The Night of Wenceslas (19 page)

Silent and alone in the moonlit street he bestrode his great horse, sword raised, iron eyes staring sightlessly along his broad imperial way. Like some homing pigeon I had come back to him again. Like some demented rat I had run back into my trap. Like a bloody fool I sat down and wept

I must have been about twelve when I wept last. I didn’t know why I was weeping now. I hadn’t wept when the policeman had knocked me about in the bedroom. I sat on a little coffee table and felt the tears streaming uncontrollably down my face, and thought what a right Charlie I had been. It had been such a hellishly long day, such a nerve-shatteringly long night, I thought I’d got away with it. I thought I was miles away.

I snapped out of it presently and, edging back into the shadow, sat down on something more comfortable to take stock of the situation. The river was obviously in the opposite direction. I’d come round in a half circle. There was nothing to be gained by going back up the alley. It led only to the Stepanska.

The alternative seemed to be to get into the side street. I went drearily over the operations necessary to achieve this. Then what? It would be best to keep off the street. Nip in and out of alleys, work my way round to a point below the bridges, and
cross the water as best I could. That would take-how long? An hour? Two? I thought it wouldn’t hurt to have a rest first.

I sat down on a settee, the seat and back wrapped with brown paper, and then slowly and luxuriously lifted up my legs and stretched out It was warm in the room and stuffy with the smell of furniture. I could feel the seat of my pants wet from the puddle, my feet damp and throbbing in the soggy socks.

The street was bathed now in brilliant moonlight, the cold ghostly figure of Wenceslas leaping as clouds went swiftly over. It was utterly still out there, no cars racing now, no men running. I wondered where they were searching for me. Obviously along the river; they would know where I had to get. They would be at it for hours yet; plenty of river front to search.

It suddenly occurred to me in the warm musty darkness that one of the few places where they wouldn’t think of looking was on a settee in a showroom on the Vaclavske Namesti.

I lay there, blinking rapidly at Wenceslas, working out the implications of this one.

It was stupid. I couldn’t stay here all night. How would I get out in the morning? Where could I hide in daylight?

But why should I have to hide in daylight? Why should I have to creep down alleys when the streets were crowded with people? I could get out early when the first trams started, join the streaming workers in the streets. They would be unlikely to carry out further checks in the Vaclavske Namesti. But how to cross the river in daylight? There might still be checks on the bridges ….

The blissful, spreading comfort of the settee was overpowering. If tonight had taught me anything, it was not to think too much, not to plan too far ahead. I shifted the piece of piping out of my pocket and moved over in a new marvellous position. A crumpled dustsheet was lying at the end of the settee, and I pulled it over me. I didn’t think I was visible from the street. The settee was in shadow. But the moon would slip round.

I thought I’d better will myself to get up every time the hour struck so that I wouldn’t drift off into a deep sleep. I thought the first trams would be along about six o’clock. Six hours.

I got up when one struck, and again at two, and walked about stretching myself in the shadow at the back of the showroom. I was stiff as hell. After that I stayed where I was. I knew I wasn’t going to sleep. I thought I might be too exhausted for sleep, too nervous, brain going busily back and forth over it all.

I must have watched Wenceslas for longer than anyone in the world. I can still see him when I close my eyes, leaping on his iron horse in the ragged moonlight. Soon after the chorus of clocks struck five, my eyes closed and I dozed off for a bit.

It didn’t seem more than five minutes, but next time I opened them it was broad daylight, a tram was ding-donging by, and a man was looking down at me. He had the piece of piping in his hand and he said, ‘Don’t move. Stay where you are, or I’ll brain you.’

T
HE
piece of piping was a couple of feet from my head. He must have picked it up from the side of the settee. He was an elderly man, broad, grizzled, wearing an alpaca jacket and carpet slippers. His eyes were intensely blue and Slav, and, at that moment, very hostile.

He said, ‘How did you get in here?’

I licked my lips, shaken as hell. I said, ‘The door was open.’

‘It was locked. I locked it myself last thing at night. You must have forced it.’

The alpaca jacket and carpet slippers registered then. He was the caretaker. Not a very careful caretaker. I sat up, felt the seat
of my pants still warmly damp, each individual bone aching and unrested. I said, ‘It was open, comrade. Just a crack. Maybe you locked it later.’ I knew he couldn’t have done, unless he made a practice of locking up some time after five o’clock in the morning. It seemed a useful loophole to offer him. ‘I must have been drunk. I had nowhere to sleep. I hope it won’t get you into trouble, comrade.’

He had taken this latter point, of course, long before it had occurred to me. He still held the piece of piping at a workmanlike angle, however. ‘How did you get into the yard?’

‘I came over the wall. I was out drinking with a fellow – Frantisek something. He said he would put me up, but his slut of a wife kicked us both out. He told me you had a kind heart. He said you would fix me up. He brought me a ladder to climb the wall.’

This inspired lie, delivered in whining and wheedling tones, sprang to life ready made like some work of art. I listened to it with astonishment. It seemed to be registering with the caretaker. The hand holding the pipe dropped. ‘I should hand you over to the police,’ he said without much conviction. ‘You ought to have come and seen me first.’

‘I tried to, comrade. I looked all round for you, but it was dark. I thought I would just rest a minute until you came on your rounds. Frantisek said you never missed your rounds. He told me what a kind heart you had.’

He grunted and looked me over, not unfriendly. ‘That Frantisek – he takes too many liberties. You’re just up for the parade, I suppose?’

‘The parade, that’s it entirely, the parade,’ I said eagerly.

‘And what about this? What did you mean to do with this?’ he said, raising the lead piping.

‘That. Well, that, now,’ I said, thinking rapidly. ‘I took it off a fellow. There was this big brute came at Frantisek when he’d had a few too many. That’s how we came together. Ah, you don’t get that where I come from,’ I said, my wheedling tone leading me effortlessly into the accusing burr of some Czech village idiot. ‘Where I come from they don’t go around coshing
people when they’ve had a few too many. They see a chap home to his bed. They’re glad to give him a bed – and his breakfast in the morning, ‘I added, shaking my head reproachfully as I recalled suddenly that the automats might not be open on Sunday morning.

The grizzled caretaker seemed somewhat taken aback by this rustic rebuke. He made no attempt to prevent me getting of! the settee. He said, rather uncertainly, ‘Well, no harm done, I suppose. Whereabouts are you from, comrade?’

‘Round Brno way. You wouldn’t know it. Just a little village. Ah, you can keep your big towns,’ I said, carried away by my performance, and improving every minute. ‘Folks aren’t friendly here. Just tell me where a fellow can get his breakfast and a wash-up in a town like this, comrade, and I won’t trouble you any longer.’

The caretaker scratched his head. He watched me stretching myself. He said, ‘Where’s your national costume, then? Don’t you country fellows dress up in national costume when you come to town?’

I said, ‘National costume,’ and licked my lips. ‘Don’t talk to me about national costume. You can have one, Jiri, they said to me, if you join the Party. Otherwise you can go up to Prague looking the tramp you are. We’re a bit short of national costumes, Jiri, they said. Party members only, see? So I told them what they could do with their national costume, I did. A fellow’s got to do too many things already these days. He’s got to know all the reasons why he was ever born these days. No, comrade,’ I said, shaking my head with wooden defiance at the little caretaker, ‘you won’t get me to do that, so it’s no use your trying. I’ve got no time for it, and I won’t waste any more of yours if you’ll just put me on my way.’

The caretaker had brightened considerably during this rebellious speech, and now took my arm warmly. ‘Not so fast, countryman, not so fast,’ he said, dropping the ‘comrade’ and smiling indulgendy. ‘Get your boots on first. I dare say I can fix you up with a bit of breakfast and a wash. It’s just that a fellow’s got to be so careful these days. I’m here on my own,
see? It’s hard to know who’s an enemy of the people and who isn’t. This way now. No harm done. Just follow me.’

He gave me an excellent breakfast in his small and shipshape flat above the warehouse, which I repaid with a detailed fantasy of life in the small village near Brno. Despite the horrors of the previous night, I felt full of a wild and febrile confidence. I could hear my own voice and was in that lightheaded state when nothing about my own body or immediate surroundings seemed at all real.

The caretaker’s steadfast Slav eyes hung on my words. He said at length regretfully, ‘Well, countryman, time for you to be off, I supppose. It’s getting on for nine. The rest of your party will be up at the camp, eh?’

‘The camp?’

‘Isn’t that where they bed them out? The camp at the other side of the Charles bridge, just before the Mostecka.’

The Mostecka, I thought. Surely that was near the Malostranske, the British Embassy …. I felt the beginnings of something and said slowly, ‘The Mostecka, is it? Yes, yes. That’s it, of course. The Mostecka. Now what’s the name of the square near the Mostecka? They said we had to rally there.’

Ά square near the Mostecka? Let me see, that must be the Malostranske.’

‘Malostranske!-’ I said. ‘That’s the one. How’s a fellow to find that now?’

‘Why,’ said the caretaker, jumping up promptly, ‘I’ll take you there myself, countryman. In just one moment.’

He hurried out, and I executed a brief bob to his departing back, and considered how well things went when you left them alone. What I needed was a spot of cover while reconnoitring the Malostranske, and here was this grizzled ancient, heaven-sent and tailor-made to provide it.

I walked over to the window and looked out. As little Vlcek and his meteorological friends had promised, it was a magnificent day with that shining, pristine quality that mornings sometimes have in very old cities. Already the street crawled; splashes of colour from wandering groups in national costume; queues
inevitably forming at stands and tram stops. The caretaker had told me the parade would begin at eleven and that trams would stop at ten. There would be a good deal of shifting movement all over the town, particularly over the bridges. There couldn’t be much attempt at searching in these conditions.

The old man reappeared, very spruce in a blue serge suit and brown shoes, and we went out, down the side street and past the school gates towards the embankment As we walked I began to realize how damned lucky I’d been. The warehouse was miles from the river. The street led into a broad thoroughfare, the Zitna, which ran through botanical gardens to another street, the Myslikova, before reaching the embankment. The Stepanska, down which I had originally fled, also ran into this complex: I could imagine the activity there while I had lain quietly in the stuffy darkness watching Wenceslas.

We walked under the linden trees past the bathing platform and the three islands to the Charles bridge. There seemed to be no check of any kind but my rising spirits were damped somewhat by the old man’s growing suspicion that we were going the wrong way. There were now increasing numbers of national costumes, all moving in the opposite direction.

‘They’re coming away from the Malostranske, countryman. Are you sure you got the instructions right?’

‘Yes, yes. I’m sure. A square near the Mostecka is what they told me.’

‘Couldn’t it have been the Mezibranska? That would be back by the museum, you see. That would be at the beginning of the parade, countryman. It sounds more likely.’

‘No, no,’ I said doggedly. ‘Malostranske is what they said.’

‘What about all these people then? Don’t you recognize any of them? Over there, look – isn’t that a Moravian costume? That’ll be from somewhere near Brno. Shouldn’t I stop and ask them, countryman?’

‘You must do what you want,’ I said, suppressing a powerful urge to stuff his cap in his mouth and bundle him briskly along in my arms. ‘I know what my instructions are. Just put me on my road, countryman, and I’ll be obliged to you.’

This sort of thing went on until we reached the Malostranske, where the caretaker held my arm, gasping and wheezing – I had walked at a swift pace up the steep Mostecka. ‘There, countryman, there! Not a sign of a rally, look. You must have mistaken it. Let’s get back quickly now.’

‘I can’t understand it,’ I said, shaking my head stubbornly and gazing rapidly about the square. ‘What about the other side of the square?’

‘Nothing, countryman, nothing at all there. Come quickly now. We’ll never get back in time.’

‘And that little street?’ I said, my heart suddenly leaping. I had glimpsed the Union Jack fluttering limply in the morning breeze. ‘Doesn’t that lead anywhere?’

‘Ah, that’s only the Thunovska. It’s a cul-de-sac. There’s just one of the foreign embassies there. Come, countryman, everybody’s leaving.’

But everybody wasn’t leaving. I had looked for them, and now I saw them. Four men, two on each corner, stood by the entrance to the Thunovska. Even at this distance one could discern the characteristic poe-faced look of the S. N. B. They turned to stare at us as we stood wrangling in the square. I was suddenly sharply aware that I was wearing the cap and jacket of Vaclav Borsky. I said, ‘Perhaps you’re right, countryman, let’s go,’ and we turned and went back down the Mostecka.

Even though I had expected the Embassy to be covered my spirits had swiftly sunk. With four men commanding the entrance to the narrow cul-de-sac it had been obvious at a glance that I wasn’t going to get in by merely walking in. But at least I had spied out the lay of the land. At some point I would have to return. The journey had not been wasted.

The problem of my return to the Malostranske, nerve-racking as it was, was not, however, so immediately urgent as two others that now sprang to mind. There was the question of Vaclav Borsky’s clothes. Excellent cover on a weekday, they constituted on this day of high festival an all too obvious solecism. Like the caretaker, everyone in the street was got up in his best.
Once the parade started I would be jammed stationary in the crowd, an easy mark in my cap and plastic jacket for roving eyes.

The second problem was the caretaker, now deeply intent on handing me over as soon as possible to my compatriots from Brno. It seemed only a matter of time before he encountered the right group. I would have to give him the slip.

The opportunity came at the next cross-roads, a busy intersection jammed with people. I clapped the caretaker on the back, and, with a rustic cackle of ‘I see them, countryman, I see them – wait here for me,’ at once crossed the road, waving my hand and walking very fast for a hundred yards. I cut across the intersection, re-crossed the road, and looked back. The caretaker was patiently watching, staring in the wrong direction. I continued down the street, found that it ran into the Narodni Trida, and here took stock of the situation.

It was now a quarter past ten and the parade was due to start at eleven. It was plain that I must stay with the crowds, just as plain that I should not be trapped immovably in the Vaclavske Namesti. A single stand farther down the street indicated that the parade would come down here, the fact that it was only a single stand that less dense crowds were expected. The Narodni Trida seemed to be the place for me.

There were two or three automats down the street, only one, the largest, open. I hovered near it. There was bound to be a rush for food after the parade. I thought I’d better be among the first.

It was already growing warm and my feet had begun to ache again. I padded there and back in front of the automat. The street was filling up, the fatigue of jostling crowds coming on me again like toothache. I was sick to death with them. I wished they would get the damned thing over. I wondered when I was going to be able to sit down again and how I would fill up the rest of the day. It stretched before me, hours and hours of it, hot and complicated and dangerous.

It was forty-five minutes before the first contingents came marching round from the Vaclavske Namesti. The loud-speakers had been announcing their progress for the last fifteen of them, and excitement had been building up steadily in the cavernous Narodni Trida. Between the steep and sombre buildings the red banners hung. Garlands and slogans criss-crossed the road; the pavements seethed. As the first line of bob-bobbing flags turned the corner, the whole street seemed to ignite and roar like a forest fire.

There were a hundred thousand marchers, peasants in costume, hearty girls in gym slips, factory workers in overalls, sokols in white vests swinging their gymnastic clubs. They chanted as they marched, a dozen different jingles roaring in the seething street.

Nazdar
! cried the hysterical announcer over the loud-speakers every half minute.
Nazdar
! cried the marchers.
Nazdar
! echoed the crowds.

There was an appalling row going on, the street roaring and baying rhythmically as the river of marchers flowed on; garlands flying through the air, flags waving, an occasional hand and brain rushing out into the street to embrace the marchers. The
girl assistants from the automat had come rushing out to watch. I kept on the move, never straying far from them.