The Cowards (32 page)

‘What?’

‘The SS.’

‘Who said?’

‘They got word over at the brewery from Schörkenau. Somebody phoned. The old man told us.’

‘What’s going on, anyway?’

‘Well, the German Army’s on the run but the rear guard units are SS divisions. And they’re still fighting the Russians.’

‘Jesus.’

‘We’re really going to be in for it then.’

‘You think they’ll get all the way to Kostelec?’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, you don’t think maybe the Russians’ll finish them off first.’

‘I wouldn’t count on it.’

‘Yeah … well, maybe we’ll see some action around here after all.’

‘That we will.’

Neither of us said anything for a while. Then I said, ‘What’s your old man say about it?’

‘He’s scared shitless.’

‘Benny!’ Helena piped up automatically.

‘He’s scared, like everybody else.’

‘You think the army’s going to do anything?’ I asked, saying the word ‘army’ sarcastically.

‘Why do you think they’re calling up everybody tomorrow?’

‘Yeah. Right,’ I said, and a chill ran down my spine. SS men! It was cool there in the garden with Evka bouncing around on the grass in her white bathing suit. So now things were really going to start happening. And suddenly I didn’t want it to happen.

‘What’re you going to do?’ I asked.

‘I’ll go over to the brewery tomorrow. Not much choice.’

‘I guess not,’ I said. We sat there, silent. ‘Jesus Christ,’ I said after a while.

Again we sat there in depressed silence. Then Benno reached over for a litre bottle of beer, snapped back the cap, and poured the beer into three glasses on the table.

‘Have some,’ he said to me and handed one of the glasses to the Englishman.

‘Thank you,’ said the Englishman. We drank. The beer was warm but tasted good anyway. I drank off about half the glass in one gulp, then set it back on the table. Benno was still drinking. His Adam’s apple bobbed rhythmically and he tipped the bottom of the glass up to the sky. We fell silent again, then finally I said, ‘Well, I guess I better be going,’ and got up.

‘Don’t go yet,’ said Benno.

‘I’ve got to. I’ve got to do some things and I want to get a good night’s sleep.’

‘Well, then off you go.’

‘You’ll be there in the morning?’

‘Yes.’

‘What time?’

‘Stop at Haryk’s. I’ll meet you over there.’

‘What time should I be there?’

‘Around eight.’

‘All right,’ I said. I said good-bye to the Englishman and he sat up straight in his chair again and said good-bye, and I shook hands with Helena and Benno. Then I called out, ‘ ’Bye, Evka.’

She turned and stepped into the sunshine.

‘ ’Bye, Danny. Come back again,’ she said. That warmed my heart. I thought yes, definitely, I will come back. In the sunshine, all her lovely curves radiated a dazzling whiteness. I made a V-for-Victory sign and the Englishmen grinned.

‘See you later, boys,’ I said. I went through the house and down the sandy path out to the gate. This SS business really got on my nerves. But I shook my head to clear it and felt fine again. I knew Evka was in her white bathing suit in the garden behind me and that Irena wasn’t far away either in the County Office Building. The whole town was full of girls. And I knew I’d be coming back to the Maneses tomorrow or the day after
or a couple of days anyway. And soon it would be summer and we’d all be going to the swimming pool. Then I remembered Mitzi. Life wasn’t so bad after all. Even if there wasn’t anything but that – and there wasn’t – life would be worth it. To hell with the SS. And maybe up in the mountains this summer or walking together through Prague, maybe Irena would give in, maybe I’d win her over yet. Or maybe I’d meet that unknown girl after all. Maybe life really wasn’t so bad. Then I remembered Berty and suddenly felt I had to have those snapshots. As if my life depended on them. So I could show off in front of Irena. So I could see how I looked with a gun. Snapshots were terrific. All they showed was what you could see in the picture – no words, no nothing, just the picture with nothing to get in the way. Pictures of girls always made a tremendous impression. If a guy shows some girl’s picture around, it’s kind of like a trophy, even if maybe he never got anywhere with the girl at all. It doesn’t make any difference. All he needs to do is let his friends take a look at a couple of pictures and put on a mysterious look. His friends will take care of the rest. They probably know there isn’t much to it and how it really is with girls’ snapshots, how easy it is to get one, but they’ll never let on because they like to show their pictures around, too, and it makes a guy feel good, a bit as if he’d really made out with all those girls whose pictures he had and that’s a very nice feeling. And that’s just how it was with that picture of me with the submachine gun. Nobody would know from my picture that they’d taken my gun away afterwards. I went through the park to Zizka Square and hurried through the underpass and took a short cut along the railroad embankment to Berty’s place. The side streets weren’t so crowded, but when I turned off into the ghetto, I came up against a whole herd of ragged people milling around the synagogue. A truck loaded with blankets stood parked at the curb and four guys were busily unloading the blankets and carrying them into the synagogue. Moutelik’s gleaming white apartment house stood at the corner, but their shop was closed. I went into their place and started up the stairs to the first floor. Through the stained-glass windows on the staircase which depicted various scenes of
merchant life, the light streaming in from outside painted bright pictures on the yellow walls. I stopped to look at some of the figures – the half-naked Mercury and a muscular blacksmith – and suddenly thought of Mr Moutelik himself who looked just like a billiard ball with a belly. I met Helena Reimanova on the stairs. She was wearing her tennis dress and the colours from the windows made pretty patterns as they poured over her. I rang the doorbell at the Mouteliks. Their aged maid opened the door and told me that Berty was in the darkroom. I went back downstairs and rang the bell at the back entrance to the shop. After a while Berty’s brother Emil came to the door and let me in.

‘Hi,’ I said. ‘Is Berty downstairs?’

‘Yeah,’ he said and went back to his toys and puppet theatres. I saw he’d been taking apart some kind of a little machine; it was spread out all over the counter. I opened the door to the cellar and turned on the light. I went down the steps and came to a narrow little passageway between piles of crates and sacks and bundles. A lightbulb shed a little light from the ceiling. I headed through the yellow gloom to the back where Berty had fixed up his darkroom. It was kind of a booth made out of beaverboard and covered with black paper. A sign hung on the door:
NO ADMITTANCE
. I knocked.

‘Just a second!’ someone called from inside and you could hear a rustle of papers and the clap of boxes being shut. Then Berty opened the door. He was wearing a black smock.

‘Oh, hello. You came for your pictures?’ he said, and he bared his teeth at me like he did for customers in his father’s store.

‘Yeah. Are they ready?’

‘Sure. Would you like to see them?’

‘Well, if you’ll show me – sure.’

I went inside. It was a tiny little room with a work table on which the enlarger stood and three basins for developing fluid, the fixing bath, and water. Over the table there was a shelf for bottles and boxes and, over the shelf, three lightbulbs: one white, one red, and one green. A little cupboard stood against the wall on the left. Berty opened the cupboard and took out an
envelope. The light of the low lamp on his work table, angling up from below, threw huge shadows on the opposite wall of the darkroom.

‘Here you are,’ said Berty. ‘Come over here.’

We went over to the table and Berty spread out the snapshots. There were six of them – exactly the number I’d ordered. I looked at them. They were excellent pictures. Grey and sombre. You could tell the weather had been bad that day. There I stood with my submachine gun, my hair slanting down over my forehead a little. The submachine gun itself came out so clear you could almost count the screws and it had a real metallic sheen. I inspected the gun first and then myself – standing there in the foreground in just the right posture. Behind me and a little off to one side, you could see Benda with his submachine gun and fireman’s helmet and Franta Kocandrle’s back with a rifle slung across it. Over my left shoulder the long pale pins of a couple of bazookas jutted up. The background was a grey blur but I stood out sharp and clear against it, and I looked just like I really do and with the hair in my eyes and that submachine gun in my hands I looked pretty impressive. I don’t think I’d ever seen a better snapshot of me – not even the one showing me with my saxophone because a professional photographer had taken that one and he’d practically flattened us with all his spotlights so we all wound up looking as if we’d never seen our instruments before in our lives. This picture was worlds better. It made a strong impression. Berty was an artist. Or at least he had a marvellous camera. Actually, I guess it was the camera that counted. Anyway, the pictures were great.

‘Very nice, Berty,’ I said.

‘They came out pretty good, didn’t they? Actually, I had to lighten it a bit at the edges but nobody’s going to notice that.’

‘I can’t even see it myself. No. They’re great. How much do I owe you?’

‘Well, the charge for postcard-size pictures is two crowns and I’ll throw in the developing free so that would make it twelve crowns altogether.’

I took out my wallet and handed him the money. When it came to money, Berty had no friends.

‘Well, thanks very much,’ I said.

‘You’re quite welcome,’ Berty said, flashing his best salesman’s smile. ‘If it’s nice tomorrow, we might try a few more over at the brewery. Will you be there?’

‘Sure. It looks like you may have an awfully busy day tomorrow.’

‘I took nearly one hundred and fifty pictures today,’ he said with a satisfied smile.

‘Really?’

‘Yes. Refugees. Some day those pictures may be very valuable.’

‘I’m sure they will be,’ I said, remembering Mr Machacek’s history. Those pictures would be a real goldmine for him! ‘You know they’re expecting the SS to get here tomorrow?’

‘I heard – yes.’

‘You going to try to take their pictures?’

‘Well, I’ll try anyway.’

‘You better be awfully careful.’

‘Don’t worry. I’ve had experience,’ he said in a slightly superior tone.

‘I guess that’s true,’ I said. ‘Can I get out by myself or do you keep the upstairs door locked?’

‘No. Just slam it after you.’

‘Well, so long,’ I said.

‘Good-bye,’ said Berty. I started back through the passageway between the crates. I heard Berty shut himself back up in his darkroom. I went up the stairs, turned off the cellar light, and went through the shop. Emil was in the back, still fiddling around with that machine. It was a mechanical bear brandishing a little bottle with the inscription:
DER TEUFEL
.

‘So long,’ I said to him and went out into the hallway. I looked at my watch. It was after four. Four more hours till supper. I decided to loaf around on the street till six. I headed off towards the square. The crowds hadn’t thinned out any. I stood at the corner by the loan association and watched them. By now the square looked like a gipsy camp. People, nothing
but people – around the church and everywhere. They were all either squatting or standing around or munching on stuff they pulled out of their bundles and, though I saw them talking among themselves, a hot weary silence seemed to hang over the whole square. The crowd was thickest where the square sloped slightly up towards the castle. The sun beat down on them and the brilliant flags flying from the housetops flapped listlessly and drunkenly above that dusty mass of humanity. The crowd was waiting. Waiting for what would happen next. Waiting for peace and trucks with red crosses and liaison officers to send them back to all those different countries they’d come from. Or, rather, from where the Germans had taken them. I looked at them. Next to me sat an old fellow with a dirty beard, his head cocked back, his eyes like slits. But his mouth was wide open and inside there were stumps of teeth. A boy sat next to him and I couldn’t tell whether he had jaundice or was just dirty. Though he looked sick, again I couldn’t tell whether it was jaundice or just the fact that he was a gipsy, maybe, or an Italian. Then I looked out over the square and saw the Frenchmen in their shabby uniforms and they all looked weak and sickly though the Dutchmen standing next to them looked strong and healthy. I don’t know why, or even if it was true, but anyway that’s the way they looked to me. There was a filthy-looking family a few feet away whose kids kept chasing each other around a soup pot and, a bit farther off, a hunched-over, bedraggled-looking couple – the girl wearing a concentration camp dress and about eight months pregnant, the boy with his head bandaged up and his face covered with bruises and scars – and then Russians and Mongolians with that eternal grin on their faces and looking so carefree and relaxed and even happy it made me furious. And then suddenly I saw Irena. She was just coming out through the bronze doorway of the post office. Slowly she made her way through the crowd towards the loan association office. Ah, Irena! She was wearing a simple dress, white with a pattern of flowers. Ah, Irena! It almost hurt to look at her I leaned back against the corner of the loan association building and stuck my hands in my pockets. It was a completely automatic reaction; I figured it
would make an impression on her. Well, maybe not much of an impression but still it was better than nothing. It was the best I could come up with, and I was pretty sure Irena would like it. I waited until she was close up, then grinned my lopsided grin and said, ‘Hi, Irena,’ and looking her straight in the eye, I couldn’t help thinking how few brains she actually had, but it was all the same to me.

‘You’re beautiful, Irena,’ I said.

‘Really? I’m glad you like me,’ she said.