The Cowards (23 page)

‘What is all this?’ said the man.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Home.’

‘And where have you been?’

‘What business is that of yours?’

I saw the silhouette of Dr Bohadlo in his knickers and beret and the man caught in the bright light streaming out of Dr Bohadlo’s fist.

‘Don’t you know this city is under martial law now?’

‘Under what?’

‘Martial law.’

‘So?’

‘Don’t you know no one is allowed out on the street after eight o’clock?’

‘Why not?’

‘Because this city is under martial law!’

The man dropped his hand from his face and blinked. Then he started to walk on. Dr Bohadlo grabbed his arm and the man tried to jerk away. The cone of light leaped up along the front of the house, then into the sky, and back on the man again. I saw the three other guys on our squad grab him. Dr Bohadlo turned the light on his face again.

‘Damn it!’ said the man. ‘Get your hands off me!’

‘Hold on to him, boys,’ said Dr Bohadlo. ‘Your identity card, please.’

‘What the hell do you want now?’

‘Your identity card.’

‘What authority do you have to ask for that?’

‘I’m not going to waste time discussing the issue. Just show me your papers, please.’

‘What proof do you have that you have any right to ask?’

Dr Bohadlo turned the flashlight on his armband.

‘Anybody could put one of those things on,’ the man said.

‘All right now, either produce your identity card and take the shortest way home or I’ll be forced to arrest you.’

‘You have no right to do that either,’ the man muttered as he slowly reached into his pocket. Dr Bohadlo stuck out his hand, took the crumpled identity card, and shone his flashlight on it.

‘Well, now, Mr Mracek,’ he said, ‘where are you coming from and where are you going?’

‘I told you, I’m going home,’ the man said angrily.

‘And where’ve you been?’

‘Why the hell do you have to know?’

‘Just answer the question.’

‘I told you, I’m going home, all right? What the hell, I’m not at confession, am I?’

‘If you don’t tell me where you’ve been, I’m going to have to arrest you. And I warn you, you’d better tell the truth. We’ll check up.’

‘Jesus Christ, what you’d ever want to know for is beyond me.’

‘That’s our business.’

The man again tried to get away.

‘Let me go.’

‘Answer the question.’

‘Christ, don’t make such a fuss about it, will you?’ the man said.

‘Are you going to answer my question?’

‘Shit.’

‘You’re under arrest,’ said Dr Bohadlo.

‘Oh, take it easy. Don’t get so goddamn worked up.’

‘Hold on to him, boys!’

‘What the hell are you going to do with me?’

‘You’ll be brought before a court-martial.’

‘By what right?’

‘As I said before, this city is under martial law now.’

‘Take your goddamn hands off me.’

‘Hold on to him, boys.’

In the light of the flashlight you could see him struggling to work loose but the three boys had a good professional grip on him.

‘Let’s go!’ said Dr Bohadlo.

‘All right, I’ll tell you,’ the man said quickly.

‘You’re under arrest.’

‘Oh, forget all this junk about arrest. I’ll tell you if you’re so damn eager to know.’

‘You should have told me sooner.’

‘Well, sure, maybe I should have, but how was I supposed to know …? And it’s not all that simple either. But, all right, I’ll tell you.’

Dr Bohadlo said nothing. The boys were pulling the man on down the street and the man was giving them a hard time and then suddenly he said, ‘All right. I was with a woman. There. Now you know. Now let go of me.’

The boys still held on to him.

‘I was with a woman and now I’m going home to get some sleep.’

‘Wait a minute,’ said Dr Bohadlo. The boys stopped.

‘And that’s all there is to it,’ the man said. ‘I was with a woman and now I’m going home.’

‘Tell us the woman’s name.’

‘But why?’

‘How else can we check up on you?’

‘Hell. I can’t do that.’

‘Why not?’

‘I can’t, that’s all.’

‘In that case, I won’t be able to release you.’

‘Oh, Jesus,’ the fellow said. ‘Can’t you understand that there’re some things you don’t just go around telling people?’

‘If you’re afraid of an indiscretion, it’s unnecessary. In an interrogation like this all information is held in the strictest confidence.’

‘Like hell it is! With this bunch of squirts around the whole town’ll know by morning.’

‘I advise you to keep your personal opinions of these men to
yourself,’ said Dr Bohadlo. ‘Do you refuse to give this woman’s name in order not to compromise her?’

‘Naturally. She’s married.’

‘Nevertheless if you don’t give me her name, I’ll have to turn you in.’

‘Oh, for Chrissake!’ said the man and then whispered something to Dr Bohadlo but so loud we could all hear it. ‘Listen, her husband’s over at the brewery, too. Do you see now why …?’

‘I’m sorry.’ Dr Bohadlo shrugged his shoulders. ‘Furthermore I might point out that such activities are illegal, too.’

‘Well, sure. But it isn’t
that
serious a crime, is it?’ the man said.

‘Let’s go,’ said Dr Bohadlo.

‘All right, I’ll tell you who,’ the man yelled. We all stopped.

‘But only you,’ the man said to Dr Bohadlo. Dr Bohadlo stepped up close to him and the man whispered something into his ear and then Dr Bohadlo drew back sharply and stared at him.

‘Really?’ he said.

‘That’s right,’ the man said.

‘And the Mayor doesn’t …’ Dr Bohadlo started to say.

‘Shh!’ the man said and Dr Bohadlo bent over and whispered something into his ear to which the man nodded. Then he grabbed the doctor’s hand imploringly and Dr Bohadlo straightened up and said in a loud voice, ‘And you’re on your way home now?’

‘That’s right.’

Dr Bohadlo thought it over for a while and then he said, ‘I’ll make a note of your name and then you may go.’

‘But you’ll keep it strictly confidential, right?’

‘Of course,’ Dr Bohadlo replied and jotted something down in his little notebook. Then he handed the man’s identity card back to him and cleared his throat.

‘Ahem, well, come to my office next week. And now go straight home, please, and remember – next time I’ll be obliged to detain you.’

‘Yes. Thanks,’ said the man.

‘Let him go, boys.’ I saw the boys suspiciously release the man and the man straightening his coat collar.

‘Well, thanks,’ he said and then turned and strode off down the street towards the station. We just stood there in silence. It was raining and in the steady patter of the rain Mracek’s footsteps grew fainter and fainter. We all just stood there until Dr Bohadlo said, ‘All right, on we go, boys,’ and took his place in the lead and we stretched out in a line across the street again and as I passed Haryk, he said, ‘Hot stuff, huh?’

‘You said it,’ I said and took my place on the left wing of the column. On we went, down Jirasek Boulevard, across the bridge, and then there we were back again between the station and Messerschmidt. You could hear a kind of humming roar coming from the direction of the frontier now. We went as far as Schroll’s factory and the noise was getting louder now. Then a short string of lights appeared on the highway.

‘We’ll wait here,’ said Dr Bohadlo. We lined up against the wall and waited. The lights came closer through the rain and the noise kept growing louder. It wasn’t the usual kind of noise that cars or trucks make. As it came closer, I could feel the earth trembling but I still couldn’t make out what it was. Until at last I heard a metallic clatter and then I knew it was a tank. Through the dark and the rain it was rapidly crawling towards us. We stood there, pressed up against the wall, waiting. The lights drew nearer and, above us, the blackout lamp danced in the wind. The rumbling got louder until it was almost deafening and then a huge dark tank lumbered out of the night into the dim circle of light, its armoured turret shiny from the rain and giving off a stink of gas and exhaust fumes as it clanked by. The racket completely deafened me. Behind the tank came trucks – one, two, three, four, five of them. As they moved under the canopy of light I could see the soldiers sitting inside in two rows, facing each other silently in their wet helmets. Then the column had passed us by and the howling and racket was muffled among the tall apartment houses on Jirasek Boulevard until it gradually died away completely.

‘They’re on their way to Prague,’ one of the boys said glumly.

Dr Bohadlo moved away from the wall. ‘To Prague? No,’ he
said, ‘they’re on their way to surrender to the Americans.’ Then he pulled up his armband which had slipped all the way down to his wrist and said, ‘All right now. Forward march, boys!’

We moved off, one after the other, and formed our line again. The rain was cold against our faces and you could hear Benno swearing away steadily under his breath. We marched back to town. From time to time we heard the receding rumble of a truck. We went along Jirasek Boulevard as far as Novotny’s store, turned and headed back. It was getting kind of silly by now. The rain slanted across each street light as it poured down on the town and the little puddles glittered and splattered as the heavy drops fell into them. My shoes were sopping wet and I was shaking with a chill. We got to the Messerschmidt plant again, passed along it, then marched by the little park in front of the station. You could just barely make out the whitewashed fence of the railroad warehouse in front of us. It glimmered dimly through the dark. Suddenly a dark figure emerged from the darkness and started clambering up the white fence. All you could see was a kind of vague, four-legged shadow.

‘Halt!’ yelled Dr Bohadlo and turned on his flashlight. It made a nice, clear circle on the flat face of the white fence and in the middle of it hung a drenched black silhouette trying to pull itself up and over.

‘Halt!’ Dr Bohadlo yelled again and started running. We started running too. We raced up to the fence and Dr Bohadlo yelled ‘Halt!’ again but the guy paid no attention to him. You could see him pulling hard, then get one leg over and then the circle of light slid up over the fence and all I could see was the guy’s back, a little bit lighter against the black sky, and then even that was gone as he jumped down on the other side and vanished. Dr Bohadlo stood there. We crowded around him.

‘Who was it?’ asked one of the boys.

‘No idea. Probably another of those people who’re trying to break into the munitions train,’ said Dr Bohadlo dejectedly.

‘Who do you mean?’

‘Communists,’ said Benno.

‘No,’ said Dr Bohadlo quickly. ‘I don’t know who. Probably just a bunch of hoodlums, that’s all.’

‘Communists,’ Benno said again.

‘No, Mr Manes. We have no cause to think so. But last night some gang or other tried to break into it, too.’

‘I know. Communists,’ said Benno.

For a minute nobody said anything. Then one kid said, ‘We ought to go to the station.’

‘No. Our orders are to patrol outside,’ said Dr Bohadlo. ‘Is anybody there now?’

‘Well, there’re some Germans, of course.’

‘Ukrainians,’ said Benno.

‘Vlasov’s men,’ said Dr Bohadlo. ‘No, we most definitely will not go inside.’

‘But what if somebody’s trying to get at the train?’

‘That’s none of our business. They do it at their own risk.’

‘Who knows what’s going on? Anyway, it was only one guy,’ I said.

‘No, we are not going inside,’ said Dr Bohadlo, ‘but we will keep watch on the station.’

‘From here?’ the kid asked.

‘We’ll conceal ourselves in the park.’

That sounded more like it to me. We aboutfaced, went into the park, and took our stand behind the hedge. Standing right up against it I could feel its wet branches scratching my coat. Water dribbled down my face. For a second I felt I was in London. Or in Madrid during the Civil War. It was like in the movies and when I looked off to the side I could see the other guys crouched behind the hedge, in the dark, watching. I felt great, in spite of the wet and cold. Keeping our heads down, we stared across at the wood enclosure that walled off the station. Then all at once a bright light clicked on and then off again somewhere off to our right. Everything dark again. It must have come from somewhere close to the station.

‘It came from a window – a skylight up on the roof,’ said one boy. I looked up at the roof of the stationhouse. The light went on, then off again. Then it went on again after a longer interval. Off, then on again.

‘Morse code,’ said Dr Bohadlo. ‘Any of you boys know Morse code?’

‘I do,’ one of the boys said. ‘M-R-L-B. Mrlb,’ he said. ‘I don’t get it.’

We stared again, nobody saying a word.

‘Who do you think it is?’

‘Communists,’ said Benno.

‘Shh! Look! Over there!’ said Dr Bohadlo.

‘Where?’ said Haryk.

I turned around. From the slope back of the Messerschmidt plant, from one of the workers’ apartment buildings, you could see a light blinking on and off.

‘The fools,’ said Dr Bohadlo. ‘They ought to know better than to play games like that, with all those Germans quartered at Messerschmidt.’ None of us said anything. The light up on the hill stopped blinking. We turned again. Somebody was signalling all right. Then the other light started blinking again.

‘We ought to go and have a look,’ the boy said.

‘Where?’ said Benno.

‘At the station.’

‘No, boys. As I said before, our orders are to stand watch in
front
of the station.’

‘And we’re just going to stand here like this?’

‘No. We’ll send a report back to the brewery … that is, to headquarters,’ said Dr Bohadlo. ‘Any volunteers?’

‘I’ll go.’ It was one of the kids we didn’t know.

‘Fine. I’ll just write up my report and then …’ Dr Bohadlo took out his notebook. ‘Hold this flashlight for me, will you please?’ The kid took the flashlight and turned it on. Dr Bohadlo wrote something in his notebook. I tried to look over his shoulder but couldn’t see anything.