The Widow Killer (25 page)

“Yes.”

Buback felt confident of this; yesterday he could feel how much closer Grete’s offer had brought him to the Czech policemen. And he knew them well enough to spot any suspicious behavior.

The commander of the special units asked him a couple of routine questions about the Prague police’s weaponry. Assured it was a risible quantity of closely controlled pistols and rifles that were not worth the price of a politically damaging raid, he released Buback, even shaking his hand.

Buback then skipped lunch and headed straight back to Bartolomejska Street to find out for himself—and for Grete—how the first hunt had gone. Morava excitedly told him how he had hidden under the staircase for the first time. He described the tension that seized him when he heard the keys and steps, caught sight of Jitka’s black boots over the kitchen threshold and then the endless seconds where the pounding of his heart drowned everything else out. How much worse it must be for her, the young detective sighed.

To his horror, he recounted, the door handle clicked a second time. He and Matlak instinctually seized each others’ hands in a painful grip, each hoping to prevent the other from giving the game away prematurely. The shuffling footsteps approached, and he fought the temptation to step straight out, so powerful was his fear of missing his chance.

“Hello,” the visitor then called out, “it’s me, Sebesta. Not a single man at the graveyard or on the way here.”

Jitka decided to set out right away for a second round and then again that afternoon.

“She’s right,” Grete said that evening. “In for a penny, in for a pound. I’m going at least twice tomorrow; we don’t leave for the Beneschau SS garrison until four.”

Before heading home to find her, Buback had had the newly arrived reports translated for him. Of course, he could read them far faster than the day’s interpreter could stammer through them, but he had a game to play and found that in any case he paid closer attention that way. The repeated message from the Klasterec priest caught his eye as well. Had it been dealt with, he asked; yes, he heard, it had been passed back to their colleagues in Burglary and Robbery.

Sitting in the small wicker armchair by the bathtub, he told Grete about his day’s experiences. He realized with a shock that he was betraying official and military secrets with conveyer-belt speed to a woman he had known less than a month. Her daily ritual mesmerized him: Each evening, she rinsed off her exhaustion by holding the showerhead motionless with both hands just over her head, and the water ran down her body like a fountain pouring over a statue. He never ceased to wonder at the unbelievable femininity of her slender body, and later at the inexhaustible energy she could unleash as they made love.

She washed him clean of the stains the day left behind; she freed him from the horrible war and his work without enslaving him to new needs, the way he had feared at first. How can I fall for her so completely, and still feel so free? He did not understand, but soon he stopped thinking, period, and enthusiastically lost himself in her over and over, until it was the only thing that gave his life meaning.

Hunger regularly hit her after midnight, and he could not open the cans of military rations fast enough; mornings he would make her cocoa at the signal of her fluttering eyelids or, when he could not wait for her, he left it in a thermos. Gradually he took on other functions in her life, things he had never done when married: he kept her diary, picked up their grocery rations, and took care of the laundry. His reward was the childish pleasure of her whimpers as she slowly roused herself in the mornings.

“You’re the best, Buback, because you never wake me or pressure me…

She made up for their lovemaking hours with a sleep that was strenuous in its intensity, while he thanked his age and military training for keeping him alert during the day. Today, however, after her midnight snack, she did not take him into her arms again.

“Let’s be good tonight,” she decided. “Tomorrow I want to be a widow that shark will sense from halfway across Prague!”

When a Werkschutzer ordered him to report immediately to the building director, he was rattled. Was it a trap? Would they be waiting for him? The fat man with a pistol under his paunch, however, showed no inclination to accompany him upstairs, and as he went up the service staircase his pulse surprisingly slowed. He was all the more devastated when Marek—as always, without even a greeting or an introduction—thrust a new task at him.

“The Luftschutz has decided to enlarge our shelter, in case there are more air raids on Plzeh. See that it’s taken care of.”

“Who’s it for? We’re not even open; there’s room for all the staff as is.”

The theater had been closed for two years now. The actors were weaving bast wrappings for grenades, the stagehands had been conscripted in the Totaleinsatz mobilization and only a half dozen rejects and cripples were left to ensure that the building did not leak, the pipes did not burst, and the sets and costumes were not eaten by moths before better times came. He was one of those who stayed, partly thanks to his old head wound, but also because he was skilled and extraordinarily intelligent for an ordinary laborer.

“They say there may be fighting in Plzen, so we need a public shelter for three hundred people. Get a team together and clear it out.”

He could only think of one thing.

Where will i put my souls?

“Can we leave at least a few lumps of ice down there? Once it gets warmer the beer’ll be swill.”

For a year now the theater canteen had been open to the public, partially offsetting the lack of ticket receipts. Pensioners especially were lured by the chance of getting some horsemeat stew alongside their still passable pilsner without needing to dig into their meager ration coupons. Marek dismissed the suggestion with a wave of his hand.

“I’ve tried that already, of course. They just said that starting Monday they’ll take ten thousand for each day we delay. And what’s more, they could imprison me for sabotage. So beer or no beer, take it out to the canal-side courtyard.”

Four days left until Monday. And he had no time tomorrow. Tomorrow makes a week! An idea came to him in his hour of need.

“Easy as one, two, three! Before then I’ll try to visit a couple of pubs, see if someone’ll buy it from us. If not, we’ll do the job Sunday.”

By then there’ll be a sixth one! And he’d have time to think where to put them. He willed Marek to nod.

“Fine, try it. But on Monday the cellar’d better be empty and clean as a whistle—it’s up to you, you hear?”

Without even a dismissal his boss bent back over his files.

Cheapskate, he thought on his way out. If only you knew! Still, he was grateful the man had unknowingly given him the opportunity to disappear the whole next day. He’d forget about buyers for the ice, take two slabs back to his own cellar, and secure his treasures for at least another two months.

He realized that the sixth one was still beating in some sinner’s breast, and broke out in an excited sweat at the thought:

This time tomorrow it will be mine!

What should he go as? He remembered the Werkschutzer.

But wasn’t it time to change cemeteries? Through the veil of years he saw her showing him the graves of their national heroes. Someday you’ll lie here, my little Tony, respected by our whole nation… Well, maybe one more time!

Slowly but surely Morava calmed down. Jitka had three shifts behind her already, as they’d had to note in their record book, during which she made the trip from Vysehrad to Kavci Hory seven times. Buback’s girlfriend had alternated with her; she’d played the bait (as she called it) four times all told.

Neither the women nor their guards had noticed even the slightest sign of interest. The men appearing at the cemetery were for the most part older widowers; many they recognized after a couple of days as regular visitors of their wives’ graves.

One day, a hale and hearty forty-year-old newcomer caused a commotion. He was so evidently interested in Jitka that all three watchers simultaneously latched onto him as he traipsed behind the girl at a dangerously short remove. Sebesta, who was in charge in an emergency, finally decided there was no danger of attack just yet if the perpetrator was after his usual goal.

The man, who politely addressed Jitka after a short while, turned out to be a stonemason from Kolin near Prague who was looking for customers. He had noticed, he explained, that her grave lacked a fitting stone; he had a wide assortment at home and would give her a good price. He showed no interest in accompanying her back, but just to be sure they brought him in and, with Morava’s aid, presented the horrified man to the caretaker on the embankment. The old man was surprisingly sure that he had never seen the stonemason, and later the suspect produced airtight alibis for all the dates in question.

Five unsuccessful days brought nonetheless one encouraging result: The five policemen—three on the street and two in the house—calmed down and learned to work together.

“If he makes a move, we’ve got him,” Morava announced cautiously to Beran, who had requested a report each time “the hook was cast,” as he said.

“Just so you don’t get too comfortable,” he said to Morava, explaining his unwearying interest in the operation. “I have to keep reminding you that he’ll appear right when your attention wanders. And Morava: I assume you’re following the rules just as strictly when the German woman’s on shift.”

He saw the red seep into the adjunct’s face, and immediately soothed him.

“Forgive me; that was out of place. At least you see that even old age is no guarantee against stupidity. I was thinking about her disadvantage, not knowing Czech.”

Of course, Morava took the warning seriously enough to visit Bu-back again about Marleen Baumann.

“Thank you for your consideration,” the German said. “Grete— that’s her real name, by the way—is aware of the problem. In an emergency she’ll rely on voice intonation to figure out what’s happening. She thinks she’s quick enough to manage it.”

“Please tell her that I admire her. We’d like—my fiancee and I—to invite her—and you too, of course—to dinner sometime…”

What am I saying, he wondered belatedly.

Buback could not conceal his surprise.

“Aren’t Germans risky guests for you these days?”

“Well yes, that’s true…” Buback had said exactly what Morava was thinking, but the Czech’s resolve did not fail him. “Except since they’re both putting their lives on the line, they should get to know each other a bit. And we’re part of it as well…”

“I’ll pass it on,” Buback said after a short pause. “In any case, thank you again. By the way, she’s quite fond of your fiancee… as am I…”

Then his eyes slid quickly to his watch.

Will you excuse me? I still have some work to do. Grete is on duty at the cemetery tomorrow and Sunday; would some time after that suit you?“

“I’ll pass it on,” Morava repeated, for a change.

They parted with a hearty handshake. What had caused this shift, he wondered on his way back to the office. The two women, he realized; mine and his. Strange, very strange. Can ordinary human sympathy really scale these moats and barriers?

With this thought fresh in his mind he went to see Jitka. Beran was at another senseless meeting with Rajner and had sent her home, saying she had done her share. Jitka, however, refused to see her “two spring strolls” as a full day’s work.

“I wouldn’t be doing myself any favors, anyway,” she explained to the superintendent. “You’d make such a mess of the paperwork that I’d have to come in Sundays to sort things out.”

When she heard Morava’s embarrassed confession how in her name he invited Buback and Grete to her house, she was quick to respond.

“They’re the enemy, no doubt about that. Their nation has caused mankind so much suffering that they have to accept part of the blame. But in a couple of months they’ll be defeated, and there’ll still be fifty million of them. And what then? My papa once tried to imagine how he’d behave if he met a German on the street after the war. ”Out of my way, German,“ he wanted to say; ‘sidewalks are for human beings.” I don’t believe he’s changed, even after what just happened to him. Now, I don’t know about Buback—by the way, he’s started to behave quite decently—but his Grete doesn’t seem to have anything in common with the Nazis other than their German ancestry.“

“Except people”—he could not help saying it—“might say we’re collaborators.”

“Yes.” She nodded seriously. “And after all, it’s possible they both have other motives, like
he
said.” She pointed toward Beran’s office. “But what if they’re just people who have finally come to their senses? What if they’re seriously trying to atone for their sins? Should we reject them just because we’re afraid of being slandered or mistakenly fingered? We’ll just watch what we say.”

From the hallway Superintendent Hlavaty stepped in. A couple of years earlier he had been one of Morava’s first instructors. His department was theft, and he was the bane of Prague’s pickpockets.

“Hello, Jitka; hello, Morava,” he addressed them both before turning to the detective. “Why do you keep shoving that stolen saint at me? The picture was returned a long time ago and criminal charges retracted.”

“Sorry about that,” Morava said guiltily. “I didn’t know what to do with it, and the priest had written twice already…”

“He didn’t get your announcement, by any chance? I mean the description of that deviant?”

“We did send it to priests.” Jitka now turned to Morava as well.

He still could not see the point.

“But what does it have in common with—”

“I had no idea”—Hlavaty winked at him, as if preparing him for an excellent joke—“so I had a word with my experts. The Romans supposedly disemboweled Saint Reparata alive, and cut off her head and breasts. Her heart, however, escaped in the shape of a white dove.”

“Oh my God…” Morava breathed. “Oh my God!”

Before leaving for home with Jitka, he first called the emergency number Buback had given him. He left a message for the German that a fresh trail had been found, and Assistant Detective Morava would be waiting the next morning to hear when and where to pick him up.