Now that he had to accept the change in his life which the cargo on the lumbering vehicle brought about, Karel worried over his microscopes, his X-ray lamp, and the glass screen of his fluoroscope lying haphazardly on top of his ophthalmic chair. His qualms grew as he caught himself referring to them as his. He was only their administrator, as Joseph was the National Administrator of the Benda Works—and at that, Joseph had a damned sight better title to the Works than Karel had to this equipment.
He tried to relax by making a rough mental layout of where he would place the things. Some of them would have to be installed in a dispensary. Joseph would have to make room for that in the office wing of the Works; it would be another contribution to the antagonisms cropping up between them. Karel stroked back his matted hair. He determined to have a heart-to-heart talk with Joseph very soon. He would be self-sufficient, now, and that should make it easier for him to find a way to keep business apart from family, and to reassert the genuine affection he had for the big, bluff, disappointed peasant that was Joseph.
Perhaps it would ease matters if he kept the dispensary modest and took more of the equipment into the dingy flat Kravat had supplied for him. That meant that he could keep for himself only the kitchen and one small room and a windowless cell where the bed might fit. Well, he had no great desire for personal luxuries, and the monkish existence forced on him by this sudden embarras de richesses would be some sort of penance for the thrill of the raid. Penance! He’d do penance all right—the only doctor in Rodnik, the only doctor within miles! It was ridiculous to feel guilty about any part of the escapade. The raid had been socially necessary.
“Kravat!” he called so suddenly that the melter sat up. “Why is everything that simple to you?”
Kravat kept his eyes on the road. “I come from a long line of simple people. My grandfather, who etched some very fine goblets for that crook, the old Emperor, once told me: Franta, my boy, there are only two kinds of men—those who work, and those who work them....Once you get on to that, Karel, everything else falls into place.” He cut the philosophy short. “I’ve arranged with some of the men to help us get this load under your roof. I want it done fast, because we’re going to be busy tonight. There’s a meeting.”
There were always meetings, Karel thought. The men went in for meetings with profligacy; the very fact that they could get together openly and raise their voices over a tall glass of thin beer was an inducement.
“I’d like you to attend,” Kravat said.
“Me?” frowned Karel. “I’ve got all those books to read. What kind of meeting is it?”
“Just you and myself and a couple of other men, and Professor Stanek.”
“Stanek—” said Karel.
“He’s been waiting to see you, I told you that. You should have made the effort to visit him. After all, he’s not young, and the Nazis weren’t kind to him, and it wasn’t his doing that they arrested you—”
“That’s not why I kept away from him!” Karel broke in. “I’ve kept away from all of you, and don’t make me feel sorry that—”
“That you came to me?...We don’t force anyone to do anything.”
“Tell me, Kravat—are you trying to bait me with that stuff in the rear of the truck? Because if that’s what you intend, you might as well cart it back, right now!”
Kravat’s face tightened. “I thought I’d made it clear to you that we need a doctor in Rodnik!”
He drove on, wordlessly. When they came into Rodnik, he picked up two workers who were waiting for him, and together the three unloaded the equipment and carried it into Karel’s flat. Karel directed the unloading. Kravat kept whatever was said between them to the task at hand.
The next hours Karel spent in the jumble of his new acquisitions. He pretended to create some order, but was distracted again and again by the dials of the machines, the wires, the shining gadgets. He pricked his finger and smeared a drop of his blood on a slide and looked through the microscope at his corpuscles; he grouped his surgical knives and scissors and pincers on the glass shelves and in the smoothly sliding, narrow drawers of the white steel cabinet; he tried to set up the fluoroscope, but its weight was too much for him; he leafed through some of Dr. Rust’s German volumes, cut many uncut pages, started to read—hateful language, echo of barking Buchenwald guards—and was too restless to settle down to any serious study of the ponderous texts.
In the end, exhausted, he sat down in the big leather easy chair with its yellowed doilies. The room was silent. Rodnik was silent. He did not bother to turn on the electric switch; the still gray around him soothed him. He thought he could sit this way eternally, but after a time the quiet irked him. He wanted to hear voices, laughter, or even the subdued steps of someone moving in the adjoining room. He began to feel as alone as he had felt during the nights in solitary after his arrest by the Germans. He could not return to Kitty and Thomas, not so soon. He played with the idea of a visit to Joseph’s house, but he wouldn’t be able to talk to him; Elinor Simpson would be there. What could he tell her of the newest development in Czech medical science—that it was strongly tinged with piracy?
He went to the cupboard and cut a few slices of bread and unwrapped a smallish lump of cheese and took a shriveled apple from the top shelf. He ate mechanically. Darkness was all around him. He returned to his chair.
He could go to this meeting at Stanek’s house; at least it would stop him from listening to his thoughts pounding against his skull. He’d like to see Stanek now, but Stanek surrounded by people was another matter. And he knew they wanted something of him. They probably wouldn’t come out with it. They’d probably act very busy and serious and disciplined, making him feel bad about not being a part of it, and aping the underground days—though the enemy was long gone from the country, leaving only the scars.
The scars...Out of the darkness crept the memories, the jagged pictures of wounds and broken eyes and pus and slobbering lips and the endless rows of bodies. His head ached, his temples began to hammer. He pressed his fists against them and scoffed at the memories. What a smart trick of his, to pull out the old dreams to keep himself from dreaming better ones!
Yes, he would go to Stanek. He got up and switched on the light. He looked at himself in the mirror, the gaunt face, the gray, straggly hair, the bloodless lips. He coughed, and the sound of it comforted him. Aloud, he said, “Dr. Benda! The hell with the thin skin over the sore of your past!” He brushed the crumbs off his shirt and pants, put on the old American battle jacket, and locked his flat.
Kravat opened the door.
“I see you changed your mind,” he said.
“Yes,” said Karel. “I did.”
The men sat around an old-fashioned table covered by a maroon-colored cloth. A green-shaded lamp hung suspended over the table, casting a mild, even light over their heads.
The Professor had aged. He seemed to have shrunk. He was dressed exactly as Karel remembered him, as if he’d never worn the stripes of the concentration camp. His thin black tie, frazzled at the sides, was knotted around a stiffly starched collar; his pince-nez perched loosely on the permanently inflamed saddle of his nose; a ribbon, dangling down to his vest, kept his glasses from falling to the floor when the quick movements of his head made them slip off.
Karel marveled at him. His trained eyes easily discovered the devastation wrought on the Professor’s body—but the body was making a comeback and was kept going by the man’s will power and a tremendous energy. Stanek’s voice, sometimes breaking, sometimes rising, was the only indication of his effort to remain controlled.
The faces of the other men around the table, even Kravat’s, receded into a dim background. There was no doubt in Karel’s mind that Stanek was the leading spirit here, as he had been in the days of the underground, even though he still, in giving his opinions, added a Don’t you thinly so, too? or, Don’t you agree?
Neither Stanek nor any of the other men present had paid much attention to Karel’s entry.
They had greeted him casually, as one greets someone who was expected and who has been seen frequently on similar occasions. They finished the point they were debating, something about the need for regular courses in basic economy.
Only then Stanek rose, “My dear Karel, let me look at you. I’m very happy to see you alive and well and fit. Welcome—” He appeared to be moved. “Welcome back.”
Karel took the dry old hand. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to see you sooner. I know I should have—”
Stanek picked up a small package that had been lying before him on the table, and presented it to Karel. “We want you to have this,” he said simply.
The men watched Karel eagerly as he broke the string and tore off the wrapping and opened the book and read the dedication page that held all their signatures under the line: To Our Friend.
“Well?” said Kravat.
“Oh, let him be!” said another. “You always want a speech. We gave it to him for keeping his mouth shut, not for making speeches.”
“Thank you, all of you,” said Karel. “I’ll treasure this.”
There was a pause.
Then Kravat said, “The Origin of the Family should be less treasured than read.” It broke the mood.
Stanek said warmly, “I’ve never had the opportunity, Karel, of telling you some of the things I’ve felt. Believe me, I’ve often thought of whether I did the right thing that night, bringing the wounded man to you and exposing you to what happened. Not so much,” he said after a moment, “because of your personal fate, as because your arrest meant a grave loss to the group as it was then constituted. My only excuse is that I thought no one had seen me lead the man to your door. I was wrong in this, it turned out.”
“That’s all so long ago,” said Karel.
“But we must be clear about it,” replied Stanek. The stiff cuffs of his shirt, as they had done before the war, had slipped out of the sleeves of his jacket, and he tapped them back impatiently. “If you still resent us, and you are entitled to that, please say so.”
“I could have shut my door in your face!”
“No,” said Stanek, “that’s no answer. You were in our group and you had to follow orders—besides, as a doctor, you would not have turned away a patient.”
The grinder Otakar Blaha, who was one of the men at the table, shoved his head forward to see Karel better. Karel was conscious of the connection between Stanek’s remark and the fact that Kravat had called on him when Lida had wanted to fire Blaha. He thought: It’s the same pattern....They were again involving him through his profession.
“What’s your answer?” asked Stanek.
“You might give me some credit,” said Karel. “I knew the possible consequences of my decisions. I knew them when I joined you and I knew them when I removed the bullet from the patient....”
Karel became uncomfortable. He was talking in a manner that would make these men accept and trust him. Did he really want that? With all he had done and learned—during his university years, in the underground period, in concentration camp, from Novak, from all sorts of people—where did he really stand, where did he want to go from here?
Stanek had sat down again, but was still glancing at him over the rim of his pince-nez. “Well,” he said, “we must get on. There’s an empty chair. Please, take it.”
Karel gripped the back of the chair. The truth was that he had evaded a full answer to Stanek’s question; he was unfair to the old man, to all of them. “Just why did you want me to come here, tonight?” he demanded.
Stanek smiled at the undertone of aggressiveness. “We want your help, and we think you can help us because, as our doctor, you’re again part of the life of this town. And also we wanted to give you the book.”
They were telling him, and quite openly. He admired Stanek’s frankness, all the more so since he had anticipated shilly-shallying. The Professor’s ethics evidently had stood the trial of the past even better than had the rest of him. Karel couldn’t bring himself to ask: What kind of help do you want me to give?
“Don’t you want to sit down, Karel, and join our discussion? You’ll see soon enough exactly how you can help us.”
Karel obeyed.
“We have to talk about the elections that are coming up this spring. The people will have to elect a Constitutional National Assembly, and it will be the first real test of political strength.”
Winter hadn’t come yet; the Professor was working far ahead, thought Karel. He could see the reason. The present Provisional Assembly meant nothing, it had been hastily convoked, and its composition was arbitrarily fixed by something called the Koshice Agreement which a couple of dozen politicians returning from exile had cooked up.
“So the campaign will be bitter and hard,” Stanek’s words quickened, “bitter and hard, for every one of us. And not just because we’re playing with the number of seats this or that party is going to get. That’s important, but only for what you do with your seats—don’t you think so? The fight will be over nationalization, and over socialism, though of course all the parties will claim they favor both, to some degree.”
“You people will be rowing with the tide, for a change,” said Karel. Nobody reacted. Blaha was staring at his crippled hands; Kravat was supporting his chin on his thumbs, and it was impossible to say whether he had been listening to the whole thing with rapt attention or not at all; the three other workers were thoughtful.
“Socialism...” Stanek almost fondled the word. “Our National Front Government, which grew out of Koshice, has taken some measures in the direction of it. Some measures”—his voice became pitched—“which will be nullified if we don’t show that the people are behind us and want us to push further.”
Always further, frowned Karel, always pushing. And yet they were acting logically.
Stanek had bridled himself and was continuing in an even but somehow loaded tone. “We’ve had a revolution in May, but none of its gains are secured. There’s a smoothness about today’s political surface, but it’s only a surface; underneath are forces at work to take us back to the days of the First Republic, to the exploitation we knew, to mass unemployment, and to the kind of national weakness that led to Munich. That’s how it is, don’t you agree?”
Karel could see that the men were agreeing. He guessed that they had heard similar talks before and that Stanek was trying to convince him. Well, he was convinced. And what now?
“Practically speaking,” said Kravat, “any proposals?”
“We are to suggest a candidate from here,” Stanek informed them. “If approved, he’ll be on the district list of the Party; I don’t know how high up on the list he’ll be, or whether he’ll be elected—that depends on the number of votes we can get. But if we have a local name on the list, it will increase our chances in Rodnik and the surrounding towns and countryside.”
For an instant, the idea flashed through Karel’s mind that they had called him to this meeting because they were going to nominate him. But that was nonsense; he wasn’t even a member of their Party; he’d been out of everything....And he wouldn’t accept if they proposed it. He was no politician, he just wanted to work, look at people’s throats, listen to their heartbeats.
“I’ve been thinking of Franta Kravat,” said Stanek. “He’s a worker, and a good one. He’s known among the workers, not only at Benda, but in the refineries, too, and in other towns nearby. He’s been with us for a long time, he was a leader in the underground period, the Nazis sentenced him to death—what do you men feel about it?”
Kravat still sat as he had been sitting, chin on his thumbs. The others were turning toward him. He looked up and said, “I don’t know....”
Blaha spoke up. “I’ve known Franta Kravat all these years. He’s good in many things. He knows what the people want because he listens to them and has his ear to the ground. But he’s too impetuous.”
“That can be corrected,” said Stanek. “Don’t you think so?”
“Yes—in time,” sai
d Blaha. “But not in time for this campaign. Our candidate—that’s like the man who carries our banner. He can’t march too far ahead of the others.” He blinked nearsightedly and sat back, having had his say.
Meek little Blaha! thought Karel. If he has a crust of bread to eat and potatoes for his kids, it’s thanks to Kravat. And here he goes spoiling Kravat’s chances.
But Kravat seemed to accept the censure. He said heavily, “Blaha is right. I’ve been undisciplined, sometimes. I like to do things on my own hook. And the worst is,” he confessed, “I enjoy it!”
Karel smiled, but the others let the quip pass. Stanek asked, “Well, who else is there? The Party wants an answer, and we can’t submit our private little jokes!”
“I propose you,” said Kravat.
“I’m a funny old man!” said Stanek in his high-pitched tone. “I’m ill! I’ve got a school to take care of, which I’m just starting to reorganize! I’ll probably die before the campaign is over—”
“In that case,” Kravat said coolly, “the next man on the list moves up to your place.”
“You weren’t funny when the Nazis were in Rodnik,” said one of the men.
“We can find schoolteachers,” argued Blaha. “It is more difficult to find leaders.”
“Will you accept if we make it unanimous?” asked Kravat, his hand now flat on the table, determination on his long, horsy face.
Stanek rubbed the inflamed saddle of his nose. “Yes,” he said, “it looks like the only thing to do—” and abruptly, addressing Karel: “You can help us greatly if you give us your support. Will you?”
So that was it! The bluntness embarrassed Karel.
“Not for my sake,” Stanek went on as if he knew that Karel needed time to think, “not as a personal favor. As far as I’m concerned, I hope that up at the district organization they’ll get such a choice of excellent candidate material that they can forget about me. But for the sake of the things we fought for, and so that the men that you and I saw die shouldn’t have died for nothing.”
Stefan Heym Page 12
