Then she cut off the confidences until, as she said, he was in rut. On principle, she refused to meet with him in his apartment or a hotel, because she knew full well that he absolutely could not visit her in the German artists’ dormitory. Anyway, she hated the place, because living there marked her as just another a dime-a-dozen troupe member. It was true, though, she admitted to Buback; she was a dancer, had never studied singing, and still did not know how to read music. She had been accepted into the first troupe for Martin’s sake, so she could accompany him. Only later did it become clear that she had more talent than many of the trained singers.
She had correctly calculated, she continued during her next cigarette — which she managed to find, settle in its holder, light, and tap on the rim of an empty glass without changing position — that here in Prague, only Meckerle could raise her from the abyss to the heights she’d scaled five years earlier with Martin in Berlin. Once again she would be admired and envied for catching the biggest fish in the pond (then, a star of the stage; now, a warlord).
Meckerle, she said, returning immediately to the story, procured a suitable apartment for her as she had expected. To thank him, she presented him there with a feast for the senses. Not a real one, of course, but a perfect replica, she assured Buback, as if this would comfort him. She’d done it so that, for once in his life, he’d have some inkling of what it could be like. After that he would have to get there on his own. Did Buback understand?
She finished her cigarette, wound her slender hands about his head, and kissed him passionately again. He was happy to hold her, but her merciless tale had been depressingly similar to Meckerle’s. For the first time since he had known her — for the first time in his life, really — he felt he was about to explode. She really was a better sort of whore! But then for God’s sake, why had she chosen him?
He knew that if he asked, she would be packed and gone in five minutes, never to return, and the emptiness that would remain after her flooded over him almost physically.
Only a bullet could fill that gap.
He swallowed his shout so forcibly that his Adam’s apple must have moved. Instead, he asked a question.
“So why risk his anger now?”
“First of all, there won’t be any,” she announced convincingly. “You should have realized that today. He knows he got what he deserved. Most likely he’s hoping that he’ll win me back. And second? Figure it out for yourself, Buback; you have a splendid imagination in bed, but in other areas it’s sadly lacking. Use the opportunity while it lasts.”
An hour later she was again lying blessedly in his arms. She still could not sleep and would not let him drift off either.
“Now it’s your turn to talk,” she ordered him, “but not about women. I don’t want to hear that you’ve ever had anyone else.”
“But you—” he finally objected.
“I want you to know me as I am,” she interrupted.
“So then why do you refuse to know me?”
“Why, why, why! Why don’t you tell me what you do? As a child I thought policemen protected the world. So what do you protect now that the world’s coming to an end?”
His work was the one thing that had always upset Hilde. She was constantly afraid for him, and they had tacitly agreed he would not speak about it to her. Now he tried, and surprised himself: His description of the case of the widow killer was brief and dramatic. Grete even sat up in excitement, hugged her knees with her elbows, and propped her childlike breasts on them (for a week now she had insisted that with his help they were finally starting to grow). She was listening so intently that she even forgot to light another cigarette.
When he finished the most recent episode, in which Beran’s secretary insisted on serving as the decoy, Grete asked, “Is she your lotus flower?”
“Please don’t get angry again,” he pleaded panicking.
“I’m not angry. It’s an act of womanly solidarity. And I’m surprised you didn’t offer me the chance.”
“Where did that come from?”
“She’s helping her fiance; why can’t I help you, love? I’ll never make a good wife, let alone a good widow, but surely I can play one as well as your little goddess, don’t you think? But you’ll have to let me go to
sleep earlier. Not tonight, though; not tonight. . Remember how that
first morning you asked me what had happened? Well, here’s what it was: Your sex touched my soul.”
Morava was getting to know a new Jitka. Where had that touching shyness gone that made him long to protect her unto death? Now he could only see it in her as she slept. It was as if incipient motherhood had brought out features rooted deep in her bloodline, which had survived centuries of catastrophes wreaked by mankind and nature in that wide-open land.
He often felt that despite his enthusiastic embrace of city life, he was still a part of that natural landscape, even though he had only spent his childhood there. At certain points, especially crises, he found an inner strength that was not his own. Then he would always remember the strange exhilaration he had felt at his grandfather’s and father’s deathbeds. Even today he did not dare to express it — it seemed too odd — but he believed that at the time some immortal part of their being had passed over to him.
The family smithy, as renovations revealed, had burned down at least twice during the Swedish or Turkish wars. Even the anvil was no more than fifty years old. No one knew where the previous ones had gone, along with the bones of all the local blacksmiths, since only the last three Moravas rested in the town cemetery. Once, while digging, they found a horseshoe, which might have hung over the entrance at some point. It appeared to bear the date 1621 (a tragic year for the Bohemian and Moravian nations), thus proving the existence of at least thirteen generations of blacksmiths on that spot.
The closely written leaves of Jitka’s family Bible suggested that they had lived a few steeples away for at least as long. In her family, the women held sway, since according to records the imperial and royal press-gangs had taken most of their men and never returned them. What Morava now saw in Jitka seemed to be the reincarnation of her female ancestors. It was as if his future wife had in the course of several weeks taken on the combined strength of all of them.
When she overheard the men’s conversation in Beran’s office and stepped in to offer herself as human bait, Morava had counted on the superintendent’s refusal. Beran did try to dissuade her, but stopped short of forbidding her once he had heard her out.
“Gentlemen,” she addressed them in German, and Morava could not shake the feeling that she was playing for Buback’s support, “you knew the risks, and yet you decided to find a woman who would come forward in the interest of the cause. I’d hate to think you’d be less concerned for another woman than you would for me. Therefore I have to assume you’ll give your consent.”
You’re expecting a child, he thought, but did not dare say it aloud. Buback’s presence still discomforted him, even after his unexpectedly warm congratulations. As if in response, Jitka said, “It’s not as if I want to make a career of this; once you find someone else, I’ll stop, or we can alternate. You can count on me tomorrow, though, so start making preparations.”
Beran shrugged, Buback was silent, and Morava had to give in. He set to work even more intently on the details of his plan. It had to run at least twice daily, and at any time and place the unknown butcher might take the bait. That night he tested the most dangerous scene in the kitchen with Jitka, confirming for himself what she had known from the start: This trap could not fail.