by Brian Aldiss
He had opened the hall door, to reveal the guard standing alertly in the passageway. Retracing his steps into the living-room, Vacek pulled a half-plate photo out of a bureau drawer and returned to offer it to his cousin. Petrik was too angered and humiliated to accept; Ondrej took the photo instead.
Petrik marched off without a word of farewell. After a quick glance at Ondrej, at the pallid face, the unwashed hair, the painted eyes, he thought perhaps he really hated her: but what he really hated was the whole business of deception under which life was lived, hers as well as his, as well as everyone else’s.
In truth, Petrik secretly did not believe that his Kafka film was a masterpiece; but he had made it in homage to a writer he greatly admired, one who seemed to have had a prophetic insight into Prague’s troubles. He asked only that Sewers of Time – the title was a phrase taken from Kafka’s diaries – be seen and judged. It was a record not only of Kafka but of Prague, and therefore of the whole ghastly world; a record, a witness. But what was judgement these days? Judgement was political.
Jaroslav had spoken contemptuously of Cihak’s self-serving nature, yet Jaroslav was himself a self-server. He often represented himself as a good Communist, a loyal party member, yet the words meant nothing to anyone any more: all idealism had long since faded. And Petrik himself – he had agreed readily enough to go on this errand for which he had no heart. Everywhere was this betrayal of self, a cynicism backed by the armoured brigades waiting only a few kilometres outside the city.
He descended the winding stone stair, gazing grimly down at his feet. The steps had not recently been swept; crushed cork tips of cigarettes lay in corners. Ondrej followed, two steps behind him, staring at the face in the photograph Vacek had handed her. She recognized the blunt nose, the bushy eyebrows, the pugnacious expression. It was a photograph of the Irishman she had been in bed with in the Intercontinental that afternoon.
‘It’s like a journey up the Amazon,’ Uncle Josef said. ‘Strange territory, much of it unmapped … All sorts of unknown dangers await you. The natives aren’t always friendly, and even your friends can turn against you. So watch out.’
‘Thanks for the warning, Uncle,’ Petr Petrik said, smiling as he hung up the phone.
‘He’s such a pessimist, my uncle,’ Petrik said, returning to the restaurant table. ‘He says it’s like a journey up the Amazon. He doesn’t like the Germans.’
‘Oh, the Germans are no worse than anyone else,’ Ondrej Korinkova said. ‘People are all the same, really, no better, no worse …’
The complacent views of a whore, he thought, but said nothing. He was nervous and smoked continually. They sat in the old restaurant of the station, not in the snack bar in the modern underground hall. He liked the Art Nouveau of the old station, which he and his friends always referred to as the ‘Wilsonjaak’; it was typical of his bullying cousin to refer to it as the Hlavni Nadrazi, or main station, a name imposed by the regime.
As Ondrej chattered in a cheerful way – trying to talk intellectually, he thought – he let his mind wander to the one nook in the city that, apart from hers, gave him contentment. He had never taken Ondrej to it, not her or any other girlfriend; only his pleasant old uncle Josef had been there, in that cubbyhole which was a substitute for the freedom of the Bohemian countryside he had known in the optimistic years of boyhood, when all adults around him had believed that the institution of a Socialist state boded well for the spirit; and for self-denial.
The nook was underground, in a repository of old bones and lost aspirations. He barely had room to move in it. There on the narrow bench was his secret project, his little hunchback who moved only by stop-motion photography, the little man who plunged through a world defined by Petrik’s pen and his ability to mould modelling clay. And round about, close as branches of trees to a hunter hiding in a copse, were the pieces of apparatus he had saved from his more prosperous Kafka years or bought on the black market: his camera, his lights, his developer, the monitor and the radio-cassette, most of them imports from West Germany.
It was when his cousin Jaroslav had mentioned the possibility of a visit to West Germany, put as a sly suggestion, in that indirect way in which power was expressed nowadays, that Petrik saw his chance. He could acquire brand new equipment, above all new lenses, in Germany, and dispense with some of the outdated tools with which he was forced to work at present. With the new equipment, he could make his work more brilliant than ever. His little hunchback would rise up and enact all the injustices of society, helping to sweep them away, as swept away they must surely be one day – sooner or later. The hunchback would be his voice, stifled for too long. Everyone should hear it.
Or so he had reckoned, coming away down Jaroslav’s stairs, scuffing the already squashed cork tips, nursing a secret little thought of victory to himself.
Now, sitting in the metal restaurant chair contemplating Ondrej as she enthused about a play she had seen in private performance, he found himself considering how much he was motivated by gain. He was really no better than his avaricious cousin. His goal was, after all, to gain advantage, so that he could shine before his fellow countrymen. No self-denial there, only self-deception. Superstitiously, he touched the burdensome packet of money and documents in his pocket as he accused himself.
Adventure was not for him. Ever since boyhood, witnessing the shooting of his father, cowardice had invaded him, undermined him. He should not be going on a shabby secret errand, waiting for a westbound train. He wished himself back in his underground cubbyhole, with its damp floor, and him sweating under the lights as he moved the shaped clay, frame by frame, safely towards a shaped conclusion.
He thought, I may not exactly be able to love Ondrej, as perhaps a better man would, but I do see she has more courage in her beautiful body than I in my parsimonious one …
Yet he viewed her with some disfavour. Ondrej wore a green travelling cloak over a too-short dress. As she sat smoking at the table, the skirt had ridden up to reveal her shapely legs encased in patterned tights with love birds embroidered low on either calf. Such garments had surely not been acquired legitimately. Students did not wear such things.
For this occasion, she had dyed her hair black and, most remarkably, was not wearing make-up. Without their kohl, her eyes were small and tired-looking. That too made him uncomfortable. It was almost as if she were in disguise.
Ondrej stubbed out her cigarette in the remains of the meal on her plate, shooting Petrik quick glances as she did so. She was annoyed that he had insisted on coming to the station so early. It was only nine thirty in the evening, an hour before their train left. It was due to pull into Nuremberg station before six the next morning. He did not know why she was so tense and smoking so heavily.
He had come to the station that morning, as his cousin had demanded, and met the contact. The contact informed Petrik that he was to travel with Tom Driscoll; that was the name of the man whose photograph he held. He handed over to Petrik the documents necessary for their journey, together with a little spending money in both koruna and Deutschmarks, which Petrik checked over carefully under the eye of the contact.
Something unexpected had also been passed over: a tightly packed and sealed manila envelope. This, the contact instructed Petrik, was to be delivered to an address in Nuremberg, which address he made Petrik memorize; it was not written down.
As they sat in the restaurant, Petrik fingered the envelope in his inner pocket every few minutes.
‘Leave that thing alone,’ Ondrej whispered to him across the table. ‘You’re getting on my nerves. Every idiot in here must know by now you have something worth stealing in your damned pocket.’
He withdrew his hand, laid it on the table, fiddled with a knife. ‘It’s bound to be a bundle of money. What else could it be?’
‘Dope?’
‘You would think of that. It’s currency, I can feel. It’s obviously illegal. Trust Jaroslav to stick this on me, the bastard. It wasn’t part of the deal
at all.’
‘You were a bit of a fool to accept it then, weren’t you?’
They smoked, not speaking to each other. After a while, he called the waitress over and ordered another hot chocolate for Ondrej and another espresso for himself.
They waited, keeping a watchful eye on the passers-by beyond the restaurant window. It was a few minutes past ten when Ondrej rose hurriedly from her seat, saying that she had just spotted Tom Driscoll.
As Petrik started to rise, she pressed his shoulder down:
‘No, you stay here, Petr dear. I’ll tackle Driscoll to begin with. It’ll look more natural for a woman to bump into him and start a conversation.’
‘But we don’t have to bump into him. That won’t look right. You know the arrangements. We already have reservations next to him in the sleeping car. That’s all it needs.’
‘Leave it to me,’ she said, and left the restaurant. Nonplussed, Petrik stayed where he was, peering from the window, gnawing his lower lip.
Ondrej marched straight up to Tom Driscoll as he paused by the news-stand. ‘You look like a foreigner, and a little lost,’ she said, in her fluent English. ‘Can I help you? Stations are often confusing.’
Driscoll was well-built, as she remembered, and little taller than she was. His heavy features and snub nose were as she recalled them from their encounter in the hotel. He was wearing a rather unseasonal gingerish top-coat and carrying a small metal case. The impression he gave was of a hard, capable man. She could not resist a flicker of approval.
He looked the girl over, not smiling. ‘I know the station well. I’m not lost at all, miss.’ There was no recognition of her in his grey eyes.
‘Sorry. I thought you were hesitating. Excuse me.’ So saying, she turned round and walked back to the restaurant, swinging her hips and sighing with relief to think that her ploy had worked. He did not recognize her, this man who had called himself Frank. She had been afraid of trouble on that score.
Petrik was paying the bill at the counter inside the door. ‘What did he say?’
‘It’s Driscoll all right. He looks just like his photo. I asked him in Czech where the ladies’ toilets were. When he said he didn’t understand, I apologized and walked away. I wanted to be sure we had the right man. Have you settled up? Shall we go?’
Dozens of people were besieging the express, which stood dignified and immobile, its interior lights gleaming, being readied for its journey westwards. The boards were up on the camel-coloured sides of the carriages: PRAHA-PLZEN-CHEB-NURNBERG-STUTTGART. At the far end of the platform, a minotaur-shouldered diesel was in place, simmering to be off. Ondrej climbed aboard the train, Petrik following close behind. They struggled to gain their second-class sleeper, pushing past men and women moving this way and that along the narrow corridor. Many passengers were weighed down with luggage, and many were in military uniform.
Ondrej was excited by the bustle. She thoroughly inspected the compartment and the six bunks folded back into the walls. An old man joined them, pulling a heavy suitcase behind him. His pallid leathery face supported a two-day growth of white stubble, although he was smartly dressed. They watched him covertly as he wrenched down one of the lower bunks, kicked off his shoes, and climbed into the bunk. When his eyes closed, he appeared to fall asleep immediately.
A few minutes before the train was due to leave, Driscoll came aboard. He stowed his case away and sat down next to them without removing his coat. When they gave him a greeting, he nodded, saying nothing.
The conductor walked through the train, calling to everyone without a ticket to leave. The bustle increased. Ondrej went to the corridor window to watch their departure, calling to Petrik to see what a long train it was. Prompt to time, the express began to move with gradually increasing strength, to roll past the waving groups of people on the platform into the darkness beyond the station.
For a while Ondrej was content to stand in the corridor, peering out of the window at the lights and signs of industry in the night. At last, she came back into the compartment yawning, to say to Petr, ‘Well, I’m going to turn in. I’ll leave it to you.’ She avoided looking directly at Driscoll.
The bunk reserved for her was above the sleeping man. Without disturbing him, she pulled the bed down and climbed into it, turning her cloak-clad back on Driscoll and Petrik. The latter thought to himself, ‘She’s shooting some shit into her veins up there, sure enough.’ He did not know what she was hooked on, and never enquired.
It was impossible for Petrik to retire to his bunk as long as Driscoll remained where he was, since Petrik’s was the other middle bunk; Driscoll had reserved the lower bunk on which they were sitting. The two upper bunks had not been taken. Driscoll showed no sign of moving. He continued to sit immobile, staring into space, his lower lip protruding as if in deep thought.
Petrik too fell into a daze, his thoughts turning as always to the question of his film-making. He had taken a job in a back-street garage, repairing Western makes of cars, which always fetched good prices in the capital. His boss operated out of a disused chapel. The boss was a scholarly and decent man who understood Petrik’s love of film-making, and had been heard to say proudly to customers, gesturing to his assistant, ‘Yes, he used to be a film director in Dubček days.’
The boss lived with his current mistress in the crypt under the converted chapel. In a fit of goodwill, he gave Petrik a space at one end of the crypt little bigger than a large cupboard to use as a studio. This was his nook.
Here Petrik had installed some equipment and was putting together the black-and-white animated feature starring his small hunchbacked figure. He had one minute eight seconds on film so far. In moments of idleness, his thoughts went to the next scene, for which he had partly drawn the set. A postbox was getting ready to open its mouth and swallow the little hunchback. The working title of the feature was Legacy.
It was just after midnight, when the express was drawing out of a dark Plzen, that Driscoll produced from one of his capacious ginger pockets a silver flask. He unscrewed the cup and poured an amber liquid into it. Then, catching Petrik’s eye upon him, he proffered the cup.
‘Would you be liking a drink?’
Petrik was surprised, and could not immediately think of the limited English he possessed.
The great bulk of the man edged slightly nearer, still offering the cup. ‘It’s Irish whiskey. Verstehen? It’ll do you good. Make your hair curl.’
‘No. No, thanks.’
‘Go on. We’ve hours to kill on this bloody train.’
Petrik accepted the cup, and sipped. It was strong and good, waking new sensations in his throat as it went down.
‘There’s no sense in being miserable. I always say it. My mother always used to tell us, if you walk around under a black cloud you’re going to get many a wetting.’
Petrik looked out of the window. ‘It’s good to be cheerful, even in rain,’ he said. He fingered the plump packet in his coat.
‘My sentiments precisely. People have to create their own lives.’ Driscoll accepted the silver cup back, steadying his elbow against the rear of the bunk in order to pour himself a generous dose before continuing. ‘Yes, people have to create their own lives. It’s a must. The more miserable the outlook, the brighter should be your hopes. You have to fight for what you think is right and to hell with the rest of them. Isn’t that so? On either side of the Iron Curtain, that’s so, eh? I take it you’re Polish – sorry, I mean Czechoslovak. I’m forgetting which bloody country I’m in.’
‘It is not always possible to “create your own life”, as you say it. There are limitations and circumstances. Our own life is set for us, in many ways.’ He found English difficult.
Driscoll preferred to ignore this last remark. Gesturing with the cup towards Ondrej’s back, he said, ‘Do you think your little missus would like to join us for a sip?’
‘She’s in sleep.’
‘We could wake her up. She’s a nice-looking lady, your little m
issus. There are quite a few birds I’ve seen in Prague look a lot like her.’
‘I have not seen them,’ Petrik said. He was displeased by these personal comments.
Silence fell. The train rattled through the night. Driscoll unbuttoned his coat and, leaning forward, rested his elbows on his knees, the better to enjoy his drink. After a while, he turned again to Petrik. ‘You Czechs are good businessmen, you know that? You make a tough deal. You ought to be capitalists.’
‘Many of us think it.’
The dark countryside through which they were passing became punctuated by a few scattered lights. Soon they were entering Marienska Lazne. To avoid further discussion, Petrik went to stand and look out of the door of the compartment. Driscoll rose and joined him. He started up another conversation, passing the cup again.
Petrik found his English returning, though he did not speak it well. They talked of general things, in the cautious way of travellers; but the subject of what was to be made of life seemed never far from Driscoll’s thoughts. Conscious always of being on his cousin’s mission, Petrik was careful not to annoy the man, who he suspected could be of uncertain temper. He found it best to agree with most of his sentiments, although a mild demurrer awoke the other’s wrath.
‘You got to make your own life, that’s what I say. If someone oppresses you, you fight back against the bastards.’ Saying this, Driscoll thumped the window bar for emphasis.
‘Well … that isn’t possible sometimes,’ Petrik said. ‘Then you have to make the best of the things. I suppose it is a different case for you English.’
Driscoll flared up immediately. ‘I’m no bloody Englishman and I’d cut me own throat if I was. Don’t you call me English. I’m Irish to the blood and bone.’
Petrik apologized hastily. ‘I should have said Westerner.’ He gave the man a cigarette by way of apology. They smoked together in silence.
