The Night of Wenceslas (21 page)

I stood there for a further few minutes, trembling all over, but afraid to attract attention by moving too soon. I waited till the clocks struck eight, then ambled across the square and got to hell out of it as quickly as possible.

I had no idea what to do. I knew I had to keep away now from other national costumes and the police. The peasant and his friends would be looking out for me. I walked aimlessly on and presently found myself in the Ujezd. Svoboda had his offices here. I thought I remembered a kavarna somewhere nearby, and when I saw its lights dimly shining, turned in there, too distracted to think on my feet any longer.

The place was empty. An old woman served me with a large slivovitz, and I tossed it down and ordered another and took it to a small table. As I sat down the landlord appeared.

‘Well, countryman,’ he said convivially, ‘a fine day, eh?’

‘Yes. Yes.’

‘You won’t forget it in a hurry.’

‘I won’t,’ I said sincerely.

‘Slipped away from your comrades for a quick drink?’

‘That’s it.’

He wiped the table and sat down. ‘What time do you go?’

‘Go?’ I said; but understood him entirely in that deliberating moment. Countrymen came. Countrymen would have to go. Trainloads of them. There wouldn’t be a national costume in the whole of Prague tomorrow. Except one.

‘You all go back tonight, don’t you?’

‘Yes. Yes. Not for a bit yet.’

‘You’ll have tramped a few miles today, eh? You look bushed.’

‘I think I’d like another slivovitz,’ I said bleakly.

He went to get it and I sat, lumpen in my boots and my
bolero, seeing the end of the line close in sight. I couldn’t risk another night of dodging up and down alleys. There could be no question of showing myself out of doors tomorrow. I had to go to earth now. I needed a place to rest and eat. I needed a friend now.

I suppose the idea had been there ever since I’d seen her, a last desperate expedient. I felt in my pocket for my wallet. My diary was there, her number still scribbled in it. The landlord came back with the slivovitz and I drank it quickly and left.

There was a telephone box farther along and I went in and rang the number. I wondered if her father was with her. I thought if a man answered I would hang up right away, and waited, heart thudding.

A man didn’t answer. Nobody answered. The phone went on ringing for three minutes. I hung up and went out into the street and stood there in the dark with a feeling of sick desolation, trying to think just what there was for me to do. I couldn’t hang about here. I couldn’t stay in Prague. I would soon be the only peasant left in the place. I thought I’d better get over there to Barrandov, while I was able to, and wait for her.

I set off, walking, keeping to the darker side of the street, the feathered hat in my hand.

It was getting on for half past nine when I approached the terraces, glittering in the dark. There was a dance on, figures twirling on the several levels, dance music beating out. Across the road, a hundred yards or so beyond, was the rustic seat where I had sat with her and just beside it – I had forgotten it – the telephone box. I went in the box and rang her again. There was still no reply.

I left the box and went on to the house, hugging the shrubbery. The side road was in pitch darkness. There was no light in the house. I waited on the corner for a few minutes, but there was no cover here. I wondered if Vlasta herself was being watched, if they had discovered that I had taken her out and spent the night with her, my only contact. It seemed best to get back to the shrubbery again.

There was a thicket near the telephone box. I crawled into it, and sat down on the ground to wait. A few couples came and went from the dance. A bit of hanky panky went on on the seat. I nosed out from time to time when the coast was clear.

I called her twice more from the box. The last time, at a quarter to twelve, she answered.

I said in English, ‘Vlasta, it’s Nicolas. Nicolas Whistler.’

‘Nicolas! What are you doing here?’

‘Is anybody with you, Vlasta? Is your father there?’

‘No. No. I am all alone. Nicolas, this is wonderful. I don’t understand…’

‘I’ll explain everything when I see you. Can I come along now?’

‘But,
milacek
, of course. I was just going to bed. Ah, this is wonderful.’

‘Well, carry on to bed. Don’t wait up for me. Put the lights out.’

‘But of course I will wait up for you! How long will you …’

‘Vlasta, please do as I say. I don’t want to attract attention. I don’t know how long I’ll be.’

‘Ah, so. Well, then, I will leave the door open. Just push it. I will be waiting for you,
milacek
.’

I put the phone down, grinning with relief, and went out into the street.

As luck would have it, a couple were lying on the grass at the entrance to the side road. I went back to the shrubbery and waited for them to go.

Thirty minutes later they were still at it.

It was getting on for half past twelve and the moon was well up when I at last went down the side road. I stopped before the gates, watching and listening. The place was in darkness, silent as the grave.

The gate creaked a little as I opened it. I crunched softly up the gravel path.

As she’d said, the door was open. I pushed it and went in.

S
HE
had not gone to bed. She was waiting for me in a dressing gown in the living-room. There was a little table lamp on, the curtains securely drawn, and she was lying smoking a cigarette on the divan.

She had her eye on the door, and sat up sharply when I came in.

‘Who is it?’

‘It’s me, Vlasta. Nicolas.’

She sprang up. ‘Nicolas. What are you – what clothes have you got on?’

She stretched out her hands to hold me at arm’s length, goggling.

‘It’s a hell of a long story. Vlasta, do you have such a thing as a drink?’

Now I was inside, in safety, in the warm, dimly lit room, the reaction had come on. I felt myself beginning to tremble.

She threw her arms round me, the long, sombre face twisting loosely with a smile at the curious sight I must have presented. ‘
Milacek
, of course. You look so funny. You’re tired, Come, sit down.’

I was sitting even before she’d told me, sinking heavily back on the divan. She looked curiously at me, but asked no further questions and went to get a bottle and two glasses.

She poured me an enormous glass of slivovitz, which I drank immediately.

‘Another?’

‘Please.’

I took a little of it and sat back again, sighing and uncoiling as the neat spirit exploded wonderfully inside me. She lit a cigarette
and placed it in my mouth and I inhaled deeply and closed my eyes, wondering how the hell to begin.

‘Vlasta, has anyone been asking you about me?’

‘No. No. Why should they?’

‘When is your father returning?’

‘Wednesday, perhaps. He is giving a concert in Bratislava.’

‘You’re not expecting anyone to visit you here?’

‘No. Nicolas, what is it?’

I said, ‘Vlasta, I’m in serious trouble. I need your help.’

She drew the dressing gown more tightly around her. She looked not exactly frightened but a shade reserved. ‘What is it you want me to do?’

‘I’ve got to hide, Vlasta. I want you to let me stay here.’

‘What is it you’ve done?’

‘It might be better if you knew nothing about it.’

‘Is it – something against the State?’

‘In a way.’

She said quietly, ‘You’re not a spy, Nicolas?’

‘No, Vlasta. Not really. It’s very complicated to explain. I need to get in touch with the British Embassy. I’ve tried already but the place is covered by S. N. B. men.’

‘S.N.B.’ She stubbed out her cigarette, gazing at me. ‘How serious would it be for us – for my father and me – if they found you had stayed here?’

‘It could be very serious indeed. But I’ve got nowhere else to go, Vlasta. I’ve just got to have a night’s rest. I’ve been on the run for two days. They’ll kill me if they catch me. I’ll go tomorrow if you want me to.’

The Slav temperament is built to respond to melodrama. She was deeply touched. She leant over me with her heavy breasts and took my head. ‘
Milacek
, of course you will stay. Tonight, anyway. You’re exhausted. Maybe it isn’t so bad. We’ll think of something. You will tell me about it.’

I had no intention of telling her about it. It seemed to me the fewer people who knew the better. The whole episode was so grotesque the effort of explaining it once only would be quite enough.

‘Have you eaten?’

‘I don’t want anything.’

She refilled my glass and took one herself, and we sat there on the divan in silence. With the third glass of slivovitz the dim room was showing its remembered tendency to roll. I thought of the S.N.B. men in the hotel bedroom, of the hours spent trudging in the swarming Vaclavske Namesti, of Vaclav Borsky, and the endless alleys. I remembered how I had spent last night, the damp fug, Wenceslas leaping in the moonlight. It was all, I thought, each and every bit of it, totally unbelievable. A series of horrifying hallucinations in the dim, rolling room.

‘
Milacerk
, come to bed.’

She was leaning over me, sombrely, nuzzling my face.

‘In a minute.’

‘It’s better in bed. Lie out.’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s no use worrying.’

‘No.’

‘Maybe I can go to the Embassy for you.’

‘Yes.’ I was not listening to her, rolling warmly in the rolling room; the statuesque creature no more real than Vaclav Borsky or the S.N.B. As I heard this, however, I swivelled round to gaze at her. ‘The Embassy? How do you mean the Embassy? Have you been to the Embassy?’

‘But of course. Two or three times a month. Even more often lately. There are many messages because of the forthcoming trade agreement.’

‘Well, for God’s sake!’ I said, seeing in the one moment a whole range of new vistas. A letter from me; a car drawing up one night; myself in the back under a rug. Safe. ‘Vlasta, do you think you could do it?’

‘I don’t know. Why not? It’s dangerous?’

Suddenly the telephone rang. I was off the divan and practically in her lap with fright. She stared at me, jaw dropping.

‘Who could it be? Your father?’

‘I don’t know.’ She went to answer it. I sat palpitating. It
was nearly one o’clock. A damned funny time to ring up. Unless he had just arrived back in town. I strained to listen.

‘
No, no. No trouble. I wasn’t in bed yet. Very well indeed,
gracious pane,’ she said in
Czech.
‘He is in Bratislava. On
Wednesday I expect him. Certainly I will tell him. Please do
not concern yourself. It is nothing at all. Thank you. You are
very gracious
.’

She slammed down the receiver and came back, face stormy. One of his musical friends. They ring at all hours. ‘She paced around the room angrily, and stopped by me, softening.

‘
Milacek
, stop worrying. You’re too tired. Come, we’ll go to bed now.’

So we did.

She pulled off my boots, whickering slightly at the bizarre collection of clothing decorating my sparse frame. She had nothing on herself underneath the dressing gown, but with some obscure feeling that seriousness was called for, put on a loose nightie before getting into bed.

As she’d said, it was better in bed. The sheer voluptuousness of it, the massive, well-remembered embrace, took me in a breath far from the horror.

‘You’ve stopped thinking about it?’ she said in my ear after a moment.

‘Trying to.’

‘Too tired to think about anything else?’

‘Pretty tired.’

She gave me a mournful hug.

I sank into a dreamless doze, and drifted awake, and dozed, and woke again, ear warmly damp with her breath. ‘Still too tired?’ the husky voice said softly, at some time. The slivovitz, the soft warmth, the rolling curtain of sleep, had destroyed all strain, all knowledge, all identity in the darkness.

I don’t know what I said, but in a trice she had whipped off the nightie. Just for a moment, as she came swarming down again, I remembered where I was supposed to be tonight. Bournemouth, my mother, Maura. All a long way away. A world away. Far, far away from the breathy blackness of Barrandov.

I don’t know how much later it was when I woke up again. She was sleeping softly with her head in the crook of my neck. The slivovitz had left me gravely parched, and I licked my lips, seeing the situation with sudden clarity in that moment.

Her father was coming back Wednesday. I had two days here. Two days in which the police would have no sign or news of me, no abandoned clothing, no Borskys left lying about.

They would have to face three possibilities: (a) that despite the national costume I was somehow managing to sleep out and to steal food; (b) that I had slipped out of Prague; (c) that someone was sheltering me. Of them all, only the last was a probability. The question would then be who was likely to do so. Cunliffe would have passed on the information that I had no contacts left in Prague – I recalled that he had asked me specifically about this. That meant I had either made some, or had somehow managed to get in touch with the Embassy.

The fact that no questions had been asked of Vlasta indicated that this contact at least was unknown. After all, she’d been circumspect about it. She’d declined to have dinner with me at the hotel that first visit. I was pretty sure I’d not been followed when I went out with her. It was a fact that the S. N. B. men had been genuinely unaware of my movements when I dashed from the hotel. That seemed to indicate that I’d never been followed. They had been pretty sure of me.

All in all, it seemed to me, they would be driven to the conclusion that I was being sheltered by one of the Embassy staff. So they would watch the Embassy staff. They would watch their homes and their cars. All this was going to be a headache at some stage. The snags would have to be indicated in my letter. They would also – it was only fair – have to be indicated to Vlasta.

I had begun to stir about a bit in the bed with this appraisal of the situation. The gorgeous giantess moved murmurously at my side.

‘Vlasta.’

‘
Milacek
.’

‘I’ve been thinking of what you said, Vlasta, about going to the Embassy.’

‘Yes,
milacek
. Later. We’ll talk of it later.’

‘I think we should talk of it now. You’ll have to get up in a few hours.’

She flung one arm around me in a hug that drove the breath from my body, and sleepily sat up and put the bedside light on. She regarded me sombrely. ‘You want to get to the Embassy as soon as possible, little merchant.’

‘That’s the idea.’

‘Then this is the last time we’ll be together.’ Her wondrous torso stood out in the lamplight. She leaned massively and mournfully against me. ‘You’ll never come back again. Never. Never.’

‘No, well,’ I said plaintively. ‘Vlasta, there are things I’ve got to tell you.’

She planted a kiss on each side of my nose. ‘Well then, Nicolas,’ she said with a sigh, ‘tell me.’

This I proceeded to do in a revised, edited, and severely expurgated version. I told her I had come to Prague for Pavelka to learn confidentially of the glass process he had initiated; that I’d had to come back again to learn of a new development, and that this second time the police had learned what I was doing, necessitating flight and several disguises.

She was frowning when I finished. ‘It sounds serious, certainly,’ she said. ‘But they wouldn’t kill you for that. You are too nervous, my Nicolas.’

I ground my teeth a little. ‘There were a couple of things I didn’t mention. There was a
formula
,’ I said earnestly. ‘You don’t need to know about that. The point is they’re looking for me, and my only hope is to get to the Embassy.’

‘So. And you wish me to go for you. Yes,
milacek
.’

I didn’t think she was quite on wavelength. She was looking in a certain way at my nose as though about to return to her main preoccupation. I said, ‘I want you to take a letter there, Vlasta. I want them to try and smuggle me in, in a car. I don’t
want the car to come here, do you understand? I’ll have to get out of here.’

‘Yes, yes. We can arrange everything. There’s plenty of time yet. It’s not so serious.’

I ground my teeth again. The girl was proving quite exceptionally tiresome. I seriously considered rolling about with her for a bit to wake her up; but persevered once more. ‘It is damnably serious, Vlasta. I’m trying very hard to save my life. I’ve got to put all this in a rather complicated letter, which I should be writing now. But I had to tell you the main details. Do you think you understand?’

‘Yes, I understand. You do not wish to bring danger to this house.’

‘You’re sure you can get to the Embassy tomorrow – today?’

‘Monday is not a busy day. I should be able to manage.’

‘You go right inside, do you?’

‘To the reception desk.’

‘Is it an Englishman at the desk?’

‘No. A Czech.’

‘Does he open whatever it is you normally take there?’

‘I don’t think so. I don’t know.’

‘Could you get hold of a Glass Board envelope and write “Urgent, Personal, For the Ambassador’s Attention Only” on it?’

‘I think so. Yes, yes, I think so.’ She had woken up a bit now, and seemed abreast of the situation. Her mournful eyes were blinking slowly and thoughtfully. She absently scratched one bomb-like breast. She got up presently and put on her dressing gown and loped about gathering writing materials and a suit of her father’s. After this she went into the kitchen and made coffee.

I sat up in bed, smoking, and enumerating all the things that could go wrong. I was aware of a feeling of deep but shamefaced gratitude to the immense creature. Apart from her initial reservations at the dangers to her father and herself, she had not stinted her help or her generous affections. She could very easily end up in a concentration camp. I found myself liking her very much indeed. I got out of bed and slipped on the peasant
trousers and walked through to the kitchen. She was standing by the gas stove waiting for the coffee to heat, and I took her somewhat awkwardly by the shoulders and kissed her on the neck.

She leaned back against me but did not turn or speak. I kissed her again, gently, and felt her shoulders begin to shake. I realized with alarm that she was crying.

‘Vlasta.’

She shook her head.

‘What is it, Vlasta?’

‘It’s nothing. It’s the last I’ll see of you,’ she said.

‘Oh, now, Vlasta,’ I said awkwardly. ‘Maybe we’ll meet again. You’ll always be in my thoughts.’ If only I get to hell out of here, I thought; if only I’m left with any thoughts to think; but touched all the same.

She took a handkerchief out of her dressing gown pocket and blew her nose sadly. ‘Write your letter, Nicolas.’

I went to the drawing room and began writing on the divan, and presently she came in with the coffee and sat over me.

‘You’re copying out your passport number?’

I was, together with every other bit of personal information that would make the crazy rigmarole even faintly believable.

She watched me for a bit. ‘And the formula? You’re putting that in?’

‘No,’ I said briefly, not even allowing myself to think of the impossibility of explaining this to her.