The Thin Wall: A POW/MIA Truth Novel

by R. Cyril West

  INSIDE THE CLINIC, Milan passed by the window when he caught the outpouring of folks gathered at the square. The people were swarming near the fountain, standing on their toes to get a better view of what was happening. A protest? Some slight warning bell sounded in his head. He set aside a medical file and bursting from the door, rushed across the street. Good god, what was going on in this town?

  “Doctor, you must stop him,” Tad insisted.

  “My daughter.” Nadezda tugged on his arm. “Please. Save her. You are the only one who can help.”

  Somewhere a child cried.

  Milan pushed through the mob and stumbled into an open circle. He found himself standing face-to-face with the enraged KGB officer, who held Ayna in a martial arts restraint, the pistol’s barrel nudged into her temple. His impulse was to rush the man. Instead, he caught his breath. “Is this what your liberation is all about, colonel?”

  “Stay out of this, doctor.”

  “Let her go.”

  “Don’t push me.”

  “You are making a mistake . . .” Milan’s voice quivered. “Put down the gun before you create an incident.”

  “Incident?” Sweat dripped from the tip of Dal’s nose. “You are sounding more and more like a member of the renegade Czech politburo.”

  “You won’t gain anything by committing a murder.”

  “I’m feeling edgy today. Bad headache, you see. Don’t make me pull the trigger.”

  “I warn you. Should a single drop of blood spill.”

  People backed away, making room for a fight.

  “You have an uncanny way of sticking your nose into another man’s business,” Dal said. “Like Trotsky, who was a real pain in the ass for Comrade Stalin, you will not go away, will you?”

  Milan ignored the comment, his eyes drawn to the bandage on the colonel’s neck. He suspected dengue, primarily because of an ugly rash that had developed on Dal’s skin. “That mosquito bite looks infected,” he said. “If you would let me have a look. I can help.”

  Dal snickered. “If I wanted your medical advice, I would have visited the clinic days ago. I know the address. I am fully aware of your credentials.”

  “This infection should be taken seriously. I am sure you’re familiar with the dengue virus?”

  “Dengue?” Dal stiffened. “I am a world traveler. Five continents, comrade. In Sri Lanka, I once observed a man die from dengue. It was a slow, intolerable death.”

  Father Sudek stepped forward. “It was wrong for someone to paint on your tank. But Ayna? No. She wouldn’t do such a thing.”

  “If not the girl, who?”

  “We will get to the bottom of this.” The priest clasped his hands. “You have my word.”

  Dal loosened his grip on Ayna. She was no longer struggling to get away. “Tell me, Father, when is this Smetana recital?”

  “Friday.”

  “How very exciting. You people must be on the edge of your seats with anticipation.” The sweat was beading on Dal’s brow. “I have overheard the quartet rehearsing in the church. The strings are sweet sounding. Lovely. But can I ask you something? At the end of the day, is there talent in Mersk? I mean, a realistic chance you will be awarded a spot at the festival in Prague?”

  “We have come together . . .” Father Sudek lowered his head. “To honor Sascha.”

  “Pity.” The lines of tension had gathered on Dal’s face. “I am fond of Bedrich Smetana. In particular his opera, The Bartered Bride. Unfortunately, I do not recall being offered an invitation to your little gathering.”

  Father Sudek said, “That is certainly an oversight. Of course, we are expecting you. And your men.”

  Milan sensed an easing of tension. “Then it is agreed,” he injected. “We will celebrate together. Russian and Czech.”

  “Amen,” Father Sudek said eagerly.

  “In honor of Smetana,” Milan added, “we can work through this trouble without spilling blood. So, please. Let Ayna go.”

  Dal pushed Ayna into Milan’s arms. “Fair enough. I shall consider the invitation to the recital. In the meantime, you people think about what has happened today. Think long and hard. Vandalism is a serious crime. As such, I will return to this very spot in the morning. I expect the guilty person to show his or her face. If not, I will be forced to cancel your Smetana gala. Then you will have nothing. And there will be no hope whatsoever.”

  Milan kept his arm around Ayna and walked her toward the clinic. She was crying. When he went to wipe a tear from her cheek, she brushed away his hand.

  “I’m okay,” she insisted.

  But he had his doubts. She seemed emotionally distraught and desensitized to life. There was something about the harsh tone in her voice. As they walked, he felt Dal’s glare pressing against his back and he could only repeat himself, what he had been saying for days, even though it felt like a lie, “The colonel won’t dare hurt you. Or Jiri. The Russians can’t do that. They just can’t.”

  THE PLAN had backfired. Dal had only put the gun to the woman’s head for a show of strength. He had no intention of shooting her. Milan arriving at the last minute undermined his authority. Now the doctor appeared to be the hero of the day. “I have never met anyone so fortunate,” he told Gurko. “First, there was his chance discovery of Sascha Boyd’s body, followed by today’s opportune heroism.”

  “He concerns you?”

  “Doctor Husak appears to be a man of destiny,” Dal said. “From my experience, this is the most dangerous type of man.”

  “Maybe we should shut down the clinic.”

  “No. It would attract the attention of the ministry.” Dal popped several aspirin into his mouth straight from a bottle and crunched on them. He was feeling sicker as the day wore on and needed a nap. “Something is odd about this physician.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They say he’s a war hero.”

  “The people turn to anyone these days for heroes.”

  “Does he look like a hero to you?”

  “I haven’t given it much consideration,” Gurko said. “In my eyes, he seems like a typical physician. He wants to help people. Even you.”

  “Help?”

  “That is what he said.”

  “I do not trust him.”

  “It’s less than a week until we hand over the American POW and deliver the dossier to our counterparts in Prague. You appear spellbound by this woman, comrade. I know she is attractive, but she is nothing in the bigger picture. Why do you─”

  Dal held up his hand to silence the sergeant. Driven by his demons, he walked down the street. Voices came to him from across the village, from behind closed doors, inside attic spaces, and other hiding spots. He knew what they were talking about: Dr. Husak had stood up to him. If the doctor could do it, why not them? Even now, he sensed, they were plotting against his authority. Anarchists. He must move quickly to make an example of someone for vandalizing the tank.

  “Seems the doctor is right about your health,” Gurko said. “Why not visit a hospital?”

  Dal stopped in the middle of the street. “How can you be so stupid? I can’t see a doctor. I could be quarantined. Did my story about Napoleon’s hemorrhoids not register in your brain?”

  “My apologies, comrade.”

  “I appear to have misjudged your skills,” Dal said sternly. “You have become a useless army photographer in recent days. I have charged you with one simple task──find the farmer who claimed injustice. Tell me, what has come of your search?”

  “I have been unable to locate the man. The fields in Cesky Krumlov are mostly overgrown with weeds. And the workers are uncooperative. They won’t talk to Russians.”

  “Have you searched for him in Kamenny Ujezd?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Vyšší Brod.”

  “Yes.”

  “How about Kaplice?”

  “Everywhere.”

  “There are few working farms in this part of the country. You must not be
looking very hard. It cannot be that difficult.”

  “Comrade, it is just─”

  “Go. Revisit the towns along the river. Do not return until you have found him.”

  “Yes, comrade.”

  Feeling nauseated, Dal placed his hands on his knees and gagged. Was it the flu? Or worse, dengue? When Gurko started to say something, he held up his hand to silence him. After another gag, a stream of vomit spewed from his mouth, his breakfast of eggs and toast. He took a moment, wiping the spittle from his lips with the back of a hand.

  “My suspicions say the farmer is trouble,” Dal said. “And I am always correct about these things.”

  LEAVING THE SQUARE, Ayna asked to be taken to the monastery. “I hate that man,” she told Milan, her complexion flushed. “I hate him. I hate all Russians for that matter.”

  After the short drive, they got out of the car. Her face was red and streaked with dried tears that looked like faded scars. There was a KEEP OUT sign lying in the long grass. They ignored the warning and stepped past a broken chain link fence.

  “He’s ill,” Milan said. “Not only his piss-poor Russian attitude. But he looks feverish. That might explain his erratic behavior.”

  “There’s no explanation for him. He’s an evil man.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.”

  “I want to strangle him.”

  “I don’t blame you.”

  “Where are the police?”

  “Sleeping through this nightmare.”

  “Where is the Czech army?”

  “They would fight,” Milan insisted. “I’m sure they would fight if not for the politicians ordering them to remain in the barracks.”

  “I don’t stand with Svoboda,” she said. “The people shout ‘stand with Svoboda.’ But that’s heresy. He is responsible for this. He should’ve known better than to push Brezhnev.”

  “The situation is a mess.”

  It was pointless trying to reason with her. Everyone had become the enemy and weighing in on the conversation only exasperated her mood. “The people of Mersk are cowards,” Ayna ranted. “They talk about freedom, yet aren’t willing to fight for it. If anyone, I thought Josef would stand strong. What good is being the arm wrestling champion of our village if he is afraid to use those same arms to punch someone in the nose?” Ayna went on and on, Svoboda this, and Brezhnev that, until she became exhausted listening to her own voice.

  “You just had a gun put to your head.” Milan laid his arm over her shoulder. “So vent. Vent all you want.”

  “A mosquito infection you say?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it contagious?”

  “No.”

  “Will it kill him?”

  “Most likely no.”

  “Damn. How unfortunate.”

  “Life is precious. No matter who. Even the colonel.”

  “Even a Russian?”

  “Even a Russian.”

  “Now you sound like Saint John of Nepomuk.”

  “I am in the business of saving lives, not taking them.”

  She moaned. “Okay. You win. I’m not going to talk about this for the rest of the day.”

  “Good idea.”

  Milan kissed her on the forehead, and then changing the subject, he said, “C’mon let’s check this place out . . .”

  The monastery consisted of a Baroque manor house and farm buildings arranged around a brick courtyard. It had been abandoned for over fifty years, crumbling for two centuries and these days reclaimed mostly by weeds. A lane of stone urns led to a winding stone stair. The stairs ended abruptly, where they sat with their legs dangling. She told him about her life as a child, how the old monastery was her favorite place to hang out, how she enjoyed walking among the buildings in the spring when the wildflowers speckled the grass. “Sometimes Bedrich follows me here,” she added. “He climbs the manor house and spies from the roof.”

  “He’s an interesting fellow. Always spying through those army binoculars.”

  “The binoculars are his eyeglasses to the world.”

  “I wonder how the world must look through his eyes.”

  “Scary. Anyway, I’ve never said anything to him. It’s actually very cute. But if he were a normal man, I’d think his spying was kind of creepy.”

  Milan lit up. “We have to go somewhere. And get away from the harassment. Take Jiri, too. Soon, the museums and opera houses will be flourishing with cheerful people again. The restaurants will be teeming with life. Czechs want to live, not be held down by the Soviets. Despite the occupation, we must enjoy our lives. ”

  “Except there are roadblocks and curfews and who knows what else.”

  “I can get around the military restrictions.” He was already planning the day in his head: the football stadium, the art museum, and that French restaurant she had spoken so fondly about the other day. He wanted to show her the best time of her life.

  “It’s been a couple of years since Jiri and I went away.” Ayna leaned into him, a cheek on his shoulder. “We don’t do much aside from what life offers in Mersk. I know, I know, boring. I do want to take him places. I really do. It’s just . . . I never seem to have the time or the money.”

  “After the recital, we’ll go to Prague. I will personally introduce you to the maestro of the symphony. His physician is a colleague of mine.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, how wonderful.”

  “In the meantime, I have a meeting at the ministry, then I must return to the hospital.” Milan decided that he would also go to the police and file a complaint about Colonel Dal──for what it was worth.

  “But the recital is Friday.”

  “I have it marked on my calendar.”

  “You’ll come back for it?”

  “Absolutely. I wouldn’t miss the chance to see you play your cello. Not for the life of me.”

  Dal kept his word. The next morning, he ordered Potapov and Horbachsky into the GAZ, and with the canvass top down, headed into town. He drove at reckless speeds, not braking for pedestrians, for dogs, for anything. “Move, comrades,” he yelled, steering with a hand on the horn and a cigarette dangling from his lip. “Out of the way.” Near the butcher shop he nearly ran over Tad and at the marionette theatre he waved to Verushka’s great-grandchildren. People were in an upheaval over his careless driving. At every intersection, they scrambled to get out of the way. The excitement was contagious. Oflan. Pavel. Irena. Emil. Evzen. People emptied from their houses, from their shops, from the narrow alleys that crisscrossed the town, and chased the truck to Ayna’s house.

  The mob had grown to a hundred townspeople when it reached her door. The people were asking questions, wanting to know what had become of Zdenek Seifert, when the curfew would be lifted, and why Ayna Sahhat had apparently been targeted for the act of vandalism.

  “Did she really paint the swastika on the tank?” the street musician asked.

  Even a curious Ota Janus, on his way to the schoolhouse, had stopped his car to observe the uproar.

  “Citizens of Mersk,” Dal said triumphantly, with usual flair and arrogance. “This is a day like no other. Today, as I appear before you, we sever the head of the mighty serpent. Today, your liberation takes a giant leap forward.” He had been drinking to ward off a headache and there was a slight slurring to his words.

  “Serpent?” the banker said. “You’re not making any sense.”

  “He has officially go-go-gone mad,” Pavel said.

  An irate Josef Novak yanked off his baker’s cap and pushed his way to the front of the crowd. “Of all people. Why the Sahhats?” His face was red, explosive. “What have they done to deserve this?”

  Dal paused for some moments, drawing attention to the question, before glancing over his sunglasses at Josef. “Try to exercise some patience while we sort this out . . .” He pointed his baton at Josef as though pinning him with a fencing saber. “Soon everyone will get answers. I promise you, baker, the ev
idence, every bit of it, will be compelling.”

  By then, the people completely surrounded the truck. Many had their hands on the hood and were touching the doors, while some lifted on their toes to get a better view. Dal, not worried for his personal safety, sat casually in the driver’s seat, feeling relaxed from a morning vodka.

  “We demand answers at once,” Josef said while the Ukrainian soldiers struck the door handle with their assault rifles. “We have grown impatient with your false promises of peace.”

  A few voices moaned their support.

  At the same time, the soldiers finally broke the door handle, kicked the door and stormed inside the residence.

  “This isn’t a proper way to enter a home,” Father Sudek said, thumping his cane against the cobble. “Haven’t you heard of knocking?”

  Dal said, “There is no time for etiquette, Father.”

  “Why must you do this?”

  “Disobedience. Insubordination. Treason. Need I say more?”

  “The Sahhats are a decent family,” the priest insisted. “I have known them all my life. They aren’t criminals.”

  “Then it must come as a surprise, if not some disappointment, to learn that a certain individual living at this address has ties to the counter-revolutionary movement.”

  “Lies,” Josef said, with Emil restraining him. “You’re a raving lunatic. I will go to the police.”

  Dal looked sternly at the baker. “I would advise you to keep your mouth shut. While I have identified the potential vandal, you are still on my suspected-enemy list for lying about your role in the graffiti scandal.”

  The soldiers pushed Ayna out the door. She was putting up little resistance, though her messy hair and a scratch on Horbachsky’s cheek suggested a struggle had taken place.

  “The grandmother and the boy aren’t home,” Potapov said.

  “Their whereabouts aren’t important.” Dal threw a stern look at Father Sudek. “The priest will explain to the family what has happened.”