite believe my ignorance. “It’s the process that uses force to move a heavy object, such as a rocket, off the ground and into the atmosphere,” he explained. “I’m working on concepts that combine the fuel and the oxidizer in different ways. I’m trying to understand how to move something faster and heavier than an airplane while maintaining its ability to withstand the gravitational forces of the universe.”
“To what end?”
“So that, one day, we might be able to send a man into space.”
I stared at him, wondering whether he was joking. “But that’s impossible,” I said.
“Nothing is impossible,” he replied. “A hundred years ago, no one would have believed in aviation, but now that’s become a fact of life. It’s perfectly credible that one hundred years from now we’ll be traveling between planets as we now do cities.”
“How astonishing,” I said. Although I used to express a desire as a child to live among the stars, I had never truly imagined that such a thing would ever be possible. “And how long have you been interested in this?”
“For as long as I can remember,” he said.
“I seem to recall you asking me questions about the stars when you were a child,” I said, reaching back for a long-hidden memory. “And outside of your work?” I asked. “Is there a woman in your life?”
“There is a girl with whom I have sex,” he replied, stating this in such a matter-of-fact fashion that I almost spat out my coffee.
“All right,” I said. “That wasn’t quite what I was asking, but—”
“It’s simply a human need, nothing more,” he explained. “I visit her once a week and that’s enough for me. I don’t see her outside of that.”
“You don’t even take her to dinner? Or for a drink?”
He shook his head. “That wouldn’t interest me,” he said. “Or her. We’re happy as we are. We meet, we engage in sexual activity and then we say goodbye. Outside of that, I’m far too busy with my work. I have no intention of ever marrying.”
“But Radek,” I said. “What about children?”
“Yes, I’ve considered them,” he replied. “I don’t think I’d be a good father. However, if one day I have a child, I will do my best, of course. Until then—”
“You speak very plainly about your life,” I said. “So let me ask you this, are you happy?”
He sat back and frowned. I suspected that no one had ever asked him such a direct question before, nor had he ever asked it of himself. “I’m happy when I’m working,” he said. “That alone gives me pleasure. Why, are you happy?”
“Not really,” I said. “I hope to find happiness now that I’m back in Prague but, in my life, whenever I have found contentment, it has always been snatched away from me.”
“You do seem to have been unfortunate in love,” he said. “Three wives, all of them dead.”
“Yes,” I said, looking away. Was it my fault that he was so cold? And yet he didn’t seem angry with me, he just spoke as if we were strangers. Which, I suppose, we were. “Anyway, I think that part of my life is over. I’ve not brought any luck to the women with whom I’ve been involved. I’ll go back to my artistic endeavors and hope to find satisfaction there.”
“Then I wish you well with it, Father,” he said. “And where will you live?”
“Actually, that was something I was going to discuss with you,” I said. “Jezek has said that I can stay with him and Ulva until I find somewhere for myself but I thought I might look for a flat. With two bedrooms. You could live with me again. If you wanted to, that is. If you’re happy as you are, of course, I won’t be offended.”
He looked down at the table and considered it, before nodding his head. “That would be acceptable,” he said. “I’ve imposed upon my uncle and aunt for too long as it is. Yes, Father, I will live with you.”
“All right, then,” I said, trying not to laugh. What a strange boy he had turned into. Still, I was delighted that he had agreed to join me and felt certain that, in time, our bond would strengthen. I was about to suggest that we could start looking that afternoon but the sound of shouting from the street outside distracted me.
“What’s going on?” I asked, looking through the window and craning my neck to see what was making people run so fast through the streets. “What’s going on out there?”
“It’s the tanks,” said Radek with a sigh, gathering up his books and placing them carefully in his satchel. “They’ve arrived. It’s started.”
RUSSIA
A.D. 1961
AFTER TWO YEARS OF SHARING an apartment in the Sokolniki district of Moscow, Radomir and I had established a routine that worked well for us both. I rose at around half past six every morning to prepare a simple breakfast of kasha and boiled eggs, before tapping on my son’s door t
o wake him. When he appeared in the kitchen thirty minutes later, showered and dressed, he was always wearing one of the five suits that he alternated from Monday to Friday. The suits were of a similar cut, had been made by the same tailor and, in color, might have been almost indistinguishable to the human eye. I had been looking at these same suits for so long now that, were I to forget the day of the week, the answer lay right before me.
Before saying good morning, he invariably stepped out onto our small balcony to stare up at the sky, observing the passing clouds, before smiling to himself, as if they’d shared a great secret with him. He would then sit down at the table, where he would eat what I had laid out for him while reading one of his science magazines.
Occasionally, I would try to engage him in small talk, but my attempts were rarely successful, for he was not much of a conversationalist, unless we were talking about his beloved space program, although due to the secrecy of his work he could tell me very little about it. The things he knew, the work in which he was involved, was a matter of such confidentiality that to reveal anything could lead to serious trouble for us both.
“Busy day ahead?” I might ask as I poured coffee, and he would look me up and down as if I were preparing to inform on him to the KGB.
“No more or less than usual.”
“Anything interesting going on at work?”
“Interesting to some, perhaps. Boring to others.”
“What are you working on at the moment?”
“Oh, this and that.”
There was really no point in trying to draw any further information out of him. All I knew was that he left the apartment at eight o’clock precisely and returned at six, when our conversations would run along the same lines as those we had enjoyed over breakfast. His workplace was only a two-mile walk from our apartment and the people there were engaged in trying to put a man into space and, more importantly, doing it before the Americans could. It seemed like a ridiculous enterprise to me, a lot of money being spent on something that would surely never be possible, but it made him happy and that was fine by me.
