The Thin Wall: A POW/MIA Truth Novel

by R. Cyril West

. . . she would think of something.

  Then Thursday came. The day of her waywardness. That day after school when she stepped into the empty classroom to say “hello” without knowing what to expect. Would it be a cold shoulder? A pat on the back? He greeted her with a cordial nod, inviting her in. They talked a little. You want to help tidy up? That’s fine. Just fine. And she came back again, performing little tasks, emptying the trash can, washing the chalkboard. He was oddly approachable──surprisingly not the complete jerk she had always known.

  Eventually her cunning kicked in. What’s a politburo? she asked. Who wrote the Communist Manifesto? Where did Karl Marx go to school?

  The questions lit up his eyes. And he answered them at length, sharing his wealth of knowledge, years of scholarly lessons that flowed from his thin lips like a well-rehearsed speech. Karl Marx was the greatest thinker of the millennium, Mr. Janus proclaimed. He elaborated on Marx’s conditions for the liberation of the proletariat and the need to eliminate capitalists and private property. He went on and on, quoting from philosophers and politicians, spewing numbers and statistics of the economy that he insisted proved Czechoslovakia was much better off under the new communist rule.

  . . . and she pretended to listen, swallowing her yawns. I want to hear more, she insisted. Revolution? Tell me.

  He pointed to passages in thick books and to events in newspaper clippings that showed how the revolution had reached England, France, and West Germany. And there were brothers and sisters in America, he explained, at the universities, in the town councils, working in the community, all organizing for the bloodless revolution that would ultimately put the United States on a course to socialism. Marxism is the way forward, young Ayna. It’s exciting. Embrace it.

  The lessons were intense, at times unbearable for her musically-inclined brain. She stayed focused on the goal, keeping her eyes on him while he spoke passionately of the fate of Europe and his hatred for the capitalists who stood in the way. When she discovered he had been to the Soviet Union and worked at the embassy in Moscow, she asked to see photographs of his travels.

  You are someone special, he told her, the rolls of his double-chin expanding with joy. Thank you, Ayna. Thank you for visiting me after class.

  The next day, he brought a box of photo albums to the classroom and flipped through the memories with a nostalgic glimmer in his eye. Seems like yesterday, he said. Where did the time go?

  She no longer sat in the chair next to him, rather was looking over his shoulder while he pointed to photos of the Kremlin, Red Square, and Lenin’s Mausoleum. Each time he started to revert to Marx, she brought the conversation back to him, to his personal life. She felt mean for being so manipulative. But then again, he had ridiculed her in front of the classroom on numerous occasions, so her dishonesty was simply a way of getting even.

  And it worked. By the fourth week, she was getting good grades and feeling very comfortable with Mr. Janus, even flirting with him by placing her hand on his shoulder and letting her foot brush against his leg.

  He had questions, too. The cello. Her dog. And boyfriends. Do you have a special someone? Ayna was embarrassed. She’d never had a boyfriend. Have you ever been kissed? An embarrassing question as well, but no. He was surprised to learn that the girls made fun of her face. Because you are very pretty, he told her. Now she was listening. Now she wanted him to say more. Pretty? You think so? He rarely spoke on the subject of communism again, instead the focus was on her, the young, beautiful, and talented Ayna. And she loved it. She played the cello for him. Brahms was his favorite.

  What had started off as a manipulative quest to get good grades had blossomed into a special friendship. He gave her gifts: a new bow, a pretty coin purse, and, of all things, a miniature edition of the Communist Manifesto, which he noted was something he always carried in his pocket.

  Then that morning arrived.

  That dreadful morning.

  Gray, with heavy rain. A day she should have stayed home and read a book, played her cello, done something, or just never left her bedroom. She was washing the chalkboard when she felt Mr. Janus breathing on her neck. Good to get out of the rain, he whispered. So good.

  She froze, her eyes cast down on the floor at the worn and chipped tiles. Creepy! Three words came to her: I must go. Then she abruptly left the room.

  For hours that night, she lay restlessly awake in bed, eyes staring at nothing. She began to question her motives. She had been cruel──just so she could keep her cello. Was it really worth it? Being so misleading? Hurting someone? She decided to back pedal on her flirting. When she discovered his hobby was bird watching, she asked to be taken to the forest near the paper mill to see the White Falcons nesting in the trees. It was the only honest effort at friendship she had made. He agreed, saying, Why, even President Gottwald had been a bird lover.

  He picked her up on the corner near the cemetery.

  And they drove to the mill, toward the smell.

  The fieldtrip to see the falcons, she reasoned, would vindicate her for having used him; bird watching, sharing in his passion for wildlife, would make up for all the dishonesty of recent weeks.

  He parked in a far corner of the parking lot behind a row of logging trucks and put a mint in his mouth. You’re going to like this, he said. The falcons are breeding.

  At Mr. Janus’ direction, they trekked around the lumber fence and ventured into the wilderness with their binoculars. They walked briskly along a well-trodden path, the haze burning her eyes, the rotten egg stench turning her stomach. Soon they were far from the mill, surrounded by the ancient woods. She gazed up and saw the lofty tree limbs enclosing around her like old, knotty fingers. A witch’s gnarled hand, the forest turning darker, green, brown, black. When they reached an alcove, and a pond, he dropped to a knee and pointed into the treetops. The falcons are nesting, pretty Ayna. Careful. We must keep quiet.

  But there was something odd about him that day. She began to notice his warped smile, his sweating armpits, and the perverse way he said pretty. The old Mr. Janus, the stern Party informant who had asked his students to report on their parents for speaking out against the communists, was back. And she smelled alcohol on his breath, not the mint.

  I want to go home, she finally said.

  Home? His voice grew exasperated. Why must you go, pretty Ayna? Why must you go?

  Seized by sudden fear, she dropped the binoculars and ran for the parking lot. She knew the way. She had been here many times. In her frazzled state-of-mind, however, she turned right on the trail when she should have turned left and ended up in a swarm of evergreen shrub. There was a moment of hesitation. Which way? Forward? Backward? She decided to cut through the shrub, only to snag her foot on a tree root, and crashed to the ground, falling flat on her hands and face.

  Get up, Ayna’s mind told her. You have to keep moving.

  She was close to the parking lot. Just the length of a football field, or so, she guessed. Would someone hear if she screamed for help? She was starting to stand when she heard a grumble. Someone was hovering over her. It was Mr. Janus. He was right behind her, right on top of her.

  A month later, Ayna discovered she was pregnant and approached Daniel, the only boy at school who had given her any attention. She flirted with him. And then the flirting led to sex. Only this time the sexual encounter was on her terms, in her bedroom beneath the clean sheets, while her mother was working at the mill.

  As the weeks passed, then a month, she was unable to hide her anger, and against her mother’s wishes, went to the police to inform them about the rape. The investigation was brief. Mr. Janus had been rubbing elbows with the local police for years. With no regrets, he admitted to having had an affair with Ayna, though insisted he did not rape her. It had been consensual, he lied, methodically explaining how they had gotten to know each other after class, that the sexually awakened Ayna had led him on, teasing him. What is a man to do? he begged. The police chief’s wife was twenty years younger t
han him, so there seemed to be some sort of male understanding between them. Almost everyone sided with Mr. Janus’ version of the story.

  So she moved on.

  Trying to forget.

  By avoiding him.

  To replace the hurt, she made Daniel love her, made him say sweet things all through the pregnancy. Do you love me? Yes, yes, I do love you. She easily molded Daniel into the father she wanted him to be. He had a good heart. Good intentions. And he loved Jiri. At the end of the day, she supposed that she actually wanted to be with Daniel. Maybe loving him out of a temporary need or a convenience. She remained faithful to him until that day when he drowned in the pond, in the same water near the spot where the falcons had nested.

  Then the hurt came back.

  The shame.

  . . . though she wondered, every day she wondered: had it ever really gone away?

  Milan opened the passenger door. “It was a wonderful picnic,” he said. “You’re a lovely woman. I enjoy being with you.”

  “Thank you,” she said curtly, not wishing to say she felt the same way.

  “How about we do something this weekend?”

  “Oh?”

  “Maybe a movie in Pilsen?”

  “Perhaps . . .” She stepped out of the car, gripping the picnic basket. “Sorry. Can’t chat right now. Let’s talk later. Okay?”

  “Goodbye then,” he said, kissing her on the forehead.

  She summoned all her strength to give him a hug, before dashing into her home, running to her bedroom, and dropping onto the bed. In her mind she was unable to erase the schoolteacher’s bloodshot eyes drilling into her, his strong hands pinning her wrists to the ground, and then when he was done, zipping up his pants and stumbling through the trees.

  MILAN DROVE to the hospital in Cesky Budejovice. Somehow he avoided the roadblocks and arrived in time for a meeting with the rural outreach committee. The group of nine colleagues, all of them male, most of them hardened communists, were pleased at the progress he had made in Mersk.

  After the meeting, he thought about canceling his appointments for the day and driving back to the village. Maybe he would have dinner with Ayna at the café? Surprise her?

  He sat at his desk and stared numbly out the window, at a bird in a tree, at the parting clouds, and then at an old man sitting on a bench. He could not get his mind off of Ayna. It had been decades since he had felt this excited about life.

  . . . on the other hand, the colonel and his probing questions were still haunting him. Dal’s voice, have you ever been to America?

  America?

  Why was he asking?

  The tank had become a symbol of defeat as the muggy autumn days set in. While no one believed the Russians would blow up the church, late night chatter in the tavern fueled speculation that the KGB might soon lock the doors and turn everyone away. It would not surprise the parish. Shutting down the church was old hat for the communists. Hundreds of churches had been closed or blown up by the Party since the Iron Curtain was drawn in the late forties. Why not their place of worship? The T-62 tank, with its smoothbore cannon pointed toward the steeple, was a reminder that twenty-five years after the coup, nothing had really changed, regardless of the new breed of communist running the country. To make matters worse, someone had spray-painted a swastika on the turret.

  “Vandalism,” Dal said sharply. “Punishable by ten years in prison. How unfortunate. Someone in this community has made a very poor decision to destroy Soviet property.”

  A large crowd of about four hundred people had begrudgingly trickled from their shops and row houses to congregate around the iron beast.

  “Ten years prison?” Josef asked. “Isn’t that a bit harsh, even by Moscow standards?”

  “Don’t push me, baker.”

  Potapov climbed from the back of the truck, wielding an AK, while Gurko paused next to him.

  The onlookers were puzzled. The street musician locked his accordion, and walking away said, “Uh-oh──someone is in some serious shit.” Over the next few minutes, more and more of them crowded into the square, standing behind Father Sudek, Josef, Irena, Emil, Tad, Oflan, and Ayna.

  “Who defaced my tank?” Dal asked, pointing to the flower shop roof where Bedrich watched with his binoculars. “Was it your imbecile? Does he stand against Brezhnev?”

  “No,” Father Sudek insisted. “He can’t read or write . . .”

  “He doesn’t know Brezhnev from your ass,” someone bellowed.

  Dal shook his head scornfully. His disdain for the people was etched in stone. They could say or do nothing that would satisfy him these days. He saw the boys standing in the square and frowned. They had grown unfriendly ever since their parents discovered the football uniforms were supplied by the Soviets and then dumped them at the villa’s gate.

  “Is the football team guilty of vandalism?” Dal asked. “Perhaps the boys are counter-revolutionaries in the making of Zinoviev, Bukharin, and Trotsky?”

  A frazzled woman broke from the crowd and took her son by the hand.

  “No,” Father Sudek said. “Their parents would punish them.”

  “Yet they accepted my generous gift of uniforms, only to turn their backs on me.”

  “You must understand, those uniforms─”

  “With numbers on the jerseys, I will have you note.”

  “But─”

  “Save your breath, Father. I am not upset over the decision to return the uniforms. This is not my loss. Let them run amuck,” Dal ranted. “Nevertheless, one among you is a criminal. Man. Woman. Boy. Girl.” There were stragglers near the shops. The most frightened citizens watched from the windows, such as Evzen and Verushka who were huddled with their great-grandchildren in their flat above the bakery. “Must I randomly decide who will be punished for this crime?” He approached Pavel the chauffeur, who hid behind his thick black glasses and unshaven face. “I don’t suppose it was you. You are a gu-gu-gu-gutless aide.” And to Oflan the drunk, “You are an appeaser.” And Emil the puppet master, “Too idealistic.” And Irena the librarian, “Too persuadable.” And Tad the paternal, “Too protective.” He eyed the throng, his chest bursting. “I know everything about you people. All of you.”

  Most of the villagers kept their heads down. They were stuck somewhere between wanting to flee the square and feeling compelled to stay and listen.

  He turned to face Josef, the only person in town as tall as him, and boldly gazed into his eyes until the burly man lowered his head.

  Next he approached Ayna Sahhat, dressed in a tight-fitting black summer dress with her hair in a ponytail. She was too complex to be categorized as an artist, or a counter-revolutionary, or even cursed. She was everything mixed into Pandora’s box, volatile from day-today, and without question the biggest threat to the afternoon’s peace. Had these people any firearms, she might have risen among the rabble to become the second coming of Joan of Arc. When Ayna refused to succumb to his unblinking glare, he drew the Makarov from his chest holster and pushed the barrel of the gun into her cheek.

  “Was it your cellist?” he wrapped his arm around her upper body, constraining her.

  “Let go of me,” she demanded. “You jerk.”

  “I know you’re conspiring against my authority.” Dal spoke coarsely into her ear. “I am onto your brainless scheming with that hard-up physician.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “To act in love with this man, all the while holding the assassin’s dagger behind your back──waiting for the moment to strike me in the way Brutus stabbed Caesar.” He tightened his stranglehold. “Deceptive. Plotting. To what avail?”

  “You’re hurting me.” She gasped, blood rushing to her cheeks.

  “I’m not a jealous man.”

  “I can’t breathe . . .”

  Father Sudek said, “Colonel Dal, the young woman is innocent. She’s a musician, not a troublemaker.”

  “Oh?”

  “Be reasonable.�
�

  “Reasonable?” Dal pushed the muzzle deeper into Ayna’s flesh. “Remember how she came to me? Remember how she demanded that I withdraw the tank from Mersk? Does anyone question her motives?”

  “But─”

  “Instead of arresting her, I decided to offer your beautiful and talented musician leniency. Yes, leniency. My gift of tolerance to you people. Do you understand what this means?’” His rage-filled eyes dulled a little. “I was willing to overlook her hostility in a gesture of goodwill between our nations. Yet in the end, she betrays me. Why?”

  Josef stepped forward. “Late last night after the tavern closed, I found a can of spray paint.”

  “You?”

  “I was mad with the situation in my country. It’s true. I was drinking Jägermeister.”

  “Hmm . . .”

  “When I get mad, I drink a lot.”

  “Hmm . . .”

  “I am responsible for this crime.”

  “Hmm . . .”

  “You must believe me. I painted the swastika on your damn tank.” Josef spat on the armor. “See, even now I disrespect Brezhnev.”

  Dal chuckled. “Bravo. We seem to have a fellow thespian among us. Honestly, I had no idea the baker could act. I am impressed. However other than the slick bit of improvisation concerning the Jägermeister, I have seen that spoof on the stage. It’s an old peasant skit. A comedy, I believe.” He turned to Gurko. “I swear. I have heard those lines in a play. You know. Where the man stands up for the woman in the face of a villain. Who was it? Chekhov?”

  Gurko shrugged. “You aren’t a villain, comrade. These people are at fault for what has happened today. They protect a vandal’s identity.”

  “Nevertheless, they attempt to make a mockery of the Soviet Union.” Keeping a firm grip on Ayna, Dal scanned the villagers, suspicious of those standing closest to him. “Do you simpletons think I am ignorant? That I would believe your village baker, a man whose trade thrives on measurements and precise ingredients would do something this irrational? No, this blatant act of disrespect speaks to me of youth. It speaks to me of uncontrollable anger. Of someone in the mold of your fallen comrade Sascha Boyd.” He looked at Ayna. “Then again maybe, just maybe, your sweet little Jiri did this? Perhaps he is troubled by our presence. A fatherless, troubled teen, looking to make a name for himself? Mmm. I wonder, should he pay the price for insulting Brezhnev?”