Joseph rubbed his sweated hands. It meant all that, and it meant much more. It meant Vesely’s, the last remnant of his family’s holdings, the last line of retreat beyond which there was only abysmal poverty. It meant the mowing down of the sapling so carefully and skilfully nurtured and nursed, and which had responded so well.
“I must build a front,” said Dolezhal, “a front that will hold, a front of everybody who’s not a Communist. And I must use that bill of yours for cement. If we had passed it the other day, and we could have passed it in five minutes, I’d now have one less item to bargain with, one less concession to make to the other parties. I’m going to throw in a whole social program with plenty of bones for everybody to nibble on, so as to keep the essentials we must keep if we want to live. And it’s going to cost us dearly because, God damn it, the rabble here has got into the habit of wanting to control things, and the rabble is what sends politicians into power.”
With a last stab of his hand, Dolezhal had concluded. He looked spent, as if the mere outlining of his tremendous task was a drain. He got up heavily and trudged over to his wife and to the child he would have liked to have.
To Joseph, who had followed him, he said, “You know what we’re fighting for—this child here. I want her to have all the good things in life....Wouldn’t you like to spend a winter on the Riviera, Petra? And the summer at Pupp in Karlsbad? Wouldn’t you like to dance with good-looking, well-educated, and well-behaved young men, and sit in the loge at the opera?...Margot dear, have a bottle of champagne brought in.”
He glanced after his wife, who obediently was hurrying to the door to pull at the bell cord, and shook his head and muttered something to himself. Then, abruptly, to Joseph, “There’s another little concession we’ll have to make. Get rid of those Germans at the Hammer Works, throw out as many as you possibly can, even if it cuts production. Do some house cleaning, and do it fast!”
Joseph, his large feet spread, stood absolutely quiet. At this moment, his feet, his body, himself, were the only reality. Everything else—the room, the rug, the drapes, the heavy furniture, the Minister, his stunted wife, even Petra sitting there—was lost in the sudden recognition that from somewhere a new threat was being set up against him.
And he would have to drink champagne when what he needed was a man-sized, stiff whisky.
CHAPTER TWO
THERE was something odd, something almost unprofessional in Karel’s reaction to the patient. He tried to figure it out as he watched the man slip on his gray woolen shirt and knitted vest. They were the ordinary man’s pieces of clothing, yet to Karel they spelled out Wehrmacht supplies. With sharp suddenness, he recognized his feeling: for so many years he had been in the power of men like the Sudeten German silently busy with his buttons, that the reversal still seemed improbable and daring.
Karel observed the give of the vest over the paunchy stomach. “You’re the last patient today, Ebbing?” he asked.
The man held rigidly to his half-military, half-servile stance. “The last one, yes, sir.” His eyes slid toward the form Karel was filling out. “I beg pardon,” he went on, “but I couldn’t help it if I was late. Mr. Joseph Benda gave orders that this shipment had to go out, and I must check it, every single crate. If I’ve held up the doctor—I mean, it wasn’t my fault—and I hope it won’t make any difference in—” He looked at the form sheet .again, squinting with the effort to read Karel’s notations.
“You may go, Ebbing,” said Karel.
The man’s eyes jumped away from the sheet. “Then, with your kind permission,” he said hastily, “I wish you a Merry Christmas, Dr. Benda.”
“Thank you.”
Karel stared at the back of Ebbing’s neck as the man made for the door. It was a red, sturdy neck, bullish and straight, and it bulged a little over the tight collar. At the door, knob in hand, Ebbing turned. His light-blue pupils trembled in his pink-veined eyes as he said, “If you send me away, Dr. Benda, I’m going to die—” his excitement gave his Czech a German inflection—“die in the gutter somewhere like a mangy dog. And I have family. I’ve lived here in Martinice all my life....”
“With the exception of the time you served in the German Army.”
“Yes, sir,” said Ebbing. “But they discharged me and let me go home, with my ulcers and my bad heart.”
“You gave me your medical history. I’ve examined you.”
“What are you going to report, Dr. Benda?”
“You will be notified.”
The blue eyes hardened in a quick gleam of hate. Then the man was gone. Merry Christmas, indeed. Karel wrote at the bottom of the sheet: O.K. for transfer. He screwed on the top of his fountain pen, clipped it into the breast pocket of his jacket, and began to pack up his instruments.
He disliked his semi-weekly visits to the Hammer Works, and he had come to dislike the last few especially. The SS medics in Buchenwald had restricted themselves to a glance at their victims and a flick of the thumb; he gave a thorough examination to each man on the deportation list, and to every member of the prospective deportee’s family. The SS medics had weeded out the weak and helpless and sent them to their deaths; he made sure that the Germans picked to be shipped to Germany were strong and healthy. And yet, a selection was a selection. He thought of Thomas’s protests of two years ago if they had been heeded, if Martinice had been cleared of Germans then, the heat engendered by war and occupation would still have been strong enough to temper the cool deliberateness which now lent the procedure an outward similarity to the Nazi original. Well, the thing had to be done, better late than never. He rolled up the rubber tubes of his stethoscope, threw it into his bag, and pressed down the clasp.
He heard the door move in its hinges. “Ebbing?” he asked without looking up, “what is it this time?”
“I didn’t know you were still in here,” said Joseph. “I’m sorry.”
Karel spun around, his face flushing. Broad and not at all apologetic, Joseph leaned in the doorway.
“I was just leaving your office, Joseph. I’m finished for the day. I wish Kravat would put some kind of stove in that examination room he gave me. I can’t ask a man to undress in an ice cellar.”
“I know.” Joseph laughed. “Kravat probably assumes I don’t come to Martinice often enough to deserve privacy. Who am I? Only the National Administrator.” He dumped his fur-lined coat over a chair. “Don’t run, Karel, just because I have to stick my head into my work for a moment. I must use the Christmas recess of the Assembly to catch up on details.” He went to the desk Karel had vacated, pulled open a drawer, and then noticed Karel’s report sheets lying on top. “May I have a look?”
“Sure!”
Joseph flipped through the pages, paused at a few names, read Karel’s concluding remarks on each paper. He was as casual about it as about finding his brother using his office; it was the same friendly indifference he displayed whenever they happened to run into one another. It put Karel at a disadvantage. Karel would have much preferred the complete, hostile silence of boycott, or a frank discussion of the clash that had followed Blaha’s death. Some mutual attitude would have been the upshot of such an exchange; but Joseph’s neutrality left everything unsettled.
Joseph handed the papers to Karel. “Petra is home for her vacation,” he said.
“How’s she doing?”
“Fine. Fine, and getting pretty. She’s quite adjusted to Prague and to her boarding school. She’s been pestering me about you—”
“She has?”
“She wants me to invite you for Christmas Eve dinner....Would you come?”
It was a dry question—a polite request for information.
“Thomas and Kitty are coming,” Joseph added.
Karel shoved the papers into a large envelope and rolled it into his coat pocket. He had hoped that Kitty would ask him to spend Christmas Eve on St. Nepomuk. But it had been a faint hope only. He had kept away from her and Thomas more often than not, over the year; there was n
o reason to expect the invitation.
“I’m afraid, Joseph, it might be a very uncomfortable evening, all around.”
“It might be, at that.” Joseph nodded amicably. “It’s really a shame. On Christmas Eve.”
No sentimental appeal to family feeling, just a factual statement of objective regret. Karel felt it keenly.
Joseph didn’t pursue the subject. He pointed at the envelope sticking out of Karel’s pocket, “By the way—are you sure about Ebbing? The man is ill; all you have to do is look at that puffy face. He told me that even the Wehrmacht doctor decided he was unfit for service—and the German Army wasn’t so choosy about what cripples wore its glorious uniform.”
Karel, smiling briefly at the crack, stated: “The man’s heart is as good as yours, probably, and certainly better than mine. His blood pressure is too high—but that’s because he’s too fat. I don’t know how he manages to stuff himself....”
Joseph was vaguely disturbed. If ever I should get really sick, he thought, God grant that I’m in Prague where I can find a doctor who doesn’t go in for snap diagnoses.
“As for his ulcers,” Karel continued, “I went so far as to feed him barium and have him come to Rodnik for an X-ray of his stomach. Negative. There was some blood in his stool. So I didn’t look at his face, as you suggested; I examined the other end. His hemorrhoids may be a little painful on the ride to Germany—but that’s all.”
Joseph guffawed. “I’ll admit he’s as obnoxious as they come.”
“Are you interested in keeping the fellow?”
Joseph raised his heavy lids. His mind had been occupied with Lida and with the trouble that was bound to develop in the raw glass shipments to her subcontractors if Ebbing was deported. “What were you saying, Karel?”
“I asked you if you needed the man particularly.”
Karel’s pleasantly impersonal tone sounded too reasonable to be true.
“Well, Doctor, it’s like this,” Joseph bantered carefully. “I’ve agreed to get rid of most of the Germans at Hammer because I don’t want difficulties with your friends. They feel they can replace the Germans with Czechs; swell it’s about time, and I’m very happy about it. I don’t care who blows my glass. But another Ebbing is very hard to find—he heads the shipping department here, he knows all the routes, all the regulations, all the customers and how they want their stuff shipped and packed; without him, there will be six months of mess which it’ll take six more months to clear up.
Maybe not twice six months, thought Karel. Maybe a month or two. It was too much to-do about a paunchy German shipping clerk with a red neck. He was disagreeably aware of Joseph’s searching glance. Ill-humoredly he said, “You might bring up your point when it comes to the signing of the transfer orders. Whichever authorities do the deciding will listen to you.”
“But you could save me the run-around. I may be back in Prague by then, and—”
Karel frowned. “I hear he was a Nazi, too.”
“Of course he was! They all were.”
“No, they weren’t, quite. I know from Kravat that all Hammer employees were screened and that we’re keeping the few decent ones. Let’s call him in; let’s ask him about Ebbing! If the man is that indispensable, Kravat should be just as much in favor of holding him as you are.”
“Oh, don’t bother....” Joseph waved him off tiredly. “I’ll settle it some way.”
“Anything else?”
“No—” Joseph hesitated. “Well, yes....Think about that Christmas Eve business, Karel. Because of Petra.” It was a feeble effort, and Karel could guess that his brother made it only because dropping the matter completely would have looked awkward.
A large Christmas tree was set up in the yard of the Benda Works, with blue and yellow and red electric bulbs and silver tinsel and glass balls and bells of garish hue and with a golden-winged angel swaying at the very top. It was Joseph’s project, and he had paid for it out of his own pocket. The Works Council had dipped into its special fund to buy small presents and candies for the children of the workers.
In the afternoon it had snowed, and some of the snow clung to the tree. After dark, when its lights were turned on and when the harsh outlines of the buildings receded into soft shadows, the tree’s splendor transformed the drab yard into a festive square. It highlighted the faces of the children ringing it, their shining eyes, their scrubbed cheeks, and their open lips from which the breath rose in short, thin clouds. It cast occasional flecks of color on the darker frame of grownups beyond. It shed a mild gleam over the mellow face of the Reverend Trnka as he raised his hands to conduct the chorus:
Born this day is Christ our Lord!
The melody, the children’s voices, went to Karel’s heart. It was like listening to the far-off sounds of his own childhood. He felt a twinge of loneliness. Standing here among these men for whom he worked and with whom he shared the Christmas tree and the children’s faith, he felt lonely. Oh, there had been a good number of them who had asked him to spend this evening at their homes; they were thoughtful and kind, and there was no real need for him to suffer from lack of company if he wanted it.
Let us then be joyful...
But he was no integral part of anything, not of his family, nor of the people whose soft humming hovered below the children’s sopranos and enveloped him. Except for what there was of his medical knowledge and skill, he might be dead, and no one would be the poorer. At any other time, he could have shrugged off this sense of aloneness; the year had been full, his days so crowded with work, his nights so dead with fatigue, that there had been hardly an opportunity for private emotions; but at this hour it hit him.
From the rose a rosebud grew...
On the opposite side of the tree stood Joseph, his arm around Petra. Lida, hugging the collar of her fur coat to her neck, was moving her lips in the words of the carol. Thomas, bareheaded, was holding Kitty’s hand. Karel smiled. Was it the mood of this night, or the light brushing over Thomas’s features? Karel found him incredibly young and at peace. Their eyes met. Thomas said a few words to Kitty, and both of them looked up. Karel saw their hands rise in a silent Christmas greeting to him.
Let our hearts rejoice!
The carol was over. Several men from the Works Council, their arms bulging with packages, moved into place in front of the tree. The children, one by one, stepped up to receive their gifts and to say thank you. They were quiet and shy; the spell of the tree and the music was not yet broken. Joseph was gone from Lida’s side, had disappeared between the people or in the sections of the yard not reached by the lights of the tree. Karel readied himself for a sonorous “Merry Christmas!” from his brother, and for his own reply which would contain an equal dose of cheer. But when he discovered Joseph again, the deputy was walking along the queue of children, tapping some on the cheeks, asking others what they wished from the Christ Child. Karel turned away from the tree and the handing out of the gifts and Joseph’s goodwill tour.
This was his chance to go over to Kitty and Thomas. But he didn’t. Instead, he went to the deserted space before the large table holding a miniature Nativity which had been built by some of the Benda workers. He tried to concentrate on the display. It was naïve and heart-warming. A flatly painted oriental town formed the backdrop, with cut-out minarets and cupolas and stone huts on vineyard-covered hills. A star with an orange tail pointing at the stable in the foreground hung suspended from a wire. The Holy Three Kings rode in from the left on stiff-legged camels; the Moor bringing up the rear wore a green turban of real silk. The shepherds knelt next to the oxen and the ass; the Biblical Joseph, frowning over the excitement, or the question of doubtful paternity, stroked his white beard, and his head was cocked toward the manger. Mary, the young Mother, was raising her hands as if in amazement over the Miracle Child—who, quite a little giant, filled the manger and stretched His fat arms toward the audience and took the heavy gold of His halo very much in His stride.
Karel felt a hand nestle its
elf into the crook of his elbow.
“Uncle Karel...” It was a small voice. “I love you still.”
The quietly burning candles cast their rays from the hills of Bethlehem over Petra’s soft hair and left tiny specks of reflection in her eyes.
“Bless you,” he said, “and a Merry Christmas.”
“I saw you all alone—” she began again.
“Thank you for coming.” He glanced at her serious, avid little face, so full of concern, not quite mature, and yet no longer a child’s. Then he shook off his mood. “Alone?—I couldn’t get to see the Nativity before—too much of a crowd here...I have a present for you. I want to bring it around to you one of these days.”
“Why not tonight?” she smiled.
“Did your father send you, Petra?”
“Oh, no!” If she was hurt, she forgot it immediately. “What are you going to give me?”
“It’s supposed to be a surprise!”
“I’ve got something for you, too, but I won’t tell you what it is if you don’t tell me....” She was tugging at him. “You’ve seen enough of this, come on! We’re driving home right after the last carol, my father said, and there’ll be a cake with real whipped cream!”
Her eagerness was infectious. My God, he thought, if all men tried to escape tensions by shutting themselves off in their caves, we’d still be in the Stone Age. He allowed himself to be dragged along to Kitty and Thomas and Lida, and to Joseph who had joined them again. He managed to make his approach appear random, saying to Petra, “Remember how much you wanted to grow up? You see, it happened by itself...” and timing the remark so that it came within earshot of Lida and could be concluded with, “You can be very proud of your daughter.”
“You think so?” Lida answered promptly. “I hope what you say of her has more basis in fact than what you’ve said about other people.”
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