The whole time he had lived in this corner of Prague with Jitka, Morava had rarely seen other people, only the occasional old ladies shuffling arduously out for a walk or to the store. Now for the first time all the inhabitants appeared on the street; it was a sorry sight, as if they were emptying out the old-age home and the poorhouse. An exception were the two youths they led out of the nearest house and put with the policemen. No one was paying attention to the foursome with raised hands at that moment; the SS troops were surveying their catch, driving the especially unsteady ones back into their houses.
“Who are you?” Morava whispered.
“Students. We ran from the Totaleinsatz, the work deployment. What do they want with us?”
“I don’t know.”
“We could run again,” suggested the other, a vigorous blue-eyed blond with a handsome face. “They’re not watching!”
He set off, bounding with long strides down toward the curve in the road. The sergeant turned almost casually and pressed the trigger of his automatic rifle. They could see the shots slam into the student’s body, which kept running for several more seconds before starting to fall; even on the ground its legs jerked in a left, right rhythm. The horrible movement stopped only when the SS man walked slowly over to the dying boy and mercifully gave him one more shot… mercifully! Morava trembled. What a mockery of the word…
“Amen….” a pale Litera breathed.
The remaining student was about to faint. His arms began to fall.
“Keep them up!” Morava hissed at him.
The ease of that killing was a warning: These Germans were past caring. Then the shooter approached, looked at their hands and asked with what almost seemed like concern, “Does it hurt?”
Morava expected further savagery, but instead heard a piece of almost friendly advice.
“Put them behind your head, then!”
He remembered his dream. Even this death machine looked like a person and could probably act like one as well. How could he recognize him — or any of them — if they managed to escape, put aside their uniforms and become what they had been before? He had spent three months tracking a single murderer, trying to bring him to justice. But what about the thousands upon thousands like him? They murdered people as anonymously as this man here had, and at a moment’s notice they could turn into upstanding teachers, shopkeepers and workers. How could anyone possibly prosecute the senseless death of the handsome, blond, blue-eyed boy? Was it moral to let them withdraw in peace? Were the Communists right this time, and not Beran?
He was still thinking about it when the SS assigned six older men and women to their group and led them away, leaving the dead boy and the police car behind.
Before they reached the top of the rise, they grew by a few more handfuls of Czechs and a heavily armed escort.
There were several dozen of them in the web by the time they reached the rows of modern houses ringing the Pankrác plateau. Across the valley, a stupendous view of the castle opened before them, but their attention was riveted on the drama they had been sucked into. Another SS company was driving younger men and women, some with children, from their houses.
The young Totaleinsatz refugee, still in shock from his friend’s death, kept stumbling. Morava and Litera were practically carrying him.
“We’re hostages, aren’t we?” The boy’s voice trembled.
The arrival of a staff car seemed promising; the lower officers saluted at attention and the remaining men stopped to look. But the pair who got out stripped Morava instantly of all hope. The tall SS officer with a pock-scarred face and the civilian with a skull-like shaven head were remarkably good personifications of a regime which, in its death throes, was baring its true nature again.
“Report,” the pock-marked man requested in a half-whisper.
Despite this all the subcommanders heard him and rushed over to announce crisply that they were already finished. Except for one.
“I’m not done yet, major. They managed to lock themselves in the air-raid shelter. The building used to be a bank; it has steel doors.”
“Are all of them down there?”
“One didn’t make it.”
“Bring him here.”
They instantly hauled a middle-aged man forward; although it was afternoon, he was dressed in a bathrobe and slippers. Asked how many people were down below, he counted nervously in passable German until he arrived at six men, ten women, and eight children.
“Is your family there too?”
“Yes, a boy and a girl… my wife and mother-in-law…”
“Draw me the shelter!”
Shakily he drew a simple rectangle and a staircase with several turns on the back of some sort of receipt the officer found in his breast pocket.
“Where does the air come from?”
“There’s a vent from the ground floor…” He drew it. “The garbage cans cover it.”
“Will they hear you if you call down to them?”
“Probably.”
“So do it!”
“What should I…”
“That I’ll give them precisely three minutes to open up, otherwise I’ll have you shot.”
A hot flush appeared on the Czech’s face, reminding Morava of the Klásterec priest, but the man gathered enough courage to ask a further question.
“And what will you do with them… with all of us then?”
With a gesture of his head he took in the whole street, full of exiles.
“Your people down in Nusle have blocked our way through the city. You’ll walk in front of my soldiers as a human shield.”
“But I can’t tell… I can’t just ask them…”
The scarface pulled a large pistol out of its holster.
“Go!”
My God, how can You let… Morava cut himself short: after all, that’s exactly why he’d given up on Him last week. His heart ached for the unfortunate man, who had no choice. And it always works, every time; despite the faith, love, morality, and honor we acquire so painfully in our lifelong struggle for self-betterment, in moments of crisis what triumphs is a blind instinct for self-preservation. In that respect we humans are worse than animals, who defend their pack until torn to bits.
The man’s gaze wandered to the Czech police uniforms. At that moment, Morava’s stiff arms behind his neck stopped hurting him; he was glad that even in this garb he was treated no differently from the other hostages. However, the man suddenly smiled sadly right at him.
“If you survive, tell them that I loved them.”
“In German!” boomed the major.
“You have no right!” the man retorted in that language. “We’re civilians. You’ll be punish…”
A shot ended the sentence.
The scarface stuffed his gun back and handed the sketch to his unsuccessful subordinate.
“Somewhere here is the opening. Throw a couple of sticks of dynamite in, and if they don’t open up, a few grenades. Everyone else, on the double!”
With shouts and shoves, small groups of men, women, pensioners, and children were put together and the cordon of soldiers tried to goad them onward, but soon it was clear that many could not keep up the pace. At the nearest square the Germans weeded out the old and the very young. Morava helplessly watched parents’ heartrending attempts to protect their children; some took them in their arms or on their shoulders, while others shooed them beyond the line of guards, calling out the addresses of relatives or friends.
The new groups trotted a few hundred yards further to the court building. At the crown of the street, which sank down into the Nusle valley in a long curve, tractors were shoving the last incinerated tram wagon from the German-captured barricade over to the edge of the carriageway; it was a rear car, and the pock-marked SS officer climbed up on its middle platform with the bareheaded civilian.