The Widow Killer (16 page)

“Buback here,” he managed to say impersonally. “Is this Miss Modra?”

“Yes…”

“You were kind enough to accept my invitation for dinner tonight.”

“Yes…”

“Would half past seven suit you?” Yes…

“Where shall I pick you up?”

He noted the address and closed the conversation as officially as he had begun it.

“Please inform Mr. Morava that I expect him in my office at Bredovska Street as soon as possible.”

He hung up none the wiser about what he was after that evening. Having no other work at the moment to distract his attention, he continued to fret over it.

He had no illusions that any normal Czech woman would, given the current situation, fall in love with a German, much less a Gestapo agent (she would certainly think he was one, and he was not allowed to disabuse her of the notion). And he was almost a quarter-century older than her—easily enough to be her father. He probed deeper, asking himself what led him to hope against hope, and realized what it was. In these five years of war he had met countless people in extreme situations, and more than once had seen relationships develop that would be completely unthinkable under normal conditions.

After all, the situation in the Protectorate could (and apparently would) become so dire overnight that the father’s savior might well become the daughter’s only protection as well. He could even remove her from Bartolomejska before Meckerle’s strike against the Prague police— which he would help prepare.

But, for God’s sake, how should he behave tonight? This Czech twin of his Hilde, just like her predecessor, lowered her eyes every time he entered. What if he tried to overcome that shyness in a stroke, as he’d done in his first life in Dresden… ?

He cut short his musings when Beran’s boy entered. Buback had pretended to have desk duty here today, as if he had to explain why they were not meeting in his office at Bartolomejska Street. This ploy made him even angrier at himself, so he was not particularly pleasant to Morava, which irritated him further. It’s a vicious circle; discipline, Erwin. He concentrated on the official announcements Morava had provided him with, and saw that the drafts were fine. Approving both texts without changes, he ordered Kroloff to arrange for the publication of the shorter one tomorrow in all the German papers across the Protectorate.

With this they were done, but the kid remained seated. Earlier he had conducted himself in a calm, efficient manner, but now his eyes searched Buback’s face with a tense expression.

“Is there something else?” Buback queried.

The Czech shook his head and stood up awkwardly, but before he took his leave and turned toward the door his face flushed red. What was on his mind? Another request for help? Then why didn’t he say so? Meckerle had basically given him a green light; he could help in other matters as well, as long as the Gestapo’s magnanimity didn’t become too obvious. The more personally he could intervene on behalf of Jifka Modra, the happier Buback would be to work toward the success of his mission.

Remembering her diverted his thoughts again down that same channel with an insistence that almost frightened him. How could this be? A month ago only Hilde had existed for him; even dead, she had filled his life and blocked even the slightest flicker of other emotions.

He felt it again that evening, as the girl appeared beneath the blinded lantern in front of her house, on a suburban street his driver had spent ages searching for in the darkened city.

Her placid beauty (he could describe it no other way) was even more vivid in the near-darkness; her eternally sleepy voice moved him, though she was merely explaining that she had not been waiting long; no, she had just come outside, because it occurred to her they’d have trouble finding the house. He opened the rear right door for her and then got in on the other side. What sort of rare perfume was she wearing, he almost asked, before he realized that it was the smell of soap.

Of course, he did not intend to take her to German House, although they could have eaten there without ration coupons. He opted instead for Repre, visited mainly by the few Czechs who could afford it (collaborators, he thought with a certain malicious glee, who’d bet on the wrong horse). He remembered the famous turn-of-the-century restaurant from his childhood, when he had eaten New Year’s and Easter meals there with his real mother. Just after his return to Prague he had come here to jog his memories of her; it had still made him feel sentimental, but inside it had been empty and deserted as a burgled home.

But not now, not now. Beneath the restaurant’s glowing chandeliers, he led the girl in the long black skirt and white blouse to their reserved table, and the tension that had gripped him since morning blossomed into a feeling he had not had in months: joy, so strong it caught at his throat. He was grateful when the headwaiter—who could hold up both ends of a conversation—stepped in. The girl had no special requests, so he recommended the Vienna sliced sirloin tips for both of them. However, she flatly refused Buback’s ration coupons and pulled out her own.

The ritual seemed doubly absurd in a fancy establishment: the head-waiter pulled scissors from the tail of his frock-coat and cut off squares representing decagrams of meat, flour, and fat. Buback squirmed at how much smaller the Czech rations were than his. Either it seemed natural to her or too awkward to mention; she carefully placed the remaining tickets into separate compartments in her plastic purse, clasped her hands on the table, and turned her great brown eyes on his with an unspoken question.

“Gnadiges Fraulein,” he then said, “I took the liberty of looking into your father’s case; I’m interested in the well-being of the Czech police, since we’re cooperating so closely. I can assure you that his only punishment will be a fine and that hell soon be released. However, to be completely honest with you, I could not prevent them from… They didn’t exactly handle him with kid gloves, I regret to say. What’s important is that nothing more will happen to him.”

“My father is strong,” she said simply.

“Anyway,” he added, as if to excuse Hinterpichler’s idea, “now no one will suspect him of buying his way out with a relatively mild punishment.”

“No one in our town would ever think that.”

He admired that directness in her; it did not strike him as haughty. When she was sure of something, she expressed it in the simplest possible way. This too he had only ever experienced with Hilde.

“Thank you, Herr Oberkriminalrat,” she added.

He took a step toward intimacy.

“Do you think you could forget about that title?”

She flashed him a heartfelt smile.

“Thank you, Herr Buback.”

“Erwin…”

She nodded.

“I know.”

He did not insist and tried instead to draw her gently into a conversation that might bring them closer. In decent German she told him about her family and her youth—as she said with her still childlike lisp—in a land where several languages met; her description matched the one he had heard two days earlier as they drove through that very countryside.

“So you’re from the same area as Mr. Morava?”

“Yes…” she answered more shyly than usual. “In peacetime we would undoubtedly have met a long time ago at socials; the war saw to it that we only met here, in Prague. He even speaks the same way; there’s a lot of Slovak in our dialect.”

For a couple of seconds he weighed addressing her now in Czech, so her speech could leave its narrow channel of foreign words and fill in his picture of her personality. Immediately he rejected the idea. He was acting like a college student smitten by a first crush!

The food interrupted Buback, letting him marvel at her long fingers holding the silverware with an unusual grace, at the small mouth, which barely moved as she ate; at the slight tilt of her head toward her left shoulder, causing her hair to cast an artful shadow on her right temple. Involuntarily he remembered Marleen Baumann’s dramatic lines, arousing an anticipation of revolutionary acts, while this face radiated spiritual equilibrium, the sort that brings peace and happiness. I can’t keep up this act for long, he realized; I’ll end up telling her the truth.

And why not? Why not try it? What was he risking except a polite refusal? Wouldn’t he lose far more if he let this opportunity slide by? Why not transform intent into action?

I don’t know how it happened, my dear young lady; I know it goes against all the rules of this age, but in spite of it I love you. I’ve loved only once in my life, but my feelings were all the stronger for it; I loved my wife until the moment she died, and afterward as well—I thought that a love like that left no room for another. Then I saw you and from that moment I’ve known that her death made my love for you even deeper and stronger. I truly believe that she’s sent you to me, and I implore you: overcome the revulsion you feel for me, a German. Hear me out, as a man who has never knowingly harmed another and who has tried amid the madness to maintain an island of justice. As proof I’ll put an end to this charade by speaking to you in your native language, which is mine as well. What do you say?

He must have been staring silently at her with such intentness that she finally asked, “Is something wrong?”

The question tore him from his musings. Confusion filled her eyes. He had no idea how long his reverie had lasted. In the meantime, she had finished eating. He placed his silver on his half-full plate and tried to gain time for a good-faith effort.

“I’m sorry… Would you like some dessert?”

She looked him straight in the eye again when she answered.

“No, thank you. It was very kind of you to invite me for such a nice dinner with such good news, but it’s late already. My fiance would worry.”

“Did you say who it was?” Morava interrupted her tensely. She shook her head. “That was enough; he called the waiter over immediately.”

He forced himself to laugh.

“I guess everyone falls in love with you.”

“Jan!”

He wanted to hug her, but for once she would not let him. He saw that Buback was still uppermost in her mind, and it irritated him.

“You served it to him straight up, and in spite of that he still drove you right home, kissed your hand, and said good night, everything as it should be; why let it eat at you?”

“What if he leaves my dad in jail… ?”

“He’s not the extortionist type. No, I think your father’s coming home.”

“I don’t know why I told him,” she continued to fret. “He’ll find out it’s you in no time.”

“So? Fortunately that’s not a capital offense yet.”

“He could harm you some other way.”

He tried to reassure himself, so he could reassure her as well. “Jitka, my love, there’s a decent chance he has other plans for me, which don’t allow for personal revenge.”

“What kind?”

He decided to risk letting her in on Beran’s suspicions.

“And therefore it’s entirely possible,” he said, finishing his brief summary, “that his interest in you is part of the game as well.”

Up till now she had been nodding sympathetically, but this point she rejected.

“That’s not the way it’s played, Jan. After all, he didn’t say anything; he just looked. And he was completely lost… You’re right, though, that’s his business, and I’ll just act normally. But please, watch out for yourself.”

They both heard a car approaching that caught their attention as it braked out front. Jitka jumped up, horrified.

“It’s him!”

Her fear galvanized him. “Then I’ll get the door.”

She slipped around the kitchen table and whispered despairingly, “Go upstairs, I can manage him. Please!”

The bell rang.

“There’s no point,” he objected. “He’ll hear me.”

“He knows I’m not single. But he doesn’t have to know who my fiance is just yet. Don’t worry, I just don’t see any reason… Run along, I can handle it!”

The doorbell rang again.

“Hello,” called a familiar voice. “Hello, hello!”

They both went to open it. The superintendent had eyes only for Morava.

“Am I glad you’re here. I couldn’t track Buback down. Grab your notebook and give her a kiss good night. He’s done it again—twice.”

Kroloff sent an envelope with the news to be stuck under Erwin Buback’s door early that evening, but the chief inspector had not returned.

When the door of the suburban house swung shut behind Jitka Modra, he had the same feeling as last year, when an unfamiliar voice impersonally informed him that he was now alone in the world. It was neither despair nor regret; instead, he felt his old emptiness fill him again. He examined himself coolly as if from outside. Yes, this was his true, unretouched, unaltered state: solitude of body and soul. How had he let himself be swayed by such absurd feelings?

However, he could not return to his post-Antwerp method of survival. Something fundamental in him had changed. He had no desire to mope over a glass in the German House bar and go home to his impersonal one-room apartment. A strong need, buried these last twenty years, awoke in him. Dismissing his driver on Wenceslas Square, he strode energetically across the empty city center. He gave the top bell a long ring despite the risk that she might have company. It was a while before a tired voice answered.

“Yes?”

“Erwin Buback,” he announced, sounding more decisive than he felt. “May I come up?”

“Of course,” she said, just as abruptly. “One moment.”

A minute later a key wrapped in newsprint landed next to him on the sidewalk.

By the time the elevator delivered him up to the top floor of the 1930s building, she looked ready for an evening on the town in her shaggy white dressing gown. The door of the cozy attic apartment closed behind him.

“So, the great Meckerle’s jealousy no longer makes you quake in your boots?” she asked.

He decided to be frank. “I didn’t come to sleep with you.”

“Fabulous.” She laughed. “I’ve always longed for a girlfriend.”

Her miraculous appearance was quickly explained. She had just returned, exhausted, from a trip to the German troops; her troupe of opera singers performed operetta tunes for them every day, and she had not yet removed her makeup. He drained a bottle of champagne practically on his own, as if dying of thirst. When she realized he was absorbed in his own problems, she opened another one (apparently from the colonel’s reserves), put some wild American music on the gramophone, and excused herself to go shower.