The Widow Killer

If the worst happened, he would be sending his love to her fate as well, and would die with her in his thoughts.

All the Czechs knew what was happening — he could read it in their faces — but no one gave the slightest sign of despair. They all seemed to understand that their personal honor was the only thing they had left, and all their efforts were focused on preserving it. The foursomes not selected suppressed their relief, the fifth ones concealed their deathly fear. Buback had always found Czechs to be too cunning, too evasive, too openly selfish for his taste, but in this fateful test that arbitrarily consigned them to life or death, they seemed to him almost noble.

The Nazis were shifting the man with a wounded leg down to the tracks; a bullet would now end his pain. When the Germans reached Buback, he straightened up like the rest and stared them in the face. He saw nothing there but the effort to keep correct count. O German justice, point at me! He was fourth.

As they tried to drive him down to the storerooms, he finally reached down to his right sock and addressed his SS guard so imperiously that the man did not even check his documents, but hurried with him, as directed, out to the track branching. The guard obediently broke into a trot when Buback pressed him to overtake the condemned men from his own group.

From the end of the platform he could see the carnage. They were shooting the Czechs in front of the engine-shed wall, placing each new row a body’s length in front of the one before. The dead formed an extensive, multicolored field in which red predominated. As another platoon of executioners stepped forward, the gunners just relieved all lit their cigarettes at once. Behind them, another dozen victims were arriving, among them men from Buback’s truck.

The closest officer was a sergeant who seemed to be directing the executions. Buback pressed his document into the man’s hand and quite exceptionally made use of his borrowed military rank.

“Sturmbannfuhrer Buback, Prague Gestapo! What is going on here?”

The man turned his equine face toward him. Despite its expressiveness, two empty eyes once again stared out from beneath the helmet. After a brief pause he simply greeted Buback.

“The executions are to warn bandits.”

“These are random pedestrians! I know because I was detained along with them. Stop this immediately; I will bring this case to the attention of Lieutenant General Meckerle!”

“You won’t have far to go,” the man said, pointing at a group of officers in conversation, protected from the rain by the switch tower’s awning. “He’s over there.”

The giant had already spotted him and was striding over.

We’re almost there, beloved, his mother said; she was sitting in the driver’s seat because when he had begun to choke, his father was at the castle (they’d fired up the furnace there to shoe the lord’s horses, so they would not have to brave the snowdrifts), but his mother knew how to hitch the sleigh and the horse ran just as well for her as for Papa — breathe through your nose, beloved, she called out, worried, over her shoulder to where she’d balled him into a thick blanket.. that word, Jitka was the only person to call me beloved, he thought, bewildered despite the burning pain in his forehead; why should my head hurt when it’s my tonsils…. now she turned to him from the driver’s seat, and it was Jitka, but he was already deep in his fever.

Then the sleigh stopped and he knew in a moment the kindly face of Doctor Babrek would appear over him. So he opened his eyes and saw Litera.

“Lie down, Jan,” the driver insisted solicitously. “We ran over some glass shards; we’re changing the wheel.”

By the time they finished, he had come around and remembered everything. And when he realized they were in another police car, taking him to have his dressings changed properly, he stopped them immediately.

“We have to arrest him!”

“Jan,” Litera cautioned, “it might have been your imagination after that bang you took. I didn’t notice him.”

Morava halted; yes, after all, he’d just seen his mother and Jitka… but his detective’s memory rebelled.

“It was him! Rypl and his gang. And they’re probably still there; turn around, we have to go back right away.”

“You could get blood poisoning.”

“If he gets away from me again, I’ll have soul poisoning!”

Seeing that he was resolved to return on foot if necessary, they obeyed him.

They were too late; the gang was gone, but from the barricaders’ stories and the descriptions of the foursome they realized Morava had been right. Strengthened by the addition of the machine gunner, the suspected Ryplites had headed up toward Pankrác in a Mercedes with Berlin plates as soon as it was confirmed the SS were on the defensive.

Morava instantly set out after them.

The square by the Pankrác court building, where two tanks were burning, proffered an unbelievable image of Czech and German brotherhood. The soldiers in Wehrmacht uniforms were, of course, the infamous Russians of General Vlasov. Their thick Slavic accents were ample proof for the Praguers, who had just lived through a day of horrors and celebrated them as liberators in their hour of need. Thanks to Beran and Buback, Morava knew these ovations would only deepen the soldiers’ despair, since nothing now could save them. One of them was playing a wild melody on the accordion while the others danced a bravura display. They wore the faces of guests at their own funeral.

Morava caught these images in passing. All his senses were focused on his prey. He soon realized that they could go no farther without Rypl’s picture, and sent the new driver off for another batch of portraits from Bartolomjská.

“If anyone’s at the department, bring him along as well,” Litera suggested. “Matlák’s sure to be there; he’s a crack shot. We can’t go after them barehanded. And if there are any decent German submachine guns lying around…”

Morava acceded, and because there was a first-aid ambulance a few paces along, Litera coaxed him into letting them have a look. He was glad in the end; the unsightly bullet wound, which had removed the skin, had dried. Soon, a large bandage had replaced the turban so similar to Brunát’s. Then he began combing the streets again, stubbornly convinced that Rypl would come into his own in exactly this sort of anarchy.

Confusion reigned on the square and the surrounding streets: Explosions of joy at surviving the day and perhaps even the whole war mingled with laments for lost loved ones. There were rows of cellars the SS had emptied with hand grenades. Volunteers carried the disfigured corpses out into the unrelenting rain and laid them temporarily on canvasses in front of the buildings. The victims were predominantly women and children.

Then a murmur rippled through the populace. A group of rebels wearing RG armbands, all with trophy weapons, marched down the middle of the thoroughfare. In their midst was a small crowd of German civilians, mainly women and children. In one hand the Germans carried suitcases and bundles, as much as each could hold; the other hand was raised above their heads. As their exhaustion grew they shifted hands more and more often. The Czech onlookers left their dead in front of the houses and realigned themselves along the procession route. Two columns of frosty silence greeted the parade of pale faces.

What do I feel toward these Germans, Morava wondered, and was suddenly surprised to find: nothing. The innocent rain-drenched victims on tarpaulins ruled out regret. But neither could he feel hate; these were defenseless and horrified people paying for what were by and large the sins of others. Most of all, he felt like packing every one of them — even those who were born here — off to the ruins of their ancestral homeland. Germany had unleashed this hell with their blessing, and he never wanted to see or hear them again.