Stefan Heym

by The Eyes of Reason

  Yet, a trace of suspicion remained on his face. It deepened as Thomas left him and as he heard Elinor query Karel, “And for whom will you vote, Doctor, if it’s no secret?”

  Karel had been trying to talk to Petra, without success, and had fallen to a silent contemplation of her morose expression.

  “Pardon, Miss Simpson?”

  “For whom will you vote?”

  “In our country, Miss Simpson, the vote is secret.”

  “Ah,” she said, “so you’re not voting for your brother?”

  “Next!” called an election official.

  “Excuse me,” said Karel and went to the curtain. He encountered Kitty on her way out and stepped aside to avoid touching her.

  Selecting the ballot of his choice took him no more than a few seconds. His hair brushed against the top part of the curtain as he ducked out of the improvised voting booth. Irked, he smoothed it back.

  “Well!” Joseph exclaimed, “the family seems to have done its duty!” Nudging Karel genially, he said under his breath, “Whom did you vote for, really?”

  Karel thought of the goulash soup, of Joseph’s ambitions which were becoming all too plain—but also of Joseph coming to meet him in Prague, of Joseph’s inept attempts to make Petra or anyone love him.

  “Do you honestly want to know, Joseph?”

  “Certainly!”

  Joseph was leading with his chin. Or was he unable to conceive that circumstances could arise under which brother would not support brother? Karel said, “I’d rather not tell you—”

  “I insist!”

  “I voted for Stanek.”

  Joseph turned away sharply. He heard Lida bid Karel a frosty Good-by, heard Karel leave, and, far in the background, the low murmur of the election business going on. Then he gathered up Petra. It was his public voice which announced, “In a few years from now, Petra darling, you’ll be able to vote for me, too!”

  Perhaps it was this remark, meant as a joke and falling like a dud, which decided Thomas to remain at Joseph’s side. The subsequent rushing about kept him from determining which was the predominant one among the various motives whose sum total caused him to endure a full day of Elinor’s and Lida’s company. It could have been that Joseph, fighting under pressure and against odds, lost some of the self-centered, self-imagined giant’s aura, and that this kindled in Thomas a flickering of the old attachment to his brother; it could have been that Karel’s bold desertion from the family, for which Thomas had not had the courage, drove him to seek justification for his own wavering; or simply that he felt a desire to balance the previous evening with Stanek by a day with Joseph.

  He told Joseph, “If you’ve got room in your car, I’d like to come along—as an observer. Practical test, you know”—he laughed—“of my abstract ideas.”

  Joseph welcomed him frankly, accepting the rationale without question. He restacked the party pamphlets with which the car was loaded, so that the auxiliary seats could be opened for Thomas and Kitty; Petra rode with him in front, her discomfort increased by having half a dozen big bundles under her feet; Lida and Elinor held the rear seat like a fortress walled by last-minute election material.

  So they set out, from town to village to town. Thomas couldn’t help being impressed by Joseph’s stubborn pluck—Joseph was trying to rally support by his presence, giving encouragement to his party workers with a few well-chosen words, exerting the power of his personality to cement morale, leaving the packages of campaign literature with the local leaders, appealing, handshaking, cajoling, being witty, keeping up a front.

  Outside of Rodnik, Joseph’s personal influence was needed. The organizational weight of his opponents could be felt almost physically. The welcomes he received from the people on the street were thinner and less cordial, the crowds less receptive, the faces less friendly. There could be no doubt that the Communists were the better and more experienced organizers; they had built their campaign around issues rather than personalities. The weakness of Stanek as a spellbinder became his strength when his principles were stated not by himself in his lecturing way, but in simple terms by a man’s neighbor or fellow worker. Joseph’s and Dolezhal’s party organization, based mostly on sugar bakers and tailors and grocery shop owners and post officials and small-town lawyers, lacked the cohesiveness and punch of the Communists’. The Communist machine, elections or no, kept its wheels greased and running by its year-around activities inside the trade unions, the civic centers, the factories. Its members had sucked in the lessons of collective action with the milk flowing meagerly from the thin breasts of their mothers.

  This was the situation as Joseph explained it between stops. That Joseph could be so calm and sober and coolly analytical on this day of reckoning, when Thomas had expected him to be fidgety and upset, changed the pigeon dirt of which his feet allegedly consisted to pretty solid stuff.

  “In the villages, of course,” Joseph said, “it will be different from the towns with their glass factories and textile mills. The defeat of the Nazis and the land reform gave many of these peasants a piece of ground. Now they’re deathly afraid that the Communists will take it away again, as in Russia, and communize the land and the cattle and the women and everything.”

  He snorted.

  “I wish there were as many farmers as there are workers.”

  They stopped in a number of villages. Elinor went to look at the polling places which were mostly inside pubs. The aged wood of their deserted bars shone dark and warm in the sunlight filtering through the small windows; the planked floors were white from sand and scrubbing.

  Joseph had a way with the tongue-tied farmers and their wives. Despite his citified clothes, he could look like a peasant, himself, and with him they opened up and told him of their troubles and their fears, and he didn’t even have to make promises to them. He was simply himself and seemed to be glad of it, Thomas noted; the farmers did not want to let him go, and it took Lida to keep him to his schedule.

  In the early afternoon, they arrived in Limberk. At the office of his Party, across the square from the city hall, Joseph and his entourage were received with optimistic smiles and glad handshakes. After listening to his report of his tour of inspection and stimulation, the ward heelers became somewhat less ebullient and pointed out carefully that, even with a good vote in Limberk and Rodnik and in the villages, it would take a lot of effort to get three candidates elected from this district.

  Thomas observed his brother. Joseph’s broad face remained thoughtful, but serene; he said no more to the ward heelers—instead, he went to the door, asked in the newsmen who had been waiting outside the inner office, and made to them the unqualified statement that he would be elected and that his Party would roll up a decisive victory in the Limberk district and throughout the country.

  Then he led the way back to his car. At the corner next to the Party Headquarters, he saw the billboard pillar. He halted. He called to the reporters from whom he had just parted and, winking at Elinor, said, “Gentlemen—I want to pose for a picture.” He placed himself squarely in front of the poster with the pig-faced capitalist, overrode the hesitation of the photographer with a guffaw, and ordered, “Shoot!”

  “But, sir!”

  “I want it that way. If I win, they will look ridiculous; if I lose, what more can I lose?”

  It was a good show of defiance. Thomas, with his sense for the dramatic, enjoyed it to the full, felt outgoing, and included Elinor in his remark, “He’s got imagination, hasn’t he?”

  Elinor ignored him, as she had through most of the trip, and said loudly: “I want a copy of the picture! It’ll be sensational in the Sunday section.”

  As the evening wore on, it was Lida who kept everybody going. She’s like a pack mule, thought Thomas; the rest of us are ready to fall on our faces.

  Lida unflaggingly served drinks and refreshments to the party workers dropping over from their Rodnik headquarters to report to Joseph. She talked to them when Joseph lapsed into dep
ressed silence. And as she had trimmed and pruned and tied down Joseph’s hopes in the morning, so now she was nursing his wilting belief in himself and his success.

  The first local returns from Rodnik had been excellent. Joseph and his Party were running slightly ahead of Stanek and the Communists, better than expected. But as the figures from the workers’ quarters came in, the lead shrunk and Stanek nosed ahead—in Joseph’s own bailiwick!

  Petra sat on a stool next to the radio, a vicious imp with a grin on her face. Joseph had wanted to send her to bed, but Elinor and Kitty objected—how often in the child’s life was her father a candidate for so high an office? Thomas was conscious of the antagonism between father and child; it didn’t concern him and he dismissed it as trivial. The spirit of a race, implicit in any election, began to get hold of him as the national results at first trickled and later poured out of the radio. On the basis of preliminary calculations, so the announcer said, it would take some twenty-four thousand votes to seat one member of the Assembly. With not quite 15 per cent of the vote counted in the Limberk district by 8:30 at night, it looked as if Dolezhal’s Party would be able to seat two men from there.

  Joseph was the third. Petra wiggled on her stool. She was saying nothing, but her large eyes gleamed.

  Kitty called to her, “Sit over here on the sofa with me!” She took Petra’s cold and clammy hands in her own. “Don’t take it to heart, Petra! Your father will win yet!”

  Petra broke into a strident laugh.

  “In another half-hour, you will go to bed!” Lida declared. But she was immediately distracted by the arrival of a group of men bringing new returns. The villages surrounding Rodnik were coming through, and Joseph’s Party was again leading by a slim margin.

  Joseph was chain smoking. The ash tray next to him was crowded with butts. Elinor said she was positive that the Communists had pulled off something. If she were able to speak the language and mix with the people, she was sure she would have the evidence. Joseph was tiredly fending her off.

  “You would have won, if it weren’t for that!” she cried.

  “He will win,” Lida said firmly. Her eyes were steely, and Thomas knew she was furious.

  He pitied Joseph profoundly. For his brother’s sake, he wished that Joseph had never entered the race; and he feared for himself, for his essay—there would be a night, sometime, when he would be just as alone, having staked everything on one effort, and, like Joseph, would be waiting for a decision over which he had no influence.

  The reports were coming in fast now, partly over the radio, partly from the messengers. Joseph had a pad of paper on his lap, and was computing tallies and scores. He did not announce his results. Twice already he had walked to the telephone and lifted the receiver, only to place it back, softly, on its cradle. Now he called Prague.

  A hush fell over the crowded room.

  “Minister Dolezhal?”

  Joseph stubbed out his cigarette.

  “All right—” he said. “So you are satisfied?...Fine, we’re doing fine here, too.”

  But his tone belied his words.

  “Thank you....I will call you back if anything surprising should happen....You will call me?...Very good, sir....Good night, sir....”

  He went back to his chair. His face was set, and he said sharply, “For the last time, Petra! You go to bed!” Thomas could see what effort it was for him to keep his eyes and his lips under control.

  The voice over the radio broke in:

  At 10:30 at night, with approximately 35 per cent of the vote counted, it is fairly certain that the Limberk district has elected Minister Bohumil Dolezhal and one additional candidate on his slate. There might be, however, a considerable number of votes left over, which will be apportioned to another candidate.

  Petra smiled and kissed Kitty and Thomas good night. Then, like a well-bred child, she tripped over to her father and kissed him on the cheek. Lida grabbed her hand and took her out of the room.

  By eleven o’clock, the party workers ceased coming. They were tired after a long day; most of the Rodnik votes had been counted, and Joseph was no longer of importance.

  Elinor yawned. “Well, Thomas, you’ve demonstrated your loyalty. Now you can drop it and go home.”

  Thomas made no move. After a while, he said gently, “Joseph, remember those nights in January 1939? Remember how we sat and listened to the radio and waited and hoped—”

  “The farm vote,” said Joseph; “that will be coming in all night.”

  Lida had returned. She was cleaning up the debris the party workers had left—glasses with dregs of stale beer, empty coffee cups, plates with crumbs and smeared traces of chocolate icing.

  Kitty got up to help her.

  “Thank you, don’t,” said Lida. “I manage better alone. The maid’s in the kitchen, anyhow.”

  “The farm vote,” said Joseph, “and certain precincts in Limberk.” He stopped himself. “This is crazy! What am I doing? Why am I eating my heart out?”

  “You will win!” Lida said quietly. “I know it.”

  Kitty was thinking of Karel. Where was he sitting now? Where was he listening to the radio? Alone, at home, at the wax-cloth-covered table? Or with Stanek and Kravat and others of their kind? It was wrong of her to think of Karel at this moment; it was wrong of Karel not to be here. Whatever he felt politically—at this hour, his place was here, with the family. Her body ached and her head ached. Everything was wrong.

  At 11:30, the announcer’s voice said unemotionally, the Communists in the Limberk district have elected three deputies...

  “That means Stanek is in,” said Joseph. “Comfortably.”

  Thomas dried his moist palms on his handkerchief. And I had him at the house last night, he thought. It was disloyal. Elinor is right.

  “Stanek?” asked Elinor.

  “Has been elected,” said Joseph.

  “That’s the proof!” she asserted. “Who would vote for that fuddlehead?”

  Joseph stood up, the shadows of weariness purple under his eyes. He looked from Thomas and Kitty to Elinor and to his wife. “You’ve been very helpful to me, all day and all evening. It was a hard day, and so I’m going to send you to bed.”

  There was protest from Kitty, from Lida.

  “I want to be alone—don’t you understand?”

  The last Thomas saw of him, he was sitting, bent forward, jotting figures on the pad on his knee, his square head outlined by the rays of his reading lamp.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “AND I TELL you, I forbid it!” said Karel. “Even if my brother has ordered it—I am the doctor! I forbid it!”

  Kravat stood facing him, shapeless and heavy in pullovers, an old Army greatcoat, and sackcloth drenched in kaolin. He stared at Karel with inflamed eyes. His gloved hand moved down the shawl he had twisted over his nose, chin, and throat, “What do you want here? This isn’t your day at the Works!”

  “I just heard of this madness. Where’s your sense, man! It’s more than three hundred centigrade inside that furnace—”

  Karel stopped. Out of the manhole that had been broken under the platform into the furnace, a worker came creeping. His face was invisible behind its burlap mask, only his eyes, red and strained, looked up at Karel. Two other men helped him to his feet. The layers of cloth around him could not hide the heaving of his chest. For a couple of seconds, the man stood still; then, dazed and encumbered by his gear, he moved off to one side, his hands still clutching a large, thickly encrusted black brick.

  Karel hurried after him. It was as if in his mind a strip of motion pictures were being reeled off backwards: the manhole, the silent furnace, the lumps of patient men, combined in a harrowing image.

  The worker, suddenly regaining his full senses, dropped the brick, and a dull laugh sounded from under his wrappings.

  “Your hands!” said Karel.

  The man held them out.

  Karel stripped off the two pairs of gloves and felt the worker’s pulse.
His eyes narrowed.

  A group of men, each one a ragpicker’s dream in his numerous casings of ancient winter clothes, had lumbered up and gathered around Karel and the worker.

  Kravat was calling sharply, “What’s going on over there! I want none of that horsing around today! The quicker we work, the quicker we’ll be through!”

  Karel broke his way through the circle surrounding him and marched back to Kravat. He was loaded with anger. Joseph had pulled another fast one. But how had Joseph got Kravat and all these men, who knew what this job meant, to agree? Why were they taking chances when they could just as well wait a few days and repair the furnace in safety?

  Kravat had pushed his wool cap off his head and looked a little like a deep-sea diver without helmet. Joined by the furnace foreman, he awaited Karel with a thin smile around his grimy mouth.

  “The pulse was all right?” he asked.

  “No, it was not,” said Karel.

  The smile vanished; Kravat appeared troubled.

  Karel let loose. “You could have had the decency to tell me you were planning this! But you were afraid I’d stop it. And I’m going to!”

  “You’ve been around the glass industry!” Kravat defended himself. “You know we do these things—”

  “Yes, I know,” said Karel. The harrowing image spread beyond the furnace and the men, and extended to a black tail coat and himself cutting into it, tearing it into shreds. “Old Matjey...” he mumbled.

  “Did you say something?”

  Karel collected himself. “I mean—perhaps those methods were necessary when you had a boss who drove you because he lost profits every day the furnace was shut down. All I want to find out is: Who is responsible for this? Joseph? Or you?”

  “We need production just as much as when there was a boss around,” Kravat said uncertainly. Had Joseph roped him into this, after all? No—he, himself, had pushed for the quick and dangerous method. Dangerous? Nonsense! A man went into the furnace and held his breath and stayed a few seconds, ripped out one of the damaged bricks, and came out again. Nothing to it!