The Cowards (25 page)

‘You kidding? Did you recognize any of those guys?’

‘No. But they sure recognized us.’

‘In the dark?’

‘Everybody recognizes me, even in the dark,’ said Benno.

‘Yeah, but after all, all we did was obey orders. Anyway, the whole thing’s crazy.’

‘Like hell it is.’

‘It is, too. The Russians’ll have plenty of other worries.’

‘Hurry up, boys,’ a voice sang out from up front.

‘Right,’ I said.

‘I don’t even want to think about what’s going to happen,’ said Benno but he hurried up, too. We were nearing the gate now. It was closed and the lantern behind it turned the bars of the gate into long, fan-shaped shadows on the wet pavement. We got to the gate.

‘Dr Bohadlo’s patrol,’ said Dr Bohadlo. The gate opened and we marched inside. The soldier closed it behind us as soon as we all passed through. Crowds came up from all sides. Everybody wanted to know what was going on outside.

‘Let us through,’ said Dr Bohadlo.

‘But what’s going on?’ somebody asked.

‘Where was the shooting?’

‘What’s happening?’

Silently we made our way through the crowd, but they followed us, asking us questions all the way over to the administration building. None of us said a word. It was only when we passed under the lantern at the corner of the building that I realized how we looked. We were all covered with mud. Dr Bohadlo’s sleeve was torn and Haryk’s face was bleeding. While we were standing there, Mr Jungwirth came up to me.

‘What’s going on out there, Danny? They won’t let us out of this place.’

‘The Germans are mixing it up with some communists at the railroad station,’ I said.

‘With communists?’ I could see this news really knocked him for a loop.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘What’s that? What’d he say?’ voices called out behind Mr Jungwirth. I left him to take care of the questions. We went up the steps towards the door and into the hallway. There was a light on.

‘Wait here. I’ll go and report,’ said Dr Bohadlo. We sat down on a bench along the wall and Dr Bohadlo went into the office.

‘A nice mess,’ said Benno.

‘You’re not kidding,’ I said.

‘Yeah, but this gut of mine has really had it!’ said Haryk.

‘It still hurts?’ I asked.

‘I’ll say it does.’

‘Whereabouts?’

‘Right in the middle.’

‘You ought to go to the first-aid station.’

‘I’d rather go home.’

‘We should have beat it,’ said Benno.

‘Wait a while. We will.’

‘Yeah. Now all we can do is wait.’

‘Oh, maybe they’ll let us off.’

‘Like hell they will.’

‘Sure they will.’

‘Yeah? When?’

‘Oh, by morning at the latest.’

‘I’ll believe it when I see it,’ said Benno.

It was quiet in the hallway. The light in the hall shone murkily. We sat there on the bench, bloody, bleeding, filthy, drenched, and exhausted. So this was a revolution. It wasn’t just a big lark after all. And that was all right, too. I liked that. I’d forgotten all about my flu. I remembered everything that had happened. It was pleasant to remember kicking that guy in the stomach. And how he’d groaned. It worried me a bit, though – maybe I’d really hurt him. I’d never have thought I was capable of kicking anybody like that, that hard. Apparently I was, though. Obviously I was capable of even worse things, too. Too bad I hadn’t had a gun with me. I could have picked off those Germans as they came running up to us with their guns and bayonets. I could just see myself behind that hedge, firing away with my submachine gun, the short flame shooting out of the muzzle, the rain pouring down, the brief bursts of light, and the Germans turning to flee in their wet helmets and flapping trenchcoats. These brewery battalion leaders made me mad. Why didn’t they let us do anything? If they’d only passed out all those guns they had lying around in the arsenal, they could have taken the station. Well, sure. But what’s the good of taking the station away from the Germans if it costs lives? True. I could see that. And this way the Germans could escape easier and then they’d be out of our way. The communists were making things rough enough for us as it was. Take on the Germans, too? I shuddered.

‘What the hell are they doing in there?’ said Benno.

‘What time is it?’ asked Haryk.

‘Nearly three. Those guys’ll be gabbing away in there until morning.’

I was trembling all over from the cold. I tried to think about shooting again but it didn’t work. I was so cold my teeth were chattering.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ said Benno.

‘I’m cold.’

‘You see, you jerk. You could already be home in bed by now.’

‘Yeah, sure.’

The longer we sat there the worse I felt. I tried to warm up by thinking about Irena, but that didn’t help much. The lightbulb in the ceiling looked as cold as ice and Dr Bohadlo didn’t return. The minutes dragged by. At last Dr Bohadlo appeared. He came out looking very grave, his full-moon face still spattered with mud, and he told us to go to the lounge.

‘When are you going to let us go home?’ said Benno.

‘I’ve already told you – only when things have quieted down. You’re in the army now. Go and get some rest,’ said Dr Bohadlo testily. We got up. Dr Bohadlo disappeared through another door.

‘A great army,’ said Benno.

‘A great screw-up, that’s for sure,’ said Haryk.

‘You coming?’ said one of the other guys.

‘Sure. You go on ahead. We’ll be down in a while,’ said Benno. They headed off for the lounge. Benno turned to us. ‘Well, you want to stay here?’

‘No,’ said Haryk.

‘How about you?’ Benno turned to me.

‘I’m for clearing out.’

‘Okay. But how?’

‘Come on, you guys. I know a place we can get over that fence in no time,’ said Haryk. I opened the door. A bunch of guys were still standing under the lantern, arguing.

‘Careful. Follow me,’ said Haryk. We crept out, slipped quickly along the wall on the other side of the door and turned the corner. We found ourselves in complete darkness.

‘Where are you?’

‘Here,’ I said.

‘Hold on.’

I groped around until I felt Haryk’s hand. Benno laid his hand on my shoulder. Slowly we picked our way through the darkness. It was still pouring and dark as the inside of your hat. Haryk stopped and let go of my hand.

‘Well, here’s the fence,’ he said.

‘Where does it bring us out?’ said Benno.

‘On the Bucina road.’

‘I’ll never make it over.’

‘We’ll boost you. Danny, come here.’

I stood next to Haryk.

‘Come on, Benno.’

Benno stepped up to the fence. It was an ordinary board fence.

‘Grab hold at the top and stick out your ass. We’ll help you,’ said Haryk.

‘All right,’ said Benno. Haryk and I caught hold of his rear and boosted him up. He was awfully heavy. He started grunting and groaning.

‘You got a hold up there?’ asked Haryk.

‘Yeah.’

‘Can we let go yet?’

‘Wait, not yet.’ You could hear him wheezing and I could feel him frantically pulling himself up. Finally he started growing a bit lighter. It felt like most of him anyway was already over the fence.

‘Okay,’ he said and we let go and I heard his shoes banging against the fence and then his body landing with a thud on the other side.

‘You make it all right?’ asked Haryk.

‘Yeah. All banged up,’ said Benno from behind the fence.

‘Can you get up?’

‘Yeah. To hell with everything.’

‘Okay, Danny. Your turn,’ said Haryk. I swung myself up on the fence and Haryk helped push. I got one leg over, then the other and sat on top. You couldn’t see a thing beyond the fence.

‘Where are you, Benno?’

‘Here.’ His voice came from right underneath me.

‘Get out of the way so I don’t land on top of you.’

I could hear branches cracking as Benno moved off to one side. Then I jumped. I landed on my hands and feet on the sopping wet ground.

‘Okay?’ Haryk called out from the other side.

‘Yeah. You can jump,’ I said and got up. Haryk jumped down behind me. We came out on the highway.

‘Well, let’s go,’ said Benno. We hurried past the brewery. When we got near the gate we made a detour to keep out of the lantern light. The soldier was still patrolling behind the gate. We crossed the bridge and went past the County Office Building. All the windows were dark. Benno stopped at the corner.

‘Well, so long.’

‘See you,’ said Haryk

‘Good night,’ I said.

‘You coming over to our place this afternoon, aren’t you?’

‘We’ll be there,’ I said.

‘Well, good night.’

‘Good night.’

Haryk and I walked through the park and under the railroad underpass. It was wet and dark all around. We came out of the underpass and around the Hotel Granada on Jirasek Boulevard. We stopped in front of our building.

‘See you at Benno’s tomorrow?’ I asked.

‘Yeah.’

‘Well … good night.’

‘Good night,’ said Haryk, and vanished. I could hear his footsteps getting farther and farther away and then I unlocked the door. Then there I was in the hall and suddenly it was warm and dry. I shut the door and started shivering. I hurried up the stairs. It was dark at our place. I opened the door and closed it quietly behind me so as not to wake Mother. But I woke her up anyway or else she hadn’t been asleep at all. A light went on in the bedroom and she rushed into the hall in her nightgown.

‘Danny! Thank heavens! Are you all right?’

‘Don’t worry. I’m fine,’ I said.

‘What was all that shooting then? I’ve been so worried and frightened that something had happened to you!’

‘It was some kind of incident at the station. It’s all over now.’

‘And they’ve let you go now?’

‘No. But I caught cold so I came home.’

‘A good idea. Now you get right into bed. You’d like some tea?’

‘Please.’

Mother went into the kitchen and I slipped into the bathroom to wash up a bit and also so I wouldn’t have to explain anything. She hadn’t seen anything there in the dark hall, but when she saw my clothes she’d be in for quite a shock. But she wouldn’t see them until morning. I stripped to the waist, washed, and rubbed myself dry with a Turkish towel. Then I went to my room, undressed, and crawled into bed. I was cold. Mother came in with a big mug of steaming hot tea and set it on the chair next to my bed.

‘Well, the main thing is you’re home again – thank God,’ she said.

‘Right. And tomorrow I’ll take a sweat cure and get rid of this cold.’

‘Of course. And we’ll ask Dr Labsky to write you a certificate so that you can’t go back there any more.’

‘Well, we’ll see,’ I said and picked up the mug of tea.

‘Yes … Would you like anything else? A sandwich or …’

‘No, thanks. Go back to bed, Mother.’

‘All right. Good night,’ she said, and leaned over me.

‘Good night,’ I said and screwed up my mouth. She kissed me.

‘And get a good long rest,’ she said, and went back to her bedroom. She closed the door behind her.

I was alone in my room with the tea. I drank it and then crawled down under the eiderdown quilt and curled up. That same old, familiar, eternally recurring and always wonderful feeling swept over me. I closed my eyes and started saying my prayers. Dear Lord, help me to win Irena. Our Father Which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name, Thy kingdom come, and I thought about Irena and could see her the way she’d looked up in the mountains, edging her way across a narrow traverse near the Chimney and moving slowly around the overhanging rock towards the big crevasse, her arms bare and tan up to her shoulders and the safety rope between her breasts and Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us now and at the moment of our death, Amen, and Irena still sitting there in the sunshine
and I said, Dear God, help me to win Irena, and I crossed myself and started thinking about her up there on the mountain again and then about the brewery and how they were all locked up inside it like in a zoo behind bars, and about the bars, and about the explosions down at the station, and that hot, black, wet tank and us getting over that fence and then suddenly I was thinking of Prague where they were probably really fighting now and the barricades were blazing in the streets and the Germans were probably murdering people and raping pretty girls, girls like Irena, or maybe somewhere a girl, the girl I’d finally meet some day and marry, was going through hell right then, and then it astonished me, the thought that I probably hadn’t even met the girl I would marry some day but that she must be living somewhere or that maybe she hadn’t even been born yet, and that maybe I wouldn’t get married until I was old and my bride would be young, except that I didn’t believe I’d live to be very old, and suddenly I had a terrific desire to know her and I wondered what she was like and whether or not she really existed at all and I said to myself, that’s all a lot of nonsense, I’ll never meet one, and then I remembered I was supposed to be in love with Irena, but then there I was back again thinking about
her
again, that girl I was going to meet, and I tried to imagine how she looked but I couldn’t, and all I knew was that she’d be pretty and I decided I could never love a girl who wasn’t pretty and wondered how anybody ever could but then for a second that made me feel sort of ignoble, that all I thought about was physical beauty and not spiritual beauty, but I said to myself, skip the spirit, I don’t believe in the spirit, I just believe in the body and only pretty ones at that and in all the pleasure you get out of looking and touching and I imagined myself embracing this girl I was going to meet and we were in bed together, both of us naked, and I was touching her breasts and kissing her and I went on dreaming it out in detail and then I felt worse than ever because it all wasn’t real, and for a while I thought about Dr Bohadlo and about Irena and about that guy I’d kicked in the stomach and about the communists and that, maybe, instead of just waiting around, the thing to do was to get out
and do something. But why? And then back came the girl and I whispered I love you, I love you, and saw her in a pretty dress in Prague at the university and beside the river on a fall evening; so I went on and hardly knew any more quite what it was I was thinking about and what was real and what wasn’t until I fell asleep with all these pleasant thoughts, without even knowing how.