The Night of Wenceslas (20 page)

A large float came trundling down presently, decked with flowers and paper doves. A battalion of laughing amazons on board were tossing the cargo to the crowds, who enthusiastically flung it back. The parade seemed to be nearing its end. The assistants went back into the automat. I took my station outside, stepping from one aching foot to the other and watching for the first sign of a movement of customers. When it came, I was in like a trivet.

I took my seat with a gasp of relief. It was painfully obvious I wouldn’t be able to stay on my feet all day. I was weary all over, every bone aching, my stomach still stiff from the beating-up in the hotel. I would have to find somewhere to lie out, the botanical gardens or a park, perhaps. The sun was beating down fiercely outside. It might be possible to divest myself of Vaclav Borsky’s cap and jacket and acquire others.

I had a cup of coffee and a sandwich, and over it was smitten by inspiration. My eyes had been attracted to a poster on the wall. Below a picture of a serious looking man in a bathing cap was the legend
Swimming is Healthy
, and under that
Visit
Zluta Plovarna
. Zluta Plovarna! I was amazed I hadn’t thought of it before. With one stretched-out body looking like another, it was the ideal place to stay anonymous. There would also be a large variety of unattached clothing.

I tried to remember how they ordered the disposal of clothing at Zluta Plovarna. There was a bit of business with an armband. …

I finished my coffee and left.

It was twenty past one, the white and glaring deadspot of the afternoon. The street was like an oven even in the shade of the shops. The sun blinds flapped and rattled dryly in the hot breeze from the river. There were few people about. It might not have been such a good idea to leave so early. I wondered if the watchers were out in the street.

I walked slowly down to the embankment, suffer than ever but keeping a wary eye open. I didn’t think I would be able to
run very far or very fast if they came for me now. Some vital damage seemed to have been done to my stomach. It caught me every time I breathed. Not, I thought, that this would be anything to what would happen if they laid hands on me again.

The thought was so peculiarly horrible in the hot afternoon that I actually managed to hobble a bit faster, and got down to the tram stop just as half past one was striking.

Despite the emptiness of the streets, there was the usual queue for the tram. I elbowed my way on to a number twenty-one and stood all the way, emerging so dazed and weak at the other end that I had stumbled almost to the entrance of the bathing station before I pulled myself together a bit and looked the place over.

It looked safe enough. It was hard to tell. I remembered it clearly from my last visit. Two old women, heads protected by newspaper cones, sat at turnstiles in a wicket fence. Farther back, grass sloped down to the river. It was early yet, too soon after the parade for large crowds to be here. A bit of picnicking was going on. A few young men and girls were splashing about at the river’s edge. A few children were in the water. There seemed to be nobody standing around watching.

The gritty street was swooning in the heat. I took my place in the queue of people from the tram, went through the clicking turnstile and over to the changing huts. There was a sweaty shed with piles of wire baskets. I hired a pair of drawers and a towel, was given a basket by the old crone in charge, and went off to one of the huts to change.

In the hut, I locked the door and painfully undressed, saying goodbye, one by one, to Vaclav Borsky’s cap and jacket and Josef’s trousers. I took everything out of the pockets and wrapped them in the towel. I got into the shorts and examined my stomach. There was nothing to see, no discoloration even. A little cracked mirror was hanging on the door and I inspected my face in it. The nose was slightly reddened, as if by the sun. Not a lot to show for a beating-up by the S.N.B. I wondered if anyone would believe me. I wondered if I’d ever have the opportunity to try and make anyone believe me, and sighing to
my reflection, loaded the wire basket and went out to the sweaty shed.

The old crone took the basket and handed me a red rubber tag with a number on it I slipped it on my wrist and went out on to the grass. It was long and green and luxuriant from the rain and I found a spot under half shade and sank down in it.

In the heat of the early afternoon there was a slow-motion dream-like quality about the bathing station. Willows waved gently against the sky. The river glooped and gurgled between its banks. Voices droned like bees on the air, and over the grass the sound of gramophone music wafted thinly.

All this was so exactly what was called for that I lay back with a faint moan and closed my eyes and floated away in the bland honey light, stomach easing, limbs twitching remotely, nothing at all in the world but the cool lushness of grass and the drifting sibilance of water.

There was something else in the world, of course; but no hurry yet, I thought, coming back after a little while. Rest. Recuperate. Restore the tissues for the lunatic business at the Malostranske tonight….

When I woke up, the sweat was pouring off me and I was in full sun. The place had filled up. I sat up, licking my lips, and gazed about me. I was hemmed in on all sides. Thousands of them, chattering, knitting, eating, drying off children, thumping about with balls. I looked at my watch. Five o’clock. I had slept nearly three hours. I was dry as hell. There were tables outside the café now, and people sitting with drinks. I picked up the towel and went over there.

I bought myself an ice-cold Pilsener and drank it right off in the café and then bought another and took the long misted glass out to one of the tables and sat down. I ran a hand over my stomach. A slight soreness; nothing to bother about. The sleep in the open air had done me good. I felt fine, relaxed, a new man.

I lit a cigarette and smoked it, gazing around at the animated scene. One of these characters must be around my size. Before
I had dozed off, I had the germ of an idea how to switch arm bands. It came back to me now, ready-made.

Dusk would be coming on at around seven o’clock. I thought I’d better be at the Malostranske then to watch anyone who might be popping in or out of the Embassy for dinner. I didn’t know who actually lived at the Embassy or if this kind of activity took place on Sunday night. There was a lot to be found out.

I finished off the cigarette, marvelling how even a type so essentially unheroic as myself could attune himself so swiftly to danger. I had no idea where I would sleep tonight. The chances were rather better than average that I would be picked up, beaten up, maimed, killed even; certainly not allowed to leave the country. I seemed to have ingested all this murderous data like some electronic brain and to have made the necessary compensations to restore equilibrium. I thought I must have become warier, better organized mentally. Certainly my planning, such as it was, was now all fore-shortened: I had to prepare only for the hour or two ahead.

I thought I’d better get on with it.

I stubbed out my cigarette and went and bought an essential bottle of sun lotion at the shop. I then strolled back over the grass, weaving in and out between the groups, stepping over recumbent figures, and suddenly almost dropped with shock and turned and made swiftly in the opposite direction.

I had seen Vlasta.

There was no possible doubt about it. She was lying on the grass, leaning on one elbow facing me. She was in her black sharkskin two-piece, talking moodily to a man whose back was to me. Her magnificent breasts alone would have been unmistakable in any crowd.

I loped quickly away, nerves jangling. The one person in the whole of Prague who could identify me as easily undressed as dressed! I tripped over an old man smoking a calabash pipe and went full length on the grass and picked myself up, swearing with nervousness, and scrambled on again to the other side of the bathing station.

The people were as thick on the ground here as at the opposite end, and I stepped slowly among them, nerves still jumpy, look-for the right type. This was not an operation that could be hurried. Feet and neck size were at least as important as any other dimension. In addition I wanted someone who was on his own, and not too quick on the uptake.

It took me a few minutes to find him, a young stringy character with a forehead so narrow it was hardly there. He was lying flat on his back and sleeping soundly with his mouth wide open. I stretched out beside him. There was not fraction of an inch difference in height. His legs were apart, toes pointing upwards, and I carefully measured my feet against his. We might have been twins.

There was a thin film of sweat all over his face and body and he was sleeping so soundly he might have been dead. The open mouth and rudimentary forehead suggested promising qualities. His armband was a few inches up his wrist I thought I’d better get it over with quickly.

I took off my own armband, lit a cigarette and pressed it unhurriedly against his wrist. He came right up off the grass like a leaping salmon, and with a single profound oath began hopping about staring at his wrist in consternation.

I said, ‘What is it? What’s the trouble, comrade?’

‘I been shot,’ he said. ‘I been blank blank well shot.’

‘Let me see. Give it here, comrade.’

He was hissing slightly, hugging the wrist to his chest like an only child. I prised it away. A fleck of white ash showed immediately below the armband. I said, ‘Ah, it’s just a burn. I must have done it with my cigarette. Here, we’ll soon fix it up. I’ve got some lotion. We’ll just get this off,’ I said, quickly stripping off his armband and dropping it on the grass. I poured some of the lotion on to my handkerchief, dabbed his wrist and gave him the wrong armband back, all with some speed and talking incessantly before he had gathered his scattered wits.

‘There. That’ll be all right now, comrade. It’s only a little burn. You won’t feel it in a minute.’

‘I can bloody well feel it now,’ he said truculently.

‘I’m sorry, comrade. I didn’t even notice.’

‘I thought I been shot. I was fast asleep! You want to watch what you’re doing,’ he said. There was a lowering look about him. It seemed tactless to offer him a cigarette. There didn’t seem to be anything else I could offer him. I apologized again, picked up my things and walked off with his armband.

I worked cautiously round to the shed, watching out for Vlasta. She was lying in the same position on one elbow. I wondered if the man was her father. He looked big enough.

There was a queue in the shed, and the old crone was shuffling about in a temper. She snatched the armband from me. I waited with some interest to inspect my new wardrobe. She was unaccountably smiling when she returned.

‘Had a good day?’

‘Very nice, thanks.’

She dumped the wire basket on the counter. ‘We ordered the right weather for you, anyway.’

‘Yes. Yes, you did,’ I said, wondering what all this was about; and suddenly caught sight of what was in the basket and felt my toes curling up.

‘What’s up? It’s the right one, isn’t it? Nine three eight,’ she said, shuffling about with the basket, and examined the armband again. ‘There’s no mistake, is there?’

‘No, no mistake,’ I said and picked up the basket and moved off in a trance.

‘Wait. There’s your hat. I hung it up,’ she said, bringing the thing over. ‘We don’t want to spoil the lovely feather, do we?’

It was a little cockeyed green thing like a demented midget bowler. There was an enormous peacock feather hanging from the side. She put it on my head, and I said, ‘Thank you,’ bloodlessly, and walked off to the changing huts.

I thought the caretaker, at least, would be satisfied. I’d won myself a national costume.

I stepped off the tram like a cripple in the gigantic jackboots. Each seemed to weigh about a ton. I was wearing baggy trousers,
an embroidered blouse, a little red bolero with brass buttons and a large rosette. I had scrambled into this lunatic assortment as quickly as possible, terrified its owner would soon be claiming it. I didn’t know if I’d got any of it on properly, but it seemed to be effective. In the tram there had been kindly smiles. A woman had even got up to give me her seat.

I clumped along the embankment numb with horror, wondering what I should do if I met a party in the same get-up. Luckily, dusk was falling.

I was bang on schedule, anyway.

It was a quarter to seven. Across the river the floodlit palaces on the Heights winked in the uncertain light. Below the linden trees the crowds shuffled, murmuring. The lights in the branches cast a greenish aura. As I crossed the bridge the loud-speakers came on suddenly, Smetana’s
My Homeland
, liquid and mournful across the darkling, flowing Vltava.

There was a shifting mass of people in the Malostranske. I dawdled nearer the entrance. A church – St Mikulase, I remembered suddenly from childhood – had its cupola levitating in floodlighting, as though trying to cast off from its centuries-old but now ungrateful anchorage. I dawdled near the entrance to the Thunovska and saw them still there, two on each corner, not talking, just looking. I slowly gravitated nearer. No one seemed to be coming in or out of the Thunovska. A single light shone in the cul-de-sac. The buildings were in darkness.

After half an hour an open-necked man wheeling a bicycle came out of the Thunovska. He was stopped for his papers. Ten minutes later, he went back again. He was again stopped for his papers. My heart sank. It seemed almost utterly hopeless.

I stepped from one foot to another, wondering what the hell I should do. My mind was made up for me almost immediately. One of the S.N.B. men walked over.

‘Waiting for someone?’

My lips seemed to be stuck together. I mumbled, ‘Yes. Yes. My comrades.’

‘Where are you from?’

‘Banska Bystrica.’ That’s what it said in the papers in the pocket of the bolero.

‘Your papers.’

I handed them over.

The S.N.B. man glanced at them and handed them back. His nod was not unfriendly, but he had a good look at me. He sauntered away.