The Night of Wenceslas (9 page)

Galushka said he had some papers he wished me to take. I was very glad to hear this, having been distracted half out of my mind over the problem of manoeuvring a return to his office. We went back there.

‘Of course,’ he said, as we entered the office block, ‘your programme is impossibly limited – you have seen only the merest outline. Have you the possibility to return before you go?’

‘Saturday is a free day,’ Vlcek said. ‘Perhaps Pan Whistler will be able to use the opportunity.’

I said I fervendy hoped so, and followed Galushka in. I was feeling physically ill. I thought the Norstrund wouldn’t be there and I would have to ask for it I had the clearest vision of myself
tottering about making conversation while it came back through the channels. Maybe it wouldn’t come back at all. Maybe whoever was fiddling with it had not had enough time; had been disturbed. … I could see a variety of cock-ups looming, and, as I entered the office closed my eyes in a brief wordless prayer. When I opened them I looked at the desk. The Norstrund had gone.

‘If you’ll just wait one moment,’ Galushka was saying, pressing a key on his intercom, ‘I’ll get the report on tensile strength that interested you so much. I think also you should see our papers on heat treatment and annealing. Miss Bironova,’ he said into the intercom, ‘please bring me in the reports on…’

‘Aren’t you well, Pan Whistler?’ Vlcek said in alarm. ‘Sit down a moment. It’s the heat – you’re not used to it. Here, let me help you.’

I sat down, sick and shaking. Galushka got me a glass of water. While they were both staring at me in some concern, his girl came in with a sheaf of papers and the Norstrund.

One of the messengers had brought it in to her, she said. Perhaps it belonged to the
anglicke pane
. I said yes, yes, it was indeed mine; I must have mislaid it… and sat there a few minutes longer listening to Galushka, and my own voice responding very civilly to his remarks.

Just a little while later I was on the way back to Prague.

I locked the door of the room very carefully behind me and flaked out on the chaise longue. I was not excited or even nervous. I felt merely exhausted, as if I’d been shovelling for several hours or had gone a few rounds with some nimble-footed flyweight, not a heavy puncher, but fast.

I sat up presently and opened the Norstrund and examined the flyleaf. It was crinkled a little in one corner. I didn’t think the mark had been there before. I couldn’t see any other sign of tampering. As Cunliffe had said, unless you knew about it you couldn’t tell.

It was not yet half past five. I thought I’d take a warm bath and soak, and presently got up and went in the bathroom.
Despite the magnificence of the apartment, the tub was an ancient instrument standing on four claw-like legs about eighteen inches out from the wall. It lacked a soap dish. It also lacked a plug. I looked underneath and around for the plug. There was a loose bit of lead piping on the floor near the wall, and that was all. I thought it was time I made use of Josef and rang for him.

Josef brought me a plug and I drew the bath and got in, lowering myself gently horizontal. I felt extraordinarily calm. I thought of all the heart-thudding, bowel-loosening hours I had gone through. Well, it was all over now. I’d got it. All I had to do was get back with it.

I think I dozed off.

I came to at a quarter past six and got out and dried myself. I put on clean underwear and went through to the room and lay down again on the chaise longue, relaxed and pleasantly ruminative. The day wasn’t over yet. I wondered what else was in store. At seven o’clock I dressed and rang for a beer and went out on the balcony.

I stayed there, sipping slowly, until the clocks began to chime the quarter past, and then went in and picked up the Norstrund and left.

Seven-thirty, she had said, at the Slavia.

T
HE
effect of a bath and a rest and a beer had wrought some miraculous change in me as I stepped out of the hotel and into the still-crowded Vaclavske Namesti. I felt excessively clean-limbed and English, and in the mood for Adventures.

Prague, it is a fact, is still the most Ruritanian of the capitals of Europe. Despite the hands and brains, an aura of romance lingers over the city. At sunset lamps are lit in the linden trees on the embankment. A hundred points of saffron reflect the last light of day from the pinnacled Hradcany on the Heights. As the neon slogans begin to flash in the Vaclavske Namesti, so the turreted grey buildings and the cobbled courtyards of the old town come into their own. One feels the presence of Black Michael and enigmatic young countesses; one is no more than a stone’s throw from Zenda.

All this was very satisfactory and I lingered as I cut through the old town. The clocks began to boom the half past as I came out on the embankment, and I put on a spurt. Even so I was ten minutes late.

The Slavia was a big corner café with huge windows, half open to the river. It was a hive of activity in the warm evening, waiters and waitresses shuttling there and back between the crowded tables. She was sitting with a glass of tea near the window reading a newspaper in a cane rack. She was wearing an embroidered blouse and had done something to her hair. It was now coiled on top, giving her a long and rather luscious neck.

She hadn’t seen me come in and I approached from behind and said, smiling, into her ear, ‘
Dobry vecer
.’

She started and looked round. ‘Oh.
Dobry vecer
.’

‘I’m sorry I’m late. I didn’t realize how long it would take me to walk here.’

‘Oh, don’t think … It isn’t any matter …’ She had flushed rather stunningly, and seemed to have run out of English in her surprise. I took the seat opposite and gazed at her with frank admiration. ‘You’re looking very attractive. I like your hair.’

‘Thank you. You are gallant.’

‘What have you been doing today?’

She told me in a rather solemn and child-like way. I continued to gaze at her with this same frank admiration. She had a thin gold chain and a cameo suspended from her neck. The embroidered blouse did nothing to cramp her wondrous figure.

There was just a touch of wildness about the high Slav cheekbones. I felt myself begin to tingle with pleasant anticipation. Whistler Nicolas, no doubt about it, could have done a great deal worse for himself.

I had taken the only available seat at the table, and the curious attentions of the other patrons seemed to be inhibiting her. When I suggested that we move elsewhere she sprang up immediately. The punched bill was on the table. I paid it and we left.

Out in the street my misgivings returned. She stood almost a head taller, and walked with a powerful loping gait. I found myself beginning to sweat with embarrassment. It didn’t seem to affect the girl. She talked slowly and studiously, grappling her way through the syntax and gazing down at me with long grey candid eyes.

We ate at the Zlaty Kohoutek, the Golden Cockerel, a nightspot across the river. It looked a little gimcrack place from the outside with a flashing sign of a cockerel and musical notes in several garish colours. Inside it was rather romantic, a long room, darkish, with lamps on the tables and much gleaming napery. A five-piece band played softly and cornily during dinner.

The girl ate and drank with healthy enjoyment. I had left the choice to her. She ordered carp, roast goose, sour cream, something called Soufflé Milord, and a water ice. She also ordered powerful cocktails, a half bottle of Hungarian white and a bottle of Hungarian red wine, and Rumanian brandy with the coffee.

All this had a profound effect on me. The band at the end of the long room showed a tendency to float gently up and down. The effect on the girl seemed equally beneficial. A certain primness in her manner departed. She put her elbows on the table and smiled across at me like the Mona Lisa with her chin cupped in her hands.

She told me she was twenty, and lived with her father, a musician and a widower, at Barrondov a few miles down the river. She had been a driver for two years.

I said, ‘What was all this about rock and roll? Are you very keen on dancing?’

‘Not the dancing. I wouldn’t call it dancing. It is the gayness. Gayness?’ she said, recollecting her studies.

‘Gaiety.’

‘Yes, gaiety. It is the gaiety and youth. But I love dancing, that is true. I would have been a dancer with the ballet. My father wished it, but it was not possible. I growed too much.’

‘Like Topsy.’

‘Topsy?’

‘She was a girl who growed too much. It’s a joke,’ I said, noticing the bafflement in her eyes. ‘The word should be grew really.’

‘Ah, a joke. Thank you. I am glad when you correct me. This is the only way to learn the language, don’t you think it is so?’

The band had begun its slow upward levitation. I said daringly, ‘They say pillow English is very effective.’

‘Pillow English?’

‘It’s just another method. Forget it,’ I said, alarmed suddenly at the large, brooding face.

She didn’t forget it, frowning over it. ‘Pillow English. A pillow is for the head?’

‘That’s it.’

Enlightenment dawned. ‘Ah, you mean when people arc in bed together.’

‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it.’

‘Oh, it’s nothing. Don’t be shy,’ she said surprisingly, smiling at me. ‘There is such a phrase in French. I forget it. You mean people in love learn the language quicker?’

‘Sort of. It was just another joke.’

She was regarding me with interest, teasing a wisp of hair that had come loose. ‘As a merchant you travel a great deal?’

‘Here and there.’

‘You have many mistresses?’

I goggled at her. ‘Not really. Not many.’

‘How many?’

‘I don’t know. You know I was only really …’

‘Have you a wife?’

‘No.’

There was an odd flicker in the wine-bright eyes as she smiled curiously at me. ‘It is so interesting to learn how other people live. I would like to learn so much more.’

‘Maybe I can teach you.’

‘Maybe you can.’ She laughed, rather huskily, very promisingly indeed, and leaned towards me. I took her hand.

‘You’d like to dance?’ she said.

I had been dreading this for some time. The band had stopped playing softly and cornily and was now playing loudly and cornily. Several people were on the floor. I wedged the Norstrund in my pocket and stood up.

It was not nearly so bad as I had expected. On the dance floor, she was limber and light on her pins, responding to the merest touch. We swung tipsily round for a couple of numbers. Nobody seemed to find anything remarkable in the performance. Several small men were dancing with large, well-found women, and wine was flowing all round the shadowy room. Her bust, all the same, was rather too near my chin for absolute comfort, and she seemed to be leaning on it fairly freely. All this opened up certain vistas, but I was glad when the music stopped.

We left at ten o’clock and went for a walk, crossing the river and strolling along the embankment in the greenish light under the linden trees. I thought I might put my arm round her waist, and did so, meeting with no objection. Indeed, she snuggled up very amiably. I was content to await events.

Presently we cut through to the Vaclavske Namesti, seething and noisy as ever and brilliantly lit. A number of stalls had opened up at the kerbside, selling
parkys
– hot sausages – and pickled cucumbers.

‘You’d like to eat a
parky
?’ she asked.

‘No, thanks.’

‘I think I would like to eat a
parky
.’

I queued up and bought her one, marvelling at her appetite. The
parky
came on a slice of black bread with a smear of mustard. She disposed of it rapidly as we strolled along.

The clocks began to boom a quarter to eleven.

‘I have so enjoyed myself,’ she said. ‘Thank you very much for this evening.’

‘I’ve enjoyed it, too. Thank you for coming.’

‘I think I should go home now.’

I said, ‘Right,’ supporting this move entirely. In the crowded street I’d had to take my arm from her waist. Barrandov, down the river, sounded pleasantly secluded. ‘Where do we get the tram?’

‘Oh, there is no need for you to come.’

‘That’s all right. I’d like to.’

‘No, please. See, we are at the tram stop. It is no trouble for me. You have work tomorrow.’

‘But I must take you home,’ I said in dismay. It seemed impossible that I had misread the signs.

‘No, please. It’s late. And my father waits for me. I will go alone.’

She had rooted herself solidly to the pavement, and seemed to have made her mind up. I was suddenly conscious again of her massive physique. She was holding out her hand to me.

I took it drearily. ‘Well, if you insist,’ I said, cursing the missed opportunities. We had passed several useful-looking courtyards off the embankment.

‘We can meet again, if you wish it.’

‘Does your father wait for you every night?’

‘Most nights,’ she said, dryly.

There was something about her that I couldn’t quite fathom, a certain off-beat humour lurking in the long eyes. I’d seen it in the restaurant. I said, ‘How about tomorrow?’

‘Tomorrow is not possible. I have to help my father with his practice. Truly,’ she said, smiling apologetically. ‘I play the piano for him.’

‘Saturday, then?’

‘Saturday would be very nice. Must you work in the afternoon?’

‘No. I’m finished then.’

‘I also. If you wish, we could swim in the river. I go every
Saturday to the bathing station at Zluta Plovarna if the weather is good. Later, we could eat at Barrandov?’

‘At Barrandov?’

‘The
Terasy
.’

It seemed there was a kind of lido there, a pool scooped out of rock, flanked by terraces cut into the stone. In the evening one could dine and dance on the terraces.

I thought it would fill in the time, if not in hoped-for pursuits, and gave the programme somewhat grudging approval. She gave me her telephone number, which I noted in my diary.

‘Perhaps I will say one thing more,’ she said, stepping from one leg to the other, and watching my face. The flicker was back in her eyes. ‘My father will not wait for me on Saturday.’

‘Oh.’

‘You understand me?’

‘Yes. Certainly. Rather.’

I wondered if I did.

‘Good night, and thank you again,’ she said warmly.

I said good night, and walked back to the hotel, slightly punch drunk.

Vlcek picked me up again in the morning and we drove to Tseblic (23 km.). This proved to be more or less a repetition of the marathon at Kralovsk, except that the manager, a keen technical type, was clearly not in Galushka’s class as a force to be reckoned with. Vlcek didn’t reckon with him much. After lunch, at which he drank more freely than on the previous day, he quietly faded away – for a snooze in the car, I suspected.

It was swelteringly hot, and the red dye from the Norstrund stained my hands as we trudged for endless hours round the works. Vlcek joined us again, very perky, soon after four, and by five we were driving back.

‘Well, Pan Whistler, I hope the visits have left you with some favourable impressions?’

‘Yes, indeed.’

‘I think Kralovsk interested you more. I have arranged the automobile in case you should wish to return there tomorrow.’

‘No, thanks. It won’t be necessary. I’ve got everything I need.’

‘Ah, you prefer then further Discussions with Pan Svoboda?’

‘No. No. I don’t think I do. I shan’t want anything more at all. Everything’s been beautifully planned,’ I said, noting his disappointment. ‘I wouldn’t have thought it possible to work in so much in the time.’

Vlcek smiled with sad pleasure. ‘We try to do our best in Prague. It isn’t always obvious to – to some people. Perhaps if you are satisfied you would not mind saying so in a letter when you return to England?’

‘Of course.’

‘And when shall we see you back again?’

‘Back again?’

‘We understood this was an exploratory trip for Discussions and Visits. Pan Svoboda hoped you would return soon. With your order book,’ he said gaily.

‘Ah, yes. Well, that’s up to my directors.’

‘Your report will be favourable? Excuse me,’ he said hastily. ‘I do not wish to pry. In the old days I was a salesman. I booked orders from England, France, Germany, Belgium … One knew how to handle this one with discounts, that one with long credit … It’s different now. Today one thinks very much more on industrial lines. Output, work flow … It is very interesting,’ he said sadly.

‘Ah, well, you’ll get the foreign trade back.’

‘Undoubtedly. It must come,’ Vlcek said excitedly. ‘We are, after all, a trading nation. Once the industry has been firmly re-established, salesmanship will be required again. Salesmanship, salesmanship, and yet more salesmanship.’ His vulpine little face was alight with prophetic fervour.

He dropped me at the Slovenska. I went up in the lift. Josef was prowling in the corridor.

‘Ah, Pan Whistler. You have made good business.’ He was rubbing his hands, smiling the darkling smile.

‘Yes, thanks. A full day, anyway.’

‘You look hot. It is the humidity. The big storm has not come yet.’

‘I wish it would soon.’

‘Never fear. Tonight or tomorrow perhaps. I should say a glass of Pilsener would suit you.’

‘I’d say the same.’

‘Right away,’ he said, with pleasure.

I went in and through to the bathrom and stripped off and stood under the shower. I hoped the big storm wasn’t going to wreck tomorrow’s planned events. I pondered over them for ten minutes.

The beer was waiting for me when I came out.

‘In England the girls wear two pieces or one?’

‘I think one-piece at the moment.’

‘Yes,’ she said sadly. ‘I thought it was so. I saw recently a German magazine. They are quicker in Germany with the fashion.’