Prague Noir

by Pavel Mandys

  The policeman says, “Do you have a recent picture of him?”

  She takes her phone out and peruses the picture gallery—the biking weekend in Moravia; Peter and Filip and Matěj dressed in their cycling gear; Peter and the kids eating snacks in the forest; the kids, the kids again; she and Filip; she and Matěj, who makes silly faces; Peter holding Gabi the Saturday evening they went out for dinner—Peter looks handsome, he wore a shirt she likes.

  She shows the picture with Peter to the policeman; he nods.

  “And what now?” she asks once she’s signed the forms and described Peter’s jogging route.

  “Now go back home; we’ll have patrols continue the search.”

  “That’s it?” she says. She’s supposed to just leave?

  “Calm down, Mrs. Fišerová, just go home to your children and try to sleep. You’ll feel better.”

  Radka doesn’t run anymore—she can’t. At home, Robert sits on their sofa, he doesn’t ask anything—perhaps he can see it on her face. He only says, “Ring the bell in the morning if you need anything—or do you want Hana to sleep here?”

  She shakes her head—she wants him to be gone. She sits down on the sofa, starts crying again . . . tries his phone again, the thousandth time, she goes to lie down in their bedroom . . . but it’s impossible to sleep . . . so she goes to check on her children. She’d love to take them all to her bed, but she can’t carry the boys anymore, so she takes just Gabi and puts her in their marital bed. She puts her daughter on Peter’s side and watches her sleep.

  She knows she still won’t be able to fall asleep. She keeps thinking about where Peter could have run. She has to tell someone where else he could have run, where they still have to go and look for him. She gets up and writes it all down; she’ll call them first thing in the morning.

  She lies down one more time.

  Again she gets up, takes the sweater, and stares out from the balcony. For the first time the question of what she’d do without him, how she’d live, runs through her mind. She didn’t expect such strong anxiety; it hurts her heart, and she’s feeling sick. Quickly, quickly she stops pondering it all.

  Wait until morning. Until dawn—which may not come since it’s so overcast outside.

  * * *

  “Your husband doesn’t have another phone?” Hladík interrupts her thoughts.

  She shakes her head. She lists his friends. Close colleagues. Where they go for holidays, for weekends. Where Peter likes to go. As she speaks, she can see that Hladík is starting to believe her—that she did have something special with Peter. Since yesterday evening, this is the first time Radka feels a slight hope; now this man believes her, he’ll take this investigation seriously, not like the overreaction of a crazy wife.

  She gathers her last vestiges of energy to smile at him as he’s leaving; she’d like to tell him that she trusts him, that she relies on him. Suddenly, she can see it in his eyes—he’s not bad or dumb; he’ll find Peter—but she says nothing.

  * * *

  Hladík is happy to leave. Always the same atmosphere—that tragic undertone, even if they offer him coffee, the household is on the threshold of chaos—which will inevitably come if the investigation is not resolved immediately.

  Hladík knows that she too will go out to wander the places where her husband used to go. Let her do it. It’s an extra pair of eyes and legs. She called her mother to help with the children.

  Even though it’s still early in the process, Hladík hazards a guess. She repeated everything three times, the entire day prior to his disappearance, and each time it was the same story. If she’s lying, well then okay. But probably not. Probably it happened—her husband disappeared and she thinks he’s hurt or dead. Hladík, however, sees him alive, sitting somewhere in a pub, shaking off their latest argument which she hasn’t told him about yet, and then the husband will go home. It’s almost always the same.

  In the end, almost everybody reappears. Nobody kidnaps normal adult people. Neither do they fall into rivers and die. If he wanted to run across some tracks and a train hit him, they’d already have him. The Vltava will have to be searched. But he slips and he can’t get back to the bank? A man who runs half-marathons? Hardly. It could happen. But it usually doesn’t.

  When they don’t suffer from depression, they don’t kill themselves. This one probably didn’t suffer from depression. Or she didn’t know about it. But she would know about it. Did they share their schedules? Damn, he has to check. They did share their accounts. Spouses. Nothing unusual in their accounts, she said.

  Next time he’ll ask whether he left all documents and other papers at home. She will cry again and she will look at him again as if she doesn’t understand anything. Perhaps she’ll swear at him. Okay, maybe Hladík does not understand it. He does not understand relationships—that some people make it last, some do not; it is all like magic and he does not like that. He himself prefers no ambitions and therefore no accomplishments. Only one child, by mistake—fifteen-year-old František, with whom he has sporadic contact that nobody enjoys and serve no purpose.

  So yeah, it could have happened, it could have been an accident, in which case he is dead and their happy relationship will last forever and Hladík will let it be—as of now, he knows very little and cannot conclude anything.

  Usually, a cheated wife sits across him—she admits that her husband cheated on her, says that it has not been good. But because of the children—perhaps the three best children in the world, for whom she would cook spinach for lunch and all three ate it, supposedly—Hladík is sure that she speaks the truth and this type of disappearance is his first. But it does not make him happy either.

  Children who eat spinach.

  Surely later, something ugly will come out.

  But it makes him feel sorry.

  He wants to tell the station that he’s on his way and find somebody who knows how to talk to children to come visit them later, but when he steps out of the building, suddenly, without knowing why, perhaps because of her eyes, the expression she had when she talked about her husband, Hladík decides that he will go check Stromovka, after all.

  He covers his head with the hood, the weather is disgusting, but the walk will do him good, and maybe he’ll see something that will prove to be helpful in the investigation. He doesn’t know what, but that doesn’t matter. Sometimes it’s good just to walk.

  He lights a cigarette, covering it carefully so that it doesn’t get wet.

  At the food stands, he decides to buy something small. He buys bread and sausage—he really is very hungry—gobbles it down right there, and then he feels heavy. I will never lose any weight like this, he’s berating himself, but does he have time to eat normally?

  * * *

  She’ll stay in the quiet apartment. She’d very much like to wake up Gabi, put her in the stroller, and go outside to walk Peter’s route again, but she must stop—she must behave normally. She has children, she has to take care of them, can’t go nuts, and has to cook lunch. The dishes from breakfast are in the sink. She has no energy to put them in the dishwasher. But soon Gabi will wake up, she has to cook at least soup, there’s still something in the fridge after all—just hold on for a bit longer, Mom will be here soon, then you can go out . . . She starts peeling carrots, Peter does not like carrot soup, if he comes back today, she must cook something else that he likes. She’ll make chili; Peter loves it.

  For a moment, she imagines that Peter will come back home as he always does, that he praises her for the chili and then they both sit down on the sofa with the children, that nice moment after dinner before the children have to take their baths and go to bed, they’ll put on an animated movie for them, twenty minutes that Peter and she have for themselves, so they can talk about their day.

  The sound of keys in the lock—Mom is here, Radka becomes alert—tonight, she’ll sit here with her mother, whom she does not want to see at all; she’s a miserable substitute for somebody who really understands h
er. Even if nothing is actually her mom’s fault, Radka nevertheless feels almost hatred, but she puts down the peeler and wipes her hands to go welcome her mom.

  “My little girl,” Mom says immediately, and Radka jumps into her embrace and starts crying. “Don’t worry, this will be all figured out, they will find him, nothing has happened to him.”

  “And how exactly will this be figured out,” Radka asks.

  Her mother is silent.

  “Mom?”

  She shrugs. “You never know anybody completely.”

  Radka pulls away. She’d love to hit her mother.

  “I know Peter is not like that. I didn’t mean it like that.”

  No, you did mean it, Radka thinks, but says nothing. Mom is bitter and thinks that all men are like that; that all men will eventually leave their wives, because Dad left her.

  “Gabi’s asleep but she’ll be up soon. Will you make lunch? I have to go out.”

  “Of course,” Mom says. “What time should I go pick up the boys?”

  “At half past one. And then they need to be driven to the theater at four p.m. They’ll stay there for an hour and a half.”

  “Have you eaten anything?”

  She nods yes, but she’s lying. She hasn’t eaten anything and she won’t be eating.

  In front of the house, she inhales the clean air; it’s still raining, she’s put on her running shoes again; she’ll run slowly, but will manage more. The shoes are still wet from yesterday but Radka takes this discomfort—just like her hunger—as an offer to a god or universe so that Peter will be returned to her very soon.

  She sees the first policemen right away. The next ones, not until half an hour later. Then she runs on the cycling path along the Vltava River, and the rain becomes stronger and the dusk intensifies. The most unpleasant days of the year—the end of October, dusk, she can’t go on anymore—more cops, they pass her, talking to each other, and she catches a snippet of their conversation: She simply thought it was green, get it . . . Radka continues running, looks back at them—they have no idea who I am, they just talk to each other as if they’re on a stroll; Radka is still running but she slows down until she stops. She turns around and starts running toward them.

  “Excuse me, hello. I am Radka Fišerová.”

  One gapes at her, the other one gets it. “The missing one . . .”

  “Yes, that’s my husband.”

  “I am so sorry,” says the policeman.

  “You’re not supposed to be sorry; you’re supposed to be looking for my husband.”

  The one gaping glances around nervously. She understands—he’s worried that she’s going to make a scene.

  “But do not worry, lady,” protests the other one. “We’re looking for him.”

  “You should go home,” says the first one. “You must be cold.”

  She really is cold. She realizes she is shaking. “Why don’t you go down to the river? What do you think you can find here?” She gestures with her hand toward the bushes along the river.

  “Don’t worry, there are many other policemen.”

  “And divers,” says the other one.

  She understands that they’re talking about Peter’s dead body possibly caught somewhere in the river; suddenly, she can’t take a breath, she is shaking, she can’t take any more, and the first policeman collects himself, catches Radka so that she doesn’t fall down. “Go get the car,” he says to the other one. “Hurry and call an ambulance.”

  “No, let me be.” She wants to jerk away, she must run more, but he won’t let her.

  Radka starts crying, she can’t hold it in, and she falls into the policeman’s embrace for a moment. She registers his frightened look, hears herself crying, but it’s as if an animal’s crying; she wants to apologize, but she can’t speak—and then she faints.

  * * *

  Hladík is sitting at a coffee stand under a canopy, smoking. It is raining terribly. In the distance, the wailing of an ambulance. His phone rings. They have found the phone belonging to the missing person.

  A drunk homeless man is waiting for him at the station. Shit, it’ll stink here for two days again; he opens the window even though he’s cold and wet.

  “I found it in a trash can,” repeats the drunk again and again. “It’s mine, you can’t take it.”

  Hladík checks the iPhone; it’s dead, nobody has a charger; he checks for the SIM card, it’s missing.

  “It wasn’t there,” claims the drunk. “I will show you the trash can. Nothing else was there, only this.”

  “So let’s write it all up.”

  “And will you give it back to me? Look, inspector, I could at least call my friends . . . You won’t give it back? So go fuck yourself, you shitheads, you dicks!” he starts yelling.

  Hladík points a finger at him. “Look, how about we write it up tomorrow? You’ll get a good night’s sleep before that, all right?”

  The guy doesn’t stop yelling. Hladík can see he’ll learn nothing from him, so he has him taken away and goes to look for a charger.

  * * *

  Mom mentions moving for the first time the next day, right after she starts to feel somewhat coherent after all the drugs they injected her with. She can’t believe that Mom really said that; Peter has been gone only two days and she’s already talking about them moving away.

  Mom says she didn’t really mean moving away—more like a change of scenery until . . . it all clears up.

  Radka shouts at her: “You are alone, Mom, so you want us with you so that you feel better, but we are a family, we belong here, and together, so stop talking about that, please, never again, whatever happens!”

  Mom gets insulted—perhaps she’s right, but Radka is so angry, as if Mom hopes Peter will never come back.

  “Silly girl, of course I want Peter to return.”

  “But you think he won’t.”

  “Yes, I think he won’t come back. That he has left you. That he is a coward and an asshole.”

  They look into each other’s eyes: Radka hates her, her mother can see it.

  “You’d prefer him to be dead?” Mom asks, and Radka can’t answer so she goes to pick up the boys from school and then takes them to their tennis classes.

  She is cold there; during their one-hour training session she feels the flu coming, her entire body hurts. She has to be thankful for her mother and her help with the kids, with whom she has almost no strength left to talk. So far, however, the children have been calm. Daddy is missing, but the police are looking for him. No, nothing bad has happened to him. The police talked to them as well. For Gabi and Filip, it’s a diversion. Matěj is a bit scared but pretends not to be.

  The boys play tennis the way they always do—they laugh and joke with their friends. She takes them home and goes to lie down. She uses two covers. Now, she could get some spicy Chinese food—Peter would go and get it for her—sure, Mom would do that too, but she would grumble about how she’d rather make her some chicken soup and tea with honey. Radka feels sorry for herself, then at night she gets a fever and has wild dreams about Peter—he is alive, laughing, they swim together in the dirty Vltava until his dead, pale corpse floats toward them and the alive Peter says, Just push it away.

  Then, physically, it gets better. The fever stops. Weak, she lies in bed. The children visit her in the bedroom—darlings; Mom manages everything, no problem. Radka reads—pretends to read—she still thinks of Peter, she keeps on remembering everything she can think of. She tries to remember a fight, something unpleasant; tries to convince herself that it was nothing special, but it’s not working. TV. She makes herself watch boring and silly shows.

  And on Sunday morning, she wants to make tea to fill up the thermos to keep it hot. The thermos is nowhere to be found. The children know nothing about it, neither does Mom. She checks all the rucksacks, the entire closet.

  It’s nowhere.

  It can’t just be a coincidence that the thermos disappears a couple of days after Pe
ter disappeared.

  Since Radka’s been in a searching mood, she starts looking around the entire apartment. She doesn’t quite know what she’s looking for.

  In one of the drawers, among photo albums, she finds an A5 envelope and inside, 800,000 korunas. In large bills. It horrifies her. Was Peter embroiled in something?

  * * *

  There’s nothing suspicious about the phone, so he must have had another one. The same with his computer—nothing. The background—a preset landscape. In his office—a framed picture of his family, ceremoniously dressed, sitting at a table, all smiling, strained, into the camera.

  At his work—nothing. His colleagues, polite and ordinary, only shrug their shoulders. No, nobody knows anything about him wanting to quit. Then she calls. She says she’s found something peculiar at home.

  It’s been four days. The weekend during which winter officially begins. It’s dark at five now; just before people draw their curtains, Hladík peers into apartments, illuminated rooms—an early family evening; safety and togetherness. He goes with it for a moment even though he knows much better—there is no safety.

  Hladík arrives. She is sick, lying on the sofa; she looks horrible. She is almost unable to talk, her mother is there pretending that she’s not interested in anything, but in reality she wants to tell him everything. She takes good care of the small girl who’s watching Hladík through her thick glasses, but Hladík can feel the unpleasant atmosphere.

  She, even if she can barely get off the sofa, will not leave him alone with the mother, and when the mother tries to get her to sleep, she starts yelling at her not to send her away, that her mother can feel free to talk with her present, that she knows very well that she thinks Peter left them so just feel free to say so to Captain Hladík. And she should also feel free to tell him why she is so bitter and mean, and then she cries again. The bespectacled girl starts crying as well and Radka’s mother calms her down—she’s calming down both of them—the small girl and Radka—and then she sends Radka to the bedroom to put the girl to bed.