Judge On Trial

Chapter One

1

ADAM KINDL STOOD in the chambers of the Presiding Judge holding the green file he had just been handed (Indictment of Karel Kozlík on the charge of murder) and waited for his superior to come off the phone. He could have taken a seat, but sitting in this room only made him nervous, so he remained on his feet and paced up and down instead. From time to time he absent-mindedly straightened his tie or smoothed down the flaps of his jacket.

There was generally something unkempt about his appearance — a button left undone or one cheek more cleanly shaved than the other. His wife would criticise his untidiness and maintain it was the sign of an untidy mind. In his opinion, his wife had no idea what kind of mind he had: he was sure that in matters and situations of importance he did things properly. He was faithful to his wife, he did not drink to excess, he was a non-smoker, he ate in moderation and, like his father, he regarded diligence as the supreme virtue.

From outside came the roar of traffic, though he noticed it only when particularly large lorries rumbled past. His daughter used to call them dragons. That was when they were still in America. Long-distance trucks over there were enormous, garishly painted affairs. They looked like grotesque monsters as they tore down the freeway. On second thoughts, it may have been that Manda mistook the word ‘truck’ for the Czech word drak — after all she was only four and a half at the time and scarcely spoke any English.

In his mind’s eye he could see the long white ribbon of highway stretching out across the plain, stitched with bridges and flyovers. He recalled the distant towns and the oil-rigs, the dust rising in swirling columns above the dried-up landscape. If I’d stayed there I’d probably be somewhere in a university by now. In fact I’d just be starting my summer vacation, and could take Route 87 south to Big Spring, San Antonio or Port Lavaca, or even take off along Route 385, like I did that time.

He opened the file but immediately closed it again. He was already familiar with the case and realised that for a double murder committed as atrociously as this the supreme penalty would be demanded: a life for a life. He knew he ought to refuse the case, but that was precisely the sort of thing they were waiting for in order to get rid of him.

At last the Presiding Judge put the phone down and turned his fleshy face towards him, squeezing it into a smile. Some people are incapable of smiling and talking at the same time, it’s supposed to be a sign of necrophiliac tendencies. He had read somewhere that Hitler was a case in point. The smile went from the Presiding Judge’s face and he asked, ‘Your brother not back yet?’

‘No, they’ve extended his stay till the end of the year.’ His brother Hanuš was never going to return now, of course. So long as there was no change in the way things were in this country, there would be no reason for him to come back.

‘He ought to come home.’

‘He’s there legally.’ His brother had even got married out there last winter. His wife was a Czech girl that Adam had still to meet — although he was unlikely to for some time yet. She was called Olga. It was a name that meant nothing to him. Dear Olga, or Milá Olgo, seeing that you’re Czech too: your legs look nice in your photo, even if your nose is a bit on the small side. What pretty babies you’ll have! The two of them would have children and he was never likely to set eyes on them either. The kids would speak English and be subjects of her Britannic Majesty. And even if they did meet one day, they’d have nothing to say to each other by then. They’d be strangers. A pity, really.

‘All the same,’ said the Presiding Judge, ‘you realise the way things are and the situation we’re all in.’

He meant ‘the situation you’re in’, but his kind never said things like that straight out.

Of course he realised the situation he was in. He was here, and so far he had been permitted for some unfathomable reason to go on doing his job. To whom did he owe this favour and why? And what did they want in return? And how long would it be before he fell out of favour again?

He became aware of a slight queasiness in his stomach.

‘I’d sooner not give you the Kozlík, but I’m short-staffed — you know how it is yourself. At least it’ll give you a chance to show they can trust you.’

Yes, from now on he’d have to show them all the time that he was worthy of their trust. For one thing, he was no longer in the Party, and for another, he had friends who were no longer members either. They, like him, had lost the trust of the powerful ones who decided who would work — or not — and where: those who had the final say about who could pass judgement in the name of the republic, and how.

The queasiness now spread to the rest of his body and the strength went out of his arms and legs.

‘At least it’ll mean less work for you than some niggling nonsense case.’

It had nothing to do with the amount of work involved — and the Presiding Judge knew that very well when he assigned him it. But what’s the point in explaining my position? There’s little chance of us seeing eye to eye. He worked as a judge during the worst years, and sent more people to prison than he could ever count. He even sent some to the gallows. Most of them were innocent, so he was suspended and they wanted me to review similar cases. But they didn’t manage to get the process under way before everything swung back again. Or rather, everything was swung back. This fellow has been reinstated and it’s my turn to wait for suspension and wonder where I’ll be sent. He can’t wait to give me the push. And those who went through the prisons or the concentration camps go on waiting for justice, as they have done for most of their lives.

‘I was hoping to take some leave,’ he said, fully aware that this wouldn’t let him off the hook.

‘And why shouldn’t you? You’ll have this business sorted out in a couple of days. It’s an open and shut case. There’s no need to waste any fucking time on it. Then you can take your leave. Anyway the gamekeepers tell me we’re in for better weather in August than July this year.’

The Presiding Judge was of the hunting fraternity. He enjoyed killing hares, pheasants and deer. And maybe people, even. No, perhaps not, perhaps he just followed orders. He was not the sort to worry himself about the life of someone he believed — maybe rightly — to be a murderer. Of course he knows why I’d sooner not take this case. He’s bound to know more about me than I do about him. That’s their main qualification after all: knowing as much as they can about other people. He is certain to know I wrote an article calling for the abolition of the death penalty, even though it never got published — which means he never read it. He knows why I don’t want the case, and that’s why he’s given it to me. ‘I’ll do what I can,’ he replied, and hurried out of the room.

Back in his office he did not open the file but just pushed it into a desk drawer. It was almost noon and there was no sense in getting down to work now.

He usually lunched with his wife, and they would meet on the corner by the National Theatre. But Alena wouldn’t be coming back until the next day. He couldn’t really say he missed her over much (on the contrary, almost: he was relieved to be freed for a while from the duty to show anyone love and devotion) but he was at a loss to think of anyone else he might have lunch with.

It was ages since he had seen Oldřich, but he had no real inclination to meet his former colleague. Oldřich had changed a lot in recent years. He still came out with the same witticisms about the state of the country, the regime, violence and the bloody bolsheviks, but he was becoming more cautious of late; he had no wish to jeopardise his tranquil existence at the institute or his home comforts. As for Matěj, he was out of touch, stuck in a workman’s caravan somewhere in the sticks measuring water flows. He could always call Petr. Petr was chucked out of the faculty too, but at least he had stayed in Prague: he had just changed his job and become an insurance clerk. The trouble was that the last time they had talked together he had promised Petr that he would find him someone abroad to bring in the books he wanted. But he had done nothing about it so far.

I’ll have to write to Allan, he’ll be only too pleased to get hold of books. But what if they read the letter? It would be better to find someone I can trust to take the list over to him.

At that moment the phone rang.

It was a woman’s voice but he did not catch the name. ‘Adam, I’m in Prague. I was last here five years ago, but they told me then that you had just gone off abroad somewhere.’

‘Magda,’ he exclaimed, as he recognised her voice, ‘it can’t be you, surely?’

2

Her slim and almost angular frame had filled out. Her features, which he had once found unusual and interesting, were beginning to sag. Her dark eyes, which for some unknown reason he used to think of as Greek — at the time when they were capable of watching him with rapt or even slavish attention for minutes on end — were now constantly on the move, furtively measuring every nook and corner of the room, as if there might be some absconding schoolkid hidden there, or possibly an enemy snooper, who might give himself away with a sudden movement. It was odd that he had once loved this woman, had yearned for her body, had caressed her and known rapture when making love to her.

‘What will you have to drink?’

She ordered white wine and asked him, ‘Where were you abroad?’

‘In America. I got as far as the Rio Grande. Remember the map that used to hang in your bedroom?’

‘Why did you come back?’

‘It’s normal to come back from one’s travels.’

‘Were you alone there?’

‘No, I went with the family. I’ve got two children.’

‘And your wife wanted to come back?’

‘It was four years ago. We had no desire to emigrate.’

‘I didn’t know you were a patriot.’

‘Nor did I.’

‘How old are your kids?’

‘Eight and five,’ he replied, realising that he had deducted a year from their ages. ‘The boy is the younger one.’

‘I’ve got two girls. Ten and eight.’

‘And what about your husband?’

‘He teaches at agricultural college — or rather he used to,’ she corrected herself quickly.

She poured herself another glass. The muzak was dreadful. She must find it repulsive, he thought, recalling her tastes. She had been thirty when he left. That meant she was forty-three now. She was older than him. She had older children too, but they were still quite young for a woman of her age. He remembered how she had not wanted to have children. She had given him a whole lot of reasons why not, but had apparently changed her mind since. Or maybe she had not wanted him to be the father.

‘What were you doing all that time?’ she asked. ‘No, forgive me, that was a silly question. What’s the Rio Grande like?’

‘A dirty little river, something like the Laborec. I hiked alongside it through a canyon till I came to open country. There was a fellow there taking two white horses for a dip. Later I crossed over to Mexico in a little punt. I didn’t have the right papers but luckily nobody asked me for any. I walked for about an hour through a village of mud huts. It felt like being at that gypsy colony behond Trebišov.’

‘I appreciate your efforts to make it familiar to me.’

‘I used to think about you in those places,’ he recalled, ‘all the time I was there, but most of all on one particular day when I climbed a peak in the Chicos Range. It was Christmas Eve, and suddenly I started to regret it all.’

‘What did you regret?’

‘That you weren’t there with me.’

‘You needn’t make anything up for my sake!’

‘Why should I?’

‘You’re right. Why should you?’ she agreed. ‘Were they beautiful, the Chicos mountains?’

‘They were desolate. I felt happy there. That’s probably why I thought of you.’

‘Do you really think you were happy with me?’

He tried to think whether he had been happy with her. He tried to remember at least something of what he had felt that time, but it would not come.

‘I’m glad you’re making the effort to work it out. It proves you really did think of me when you were sailing down the Rio Grande in that dinghy.’

‘It wasn’t a dinghy,’ he corrected her, ‘it was a punt. And I wasn’t sailing down the river, I was going across it.’

The waiter refilled her glass and stood waiting for her to order her meal. Adam could not remember her drinking so much those years ago. Except on that one occasion. ‘Do you remember the time we hiked round Wallachia?’

‘Are you scared I’ll get drunk again?’ She ordered veal medaillons and a mixed salad. He ordered just a plate of cold ham. A heavy meal in the evening never agreed with him.

‘You came down with something on the return trip,’ she recalled.

‘You brought me flowers.’

‘Did I really?’ Then she said, ‘Theo died last year.’

For the life of him he could not remember who Theo was.

‘The girls liked him, even though he stopped speaking towards the end.’

Ah, that was it. Theo had been her parrot. It used to scream at him: ‘Go away, you loony, go away!’ ‘He didn’t know what he was saying, anyway.’

‘That didn’t stop you doing as you were told though,’ she said.

‘I wrote you several letters, but I never got any reply.’

‘Probably because I didn’t send you any.’

Their meals arrived. ‘It looks delicious,’ she exclaimed, and turned her gaze to him, at last managing to keep her eyes on his face. Maybe it was the wine. The way she looked at him reminded him of the way it used to be — sitting in a grotty country pub and being in love with her.

She ate very slowly. ‘I found it impossible to write back after you went off and left me there like that.’

‘But I wrote to you to come and join me.’

‘No you didn’t. You wrote and asked me whether I didn’t feel like joining you.’

‘There’s no difference, is there?’

‘A lot more than between a punt and a dinghy, that’s for sure. What was it you actually had in mind, anyway? I had a job and a flat out there. That was all I had, then.’

‘But I told you we could get married, after all.’

‘No, you asked me whether we shouldn’t perhaps get married,’ she corrected him. ‘Or perhaps you think that’s the same as well.’

‘But you said no!’

‘What else could I have said?’

‘It was only my daft way of putting things, you know that.’

‘When it came to certain other things, you had no trouble saying what you meant — to say the least! If you had really wanted to marry me, you would never have asked.’

‘I don’t think you’re right, you know.’ The entire argument seemed fatuous to him. After all, she could hardly have come to see him after thirteen years — during which time they had not exchanged a single sentence — just to criticise the way he had behaved then.

‘And why didn’t you go abroad?’ he asked.

‘My husband didn’t want to!’ At last she drained her glass. ‘Will you drive me home?’ she asked.

‘Yes, of course.’

When he had paid the bill, she said: ‘Do you realise that this is the first time ever we’ve been for a decent meal together? Thank you.’

‘I don’t think we had the opportunity in those days.’

‘We didn’t try and find one. It was against your principles to sit somewhere quietly and enjoy a good meal.’

He had to take her as far as Vysočany. She was staying there with some relative of her husband’s. He should maybe ask her about her husband. But what was the point? He couldn’t care less about her husband. ‘Are you staying in Prague long?’ He had no idea, of course, where she now lived. He had never thought of her living anywhere but in The Hole, though no doubt she had fled the area years before.

‘A week at most,’ she replied. ‘Don’t forget, I’ve got children to look after.’

‘Are you teaching still?’

‘What other option do I have?’ And she added, ‘They’ve decided to leave people like me alone, now.’

‘Yes, so I’ve noticed.’

‘They’re giving Jaroslav the push instead.’

‘That’s your husband, is it?’

The streets were now deserted but the traffic lights went on working busily.

‘Adam’, she said, ‘it’s totally illegal what they’re doing to him. I don’t want to bother you, but it just struck me that you might be able to give us some advice, at least.’

They drew up in front of an apartment house in a drab backstreet. He listened to her as she told him how they were throwing her husband out of the school where he had taught for ten years. (No, it wasn’t in The Hole, but in some small town in Moravia.)

He took down the details in his notebook and promised to do what he could. The fact was, though, that he had really no idea what he could do for a teacher of maths and physics who had been turfed out of his job for signing the very same declaration that every Tom, Dick and Harry had signed four years ago. What could he do for him, seeing that he had signed it himself, particularly as he no longer wielded the slightest power or influence.

3

I was born in Prague on 23rd February 1938 but my mother Marie Kotvová now domiciled in Turnov at No.215/36 Pod kopcem didn’t want to keep me so I was handed straight over to my father Karel Kozlík now deceased and my grandmother Aloisie who looked after me until she was executed which happened when I was four years old on account of she listened to foreign radio broadcasts and agreed with the assassination of Heydrich. When I was eight years old my father married Milena née Bradová now domiciled at No. 814/5 Kašparová Street, Prague 3, who was always a good mother and friend to me and I always did my best to help her on account of she was sickly and she had bad back trouble particularly after my youngest brother was born. Later I had to look after my brothers too and because my father often came home drunk I used to have to protect them from same. At that time I had to have an eye operation as a result of which due to a slip-up which the head surgeon himself said happens only once in a hundred years I have only had the sight of one eye, namely, the left one. When I finished school my stepmother wanted me to go on to the tech but my father said I couldn’t study with one eye, but I might just about cope as an electrician as a consequence of which I was apprenticed right off to a bloke who used to make fun of me sometimes calling me Jan Žižka from Žižkov and other times Babinský because he said I’ve got criminal’s ears. On account of he never left off I lost my head one day and hit him with a spanner and that was the end of that. It was that time I started getting headaches, but the doctors thought it was due to the bad operation and offered to do it all over again but I said no because I was afraid I’d end up completely blind. On account of my bad record it took me a long time to find a job even though I was no shirker. In the end I got a job as a navvy and I moved in with my girlfriend Jarmila Studená now living in Modfany at No. 168/4 Nad roklí even though she was older than me. Soon afterwards at the Valdek Café where I had gone for the purpose of dancing some man of gypsy origin that I didn’t know before then came up to me just when Jarmila was dancing with my friend František Vrána and said she was rubbing up against him like a whore. In those days I was sure that Jarmila was a decent girl and that was a slur on her character and an attack on my honour so I told him to step outside into the alley where we had a fight. It was my opinion that any honourable man would have done the same in my place but the court sentenced me to borstal training which I served near Uherské Hradiště. When I came back home I tried to settle down to live the life of a decent working man. I was back at my mother’s who suffered a lot then on account of my father who was an alcoholic and consequently she begged me to steer clear of any rows or fights. When I had been unable to find a suitable job after about three months the doctor said I should avoid heavy work and dust in case I lost my last remaining eye so in the end I got a job as a forklift operator in a cement works.

At that time I was visited by one of my old friends from borstal Jiří Probst currently serving a sentence and we started going to the pub together and on Saturdays we used to go off to the country with a guitar. Then one day Probst told me he knew of a weekend cottage where there were a lot of things like old clocks statues and a lot of liquor but I got angry and said no and he started making fun of me. So I went off with him after all even though in my view I didn’t take part in any breaking and entering or robbery. I waited outside for him but I was given four years without the option. I tried to behave myself in prison but when I was working in the pits I started having trouble with my good eye but the doctor said I was shamming so I often got sent to the punishment cell when I got headaches. When I almost went blind which I didn’t report as a protest against my treatment a fellow-prisoner in my cell whose name I don’t recall started to teach me philosophy and English and he explained to me that real strength is doing good against hatred and misunderstanding. I decided to do good and work with youngsters after my release to help them find the right way. At that time my health improved and I started to see with my left eye again and my headaches were improving. On account of my father had died and my mother had got married again while I was still in prison to a Mr Emanuel Kobza a lorry driver of the same address who had a bad influence on her I had to find lodgings after my release so as to avoid rows. For that purpose I went to see my former common-law wife Jarmila Studená who took me in and seven months later she had a little girl and said I was the father. From the testimony of the doctor and my friends I ascertained this was not the case. I found digs with a Mrs Obensdorfová domiciled at No. 886/14 Mladenovicova Street, Prague 3 and got a job as a boilerman at Krč Hospital. I paid my maintenance payments for my daughter regularly and sometimes I would send her presents like a dolly or a ball and kept up my payments for my accommodation while in prison. At that time I got to know Libuše Körnerová domiciled at Za pivovarem 19/1, Prague 4, who informed me she was expecting my baby. I therefore settled down to live the life of a decent working man. I also made regular visits to my mother and my brothers and used to urge them to steer clear of bad company. I treated my landlady decently which wasn’t easy due to her domineering nature. I used to carry her up coal because our flat was on the top floor and I used to carry her shopping bags and help her wash the floor and I painted her hall and kitchen for nothing and mended the water and cooker and in return she upped my rent so instead of the 150 crowns I was paying at the start in the end I was paying 220, even though she paid only 90 crowns rent for the whole flat. Also she accused me of taking something from the pantry and the larder even though I had stolen nothing since the day I was released. Every time I put the light on in the evening she accused me of blowing all the rent money even though I had only a 40W bulb. Then she took out the fuses on account of which I was obliged to use a candle and sometimes I would stop seeing altogether because I strained my eyes trying to read a lot. Furthermore she banned me from bringing friends back to my room and demanded that I had to be home by nine because she said that was the time she went to bed and I would disturb her which had no basis in fact as I used to be very quiet when I came home.

On 3rd April last I came home at about half past ten after I had been to the pictures with Libuše and because she had taken out the fuses again I tripped and accidentally pulled down a shelf that Mrs Obensdorfová used to have different things on like mirrors, bottles of perfume and face powder. She came out shouting that I was drunk. I told her calmly that I wasn’t and that it was her fault for taking out the fuses. Then she started screaming at me even more telling me to clear out that she wasn’t going to live with a jailbird any more. I told her to stop shouting at me but she told me again to pack my things and clear out by morning. I started to get one of my headaches and went to my bedroom and sat there for a long time in the dark. On account of I was thirsty I went to the kitchen for the purpose of having a drink. Mrs Obensdorfová was already back in her bedroom on the other side of the kitchen where she always left the door ajar for fear of someone stealing something from the kitchen. But I could hear she was asleep. That is when the idea came to my head that if I turned on the gas and went away people would think she had done it herself because it wouldn’t have been the first time and at her age she didn’t always know what she was doing. I also put a kettle of water on the stove. I swear there was no way I could of known that her granddaughter Lucie Obensdorfová was staying with her that night because I never had anything against any of her relations and she didn’t make a practice of staying overnight. I also remembered that she kept her savings book in the dresser and she had in it the money she wrongfully took from me for rent so I took it with me which I had never done before and I regret my action. Then I left the kitchen because it was full of gas.

I declare that I would never have committed this act if she hadn’t told me to leave the flat by the next morning as I had nowhere to go. I left the flat immediately with the intention of going to some licensed premises. I felt like going to the Srdíčko wine bar but then I realised I didn’t have any cash and I was frightened to go to the Main Post Office on account of I was frightened of being recognised. Consequently I went to the station where I remained for a time as it was cold outside…

Kozlík’s mention of the station reminded Adam that he ought to go and meet his wife. He closed the file and put it back in the drawer.

Involuntarily a phrase from his childhood came back to him: ‘she was gassed’. For a moment he was overcome with a revulsion verging on nausea.

4

He was early getting there: punctual, though this time his punctuality was the product of anxiety and impatience rather than eagerness exactly. But he was looking forward to his wife’s arrival. He looked forward to hugging her here on the station and then cuddling her in the car. In his imagination she always seemed more seductive and passionate than she was in reality. He only hoped that she would not take too long telling him her news and that the kids would get off to bed without any bother. She was bound to be tired after the journey, and if she was tired she would flake out and scarcely curl up in his arms before falling asleep like a baby, however much he might desire her.

The rest of her behaviour seemed childlike to him too — occasionally he found it irritating but most of the time it was touching.

Amazingly, the train arrived on time and he soon caught sight of her among the crowd of arriving passengers, first by her yellowish hair above her high, never tanned forehead. She was flanked by two young men, the one on her right moon-faced like a photograph of Marx. An odd-looking girl was clearly in the group as well, walking barefoot on the incredibly filthy station tiles.

He raised his arm but it didn’t look as if Alena had seen him. He realised that, unusually for her, she wasn’t wearing her glasses. Without them she could scarcely see more than a few yards.

‘You’ve come to meet me,’ she exclaimed, as he made his way over. ‘This is Adam,’ she said before he’d had a chance to do or say anything. ‘And this is Jean,’ indicating the barefoot girl. The bearded one was called Jim. They had both come all the way from Texas and were stopping over in Prague tonight.

He couldn’t understand where she’d bumped into her companions. He doubted if they’d come all the way from Texas for a librarianship refresher-course. Most likely she had met them in Bratislava, or even in the train. It irked him that he would not be left alone with her straight away. But perhaps they might take Petr’s list of books with them.

‘And this is Honza,’ she said, introducing the other youth, a bespectacled young man with a Jewish nose. ‘He lives out in Vokovice, do you think we could fit him in too?’ and she blushed unexpectedly.

He picked up her cases and headed for the car.

‘How are the children?’ she asked, when they were all fitted in.

‘Fine. They can’t wait to get away!’ Only now he noticed that his wife’s eyes were red from lack of sleep.

‘You didn’t even write to me,’ she scolded. As if there was any sense in writing when she was only away four days. ‘Which route will you take?’ she asked. ‘Do you think you could stop in the Old Town?’

He threw her a reproachful glance, but apparently she didn’t notice, she was chattering in a loud excited voice with the barefoot girl; the cramped interior of the car was full to bursting with her shouts. They crawled along in the direction of the square where he was born. Surprisingly, he managed to find a place to park. The barefoot girl trod gingerly on the hot paving stones. Her feet were covered in dust, which he found repellent. ‘This is the Old Town Square, and here’ — he pointed — ‘stood the Town Hall. They burnt it down on the last day of the war. It would probably have been saved if the Americans had come; they had been stationed just outside Prague for several days. But they didn’t come. By then it had been decided that this country would belong to the other camp.’

They fell quiet for a moment, unsure whether to take it as a personal criticism or a historical comment.

‘Three hundred and fifty years ago they executed twenty-eight Czech nobles on this spot,’ he said, as always seized with doubt whether it had really been so many. Fortunately, it was immaterial; a few more or less made no difference when you thought of the total number of people executed in the course of history and anyway he was sure his two listeners had no idea what that execution had brought to a close and what war it had begun. ‘Now it’s used for rallies, demonstrations and ovations.’

Most of the houses looked tatty, but some had been renovated recently (including the house where he was born). And even the indifferent way they let superb buildings slide into ruin could not subdue the charm of the place.

The visitors were clearly impressed. There was more he could have told them. He could have pointed out the curve round which the No. i tram used to clatter as it squeezed its way through the gorge of Celetná Street, showed where Stanislav Kynzl the cooper used to have his yard, described how he had ogled the books in Storch’s in the days when there were still good books to buy: a fact which he had been incapable of appreciating at the time, and therefore had not valued it as he should or taken advantage of it either. He could have shown them the Kinský Palace and told them that Mr Herrmann Kafka used to have his business there, taken them into Týn Court and asked them to close their eyes and imagine small shops with junk and enamelled pots and wooden two-wheeled carts that were marvellous as see-saws. But he hated giving tours of anything that related at all to himself or his own past.

A wizened old man approached in the kind of hat that painters wore at the turn of the century, carrying a black umbrella that looked rather silly on a cloudless summer day. ‘Excuse me,’ he asked, ‘are this lady and gentleman foreigners?’

Adam nodded. He had a feeling he’d seen the man here on some occasion, or more likely remembered him from when he lived here.

‘I do beg your pardon, but are they Germans?’

‘No, Americans.’

‘A pity. If they understood German, I could explain something to them.’

‘Perhaps I might interpret it for you,’ Alena offered.

‘That would be very kind of you,’ he returned raising his hat solemnly. ‘They are young people and I don’t expect they know anything about John Hus.’ The old man lifted his head and looked up at the stone features. ‘They will be unaware that modern times started as much with this man as they did with Gutenberg or Columbus. If you’d be so kind as to tell them, young lady, that Master Hus died for the truth. He died a martyr, and yet he only needed to say one word and he could have saved everything that people set such store by: his office, his property and his life.’

She translated that sentence and they listened with an interest that might not have been feigned, the sort of interest which people reserve for drunks, lunatics, pavement artists or sword-swallowers.

‘And if you’d be so kind as to translate this also,’ the old man continued, ‘it was not just Master Hus, but the entire nation that took up arms to defend the truth they’d learned from him, and they went on to stir the conscience of the world, even though they were later disgraced and defeated.’ The old fellow tipped his distinctive hat and moved away, while the barefoot American girl exclaimed ‘Fantastic. Fantastic.’ It might have applied to the chatty old gentleman or to nations that took up arms in defence of the truth.

Adam finally guided them to the Old-New Synagogue. After that he only showed them St Wenceslas from the car window as they passed, before dropping them with relief in front of the Hotel Flora. Then silence fell in the car. He was no longer in any mood for talk, and his wife and the bespectacled Czech youth were glumly silent. Then the boy, with single-word directions, guided him to a street he’d never been in before, and with the same shortness took his leave. (As Adam was driving away he glimpsed him in the rear-view mirror standing immobile on the pavement staring for some strange reason after their departing car.) And at last they were alone. He wanted to take her by the hand at least, but she slipped out of his grasp and he noticed that her spirits had suddenly slumped; she looked tired, almost broken, as if the life had slipped out of her. ‘How was it, then?’

‘OK. The same as usual.’ She hesitated. ‘Then I met Jim and Jean; they were on their way back from a seminar in Vienna. They’re Quakers.’

‘And that Czech,’ he asked, ‘he was on his way back from Vienna too?’

‘No. Honza was with us. How are the children?’

It struck him she had asked him once already, but he replied, ‘They’re fine. And Martin’s learned a new song.’ He couldn’t recall at this particular moment what the song was about and he never remembered tunes. When he glanced at her he noticed that she wasn’t listening anyway. ‘What’s the matter?’ But he knew there was nothing, that she had had a couple of exciting and seemingly exhausting days and now she was overcome with tiredness. The best thing to do was to leave her alone, help her to bed as soon as possible and not take too much notice of her.

‘They reminded me awfully of America, the time we were in that commune outside Taos. They’re different. They travel to famine-stricken countries and help in hospitals, while we…’

‘What about us?’

‘We do nothing. We stuff ourselves, go to the cottage, sit around chatting, and most of all: nothing.’ After a while, she added: ‘I’d like to live among people like that. Go back. Or go off to a kibbutz.’

‘You know it’s out of the question!’

‘Why?’

‘We’ll never get out of here. And besides: I don’t want to live in a commune.’

‘But I do.’

‘You’re tired.’

She closed her eyes. ‘I’d like to live with people who care about me. Nobody here cares about anyone.’

‘How about all our friends here?’

‘We only mix with your friends. And they only care about legal stuff or politics.’

‘You know that’s not true.’

‘And they’re old.’

‘You should have married someone younger!’

‘There you are, I’ve only just come home and you already want an argument. You never manage to be pleasant.’

He controlled himself and said nothing.

‘I invited them round this evening.’ On this announcement she brightened up slightly.

‘Who?’

‘Jim and Jean. Honza as well.’

‘Listen,’ he tried to object, ‘what do you want to go inviting people straight away this evening for? You’re tired and we’ve not seen each other for nearly a week. The children are looking forward to you. And so am I!’

‘But they’re only here today!’

And he really had been looking forward to her. He had been looking forward to her embrace. But she wasn’t thinking about that.

‘I thought we should invite some of our friends too.’

‘Won’t they be too old?’

‘You see! You’re always so cantankerous.’

5

It was two hours after midnight when the last guest left. The room was filled with smoke. Adam was quickly opening all the doors and windows. Her head ached slightly. She felt nostalgia creeping over her inexorably. She knew that this mood invariably came on whenever she got overtired or felt off-colour, but knowing its cause did nothing to lessen her misery. She carried the dirty plates out to the kitchen and made an effort not to cry. Such a mountain of washing-up. She ought to do it now or the food would dry on by morning. And she would have to start packing in the morning, because the children had to have a holiday. Adam would be chivvying her, he did nothing but rush her all the time. He himself drove onward like a tank, capable of everything, except treating her with a little tenderness. Nobody treated her tenderly. Or rather, she corrected herself, no one had till now.

She returned to the living room. The carpet covered in cigarette ash, the chairs all over the place, the remains of a glass of wine with a cigarette-end floating in it. She felt sick. If only he’d come and tell her he loved her or he’d missed her. She opened the door to the bedroom slightly. He was kneeling, making the bed. There were bags under his eyes and his shirt-tail was half out. She realised how fat he was, not very maybe, but compared with the other, his backside was so enormous, she shuddered with aversion. In a moment they would go to bed and he would want to make love to her. It was something he always took for granted, whenever he’d not seen her for a long time, like having a meal when he was hungry. He hadn’t the patience to woo her afresh each time. His love was monotonous and it hid not a trace of fantasy or poetry.

‘You haven’t even asked me what sort of time I had.’

‘When did I get a chance to?’

‘How did you like Honza?’ And immediately she was ashamed of her clumsiness.

‘I don’t know! He talked a lot. What about him?’

What about him? Nothing. He ought to be of no interest, though he was. Anyway she couldn’t talk to Adam about it. She turned back the bedding from a corner of the divan and sat down. The objects in the bedroom started to swim like a painting when the brush was too wet. ‘Yesterday we held a farewell party; we organised a fancy dress ball.’ The objects became dim. Her eyes started to close. ‘He came as a pirate! He’s still a little boy.’

‘Listen,’ he’d clearly not been listening to anything she had said, ‘you oughtn’t to sit there like that. You look tired to me. You should come to bed.’

She roused herself: ‘You haven’t asked what I went as.’

‘Well, sorry, but it does happen to be half past two in the morning.’

‘You wouldn’t ask me even if it was noon!’

‘So what did you go as?’

‘A snowflake,’ and she realised immediately how silly it sounded. At any rate to someone who’d never wanted to go to a fancy dress ball in his life.

‘And were you a success?’

‘I don’t know! Success,’ she repeated, ‘why do you measure everything by success?’ She stood up and went off to the kitchen. The water running into the washing-up bowl at two thirty in the morning didn’t murmur but roar; her ears rang.

He came after her. ‘Leave the washing-up, for goodness sake!’

‘I can’t stand it staying here overnight.’

‘I’ll wash it,’ he offered. ‘I’ll see to it in the morning.’

‘Would you really?’

The roar of the water ceased. She put her head on his shoulder. ‘Do you love me?’

When she finally got to bed, she hesitated a moment, but then snuggled up to him as she had done almost every evening for ten years already. At that moment she was overcome with a blissful sense of security and belonging.

‘It’s gone three, already,’ he said reproachfully as if the passage of time were her responsibility. He tried to cuddle her.

‘Wait a sec,’ she told him, ‘couldn’t you open the window? It’s very smoky from next door.’

‘The window is open.’

‘Wider, then!’

He got up and opened both windows fully.

‘And he had an awful life, you know,’ she said suddenly.

‘Who?’

‘The one I was telling you about.’

‘Who were you telling me about?’

‘Honza. They sent his dad to prison. You know, when they were gaoling everybody.’

‘My father went to prison too.’

‘But you were older. He was only six when it happened.’

‘Oh, yes?’ he said without interest. ‘Shouldn’t we get some sleep?’

‘Why do you always talk about sleep when I’m trying to tell you something?’

‘It’s just that it’s about time. I have a hearing in the morning and you ought to be packing. The children are looking forward to getting away.’

‘We didn’t sleep either. We hardly slept at all the past two nights.’

‘Precisely!’

‘I can’t help it. I’m always so het up. I can never get to sleep.’

‘So tell me how it was with his father.’

‘Honza was terribly attached to him,’ she said gratefully. ‘The whole time his father was in prison he thought about him and dreamed about him as the best person in the world. But when his father came back after eight years, things looked quite different. But don’t you want to get to sleep?’

‘Not any more. Talk away.’

‘They’d done something to his father; broken him somehow. He came back full of bitterness, hating his wife and Honza. He used to beat him and humiliate him.’

‘How do you know?’

‘He told me about it.’

‘Maybe he wasn’t being impartial. People are incapable of telling the truth about themselves.’

‘But that’s how it felt to him. He was only thirteen by then. It completely broke him up. He skipped on his school work and started getting into mischief, fighting and breaking windows. It was all to try and get his father’s attention. But instead, his father stopped talking to him. Just imagine, more than two years without a single word. He pretended not to see him. They’d be sitting together in the same room but his father would behave as if he was alone. When he was dying and Honza came to visit him in hospital, he didn’t speak to him. Honza went home and tried to commit suicide. He slashed his wrists: I’ve seen the scars.’

‘You shouldn’t think about it. You’re too worked up.’

‘And do you love me?’

‘You know I love you.’

‘I love you too.’ She might have cuddled him if she had had enough strength left.

The next day she didn’t wake until eleven thirty. She found a note on a chair at her bedside: ‘The children are at your mother’s. Get some sleep. The washing-up’s done! You can give me a call. Have a good sleep.’

Again no expressions of affection. It was his way of punishing her for having been so tired yesterday and because he’d done the washing-up.

It annoyed him that she was usually tired, even though she didn’t have a full-time job. As if six hours in the library, as if travelling to and fro in a packed tramcar weren’t enough in themselves to drain her of energy. As if in addition she didn’t look after him and the children. In the old days women didn’t have to go to work and they’d have a maid to help them as well. So of course they could be sprightly whenever their husbands remembered them.

She got up and went to the kitchen. Her head ached and her limbs felt weak. This was the start of her holiday. He could have written: I love you. Or added some kisses. But he had done the washing-up, even though he’d left the sink dirty and she would need to wash half the plates again. And he’d taken the children to her mother’s, got up early and done things surprisingly quietly, not even woken her up.

She had a drink of milk (he’d done some shopping too). Her eyes smarted so much she had to keep blinking. She climbed back into bed and draped a scarf over her face. Next day she was leaving, she realised; she would be alone with the children in the hills. What if he came after her? But she was known there, her brother would be there with his family. It didn’t bear thinking about.

What did bear thinking about then? What was there to look forward to? There weren’t even any nice books being published, and it was her job to withdraw the nice ones that had come out before from circulation. It was such a humiliating task. Maruš had been thrown out so she was ashamed to go and see her because she herself had not yet been sacked. She had had only two friends in the library and they had both fled abroad. She didn’t even know where they were now. What was left for her?

When she was six years old, during the last year of the war, everyone expected Prague would be bombed and her parents had sent her to an auntie in the uplands on the Moravian border. The auntie wasn’t a real relation — she had been in service with her parents before she got married. She had a cottage with tiny windows, and the kitchen, which smelt of bread and buttermilk and boiled potatoes, was hung with coloured prints: the Virgin Mary and Child, St Anne with the Mother of God, a Guardian Angel. Her auntie had taught her a prayer — the only one she had ever said in her life. She could remember the way it ended: people may love me or hate me, but I shall not neglect Thee, and shall pray for my enemies, and commend their spirits and mine own into Thy hands. On Sunday she would go with her aunt to church where the portly priest in his robe would say mass. When they met him on the way out after mass he would hold out his pudgy hand to her smelling of incense and she would have to touch it with her lips. In those days she made up her own picture of God. He sat in the middle of a white cloud on a rocking chair (like the one her father sat in when he came home from work), clutching a crosier tight in His hand, and smiling with toothless gums. (She couldn’t explain why, but the idea of God having teeth seemed undignified to her.) He was tall, even massive (reminding her of His Majesty the King of Brobdingnag from the illustration in the children’s edition of Gulliver’s Travels), and invisible. Even so, she had no trouble seeing Him clearly: each evening, the moment she whispered ‘their spirits and mine own into Thy hands’, He would sail out all-powerful on His shining white cloud, motionless and smiling toothlessly, high above her head, and she would be overwhelmed with a sense of security such as she had possibly never known since.

She went on praying for some time after the war, but He never appeared again: maybe it was because the clear stars no longer shone outside the window, or because the perfect stillness of the country no longer reigned, or maybe she didn’t need Him so much any more once she was back at home.

Now she was totally stuck in Adam’s world, which had no room for God or prayer, the forgiveness of enemies, reconciliation or love, only for lovemaking, work, success and constant rush.

She opened her eyes again. She could hear a jumble of voices in her head and a pinwheel of faces spun before her eyes. She had always wanted to be surrounded by lots of people, as she had been when she was still living at home. She still yearned for a wider family: life in a kibbutz or a commune. There, she believed, people were closer to each other, nobody lorded it over anyone else, or bullied others for the sake of success.

‘Were you a success?’ Why had he asked her that, what had he meant? And yet she had been a success precisely in the sense he had asked her, and in fact it had made her happy. But now as she lay in her bed a train-journey away from the voices and faces of all those strangers and from his voice, she was gripped with anxiety at the thought of the future. She couldn’t imagine how she could continue what she had begun, but on the other hand, she couldn’t just stop it all at once, when he loved her and she loved him.

It was imperative that she should not hurt him in any way after all he had suffered in his life already. She didn’t want to hurt Adam either. He too had known suffering, which was why he was so unbalanced, obsessed with a burning need to be doing something. If only she knew of someone who might advise her, but she couldn’t see how she could confide in anyone, how she could overcome the shyness that distanced her from other people. Only to Tonka was she able to open herself. Her onetime fellow-student had abounded in the qualities she herself lacked. Although Tonka’s life had been marked by tragedy (her mother had divorced her Jewish husband during the war so as not to lose her doctor’s practice, and her father, sacrificed so shamefully, was taken off to Auschwitz where he died), she had somehow always seemed well-balanced, content, open to pleasures and joy. Tonka was only fourteen when she first necked with a boy in the actual entranceway of her own house. She herself would never have dared do anything like that. When she was striving desperately to reconcile her longing for independence with her desire to be a kind and obedient daughter, her friend had already parted company with her mother and stepfather.

Tonka believed in an odd mixture of Judaism, Christianity and spiritualism. The dead dwelled and lingered in invisible form on this earth and they were able to reveal their presence to particularly sensitive souls. She was able to conjure up her father not only in dreams but also in moments of concentration and solitude, and she could converse with him and receive messages, advice and encouragement from him.

Alena could never share Tonka’s belief, though. It struck her as running counter to all her experience — no one had ever manifested himself to her and she had never undergone anything that might be described as a mystical experience — but even so, Tonka had squeezed a promise out of her: whichever of them died first would try to manifest herself to her friend and report on the way the dead lived. She gave the promise, not because she believed there was the slightest possibility of its coming true, but because she loved her friend. Then, even though she was convinced the vow could not be fulfilled, it terrified her and she was tormented by a fear that she would be punished by the very power whose existence and influence on this earth she doubted.

In the final year of secondary school, Tonka was caught up by a passing lorry as she stood waiting for a tram. The lorry dragged her many yards along the street before crushing her to death.

That death confirmed all Alena’s foreboding. She became frightened of walking along the street, convinced that punishment was going to seek her out as well. She was frightened of going to sleep, because scarcely were her eyes closed than she saw two dazzling points rushing at her, and no escape. She waited with horror and hope for a message from beyond the grave, convinced no longer of its impossibility. But apart from appearing to her in a number of confused dreams, her friend disappeared irrevocably and irreparably from this world.

Just before she left school she became friendly with a girl who did not resemble her dead friend in the least. Maruška was tall and plain, and invariably in a ratty mood. She had grown up poor and she seemed embittered against the whole world. They were united by desolation. Or more likely she felt a need even then to help those whom fate had hurt.

They prepared together for their final exams, and immediately afterwards they made a trip to the Beskid Mountains together. They spent the week hiking in the mountains, sleeping in strangers’ houses, eating only bread, cheese and dry salami and drinking the ewe’s milk whey known as žinčica. They chatted a great deal about books, their teachers and their fellow-students, and tried to imagine the kind of man they could bear to live with. In fact they came to the conclusion that no one of the sort existed and they’d be better off on their own. They also recited Latin verse to each other, which for reasons unknown made them laugh. There was no doubt her friendship had helped the other girl find some self-confidence, because she married as soon as she left school.

She had never managed to find a real girlfriend since. Even before she finished university she met Adam and adopted his friends along with him, as well as their wives. The latter were older than she was, with the exception of Oldřich Ruml’s wife Alexandra, but she struck Alena as superficial and only interested in where or how she could obtain Italian boots, French perfumes or English fabrics. She had most in common with Matěj’s Anka, a wise, level-headed person whose calm and energy and even looks recalled her own mother. But wasn’t that precisely a very good reason not to explain to her what she’d just been through? Anka would never understand her. She had her own attitude to the family. In fact their attitudes to their families were not very different; the difference lay in their husbands. Matěj was calm, wise, sensitive and balanced, and was capable of giving others support and guidance. Lacking self-assurance, Adam was unable to guide himself, let alone anyone else. He would slave away constantly without knowing why or what for, and criticise her for not doing enough, being slow and wasting time sleeping. Frequently, however, she only feigned sleep: both to him and to herself, because she was reluctant to wake up, rouse herself to a world in which she wasn’t at ease and where she felt deprived of support and tenderness. If he were different she would have had at least five children, a big family; perhaps she would have adopted some child from a broken home, or a little gypsy. If Adam had been different she wouldn’t have had to go looking elsewhere for love, love and a mouth that didn’t need searching for, its touch, the warmth of a stranger’s lips and a stranger’s arms, that…

When the phone rang, she was unable to tell where she was or how long she’d slept. Her heart was thumping, whether from being torn out of her sleep or from excitement she wasn’t sure. But it was only her mother.

‘Am I disturbing you, love?’

‘Hello, Mummy.’ She tried to make her voice sound normal. ‘How are the children?’

‘That’s why I’m calling. Daddy and I have to go into town.’

She hadn’t the slightest idea what time it might be.

‘Is it all right if he brings them over?’

‘Yes, of course it is!’ (Knowing her mother they were already on their way out of the door. Her mother never asked first, she acted and took decisions and merely announced them to others in the form of questions.)

‘Marketa is such a sweet child,’ her mother said. ‘She picked you a thistle in the park. Is Adam back yet?’

‘No, I think he’s in court.’

‘Is he very busy?’

‘You know Adam. He’s always very busy.’

‘I don’t know. He ought to choose some other profession. With his gifts and education.’

‘Oh, Mummy!’

‘All he’s doing is making lots of enemies. One day, one of those…’

‘Mummy, you know it’s pointless.’

‘There are plenty of jobs where they can use people like him. In export for instance,’ her mother was unbudged. ‘And no one ever bothers them.’

She had only just hung up when the phone rang again and all at once she knew it was him. There was a moment’s silence at the other end. ‘It’s me…’ She didn’t say anything. She had been looking forward to the call and was pleased he’d phoned, or rather, she wouldn’t have been pleased if he hadn’t phoned, but now — any moment the children would be here and she hadn’t even managed to wash or get something to eat.

‘It’s you,’ she replied at last. ‘Had a good sleep?’

He treated it as a joke. ‘I couldn’t get to sleep. I couldn’t stop thinking of you.’

‘That’s sweet of you.’

‘Alena,’ his voice dropped as if he was afraid someone would overhear him, ‘I have to see you!’

‘When?’

‘Right now!’

‘I can’t. How could I get to you? What’s the time, anyway?’

‘Three,’ he said, ‘five to three.’

‘There you are. My children will be here in a moment. And tomorrow I’m going away.’

‘That’s precisely why I have to see you. Please, Alena, I beg you!’

‘Has something happened?’ The urgency in his voice frightened her.

‘Yes. I’m in love with you.’

‘Oh, Honza, my love. But I can’t now!’

‘Just for a moment.’

‘Where are you calling from?’

‘From your place.’

‘What do you mean?’ and in spite of herself she looked round the bedroom.

‘I’m here in the phone booth. On the corner of your street.’

‘You’re crazy!’

The doorbell rang in the passage, followed by the sound of a key in the lock.

‘Wait,’ she told him. Quickly she slipped on her dressing-gown. ‘The children are here,’ she said, ‘with my father.’

‘But I have to see you!’

The bedroom door opened with a crash. Marketa was holding in her hand a prickly thistle stalk.

Behind her flaxen mop there appeared the darker, round head of her son. The head said: ‘Mummy, is it true that donkeys eat this?’

For a moment she was covered in shame. She put her hand over the mouthpiece. ‘Go and take your shoes off. And don’t interrupt me. You can see I’m on the telephone.’

‘I’ll wait here,’ suggested the voice at the other end.

‘No,’ she said quietly, ‘we might be…’

The door opened once more. She turned to see the ruddy face of her father. ‘You’re on the phone? Sorry!’ But he remained in the doorway.

‘OK then,’ she said quickly, ‘but I don’t know when!’

‘I’ll wait here until…’ the receiver yelled. She banged it down, in a sudden fit of panic that even that might not silence it. She was sure she’d gone red, but her father seemed not to have noticed, or pretended he hadn’t. He was a well-bred man.

‘I’m glad you’re here, Daddy. I could do with popping out to the supermarket for bread.’

‘I’ll run and get you some,’ her father offered.

‘No, thanks all the same. I’ll get it myself.’

‘But you’re not even dressed,’ her father said, not yielding his offer. ‘I’ll be back before you’re dressed.’

She hurriedly combed her hair. She tugged so hard it brought tears to her eyes. ‘There’s no need to worry, Daddy. If you’re in a rush, don’t hang about, I’ll go later on.’

Her father went out, leaving her with the children.

‘Mummy, have you packed yet?’

‘I’m going to take that crying doll.’

‘Will Auntie Sylva be there with Lucie?’

Now he’d be walking up and down outside the phone booth. Scrawny and with a visionary’s gaze, waiting for her. She was touched that someone was still waiting for her and wasting time that way. Whenever she was late, Adam scolded her roundly.

She heard a distant rumble outside. That was odd: a storm first thing in the morning! No, of course, it wasn’t morning any more; in a moment Adam would be back and might see him. ‘Would you mind,’ she asked the children, ‘if I popped out for some bread?’

‘Daddy brought a loaf this morning,’ her daughter told her.

‘Daddy will need that one here,’ she explained. ‘We’ll need some bread for the journey. You keep an eye on Martin while I’m away.’

‘I’m going with you,’ the little boy said.

‘Stay here,’ she told him. ‘Take a look out of the window. It’s going to rain.’

‘That doesn’t matter, Mummy. You always used to tell us that rain doesn’t matter.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she admitted in desperation, ‘but when you’re shopping it does, because the food can get wet.’

‘Then why are you going shopping, then?’ Martin started to snivel. ‘I don’t want to stay here with her. She bosses me about.’

So they all went out together. She could hardly insist that they obey her, seeing that her motives were so obviously base. She saw his tall figure from afar. He was standing still, leaning on the lamp-post and looking in the direction from which he clearly expected her to appear. Her lover.

In the supermarket she bought one superfluous loaf and some rice. Probably she ought to be buying something for the journey, but she was in no state to think what they might really need; Adam usually took care of the shopping. As she was leaving the shop, he was still standing there. My little lad, she addressed him silently, and felt so tenderly towards him that she had to make every effort not to desert the children and run over.

Before we taste the waters of Lethe

1

It was my first encounter with punitive justice, or rather with an all-powerful police. They accommodated us in a rambling barracks. During that winter of 1941–42, we were sleeping thirty-two to a room, lying on mattresses on a filthy floor tramped over by soldiers’ boots for the past century and a half. From the window could be seen a number of ordinary two-storeyed houses. Indeed there was altogether little of interest in that town, except perhaps for the bastions of the fortress, and the cemetery with the graves of Gavrilo Princip, Nedeljko Cabrisovič and Trifko Grabež, whose action allegedly sparked off a world war virtually forgotten now. In the distance, beyond all the houses, the battlements and the cemetery, there were hills. A steep grey-green hillside whose features remained etched in my memory for ever.

The features of the people, however, have been lost to me. What would have remained unchanged of those features anyway after three decades, had they lived on? But none of them did, as far as I know, apart from me, Adam Kindl, No…. — but I don’t even want to recall the number — and my mother and my brother Hanuš. I can’t even muster the names of most of the people; in our room there lived three Stein families, but that name conjures up no faces, it is only a sound: one of the sounds of those days, like the snatch of a silly rhyme that I learned on the scarlet-fever ward:

Aaa, aaa, aaa,

Doktor Schlanger ist schon da.

It all seems equally real and equally unreal, only a gathering of bloodless shades, without feeling. Sometimes it strikes me that they have had nothing to do with my fate, and then I find it incredible they were once part of my life.

I can’t even remember the name of that woman, not even her face, just the fact that she made a little table out of suitcases, and covered it with a tablecloth. On the tablecloth there stood a vase, and in the vase artificial flowers — marguerites I think they were. That woman — only women and children lived in the room — was kind to me like all the others, and because our mattresses were only separated by a narrow aisle and we lay feet inwards, whenever I went to bed I could see her, her lips, whose shape I no longer recall, of course, as they tried to form themselves into a reassuring smile.

Once I woke up in the middle of the night. I slept fitfully in those strange surroundings full of noises, loud sighs, snores and sobs, and I heard a moaning that filled me with anguish. I sat up. On the bedside table made of suitcases there shone a lighted candle and that woman was sitting with a cushion folded between her back and the wall, her grey hair falling about her livid, sweat-beaded brow. I gazed at her, unable to move or say anything, and as I watched her wiping the sweat from her forehead, writhing and giving out inarticulate moans, my terror grew.

Worst of all, no one else woke up; I alone shared the woman’s wakefulness. I knew I ought to get up and ask her what she needed, or wake someone else, seeing that she hadn’t done so herself. Instead I pulled my blanket over my head and blocked up my ears. I had no inkling yet that there are sounds that cannot be escaped so easily. Curled up beneath the blanket with my eyelids squeezed shut, I heard and saw her more clearly than in reality. When I woke the next morning, she was already lying motionless, her face covered with the sheet, and on the sheet the bunch of artificial marguerites. Women were walking by with cups in their hands and my brother was building something out of the few bricks he’d brought with him, someone was yelling that coal was to be handed out, and on the table made of suitcases the precious candle was still burning. Then two men appeared with the first stretcher I’d seen in my life. They loaded the dead woman and shortly afterwards I saw them passing through the barracks gate and disappearing along a snow-covered street.

That evening, I escaped into the courtyard. It was the only place from where I could see the sky. A cold and almost imperceptible light filled the darkened yard with terrifying shadows. Until that moment — it was only a few months after my tenth birthday — I had only played. Even my stay here had only been a game. I had played at queuing for food with a dinner bowl; I had played at transports; I’d even tried to play at being afraid — though my fear of those men in uniform was genuine. But how could I suspect the depth of the chasm into which we had been thrust? Now I realised that a single, irrevocable moment could interrupt the game. Now I too was being loaded on the stretcher, my head carefully put straight and the sheet being pulled over again and again. Just cover the lad’s eyes, he can’t see any more anyway. Anguish quietly crept out of the nocturnal shadows. I yearned to escape from the barracks, not just from here: to escape from a world in which everything ended so hopelessly. Lord God come! Jesus Christ appear to me! Give me a sign that You know about me, that You hear, that You are still the Redeemer, tirelessly redeeming still. I looked up at the sky. The stars could be seen more clearly here than in the town where I was born, they seemed to me to fill the sky far more. Amidst all those stars, each of which was supposed to be bigger than the Earth and was ablaze with enormous flames, God was swimming like an enormous invisible fish. He didn’t hear anything — He couldn’t through all the roar of flying stars. It seemed to me that I could hear the distant crackling sound of that mass flight of stars.

I was at the age when one is too bound up in one’s own feelings to be able to notice the feelings of those who seem more powerful and hence exist in order to afford one protection. It was only years later that it struck me how dreadful it must have been for my mother. She was so delicate that even before the war she scarcely coped with living. Now she was assailed by calamities and tribulations — each more terrible than the next.

She had been one of a large family. I remember how many there were of them in Grandad and Grandma’s flat on Anenské Square: Mother, Auntie Anita and Uncles Ivan and Jakub, and the youngest of all — the pale, and to my eyes, very beautiful Auntie Marta. They had all grown up together in that flat, which had just one room and a kitchen, so I couldn’t fathom how they all squeezed in, let alone the lodgers my mother told me used to live in the kitchen. My mother was the second youngest.

I think she loved her brothers best of all. They were both absorbed in politics and had become professional revolutionaries (something which at that time might have been rash, and certainly was not as profitable as it is nowadays). And she adored her diminutive father who, while he never rose higher than the rank of a municipal official, was a self-taught intellectual, had mastered several languages and studied the still rather unfamiliar works of Marx, Engels, Kautsky and Bebel. He was well versed in both mythology and history (our continent’s, at least: he would tell me stories of Odysseus, Cromwell, the incorruptible Robespierre, and of Napoleon, the genius who had buried the revolution); and he had visited — mostly on foot — a large part of the empire of his birth, even meeting, in the course of his travels, the Emperor himself, whom as a socialist and republican he could not of course admire, and whose right to govern he denied; yet he regarded him as such an important personage that fifty years later he could describe exactly what the Emperor was wearing at that moment. Grandad also played the fiddle and could blow the bugle, and if I implored him he would take it out of the cupboard, insert the mouthpiece and blow a tattoo or play the Radetzky March.

On the first night of one of the many occupations of our country, when Hitler’s army was nearing Prague, Auntie Marta gassed herself. I still don’t know if it was the only reason or just the last straw on top of some personal misfortune, but before we even held the funeral, both uncles turned up in our apartment, not to join in the mourning, but to seek refuge for the one night. They were wanted by the police. I remember them talking for a long time, and clearly hearing through the wall my mother’s sobs. She begged them to give it up and not abandon her. And I heard the calm, deep voices of my uncles (they addressed her as Mousie) trying to console her. I fell asleep. Next morning the uncles had gone from the flat and I never set eyes on them again.

A few months after Auntie Marta’s funeral, Auntie Anita disappeared. Mother knew only that she wanted to flee to the Soviet Union with her fiancé Karel, but she did not learn whether they actually succeeded or not.

Then both uncles were arrested. The court, which only ever delivered one verdict and hence lost all right to be called a court, pronounced the inevitable sentence and shortly afterwards they were executed. That was probably one of the reasons why my mother fell ill. She lay for several days in high fever. She was only slightly recovered when they summoned my father to the transport. I remember her packing Father’s things into two big suitcases they had bought at the beginning of the war. Linen and high boots which I’d never seen him wear, several boxes of grape sugar, medicine against typhus and lots of socks. (Who would he have to wash them for him, and would they ever meet again, in fact?)

She stayed with us and her old parents (Grandad was already over eighty) alone in a country full of enemies, and in addition spurned, branded and condemned. Only the date of departure remained to be announced.

Then the moment arrived. It was just before mid-day and Mother was cooking potato dumplings, my favourite, for lunch. The doorbell rang; there stood a little fellow, a complete stranger. He made a deep bow, then spoke some quiet words I couldn’t hear and my mother rushed out on to the staircase. For the first time in my life I heard her scream. She screamed so loud that doors opened all over the house and neighbours came out to look. The housekeeper came to see us and someone telephoned Auntie Simona who lived nearby. They had generously given us two hours to pack. Even the little fellow helped bring things and toss them into the cases. Then they drove us to the fortress, where they assigned thirty people to live with us, allocating us twice two and a half square metres of blackened floor, just enough space for six of our mattresses, six mattresses for the three of us and three cases at our feet. That was our space. My mother was always a stickler for cleanliness. She was careful to get for us everything that medical science prescribed: vitamins and fresh air, a balanced diet, a proper night’s sleep in a well-aired room. Now there was nothing she could do for us but leave us some of her own portion of food and straighten our bedding when we kicked it off at night.

Within a week, my brother — scarcely three years old — came down with a fever. Someone offered my mother a tablet, but she was frightened to give him anything without a doctor’s prescription. So instead she sat by his mattress, and while he cried she tried to sing to him in the quietest of voices, almost a whisper. (Where had the days gone when she used to sing to me night after night in her soft, heart-warm, pain-free voice. Oh, my dear wee son, In the field so wide There stands a castle by the babbling river’s side!) She must have sung to him all night. So many nights without a glimmer of hope, nights like fringes on a cape tied with a cord at the neck; in the morning someone rushed in to tell them that a sick-bay had just been opened. So she wrapped my brother up in several blankets and carried him through the chilly corridors. In time I was to discover that the system of corridors was rational and simple in true Maria Teresa style, but on that occasion we rushed round and round in circles going up and down staircases coming out in places we’d never seen before or in places we’d come to more than once already. Then someone shouted at us to make ourselves scarce, that there were Germans on the way, but it was too late, they appeared out of nowhere: two men with black jackboots and skull badges on the front of their caps.

We went rigid, our backs pressed to the wall, and my mother clutched to herself the bundle of blankets encircling a crying mouth. I stood several paces in front of her, terrified that the disorderly cries would infuriate the two masters of our fate then approaching.

And that is the scene as I still recall it: the long corridor with its many unglazed arched windows and a row of dark-coloured doors, two policemen whose heavy footsteps were coming nearer and nearer; armed justice on the march, requiring the world to bare its head; and my mother motionless by the wall, with her pale, exhausted face, my mother clutching a bundle of blankets from which crying could be heard.

Meanwhile through the arches of the never glazed windows flakes of snow drifted out of a chill ash-grey sky and even started to settle on the floor of the corridor, making the black of the approaching jackboots even blacker and even more menacing, therefore.

2

The first time the barrack gates opened for us was in the middle of winter. Under the supervision of a local policeman with a rifle, two men in dark overcoats were carrying my brother out on a stretcher. Hanuš had fallen ill with scarlet fever; I had got over my own attack and now — wrapped up in a blue winter coat — cheerfully stamped along at the side of the stretcher. The free snow lay knee-high. Somewhere in the distance whole armies were being smothered in snow, but I didn’t see them, all I saw was the man in front carrying a dark lantern and the empty street before me. I recall it all like a Bruegel painting, although maybe slightly less apocalyptic. I can even hear the rustle of crows’ wings, the crunch of the crisp snow and my brother’s quiet moans. My brother was afraid they were taking him away from his mother. I leant towards him so that he knew I was there and had nothing to fear, and he slipped his hand out from under the blanket and gripped me fiercely. And I walked alongside the stretcher in the freshly fallen snow, with what seemed free space about me at last, and it was a blissful moment when I became aware of the change. It was as if liberty was already mine, as if I were not just moving between two prison buildings, as if I was unaware that in a few moments this outing would come to an end. What can it have all meant to my brother at the age of three? Once, many years later, I asked him if he sometimes recalled those days. ‘Well, it’s a funny thing,’ he said, ‘it never struck me that I ought to try and remember too.’ And he made an effort to bring back something that happened there to at least one of his friends, but couldn’t remember anything except that on the front of the barracks just below our window there hung two plaster horses’ heads that frightened him. He was unable to remember, even though he has a better memory than I; that period had torn itself away from his memory like a top-heavy boulder and fallen into the depths. But I couldn’t forget. I was older, at the age which we all carry within us as the age of innocence and first perceptions. I carry my boulder around within me, but I have got so used to it that I stopped being aware of it long ago. I have become accustomed to not thinking about it. Even at the time I was becoming used to it: to not thinking about the long slips of paper with name, date and number, which signalled a step into the unknown; to not taking any notice of the weeping or terror of others, those who were selected; to not thinking about the emptying rooms, the people who had spoken to me not long before and would never say anything to me again; to not becoming attached to anyone or anything, when everyone and everything was destined for destruction; to not thinking about Osi who could walk on his hands or Ruda who almost knew off by heart Dr Holub’s Journey to Mashakulumbu and could talk about Dr Schweitzer’s hospital as if he’d visited it himself, or about timid, sickly Olga who apparently gave her first concert at the age of ten, so that I even stopped remembering Arie, though not so long before I had been incapable of conceiving of a day without him.

So I became practised at it and their shades ceased to affect me and I no longer encounter them even in dreams. When I walked round the museum at Auschwitz some years ago, past piles of battered suitcases marked with big enamel signs, I realised that I’d forgotten even my friends’ surnames.

Arie used to wear a little skull-cap: the yarmulke. He would never stay and play with us till evening but would always go off and pray the maariv. I found it odd or even a waste of time. I was sorry for him. And then the day came when I felt that I liked him, although I can’t remember the immediate reason why. I was unable to get to sleep that night. Up I got from my palliasse, got dressed and slipped out of the room without making the slightest sound. I ran along the long corridor. Arie’s father was chairman of the Council of Elders, so he lived with his family in an apartment. It was an incredible refuge with real beds, cupboards, a table and chairs, situated at the opposite side of the building. I had to pass many doors before eventually finding myself in front of the right one. Then I waited with thumping heart to find out if he too was awake and would come out so that we might meet.

He had paper and coloured pencils and would draw people and things there, even though it was strictly forbidden. He gave me a couple of sheets and lent me pencils, and we would sit together on a wide parapet and draw the yard: the food queue and dozens of figures. He could capture the rampart walls in perspective, the play of light and shade, and could even draw a cart and horses, while my lines would go all over the place instead of forming the appropriate shapes. He made me a present of one of his pictures, and I still have it, a drawing of an old woman, surely dead by now. She is seated on a folding stool, wooden clogs on her feet, spectacles on her nose, a yellow star on her breast, an outsized yellow star, and a blue vein on her forehead; and above her the grey barrack wall, leaning slightly as if it was about to collapse; it is broken in only one place by a curving window and in the middle of it, on a white window ledge, sits a crow. Whenever I look at the picture, it conjures up that strange, almost unbelievable world, and I realise with shock that I once lived in it. I know I ought to pass the picture on to the museum, in fact they once wrote to me and asked me whether I had some relic of those years, but I said no. It is the only souvenir I have of him, most likely the only one that anyone has.

There were days when we felt happy. We would play pig-in-the-middle on a small flat area between the barracks and the wooden building where the women peeled mica, and when it rained we held button-football tournaments or sat in a corner of a barracks corridor, telling each other the plots of stories we had read back in the days when we still had access to books. I’ve already forgotten the names of the novels that the others recounted (I myself told the stories of the Pickwick Club — having brought a copy of the Pickwick Papers with me from home — and the adventures of Tom Sawyer, which I loved) but I could be amazingly fascinated even by fragments of other stories and characters: Tecumseh (which meant Wild Cat Leaping on its Prey, if my memory serves me right) who strives in vain to save his Indian land, and Leather Stocking who tracks through the wilds to save his daughter abducted by the Indians, and Quonab who prays to the Great Spirit

Father, we are walking in darkness

Father, we understand nothing

As we traverse the darkness we bow our heads

and the high-minded William Penn, who declared that liberty without obedience was confusion, obedience without liberty was slavery, and Edison who said that his ancestors were fighters while he was just an old engineer engaged in the work of peace. And I can still remember the names of dozens of Indian tribes (in the distorted form I heard them from the lips of my friends) and the names of towns and rivers such as Santa Fe, Little Bighorn, Oswego and Detroit and Luenge. And now in turn the names of the lakes, countries and mountains of those distant continents conjure up a picture of that gloomy corridor: raindrops falling on wet parapets; and oddly enough I feel nostalgic, and I can’t tell whether it’s a nostalgia for my childhood years or for the never-never land of free proud noble men and endless space that seemed so unreal and incredible in the closed and impenetrable hollow of the barracks corridor.

Arie never told stories like that, he only read historical novels, besides the Torah and the Talmud.

I knew nothing of Jewish theology or traditions, and for years I didn’t even know the word Jew. I couldn’t understand its fateful connection with my own life, and I hadn’t the slightest notion of Jewish culture, language and literature, let alone the calendar, feast days and ceremonies.

What’s the Talmud? Arie told me that it was the teaching and wisdom of the old rabbis.

I wanted him to relate me something from that book, and he really did tell me several stories and I recall how in one of them evil spirits appear. I asked him, almost in amazement, whether he believed in evil spirits and he replied that in the days when those books were written, learned and devout men undoubtedly saw evil spirits. And where are they then? What has become of those evil spirits nowadays? They’ve gone into people, of course. He even smiled at my question. That answer stayed in my memory, although I can’t tell whether it was his own, or whether he was merely repeating someone else’s answer to his own question.

Why mustn’t people work on a Saturday?

The Sabbath day is the day of peace. At one time man lived in the Garden of Eden at peace with Him who created everything, blessed be His name, and with all creation. Man did not kill. He used the fruits without toiling in the sweat of his face. He warmed himself without fire and reaped without sowing. It is a great joy that at least one day in the week we can recall the time of peace and bliss.

None of it made any sense to me. After all, they were all just fables; man had risen from the ape and never lived in Paradise. Was it possible that someone could believe such stories?

I also vaguely remember how he would tell me with enthusiasm about the old law (he himself wanted to study law when the war was over and we went home again), about the Sanhedrin which judged more justly than courts today, and which could sentence to death in four different ways and for many different crimes, although it preferred not to use the death penalty at all. But I can no longer separate in my memory what I heard from him and what I read later and merely connected with him as being something he might have told me.

The stories and events have gone from my memory, but what stuck in it for ever was the nobility of his appearance. I greatly wished to resemble him. Even years later I strove to imitate his gestures and manner of speech. Little did I know that nobility is the most inimitable of qualities. It must be innate and it can develop only in those souls capable of perceiving in the world the presence of God, under whatever name, and acting in harmony with it of their own accord, not because they are commanded to.

My brother Hanuš was always falling ill. He was small, thin and pale — from time to time I would be troubled in the evenings by the nagging thought that he might not last out the night and he would be no more. At the end of autumn he fell seriously ill. The doctor who did casualty duty said he suspected pneumonia and advised my mother to leave my brother in sick-bay. But my mother decided she’d wait a day more, and put Hanuš to bed in our inhospitable room. She sat up with him that night but in the morning she had to go to work and I stayed alone with my brother. I knew that I was not to leave him even for a moment, and at mid-day was to change his compress, warm him some coffee on the stove and give it him to drink.

My brother lay completely still on the mattress, covered up to the chin with a soiled sheet, his eyes closed, his cheeks unusually flushed and his breathing raucous.

I sat down on the edge of the mattress; he opened his eyes slightly and moved his lips. It was not to ask for drink or food, but for me to tell him stories. Not very long before I had been at the age of listening to stories myself and I knew many, I had even read an account of the siege of Troy, with brave Achilles and Hector. So I talked to my little brother as requested. I told stories to myself and to him, both to lull him to sleep and to ease my own anxiety. I was afraid. I was afraid something terrible would happen, that Hanuš would start to call out in his fever, that he’d begin to cry or squirm, that he’d stop breathing, that an SS man would appear out of nowhere and tell us to get up. But my brother would be unable to get up and we would be punished on the spot and sent to Poland with the next transport. But my brother wouldn’t survive that journey and would die in the freezing draughts of that cold wagon.

Towards noon, my brother fell asleep and I rushed off impatiently for my lunch. I always relished the thought of what the cook might lavish on me; maybe there’d be dumplings with sweet sauce or at least potatoes with mustard sauce, but today I was determined to forgo my lunch and let Hanuš have it instead. He needed his strength. When I returned, he was lying exactly as I’d left him. So I put the plate of food on the floor by his bed and shook him. But instead of looking at me and sitting up, he just opened his eyelids slightly, and behind them I could see nothing but the bloodshot whites of his eyes. I shouted at him to wake up, that I’d brought his food; he had to eat for goodness sake, or at least drink something. But he didn’t move, he couldn’t hear me, and it occurred to me that my little brother was dying. What was I to do? Where was I to run for help? I remembered being told some time that Auntie Simona had once saved her husband by giving him blood. But I didn’t know — I’d forgotten to ask — how one goes about giving someone else one’s blood… I soaked a towel in cold water, as my mother had instructed, and wrapped it round my brother’s small form. Then I found a needle in my mother’s work-box, closed my eyes and pricked my finger as hard as I could. The pain that ran through me made me cry out and then I watched the drop of blood welling up on my finger. I leaned over my brother and pressed my finger to his half-open lips. The blood slowly trickled out, turning his teeth and lips crimson and staining his chin. His appearance startled me. I wiped my finger and took his littler hand in mind. I thought to myself that if I pressed it hard enough my blood would flow into his veins. And maybe that’s what happened. Blood or some kind of power flowed from me into him. He began to breathe more calmly, then opened his eyes slightly and once more I could see his irises, which unlike mine were light grey, not dark brown. I asked if he needed anything and he just whispered to me to tell him a story. But I’d already told him all the ones I knew, so I had to think one up. So I started to dream up my own fairy tale — I knew I had to keep talking to drive away Death who was already standing at the head of his bed, as well as to calm the beating of my own heart, summon up all mysterious forces to assist me and bring me at least a droplet of the elixir of life. And that droplet truly did fall upon his eyelids and he opened them wide and gazed at me in such pain and devotion, so helpless and vulnerable, that I will never forget that look as long as I live.

Soon after that, they started to give puppet shows in the loft of our barracks. Anywhere else, I would have considered it undignified for someone my age to laugh at Mr Punch or watch a wooden Simple Simon fight a dragon, but since there was almost nothing cheerful to see in that place I even persuaded my little brother to come to the show.

Maybe for the sake of us older ones, a clown came out on to the stage at the start of the show. He spread his white lips into a broad grin, stared at us all with dark mournful eyes, then doffed his scarlet hat and bowed. He was dressed in a shiny yellow costume with just one sleeve and one leg the same colour as his hat, and at every sharp movement the bells on his legs jingled. He said his name was Harlequin and he’d come to tell us some stories. He walked towards the front row and tripped but didn’t fall; instead he did a somersault and came and sat on the edge of the stage. Then he asked someone in the front row their name and if they could read. Then he recited:

A little man came visiting

In a jacket brown

But when we took it off him

It made us weep and frown.

We were supposed to guess what it was, but no one guessed that it was supposed to be an onion. The clown did another somersault in the aisle between the chairs and I laughed with pleasure. But all of a sudden he was standing in front of me. I hunched my shoulders and stared at the floor, but he placed his hand on my shoulder and asked my name. When I told him he asked me a riddle:

I’m made from the same thing as Adam

I give people food and drink

I’ve two big ears but cannot hear

What am I, do you think?

Someone behind me yelled out: A cooking pot. The clown nodded but went on holding me by the shoulder. Now he wanted me to tell him who is the most useful of men. Everyone stared at me but no one gave me even the tiniest hint. I knew what I ought to reply. I’d already made up my mind, because I’d always wanted to be useful and help people, but the words stuck in my throat and I was scarcely able to whisper them: a doctor.

‘Yes,’ said the clown, ‘a doctor is a very useful person, but the most useful one of all, of course, is the man who tells the truth. That’s why even kings had their fools and wouldn’t let any ill befall them.’ He did another two somersaults in the aisle. Everyone laughed, although I couldn’t see what at, and I felt I’d been disgraced. Scarcely had the clown disappeared than I fled the loft, before the show itself had even started.

Then I received a sign. I wasn’t expecting it, but that is the usual way with signs: they come to those who are not expecting them.

I woke up in the middle of the night. In wartime, the darkness at night is total so that it not only fills people’s souls, it fills the windows too. Everyone else in the room was asleep; someone was snoring loudly. Commanded by some invisible power I made my way to the blacked-out window. I knew the view by heart. Immediately opposite the window stood some enormous lime trees. Beneath them were stored the wooden components of prefabricated buildings and behind them rose the fortress ramparts, covered on our side with grass.

I could remember the branches of the lime trees, blossom-covered, or green, or yellowing, or bare or snow-hidden, I had seen them deathly in darkness and terrifyingly alive when lit up by lightning. Now, obedient to the call, I very slightly lifted an edge of the black paper masking the window and went rigid. In the crown of the tree opposite, a light was revolving, a large gleaming eye was swirling round a fiery point. I felt its warm gaze come to rest on me, travel over me, and then penetrate me, reaching depths I knew nothing of, and in sudden awe I realised that it was He: God or Life whose mystery no one could fathom. He passed through me and I beheld Him.

I released the paper and trembled in terror. No one woke up and I stood motionless facing the blackout: I knew I had to lift the edge of the paper once more and catch another glimpse of that eye, but I was unable to bring myself to do it. When at last I did raise a corner and peered out through the chink, there was nothing there any more, just the dark treetop, quite intact.

Every night afterwards — I no longer recall how long it continued — I would wake up, trembling with anxious anticipation, and creep to the window to lift a corner of the blackout. But my light had disappeared and never returned, until one day I realised I would never see it again.

It was around that time that some friends and I managed to get into an uninhabited part of the loft and there, in a dark corner beneath a sharply slanting roof, we discovered a harmonium. The instrument, made from black polished wood, was free of dust as if someone was taking care of it. Goodness knows how the harmonium got there, who had smuggled it in, and when they dared to sit and play it. Olga carefully lifted the lid, had another look round and then started to play. The rest of us lay on the dirty floor of warm bricks. I wasn’t used to listening to music and I remember the strange ecstasy that overcame me. As if I’d been cut off from a world in which one looked forward to ersatz coffee and stewed swede, in which countless unknown people were packed together, a world of shouting, stench, and fear, a world of screeching burial carts pulled by humans. It started to become distant and I found myself elsewhere. I was alone, just myself within my own crystal-clear space. I don’t know why, but at that moment I longed to see a wide desert. Most likely it wasn’t a desert I longed for, but freedom; the knowledge that a desert was in my reach, that one day I could stand on a rock and gaze at the golden sands, be anywhere or anything, anything but a chained beast in a slaughterhouse yard. And it occurred to me that if I wished hard enough I’d manage to escape. I would fly upwards, outwards through the dormer window and clamber up the shafts of light; or else I would burst into flame; I could see myself in the middle of the loft (I expect I’d seen something similar in some picture or other) with flames shooting from me. I felt sorry for myself, but anything seemed preferable to waiting here for the strip of paper with my name on it.

When she finished playing, she closed the lid, and without a glance in our direction, said it had been nice of us to bring her there.

I fell in love with her. She was at least two years older than I. It struck me that she resembled my mother as I had seen her in her school-leaving photo. She had a slight limp, which touched me and it also occurred to me that her physical defect improved my chances.

She and I lived on the same corridor. I searched in my case for the only suit I owned which was at all formal — an imitation sailor’s suit which was no longer very appropriate for my age group and whose jacket cut me under the arms — and squeezed myself into it. Then I wetted and slicked down my tousled hair and set off for her door. I could have knocked on it, of course, and a few days earlier would have done so, but now I didn’t dare. For a long time I walked up and down the corridor in the hope that she might emerge, catch sight of me, be astounded at how clean, good-looking and interesting I could look — and fall in love with me.

She didn’t come out and the next day I was ashamed to repeat the same performance. Before I fell asleep I imagined them torturing her. SS-men had thrust her, naked and beaten, into a vile subterranean dungeon already full of countless gnawed human skeletons. In the middle of the night I crept to some inconspicuous window to throw her a crust of bread. Or, again naked, they had put her in an enormous cauldron of water that they were starting to heat up slowly. But disguised in one of their uniforms, I fooled them and came to her rescue. I carried her away, gripping her damp, tortured body, and started to quiver with tenderness and anticipated delight.

She certainly never suspected that I loved her or that I was rescuing her from her torturers night after night. No one suspected it and I confided in no one, not even Arie. They took her away, and being lame she stood no chance. I’ve even forgotten her face. I can only recall her seated in the pale attic light at the black instrument, her long fingers touching the keys. I used to think about those fingers. I would often imagine them gripping the floor tiles, those naked maidenly fingers that had produced music, as her body writhed in its last contorted throes. And I didn’t arrive to rescue her.

Another thing we did was to break into the storehouse. Oddly enough, neither then, nor at any time since, did it occur to me that there was anything untoward about our behaviour, or that we had broken any law. In the midst of universal lawlessness such minor transgressions pall into insignificance. And is it theft at all to take what has been stolen? Now I know it to be so, but deep inside me there lurks this question, whether a society which condones or actually requires the oppression of even one of its members does not in fact forgo the right to demand respect for the law from anyone.

The storehouse was the place where they brought the things left by the dead: pathetic flotsam, meagre chattels from old people’s homes and improvised hospitals, from that one great processing plant for corpses which, in reality, our town was — vulcanised cases with spidery writing, meticulously packed boxes and rucksacks that no one ever opened, trunks with iron mountings, bundles of eiderdowns in the strangest shapes because of the pots stuck inside them. From time to time, a grey-uniformed soldier would arrive with a tractor, men would jump down from the trailer, carry out as much of the luggage as the cart could carry, then close the doors again, fix an enormous padlock on them and drive away.

We pretended to be playing a game. While Osi was trying to pick the padlock with a skeleton key, the rest of us formed an impenetrable wall around him.

It took only a few minutes and he had the padlock open. The others went on pretending to play their game while, in the falling dusk, Arie and I squeezed through the narrow gap between the slightly open doors.

I heard the doors creak shut behind us, the shouts from outside were suddenly silenced and all we could hear was the sound of our own footfalls and breathing. At that moment, in the second before Arie switched on his torch, I felt the sudden onset of fear combined with the equally powerful sense of elation at being there with him. Then a huge shadowy figure was thrown on to the wall and crept further into the room’s interior. My fear was dispelled, replaced by excitement at the things that lay within my grasp. Now I know that the more one is deprived of freedom the greater one’s attachment to things. But at that time, I felt nothing but ecstasy — a peasant in a castle which he had conquered, in a palace before which he had knelt in obeisance only the day before, and I opened the lids of suitcases and rummaged in them, while Arie smiled almost with disinterest and shone the torch for me. I think he had an abhorrence of those things, and years later, it is with a feeling of abhorrence that I recall the wretchedness of shirts worn from a hundred washings, which only a few days earlier had clothed an aged body; flannel underpants and faded petticoats, darned socks and skirts long out of fashion. But at that moment, I was only aware of the number of things for which I might possibly find a use: pyjamas, books (I had no time to investigate what language they were written in), climbing boots (which mountains were they meant for? Or does the downward path, the one to the River Lethe, perhaps descend by cliffs and precipices?), an octavo notebook with plenty of clean pages, an edition of Seneca’s selected letters, a bedside lamp in the shape of a toadstool. I tipped the contents of one of the suitcases out on to the floor and stuffed it with all these valuables. Then I cautiously pushed the case out through the crack between the doors (my mother’s cellar still contains an ochre-coloured leather suitcase whose former — late — owner’s name I scraped off that same evening, and but for that suitcase, that exhibit, I would, by now, doubt that any of it had ever happened, and wonder whether it was just fantasy, something I’d overheard somewhere, or read about and borrowed) and watched it quickly disappear, borne off into safer hiding in the barrack corridors.

But I went back inside, seized by a newly discovered, newly awoken rapaciousness. Now I was looking for food. I rummaged in suitcases while Arie kept silent watch; it was only at the last moment that we heard the agreed alarm signal. I had a bottle of perfume in my hand. I didn’t manage to put it down and was still holding it as I squeezed into a crack behind a pile of cases. Arie squatted down beside me. We tried to hold our breath. For a moment we found ourselves in total darkness, aware only of a mixture of smells: the smell of mould, musty rags, mouse droppings and the reek of perfume because the stopper wasn’t a tight fit, and I could feel the cold liquid running over my hand.

Then the doors creaked and the light from a dark lantern swung up and then down above our heads. They were already dragging us out of our hiding places, leading us along the lane under a bayonet — the disgrace for Arie and his father. And it’s all my fault, all because of my avarice. The rucksacks were already hanging from our shoulders, the earth shaking beneath our feet, the railway wagon already coupled up, the locomotive sounding its whistle, the grating of teeth, the thunder of the sleepers, the raised rifle-butts, the journey, weeping, the darkened sky; I’m walking forwards in a long file, no more mother, no more brother, just me alone; now the darkness is falling, enclosing me; nothing left now but a short moan before I fall down and sleep.

The light disappeared and the doors closed once more.

Has the man gone away for good? Is he waiting outside the doors? I knew I ought to get up and go and have a look, that eventually I’d have to, but I waited in fear. I was afraid of what I’d find. I was afraid of the truth; these days, I’d say the truth of my situation.

A few days later that same summer, Arie suddenly came to tell me he had to say goodbye. They had been summoned to a special transport. I can remember my consternation, the chilling dismay that he too was subject to the same inexorable fate as ourselves. But he didn’t strike me as afraid. Maybe he thought that his father would retain some of his old privileges in the new place, though more likely he had the gift of self-control and knew that the greatest virtue before Him whose name be forever blessed was humility; so he was capable of smiling even at that moment.

And so once more, for the last time we walk together down the long, grey corridor that I had run along that night when I realised I had a friend; the light shines in through the bay windows; we pretend that it’s not goodbye, agree where we’ll meet later when it’s all over; promise faithfully not to lose each other’s addresses: we’ll be bound to meet again. I have a growing feeling of dread, but I can already see us walking through the streets and crossing the thresholds of our homes. We exchanged photographs of each other. His was an ordinary passport photo, at least three years old; I remember it clearly, although I haven’t managed to bring it safely all the way from then to now; however, in those days, I would bring it out whenever I felt lonely and gaze at it with undiminished longing and nostalgia, and I could picture him moving away from me with his slightly shaky gait. It’s such a long time ago and I am sorry I cannot tell more, though I loved him dearly. But I don’t want to let my imagination run riot. When the war was over, I looked forward not only to seeing my father, who had also disappeared somewhere in Poland, but him too. I still used to take out his photo and was loath to believe that I would never set eyes on him again.

Some time later I heard that they didn’t even take them to another camp. They stopped somewhere in the middle of fields, forced them out of the train and shot them on the spot. But it’s possible that the story wasn’t true, and they murdered them some other way.

3

During the final days leading up to the end, prisoners from camps of every description were brought to our town from places undoubtedly more horrifying than our fortress. In the streets there appeared haggard shaven-headed individuals in grey and blue striped clothes, and we tried to find out whether my father wasn’t amongst them, or whether someone at least had news of him. But even more than the living, it is the dead who stand out in my memory. The poor things died in such numbers that they stacked them on carts as if they weren’t people, only wax models or dummies. It took several men to push the carts, with the two in front steering. Stiffened limbs hung out of the cart and motionless eyes stared out of the shaven skulls. I would give those carts a wide berth, but I also found them fascinating. I would shuffle along the opposite pavement. From that distance, the dead appeared harmless to me and only vaguely reminiscent of ex-human beings.

One day, on just such an occasion, a cart got stuck. One of the men pushing the cart called across to me: Come and give us a hand, young ’un! The nearer I came to the cart, the weaker I became, and I was convinced I wouldn’t be of any use to them anyway. By the time I was just a few paces away, I detected an odour unknown to me and it filled me with violent disgust and revulsion.

As soon as I put my shoulder to the side of the cart it occurred to me that I had not been summoned by chance. After all, what actually attracted me to those dismal carts, though I wouldn’t admit it, was a desire to find out whether one of them wasn’t carrying my father’s body. In fact, the whole time I was convinced that if they really did carry him past me I would receive some sign that would actually allow me to find him amidst that tangle of bodies. And now that I had received a sign I was afraid to believe it and did not dare raise my eyes. I leaned with the others against the wooden sides of the cart which indeed started to move again and I was able to take my leave. For a split second I looked up and immediately above me caught sight of a pair of dark eyes, fixed in a ghastly glazed stare. I didn’t even cry out. I shuffled to one side where there chanced to be a patch of grass and I sat down on it. I could still feel the saccharine sweet aftertaste in my mouth as consciousness left me.

That very evening, or maybe the one after, I was just falling asleep when I was woken by the unfamiliar persistent roar of nearby engines. I got up, pulled back the blackout and opened the window. There was still a chance that our gaolers would drive through the town shooting at us. But now there were other things for them to worry about. Like us, they found themselves on the border between being and not being, on the threshold of freedom which required them to flee, not to murder. And so I stood by the window as night fell, my mind on the passing roar. There was also the sound of gunfire and the deep-throated explosions of artillery grenades. Then I heard something utterly out of keeping with the gloom of the place: a shout of joy from myriad throats and people yelling hurrah over and over again. And someone was running around beneath our window bellowing like a lunatic: The Russians are here!

My mother got up, and hugged and kissed me. I picked up my brother Hanuš and took him to look out into the darkness where at that moment several rockets flared up and the smell of smoke and gunpowder wafted towards us. So this was the moment we had talked about for the past five years. We were free. We had been liberated.

The next day, I stood by the half-demolished fence that divided this place from the world and watched the moving columns of tanks, vehicles and horses — the vehicles decorated with pictures of statesmen like icons — all going in the same direction in an unstoppable tide, like a river, lava, a swarm of locusts — a natural phenomenon. And soldiers in filthy, dusty uniforms would occasionally toss a handful of cigarettes or sweets out of a vehicle and the crowd would dash forward into the road.

And I recall the moment when one of the men in striped clothes tried to reach a carton of cigarettes which was left lying in the middle of the road. In his desperate rush and eagerness to snatch the booty entirely for himself, he didn’t manage to get out of the way in time and so we all saw him fall and metal tank tracks pass over his body. They pulled him back by his legs and as they carried him past me I could see the bloodstained brains running out of the burst skull. I could feel myself going limp but I didn’t budge from the spot and so, in the short interval between two columns of vehicles, I was to see a crowd in pursuit of a thin little fellow. He was barefoot but his black trousers were of good quality and his shirt was very white. He was carrying a briefcase and doing a very good job of evading his haggard pursuers. But there were too many of us there by the fence and he suddenly found himself encircled. I tried to get as close as possible, but they quickly had him surrounded and hurled him to the ground anyway. For the first time I witnessing a people’s court; I heard shrieks, curses and supplications in German, then blows and a death rattle. Shortly afterwards they were carrying him away as well, now shirtless and his face obliterated; they carried him feet first towards me and I could see the deathly yellow shining through the layer of dust. I must have found it terribly shocking, for the scenes to have remained in my memory in such detail, though not shocking enough to prevent me looking on in jubilation. There were too many corpses for the shock effect to be sustained.

A few days later — the town had been placed under strict quarantine — my cousin Jiří arrived to release us.

We changed into our best clothes; the trousers of my sailor suit, now several years old, only reached half-way down my calves. It was a clear day in mid-May as we walked through the streets still crowded with people: here was the church whose tower I could see every day, the horses’ heads above the barracks entrance; in that wooden pavilion over there, a band had played for several weeks to show off to the commission of the Red Cross, here was the Vrchlabí Barracks with its de-lousing station; once when they brought a transport of Polish children here no one could understand why the children threw themselves on the ground and begged for mercy; several of the streets I had walked along countless times; the massive rampart wall; the fence which only a few days ago earlier had lain half demolished at the edge of the path, now entirely disappeared, and in its place a dusty, slant-eyed soldier-boy patrolling. I crossed the now only imaginary line of the fence and was immediately seized with terror that something was bound to happen. The little soldier who had just moved away from us would turn round, press the trigger of his machine-gun and we would fall down dead, as a punishment for crossing a border that couldn’t be so easily crossed after all. And out of the shrubs there appeared heads in grey-green caps with skull badges; I knew they hadn’t disappeared so easily and we were being pursued by our ever-vigilant, eternal and invincible guards. We walked past the young Red Army man and moved up the road towards the bridge. This was the mill whose smell I knew but had never set eyes on before. This was the River Ohře and the bridge that so many of my friends had passed across — an ordinary bridge! So I really was free; I could leave the road, leap the ditch and run around in the field. Beyond the next bend a small lorry was waiting, generating gas in its boiler for the journey, its sides bedecked with flags. I took one last look and at that moment the church tower and the building-brick fortress walls with their wide tops covered in soft grass all started to move. My childhood, my friends, twelve hundred and fifty-two days, my first love, the terrifying summer storms, the centuries-old lime tree below our window, God’s Eye in its topmost branches, life on a thread, dark lofts, the stench of a room crammed with people, Friday prayers in the dormitories, funeral carts, one of which had borne away my grandfather, people paraded with numbers round their necks, square-built SS men, Arie whose photo I was carrying with me in my pocket, the waiting for this moment — everything was leaving me and disappearing into the treetops. The wood gas gave off an irritating and unusual smell. My cousin opened his briefcase and unwrapped a slice of bread topped with egg and slices of wartime salami, and home-made buns filled with curd cheese and jam.

He asked about our father, from whom we had had no news for several months. The lorry would stop each time it came to a hill that was at all steep and I would jump down and walk those few free yards up the road alongside ditches full of helmets that had not yet rusted and the debris of motor vehicles. When at last we reached the top of a hill from which we could see Prague, Mother burst into tears and there was no consoling her.

4

Our flat in the house on the Old Town Square (the very day after our arrival, I ignored their objections and ran off to see it, squeezing through half-cleared barricades, jumping holes in the paving, sliding down heaps of stones and granite blocks, gaping at a bomb-site and an overturned tramcar until I finally arrived and was brought up short by the woeful sight of the burnt-out and smouldering shell of the Old Town Hall) was still locked, deserted and apparently full of other people’s things, so we spent the first days at Auntie Simona’s.

Auntie Simona was the wife of my father’s brother Gustav. I scarcely remembered my uncle, because he’d fled the country even before the outbreak of war; Auntie stayed behind because she didn’t think the war would last long. She was scared of going abroad and didn’t want to abandon her elderly mother. Now she was awaiting her husband’s return as we were our father’s and her patience was rewarded. A few days after the war ended a letter arrived bearing the stamp of the British military post. A single sheet of paper on which Uncle Gustav asked for news of herself, her mother, her brother-in-law Viktor — my father — and the family in general, whether we were alive, and then tried to give an account of the six years during which he had been unable to send us any news; he wrote that he had fought under General Montgomery at Tobruk and later taken part in the siege of Aachen, where he did get wounded, but not seriously. Auntie sobbed with joy. But we waited in vain for similar news. We had no idea where to look for Father or from what quarter the good or bad tidings might come. Mother would telephone the authorities and different institutions and we would spend our evenings glued to the wireless set in case we missed any of the announcements from the repatriation commissions. It seemed to me inconceivable that among all those names of all those people, the one we waited for hadn’t yet appeared. But the longer we waited the harder we found it to believe that the name would eventually come up. I would creep into the corner of the room that was allotted to me and where my bed was covered in the eight volumes of The Three Musketeers and freshly baked goodies. But in the evening, when I’d finally torn myself away from my book and switched off the light, I would lie there sleepless. I can’t be sure whether what I felt was anxiety about my father or my own fear of a world without Father. Although during the previous four years I’d almost lost all awareness of the normal world — the world in which people go out to work, earn money, and go shopping — I understood enough to realise that unless my father returned there would be no chance of a return to anything of my former life, which seemed within reach.

I would lie there with open eyes, the dull light from the street lamps shining into the room. Between Athos and d’Artagnan, in the deafening thunder of horses’ hooves, blue and white figures would be running about, their gaunt heads shaven; the muskets would go off and the figures would fall to earth and lie there frightful and non-human as I’d seen them lie by the moat and on the pathways, their lifeless faces covered in flies. It was possible that somewhere my father was lying like that, unidentified, and we would go on waiting in vain for weeks and months to come, and it would be up to me to start taking care of the family, going out to work — but how and what as? And at that moment I would convince myself that my father was strong and always coped somehow and would search my memory for proof. But usually the only image to surface was very ordinary: my father sitting at his writing desk in the evening surrounded on all sides by piles of books and papers. In front of him and slightly to one side, his drawing board and his big white slide-rule with the Faber trade-mark. Father was working; his head, with its short black hair, motionless; only his hand was moving; he was writing. Father heeded nothing and I was strictly forbidden to disturb him. Or I would remember waking up in the middle of the night — I was afraid of the dark, so my mother used to leave open the door to the hallway where earlier a light had been left on but was now switched off; only an enormous, terrifying moon hung unmoving in the sky. I wanted to cry out in fear, but at that moment I caught sight of a beam of light shining from Father’s study and I got up and ran quietly to the door and saw him through the chink: his motionless back, dark head and short haircut. And I at once felt safe. On another occasion, we were going somewhere by diesel express and the train halted in the middle of nowhere. When we had been stationary for several minutes, my father, too restless to sit and wait like the other passengers, got down from the train (and I with him) and set off in the direction of the locomotive. Two mechanics were squatting flummoxed by the open motor. Father asked them something, then took from his pocket the little black notebook he carried with him everywhere (incredibly dog-eared and every single page written on; but he loved well-used things, or rather he enjoyed testing things to see if they could be pushed beyond their normal limits as he could), made a rapid drawing in it, then took off his jacket, knelt on the ground and started to fiddle about in the motor. (I swelled with pride at the time, while quivering with anxiety whether he would manage to cure the enormous machine’s immobility.) Another time, during a storm in the woods, there was my father building me a little awning from branches and a rain mac; at some meeting in a hall full of people, there he was arguing with the speaker, the audience around him first doubling up with laughter and then applauding him; in the flat below ours, a Mr Chromec gassed himself, the housekeeper was ringing our doorbell white with agitation, and there was my father in a black dressing-gown picking the man’s lock with a piece of wire. Above all, don’t strike a light! The sickly and oppressive smell of gas wafted out of the flat; there was Father leaping over something lying on the floor and opening the window. He could cope in all sorts of situations, so why hadn’t we heard his name yet?

5

I discovered his journal many years later: a school exercise book with red covers. The label bore Father’s name, now scarcely legible, and above it the inscription:

ELEKTR. ANMERKUNGEN —

March — April 1945

I turned the first page. I had never been able to understand a single sentence or equation of all the tens of thousands of sentences and equations that Father had so far written and solved; I opened the book purely because of the date on its cover. Inside the cover, Father had drawn his own calendar for 1945; the days were methodically crossed off as far as 12th April, his birthday.

The opening was algebra. Lambda one equals zero five, lambda two equals one point zero eight phi. Father had used the backs of printed forms from an airport for drawing his diagrams and graphs and stuck them into the notebook somehow. The forms had columns labelled: Flugweg nach… Frontansflug um… Uhr… Fronteinflug… Zeitänderung um… I found it odd that Father should have been making calculations during those last days in a German camp, and I thumbed through the book page by page. The days were carefully marked and as usual I could make no sense of the calculations, until it came to 12th April when the calculations abruptly stopped and in their place Father had written: ‘It’s my birthday. If only I knew that my loved ones were alive. I wouldn’t want to face the future without them. But I’m sure we’ll soon see each other again well and free. For my birthday I have 200 gms. of bread for the day and this evening I’ll probably get a litre of soup, 50 gms. of margarine and 20 gms. of honey substitute.’

And with a different pencil, apparently that same evening, he had added: ‘Around 14:30 we had an air raid. The building next door burned down. I was lucky enough not to end my life with an exact age.’

This was followed by regular diary entries. Father used to keep note of the food rations, and of the Wehrmacht news bulletins, from which he tried to deduce the movements of the Red Army troops.

On the twenty-first of April at two o’clock at night they were issued with a loaf of bread, a quarter kilo of salami, a tin of ersatz coffee and some tea. Father also packed ‘my blanket, the photos of my loved ones, my slide-rule, notebooks, spoon and knife…’ Then they were herded northwards.

By evening they had walked twenty-five kilometres and Father and his friend G. slept out in the woods under the sky. He ate a quarter of his bread and a third of the salami. He was a methodical man and had decided to spread his meagre food ration over three days. Next morning they were roused at dawn and had to walk non-stop for half a day. Only in the afternoon were they given an hour’s rest. ‘I am lying on my back thinking,’ he wrote. ‘Everything possible is going through my head. What has become of the family? Are they still where they were? Perhaps they’ve been driven out too. I reassure myself that the front isn’t moving towards them and they are therefore safe. But what about when the front reaches them? Did they get sent to Auschwitz? Then I think about myself. What if I don’t make it? It would be a shame not to be able to publish my work on the bimotor theory. I think I’ve made a good job of setting it out. It suddenly strikes me that it’s wrong to be thinking about something so insignificant. The main thing is that the Germans should lose the war. Yes, that’s easy to say, but even so I wouldn’t like to finish buried here in the sand. I don’t want to lose right at the very end! I have eaten my piece of bread and salami slowly. It’s disappearing terrifyingly fast!

‘We’re still moving. It’s starting to rain and a cold breeze is blowing, most likely from the sea; perhaps we’re almost there. I put the blanket over my head. It’s awfully windy here. Walking is difficult. My coat and blanket weigh a hundredweight; I don’t know how to carry them. I’d sooner chuck them away — but what about the night? And what if it doesn’t stop raining?

‘No stopping. We’ve already done at least 25 kms. How far do they want to go? There’s a village on the horizon. Maybe there. No. Onwards again. We pass through several more villages until late in the evening the SS mark out a square in the forest. It’s dreadfully wet, everything is sodden. I threw the blanket off me and thought I’d fall on my face. There are three of us trying to find somewhere a bit dry to sleep. G. and I rake together leaves and I look for a wire or stick to prop up an awning. I make the awning out of a blanket and a few sticks tied together with bits of string. One blanket goes on the ground, one goes on top of the three of us, and the third is supposed to shield us from the rain. When I’m finished I eat a mouthful of bread and go to bed. I don’t even have the strength to think. At night it rains. An absolute downpour. I’m proud of my awning. It’s miraculous: the water runs off the blanket as off a tent. My mind went back to scout camps. I wouldn’t have dared do anything like that then. Sleeping out on the ground with just a thin blanket for a tent. In the middle of April! And 35 kms. a day on an empty stomach. But we saw one little boy who couldn’t go any further. He was left behind in a ditch with a red hole in the middle of his head. I don’t want to end like that! I mustn’t! I must withstand everything! The Germans have already lost the war, I don’t want to lose it too. I’ve got big plans still.

‘23.4.1945. We’re making tea. There wasn’t enough time; I only managed a swallow. I ate a piece of bread and some of the remaining portion of salami. We trudge along waterlogged and muddy tracks again. The first evening, I swapped my shoes with a Pole for some high boots of a larger size. They are almost too big for me. I’m getting blisters on my feet and they hurt at every step. The leader is constantly haranguing us for dawdling. It’s already noon and no break yet. Why all the hurry, since we can’t be going anywhere in particular? I’m feeling the effects of hunger and thirst. I chew at some plant that grows in the ditch and tastes like leek. We’ve already gone at least 35 kms. since morning and we straggle through the meadows like a wounded snake. My legs and feet hurt terribly — like walking through fire. I walk. Left. For a long time, nothing, then: right. Nothing again, then: left. Just pain. Even so we managed to reach the village without a single loss of life. Most of the lads had been receiving parcels from home and are therefore fit. I’m one of very few out of those five hundred really to have gone hungry for the past month and lived entirely from my own body’s reserves.

‘They divided us between two barns. We had straw and a roof. I almost fell on the ground. For a while I just lay there, then I ate the last morsel of bread but it only made me more hungry.

‘24.4. In the morning we get up and wash at the trough. Starting the day without anything to eat? So I go to the guards in the yard — an SS-man is looking for people to do a job. I volunteer in the hope of coming into contact with locals and getting a chance to trade the only thing I have: the tin of coffee. We’re going to fetch drinking water. There is some Pole sitting in the doorway eating bread. I expect I looked terribly envious because he took pity on me and called out to ask the SS-man if he could give me some. So I dashed over to the Pole — the slice was almost whole and spread with dripping, which even contained bits of meat. I gave half to G., and ate the other half myself. I never tasted anything so good in my whole life. In the end the farmer filled our hats with hot potatoes and we immediately had the feeling we were winning.

‘About eleven o’clock we set off again and walked for several hours through a sandy wasteland before we caught sight of an SS camp in the forest. Everywhere there are cars, lorries, cases, field kitchens, prisoners, horses. We are approaching a forest of tall trees growing out of the sandy soil. All the camps from the Berlin area are now assembled in the Mecklenburg Forest. Possibly 40,000 people.

‘They say we’re to stay here for some time. Actually it’s just as well, as I’m exhausted. I haven’t even the strength to build a tent. It’s not raining, so we just rake together a pile of leaves at the side of a stout tree-trunk. I spread a blanket out and G. and I lie down. After a few hours’ rest, I go off for a look at the people. They all have drawn features and are too thin to be recognisable. Thank goodness I can’t see what I look like.

‘The day has gone by without incident or food. How much longer can I hold out? There are only two questions on people’s lips: What do they intend to do with us, and will they give us anything to eat at all?

‘Last night I was awakened by the drone of engines and heavy gunfire. I weighed up the situation quite calmly. Without food I’ll manage to survive another five or six days. That’s the limit of my strength. Either it all comes to an end by then or I will. Then I thought about the family. What will happen to them if I fail to return? It’ll be a bit like it was with me. Adam and Hanuš will be as old as Gustav and I were when our father was killed. But they’ll be bound to get some money for my patents, so they’ll be that much better off than we were. As I lie here, my bimotor calculations and the slide-rule in my pocket dig into me. The whole way, I’ve said to myself, either I’ll survive with them or not, it won’t be any help to throw them away anyway. What’s the point of a slide-rule now? I know that if I survive I’ll be able to buy another one, but even so I’ve decided not to take them out. What if someone were to steal them?

‘25.4. To my great astonishment I learned this afternoon that we’ll be getting something to eat. Our group leader is on his way back with a kilo of tinned meat. We are soon to witness the dramatic spectacle of a tin of meat being divided into one hundred portions.

‘But I’m really fortunate as I managed after all to trade the tin of coffee for a little bag of potatoes. G. and I decided we’d cook ourselves some soup. For reasons of economy, as well as to make the potatoes digestible, we cut them into thin slices and boiled them. At the end we added 20 gms. of meat and then we ate it, each taking a spoonful in turn. When we were half-way down the pot we exchanged spoons, since they weren’t exactly the same size.

‘L. came to see me. He’s a nice young fellow who was studying electrical engineering in Prague. Though a Slovene, he was arrested along with some Czech students. I explained a lot of points in electrical engineering to him in the course of our stay in the camp; in six years, the poor fellow had forgotten even the little he knew, although he loved engineering. I now gave him a large cooked potato. He didn’t want to take it and it took me ages to make him relent. Such a refusal requires a lot of fortitude. After all, he’d not eaten a thing for days. He told me that on the way here from the camp they had lost a hundred and fifty out of their original six hundred! Suddenly he took me aside and told me that the illegal revolutionary organisation of Yugoslavs and Russians was planning an uprising. After considering the situation and the imminent threat of our death by starvation or gassing, the leadership had decided to launch the uprising without delay before the members of the organisation were entirely exhausted. A delegation was negotiating with communists of other nations — particularly the Germans. At a given moment in the night-time, all the sentries were to be attacked simultaneously and disarmed, and the arms acquired were to be used to attack the hardcore SS. The numbers of SS were estimated at three thousand. It was therefore a bold plan, but what alternative was there? With beating heart, I pledged him my support and handed over my watch. The leadership needed as many watches as possible for its plan. I promised absolute silence and we parted.

‘Dusk was falling, everywhere could be seen bonfires, smoke, blanket tents and huddles of prisoners. At the command: Feuer aus! the fires started to go out one by one. Soon it was pitch dark and silent. No one would have credited that these woods concealed fifty thousand people trying to live with their last ounce of strength. Once more I slept out in the open. The thought crossed my mind: here I am out rambling again, like in my student days; but the conditions have changed rather! It was like a mad statistical experiment to find out what percentage of people were capable of surviving hunger, cold and exhaustion from long route-marches.

‘26.4. My first thought this morning is: Are we going to get something to eat? I’m not the only one. The same thought is on all our minds. We got nothing. We are scouring the ground for beech-nuts. They’re hard to find. I sit on the ground scrabbling among the leaves until I find one. I peel it: it tastes like a hazelnut. But most of them are already rotten. From time to time I crawl forward a little way. It strikes me that these leaves have been sifted through countless times already. First by animals, now by people. But I carefully rake over my patch, saving my energy and not moving needlessly. I’m terribly hungry; beechnuts are not at all filling. I can think of nothing else but food. I’m ashamed of it and annoyed with myself. So, I say to myself, life has given you an opportunity to prove you’re capable of more than the rest. This makes sitting and calculating the bimotor seem child’s play in comparison: a pastime. I must stop thinking about food and start acting level-headedly. I have decided to save my strength — I waste more energy looking for beech-nuts than I get back. So I’ll lie down (one uses less energy lying down) and only take three short walks each day, just to prevent my limbs seizing up.

‘I’m lying down. I think about freedom. How wonderful it would be to be free once more, not to go in fear of death. And to eat my fill. To be with my loved ones again. They’re waiting for me, they need me. That adds to my determination. I mustn’t give in! At this moment, I detest the system that is guilty of all this terrible misery and suffering. The financial magnates and industrialists whose endless speculation finally plunged the world into war. They are indifferent to all our suffering. All that matters to them is to preserve their power and their empire. The boards of management of the munitions firms — Metro-Vide, Imperial Chemical Trust, Krupp, they all created Hitler. Without their help he would have ended up in an asylum the first time he tried to seize power. But their insane hatred of socialism in the Soviet Union where the bosses were put to work, where ordinary working people were appointed in place of the rulers, that completely blinded them. Maybe all this suffering has been good for one thing at least: it has completely opened my eyes. If I live to see freedom, I’ll know who to thank for my life.

‘L. came and told me that the German communists have made contact with our gaolers and received an assurance that our camp is to be taken over by the Red Cross. After lengthy debate it has been decided to postpone the uprising. My only fear is that we might be letting ourselves be taken in by some tall story from the SS. I go to bed early. My legs are so weak that it hurts even to think about getting up and walking a few steps, and I’m immediately aware of the pain in my legs. From time to time I feel I’m about to faint but I overcome it. All the misery that’s been caused by property, people’s acquisitiveness, the will to get rich, to have more than other people. As soon as someone acquires property he starts to block the path of progress, sometimes with force of arms. Surely it can be changed! Do humans have to go on slaughtering each other in wars? Is it a law of nature? No, I refuse to believe it! When the world is ruled by those who work, there will be no more reason to conquer the world. Working people will come to an agreement, and under a planned economy they will enforce shorter working hours, and it will be the end of unemployment and crises. There will be work for all, which will create high purchasing power and production and result in prosperity. What reason for wars then? Only if we take it into our hands will we show the world how beautiful and safe it can be and without any fear for the future.

‘I’ve decided not to write any more. It wastes too much energy.

‘27.4. This morning I have decided I must take better care of myself. Total neglect of one’s appearance weakens one. It is a sign that one cares about nothing any more. I shaved. But I couldn’t look at my reflection. It was as if my own corpse was staring at me from that splinter of mirror that someone lent me. I’m an ugly, emaciated corpse. Only my thoughts are alive.

‘The morning passed without any sign of food, but towards noon I suddenly heard wild cheering. What had happened? For a second it occurred to me that the Russians had arrived. I got up and walked in the direction of the cheers. There stood a row of white vehicles with red crosses. About twenty of them. I learned that they had brought us food parcels. I said to myself that the SS wouldn’t let us have them anyway, but a miracle happened (the Red Army really can’t be far away after all) and towards evening we actually received a five-kilo parcel among three of us. In the afternoon G. and I had cut down a tree (the very thought of receiving a parcel gave us the extra energy) and built a three-man tent using one blanket. We shared out the parcel. G. ordered us to economise. We spread ourselves one cracker each, ate a piece of chocolate and that was that. That’s got to last us at least a week, G. said. We don’t know when we will get something next. We have hidden the parcel under a pile of leaves and are sleeping on it.’

We were waiting for him in the middle of a hot June day. I recall lorries covered in flags and full of people in a pitiful state. There were several lorries and I didn’t know which of them he’d be getting off. Then I saw my mother — though she too was clearly unsure — taking some steps towards one of the men.

I didn’t recognise him, He was dressed in civilian clothes that hung from him oddly and he was carrying a woollen blanket over his shoulder. His head was shaved. There was nothing familiar left in his features apart from the eyes. He was crying.

Apart from the woollen blanket (which Mother later unravelled to knit us some socks so thick that I’ve not managed to wear them out yet), Father had brought us two sections of tent, a number of army plates and pots (which he would never let anyone throw out), a large tin of meat and three bars of the chocolate from the last parcel they had been given for the journey.

That very evening, the whole family congregated — the surviving members. Father, for whom it was impossible to find any clothes which didn’t make him look like a scarecrow, sat at the head of the table dressed in a white shirt of his older brother’s and some dark trousers. Fresh from the bath, his ears suddenly conspicuous and cheeks sunken, he told us his story: all about that first death march in the winter and the second death march which had actually continued right to that very moment, since some of his companions had died even after the camp was liberated and two hadn’t survived the homeward journey.

Death was the main protagonist in Father’s stories. It was ubiquitous and so unrestrained that it lost all particular meaning and it scarcely aroused horror any more, but rather a weariness. Then Father started to preach about the coming world order. He had no doubts that the future belonged to the new social order he called socialist. Socialism would liberate people from wars, poverty and unemployment.

I don’t know whether the others agreed with him. Most likely they had no view one way or the other, and didn’t understand what he was talking about. But everyone nodded and my cousin actually sketched a picture of the scene: my shaven-headed father preaching at the white-covered table about a better global future. I sat at the end of the big table, which was covered with plates, glasses and dishes of food, my stomach uncomfortably distended, listening in adoration, elated that my father was sitting there opposite me, that he had come home, that he was right as always, and he had proved it by returning. And for me, his return meant that the war had finally ended.

Little did I suspect that for me, as for many others, the war would never end. I would carry it within me even when I’d forgotten about it, even when it no longer came back to me in dreams.

I’ll never get into the habit of throwing away a crust of bread or believing that anything that is can’t be done away with in the blink of an eye. I don’t know whether such an outlook is closer to reality; I don’t seek to evaluate it, but that constant subconscious anxiety about a sudden cataclysm, and the entrenched assumption that the main purpose of one’s life is to prevent it, pushed me in a direction I would scarcely have taken otherwise. Convinced I had to do something to ensure that people never again lost their freedom, so that they should never again find themselves in hermetically sealed surroundings with no chance of escape, ruled solely by butchers’ knives, I prepared to become a foot-soldier of the revolution, a hobby horse for a new generation of butchers to mount, and wielding their cleavers drive the scattered human herd into rebuilt enclosures, and set to with their knives to carve out the splendid future.