This unexpectedly candid condemnation of aggression, by a minister who at other times and at similar meetings always obediently supported the Soviet position, had a galvanizing effect.
I asked at the embassy if they had any new information. They didn’t. Our delegation was at a meeting in Moscow, which was most likely involuntary. The people were expressing their support of the government so spontaneously that the Soviets had obviously been caught off guard. I was told to come back tomorrow when they might have more information. (The Western powers behaved precisely the way my English colleague Neal had anticipated.)
Back in my transient home, where I didn’t feel at home in the least, I once again tried to call my wife. Finally I heard her voice. She wanted to know what I was planning to do. Our daughter and parents were in Prague; we had to return. She said she was in charge of the whole group and was responsible for their care. Some were hesitating; others had already refused to go back. She would stay for a few days until things cleared up. Then she added, “The Israelis are surprised we didn’t fight back, but otherwise they’ve been wonderful. They offered everyone asylum and understood that no one felt like working on the kibbutz right now.” I asked what Michal was doing, and Helena said he was playing with the other children. I promised to call again, and when I hung up I realized we hadn’t shared any kind words between us, not even that we would stand by each other or that we loved one another.
*
All Czechs and Slovaks in England who hadn’t yet found work were entitled to collect unemployment compensation. Olga managed to find a job as a waitress in some sort of exclusive club. When I asked her how that was possible, since she didn’t know English, she said she already understood a little and was learning quickly. She also said the club was at the other end of the city and had offered her free lodging. If I didn’t mind, she’d move in right away.
So the next morning we said goodbye. She gave me her new address, kissed me, and said, “I just hope you won’t leave me here when you go back.”
Janet called and told me to stop by. We would go together to the appropriate offices so I could receive my unemployment benefits. I objected that I still had money left, and it was embarrassing to collect unemployment when I was able to work. Besides, I wanted to go home. But Janet took me anyway to some social office, where I filled out several forms and questionnaires, and to my amazement I was immediately given four hundred pounds and told to return in a week. This was very generous of the British government, but I still felt like a beggar rather than an exile, and I decided I wouldn’t collect more money. Since I was delayed here, I would have to earn it. But what did I know how to do except write or edit books and articles? And my English wasn’t good enough.
It occurred to me to go to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, where my Castle was to have been produced, and ask if they could stage the play now, since it had acquired a new topicality. I was received by the theater’s director, an older gentleman who politely asked about my situation. In a sudden outburst of emotion, I tried to explain what had happened, why foreign troops had invaded our country. I also told him that my wife and son were at present in Israel, while my young daughter had remained in Prague. I couldn’t imagine what was going to happen next or if we’d ever see each other again. Because of the tension of the last few days, my nerves were shot; all at once I couldn’t go on and almost broke down in tears.
The director nodded sympathetically and told me the theater schedule had been planned a year in advance. He could perhaps consider Castle, but he had something better in mind. What if I wrote a new play about what I was now going through? We could make a contract on the spot, and he’d write out a check right there as an advance. Then he wished me all the best for both myself and my family.
I left with a check for fifty pounds and once again felt like a panhandler. (I never cashed the check and several weeks later, back in Prague, I put it into an envelope and returned it with many thanks and a feeling of relief.)
*
Neal called. He was going to Prague for a few days and wondered if I wanted him to bring anything or to pass on any messages — as if it were obvious I wouldn’t be back for a long time. I didn’t know what to say. I gave him the address of Helena’s parents and asked him to send them my love and find out how they were doing and what sort of danger they were expecting. An English rain was falling outside, and I realized I didn’t have an overcoat, and if I was going to defer my return for a while, it would be difficult to get one here. He assured me he would bring back my coat.
A day or two later a man called, introducing himself as Karel Baum. He spoke perfect Czech and said he’d learned about me from Ruth Willard, my American translator, who was also his relative. He informed me that she was in negotiations with a theater in Ann Arbor to produce my Castle. But he was calling primarily to find out what my plans were for the immediate future.
I explained that I wanted to go back home; I was just waiting for my wife to return from Israel.
“That’s a praiseworthy resolution,” he said, “but you must realize that occupation is occupation, and the first people to be taken away would be the Jews and the intelligentsia.” In the meantime, he suggested, I could live with them. As their guest, of course. He could imagine my situation. He’d experienced something similar when fleeing Hitler. He asked for my current address and was pleased to learn it was around the corner. Without even waiting for a response, he said he’d be over in half an hour to help me carry my things.
So I moved into his home in Hampstead Heath. I was put in the guest room with a bookcase. I remember only one of the books, Mission to Moscow by Joseph E. Davies, the American ambassador to Moscow from 1936 to 1938. The book mentioned the political trials that took place during that time in Moscow, and although the ambassador had his doubts, it didn’t seem possible to him that it had all been staged. Not very encouraging reading for someone who was resolved to return to a country occupied by the Soviet army.
When I called Helena again, I mentioned that I had moved and asked her what she thought we should do. She said that in situations like this it was up to the man to decide. She and several members of her group were staying in the kibbutz, but others had made up their minds not to go back. A notary had prepared for her free of charge all the papers necessary to get our daughter permission to leave Czechoslovakia. And a distant relative in Israel who was a pilot promised he would get Nanda out, legally or otherwise.
I went to the embassy and learned they were organizing a meeting of Czechoslovak citizens, especially students, of whom there were several hundred in London. The participants were certainly going to ask what they should do — stay or go back. Did I want to say anything to them?
The meeting took place the next day in a hall. More than two hundred people showed up. The speakers, even a handful who had experienced the occupation at home, took turns. According to some, nothing essentially had changed, and the reform policies would continue. The Soviet troops had withdrawn to some military areas and had obviously received orders not to interfere in anything. According to others, the occupiers were firing wildly into the crowds. They did not recommend going back.
Then I was given an opportunity to speak. I, who could judge everything that had been happening only from afar. On the other hand, I belonged to the editorial board of a newspaper that embodied what the occupiers had come to suppress and silence for good. I said I could not give advice to anyone; each was responsible for his own decision, for his own life. At home we had begun a struggle to reinstate fundamental freedoms, and this struggle would continue even though an entire army had been dispatched to suppress it. And that in precisely this situation every decent person would be needed, everyone who wants, despite what has happened, to live in a free country. I ended by saying that I had friends at home fighting for this, and I thought it would be a betrayal if I did not return.