These had been commissioned for this gig: the lyrics written by a poet banned from publishing his work and the music was Tomas’s. Many of the numbers had animal titles. ‘Midnight Bears’, ‘Snake in the Grass’, ‘Dead Fish’.
Laure wormed her way to the side of the stage where she could better analyse what was going on. Tomas’s music had undergone a subtle change. Into the out-and-out Western Europe rock-andpop influence, into the defiant blare and gangbuster kidnap of the senses, had crept the rhythms of the Slavonic dance, a tiny hint of the Bohemian bagpipe and a glorious riff on Smetana’s Vltava.
The evening deepened. The audience grew bolder and yelled, stamped, waved their hands. The lights bathed Anatomie in the chiaroscuro she had seen in paintings and lit the passage of thousands of insects winging in to feast.
She yelled and waved with the best of them.
It wasn’t just the powerful music to which those massed bodies were responding. In the dusk, they were giving in to forbidden yearnings and loyalties. Tasting resistance like wine on the tongue.
Laure feasted on the figure of her lover, waistcoat hanging loose, a suggestion of sweat-streaked torso under it, dominating his guitar and the microphone. ‘Czechoslovakia resistance is cultural,’ he said, ‘very special.’ Watching it, hearing it, feeling it, was to draw its subversions into her veins.
Why hadn’t she paid more attention to history at school? Then she might have had a better idea of how regimes eventually die. If they died. There were so many layers to unpeel. So many crosscurrents to master.
But what she could see, and experience, was the wasteland of lives and dreams it generated. A catalogue of unnecessary deaths and the destruction of talent and opportunity. An ingrained habit of being fearful. A population who had the morality beaten out of them by repression that the authorities pretended was love.
Tomas shifted. His gaze caught hers and they exchanged a look, complicit, lustful, tender, and Laure forgot about anything else except her own desires.
Too soon, far too soon, Leo struck up the penultimate number. ‘Tunnelling’ was a story of mice working their way through harvested grain in a silo, thereby creating underground highways and hidden passages.
‘Make of it what you will,’ said Tomas when Laure had been puzzling over its lyrics. ‘Remember, mice are good at infiltration. Nobody notices them.’
There was a pause. Tomas held up his hand and, as the crowd roared, he swung into the final number, ‘Kočka.’
‘If a cat wants
To kill the mouse
He must first catch it’
Halfway through, with an ecstatic audience shifting and swaying, the lights on the stage were cut with a crack of electricity and plunged into darkness. More than one person screamed. Looking towards the sound, Laure saw the outer edge of the crowd shift and crack. Immediately, in a Pavlovian response, a percentage peeled away and hastened into the dusk. They know the form, she thought. Some, trapped at the centre, tried to fight their way out. Others held their ground. An impasse threatened.
Their boots trampling the grass, holding torches chest height, dozens of green uniformed state police emerged into the light and, in a perfectly drilled manoeuvre, ringed the audience. Precise. Stealthy. Taking up a position by the stage, their commander issued orders through a loud hailer which Laure did not understand.
Anatomie continued to play, the music ringing through the dark.
Brave, wonderful Tomas…
A detachment of the police now formed a tunnel and directed the audience down it to the exit. Several of the bulkier ones jumped up onto the stage and wrested the instruments from the men.
From the side of the stage, Laure watched as Tomas battled to prevent his guitar being taken by one of the police. But when it was in danger of being damaged, he yielded it up with a shrug.
She knew enough by now to know it was vital that she kept out of sight and made for the tent to pick up her rucksack and to head out.
Too late. Leo, Manicki and Tomas were ushered into the tent, followed by the police commander and his sidekick, both with the powerful torches.
Manicki fiddled with his hair, pulling strands this way and that. Leo stared through the tent entrance when the tail end of the audience could be seen dispersing. Tomas buttoned his waistcoat deliberately and slowly.
He did not look at Laure. She did not look at him – and that was the hardest thing.
Eventually, the police commander issued another order and the three men were escorted out of the tent. His sidekick turned to Laure and levelled an order at her. She shook her head. He repeated whatever it was. Louder. Again, she shook her head and spread her hands in a gesture indicating that she did not understand.
Exclaiming irritably, he seized her by the arm and pushed her out of the tent and escorted her to the exit.
On the abandoned stage, the electricians were performing a frantic demolition job. Flex dangling from one hand, Vaclav sent her a look from under his lids and tapped a finger to his lips. Say nothing.
Say nothing.
Laure repeated Vaclav’s admonition to herself with a sense of growing astonishment that she was where she was. It would be touch and go if she could ever make anyone in Brympton believe her. Bloody drama queen, Jane would say.
She was in a windowless room devoid of furniture except for two cheap plastic chairs adorned with cigarette burns and a black Bakelite telephone at the centre of the table. Its flex was slotted through a hole bored through the table top and ran over to the connection box in the wall. A mad arrangement, she thought. If you didn’t remember it was there, it might trip people up. Maybe that was the point?
How long had she been here? Three hours? Four? The goons were nasty. It had only been only with the greatest difficulty that she had persuaded the young bully of a guard to give her a drink of water and allow her to use the lavatory. She wasn’t frightened so much as angry and desperate to know where Tomas and the others might be.
Aware that she should be more alarmed for herself and it was stupid to downplay the situation, she could not help being fascinated by the tin-pot quality of the set-up. Plastic chairs and an awkwardly hooked-up phone were not, in her book, props for the ultra-threatening.
For the nth time she checked her watch. The big hand was on its path to ten o’clock. On the dot the door opened to admit a man in neat grey trousers and a pressed shirt whom she vaguely recognized.
‘Good evening, I’m Major Hasίk,’ he said in formal English, placing a briefcase on the floor. ‘We have met before with your friend Tomas Josip. I’m going to ask you a few questions and then I very much hope you can return to your place of employment.’ He sat down in the chair opposite her. ‘Are you thirsty?’
She shook her head. ‘Why am I here?’
He peered at her. ‘I have a feeling you think you’re being harassed. Is that correct?’ Laure did not reply. ‘Just to show that is not the case we have telephoned your employer and asked him to come in. You will be more comfortable with him on the premises.’
‘How thoughtful.’
‘He’ll be bringing in your passport which will allow us to verify that you are who you say you are.’
Laure had been asked to cite her name, nationality and occupation at least five times. ‘That will be a relief.’
‘You shouldn’t make fun of this process.’ He was mild, ingratiating even. ‘It is very necessary, you know.’
She caught a flash of ruthlessness and cunning. She shifted in her seat.
He glanced down at the file he had brought in with him. ‘Your boyfriend is a member of Anatomie. How long have you known him?’
‘Four months.’
‘How often do you meet?’
‘Twice, three times a week. Whenever it’s possible.’
‘Do you sleep with him?’
She licked her lips which had gone dry. ‘Is that relevant?’
He looked at her. ‘You do, then.’ He got up and came and stood behind her chair. �
��And what is your pillow talk, Miss Carlyle?’
‘Is that your business?’
He bent down and put his mouth close to her ear. ‘If it involves ideas that are forbidden, it is.’ He returned to his seat. ‘What are your boyfriend’s politics?’
Her dry lips were giving her trouble and her heart was thumping. ‘I have no idea.’
‘That’s a stupid answer. If you are involved with someone you will know.’
‘He’s a musician and that’s what occupies him. He hasn’t time for politics.’
Don’t say too much.
‘Does he approve of how the State handles the economy?’ He reached down, opened the briefcase at his feet and took out a Hershey bar. He placed it beside the telephone on the table. ‘Do you know this is forbidden capitalist chocolate? It was found in the rucksack you were carrying.’
She glanced at it. ‘It’s not mine.’
He shook his head gently. ‘Best not to contradict. Where did you get it from?’ Laure was silent. ‘I think it was given to you by your boyfriend who obtained it illegally from the Tuzex store.’
‘Do you mean those shops that only the elite can shop in?’
He did not blink. ‘There’s no point in being rude, Miss Carlyle. Or childish.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She forced herself to think clearly. ‘Anyone can walk into a Tuzex then?’
‘Indeed. All are welcome. But not everyone is entitled to Tuzex crowns with which to shop in them, and certainly not your boyfriend, which means he must have obtained the money on the black market. Engaging with the black market is considered an imprisonable offence.’ Laure widened her eyes and fought for calm but, the experienced bully that he was, he detected her growing unease. ‘If you think about it, it’s just. The average wage is 3,000 crowns a month. Some of these black marketeers are making anything up to 250,000 crowns a month.’
‘I can’t comment on that,’ she answered. ‘But the chocolate isn’t mine and he didn’t give it to me.’
He folded his hands and looked benignly at her over them. ‘Oh dear.’
By now, the room’s lack of ventilation was telling on her and she found herself hoping desperately for Petr Kobes to arrive. ‘Are you going to interrogate me for having a bar of chocolate?’
‘My dear girl, is this an interrogation? I’m just asking some questions, that’s all.’
Cleverly done. The chocolate had been planted and she might be able to argue them around to accepting that it was not hers. However, having admitted she only saw him two or three times a week, she knew she could not prove that Tomas had not bought black-market ‘bony’ in order to spend it at the Tuzex.
Wasn’t there a protocol on which she could call? She wondered if she could demand for someone to come from the British Consulate. Was there a British Consulate in Prague?
At that moment, the telephone rang. A blaring, discordant intrusion into the near silence and it made Laure jump out of her skin. Major Hasík picked up the receiver, said his name and listened. ‘I understand,’ he said and put down the phone. ‘I’m afraid your employer has been detained, which means we’ll have to keep you until he is able to come.’ He managed to look regretful.
She shot to her feet. ‘Keep me where?’
He looked even more regretful. ‘Here.’
She said desperately, ‘I would like to contact someone from the British Consulate or Embassy. This can’t be legal.’
Major Hasίk smiled. ‘My dear girl, the British will have all gone home for the night. And you are subject to Czechoslovakian law if you are living in Prague. We are offering you the highest justice.’
She blinked. ‘Did I hear that correctly? The highest justice? You can stuff that.’
Major Hasίk sat quietly with his hands folded neatly on the table top.
‘But I’m a British national. They will come.’
‘The British like their nine to five. So, I don’t think so.’
‘But you can’t lock people up because of a bar of chocolate. It’s ridiculous.’
‘Did I say that was the case?’ Major Hasίk placed the chocolate bar, which was in danger of melting, back in his briefcase. ‘No, we are keeping you here for another reason.’
‘But what then?
He stood up and loomed above her. ‘How remiss of me not to mention it. You and your friends have been arrested for the crime of an organized disturbance of the peace.’ Again, he smiled. ‘That’s quite a separate matter. And a serious one.’
There were no spare cells available and, she was informed in sign language by the bully blond guard, she was to remain in the room. After a while, she fetched the second chair and managed to stretch out.
Her eyes were heavy with exhaustion and her head ached. If she was truthful, she was terrified and longed for sleep. She had just managed to fall into a doze when the telephone shrieked. The shock of it almost knocked her off her chair.
It went silent.
But not for long.
Throughout that long, foetid night, as she struggled to sleep, it rang. Every hour or so, shrilling for seven or so rings before falling silent.
She had never hated anything as much before, and doubted she would hate anything as much in future, as the sound of that telephone.
Towards 5 a.m., nauseous and dizzy with anxiety, she hauled herself upright. If they were doing this to her, what were they doing to the others?
The door opened. She shut her eyes and grasped the side of the chair with her hands, willing herself to be calm and clever about what was coming next.
She opened her eyes. The bully blond guard stood over her. He reached over and twisted a lock of her hair between finger and thumb and said something in Czech. Hauling Laure to her feet, he inserted his hands under her T-shirt and ripped it apart. A grin spread over his face – greedy, intent and frightening.
‘Stop it, please.’
Encircling her body with one arm, he reached with the other hand for his trouser belt and unbuckled it.
Laure screamed and dug her elbow hard into his torso. He released his grip and bent over which gave her an opening to whip around the other side of the table. His trousers sagged around his knees, revealing his engorged penis.
Again she screamed, which succeeded in enraging him. Grabbing his trousers, he charged at Laure.
She was slammed against the wall, her head hitting it with a crack. He pinioned her with a leg between hers and wrenched open her jeans and hauled them and her knickers down to her knees.
His fingers scrabbled between her legs, jabbing and poking. She felt his finger forcing its way up and the pull and tear of her resisting flesh.
She gasped, seized his hair and yanked as hard as she could. In response, he pushed her legs wider and threw her to the floor. Straddling her, he dragged her jeans and knickers off and slammed his body between her legs.
It would only take a couple more seconds and he would get what he wanted. His penis was rammed against her thigh. A hand grasped her chin and forced her head painfully to one side. He got ready by raising himself onto his elbows – and thrust into her.
The pain. The disgust. The terror.
She heard herself moan aloud.
With a superhuman effort, she threw herself onto her side, pulled at the telephone cord hanging down from the table and brought the telephone crashing down.
It landed a blow on his shoulder. For a second he was stilled – and she thought she might have a won a reprieve. Then he roared out something incomprehensible but the import was plain enough. Grabbing the telephone, he brought it down hard on her head.
A shower of neon-yellow sparks fountained across her vision. A crack sounded in her ears, it was followed by a floating sensation and, somewhere far away, pain. In the background, she heard Petr issue the command. ‘Stop.’
Laure rolled over onto her stomach, jarring every bone in her body. Sighed. Then, everything was black.
In his room in the Můstek house, Tomas was cradling her softly and tender
ly. They were lying on the mattress and Kočka was perched on the ledge where the sun came through the window.
‘And?’ he said.
The side of her head was badly bruised, and her body ached from head to foot,
It was still an effort to talk. ‘Petr Kobes arrived as the guard hit me and got me out. He stopped …’ she struggled not to cry. ‘Stopped him. Finishing… He never…’ she looked at him. ‘You know.’
Petr insisted that she was examined by a doctor who had pronounced her injured but not seriously. ‘I am so sorry. I am so sorry,’ he repeated more than once, every line of his body conveying his extreme shame and distress.
Petr could have said: I warned you, a temptation that he avoided, for which Laure was grateful. But he did dissuade her from contacting the British Consul close by in the Thunovská. ‘I know you’re angry, Laure, but it would be best, and kind of you, if you don’t stir up trouble.’
In the circumstances, the word ‘kind’ was odd, but she took it to mean that it would be easier for her, as well as the Kobes, if everything was kept quiet. He stood in the doorway of her bedroom. ‘That’s my advice,’ he said. ‘I’ve sorted things out with the powers that be.’
He had taken a step into the room. Instinctively, Laure brought the sheet up to her chin and he came no further. ‘Eva and I are so sorry and apologize for what has happened to you.’ He was genuinely upset. ‘We can deal with the children and you must spend the day in bed.’ He turned to leave the room. ‘One thing. This time I managed to protect you. The next time I won’t. Do you understand?’
‘Won’t be able to? Or, don’t wish to?’
‘I leave you to work that out.’
Laure stirred in Tomas’s embrace. ‘And where were you in the prison?’
‘Down the corridor. I heard your scream and me and the boys set up such a row, they had to do something. Kobes did the rest and they let us go with the warning that there would be no more concerts and they would be watching.’ He looked down at Laure. Her shock and fright had overpowered her and the tears rolled non-stop down her cheeks. ‘Tell me more.’
‘It’s difficult…’ Every time she opened her mouth, her brain froze.
The Museum of Broken Promises Page 31
