Matilda Husáková wasn’t listening to him. She put her knitting down on her knees and looked thoughtfully at the wall. “Who could have informed them?” she said. “Everyone at Liza’s place is reliable, unless Carmen let it slip somewhere afterward… that old blabbermouth… At Frieda’s place?” She shook her head. “No, it couldn’t be at Frieda’s place. There’s that individual who visits Liuba… a repulsive kind of old man, with really shifty eyes, and always letting Liuba buy his drinks… Now that’s something I never expected! And now it seems I’m supposed to figure out who it was and whose place it was at… Under the Germans we kept our lips buttoned up tight. After ’48 it was keep shtum again and keep an eye out. We only opened our mouths just a little bit in our golden spring—then bang, the Russians arrived in their tanks, shut your mouth again, mind your tongue… So I came here and it’s the same picture all over again—”
“Pardon me, Pani Husáková,” Andrei interrupted her. “But in my opinion you’re taking a perverse view of the situation. After all, as far as I understand, you haven’t committed any crime. We regard you only as a witness, someone who can help, who—”
“Eh, sweetheart! What kind of helpers are there in this business? The police is the police.”
“No, not at all!” said Andrei, pressing one hand to his heart for greater conviction. “We’re looking for a gang of criminals. They abduct people and all the indications are that they kill them. Someone who has been in their clutches could render invaluable service to the investigation!”
“Are you telling me, sweetheart…” said the old woman, “…are you telling me that you believe in this Red Building?”
“Why, don’t you believe in it?” asked Andrei, rather taken aback.
Before the old woman could even reply, the door of the office opened slightly, a hubbub of agitated voices burst in from the corridor, and a squat individual with a thick head of black hair appeared in the crack, shouting back into the corridor, “Yes, it’s urgent! I have to see him urgently!” Andrei frowned, but then the figure was dragged back out into the corridor and the door slammed shut.
“I’m sorry we were interrupted,” said Andrei. “I think you wanted to tell me that you yourself don’t believe in the Red Building?”
Still working away with her needles, aged Matilda shrugged one shoulder. “Well, what grown-up person could believe in that? This house, you see, it runs around from one place to another, inside it all the doors have teeth, you go up the stairs and you end up in the basement… Of course, anything can happen in these parts, the Experiment is the Experiment, but this is really over the top, after all… No, I don’t believe in it. Who do you take me for, to go believing in cock-and-bull stories like that? Of course, every city has buildings that swallow people up, and ours probably has some of its own too. But it’s hardly likely that those houses go running around from one place to another… and as I understand it, the stairs in them are perfectly normal.”
“I beg your pardon, Pani Husáková,” said Andrei. “But then why do you tell everyone these cock-and-bull stories?”
“Why not tell them, if people listen? People are bored with things, especially old folks like us.”
“So did you just make it up yourself?”
Aged Matilda opened her mouth to answer, but at that moment Andrei’s phone started trilling desperately right in his ear. Andrei cursed and grabbed the receiver. “Andrei. Sweetie pie…” Selma’s very drunk voice said in the earpiece. “I’ve locked. Them. All out. Locked. Them out. Why aren’t you coming?”
“Sorry,” said Andrei, chewing on his lip and squinting at the old woman. “I’m really busy right now, I’ll call you—”
“But that’s not what I want!” Selma declared. “I love you, I’m waiting for you. I’m all drunk and all naked, and waiting for you, I’m cold…”
“Selma,” Andrei said, speaking right into the receiver, lowering his voice. “Quit acting like a fool. I’m very busy.”
“You won’t find another girl like me anyway, not in this shshsh-… shithouse. I’ve curled right up tight in a ball… ab-solutely-ab-solutely… naked…”
“I’ll come in half an hour,” Andrei said hastily.
“You lit-tle fool! In ha-… half an hour I’ll be asleep already… Whoever takes half an hour?”
“OK then, Selma, see you in a while,” said Andrei, cursing the day and the hour when he gave this dissipated female his office phone number.
“Well, you just go to hell!” Selma suddenly yelled, and hung up. She probably slammed the receiver down so hard that she smashed the phone into pieces. Gritting his teeth in fury, Andrei carefully put down his own receiver and sat there for a few seconds, not even daring to look up as his thoughts scattered in confusion. Then he cleared his throat.
“Well then,” he said. “Aha… So you told the stories just for the sake of it, out of boredom…” He finally recalled his last question. “So should I take you to mean by that, that you made up the entire story about František yourself?”
The old woman opened her mouth again to answer, but once again nothing came of it. The door swung open: the duty officer appeared in the doorway, saluted smartly, and reported, “I beg your pardon, Mr. Investigator! The witness Petrov is demanding that you question him immediately, because he has something to tell.”
Andrei’s eyes misted over darkly… He slammed both fists down on the desk and yelled so loud it set his own ears ringing: “Damn you, duty guard! Don’t you know the regulations? What do you mean by butting in here with your Petrov? Where do you think you are, in the bathroom at home? About turn, quick march!”
The duty guard disappeared in a flash. Andrei, feeling his lips trembling, poured himself some water from his carafe with trembling hands and drank it. His throat was raw after that wild bellow. He glanced sullenly at the old woman. Aged Matilda was still knitting away as if nothing at all had happened.
“I beg your pardon,” he mumbled.
“Never mind, young man,” Matilda reassured him. “I’m not offended by you. So, you asked if maybe I made it all up myself. No, sweetheart, I didn’t. How could I possibly think up something like that? Of all things—stairs that you walk up but end up going down… I could never imagine anything like that, not even in a dream. I told it the way I was told it.”
“And who exactly told it to you?”
Still carrying on with her knitting, the old woman shook her head. “Now that I can’t recall. A woman was telling people about it in a line somewhere. Supposedly this František was the son-in-law of some woman she knew. She was lying too, of course. Standing in line you can sometimes hear things they’ll never print in any newspapers.”
“And when was this, more or less?” Andrei asked, gradually recovering his composure and already annoyed with himself for charging head-on at things like a bull at a gate.
“About two months ago, probably… maybe three.”
Right, I’ve screwed up the interrogation, Andrei thought bitterly. Damn it, I’ve screwed up the interrogation because of that slut and that jackass guard. No, I won’t let that go—I’ll give that bonehead a real roasting. I’ll make him dance. He’ll be chasing lunatics through that chilly morning air… Right, OK, but now what do I do with the old woman? The old woman’s clammed up, hasn’t she, doesn’t want to name any names. “But are you sure, Pani Husáková, that you don’t remember that woman’s name?”