The Widow Killer (45 page)

The two men in front of them, one in a police uniform, the other in civilian clothes adorned with a helmet and bayonet, were suitably horrified.

With the reaction of his comrades to the bedroom scene, he felt confirmed as their leader.

“What do you want,” he asked sharply.

The civilian could not stop shaking, but the uniformed man was not as green and quickly found his tongue.

“We’re securing German apartments. And what are you looking for here?”

“Nothing. Quite the opposite. My friend had to pay back a debt.” He turned to Lojza, who bared his gap-toothed jaw.

“So you’re the council for the protection of Krauts,” the bald man spat.

“We have no interest in protecting them,” the policeman retorted. “Our job is to secure property and deliver the Germans with any necessary belongings to Girls’ High School, where they will be concentrated for the meantime.”

“Best this lady can hope for is concentration in a mass grave.” Lojza laughed.

The man remained businesslike.

“I am required to uphold certain directives. The Red Cross will take charge of German civilians in Prague, according to international—”

“Where was your Red Cross when those pigs kicked out my teeth,” Lojza shot back angrily.

“The newly resurrected Czechoslovak Republic will be a country of law. Private reprisals have no place here,” the policeman insisted.

He knew the other three were waiting to see what he would say or do, and it made his blood boil to hear these platitudes again.

“This lady knew she was guilty. She committed suicide.”

“How?” The pest would not be satisfied.

Should i demonstrate on them?

He suppressed the temptation. There might be more of them hiding here; only the struggle against the krauts could give him and his men a sacred mission, and he did not want to lose it.

Now the boy answered.

“She impaled herself on my knife,” he announced. “The fucking whore tried to seduce me, and I showed it to her, like this, told her to get dressed, and suddenly she ran at me like a crazy woman. A second later it was all over.”

“Where’s the knife?”

“I was so scared I threw it out the window. It’s somewhere in the vegetable patch.”

“Are you making fun of me?”

“No.” Now he cut the kid off. “And if necessary he’ll have three witnesses right away.”

The uniformed man could see he was on the losing side, but wanted to save face. He addressed the boy.

“Your papers.”

“At home,” Pepik said. “How could I know some Czech cop would want to see those fucking German papers?”

“If mine will be enough,” he offered on a whim, “here.”

The others gaped while he enjoyed watching the fool copy down Ludvik Roubinek’s address. When the policeman wanted more names, though, he put an end to the comedy.

“One witness is enough for a Hitler whore; no one could care less about her. Enjoy playing Samaritans and detectives; we’re going to join the fight.”

The adventure had an unexpectedly pleasant finale. A large Mercedes stood in front of the house; it had Berlin plates, but Czechoslovak flaglets adorned its windows. A handsome mustached man in an Afrikakorps cap with a tricolor pinned to it was slumped behind the wheel.

Our struggle demands transportation!

He did not bother checking with the others.

“You’re waiting for your colleagues.”

“Yeah…” The driver perked up.

“You’re to take us there first.”

“Where… ?” He seemed doubtful.

“To Girls’ High, of course. But we’ll stop on the way for a stool pigeon.”

Interestingly enough, none of his men so much as opened their mouths. He could sense why: Before they’d felt respect for him, but that German lady had infected them with her fear. He was quite satisfied with this development.

The chauffeur shrugged and started the engine.

“Whatever you want. Where to?”

“Can we get through to the Vltava?”

“For now.”

Not much had changed in Prague overnight. The war was only an occasional distant drumbeat, and the ants were still diligently hauling paving stones to raise the barricades. There were more guns and unshaven men trying for a fighter’s look.

He too was sprouting stubble; it had been stupid of him to shave at the runt’s house when he could have had a new face to go with his new name. So, onward! From the front seat he laid out the plan. They were after a caretaker who’d betrayed a Resistance contact man and a parachutist to the Gestapo. He intended to get more information out of the caretaker, but must not be recognized beforehand. The other three would pick the man up and blindfold him. Than they’d all take him down to the rafting yard and he’d put the pressure on him. If the traitor confessed, they’d take him up to Girls’ High with the other Germans, where he belonged.

“And if not?” Lojza wondered.

He threw the bald man’s line back at him.

“His bad luck.”

Their target played dead for a few minutes. Just as they had decided there was no sense in ringing again, there was a flutter of dirty curtains as the old man tried to check inconspicuously who wanted him. The boy climbed up on the stoker’s back and rapped on the high first-floor window. The caretaker’s nerves failed him, and he went to let them in.

Shortly thereafter they led him out blindfolded; a woman passerby took it as she was supposed to and spat distastefully. As they crammed into the backseat with him, a foul stench filled the car. The confused driver crossed the intersection as ordered and turned down the ramp to the river’s edge.

“Where are you taking me, sir?” the caretaker asked fearfully.

“Just a bit further,” the stoker reassured him.

He observed the two streaks dribbling from under the kitchen towel that covered the man’s eyes, and began to have doubts: Was he truly dangerous? The wretch had only seen him for a couple of seconds three months ago. He was a man, and a Czech.

He would give him a chance!

He ordered the driver to stop just short of the bridge’s arch, and had the other three take the caretaker out. The booming echo of their steps frightened the man even more.

“What do you want from me?”

“We just need to ask a few questions,” Lojza said.

He pondered how to arrange it so he’d be alone with the caretaker for a while. A sudden sound and movement gave him his chance. The starter sounded and the Mercedes began to crawl back up toward the embankment. The bald man was first to understand.

“He’s giving us the slip!”

Without waiting, he tore off, the stoker and the boy behind him. Now the caretaker would get his chance.

“Take it off.”

The trapped man relaxed a bit as he untied the rag with trembling fingers. His eyes squinted as they got used to the light again. A few paces away the car’s motor had shut off; Ladislov and Lojza were arguing with the driver.

He asked the caretaker, “Do you know me?”

What he saw sufficed. The man before him began to shake his head when suddenly his face twitched. He was not clever enough to mask it; he froze in recognition.

Nothing to do, then, but…

“Pepik!” he shouted at the car.

The boy ran over.

“Here!” He gave him a submachine gun, safety off. “He confessed. He’s yours.”

The excited Pepik almost dropped the Panzerfaust on the ground. For safety’s sake he took it from the boy and set out toward the car stopped halfway up the slant of the embankment. Behind him he heard the caretaker’s wheezing.

“Let me go! I’m a witness, he’s a murderer, the police are protec—”

A long fusillade cut off the last syllable; the kid doesn’t know what moderation is, he’ll turn him into a sieve!

But he did not turn around, just slowed down to let the boy catch up before he reached the petrified group at the Mercedes. Wordlessly he exchanged Pepik’s weapon for his own.

“Thanks, Mr. Ludvik,” the boy said enthusiastically. “You can count on me!”

In the two hours he spent in the police commissioner’s office, Buback found the Czechs were having similar problems with the uprising: Things were not going smoothly, and skirmishes between local Resistance factions were hindering their struggle against the occupiers.

The military situation in Prague and the rest of Bohemia had not changed significantly overnight, but Buback knew it was just the calm before the storm. Right now the Germans were determined to wait for the Americans, but sooner or later that would give way to their fear of the Russians. And once that giant mass of frontline soldiers and war machines moved, it would pour like molten lava over everything in its path. The only way to prevent it was for the Czechs to open the barricades and let the Germans retreat westward, except that the Czechs could not get a political consensus on this point.

Forgotten in a corner of the antechamber as policemen, soldiers, and civilians ran in and out, Buback could overhear snatches of heated arguments and wondered whether Beran trusted him or was simply careless. Finally the new commissioner emerged and explained it himself.

“I don’t think there’s anyone else in Prague with as good a chance as you, Mr. Buback. That’s why I want you to have a clear picture of us. You didn’t get any military secrets here today, just an impression you can take back to your superiors. I’m hoping they won’t react the way they’ve done at the front or in other occupied countries. The fighters in Prague don’t take orders from us or any other centralized authority. All we can do here is try to bring some order to what’s already happened, or what’s happening now without our knowledge. But if the Germans preempt the council’s decision by attacking, that fractiousness and unpredictability will work against them, because then they’ll be at the mercy of each and every barricade commander. I’d caution you strongly against risking it.”

Beran added that the Czech National Council was trying to contact the Kosice government by radio, but they were not expecting a response before evening; there was no sense wasting Buback’s time. A new letter of transit with a minor Czechification of his identity would open a path through Czech Prague for him…

He took it and read his Czech name.

ErvIn Bubak.

In the middle of the city the barricades were still up; the German guards were letting local residents past, and Buback got through with them on the way to and from Bredovska Street. He wrote the absent Meckerle a short but emphatic note and then set off for Grete with the lieutenant general’s present. Ever since he got the pistol he had been berating himself for not thinking of it on his own. But how could he have known she was a crack shot?

Meanwhile, May turned rapidly into a dank autumn; it began to rain again and the temperature continued to drop. Yesterday’s enthusiasm had evaporated from the streets. The long wait had divided Praguers into two camps. For one group, the war had ended, and they grumbled that the rest kept playing soldiers and tearing up the streets; who would fix things afterwards, and when? The others were busy fortifying and strengthening the barricades.

The dead-end street was devoid of life again; did anyone live here? This time he went straight to the door without stopping and confidently unlocked it; it seemed the least conspicuous entrance. He knocked their agreed signal inside on the wooden banister, but his heart leaped into his throat when Grete did not respond. He bounded up the stairs two at a time, all the while ruing leaving her alone in this murder-stained house.

“Grete!”

Silence. Would she too be lying on the floor just through the kitchen doors? He whirled in panic and might have injured himself on the steep steps if her muffled voice had not stopped him.

“My love…!”

She crawled out from beneath the bed like a small animal from its lair.

“If you didn’t know I was here, you’d never find me, would you?”

She must have seen the horror in his eyes.

“Don’t be angry at me, love.” The words tumbled out of her. “I just wanted to be sure; strange, I’ve known for so long that this war was wrong and that Germany would lose it, but only now did I realize what that’s going to mean for me—that charlatan Hitler seemed so strong that even I was fooled; I thought after his defeat the curtain would fall and we’d simply start a new number without him… It never occurred to me that a time would come when Europe’s hatred would turn against me, personally, that it would be I, Grete Baumann, who would foot the bill for the Germans who murdered; I should think it’s only just, but I feel it isn’t, my love… and now, when I have you, I’d finally like us to have a couple of happy years together, until… Look what’s happened to me!”

He watched, distressed by her fear, as she quickly unbuttoned her long linen dress and pulled down her stocking. Baring a long, slender leg up to the hip, she pointed blindly with a finger, never letting her pitiful glance leave him.

“Here…!”

“I don’t know what you mean…”

“Can’t you see,” she practically moaned at him.

He brought his eye down to the place and finally spotted something: dark blue lacework delicately embroidered on a small square of lighter skin.

“And what is it… ?”

“My veins have burst!”

He was so relieved he dismissed it with a wave.

“If you hadn’t shown it to me…”

“Buback! If the world weren’t falling apart around us and you had time to observe my legs the way you used to, you’d have caught it yourself. That’s how it all starts. Take it from a former dancer who’s seen the crippled legs of colleagues cut from the troupe before forty, except I wasn’t even twenty at the time and thought I was immortal.”

Now he understood: In her precarious solitude the theme of age had become a bulwark against the fear of death. Gratefully, he too switched gears.

“Did you find anything else?”

“Yes.” She slid out of her dress, stripped off her white shorts, and turned her back to him. “Here!”

He scoured her beautiful figure but could find no flaw in it, and told her so.

“Come closer.” She pulled him by the hand to the angled window. “Do you see those shadows?”

Logically there had to be some.

“Yes, so?”