The Night of Wenceslas (17 page)

I nodded again, still too sick to speak. And yet curiously, in this moment of physical horror, I found my brain suddenly beginning to function again. They couldn’t really know I had found the paper. They had to assume it from my dash from the hotel. But why should they also assume I had given it to someone? I had thought myself a courier of glass secrets from the country, not nuclear secrets into it. If I had seen the paper it was obvious what I would have done with it – destroy it at once in a panic. Then why assume I had passed it on to someone else?

I suddenly saw why, in a flash of inspiration. They didn’t know if I’d understood what it was. There was still a possibility that I hadn’t rumbled what was going on. That was the point of all these questions. They didn’t think I’d given it to anyone. They were giving me the opportunity of saying,
Why the hell
should I have given it to anyone? I destroyed it. I flushed it
down the lavatory pan
. Then they would know that I knew. Then I’d be cooked.

I said, ‘Can I have a drink of water?’

The small man went and got me one in the bathroom. The other man sat down on the bed, still rubbing his knuckles gently, looking at me without hostility, looking me all over as though selecting the next place. The small man came back with the water and gave me it and sat down himself on the bed, side by side with his thoughtful colleague.

He said, after a while, ‘So, Pan Whistler, let’s try again. I’ll give you one last chance. I don’t need to tell you what a serious
matter this is. We know well what it was that you were carrying. There is still the possibility that it can be stopped from leaving the country. If that should prove to be the case, it might not go so badly with you. If not I can promise you the highest penalty. It is in your own interest to tell us what you did with it.’

I said slowly, ‘Can I believe that – that it will be better for me if you get it back?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Well, I just hope you can,’ I said. ‘I posted it.’ The idea had come to me as he spoke. It sprang to life fully documented, without fumbling or hesitation. It wasn’t going to save me. It might give me a few hours’ respite.

They were taken utterly by surprise. They looked at each other.

‘When did you post it?’

‘The minute I left the hotel. I went right out to the post office. It should have caught the five o’clock post.’

‘To whom did you send it?’

‘To a man called Cunliffe, the man who sent me, in London.’

‘You thought it would go through the post without examination?’

‘I didn’t know what to think. I was in a panic.’

Nobody said anything for a minute. The loudspeakers boomed outside. It had begun to rain heavily. I could hear it splashing down off the awning on the balcony. I began to tingle all over, pain forgotten for the moment. There was just a chance, I thought.

The small man said slowly, ‘It didn’t occur to you to destroy the paper? That would have been the quickest and safest way.’

Think now. Think
. I said, ‘I wish to hell I had done. But I’d come all the way to get it. I thought there was just a chance it would go through. There was nothing to connect me with it. I just put it in an envelope and addressed it.’

Silence again for a minute. ‘Very well,’ he said at last, heavily. ‘We will see, Pan Whistler. I hope, for your sake, that you are telling the truth this time. Get your coat.’

I turned to get it from the wardrobe, heart pounding. I knew there was nothing to lose. I thought,
Oh God, I’ll never do it
.

I took the raincoat off the hanger and turned round with it. They were both looking at me thoughtfully, side by side on the bed. The raincoat was creased from the morning’s rain. I shook it out I seemed to be shaking it out for about two hours, everything suddenly in slow motion in the last paralysing moment before action. Then I thought,
Here it is. Now. Now
, and did it.

I threw the raincoat over them. I punched both heads together with a crack. I switched off the light, opened the room door, yelled at the top of my voice. Then I hared back across the room, out on to the balcony. The bloody flower box was in the way and I tripped over it. I scrambled up, kicked the flower box slanting in the opposite direction and went in quietly through the bathroom window, pulling it to behind me.

I don’t know how many seconds it took. I was shaking all over. I got down behind the bath in the gap between it and the wall. I crouched there, holding my bruised stomach and trying not to be sick again.

There was a confused row from the next room, people stumbling about. The room light went on again. Josef’s voice. ‘He didn’t come this way. I was in the corridor.’ Then they were on the balcony. This way. See. He tripped over the flower box.’

Footsteps running in the opposite direction. I couldn’t hear if they got as far as the fire escape at the opposite end. The loudspeakers drowned everything. But they’d certainly be coming back. I had perhaps half a minute to get out through the bedroom. I couldn’t tell if Josef had gone with them.

My stomach was painful as hell. I levered myself up from the floor in the narrow space, found something there at the side of the bath. The bit of piping I’d seen there, weeks, years ago. I picked it up, edged out of the gap, careful to make no sound. I tiptoed over to the half-open door to the bedroom. No one was there and I went in.

Josef stepped in from the balcony.

He stood stock still for a moment, jaw dropping with surprise. I ran across the room with the piping. He said, ‘No, no,’ caught me by the shoulder and half turned me round. But I managed to lift the thing and hit him once, as hard as I could. It landed above the ear. His eyes turned up, he gave a single, heavily-exhaled breath and fell against me. I stepped back and he folded up on the floor. I didn’t know if I’d killed him. It was the first time I’d ever hit anyone.

I said aloud, ‘Oh, Christ,’ panting, half sobbing. I looked quickly round the room, saw my passport and wallet and stuffed them in my pocket. I didn’t know how I was going to get out of the hotel. I was sure they’d have people watching, a full description of me.

The moment I thought of this, and with a mindless sense of inevitability, I began tugging Josef’s tailcoat off him. He was like a sack of lead, head banging on the floor. I yanked him round, split the seams at the shoulder as I pulled it off. He had no shirt underneath, just a wide dicky, taped back and front, and a clip-on bow. I got the whole lot off, then his trousers, tugging and jerking in a panic. I thought they’d be running back along the balcony at any moment. I wondered if I should drag Josef into some other room, but dare not risk the corridor.

He was shorter and broader than me. I was in his trousers in less than half a minute; had trouble with the dicky and let it hang loose at the back. There was no time to examine the bow tie in the mirror. I bundled him under the bed, kicked the pile of clothes after him, transferred the money and passport, and went out in the corridor.

Rain was bouncing in at the open window there. I thought I’d better get a raincoat; it would look suspicious going out without one. I couldn’t take my own. The raincoats were different here, long, thin, pale-coloured. I knocked on the first door along the corridor. The room was empty, unused. I tried the next without knocking. The blonde I had noticed earlier on the balcony was sitting naked before the dressing table mirror, carefully examining one breast. I said, ‘
Prosim
,’ shut the door quickly and tried the next one.

There were clothes scattered on the bed, a case open on the luggage rack, splashing coming from the bathroom. I opened the wardrobe door, saw a man’s raincoat inside, and took it.

I had noticed some back stairs at the other end of the corridor and wondered if these were the service stairs. I walked quickly back again, my feet soundless on the carpet, terrified the men would come suddenly bursting out of the room again. I didn’t see a soul. The steps were narrow and badly lit. There was a dark little cubby-hole on the first landing and an old chambermaid sat on a three-legged stool eating a piece of bread. She looked at me curiously as I passed, but said politely, ‘
Dobry
vecer
.’ I wished her the same and went on quickly down the stairs.

They let out into a dim, tiled hall with a concrete floor. There was a green baize notice board and a clock on the wall. Two boys in tailcoats, evidently young trainees, were pushing and shoving each other around, laughing. They froze when they saw me, muttering subdued
Dobry vecers
. There was a swing door at the end, and a double door beyond that. I went out through it. Outside a man in a hat and raincoat stood in the shelter of the doorway out of the rain. He raised his arm to hold me back. ‘I’m sorry, no one is to leave.’

I said, ‘I know, comrade, I know. They’ve got him. He’s upstairs now. I’m the floor waiter.’

He watched me getting into my raincoat, somewhat sourly. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’

‘To the chemist’s,’ I said, my stomach turning over and over. ‘They need something quickly. Ring up and find out if you want, only for God’s sake don’t hold me up. He’s a delicate little soul liable to pass out any minute. You won’t be very popular if he does.’

He said, ‘Wait here,’ and went in through the double doors.

I heard the swing door going, and ran up the alley. It was unlit, black, black as hell, a canyon between two tall buildings. I wondered if there was any way out into a side street that would bring me into the Prikopy, but it was a cul-de-sac, and I turned
and belted back, panting in the dark. Presently the alley curved and I saw the lights at the end.

Nobody stopped me this time. I walked out into the Vaclavske Namesti.

T
HERE
is something about coshing a man for the first time that inspires a certain wild but unstable confidence. One moment you are faced with a powerful and unnerving obstacle; the next, without thought or subtlety, you have overcome it. By disengaging from the habits of a lifetime you have slipped into a new effordess gear in which all things seem possible. Minutes afterwards the adrenalin aftertaste still tickles the roots of the tongue, nauseous, exultant, the unique flavour of rewarded violence.

I had buttoned the raincoat up to my chin, and was clutching the piece of lead piping in my pocket. Despite the rain the street was still thronged with hardy hands and brains. The crowds seemed denser farther down the street where the floodlighting was brightest, and I instinctively moved towards them, shuffling briskly and head down past the hotel entrance.

I knew that my only hope was to get to the Malostranske as quickly as possible, and to effect, as they say, an entrance to the British Embassy. The grotesque picture of myself as a fugitive from the secret police in this crowded and hostile city did not, in those first moments, seem at all incredible. I felt extraordinarily alive and effective, not at all the familiar coward.

The Malostranske lay at the other side of the river, perhaps a mile and a half away. I had suddenly a clear picture of the
thoroughfare that I had forgotten so completely in my panic earlier on. It lay at the end of the Mostecka. I must have passed it on my walk to the Heights on my first visit. It would take me half an hour to walk there in the crowded streets. I thought I’d better get the tram.

I walked over to the island in the middle of the road. The little trams were ding-donging by, packed to the steps, but three number nines came in quick succession, and I managed to get on the last. No fares were being taken. It was impossible for the conductress to move. I stood on the step, battered, bruised, my stomach still stiff and aching from the last blow, but wonderfully alive as we swayed and lurched down the brilliant, seething street.

I thought: I’ve got away with it. Not half an hour ago I was being beaten up by the secret police. I fooled them. I knocked out a man who tried to stop me. Incredible but true. It was wonderful what you could do when you tried.

In my desire to get away from the hotel and make for the thickest crowds, I had walked down the street. The tram now took me back up it, past the hotel, to the huge picture of Lenin at the junction. My cockiness lasted until approximately this point, where the tram ground to a halt. It seemed to be stationary longer than usual. I leaned out to see what was happening. The whole line of trams had stopped at the junction. I felt a premonitory sickness in my stomach again.

The conductress presently struggled off, muttering, and after a minute or two came back. ‘Anyone in a hurry had better get off,’ she said. ‘You’d do better to walk. They’re looking for something in front.’

A noisy, larky bunch of teenagers tumbled off the tram. I tumbled off with them, crossed to the pavement, and made my way up to the junction. There was really no need for me to look. The sickness in my stomach had provided accurate forewarning. The passengers were coming off the leading trams singly, each opening his coat as he got off, each showing his papers. Two men in hats and raincoats stood by each of the three leading trams. It was all very businesslike. They’d not wasted a lot of time.

I continued numbly to the corner, saw the same performance taking place on the pavement with pedestrians wishing to debouch into the Narodni Trida and into the Prikopy, and turned and made my way back down the street.

There are nine main roads running off the Vaclavske Namesti, five of them in the direction of the river, four of them away from it. It took me forty minutes in the crowded street to investigate them all. I could have given up after the first. The five streets running to the river were covered; the four running away from it were covered. As I’d seen from the start, it was a businesslike operation. I wasn’t going to the British Embassy tonight. I wasn’t going to leave the Vaclavske Namesti. I was cobbled.

By half past ten the street showed no sign of clearing, but the rain, although it had slowed to a drizzle, had mercifully not stopped. I kept the raincoat buttoned up to my chin and trudged wearily up the street again. I was sick of the sight of it, having gone there and back six times. The loudspeakers, after repeating a medley of marches, were now rendering selections from
The
Bartered Bride
. I was dropping with exhaustion.

The future, it seemed to me, was short and brutally unpromising. There were perhaps twenty thousand people in the stretch between Lenin and the museum. They would all have to go to bed at some time – say in an hour, two at the most. There was nothing for the police to do but wait.

In my perambulations up and down the street I had gone endlessly into the problem of how to get rid of the tailcoat. There was no public lavatory in the Vaclavske Namesti – and I wouldn’t have dared to enter it if there were – or any enclosed building where men might be waiting. I couldn’t get out of the tailcoat in the street. Even if I did manage this contortionist feat, there would still be the question of papers. There was no way out. I was trapped.

I was obsessed with a horrifying vision of the old movie, the one where the character is walking up the empty street and they
start coming for him out of doorways and he runs off down a sewer. I didn’t know where to look for a sewer in this noisy fairground of a street. I knew it wouldn’t end like that for me. I would merely get more and more tired, it would get later and later, and all the people would drift off. Then the police would begin to round up stragglers. Open your coat. Where are your papers?’ There was nowhere for me to run. There would be no point in struggling. Just a brief ride in a closed van, and then they would start hitting me again.

I thought, Oh Christ, and turned round and started back again, seventh circuit. I thought, if I could just sit down for a minute. If I could just take the weight off, have a drink, think calmly. There was no chance of that. I had to keep moving, one of the crowd. I trudged on, shoes letting in water, stomach sickly empty, mouth parched.

I had counted six
parky
stalls up and down the street, their naphtha flares pale in the floodlighting. My stomach revolted at the thought of the hot, greasy sausages and the coarse black bread. It would make me thirstier than ever. But I knew suddenly that I had to sit down. I didn’t think I could keep going five minutes longer without a rest. There was a wooden box outside the next stall, and a woman sitting on it, eating.

I teetered around the stall until she had finished, and then I quickly claimed the box. Four or five people waiting to be served looked at me. The stall-keeper said morosely, ‘In the queue, comrade. There are others before you.’

‘I’ll wait. I’m in no hurry.’

‘Maybe someone else wants the seat.’

They said they didn’t want the seat. He grunted, turned back to his pan again and served the others. There was a naphtha flare at each end of the stall. Fumes from the pan hung in the harsh yellow glare. I thought I was going to be sick and turned my head.

The man said, ‘How many?’

It seemed to be my turn. ‘One, please.’

‘Mustard? Mustard?’ he said and leant over to look at me. ‘Is something wrong, comrade?’

It had risen in my throat. I couldn’t speak. I said faintly after a moment, ‘I feel sick.’

‘You want some mineral water?’

‘Yes, please.’

I hadn’t seen any bottles. He moved away inside somewhere and came out of a side door with a glass. ‘I’m sorry, comrade. I didn’t see you were ill. People are shoving and pushing their way to the front everywhere tonight Here, drink.’

A few other people had come up and he went back inside and served them. I sat on the box and drank the mineral water and presently felt well enough to eat the
parky
and black bread he had left on the counter for me. I wondered where he had got the bottle from. I wondered what else he had in there. The stall was about six feet long, four wide, a wooden shack on iron barrow wheels. The counter flap was not more than a yard long. There must be some sort of compartment between it and the side door. I felt the stirrings of something.

‘All right now, comrade?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

‘Maybe you walked too much in the crowds. There are too many of them shoving and pushing tonight.’

‘Maybe that was it.’

‘Leave the glass there. Don’t bother to get up. Rest for a while.

‘That’s all right,’ I said and went round to the side door and handed the glass in to him. You could step right inside and not be seen from the street. Two or three people could step inside. There were a few shelves with bottles, raw sausages, loaves of bread, a dark area about a yard square.

I thanked him and continued slowly along the street, hope beginning to expand again like bubbles in some steamy swamp. I wondered if all the other stalls were the same. I thought they would be. I thought there should be something one could do about this.

I suddenly realized exactly what I could do about it and stood stock still on the pavement, the back of my neck beginning to sweat It would have to be a very small stall-keeper, I thought.
couldn’t cope with anything bigger than a dwarf in my ruined condition. And it would be better if it were on the other side of the road where the streets ran off to the river.

I had a dim recollection of a gnome-like figure superintending a stall at the corner of the Stepanska, and crossed the road and made my way to it. The naphtha flare was not more than ten yards from the corner. There were four or five people waiting at the counter. The side door was ajar. I went past the front of the stall and came back again. I hadn’t been wrong. He was a little skinny fellow with a marked resemblance to Ratface Rickett, only about two hundred years older. He wore a peaked cap and a shiny plastic jacket. It was several sizes too large for him, I was glad to see.

I got in the queue and had another party and looked carefully inside. It semed identical with the other stall. I waited till there was a lull in trade and went round to the side door, trembling. I pushed the door open and went in.

He saw me right away and said irritably, ‘Round at the front, round at the front.’

I said, ‘I’ve got something for you.’

‘What is it? What do you want?’

He came over with a string of sausages and a knife in his hand and he was so damned old and bent I could hardly bring myself to do it. I hit him quite gently on the head with the piping. His cap fell off and he clutched his head, staring at me in horrified silence. I thought,
Oh Christ, Oh Christ
, and hit him again in a panic, and he fell down. I said silently, I’m sorry.
I’m sorry, old man
, getting quickly out of my coat and the damned tailcoat. I ripped off the bow and the dicky, and bundled the lot on a shelf, and pulled his jacket off and got into it myself.

I hadn’t realized there was no floor to the stall. The road was directly underneath, and his cap had rolled in the gutter. I picked it up quickly and put it on, and in the same moment someone began rapping on the counter and calling, ‘
Prosim,
prosim. Parky, prosim
,’ and a man leaned over and saw me as I was straightening up.

I said, ‘Coming, coming.’

‘I should hope so, comrade,’ he said jovially. ‘The customers are waiting.’

I went over to the counter, sweating. There were half a dozen of them there. They’d materialized suddenly. I didn’t think I could have been more than a minute or two.

‘Three,’ the man said. ‘With mustard.’

A pan of
parkys
was stinking away on the stove. I fiddled about with them, my heart beating dully, and wondered how I was going to cope with this. I didn’t think the old man could possibly be seen, but shoved him over with my foot nearer the backboard, just in case. The bread was sliced and I forked three
parkys
out of the pan and handed them over.

I had never seen more than half a dozen people at a stall all night, but now for some ill-starred and damnable reason this one became suddenly popular. In no time there was a queue of a dozen or so, and I shambled there and back, emptying and replenishing the
parkys
pan in the yellow malodorous glare until I was faint with nausea and fatigue.

I heard eleven o’clock strike and then a quarter past, and shortly after that the loudspeakers stopped and the stream of customers dried up. I thought it was time I got the hell out of it I bent and looked at the old man. He had not stirred, but he was breathing. I couldn’t see any blood. I thought he’d gone off to sleep. I went back to the counter again and looked out into the street. The crowds had definitely thinned. On the corner of the Stepanska, a few yards away, a couple of rain-coated S.N.B. men were on duty, big solid fellows. They were stopping every one who entered the street. Open your coat. Show your papers. Well, I thought; I could show mine. I looked swiftly in the pocket of the plastic jacket and found the old man’s wallet His papers said he was Vaclav Borsky, seventy-four, one hundred and sixty-one centimetres, born Kutna Hora. I was not too bothered about this discrepancy in age. They weren’t really looking at the papers, just seeing that everyone had them. They knew Whistler Nicolas, the well-known spy, hadn’t.

I left the counter and walked out of the side door and went
haring back in again faster than I’d ever moved in my life. One of the S.N.B. men was walking over.

He said gruffly, ‘You’re packing up early.’

I said, ‘No. No.’

‘Do us a couple quick, comrade, and the same for my friend. We’re dropping there.’

I said, ‘Certainly. Of course.’

He watched while I fiddled with the
parkys
. I kept my head down, terrified he would have some minute description of my face. He was looking hungrily at the
parkys
, however, and stuffed his in his mouth as soon as I handed it over. I felt some comment might be called for, and said in a kind of soprano, ‘What’s all the excitement been, comrade?’