People can have a passion for gambling, but that's not my case. In hero games you have no hope of a financial reward that would change your life. Pretending to be surrounded by fairytale creatures naturally required a certain amount of imagination but also a childishness that was inappropriate at my age and in my line of employment.
People often play games to escape the tediousness of their jobs. There was nothing tedious about mine. There was nothing boring about investigating one file after another that reflected nobility of spirit, paltriness and wickedness in varying proportions. Sometimes I felt like a voyeur, like a vulture circling above the desert looking for further carrion. Sometimes I would dream at night of people I'd never set eyes on, although their private lives
had been tossed to me, and moreover in a distorted form. Compared to that it was a relief to move around in a make-believe world full of spirits, wizards or even vampires and many-headed dragons. There was something magical about entering an artificial world where you could draw up the rules yourself and influence the course of events. Some of the informers whose files I read plainly did what they had pledged to do for the same reason: a yearning to influence the course of events that the rest had no knowledge of. They believed themselves to possess magical powers to hold sway over human destinies, whereas most of them were just tools, mere puppets in the hands of others who believed the same. And so on ad infinitum.
What was important for me was that I was able to bring the game to an auspicious or at least acceptable conclusion, which was something I never managed to do in my private life or at work. But it was high time I started to bring affairs in my own life to an acceptable conclusion too. But it looks as if I'm not fated to do so.
Mr Rukavička — Hádek, who had the job of suppressing those who espoused the ideas of Scouting, naturally failed to turn up for questioning. He sent his excuses and included a medical certificate saying that his state of health did not allow him to travel. When he was the interrogator, medical certificates like that were of no help. If he needed someone, his henchmen would haul them out of a hospital bed if need be.
So we went to find him ourselves.
The old people's home at Městec was located in a neo-Gothic mansion surrounded by an extensive English park. A carefree and comfortable place for someone who robbed people of their freedom to finish his days.
The superintendent told us she was happy for us to use her office for a short while for our business. She even made available her ageing typewriter. My superior asked her how satisfied they were with Mr Rukavička, and the superintendent again obligingly
replied, saying that he was a pleasant and quiet old man who had brought his canary here with him. The bird was apparently his only pleasure. His wife had already passed away andhis children didn't visit him. He didn't have too many friends here, but he behaved in a friendly manner to everyone and the nurses spoke well of him.
One of the nurses then led in the man who in the past had used at least two names. He stood there supported by two crutches: an inconspicuous, plump old man with a wrinkled face and a pale skull showing through his remaining grey hairs. He leant his crutches against the wall, sat down in an armchair and asked what he could do for us.
Ondřej introduced us both and said that we had no intention of keeping him long. Ondřej told him he would like to put a number of questions to him as a witness; no doubt he was aware what it was in connection with.
The old man had no idea, or at least he maintained he hadn't a clue. None the less he lent me his identity card so that I could enter the necessary details in the statement.
'Mr Rukavička, you worked from 1949 under the name of Hádek as an interrogator for the State Security,' my superior opened the interrogation.
The old man assumed an injured expression. There must be some absurd mistake.
'But we have documents to prove it,' Ondřej said, taking an entire folder out of his briefcase. 'We've brought them with us. Would you care to see them?'
Mr Rukavička — Hádek took his glasses case out of his pocket, but then shook his head. Reading tired him and he had no interest in our documents.
'I don't suppose you need me to enlighten you about your rights?'
'I'm always happy to be enlightened,' the old man laughed. 'Especially by such a pleasant pair of young men.'
My superior read out the relevant clauses of the law about witnesses' rights and then asked, 'But you don't deny having been a member of the State Security Corps.'
'I served in it for a while,' he admitted, 'fifty years ago. I trained as a cabinet-maker but they had a recruitment drive when I was in the forces. I thought the work would be more interesting.'
'And so you worked as an interrogator for the State Security under the name of Hádek?'
He explained that he was sometimes required to use a particular name. He really couldn't remember what name it was after fifty years.
'And how about the names of those you interrogated?' Ondřej asked.
'I didn't interrogate anyone.'
'Would you like to see the statements of those you interrogated?'
'People say all sorts of things. I've told you what I think about your papers. They don't interest me.' The old man looked annoyed and reached out for one of his crutches. Maybe he wanted to scare us off, or let us know he could leave at any time he wanted. 'I ought to know best what I did or didn't do.'
'So what did you do?'
'I sat in an office. What else?'
'OK. So what did you do in that office?'
'Lieutenant, do you think you'll remember what you did today fifty years from now? That you came to see an old fellow in an old people's home, for instance, and issued some absurd charges against him?'
'So far we haven't preferred any charges against you. We've simply spoken about your job and the name you used. Do you think that constitutes a charge?'
'You'd never know, these days.'
'I'll read you out a number of names,' my superior said, ignoring his invective, 'and then I'd like you to tell me something about
them.' He started to read the names of the Scout officials who were convicted, among them my fathers.
The old man shook his head in denial. No, he couldn't recall even one of the names. 'Who are they supposed to be?' he enquired.
Ondřej explained that they had all been convicted on trumped-up charges. Alleged evidence of their illegal activities had been supplied by a Captain Hádek.
'I've no idea,' he said. 'Maybe they'd done something if they were convicted, but I had nothing to do with it. None of those names means anything to me.'
'And what does the name Rubáš mean to you,' I intervened.
He looked at me as if to say, You keep out of it — your job is to write down that I don't remember anything. And then to my surprise he suddenly looked as if he'd remembered. 'I think that someone of that name used to be a trainer at Bohemians.'
'It's interesting that you remember a football coach but you can't remember the names of the people you interrogated.'
'I've told you already: I didn't interrogate anyone.' Then he added, 'A pity I won't be around in fifty years' time to ask if you remember my name after all that time.'
'It'll be harder for us,' I said. 'You had quite a number of names for one man, Mr Rubáš.'
He grinned as if my comment had pleased him. Then he said: 'You're still young. You've no idea what fifty years is. Let alone notching up eighty years. So you'll never understand what went on then. What it was really all about. We wanted to build something, not like today, when people are only after money.'