The garage manager, realized Buback; my God, our informant is now in charge! But who can I tell?
Matlák informed him that on both sides, the radicals had simply swept out the moderates. All they could do now was try to prevent the worst from happening. He was among the few who had learned to appreciate Buback; therefore he was risking this conversation and would be glad personally to keep helping him as long as he was able. I need to get hold of Detective Morava urgently, Buback requested. He went somewhere with some soup; yes, Matlák repeated to the amazed German, he had been there in the canteen when Morava and Litera had picked up a canister of soup and bread to take to someone.
Buback, of course, knew whom it was for. They must have just missed each other, so they would be long since gone from Grete’s, but he was grateful all the same. He would risk one more trip to Bredovská for fresh news of the German side’s intentions and then head back to Kav
í Hory; he couldn’t leave her alone any longer.
“Please,” he finished, “if you believe we’re among those ’other Germans’ who want to atone for the havoc Germany has caused, tell Mr. Morava as soon as possible that I’ll be waiting for him at a familiar place.”
“The house on the hill?” Mátlak asked, and, seeing Buback startled, tried to calm him down. “I’m sorry, it just occurred to me; I’ll forget it right away. ..”
What occurred to Matlák could occur to others, said a fearful voice inside his head as he marched onward, showing the letter of safe conduct with its already invalid signature. At any cost he had to get Grete out of that place; it could become a deathtrap at any moment, and his only hope was Morava. Only? What about Meckerle?
Immediately he felt ashamed. Had he already sunk so low that he’d switch sides again? What set him apart, then, from Vlasov’s traitors, whom he’d found so contemptible? But was this really a defection? Didn’t he have the right, even the responsibility, to use any means available to save his love? If Meckerle could extricate himself and his men from this siege, the giant couldn’t refuse to take her along. But then if Buback wanted to appease his own conscience, there was only one way: He had to stay to the bitter end, whatever it might be.
Mired in thought, he reached Wenceslas Square. The last Czech crossing point not only accepted his pass, but even tried strongly to dissuade him from continuing. The Germans had gone on the rampage, picking up every Czech who appeared on the street. And a hidden sniper was firing on anyone who tried to cross over. Buback bet on speed and luck to avoid him, and won. Around the corner, however, he was arrested.
What should have been a trifling problem for Buback, of all people, turned into a surreal scene with an ever wilder script. Before he could even speak, two SS men tackled him like butchers grabbing a meat calf and shoved him over toward a handful of men they had evidently picked up before him. He could not find the courage to dig his Gestapo identification papers out from his socks and shoes in full view and decided to remain anonymous until a less awkward opportunity presented itself. Besides, personal testimony of how Germans treated Czechs in these critical hours could prove exceptionally valuable in his coming conversation with Meckerle.
Shortly thereafter a covered truck pulled up and the prisoners were herded under its tarpaulin. None of the Czechs made a noise, and their escort was menacingly silent, although the Germans’ gun butts proved more demonstrative. Buback sustained a sharp blow to the shoulder, but this only strengthened his determination to stay and observe what his kinsmen were doing.
Grabbing hold of each other to avoid falling over on the curves, the prisoners careened along the slippery pavement toward an unknown goal that could not possibly be Bredovská. Buback realized despondently that this was precisely how all Europe had come to know his people in the last five and a half years: as armed robots choosing victims at random, imposing their divine will on nations they judged less worthy. Anywhere else in the world, Buback’s job would have been a perfectly respectable one, but here he belonged to these robots, was one of them, and bore full responsibility with them for each and every one of their deeds.
He had spent the whole war tracking cheats, criminals, and other wrongdoers in the Germans’ own ranks. The front he knew only from rumors; as soon as they burned their evidence, they moved him one country further. Was that why he had been so sure his hands were clean? Blaming the German catastrophe on these blank-eyed savages, who had seen too little good or too much evil in their lives, was like blaming the hands of a clock for the time it shows. He, however, had been part of the mechanism — at first enthusiastically, later less so, but nonetheless an obedient cog in the workings of the Führer and Reich clockmaker.
Oh, Hilde, why didn’t you argue with me years sooner?
Oh, Buback, maybe in your blindness you’d have left her….
Oh Grete, if only late repentance could restore us to grace!
But who now would bestow it on the Germans? Even at this late hour, when all their lies were revealed and the Reich had reached the end of the line, they were loading inhabitants of a foreign city onto a truck like cattle destined for slaughter. What would come next? The only thing that made sense was to exchange them for Germans fallen into Czech hands. If that happened, he would offer to mediate under the condition that the SS finally start to behave in a civilized manner.
The truck stopped and the escort began to shove them out of the back. Anyone who misjudged the height or lacked agility landed on all fours. One older man could not stand and keened in pain; he had taken a bad blow to the knee. Buback looked around for the commander — now would be the time to step out of anonymity — but saw no officers in the circle around them. Two of the Czechs were already picking up the moaning man, their hands locked to form a seat beneath him, and carried him off after the others to a hall Buback knew well.
It belonged to the terminus railway station. International runs had never stopped here, only trains bound for the smaller Czech towns. In earlier days, it was the departure point for Prague children during the summer holidays. Despite the circumstances a memory of his mother caressed him: She pressed his teary face against her fragrant blouse and promised him that in seven days she and Daddy would come to visit. And he could even taste the mandarin oranges they always gave him for train trips to ward off thirst; oh, where are the snows of yesteryear?
The vast turn-of-the-century hall bore traces of recent fighting and swarmed with uniforms, overwhelmingly black in color. They pulled the prisoners at a swift pace to the front of the first platform. Strangely enough, there were no trains around, not even outside the hall where the tracks fanned out. And then, from out on the rails, a noise rang out like the cracking of an enormous whip. He realized what it was when they pushed the Czechs into long rows and began to count them off: one, two, three, four, five. Every fifth one was forced to jump down from the platform onto the rails; the four before him were herded between rows of guards into the parcel post storerooms.
As he waited among the last for them to get to him, a new salvo crackled from up front and he made a firm decision. It was barbarous of his countrymen to execute people this way when peace was just around the corner. As a German, he could only compensate for it by putting his own life on the line. If he were fifth, he would not speak up! To escape by condemning another man to death was beyond the bounds of humanity; he would cease to be himself.