The Cowards

by Josef Skvorecky

  ‘Well, I don’t know. Probably something came up.’

  ‘Or else he decided he’d just skip the whole thing.’

  ‘That’s possible, too.’

  Prema was silent.

  ‘Listen,’ I said, ‘is there anything else I can do for you this afternoon?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘Otherwise I think I’ll go home to bed, all right? I’m soaked and I want to be in shape for tomorrow.’

  ‘Go on home, then. There’s really nothing to do right now.’

  ‘And … listen,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I’m supposed to come over tomorrow morning, right?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And will you have that … thing, that … you know … for me?’

  ‘Don’t worry. It’ll be here.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll be there then.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Well, so long.’

  ‘So long.’

  So. That was that. I hung up. Now back home and to bed and to hell with everything. I stepped into the kitchen and laid a coin on a corner of the table.

  ‘Thanks, Mrs Pilarova,’ I said, and grinned at her.

  ‘You’re quite welcome. Come in again,’ she said.

  I opened the door and went out into the hall. A cat mewed and I could see its green eyes shining in the darkness. I went on down the street towards the square. It wasn’t raining at all any more. My face was hot and I felt chilled, but it wasn’t so bad any more since I could look forward to an afternoon in bed and was thinking about Irena and felt pretty good. And awful, too. I’d make myself some hot tea and take an aspirin and pull down the blinds. I hurried across the square. It was full of people again. It was Saturday afternoon and mothers were out with their baby carriages. I saw pretty Mrs Jurkova, Rosta Pitterman’s sister, with her baby carriage and husband. She had nice wide eyes fringed with thick curly lashes. Her eyes looked surprised and pretty and dumb. There were lots of flags hanging along Jirasek Boulevard. At Kaldoun’s there was a terribly long flag that hung from the attic window almost all the way to the ground. It was nearly sixty feet long. A real monster of a flag. Kaldoun’s always had something unusual. Like that bronze statue of a naked Mercury that they had over their doorway, the only privately-owned statue like that in Kostelec. I hurried along and didn’t pay any attention to people. Now all I wanted was to be alone, completely alone with myself and Irena.

  But just as I got back to our building, I heard somebody yelling. I stopped and looked over to where the noise was coming from. Some people were racing past the Hotel Granada which stood on the corner. The Granada’s manager was leaning out of one of the windows frantically trying wildly to yank the flagpole out of its holder. Finally he wrenched it out, then he snatched the flag inside. On the opposite side of the street, Mr Pitterman was pulling his flag in through the window, hand over hand. He was in his shirtsleeves and wearing suspenders, and his hands flashed as he pulled at the cable. People were rushing along on both sides of the street, crowding into Pitterman’s arcade and into the Granada. I stood in front of our house and watched. I could hear the roar of a motor and a big car turned into the street past Pitterman’s house. A German soldier with a submachine gun was sitting on the roof of the car. Two other soldiers were perched on the front, their legs draped over the bumpers, wearing German jackboots with hand grenades stuck in the sides. They were both holding submachine guns in their laps, one on each side of the car. The car drove slowly along the street. An officer stood on the running-board, holding on with his left hand through an open window, a pistol in his right hand. He was wearing grey gloves. He peered around at the houses. As the car drove slowly past, flags were snatched in from all the windows, one after another. The German officer looked at the windows and gestured with his pistol.

  ‘Los! Die Fahne weg!’ he screamed if somebody wasn’t hauling in a flag fast enough. The street in front of the car had also emptied. Somebody was pulling Kaldoun’s flag in through the attic window as fast as he could. It looked as though the dormer window up in the attic was swallowing a long piece of red and white macaroni. Away with that thing, fast. People had been in a little too much of a hurry. Get rid of it, fast. Wouldn’t want to do anything to irritate the Germans. Have to keep this revolution safe. Everybody was playing it safe, all right. The officer with the pistol in his hand was staring, fascinated, at Kaldoun’s flag. The car almost slowed to a halt. He watched the flag disappearing through the attic window and said nothing. Just then it got snagged on something at the front of the house. Whoever it was pulling it in began to jerk at it, but it wouldn’t budge.

  ‘Los! Los!’ yelled the officer. The poor soul in the attic struggled to work the flag loose. I hoped it was Mr Kaldoun himself. Fat, in his shirtsleeves and suspenders. It was probably the janitor though. Whoever it was, he wasn’t getting anywhere.

  ‘Los!’ yelled the officer, but the flag was stuck fast. The officer raised his pistol and fired a shot into the attic window. The shot made an awful racket and the revolver flashed. The red and white macaroni started tumbling back out of the attic window. Now it looked like a waterfall of cloth and it seemed to have no end. Either the guy in the attic had been shot or else he got scared and dropped the thing. That was more likely. That was it for sure. I hoped it was Mr Kaldoun. And that he got so scared he filled his pants. But if it wasn’t Mr Kaldoun, it was probably just the janitor. The officer on the running board laughed and the car drove on. All the houses were flagless now and the street looked as if it had been swept clean. I ducked inside the door and peeked out through the window. The car drove past me, the soldiers sitting on the bumpers, stiff and stupid. They were holding their guns at the ready and they wore shiny capes of ersatz rubber. Their grey helmets glistened from the rain and water dripped off the edges. As the car went past, I noticed the muzzles of a couple of submachine guns sticking out the back window. There were two or more soldiers sitting inside and another behind, straddling the spare tyre. It must have been pretty uncomfortable. Probably he could feel a bullet in his belly just like I had that morning. Except he was probably used to it by now. The car slowly moved on. I went inside. I got to our apartment and unlocked the door. As soon as I came into the hall, Mother ran out of the kitchen. She was frantic.

  ‘Oh, Danny, thank heavens! I’ve been so frightened!’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘What was it? That shot?’

  ‘That’s all it was. Some German shot at Kaldoun’s flag.’

  ‘Was anybody hurt?’

  ‘Hurt? No.’

  ‘Thank goodness. Where were you, Danny? You shouldn’t go out when things are like this.’

  ‘Oh, I was over at Sepon’s. Could you make me some tea?’

  ‘You got all wet, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I’d like to sweat it out.’

  ‘You go right to bed. Otherwise you’ll catch cold.’

  ‘And you’ll make some tea for me?’

  ‘Right away.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, and went into my room. I took off the red counterpane and turned back the eiderdown quilt. Then I took off my shoes and set them out in the hall to dry. I undressed and dropped my clothes on the floor. I put on my pyjamas and laid my clothes over the chair. It felt good to have on a pair of dry pyjamas. My pants were sopping wet I slid my feet into my slippers and took my pants into the kitchen. Mother was standing at the table. The tea kettle was on the hot plate. She turned to me.

  ‘You’re absolutely soaking, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Hang your pants over the clothes-line.’

  I tried to smooth a crease into the wet pants. They were all wrinkled up at the bottom. When I picked them up, they made me shiver.

  ‘Leave them, Danny,’ Mother said. ‘I’ll iron them for you as soon as they’re dry.’

  ‘So I should just put ’em over the line?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The tea kettle started
to hiss. I tossed my pants over the clothes-line. I shuddered again.

  ‘Hurry up and get in bed, Danny. I’ll bring you the tea,’ Mother said.

  ‘Thanks. I’ll take it myself.’

  Mother poured the water through a strainer into the cup.

  ‘Do you want some rum in it?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  Mother took the bottle of rum and measured out two spoonfuls. She still thought I was a little kid as far as my needs were concerned. Then she set the cup on a tin tray.

  ‘Wouldn’t you like a piece of sponge cake, too?’ she asked.

  ‘No, thanks. I’ll just take an aspirin.’

  ‘Yes, you do that, and cover up well. Do you want me to tuck you in?’

  ‘No, I’m not going to sweat much. Just a bit.’

  ‘You really ought to work up a good sweat.’

  ‘No, I don’t feel all that bad, Mother. I’ll just pull down the blinds and sleep.’

  ‘That’s the best thing you can do. You’re sure you don’t want me to tuck you in?’

  ‘No, thanks,’ I said and smiled at her. Then I carried my tea out of the kitchen and into my room. I put the tea on a chair next to the bed, went over to the cupboard, opened it and took out a tube of aspirin, closed the cupboard, and opened the inside window. It was pouring outside again. A white curtain of rain veiled the river with a thin mist. I closed the window and pulled down the blinds. Now it was dark in the room and the window gleamed a yellowish brown. I went over to the door and closed it. I looked around. Tea, aspirin, blinds down, bed. I crawled into bed and propped two pillows behind my back so I could sit up. I took the tray with the tea and had a sip. The clock on the wall struck five. I took another sip of tea. It was awfully hot. I waited a while until it cooled and then I began to drink it. I left a bit in the bottom of the cup and set the tray and the cup on the chair. And now for Irena. I fixed up the pillows so I could lie down and pulled the quilt up under my chin. Irena. But first I’d say my prayers. Dear Lord, please, and it went very fast. I rattled off the prayer and now it didn’t matter that it wasn’t very reverent. I didn’t go back over it or repeat anything. And now for Irena. I thought about how I’d been at her place and she’d had on that plaid bathrobe and nothing underneath. I thought about that in every detail. And from there I went on to think about another time when I’d been at her place and Irena came into the hall in a blue Japanese kimono and held out her hand to me and I saw how her breasts pushed the kimono out in front and then it fell in a straight line down from her breasts and hung loose around the waist, and then Irena turned around and went into her room and she stumbled over the threshold and one of her slippers with a big blue pompon flew off, and she bent over to pick it up and as she did so her kimono opened in front a little bit so you got a glimpse of her naked skin, and how one winter we were walking down Black Mountain and Irena fell and her skirt flew up and she had awfully pretty knees and white boots. I thought about all this and started thinking about how one morning in tenth grade when I’d waited for her under the viaduct by Skocdopole’s warehouse she came, and she was wearing her blue coat with the white trimming around the hood and when I looked at her from the back it fell in a nice V on her back, and I thought about that and about the beach and her bathing suit with the white string across her back and so on, about her hips in that swimming suit and the narrow valley between her breasts that I could look down into when she was lying beside me on her stomach getting a suntan. That was my life. That had been my life. Irena. And I’d got a kick out of it. Kostelec and the revolution and the boys and Irena and all. I’d got a terrific kick out of it and I’d enjoyed it all. Every last little thing. I burrowed down under the quilt and closed my eyes. A good, warm, snug feeling came over me. I forgot about how they were fighting in Prague and that the Old Town Hall was on fire. Maybe my cousins were dying on the barricades. Or more likely they’d crept down in the cellar of their house. I felt great. They were fighting in Prague. Sensational. I lay in bed and felt nice and warm. Everything was great. The whole world in general. And I was happy. Then I just felt good and comfortable without thinking about anything at all and then I fell asleep. And I slept for a long time and I dreamed about something, but I forget what.

  Sunday, May 6, 1945

  I went around to Skocdopole’s at about quarter to eight. It was drizzling and foggy outside. I’d hardly got out of the house before I could tell the revolution meant business. People in hiking clothes and berets were heading towards the brewery. They didn’t have any weapons as far as I could see, but they had tricolours stitched on their berets and packs strapped to their backs.

  I was wearing hiking clothes too, because it was raining and because I didn’t want to ruin my best suit. I met Mr Mozol under the viaduct near Skocdopole’s warehouse. He was limping along, looking very pale, as he heroically made his way towards the brewery. He had strapped on an old Austrian sabre and looked like something out of an American slapstick comedy. He had to act very heroic now because he hadn’t been very heroic during the war. He’d worked his way up at the factory until finally he’d been made local construction supervisor of the German Air Transport Ministry. So now he had to act like a hero. I wondered whether the rest of that crowd would be down at the brewery. Probably. The poor saps would all have to be heroes now.

  When I got to the warehouse, Prema was already sitting there on an empty crate, fully armed, wearing his corduroy hunting pants, and the rest of the boys were standing or sitting around. A dim light bulb, draped with cobwebs, shone down on them from the ceiling. They looked like Jesse James’s gang. Prema had on high-laced hunting boots and an ammunition belt around his waist. A string of hand grenades was slung across his chest and a submachine gun over his shoulder. His face under the Masaryk cap was thin and with his gaunt cheeks he looked kind of Mongolian. Benda was wearing a shiny black fireman’s helmet. They were talking things over.

  ‘Shit,’ said Prema. ‘I’m against going over there.’

  ‘Me, too. Once we get there, we’re stuck,’ said Perlik.

  ‘But …’ said Benda.

  ‘Anyway, all Sabata wants to do is lock us all up in the brewery.’

  ‘I still think it’d be better if we went over there,’ said Benda.

  ‘Because you’re scared, maybe?’ said Perlik.

  ‘Hell no. But what can we do all by ourselves?’

  ‘We collected all these guns by ourselves, didn’t we?’

  ‘Okay, but when the SS-men come, then what? How many people do we have anyway?’

  ‘Enough, but if you’re scared, stay home.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘Or else go over to the brewery.’

  ‘Aw, come on, for Chrissake.’

  ‘You’re yellow.’

  ‘I am not.’

  ‘You are, too.’

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘Don’t argue, guys,’ said Prema. ‘The point is whether we ought to go over there or not.’

  ‘I say we shouldn’t,’ said Perlik.

  ‘I think it’d be better if we did,’ said Vahar

  ‘You scared, too?’ said Perlik.

  ‘The fact is, we’ve got more guns than we know what to do with and it’d be a shame to let ’em go to waste,’ said Vahar.

  ‘And on account of that you want to go report at the brewery, huh?’

  ‘Well, and what do you want to do with the guns?’

  ‘Pass ’em out to other guys.’

  ‘Yeah, but all the others are over at the brewery.’

  ‘So what do you say, fellas?’ said Prema.

  ‘What say we go to the brewery?’ said Jerry.

  I looked at them. They were standing around the upturned packing crates like robbers in their den and, aside from Perlik, all of them wanted to go to the brewery. Only Prema was undecided. But he was their leader and he couldn’t act hastily. I watched him through the glass doors and heard what he said. Then I opened the door
and walked in.

  ‘Hi,’ I said.

  ‘Hiya. Come on in,’ said Prema.

  ‘Well, are we going over to the brewery?’ I said.

  ‘We’re just talking it over.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘We can’t make up our minds whether we ought to or not.’

  ‘Everybody’s going.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Benda. ‘We’re going, too. Come on.’

  ‘I’m not going,’ said Perlik.

  ‘So stay here, then.’

  ‘I’d rather go over to the communists than sign up with Sabata.’

  ‘So go on, who’s stopping you?’ said Benda.

  ‘Don’t be nuts, Perlik,’ said Prema.

  ‘So I’m the one who’s nuts, am I? And how about the rest of you?’

  ‘We’ll wait and see how things look over there.’

  ‘You still don’t know Dr Sabata? You still don’t know what a gutless bastard that guy is?’

  ‘Aw, come off it.’

  ‘You think he’ll let you take off with those guns? Why, you might annoy the Germans.’

  Perlik was angry and ironic. I knew him. The Germans sent him to a work camp once for being a chronic absentee. He was one of those people who are so brave they never show even a trace of fear. It was dangerous to be connected with a guy like that. But he was the only one. The rest were different.

  ‘No, listen, fellas,’ said Prema. ‘The question is, can we get anywhere all by ourselves.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Jerry.

  ‘The fact is that the German front’s getting closer and closer and what can we do by ourselves against tanks?’ said Benda.

  ‘And what are you going to do against tanks together with Dr Sabata?’ said Perlik.

  Benda ignored him.

  ‘The fact is, we’ve got twice as many guns as we can use. Also, that there’ll be guys over at the brewery who know how to use them.’

  ‘If Dr Sabata’ll let them use them, that is.’

  ‘What the hell, you want us to let the guns just lie around here?’

  ‘And you’re really dumb enough to think Sabata’ll let anybody shoot ’em?’