“I telephoned Comrade Frček and he was much distressed to hear of the Professor’s state. He says we were quite right not to take him to the hotel, and that I am to bring him and you, Comrade Hořovská, at once to Headquarters.”
“The Professor is much better already,” she said quickly. “You can see that for yourself. I’m sure he won’t give us any trouble now, but he needs rest after his journey, and Comrade Frcek is much too important a man to be bothered about such matters unnecessarily. I suggest that we go straight to the hotel, and you can telephone him again from there to relieve him of his anxiety.”
“No.” Kmoch shook his head. “It is an order.” Then he turned to Nicholas and said, “Now that you are recovered, please allow me to welcome you back to Czechoslovakia. We are very proud that Prague should have produced such a distinguished scientist.”
“Thanks,” Nicholas replied non-committally. He was still a little staggered at the thought that he was now carrying the means of instant death in his pocket; and having been given it to use on himself in an emergency had once more thrown him into a state of frightful indecision. But Kmoch was obviously anxious not to keep his chief waiting; so without further remark, he hurried them out into the hall. Having flashed his pass in front of two state policemen on the main door he led his charges over to a car driven by a third, told them that their bags were already in the boot, and bundled them in.
Much of the country round Prague is well-wooded and beautiful, but after a few miles the road from the airport lost its attraction owing to ribbon development. Subconsciously Nicholas noticed occasional rows of jerry-built, ill-kept looking bungalows, with here and there, near factories, big blocks of workers’ flats; but he was much too absorbed in his own problem to take the interest he would normally have done in the new suburbs of the Czechoslovakian capital.
For years past he had read avidly all the Left-wing material that had come his way on conditions in the Soviet satellite countries. That, and innumerable discussions with people who thought as he did, had given him a fixed belief that they were governed for the benefit of the great mass of their people. The fact that in them land, property and accumulated fortunes had been confiscated for the benefit of the State he entirely approved. Those measures necessarily created a discontented minority who would stop at nothing to sabotage the smooth running of these worker-republics, and obviously such activties had to be severely repressed. Such suppression he accepted as the unavoidable birth-pangs of a new and better order, but he was convinced that the stories of nation-wide terror and arbitrary imprisonment were capitalist lies.
On this basis he realised that only active enemies of the State had anything to fear from it. Obviously the blonde young woman now sitting beside him was such an enemy. That had been made clear beyond doubt by her conversation with Jirka, the barman. But he, Nicholas, was not. On the contrary he was in entire sympathy with the regime. Therefore, it seemed, he had only to tell the truth—apart from the fact that he had deliberately impersonated Bilto to begin with in an endeavour to prevent his going to Prague—to be certain of a sympathetic hearing, and humane treatment afterwards. Whereas should he continue the deception and be found out, his association with the girl would be taken as proof that he was a member of the subversive ‘Legion’ to which she belonged, and he would no longer have any reasonable cause for complaint if they treated him too as a potential saboteur.
On the other hand it would be necessary to lie about how he had first got drawn into the affair, and—would he be believed? If not, should they decide that he had been her willing confederate all along, he would in that case, too, be treated as a saboteur, and—what would happen then?
He was still of the opinion that she had deliberately over-dramatised her situation, and that neither of them stood in any danger of torture or death; but all the same it was difficult entirely to discount the fears she had expressed to Jirka and his immediate acceptance of them. Even the lurking thought that the Czech state police might have found it necessary, in their war against sabotage, to follow the example of the Nazis—under whom their country had suffered for so long—was distinctly unnerving. She had looked as if she really meant it, too, when she had said that she did not fear death but dreaded the treatment she expected to receive before it.
It occurred to him then that although, if he could tell a few convincing lies, he might get himself in the clear, that would not necessarily clear her. What lay behind her having had him brought to Prague still remained a mystery; but evidently it tied up in some way with her subversive activities, and she had left him in no doubt that her only hope of escaping exposure was his continuing to play her game. Presumably, therefore, if he did not, ruling out her exaggerated fears, she would shortly find herself in prison.
He thought that she probably deserved it; and his immediate reaction was that, anyway, he owed her nothing. But on second thoughts he recalled her attitude to himself—that having got him into this mess it was up to her to get him out of it. That showed a generosity of spirit which it was not easy to ignore; and he felt it only fair to assume that the course she had urged upon him was the one she believed offered the best hope for them both.
Her attempt to evade the interview at Headquarters had been promptly blocked by Kmoch; but if they could get past Comrade Frček, who was evidently Kmoch’s chief, and were allowed to go on to the hotel, there seemed a good prospect that, with the help of her underground associates, they could manage to disappear. If so, and Jirka’s ‘funnel’ worked, they might both be outside the Iron Curtain before morning.
Putting aside, on the one hand, his inclination to tell the truth, and on the other, his natural reluctance to be the cause of anyone’s being sent to prison, Nicholas again strove to weigh up the chances. After they had covered another mile he decided that in the final analysis they must be judged on what was likely to be believed by Comrade Frček, and what was not. The odds were obviously heavy against his acceptance of a statement that the man brought before him was not Bilto, because it could never even have crossed his mind that it would not be the person he was expecting; from which it followed that, apart from the remote possibility that he had known Bilto in his student days, he would have no reason to suspect an impostor. Therefore, in the first case detention was certain, but in the second unlikely.
There still remained the disturbing thought that while the chances of deceiving the police chief were good, the hope of continuing the deception if faced with a gathering of Prague’s leading scientists at luncheon was virtually non-existent; so Nicholas had to face the fact that should the young woman who was the cause of all his troubles fail to get them away from the hotel in the hour or two he could gain for her, his last case would be very much worse than his first. But finally he decided to risk that, and gamble on her succeeding both in obtaining for him a quick get-out and saving herself.
The car was approaching the capital from the north-west, and from a long way off Nicholas had been able to see the outline of the vast Hradcany Castle. When they came within clear sight of its steeply-sloping roofs and myriad-pointed gables, he expected that they would turn off to it, for he knew that it was now used as the central administrative offices of the People’s Government; but instead they continued on round the shoulder of the hill across which it sprawled. From the high ground he could now see a good part of Prague, and the bend of the river Vltava that separates the richest residential district from the greater part of the city. Beyond the beautiful Charles Bridge lay the Old Town with portions of its original walls and many fine medieval buildings. He could pick out the Powder Tower, the Týn Church and the Town Hall; then, further off, the massed buildings covering the slopes on which lay the New Town with its big hotels and principal shopping streets. Another few minutes and the car was running down between the big old private houses and blocks of one-time luxury flats. It crossed the river to the east bank, ran on through several streets, crossed the broad Příkopy, and two hundred yards further on pulled
up in front of a tall modern concrete office block.
Kmoch got out, told the driver to take it round to the garage and continue to stand by, then shepherded his charges into a lofty pillared hall. A number of very smartly turned out State Police were standing about there, and a few civilians most of whom had the appearance of tough plain-clothes men. One of a row of pretty uniformed lift girls smiled ingratiatingly at Kmoch and took them up to the top floor. There an even prettier secretary received them and ushered them into a comfortably-furnished waiting room; but they were not kept waiting long. After speaking over an intercom, she took them along a short passage, and showed them into her boss’s office.
It was a fine oblong room, one of its longer sides being entirely formed of glass, which gave it a magnificent view over the rooftops of the ancient city. The floor was uncarpeted but of a slightly yielding synthetic rubber substance that made it pleasant to walk upon. The walls were panelled in light woods, the fittings chromium plate, and the furniture tubular. At one end of the room Comrade Frček sat behind a glass-topped desk that had on it only a writing pad, an intercom and a battery of different-coloured telephones.
He was a biggish man, but bulky rather than tall, and at first glance it struck Nicholas that there was something old-fashioned about him. The impression was probably due to the fact that he was wearing a stiff white collar with a black jacket and pin-stripe trousers, yet he looked more like a well-paid artisan in his Sunday best than the traditional senior civil servant. His features, too, were the reverse of intellectual. Jet black hair and bushy eyebrows sprouted from his massive head, which was set upon a short thick neck; his nose was pudgy and his mouth gross. Only his round, black, piercing eyes gave any indication of the liveliness of his mind, and they stood out with special vividness because the skin of his moon-like face had the unnatural matt pallor sometimes seen in men who are incapable of growing a beard.
Getting up from his desk, he came round it, and ignoring the others shook Nicholas warmly by the hand, booming meanwhile in a deep bass voice that belied any lack of virility suggested by his beardlessness.
“My congratulations, Professor, on your safe arrival. Your decision to leave the decadent democracies of the West and return to the land of your birth has been warmly applauded by all your fellow-countrymen who have so far been permitted to know of it. As a representative of the People’s Government, I speak for the dumb millions whom it is our privilege to serve, in welcoming you back amongst us. I can only add how distressed I was to learn that there had been some sort of … er, trouble about your departure from London.”
Nicholas’ bent in life did not lie towards amateur theatricals, but he knew that half the secret of success in the histrionic art lay in throwing oneself heart and soul into a part; so, having decided to play Bilto, he returned the vigorous handshake and replied in the pompous manner that he felt best suited to the circumstances:
“Comrade Frček, I accept your welcome to Prague in the spirit in which it is given. I should never have left it, had not my position as a known Marxist-front-worker meant death if I had stayed on after the city fell into the hands of the Nazi-imperialist-swine. But I have a most serious complaint to lodge against your London headquarters staff. Are you aware that they laid violent hands upon me there, and that at the orders of Comrade Vaněk I was forcibly given an injection?”
Frček’s moon-like face showed sympathetic concern. “Comrade Kmoch reported to me half an hour ago that you had been sent as … er, what we term ‘a parcel’; and I am completely at a loss to understand it. That you no longer appear to be suffering from the effect is some comfort. But come and sit down, and we will go into the matter.”
With a glance at the others, he added, “Comrade Hořovská, Comrade Kmoch; please also be seated.” Then, when they had settled themselves, he went on: “Now, Comrade Professor, perhaps you will give me an account of what occurred?”
Nicholas ran a hand through his rumpled red hair, and said with a frown, “Everything had been fixed up satisfactorily about the date of my departure, and all my own arrangements for leaving went without a hitch, until the last moment. Then an unforeseen crisis arose. I learned by chance that my going might implicate an old friend of mine—a Marxist comrade of long standing whose work is of great value to the Party in London. Both friendship and the interests of our cause decided me that I must postpone my journey for twenty-four hours in order to inform him of the steps that he should take for his protection. In consequence I allowed myself to be taken to Comrade Vaněk’s headquarters as arranged, but only with the intention of telling them there what had happened, and that I could not travel that night. Comrade Vaněk then acted in a most arbitrary fashion. He said that in no circumstances could my journey be postponed. When I refused to leave he orderd his people to seize me. I was overpowered and given an injection which made me extremely ill. Comrade Hořovská was present the whole time and will bear out all I have said.”
She nodded her sleek blonde head. “Yes, Comrade Frček, that is exactly what happened.”
Frček continued to look sympathetic. “Of course, Professor,” he said after a moment, “you will appreciate that in the Party an order is an order. Comrade Vaněk had his instructions to send you to Prague on a given date, and he would naturally have been most reluctant to disobey them unless he could afterwards give a fully satisfactory reason for having done so.”
“He could hardly have had a better one,” Nicholas retorted truculently, “as my decision to put off my journey was in the interests of the Party.”
“Quite, quite. But I wonder if you made that really clear to him?”
“Unless he is a complete fool, he could not possibly have misunderstood what I said.”
Frček’s black eyes bored into Nicholas’ brown ones, as he asked quietly, “Do you not think it possible that Comrade Vaněk may have got the idea when you said you wished to put off your journey that you really had in mind a longer postponement than twenty-four hours?”
This sudden switch to dangerous ground caused Nicholas’ throat to contract, but he returned the stare unwinkingly. “Certainly not. I gave him no reason whatever to suppose so.”
The big man tapped his desk thoughtfully with thick, pudgy fingers. “You see, Professor, you are of great value to us. If Comrade Vaněk formed the impression that you had become troubled by doubts at the last moment—in fact that you had changed your mind and did not mean to come here after all—he would have been fully justified in acting as he did. I suppose you hadn’t changed your mind?”
“I regard that as an insult!” Nicholas cried indignantly, jerking himself upright in his chair. “My whole life vouches for my devotion to the workers’ cause! There must be scores of Comrades still living in Prague who will remember me as a leader of the Marxist student group.”
The words were hardly out when he wondered anxiously if he had gone too far. If Frček sent for some of the old Comrades he claimed to have led, the game would be up. But his bold stroke had had the desired effect, at least for the moment.
Frček was smiling as he said, “I intended no insult, Professor, and I accept your version of this unfortunate affair. Comrade Vaněk was obviously over-zealous in carrying out his orders. In an experienced and responsible official that is almost as bad a fault as slackness; so I shall at once send a severe reprimand to London. Regarding those old Comrades that you mention, a number of them are greatly looking forward to a reunion with you at the lunch we have arranged in your honour. But if I may say so, you look remarkably young to be their contemporary.”
At that Nicholas felt a cold chill run down his spine. It had temporarily slipped his memory that he was ten years younger than Bilto, but a second’s thought told him that nothing could be behind the remark. Forcing a laugh, he said:
“A youthful appearance runs in the family. My grandfather hadn’t a grey hair on his head when he died at the age of seventy.”
Again he could have bitten out his tongue. It was of
his English grandfather he had been thinking. One of Bilto’s grandfathers had died before Bilto was born, and the other when under sixty. He had given himself away completely if Frček knew anything about the Prague branch of the Novák family. For a moment he held his breath, while realising to the full the awful strain and terror of slipping up which must, afflict a guilty criminal under cross-examination. His sigh of relief was almost audible as the big man gave a casual nod, then stood up and addressed Kmoch:
“Everything is now in order. You will take the Professor to Engelsüv Dúm and see that he has everything he requires to refresh himself before the reception.”
“Certainly, Comrade Minister. Kmoch hesitated a second, then asked, “What about Comrade Hořovská? She told me at the airport that she is the Professor’s Comrade-companion.”
Frček smiled. “In that case arrange for her to be accommodated there with him. I remember now that some undertaking was given for one of our women agents to be placed at his disposal when he arrived in Prague, and naturally we wish to do all we can to make him comfortable here.”
For a moment his glance rested on the quietly-dressed girl, taking in her big green eyes, the fine-spun silvery hair that fell to her shoulders, and brazenly stripping the clothes from her slim figure; then he turned to Nicholas with a vulgar leer:
“Congratulations, Professor. Your taste in women does you credit; but when you tire of her let me know, and I will arrange for you to be given an opportunity to pick another. We have in Prague a good selection of Comrade-companions for the recreation of the privileged few, and the importance of your work will entitle you to be counted among us.”
His reference to ‘the privileged few’ left no doubt in Nicholas’ mind that a joke was intended, and while he regarded such humour as in the worse of taste, he thought it advisable to play up to it; so he laughed and said, ‘Thanks for the offer, Comrade. It is nice to know that you retain the good old customs of the Austrian nobility.”
Curtain of Fear Page 12
