by Pavel Kohout
"You're the best, Buback, because you never wake me or pressure me...
She made up for their lovemaking hours with a sleep that was strenuous in its intensity, while he thanked his age and military training for keeping him alert during the day. Today, however, after her midnight snack, she did not take him into her arms again.
"Let's be good tonight," she decided. "Tomorrow I want to be a widow that shark will sense from halfway across Prague!"
When a Werkschutzer ordered him to report immediately to the building director, he was rattled. Was it a trap? Would they be waiting for him? The fat man with a pistol under his paunch, however, showed no inclination to accompany him upstairs, and as he went up the service staircase his pulse surprisingly slowed. He was all the more devastated when Marek—as always, without even a greeting or an introduction—thrust a new task at him.
"The Luftschutz has decided to enlarge our shelter, in case there are more air raids on Plzeh. See that it's taken care of."
"Who's it for? We're not even open; there's room for all the staff as is."
The theater had been closed for two years now. The actors were weaving bast wrappings for grenades, the stagehands had been conscripted in the Totaleinsatz mobilization and only a half dozen rejects and cripples were left to ensure that the building did not leak, the pipes did not burst, and the sets and costumes were not eaten by moths before better times came. He was one of those who stayed, partly thanks to his old head wound, but also because he was skilled and extraordinarily intelligent for an ordinary laborer.
"They say there may be fighting in Plzen, so we need a public shelter for three hundred people. Get a team together and clear it out."
He could only think of one thing.
Where will i put my souls?
"Can we leave at least a few lumps of ice down there? Once it gets warmer the beer'11 be swill."
For a year now the theater canteen had been open to the public, partially offsetting the lack of ticket receipts. Pensioners especially were lured by the chance of getting some horsemeat stew alongside their still passable pilsner without needing to dig into their meager ration coupons. Marek dismissed the suggestion with a wave of his hand.
"I've tried that already, of course. They just said that starting Monday they'll take ten thousand for each day we delay. And what's more, they could imprison me for sabotage. So beer or no beer, take it out to the canal-side courtyard."
Four days left until Monday. And he had no time tomorrow. Tomorrow makes a week! An idea came to him in his hour of need.
"Easy as one, two, three! Before then I'll try to visit a couple of pubs, see if someone'll buy it from us. If not, we'll do the job Sunday."
By then there'll be a sixth one! And he'd have time to think where to put them. He willed Marek to nod.
"Fine, try it. But on Monday the cellar'd better be empty and clean as a whistle—it's up to you, you hear?"
Without even a dismissal his boss bent back over his files.
Cheapskate, he thought on his way out. If only you knew! Still, he was grateful the man had unknowingly given him the opportunity to disappear the whole next day. He'd forget about buyers for the ice, take two slabs back to his own cellar, and secure his treasures for at least another two months.
He realized that the sixth one was still beating in some sinner's breast, and broke out in an excited sweat at the thought:
This time tomorrow it will be mine!
What should he go as? He remembered the Werkschutzer.
But wasn't it time to change cemeteries? Through the veil of years he saw her showing him the graves of their national heroes. Someday you'll lie here, my little Tony, respected by our whole nation.... Well, maybe one more time!
Slowly but surely Morava calmed down. Jitka had three shifts behind her already, as they'd had to note in their record book, during which she made the trip from Vysehrad to Kavci Hory seven times. Buback's girlfriend had alternated with her; she'd played the bait (as she called it) four times all told.
Neither the women nor their guards had noticed even the slightest sign of interest. The men appearing at the cemetery were for the most part older widowers; many they recognized after a couple of days as regular visitors of their wives' graves.
One day, a hale and hearty forty-year-old newcomer caused a commotion. He was so evidently interested in Jitka that all three watchers simultaneously latched onto him as he traipsed behind the girl at a dangerously short remove. Sebesta, who was in charge in an emergency, finally decided there was no danger of attack just yet if the perpetrator was after his usual goal.
The man, who politely addressed Jitka after a short while, turned out to be a stonemason from Kolin near Prague who was looking for customers. He had noticed, he explained, that her grave lacked a fitting stone; he had a wide assortment at home and would give her a good price. He showed no interest in accompanying her back, but just to be sure they brought him in and, with Morava's aid, presented the horrified man to the caretaker on the embankment. The old man was surprisingly sure that he had never seen the stonemason, and later the suspect produced airtight alibis for all the dates in question.
Five unsuccessful days brought nonetheless one encouraging result: The five policemen—three on the street and two in the house—calmed down and learned to work together.
"If he makes a move, we've got him," Morava announced cautiously to Beran, who had requested a report each time "the hook was cast," as he said.
"Just so you don't get too comfortable," he said to Morava, explaining his unwearying interest in the operation. "I have to keep reminding you that he'll appear right when your attention wanders. And Morava: I assume you're following the rules just as strictly when the German woman's on shift."
He saw the red seep into the adjunct's face, and immediately soothed him.
"Forgive me; that was out of place. At least you see that even old age is no guarantee against stupidity. I was thinking about her disadvantage, not knowing Czech."
Of course, Morava took the warning seriously enough to visit Bu-back again about Marleen Baumann.
"Thank you for your consideration," the German said. "Grete— that's her real name, by the way—is aware of the problem. In an emergency she'll rely on voice intonation to figure out what's happening. She thinks she's quick enough to manage it."
"Please tell her that I admire her. We'd like—my fiancee and I—to invite her—and you too, of course—to dinner sometime...."
What am I saying, he wondered belatedly.
Buback could not conceal his surprise.
"Aren't Germans risky guests for you these days?"
"Well yes, that's true ...," Buback had said exactly what Morava was thinking, but the Czech's resolve did not fail him. "Except since they're both putting their lives on the line, they should get to know each other a bit. And we're part of it as well...."
"I'll pass it on," Buback said after a short pause. "In any case, thank you again. By the way, she's quite fond of your fiancee ... as am I...."
Then his eyes slid quickly to his watch.
Will you excuse me? I still have some work to do. Grete is on duty at the cemetery tomorrow and Sunday; would some time after that suit you?"
"I'll pass it on," Morava repeated, for a change.
They parted with a hearty handshake. What had caused this shift, he wondered on his way back to the office. The two women, he realized; mine and his. Strange, very strange. Can ordinary human sympathy really scale these moats and barriers?
With this thought fresh in his mind he went to see Jitka. Beran was at another senseless meeting with Rajner and had sent her home, saying she had done her share. Jitka, however, refused to see her "two spring strolls" as a full day's work.
"I wouldn't be doing myself any favors, anyway," she explained to the superintendent. "You'd make such a mess of the paperwork that I'd have to come in Sundays to sort things out."
When she heard Morava's embarrassed confession how in h
er name he invited Buback and Grete to her house, she was quick to respond.
"They're the enemy, no doubt about that. Their nation has caused mankind so much suffering that they have to accept part of the blame. But in a couple of months they'll be defeated, and there'll still be fifty million of them. And what then? My papa once tried to imagine how he'd behave if he met a German on the street after the war. 'Out of my way, German,' he wanted to say; 'sidewalks are for human beings.' I don't believe he's changed, even after what just happened to him. Now, I don't know about Buback—by the way, he's started to behave quite decently—but his Grete doesn't seem to have anything in common with the Nazis other than their German ancestry."
"Except people"—he could not help saying it—"might say we're collaborators."
"Yes." She nodded seriously. "And after all, it's possible they both have other motives, like he said." She pointed toward Beran's office. "But what if they're just people who have finally come to their senses? What if they're seriously trying to atone for their sins? Should we reject them just because we're afraid of being slandered or mistakenly fingered? We'll just watch what we say."
From the hallway Superintendent Hlavaty stepped in. A couple of years earlier he had been one of Morava's first instructors. His department was theft, and he was the bane of Prague's pickpockets.
"Hello, Jitka; hello, Morava," he addressed them both before turning to the detective. "Why do you keep shoving that stolen saint at me? The picture was returned a long time ago and criminal charges retracted."
"Sorry about that," Morava said guiltily. "I didn't know what to do with it, and the priest had written twice already...."
"He didn't get your announcement, by any chance? I mean the description of that deviant?"
"We did send it to priests." Jitka now turned to Morava as well.
He still could not see the point.
"But what does it have in common with—"
"I had no idea"—Hlavaty winked at him, as if preparing him for an excellent joke—"so I had a word with my experts. The Romans supposedly disemboweled Saint Reparata alive, and cut off her head and breasts. Her heart, however, escaped in the shape of a white dove."
"Oh my God ...," Morava breathed. "Oh my God!"
Before leaving for home with Jitka, he first called the emergency number Buback had given him. He left a message for the German that a fresh trail had been found, and Assistant Detective Morava would be waiting the next morning to hear when and where to pick him up.
In the house at Kavci Hory he heated pots of water for Jitka's bath. When he had poured the fifth and last one into the battered enamel tub, he retired to the kitchen while Jitka undressed and plunged in; with the exception of the moment when she had asked to bear his child, she was still too shy to be naked around him.
Afterward he brought in the kitchen stool and sat down, half turned away from her. They decided to put off the wedding, gossip or no gossip, until this hunt—and maybe even the war itself—was over, and then they dreamed together in a confidential half-whisper of the things that awaited them in ten, twenty, and many more years. For a short while neither the monstrous murderer nor the fiery steam-roller of war that had separated them from their loved ones (may the Lord protect them) could threaten them.
They prayed once more together, aloud, for themselves, their family, and their child who was there with them. In their attic bed their conversation gradually slackened and grew quieter, until, overcome by fatigue and hopes, they fell asleep in each others' arms almost simultaneously, he with his chin in her hair, she as if nursing, her mouth at his breast.
A hillock with a church, rectory, and cemetery hid the market town of Klasterec from their view, bulging out of the north Bohemian plain as if it had been artistically inserted there to soften the dramatic backdrop of extinct volcano cones. The parish priest and his cook, an older woman, seemed to step right from the pages of a color calendar, from their rounded bellies to their rosy cheeks. He was close to sixty and spoke passable German; Morava did not have to translate.
The two policemen wanted to see the picture first. The priest unlocked the church with a large key, drawing it forth from his cassock, where it hung around his neck. God's tabernacle in Klasterec was not especially beautiful or luxurious and spoke of a land neither wealthy nor pious. The only adornments on the walls were the Stations of the Cross, garishly cheap and vulgar in execution. Seeing their searching glances, the priest explained that they would find Saint Reparata in the sacristy.
"It's the only valuable item we have, but it hung there even before it was temporarily lost. Right after the death of the baron who bequeathed it to us, some of the parents requested we hang it where their children wouldn't see it."
They understood as soon as they saw the picture. The baroque painter had rendered in oil with shocking accuracy what Superintendent Beran had scrupled to show the public at large. In front of them was essentially the same altar of death the widow killer left at the scene of the crime, albeit with a classical backdrop. The tortured saint had both breasts cut off and her intestines were being wound on a windlass. The artist had added to this a snow-white dove flying from the bloody wound below the severed head.
Morava's eyes met Buback's in mute awe. The explanation was here in front of them. They would need the priest, however, to interpret it for them.
"Father," Morava began, once the vicar had poured them some quite decent coffee back at the rectory and it was clear the German was letting him take the initiative, "I apologize for not understanding your message right away. I'm not a Catholic, and the point of it escaped me. It's highly probable that the man who has so far tortured six women to death was inspired by this work. You wrote us that it was lost and then returned; please tell us more about this."
The old man had seemed quite eager when he first saw them, but now he seemed equally hesitant. His hands were folded; the balls of his fingers pressed against his knuckles until his nails and skin turned white.
"The theft occurred before the war ... if you can call it a theft. When the man in question returned the picture personally, he asked me to believe he'd only borrowed it."
"Which man in question?" Morava asked almost casually.
The priest did not fall for the snare.
"If you'd permit me, I'd like to describe the whole episode for you first...."
Morava nodded, even though it required superhuman self-restraint to put off the moment when they would learn the man's name.
"I knew him because—" The priest once again halted and looked for the right words. "Well, let's just say I knew him well. He was a brave and pious man who had one single but fundamental problem: He could never escape the clutches of his domineering mother. His father—her partner—left her before he was born. What hurt her most of all was that he took up with a much older widow."
Yes! Morava was already sure: It's our man! He glanced fleetingly at the German, but Buback still wore the impersonal mask of disinterested officialdom.
"I'm not an expert on women's minds"—the priest opened his childishly chubby hands apologetically—"but from experience I know that women like that make their child—especially if it's a man—the single focus of their lives, their so-called alpha and omega. He's supposed to restore her trampled honor, become a sort of avenging knight for her."
Very accurate, Morava thought admiringly; it fits like a glove. If only he'd tell us already who it is!
"The son's attempt to break free began successfully. He enlisted in the new Czechoslovak Army; he had a promising career ahead of him. However, he suffered a severe concussion on the Hungarian border after a grenade explosion. He was discharged and remained dependent on his mother until almost forty. Then, for the first time, he met a girl when he was out of town on his own. It was a passing acquaintance on a train; no normal man would have attached any significance to it, but he was so inexperienced that he did exactly that. She too was a recent widow, still in black, and unfortunately she gave him her ad
dress."
"Was she from Brno?" Morava blurted out.
"Yes," the cleric said, stunned. "How did you know?"
"Please continue."
"He finally confessed his love-at-first-sight to his mother, who was enraged at the thought of losing him to a widow. She tried to make him see the vileness of it—creatures still in mourning who stole honest women's husbands and sons. She reminded him about his father, whose lover abandoned him soon after, driving him to suicide. She wished the fate of Reparata on those widows. For the first time, though, he found the courage to stand up to her and leave. Unfortunately it was for a love he had dreamed up out of thin air."
