Karel dismissed the idea with scorn. ‘Don’t be so naive. This isn’t England. You’d land the signatories and yourself in jail and the boys in a home. You’ve got to keep out of trouble: they need you.’
That was the one argument that carried weight. But I still protested that to remain silent was to condone the whole farce.
‘Leave it to me,’ Karel exhorted me sternly. ‘I know who to speak to on the Central Committee.’
Alas, the Central Committee did not want to know the truth. No one would receive Karel. We continued to write letters to the relevant authorities. They went unanswered. Karel lost his executive job and was demoted to unskilled worker in a glue factory. From time to time he believed he had found a way to a communist in a high place, but his hopes were always dashed.
It was assumed among our friends that the prosecution witnesses would eventually be brought to trial. I could ascertain nothing from the authorities, not even where Pavel was held. I wrote to the central prison authority requesting a visit. This, too, met with silence.
1. Ludvík Frejka (1904–1952) joined the CP in 1923. He fled to England in 1939. In 1945 he became Chairman of the Economic Commission of the CC and economic adviser to the Prime Minister. He was executed with Slánský in 1952.
2. Evžen Löbl (1927–87) joined the CP in 1934 and spent the war years in England. He was Jan Masaryk’s economic adviser and worked in the Ministry of Foreign Trade after 1945. From 1948 he was a Deputy Minister until his arrest in 1951. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, but released in 1960. Until 1968 he served as the director of the State Bank in Bratislava. He emigrated in 1968 and now works as a lecturer in the USA.
3. Laco Novomeský (1904–76) joined the CP in 1926 and worked as an editor of Communist newspapers and established his reputation as a poet. Imprisoned in 1951 for bourgeois nationalism, he was released in 1955. From 1968 he was a member of the Presidium of the CC of the Slovak Communist Party.
4. Gustáv Husák (1913–) was a member of the illegal Slovak Communist Party in Bratislava during the war. In 1951 he was sentenced to life imprisonment but was released in 1960. In 1968 he was a Deputy Prime Minister and was elected as First Secretary of the CP in April 1969. He became President in 1975.
5. Marie Švermová (1902–) became a member of the CP in 1921 and of its CC in 1929. After her brother, Karel was executed with Slánský in 1952, she was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1954. She was released in 1956, rehabilitated but not reinstated politically.
6. Jarmila Potůčková-Taussigová spent the war in the Ravensbruck concentration camp. After the war she worked for the Party Control Commission and was a member of the CC. She was imprisoned in 1951.
7. Bedřich Reicin (1911–1952) became a member of the CP Secretariat in 1936. He spent most of the war in Moscow and remained in the army after liberation. He was Chief of Military Intelligence, then Deputy Minister of Defence. He was executed with Slánský in 1952.
8. Milada Horáková (1901–1950) joined the Socialist Party in 1929. From 1945–48 she was a member of Parliament. She was executed in 1950.
Chapter 10
At last, some weeks after the trial, permission to visit Pavel arrived. It was for Karel as well as me. We were to report at the Bartolomějská Street police headquarters. Pavel was to be brought there from prison. Inside the building we were escorted by two armed guards. Suddenly I feared the meeting I had been looking forward to so much. Pavel had been in prison for six months. He had been subjected to interrogations. God knew what ghastly methods had been used to extort his confession. Would he not be a physical and mental wreck? I steeled myself as we were led into an office furnished with black leather chairs. Pavel was already seated. Unexpectedly he was in civilian clothes. He looked paler, thinner, older, lined and saddened, but his spirit was unbroken, as far as I could see.
‘You may speak of family matters only,’ the guard inside warned us, taking up a stand by the window.
I sat down and looked into Pavel’s eyes. He gazed steadfastly into mine. They were not the eyes of a guilty man facing the family he had shamed. Nor were they the eyes of a coward who had abjectly confessed to imaginary crimes and incriminated others in order to save his own skin. A wave of tenderness enveloped me. I leaned toward him and kissed him quickly. His face lit up and looked less grey and drawn.
‘How are the boys?’ he asked.
‘Oh, they’re fine.’ There was no point in telling him that Jan was at home again with one of his periodical inflammations of the middle ear.
How was Zdeněk getting on at school, wasn’t it too great a strain on his constitution; shouldn’t I have left him at nursery school another year? How was Jan’s handwriting, had it improved?
‘And how about you? Isn’t your job too difficult for you? It sounded awfully technical in your letter.’
Proudly I launched into a description of my work.
‘But how can you manage a demanding full-time job and the boys, now that you have no help in the home?’ Pavel persisted.
His unchanged attitude brought home to me the fact that I had changed. I had grown accustomed to my dual role as breadwinner and housewife; it no longer seemed insupportable. I reassured him and went on to brighter things. I told him of the puppet shows and children’s theatre I took the boys to on Sunday afternoons, a film I had seen. (It was the only one since he’d been arrested but I made it sound as though the cinema was a regular part of my life.) He enquired after Eva and Karel’s new wife. It was all so inconsequential. There was so much I wanted to ask: Why? What have they done to you? What will happen to you now?
Karel offered a bag of sweets to Pavel, rustling the paper furiously and talking loudly. Pavel took the hint; he whispered to me out of the corner of his mouth: ‘I am innocent.’
‘I know,’ I mouthed back.
‘Speak up!’ called the voice from the window. The young guard took up a position nearer to the table, which precluded further attempts at unobserved communication. The most important thing had been said; explanations would have to wait. The guard glanced at his watch.
‘Time’s up.’
Pavel’s face, which had been flushed with animation, paled and set into grim lines. His eyes filled with the sadness of an animal that anticipates separation and cannot express its grief. I threw my arms round his neck, kissed him on the lips and whispered: ‘Don’t despair! We all believe in you. You’ll get out,’ before the guard seized my arm and pushed me roughly through the door.
I stumbled out of the building, fighting back tears. That night I couldn’t sleep. Pavel’s image formed in my mind’s eye. Shaven, wearing a lounge suit, seated in an armchair. So nearly the picture of a free man, yet so far from freedom. Once again the tragic hero.
*
A few days after my visit two security men came to my office. It was about 4.30.
‘Come along with us, Mrs Kavanová.’
The dreaded words. My heart sank. This was it. What about the boys? Who will tell them? Who will get the supper? I breathed deeply. Don’t anticipate. Play it by ear, step-by-step. An ice-cold calm took hold of me.
‘If you’ll take a seat until we finish work,’ I indicated a small empty office.
‘Tell your boss we’ve come for you; he’ll release you,’ said one of them.
‘I’m engaged in work of national importance,’ I parried. ‘Our deadline is approaching. It’s essential I complete my task.’
‘Mrs Kavanová, I’m losing my patience,’ the security man snapped. ‘Just explain the situation to your boss.’
Shrugging, I repaired to Mr Němec’s office. He turned deathly pale and croaked: ‘The security police, here! In this building!’ I thought he was going to faint. ‘Go, go, get them out of here. Never mind your desk. Someone will clear away for you.’
Our Hillman Minx was drawn up outside the building. One of the plainclothes men motioned me to get in the back with him. The other took the seat next to the driver. No one spoke.
&n
bsp; ‘Well, gentlemen, how is my car behaving?’ I asked sarcastically. ‘I hope you’ve had the brakes fixed.’
One of them grunted in reply.
‘Where are you taking me?’ I asked.
‘You’ll find out,’ the one next to me snarled.
We did not turn off toward Bartolomějská, but headed across town — perhaps towards the Pankrác prison. The silence was getting on my nerves.
‘What do you want of me?’ I asked, to break it.
‘We want to ask you a few questions,’ replied my neighbour ominously.
I resigned myself to the worst, closing my eyes to restore order to my mind. When I opened them, to my surprise the car was drawing up in front of our house. I was ordered to get out. I waited. We all waited.
‘We’re here,’ one of them pointed out.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You may open the gate.’
Surprised, the man did as he was bid. I stepped through first, head held high. It was a very minor triumph, but at least I’d forced them to treat me as a woman. Inside the flat I waited again. At length one of them demanded: ‘Where is the radio you removed from your car after your husband’s arrest?’
Was that all they wanted? Why couldn’t they have said so in the first place, instead of leaving me in suspense? I protested once more that my husband had been neither convicted nor sentenced, therefore they had no right to his property. It was futile. They merely repeated their question and sat down, indicating they had all the time in the world.
I thought: If I deny I have the radio, they’ll search the flat and make a hell of a mess. I said: ‘It’s here; it needs repairing.’
Untrue. I’d intended to flog it, but hadn’t yet found a purchaser. After the confiscation of the Minx, I’d removed the tubes and put them in a separate drawer, just in case. I handed over the radio. It would be useless to the police: that make of tube was unobtainable in Czechoslovakia.
‘That will be all — for today,’ said one of them as they left.
I dropped into a chair. Now that they were gone, my calm deserted me. My heart was racing. They’d played a cat-and-mouse game with me. I shook with rage and hatred. They were omnipotent; they enjoyed their power to intimidate. I recalled Mr Němec, cowering, a picture of fear and apprehension, yet he had nothing to hide. The whole population was at the mercy of the secret police. I got up and found the tubes, wrapped them in newspaper and took them to the dustbin in the yard. Then I made myself the one cup of coffee I could afford each day, and pushed the matter from my mind. After all, what was a car radio?
It appeared that the local National Committee, too, had a stake in our property. I was requested to be at home on a particular date. At nine o’clock precisely two gentlemen presented themselves. A visual replica of Laurel and Hardy, apart from the headgear. They removed their caps and stood as silent as pall-bearers. However, they had come to praise Caesar not to bury him.
Once inside the door, Hardy whispered: ‘We knew your husband well. He was a good communist. We don’t believe this spy stuff, but,’ he sighed heavily, ‘we have our job to do.’
Laurel added: ‘We’d prefer different work. But if we gave notice, we’d be branded as disloyal. We’d never get another job.’
They both looked on the verge of collapse. I made them some tea.
Hardy explained: ‘We – er have instructions to draw up a list of the contents of your flat, pending confiscation.’
I repeated despairingly that my husband hadn’t been sentenced.
‘We know,’ Laurel hung his head. ‘And we sincerely hope he won’t be. But after his testimony it seems unlikely.’
Hardy broke in: ‘All we have to do for the present is file a list. Then Josef and me’ll forget about it — as long as we safely can.’
Having completed the inventory, Laurel mumbled: ‘I’m sorry, we’ll have to seal up your husband’s personal effects.’
The mournful pair carefully laid Pavel’s suits and shirts and underwear in a large trunk. I slipped sheets of Rudé Právo in between, hoping it would discourage the moths as much as it did its readers. Pavel’s black dinner jacket lay on top. I dropped in a packet of dry lavender. Like a bunch of flowers thrown onto a coffin before it is lowered into the grave. I shuddered. The lid was closed down and the trunk was sealed. It was to be left until called for. They had found Pavel’s self-winding wristwatch and a fountain pen in a suit pocket. ‘We’d better take these,’ said the thin one. ‘It’ll look suspicious if we go back empty-handed. They’ll stay in our safe until your husband returns. Goodbye, Mrs Kavanová, and good luck!’ They shook hands sorrowfully.
Their visit had both cheered and chilled me. They represented officialdom at local government and Party levels, yet, acting on their impression of Pavel’s character, they were prepared to stall for time. On the other hand, they had made plain that if convicted, Pavel’s sentence, like those of the defendants in the Slánský trial, would include forfeiture of property.
*
The mixture of tragedy and comedy that was now my life brought a visit of another kind. Mirek and I were to inspect our track. Hanka, a young English pupil of mine, offered to look after the boys so that I could be away for two or three days.
We arrived at the depot in the evening and the assembly team allotted us a train wagon divided into cubicles as lodgings. Men were getting used to the women in dungarees, but I was apparently the first they had seen on the job. They looked upon me as an improbable joke but threw in a little respect when they discovered that some of the blueprints they had been working from were — incredibly — mine. I looked forward to the morning and the sight of the designs I had put together with more hope than skill in three-dimensional reality. I could hardly believe that the poles — like working mothers — would really bear the stresses and strains expected of them.
We set off with the assembly team to check the installation of the contact wire. The operation was conducted from the roof of a diesel-driven workshop train, which was covered with a thin coating of snow and ice. It was a miracle I wasn’t swept off as I side-stepped to avoid the contortions of the wire, ducked to evade unattached ends of carrier cable, eyed the track for unexpected bends, all the while consulting my blueprints.
We returned to the depot for lunch, during which I remarked to Mirek: ‘It’s rewarding to work on something that’ll be here after we’re gone.’
‘Sentimental crap,’ Mirek replied elegantly. ‘I don’t give a lamb’s fart what happens after I’m pushing up the daisies. The day the whole Czechoslovak railway network is electrified is as far as I look ahead, and I’ll probably have to live to be an octogenarian to see that. But if it will make you happy, you may picture your great-grandchildren joyfully riding about on great-grandma’s railway line.’
He smacked his lips over our goulash and dumplings. ‘Not bad. Meat’s kind of sweetish. Maybe it’s horse.’ He chuckled. ‘Reminds me of our neighbour during the war. Mum used to leave our leftovers by the open kitchen window at night to keep them fresh. The old faggot from next door used to slip out onto the verandah and nick a portion. One day our cat Blackie got hit by a car. Mum wept buckets. Then she dried her eyes and made a pie with the choicest bits of Blackie and left it by the window. The next morning it had clean gone. Mum nipped in next door to borrow some salt and mentioned that a thief had bagged her cat pie in the night.
‘“Cat!” gasps greedy guts, turning green. “Yes,” says Mum. “The people of Stalingrad ate rats and dogs, so I thought I’d try Blackie. What’s the matter, aren’t you feeling well?” The old faggot made a beeline for the loo and threw up like a sick mule. She never touched a thing from our window sill after that.’
Satiated, we went back to the track. It had stopped snowing, visibility was good but our diesel engine was nowhere to be seen.
‘Something in this smells,’ pronounced Tomik, a borer, and he went off to investigate. After all, you can’t mislay a thing like a diesel engine. He came back storming: ‘Of all the
blasted cheek! The demolition gang nabbed our diesel to remove the old wooden poles.’
What a magnificent theft! Although I was continually being warned by well-meaning strangers: ‘Young missus, look to your handbag, it’s half-open, you cannot be too careful’, this was my first experience of real robbery.
The foreman declined to hang about workless, having pledges and plans on his mind. He set off to hire another engine. The small depot did not abound in extra, idle engines. Its only reserve was a black steam mammoth, dating back to the last century. The foreman persuaded an equally ancient driver to bring it up the line. The men hitched on the workshop and, squealing and snorting, the museum piece began pushing us slowly along. When it had wheezed to within sight of the spot where we had left off in the morning, it came to a halt. We scrambled along to the footplate. The driver scratched his head. ‘She’s got enough coal, engine’s in order, maybe she’s low in water.’
We scattered over the fields in search of a brook. I was accustomed to getting people out of bed, popping into pubs or lowering myself into river beds because Matilda or the Minx had boiled themselves dry, but a steam engine! Really, one could rely on the Czechs to introduce a novel note into any proceedings!
‘Water, water!’ yelled Mirek at length. We rushed to the spot, formed a chain and began passing a bucketful up to the foreman who was sitting astride the funnel and peering in from time to time with an electric torch.
‘Strewth! It’s like spitting into a gorge,’ he groaned. ‘At this rate we’ll be stuck here all night.’
A rumble in the distance attracted our attention. Our diesel was returning on our track. With one accord we blocked its path, and when the diesel pulled up with a scream of brakes, we boarded it pirate fashion. A fierce argument ensued, which I expected at any moment to draw blood, but, as usual, it produced more noise than damage. When the commotion had died down, the ‘demolishers’ abandoned ship, we coupled our workshop onto the diesel and proceeded up the line.
Love and Freedom Page 15
