The Glass Room (24 page)

How do you dismember a body? There are two fundamentally different approaches — that of the surgeon and that of the mad axeman. The one is cool and calculating and progressive, with the application of bone-saw, scalpel and shears. The other is a frenzy of hacking and tearing, with blood everywhere and the taste of iron in the mouth. But whichever way you do it the result is the same — dismemberment. That autumn the Great Powers assisted at the dismemberment of the country. They witnessed the cutting off of limbs from the body, the severing of arteries, the snapping of ligaments and tendons, the sawing of bones. That autumn the Czechoslovak army stood down and watched while men in field grey tramped into Eger and Karlsbad, into Teplitz and Liberec. In the north, like a vulture taking an eye from a dying man, the Polish army snatched part of Czech Silesia. In the east Hungary took parts of Slovakia. Everywhere refugees fled from the advancing soldiers like herbivores scattering before a pack of predators. They shuffled along roads and across fields, pushing handcarts with their belongings, humping sorry bundles on their backs. The trains were packed, the roads crowded. It was the effect of war without the fighting, a kind of rehearsal for the future.

By the end of autumn, shorn of its limbs, only the ruined trunk remained. The Republic of Czechoslovakia had ceased to exist and in its place was born a hyphenated, hybrid cripple, CzechoSlovakia, destined for the shortest of lives imaginable.

‘Surely this is the moment for Prince Václav to wake up and come to the rescue.’ Oskar is referring to a popular and ancient legend, the awakening of Good King Wenceslas who lies with his knights beneath the Blaník Hill near Prague awaiting the call to save the homeland.

‘I wouldn’t bet on it,’ Viktor replies. ‘The twentieth century is not a time for miracles.’

He and Oskar have been going over some of the points connected to the transfer of ownership of Landauer Motors. They are on one side of the onyx wall; the children are on the other, with Liesel and Hana and Katalin, decorating the Christmas tree. Marika has never had a Christmas tree before. She has seen Christmas trees, but they have never been part of her life. Not part of Viktor’s life either, until his marriage. Hanukkah was the winter feast celebrated in his family, a feast that commemorates the kind of thing that he detests: a miracle.

Oskar gathers up his papers and stuffs them in his briefcase. He looks up, his expression difficult to read. There’s regret there, and fear. Viktor has seen fear before of course, during the war, when men were going up to the front; but it is strange to see fear in a man’s face when there doesn’t appear to be any outside reason. Yet that is what you see everywhere these days, fear on the peaceful streets. ‘Do you think they’ll invade?’ Oskar asks.

Viktor laughs. ‘Invade? They won’t invade because they won’t need to. They’ll just walk in when it suits them. Be realistic, Oskar. We have a puppet government, no defences and an army that was ordered not to fight at the only moment when it might have held its own. We’ve no more chance of surviving than an overripe plum has of staying on the tree. Even
Lidové Noviny
has advocated accommodation with the Germans. They’ll wait for spring, that’s all.’

The children are laughing and arguing. Something about the star on the top of the tree. Hana says there should be a fairy, but a fairy seems absurd. ‘She’d fall off,’ says Martin’s voice.

‘But fairies can fly,’ Hana points out.

The laughter comes round the onyx wall, the delight of children discovering the stupidity of adults. ‘Not
really
they can’t. Auntie Hana, you are so silly. Fairies aren’t real!’

‘Are you really going to leave?’ Oskar asks. The conversation has slipped into Czech. They discuss legal issues in German but they talk in Czech.

‘I don’t think there’s any choice, but Liesel does. We’re still in negotiation.’

‘It’s the other way round with us. Hana says we should go but I say, what the hell will I do kicking my heels in Venezuela or some place? I wouldn’t be able to work, would I? And they’ll always need lawyers here, even if it’s only for the Jews, don’t you think?’

‘I don’t know what to think.’

‘What’ll you do with the house?’

‘We won’t sell it, if that’s what you mean. We’d never sell it. Liesel’s people will look after it. They think we’re mad, of course. Running away, they say. So the place will become Germanified again, what does that matter? That’s their attitude. It’s always been a German city anyway.’

‘Maybe they’re right.’ Oskar hesitates, briefcase packed, business over, but still with something holding him back. His voice is lowered even further, to make certain that it cannot be heard on the other side of the onyx wall. ‘You know, I used to think that you and Hana …’

‘Me and Hana?’

‘Keep your voice down, old fellow. You know what I mean. I thought that you were one of her men.’

Viktor smiles at the man’s confusion. It is not often that he sees a lawyer embarrassed. ‘Don’t be absurd.’

‘I don’t mind her having her men friends,’ Oskar explains, ‘but I don’t like to
know
them, if you see what I mean. It got quite difficult when she had a crush on that piano player. Anyway, it makes things easier now I know that you are not.’ He smiles, as though delighted to have got that over with. ‘Shall we join them?’

So they go round to where the women and children are standing round the tree admiring it. ‘Look, Tatínku!’ Ottilie cries as they appear. ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’

Viktor stands by the Maillol torso and looks at the decorated tree and the three children standing round it, and the three women with them. Beyond the glass wall snow is falling. It is falling over the whole city, out of a sky as heavy and sombre as a funeral shroud. It is falling on the soldiers in the Sudetenland as they establish their new possessions, and the soldiers in the Czech lands as they try to consolidate the hurriedly improvised border. It is falling on the triumphant and the dispossessed, on those that have and those that have not. It is falling on the Hrad in Prague and the Špilas in Mĕsto, on the hills and forests of Bohemia and Moravia, snow falling softly through space but giving the illusion, when seen from the Glass Room of the Landauer Villa, that the flakes are stationary and the Villa itself is rising, the whole Glass Room softly rising in the air, borne aloft on light and space.

Will they invade?

They won’t invade because they won’t need to invade. They’ll just walk in when it suits them. They’ll wait for spring, that’s all.

The next day the sun shines and the children toboggan down the sloping lawn. Their voices are raised in laughter. Katalin has a go as well, shrieking with the delight of it, until the toboggan slews sideways and throws her into the snow. She comes back up the slope to where Liesel and Viktor are watching, her face flushed, her hair damp, her fingers numb with cold. Viktor wants to take them in his hands to warm them, he wants to do that more than anything in the world. He wants to hold her. He wants to press his face against her cold wet cheeks. He wants to take each raw, icy finger in his mouth and suck it warm. But he doesn’t move. It is Liesel who clasps Katalin’s hands in hers and rubs them to restore them to life.

‘March at the very latest,’ Viktor tells Liesel. ‘If we delay any more it may be too late.’

‘Have you heard?’ Hana’s voice on the phone. The phone hasn’t stopped ringing all morning — friends, acquaintances, people from the Human Rights League. Outside there’s a blizzard, and then a break when the sun attempts to shine, and then another gust of snow. The weather is as unstable as the mood of the city.

‘Have I heard what?’

‘The news.’

‘Of course I’ve heard the news. The radio has been on all morning.’

‘Can I come round? Are you doing anything? Can I come round and see you?’

‘You know what we’re doing. We’re packing.’

‘But can I come round?’

‘Of course you can.’

There’s something ragged about her, something uncertain. As though she is damaged inside but isn’t showing it yet, doesn’t even know herself, perhaps. Alcohol or drugs or something? It is only eleven o’clock in the morning and she seems inebriated, intoxicated, riven with misery and chemicals. She stumbles on the stairs down into the Glass Room and crosses the room like the victim of a car crash staggering away from the wreckage. Except that she has staggered
into
the wreckage for it is there all round her as she walks into the centre of the space: the packing cases, the tea chests, all the litter of the removal men. Wood shavings and wood wool on the floor. Rolls of wrapping paper. Two removal men are lifting a chair into a case.

‘Hanička, what the hell’s the matter?’

‘I’ve been drowning my misery, darling. Have you seen? They’re everywhere, everywhere. Like a plague of rats. They moved in overnight and the whole city is swarming with them. And that idiot Oskar Judex has taken over the town hall with his mob. That’s what they say, anyway.’

‘Has there been any fighting?’

‘Not a shot fired in anger from what I’ve heard. The whole country has just lain down and rolled over.’

Liesel watches her. Her love is tempered by something: impatience, fear maybe; and the underlying sense of panic that she has been trying to suppress for days now, ever since Viktor, sitting quietly at the breakfast table and putting his newspaper down, said, ‘I’ve booked the flight. The seventeenth.’

Now it might be too late.

‘Is Katalin here?’ Hana asks.

‘She’s gone out to do some last-minute shopping. Look, darling, I’m very busy, you can see that …’

‘Will you get away?’

‘God knows. The weather’s even against us now. But we can’t change our plans now, can we? Viktor has gone to ring the airport to see if the flight is going to happen. Can they stop an international flight? I suppose they can. I suppose they can do anything they please.’

The foreman of the removal people comes over. ‘Is the piano going as well, ma’am?’

She touches the cool flank of the case. She has played her last piece on the instrument. Wherever they are going, if they go, if the bloody weather lets them, if the German army lets them, they will have to hire one. ‘You know it isn’t. We said it wasn’t.’

‘Righty-ho.’ He has this manner of forced jocularity. What is there to be jocular about at a time like this? There are German troops in the city and fanatics have taken over the town hall and this fool is saying ‘righty-ho’ and ‘okey-dokey’ as though the world is going on just as normal.

‘Maybe we can go upstairs, Hana. They haven’t started on my room.’

So they go upstairs and closet themselves in the bedroom. ‘What have you been drinking?’ she asks as she closes the door.

‘How do you know it’s drink?’

‘I can smell it on your breath. For God’s sake, Hanička. It’s eleven o’clock in the morning.’

Outside on the terrace there are the signs of the children — a football of Martin’s, his pedal car, Ottilie’s pram. They should be under cover in this weather. Surely that’s Katalin’s job, to look after the children’s things. As she stands there, she feels Hana come close behind her, putting her arms round her waist and resting her chin on her shoulder. ‘What are you thinking? Apart from my drinking habits? Are you wondering how to get rid of me?’

‘I was wondering why Katalin hasn’t got the children to put their things away.’

‘Ah, Katalin. Is it her you think of now?’

‘Don’t be silly.’

‘Do you love her?’

‘Don’t be idiotic.’

‘And what about Viktor? Does
he
love her?’ She nuzzles against Liesel’s neck. Her voice, a mere whisper, is loud in Liesel’s ear. ‘Mm, you smell nice. Motherly, I suppose. You smell like my mother used to. Warm and yeasty, like fresh bread. Does Viktor love Katalin, do you think? Does he …’ a pause, for courage perhaps, ‘fuck her?’

‘Hana!’ Liesel pulls away. ‘If you’re going to say that sort of stupidity, you may as well go immediately. Really, you are impossible at times.’

‘I’m sorry. It was a joke. One of Hanička’s outrageous jokes. You know that.’

They confront each other now, standing opposite each other. No holding hands or standing arm in arm or anything like that.

‘You really are going, aren’t you?’ Hana says.

‘If we can.’

‘How can you bear to go, Liesi? Your family, your friends, your whole world. This wonderful house, how can you bear to part with that? Me? What about me?’

Liesel shrugs. ‘You’ve seen what has happened. Viktor has been predicting this for months. If he’d had his way we would already be safe in Switzerland.’

‘What if the whole country did what you are doing?’

‘The whole country isn’t Jewish.’

‘Oskar’s staying put.’

‘That’s his choice.’

‘And you’re taking Katalin with you?’

‘Of course we are. She’s part of the household now. Look, Hanička, I’ve got stacks to do …’

‘And what about me?’

What about her? That is a question Liesel can’t answer, has never really been able to answer. What about Hana, whom she often loves and sometimes loathes, to whom she owes secrets and with whom, in her turn, she shares secrets; what about her? ‘I’ll write. We’ll keep in touch. Maybe you’ll come too in a while. Maybe Oskar will see the folly of his ways and you’ll join us. We could have a wonderful time together …’

Hana laughs. She is sitting on the bed and looking at Liesel with that sceptical expression that is so much part of her. ‘You know what a wonderful time is for me? It’s you alone. That may sound silly but it’s true. All the men, all the women, all the silly pleasures of life, they’re nothing beside you. There I’ve said it. That’s what I came to say and I’ve said it.’

Liesel watches her, feeling a muddle of emotion that is far too difficult to disentangle. Affection, and sorrow, and impatience, and a thin veil of repugnance. And love of course. Of course love. So how can you be repelled and attracted at the same time? She finds a packet of cigarettes on the chest of drawers, lights one and turns to look out of the window. Outside there’s another flurry of snow. Out there spring is trying to happen despite the snow, despite the fact that the German army has just marched into the whole country, despite the fact that their homeland is even now disappearing under the flood. Out there the clouds hang low over the city, almost touching the spires of the churches that Hana always says look like hypodermic needles. Out there men in grey are tearing her whole world to pieces. ‘It’s eleven thirty in the morning,’ she remarks, inconsequentially.