Widow Killer

by Pavel Kohout

  He taunted the cop with the new word he'd learned.

  "But we'll get a medal for executing a kolous!"

  As a reward, he let the boy cut his throat. Pepik did it enthusiastically with a single stroke. Lojza did the driver, less expertly but with pretty much the same result. The chauffeur was clearly eager to turn them in, and as it turned out, the machine gunner, a chimney sweep in civilian life, knew how to drive. They finished on a sour note; Ladislav, who was already nervous, panicked and stabbed the last and most promising old hag before she could give them her address.

  They left the school through the courtyard exit without any problems. The sentries greeted them, and a couple of fellows asked if they could come along; some big shot inside was getting on their nerves. Unfortunately, at the moment unfavorable conditions prevented him from recruiting a full-fledged detachment.

  But i have a plan!

  Those three hours running the show here, where he had been welcomed by the leaderless horde, had given him new ideas. The Germans in Prague were just an appetizer for the meaty morsel that, by all accounts, awaited them in the Sudetenland. The sharper kids in the Revolutionary Guards predicted that the former border regions would return to the Czechoslovak motherland, and the Germans living there would be expelled (heim ins Reich with them!). In all probability the Krauts would only get to take what they could carry, just like in Prague, and then what would be left ...?

  One man at the school had been expelled this way from the Sudetenland by the Germans in '38, after they shot his brother, a reserves member. He'd always thought he'd never hurt a fly, he told them, but now a need for vengeance had erupted in him. He'd take what they'd taken from his family, and something on top for damages. And if they so much as opened their mouths, he'd blow at least one of them away too!

  The effect it had on the men was electrifying. A gold rush, Lojza gasped; didn't the boss think maybe they were needed there? He did. They were finished in Prague, he had to admit; even with an uprising going on, those damned Sherlocks had nothing better to do than chase him. They must have his description, probably even a photo, and he could not count on maintaining superior firepower.

  The sudetenland is my chance!

  Once the Krauts in Prague were liquidated—and this was a question of days or hours—he and his men would take their Mercedes, move to a larger German nest, and seize power there. He was sure it would be as easy as it had been in this lousy school.

  I'm a born leader!

  By the time Prague could send out its official rats, he'd have his own bureaucrats, and policemen from outside would get sent right back to their mothers by his personal guard. It would consist of his most faithful men, who'd teach everyone to jump when he whistled, so long as he let them make the rest jump on their signal too.

  For now he ordered them to drive just a couple of blocks further; the cops weren't organized enough to comb the whole city in this confusion. Here in Pankrac there were more Russians in German khakis than local inhabitants. They hung from tank turrets and hid behind the shields of cannons and machine guns, oblivious to the prolonged downpour that had driven even most of the insurgents to shelter, their tense alertness a sign that the fight went on.

  No, the war was not over, and it would be crazy to leave Prague prematurely; being first in the border regions could mean being first to die, and that definitely wasn't what he had in mind. But where could they wait? Sleeping in the Germans' old apartments meant risking discovery; covetous neighbors or official confiscators might find them. He was about to ask the boy to take them home—at least he'd see how the kid handled his mother—but then a new idea hit him.

  Right under their noses!

  The last places they'd look were where he'd punished those whores.

  The embankment suited him best, except the dead caretaker was floating just beneath it, maybe even caught in the weir. The closest was the apartment where he'd spindled those two lesbians, but as they pulled up they saw a gaggle of people carrying the dead out of the house; well, there you go, in this case he'd just beaten the SS to the job! Of course, this morgue was now too lively for a hideaway.

  Then his idea ripened as he remembered what flashed through his mind on the barricade.

  That house!

  That grubby house on a dead-end street where they set their trap for him! Whether it belonged to a policeman or someone who lent it to them for their dirty tricks, he'd see they got their deserts. First, though, the guilty party could be of use to him, like the half-pint on the train.

  Of course, he didn't tell his foursome the whole story. He didn't have to explain.

  "Some koloussi live there," he informed them tersely. "If they're not home, we can catch a few winks till our clothes dry out, and if they are home it's their bad luck!"

  He found the house by directing them to the cemetery and from there recalling step by step how he'd followed that whore a week ago. It was satisfying to approach it this time not as a foolish fox blindly chasing the bait into a trap, but as a victor and avenger. An idea for a new punishment was growing in his mind as well. He'd thought of it this morning for the first time, but it had already captivated him as completely as the picture in the rectory once had.

  It's mine! all mine!

  A work of his own imagination. And this morning, when he saw a gas canister attached to the Mercedes's mudguard, he knew it was foreordained.

  Although hastily boarded up, he could see through the window that the house was lived in. All the better! He got out of the car first and rang the bell. When nothing happened, he rang twice, and, after another pause, thrice, pressing the bell somewhat longer each time.

  He could feel their curiosity behind him, but also their deference.

  They simply waited. And he did not hurry. He remembered, long ago, the way she had read him the fairy tale about the boy and the giant.

  Fee fie foe fum!

  Four long rings. Suddenly the drumming of the rain ceased and footsteps resounded from within.

  What could she owe me, he mused, once Grete had fallen swiftly into sleep. As he lay by her side and gradually recovered from the day's events, he fought a fatigue so strong that at times it robbed him of consciousness. Had time stopped? This day seemed as long to him as the whole war.

  He forced himself to stand and noiselessly opened each drawer in the attic, until, to his surprise, he found what he needed: paper, even writing paper! And the fact that it was pink and decorated with a rather precious forget-me-not bothered him least of all.

  He had never dared capture in words anything other than facts for work reports; thus he had never in his life written a love letter. When the war separated him from Hilde, his letters from the field contained only the superficial events of his life; the law of military confidentiality made this the easiest course. They both left their feelings for personal meetings.

  Hilde's unexpected death taught him painfully that these might end with no warning. How terribly he had later missed those lines that might have given him back the sound of her words, breathed life into a dead photograph. And so he felt dogged by the need at least once to write Grete what he hadn't been able to tell her.

  "My love," he began with Grete's favorite appellation, "my briefest and yet greatest love! Even though I can never understand why of all the men who admire you, you have chosen me, I am happy. If by some chance I pay that highest price for Germany's debt, I want you to know—"

  "What are you writing?" he heard her say.

  She looked sickly, but tranquil; only there was an unfamiliar gleam in her eyes, as if she were preparing herself for something exceedingly grave.

  "A letter ...," he answered, confused.

  "To whom?"

  "To you," he confessed.

  "Aha ... and what are you writing to me?"

  "You can read it. But not right now."

  "I understand," she said, "yes, I understand.... But you should know first what I was really so afraid of that I tried to leave you and g
o I don't know where...."

  "What was it?"

  "That we'd both survive."

  He thought he had misheard.

  "That we both wouldn't survive...."

  "No, the opposite! That we'd survive, and you'd finally learn ..."

  "Learn what?"

  "Buback ... love! You listened so patiently to my stories for so long, try just once more not to interrupt, no matter how much you want to. Promise me!"

  It was less than fifty days since he first furtively scrutinized her in the sharp light of the German House air-raid shelter. An eternity seemed to have passed since that meeting. Fifty days ago, he admitted shamefully, he'd still believed in the possibility, however small it might be, that Germany could avoid a total and dishonorable defeat. And when he had despaired on realizing the truth, Grete had led him away from the pistol that would have ended his pain. Today it was she who had reached rock bottom.

  "I promise!" he said.

  "My love ... as we were on our way here—it was only yesterday, but I've aged since then—I noticed that view, those breathtaking towers, and imagined the stony desert that awaits us at home; Germany lies in rack and ruin, defeated and humbled for generations, because revenge is sweet and the world is itching to enslave us as punishment: poverty, cold, and bondage will dog us till the end of this century and beyond, and I, unfortunately, am one of the many German women who let our men degenerate into barbarians that make your widow killer look like an amateur... now I can't remember which Greek poet said withholding pussy can become a weapon, forcing men to give up war so they can fuck again—what rubbish!—after all, millions of German women quivered with impatience to see whether their men would send French perfume or Russian furs from the occupied territories, and millions more, like me, convinced themselves they lived only for love, and hate had no place in their lives, so I too played my part in the destruction of our world, and now I'm going to fix it by dancing on Sylt?... oh, love—and pay attention now— that too was the fruit of my sick imagination, just like all the tales I fed my best lovers, so they would keep me as their femme fatale: the tale of the loving young husband, the tale of the mysterious Giancarlo or Gianfranco, whatever it was, and the tale of my tragic love for a theater star—because, you see, Hans finally chose his boyfriend over me, and if they haven't perished then they're still secretly in love; that mafioso Gianwhateverhisnamewas from Rome slept with me once in his elegant hotel and then disappeared, while I spent the remaining nights with the hotel chauffeur, who would bring me back after midnight to the pensione in a silver Lancia to the envy of my colleagues, but not, unfortunately, of Martin Siegel— to my sorrow he loved his beautiful wife from the very beginning to the bitter, dogged end, which his devastated spouse described to me so vividly that those adventures gradually became my own past, the kind I wished I had; I was so wild with grief that when this wound on my neck came up I completely blocked out my father the tinsmith, who when I was a child accidentally burned me with a blowtorch—yes, love, this truly is the truth, and in the end I served up all these lies to the first man I ever called my love, because he was the only one worth it, the only one who persuaded me to give up the sure for the unsure, and now, finally, has convinced me to entrust him with my true fate: that of an unsuccessful wife and a dime-a-dozen dancer— when I realized you were the only one who ever really loved me, and as your debtor I decided—and listen closely—to be worse in your eyes than I made myself out to be, so I could therefore be better than I am; do you understand me, love?"

  She fell silent, but the question shone on in her gray eyes.

  He had to answer, he wanted to, but he didn't have the right words, the ones that would express the feeling now filling him: that in her confession of false confessions he had found, after all his losses, the only worthwhile trace of his earthly wanderings.

  "You don't respect me at all any more, do you..." she blurted, shattered, "but I simply had to ..."

  At that moment he knew precisely how to say it, but before he could speak, the bell below jangled.

  "Who is it?" she asked fearfully.

  "I don't know...."

  "Does Morava know our signal?"

  "He might have forgotten...." He wanted to calm her down, but did not believe it himself.

  Someone gave the bell two long rings.

  He could see fear taking hold of Grete and took action.

  "Clothes! Quickly! And under the bed, with the pistol. Don't show yourself until I tell you to."

  "But what if they—"

  "I'll manage."

  "But..."

  A triple long ring.

  "Do it!"

  "Yes...."

  "And no panicking. You've got a weapon."

  "Yes...."

  He waited for her to dress lightning-fast and disappear beneath the bed, which he managed meanwhile to make up. Anything of hers he saw he shoved over to her with his leg. Finally he was satisfied nothing would give away her presence.

  The fourth ring caught him on the steps. Only now did it occur to him that they hadn't said farewell. But why should they have—why did he even think of it—he'd be back with her in a moment. It might be Morava's driver, probably with the food, but if not, both Buback's documents would, after a certain time, secure his safety with either side.

  He opened the door wordlessly, waiting to see whether he should speak German or Czech.

  When he saw the man at the bell, he knew it did not matter.

  Morava cried as they brought Litera out. The tears he had held back since Jitka's death, so completely that some were scandalized, now streamed down his face; he could not see the steps and had to hold on to the cellar wall.

  He felt his colleagues gradually take him by the shoulders and try to calm him, but the dam inside him, built with all his strength to fend off precisely this limitless despair, had finally broken.

  The reason for his disintegration was simple shame. He had betrayed Litera because he had failed in his craft, acted like a rookie in sending an unsuspecting man to a pointless death.

  Now he had found a powerful ally willing to set all the loyal Communists in Prague on Rypl's trail to stop his rabble from cropping up somewhere else. But instead of rejoicing, he was mourning the third death on his conscience. And three times, he repeated to himself in shock, three times the killer had been within his reach. Who else would pay for his incompetence?

  Instantly he thought of Buback and Grete. Morava knew he was their only hope against the coming fury. And a new horror seized him.

  To his own amazement, he had seen an old saying confirmed several times: A murderer does return to the scene of the crime. If so, Rypl too might be tempted to hide his band in the apparently deserted house....

  Eyebrows rose as what a moment ago had been a broken man now straightened up and called out to Svoboda.

  "It's an emergency! Two cars and ten men!"

  At first he took him for a copper still sniffing around for something, and he'd have had his knife ready if that idiot of a stoker hadn't panicked and left it in the lady. Then they took a good look at the guy and gaped: They'd caught a rare specimen, a real Gestapo officer!

  From the first the German was stonily silent, but he had no intention of asking any questions. The less his men knew, the better; at any rate they'd see living proof that the Krauts had been hunting for their leader.

  The loss of his knife was a symbol that the olden days were over. He wanted to use this creature for his latest idea.

  A NEW PURGATION.

  He would reenact the words of Scripture that she used whenever she remembered the Hungarians who had wounded him.

  Burn that robbers' den!

  Why not extend it to Krauts as well? Why not frighten away the darkness they had brought here—with their own torches?

  He had the Gestapo killer bound with his straps, unwinding them for the last time from his body; they too deserved a fitting farewell. Then the men gasped as he strung the Kraut up by the feet from th
e lamppost, which stood rusty and bulbless in a time of blackouts.

  Darkness had just begun to fall on this long day, and he looked forward to seeing all of them and the whole neighborhood nicely lit.

  "The canister," he ordered.

  The pain quickly passed from his bound ankles, which bore the weight of his whole body, and the blood thrummed more and more pleasantly through his head as it hung toward the ground; strangely enough, he felt curious, as if this were not happening to him, but to someone who would not be harmed by it.

  As he turned slowly there and back, there and back, he glimpsed unusual scenes from this birdlike, froglike perspective: there—above his head, the pavement moved, shimmering after the rain; now back— he made out a distorted lilac bush, whose flowers had just begun to emerge; there again—he spotted guns leaning against the wall of the hallway; back—he saw one man working as the rest stood guard.