Liberation Movements

Peter
1968

In the morning, Peter and Josef conferred with friends in the empty dormitory canteen. School had been closed indefinitely, but Jan had a key. Peter retold his story humbly-the nighttime fire, the Russian jeep, then running-and they nodded, all confirming his stupidity.

“But why didn’t you stick with Toman and Ivana?” asked Gustav, an older, bearded student from the medical school. “Maybe you would’ve gotten away, too.”

“The soldiers were my fault. I’d started the fire. So I had to lead them away from the others.”

That earned him a collective nod of respect.

He took a tram into the old town with Jan, and on the way Jan pointed out pockmarked walls-on a cinema, a bakery, a post office. They were in the back of the crowded tram, whispering. “Josef and I were at the radio station, the morning after you left. Radio Prague asked people to come, so we came. Lots of us came.” He smiled. “And of course the Russians came, too. It was a terrible fight, took hours. A few times I thought we’d actually make them turn around and leave, but then…” He shrugged. “Well, they got through to the station.”

“How did you get away?”

“The Russians are stupid. They’ve got no idea how to work the back streets.”

“But they’ve won.”

“Fight’s not over yet,” Jan said as they got out. He touched his brow. “I’ll see you tonight at the meeting.”

“What meeting?”

“Didn’t Josef tell you? The engineering students are coming, too. Eight o’clock, at the Church of Our Lady of the Snows.”

“Right. Of course.”

“The priest has a soft spot for us.” He winked. “Time to figure out our Plan B.”

Peter wandered the town, fists in the pockets of his thin pinstriped jacket, ignoring the forms passing him. He stumbled now and then on concrete broken by the treads of Russian tanks. He had nowhere to be, but at least he wasn’t in that old dormitory, surrounded by those students and their proud tales.

What he’d gone through in that field outside eske Bud jovice, terrible as it had been, was over in a matter of minutes. These students had been plotting and fighting for a week now, and for them it was just the beginning. A sense of valor kept them going. Unlike Jan, Peter had no residual pride to warm himself with.

He considered returning to the Torpedo, just in case that soldier was there to distract him for a while, but in Republic Square he heard a voice.

“Peter Husak.”

He turned. In that first second he felt nothing. Then his fingers grew cold and began to fidget in his jacket. Captain Poborsky’s bald head glowed in the gray light.

“Now don’t tell me you’ve forgotten me already.”

“Of-of course not.”

“Can I buy you a coffee?”

“Well, I have to-”

“I insist, Comrade Husak.”

The StB officer guided him back to the massive Obecni Dum, the Municipal House. Under the art nouveau glass awning, Peter hesitated, and the captain glanced back with a smile.

“Don’t worry, son. You’re with me.”

That didn’t help as they continued into the huge cafe and followed a maitre d’ to a small table in the center. Under high chandeliers, Russian commanders in full uniform laughed with Czech apparatchiks and smoked furiously over shots of Becherovka and Smirnoff. This was not a place for students.

The security officer asked the waiter for two cups of cafe au lait.

“Peter,” he said, smiling.

“Yes?”

The officer tugged his mustache. “I’ve talked to a lot of young men and women over the past weeks, but you-you’re interesting.”

“I’m not.”

“Don’t be modest. My world-an interrogator’s world-is a world of secrets. My visitors protect those secrets with lies. The lies are usually simple enough- I didn’t do this, or that — but you…” He wagged a finger. “Your lie puzzles me. You say you watched your friends cross into Austria, yes?”

Peter nodded as the waiter set down their cups and backed away.

“See? This is my confusion. The lie can only serve to incriminate you, as an accomplice to criminal human smuggling. When the fact-as today’s list of casualties proves-is that Toman Samulka and Ivana Vogler were shot down in a cornfield the day before you were picked up.”

Peter looked at his dirty fingernails. “I guess they came back.”

“That’s reasonable, right?” The captain paused. “No, I’m afraid it’s not. Because the report also states there was a third person in that field. A man who escaped because the gun on the jeep jammed.” He bobbed his eyebrows. “Pretty lucky man, you are.”

Peter took a sip of his coffee-hot milk singed his tongue. “I don’t know who that was.”

“Who?”

“The man who got away.”

The officer wagged his finger again. “Look at you! You’ve got the talent. You can keep a straight face-you don’t even blush!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“What I’m talking about, Comrade Husak, is that you have a talent that shouldn’t go to waste. It’s not important to me what happened down at the border, but whatever happened, you’d rather lie to me than let it be known.”

Peter blinked because the cigarette smoke and crystal-refracted light were drying his eyes. “Nothing happened at the border.”

“You really are good,” said Poborsky. “I’ve looked at your record. Up until two months ago, you were a fine student. You studied your…music? You avoided marches. You didn’t even take part in socialist rallies.”

“Politics aren’t my concern.”

“Good, good. Because, between you and me, I hate zealots, no matter what side they’re on. They shout so much it hurts my poor ears.” He smiled. “You know, I’m told all the time that everything is political. Man, our socialist teachers explain, is a political animal, and, in fact, the personal is the political. But between you and me, I’ve never believed that. The political, in fact, is really only the personal dressed up in more flamboyant clothes. There is no political man, only men, whose politics grow from their personal traumas. You follow me?”

Peter didn’t answer, but Poborsky nodded as if he had. “I see you do.”

Peter knew where all this was leading, but he wanted the captain to spell it out. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I think your route in life is still to be charted. Because I think you are made for better things than musicology.”

Peter finished his coffee and set down the empty cup. The officer took a slip of paper from his pocket and placed it on the table. There was a phone number written on it.

“Take it,” he said.

Peter folded the paper into his jacket pocket. “Can I go now?”

“Who’s keeping you?” Comrade Poborsky leaned forward and whispered, “There’s another world out there. Just call that number when you’re ready.”

“For recruitment?”

“Recruitment or information. Whatever you feel is within your power.”

Peter walked out of the Obecni Dum.