Mendelssohn is on the Roof (14 page)

‘Too bad. You’re such a good-looking guy. What did you do before the war?’

‘I had a small hardware store. Nothing special. But I made a living from it.’

‘I was a plasterer and Karel here was a shop assistant. See how we’ve come up in the world,’ Erich boasted.

Richard had read about things like this in books. Things like this didn’t happen in real life. In books he had read about gangsters or gunmen from the Wild West. They also got drunk and shot at people. Of course, in those books a sheriff always showed up who got rid of them somehow.

‘I’ll tell you a story,’ said Erich, in a talkative mood, ‘it’s sort of a story with a moral about five old-fashioned
overcoats
. Some guy named Fischman was still working at the warehouse the time this happened – a good-for-nothing fellow, scared shitless. In any case, there was a certain
farmer, a rich bastard who lived out in a village
somewhere
– what was it called? – well, I’ve forgotten, I can’t remember all those Czech names. Anyhow, he found an apartment in Prague and was moving there with his whole family. He had a son and daughter over fifteen years old – that’s important. And then there was the grandfather. He was supposed to wait in the village for the family to move to Prague and fix up the new apartment. So they took all his things away in the moving van and told him they’d let him know when to come and join them. Then somebody denounced that farmer, one of his enemies, and reported that he had provisions hidden in the moving van. So we went to check it out.

‘Well, he did have some provisions there – that wasn’t so bad. But we also found some hunting guns. And of course you know the penalty for that today. So we had to sort of liquidate that family. The only one of them left, finally, was that grandfather out in the village. Naturally we confiscated their things, so grandfather in the village didn’t even have an extra shirt to change into. Then some smart aleck advised him to write to us saying that he hadn’t done anything wrong and therefore his things had been wrongfully confiscated, and to request that his things be returned. But you know the way we operate. Nothing hangs around very long around here. Those things were gone ages ago. Only the five old-fashioned overcoats of Grandpa’s were left – nobody had wanted them. So we sent them to him. We really made Grandpa happy, don’t you think?’ Erich cackled as he finished his story.

All the Gestapo’s stories were terrible, but the way they told them was even more terrible. Even gangsters in books didn’t talk like that.

Every two weeks Mr Smutny came to the warehouse. He was a bit different from the other second-hand dealers: round, pink-cheeked, well-dressed and courteous. He addressed the manager as dear lady and kissed her hand. He leaned confidentially towards Richard when they were alone and spoke in a pained voice: ‘You know, my heart bleeds when I look at these things: Imagine my coming across Mr Netousek’s portrait here, and he was one of my best customers. What can I tell you, we became friendly over all those years we did business together. Well, I didn’t buy the portrait. Just between us, Mr Netousek didn’t take my advice that time and ordered the portrait from a
second-rate
painter – Mr Netousek didn’t know much about art. I bought back the things I sold him, for the right price, needless to say. Mr Netousek was just too trusting and he paid through the teeth. Well, my heart was bleeding, but I bought them. I said to myself, Smutny, you have a duty to buy these things. If you don’t buy them, someone else will. At least they’ll be in friendly hands.’

Richard didn’t really like to get in a conversation with him. It was like talking to a hyena.

‘Mr Smutny, you’re an Aryan and a member of the National Confederation, so you’re not allowed to talk to a Jew.’

‘But I don’t have anything against Jews,’ objected Mr Smutny. ‘I used to do business with them in the old days, though they were certainly sly. Still, I don’t hold it against them, you’ve got to be clever to do well in business.’

Mr Smutny dealt only with artistic objects; he didn’t buy junk. He had a shop on the main street with many select customers. The lady manager was gracious and polite to him. She offered him liqueurs.

Mr Smutny looked over the antiques carefully. He didn’t buy any old thing. He was on the lookout for rare pieces, examining everything for a long time, picking up objects in his hand, studying the signatures on paintings. He never chose many things. Reisinger delivered them to his store personally, perfectly wrapped. He always received a box of good cigarettes as a tip.

First, of course, Mr Smutny haggled for a long time with the lady manager over their glass of liqueur. Mr Smutny knew that the baroness knew nothing about art. The baroness, on the other hand, knew that Mr Smutny offered a third of the actual value at most. They always came to a friendly agreement in the end.

One day, during Mr Smutny’s usual visit, after he had picked out several antiques and was getting ready for his usual negotiations with the manager, the baroness stopped him.

‘I want you to buy this statue also. Otherwise I won’t sell you anything. It’s in my way here, and I don’t like to look at it.’

The statue was half a metre tall, a bronzed plaster casting. Of course the baroness didn’t understand all that.

Mr Smutny looked at the statue. ‘My dear lady, what would I do with this? Who’s going to buy it? A modern sculptor made it, this is no antique. It’s a copy of the statue of Justice that’s standing or used to stand in the main courtroom at Pankrac. You tell me, dear lady, who cares about justice these days?’

Justice held a sharp sword in her hand. Her eyes were blindfolded.

The baroness insisted. ‘Take it away. I don’t want to look at it. Justice or injustice, I don’t like it either way. Why
should I ruin my nerves here on top of everything else? I’ll give it to you cheap. Maybe for only fifty crowns. That’s only five marks, after all. The main thing is, I’ll get rid of it.’

‘Dear lady,’ Mr Smutny replied, ‘I can’t give you more than twenty crowns for it, and that’s only to do you a favour, because it’ll just sit in my shop.’

‘Good,’ agreed the lady manager, ‘take it for twenty crowns, then, and I’ll be rid of it.’ She turned to Reisinger. ‘Richard, wrap this statue up right away and put it on the handcart, before Mr Smutny changes his mind.’

‘I’m going to lose out on this, you can take my word for it, dear lady,’ complained Mr Smutny, ‘I’m only doing this as a favour …’

‘So much talk for twenty crowns,’ the lady manager said scornfully. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll foist it off on someone. Hurry up, Richard.’

The copy of the statue of Justice was soon packed in sawdust and put in a box on the handcart together with the small objects Mr Smutny had picked out. Reisinger waited by the handcart while the dealer and the lady manager settled on a price for the other things.

After a while Mr Smutny came out. He was grumbling to himself: ‘Justice, what a stupid idea in this day and age!’ He turned to Reisinger. ‘You’ve wrapped it up too well, my friend. It’ll never break this way. Well, it’s only twenty crowns, so the hell with it.’

It wasn’t far to Mr Smutny’s shop. Reisinger carefully unloaded the crate and received the usual box of cigarettes.

When he returned the lady manager greeted him: ‘Thank God it’s gone.’ She was drunk. She must have been tossing them down the whole time he was away.

She poured some liqueur into a glass.

‘Have a drink, Richard.’ She began to complain. ‘What a life, surrounded by skunks here! I’ve seen a lot in my day, but never anything like what goes on here. When I see these things I feel like crying.’ The drink was making her sentimental.

‘Don’t believe what they tell you, Richard. They’re playing cat and mouse with you. They don’t care about anything. They’d do me in, too, if they could. But they can’t get me. Do you like it here, Richard?’

What was he to say to a direct question? How to answer a drunken floozy who is bad-mouthing the Gestapo while she’s in with them up to her neck?

‘Well, you’re very kind to me, Baroness, but
otherwise
…’

‘I know,’ wept the lady manager. ‘I’m a real softy. But you know, life is hard and a person has to be tough to survive. I used to live differently, once upon a time. I’m sorry for you, Richard. I used to know somebody who looked like you. And when I think that …’

Suddenly she caught herself. It was as if the drunkenness had suddenly lifted. She began to speak in a different tone of voice. ‘Oh, I almost forgot. I have another errand for you. Look over there in the corner – you’ll find some framed photographs. Here’s a package with some other photographs a certain gentleman sent me from Bredovska. Go to the framer’s, tell him to take the old photos out of the frames and put in the new ones from the package. Tell him I need them in a hurry.’

Reisinger was glad to get out in the fresh air. He remembered seeing a shop with the inscription
PICTURE
FRAMING AND GILDING
somewhere quite nearby on a parallel side street. He was wearing his workday smock
without the star, which he wore in the warehouse. He didn’t want to embarrass the framer.

The owner of the shop, an older man with a grey moustache, stood alone behind the counter. Reisinger unwrapped the framed photographs and said to him, just as the lady manager had instructed him, ‘Throw away these photographs and replace them with the ones in the package. And hurry, we need them soon.’

Hardly had the framer taken the framed photograph in his hand than tears began to flow from his eyes. ‘Good Lord! It’s Frantisek! Jesus Christ, here’s Ruzena and
Jaroslav
! That’s my cousin. Why, they …’

He began to sob. ‘This can’t be true,’ he gasped. ‘My God, where did you get these?’

Reisinger made a great effort to answer calmly. ‘Please. It’s better not to ask. And please do the job quickly. I have nothing to do with this. I’m just the servant.’

‘But whose servant are you? Who sent you?’

Reisinger realised that he must tell the truth. ‘If you must know, then, the Gestapo.’

The framer stood stock-still, like a pillar of salt. Reisinger left the shop quickly.

‘What a job,’ he said to himself. ‘What a job. It would be better to be kicked to death by the SS than this.’

Three weeks later, as he was unpacking objects from another confiscated apartment, he had a sudden shock.

‘Baroness, Baroness, please come here,’ he called to the office. He could tell by a scratch mark on the left side that this was a statue that had been here before.

The lady manager waddled into the warehouse. She almost fainted when she saw the unwrapped object.

‘I can’t believe it.’ Her eyes were popping. ‘Why, it’s that statue, that Justice! Call Smutny immediately,’ she screamed, ‘tell him to come here at once, to drop everything and come.’

She ran back to her office and locked the door behind her.

Mr Smutny came very soon. He obviously thought this was going to be some exceptionally good business deal.

‘Well, how d’ye do,’ he said, all smiles. ‘Here I am again. What little gem do you have for me today?’

‘This.’ Reisinger pointed to the statue.

‘Ah so.’ Mr Smutny didn’t allow his feathers to be ruffled. ‘Well, well, there’re a lot of strange things in the world.’

As soon as the lady manager heard Mr Smutny’s voice, she ran into the warehouse and began to scream hysterically: ‘You must take this statue away immediately. Richard, wrap it up!’

‘Dear lady,’ said Mr Smutny apologetically, ‘I’m sorry you’re taking it so hard. Please don’t get so excited. You know, I did sell that statue, after all, although to tell the truth I didn’t make anything on it. It was bought by, let me see, yes, a certain Mr Krajicek, yes, that’s who it was; he’d been a major in the Czech Army and now he’s a bank official … I mean, actually, what am I saying, well, so it’s come back again …’

‘Take the statue away. I’m superstitious. It’ll drive me crazy.’

‘My dear Baroness,’ Mr Smutny said slowly, ‘please forgive me, but I won’t take that statue. I’m also superstitious and I don’t want it in my shop.’

‘What am I supposed to do with it, then?’

‘That’s easy, dear lady. Tell Richard here to go out to
the courtyard and break it. That’s all. And then throw the pieces in the dustbin.’

‘Richard,’ the lady manager commanded, ‘take it out to the courtyard and smash it.’

Richard put a hammer in the pocket of his smock and carried the statue out to the courtyard. The lady manager and Mr Smutny watched him go.

‘Let’s have a drink, Mr Smutny,’ said the baroness invitingly. She was calm now.

Reisinger began to destroy the statue with the hammer. First he knocked off Justice’s head, with her blindfolded eyes. Then he knocked the sword out of her hand. Then he struck the head again to smash it completely. Then he attacked the body. Finally all that remained were some dirty white bronzed pieces lying on the courtyard floor. He swept them up and threw them in the dustbin.

Justice would no longer stand in anyone’s way.

T
HE TRANSPORTS CONTINUED to leave from the Radio Mart. The Hangman’s death changed nothing in the carrying out of his task. The dead lines and quotas for each individual country were set in the plan, the plan was hidden in the folder, and the folder was in the briefcase. The briefcase ended up in the hands of the highest Reich police officer, who came to town in a Panzer tank. He came at the request of the dying man, who wouldn’t relinquish the folder to anyone else. The two from the Anthropoids had got him, after all. His coffin lying on the gun carriage passed through the castle courtyard and the portal for the last time. The statues with dagger and club stood there, silent, motionless. He’d never see them again, he’d never return to this city again. The flag with his sovereign symbol flew at half-mast. Death, once his constant companion, went on a rampage at his extinction. The red decrees appeared daily and the list of names grew longer. Death stalked the city. It even found the two from the Anthropoids.

The body on the gun carriage passed through the city accompanied by fife and drum and left the subjugated land. It passed the statues on the bridge, it passed the statue of Roland. It passed along the river, it wound through the main streets, and the tramp of heavy military boots accompanied it all the way to the railway station. The strangled city fell silent. The flags at half-mast were harbingers of death. People sat behind darkened windows. As death marched by, they turned on their lamps and read the words of poets.

The body on the gun carriage, followed by a parade of dignitaries, left by special train for the capital city of the Reich. There, too, it passed through the streets accompanied by an honour guard, but these were different streets, with broken buildings, crumbled walls and shattered windows. Death already held sway there as a trusted friend. The city belonged to it entirely. The broken city greeted the dead body with a twenty-one-gun salute by the light of blazing torches. Thunder and lightning from a storm of nature joined the thunder of the cannons.

The city in the subjugated country was plastered with notices. Loudspeakers attached to street lights rattled off the names of the executed. But because it was warm and the sun was shining, people lay on the banks of the city’s river, swimming, jumping into the water and laughing. Because life is stronger than death. Because people have to sleep, eat and love.

Death walked all around the town. It even paid a brief visit to Mrs Javurek’s house. The city was under martial law then and the tramp of metal-studded boots and the blows of gun butts on doors were heard at every house. They searched the apartment, but they didn’t find
anything
, for they never dreamed there was a little room behind the cupboard. Besides, they were in a hurry. The old house was overflowing with people, children suddenly awakened from their sleep were yelling in every apartment. The stifling smell of poverty was everywhere, for it was forbidden to open a window.

Adela and Greta barely peeped. They knew that every little sound could mean death. They only heard the voices, sharp, blustering. They gave a start and almost cried out when they heard a crash. It was a rifle smashing to the floor,
either by accident or deliberately, to scare the Javureks. Then suddenly everything was quiet. The night callers were gone, but nothing moved in the kitchen. The Javureks didn’t speak to each other, as if afraid that the night’s guests were still listening outside the door. Adela and Greta were just falling asleep when the Javureks moved aside the cupboard and opened the cubbyhole door. Drowsily they let themselves be carried into the kitchen and seated at the table. They had been locked up all day and had eaten nothing.

Now the Javureks began to talk loudly, almost too loudly. That’s how people behave when some danger has passed and they feel elated. All at once they felt like talking long and loud. They wanted to go over everything bit by bit, how those two had rushed into the apartment, how the smaller one had a gun and used it to poke around under the bed, how the bigger one searched the parlour and kitchen, pulling out dishes from shelves, searching the cupboards and rummaging through the linens, even messing up
everything
in the kitchen cupboard that stood in front of the cubbyhole.

The Javureks described it all to Adela and Greta and praised them for being so quiet. The danger had passed. But fear stayed on in a place deep inside.

The very next day Jan came to visit.

‘How are you doing, little submarines,’ he said, seemingly jolly and carefree. But everything was very bad now – house searches, arrests, ID checks. Food had vanished – the black marketeers were scared. They were hanged and shot, too, as it was expedient to mix them in with the other names on the red decrees. But he had to find food, he couldn’t ask the Javureks to share their meagre rations with the children.

They spent only a short time together. Jan was in a hurry. He had a date with a man who was perhaps the only person who could get him food now that the city was in a state of siege.

The person Jan was going to visit was a Jew. He was in hiding, even though he didn’t actually need to be. He was not persecuted, because his name was not listed at the Jewish Community or at the Central Bureau. He had Aryan papers – genuine ones, moreover, and so nobody was after him yet. Still, he preferred to remain at home. There were quite a few people who lived in the city that way. They were registered properly, they picked up their ration cards regularly at the janitor’s, but they didn’t show up in public very often.

He had been a photographer for a picture magazine before the war, and he accepted every assignment he could get: important visitors, sports events, exhibitions, new acquisitions at the zoo. He took very different
photographs
for his own purposes: the temporary shacks of the unemployed, queues at the employment agency, people on breadlines and in shelters, mothers and children begging for food and money, demonstrations, shantytowns being knocked down. Nobody paid him for these pictures; they served a different purpose: to show how the unemployed live in a country that boasted of its democratic ways. Communist delegates submitted the photos to parliament: they travelled around the Republic in small travelling exhibitions to gain support. Nobody knew who organised these exhibitions. Nobody knew that these shots of
policemen
beating people at demonstrations and shooting into crowds of children were taken by a photographer with an official licence.

The photographer had a common name – Otto Pokorny. Some of the many people with the name Pokorny were Jews. He had a studio in a large modern apartment house with a steady turnover because the rent was high. Even the janitors kept changing, because the landlord didn’t want to pay them for operating the central heating. The house actually belonged to a bank that was represented by an accountant. Nobody pays much attention to anybody else in a house like that.

After March 15, several German tenants moved into the house. They were quiet and inconspicuous, not wanting to attract attention. They went off to murder at regular working hours, while pretending to be ordinary office workers at home, carefully wiping their shoes on the
doormat
and politely stepping out of the lift to make room for ladies.

Pokorny signed the ‘Aryan declaration’ for the new
editor-in-chief
of the magazine he worked for. But nobody there knew him very well – the magazine employed several
freelance
photographers. There was little work to do, since most of the magazine’s pictures were provided by the German news agency – pictures from the front, sessions of the Reichstag and military parades. The only local pictures were sentimental ones, used for diversionary purposes: springtime on the river, lovers in the park, a country market. But even such pictures could be dangerous. For instance, a view of a city square might include a monument that had not yet been removed.

Pokorny worked with a heavy heart. He was sick of grinding out the same old sentimental pictures. His passion was to uncover old and unusual things. And so it happened that he almost got his editor sent to a concentration camp.
He took a photograph of a trained dog, a mongrel named as an outstanding circus artist by the German Commission. This remarkable dog received special allotments of meat and rice which supported his whole performing family. The editor printed the picture with the caption
A Deserving Dog
in the same issue that carried a portrait of the Acting Reich Protector. At the very last minute someone noticed it and the whole issue was pulped.

From that time on, Pokorny was not trusted at the magazine. Even his shots of animals didn’t seem safe. Slowly but surely Pokorny withdrew, into semi-illegality. Occasionally he’d send a girl he knew to the office and identify her as his secretary. He took fewer photographs, only enough to stay inconspicuous and to keep from being conscripted to the Reich, for he had other, more important work to do. He had become an expert at making false documents. At first glance, the system of control over the inhabitants of the land devised by its present masters seemed ingenious and truly foolproof. Every person was required to have an ID card – the
Kennkarte
, as it was called. You also needed a Residence Card, as well as working papers. If you moved, you had to get a cancellation certificate for your former residence. Without this cancellation you couldn’t move to a new place.

But you had only to break one link of this chain and everything fell apart. You could buy the Residence Card blank at any news-stand, fill it out, and then have it stamped with a false stamp. Once you had this false Residence Card you could, with a little nerve, obtain a real cancellation certificate and then, through perfectly normal channels, get a real Residence Card for a new place of residence. You could get
Kennkartes
in various ways – for
instance, by saying that you had lost yours and applying for a new one or by not turning in a
Kennkarte
of someone who had died. Blank
Kennkartes
were the most valuable of all. It was relatively easy to get working papers from Czech officials at the Employment Bureau. Consequently, what was usually falsified was the stamp.

Jan Krulis knew nothing about Pokorny’s various activities. He knew him only as a photographer, having bought pictures of various preserved landmarks from him. Once Pokorny had procured some coffee for him; he probably had contacts with black marketeers. It was difficult to ask a person he knew only superficially to help him get food, but Jan had exhausted all other possibilities. Under martial law the German and Protectorate bureaus had sealed off the silenced city from all sides and strengthened their
checkpoints
at the railway stations. Troopers with automatics guarded the exits from the city. And nobody wanted to sell their ration cards.

He rang the doorbell for a long time before Pokorny answered. Perhaps he was waiting for a different visitor. At first they just made small talk and Krulis couldn’t find a way to get to his subject. Pokorny seemed to be trying to get rid of him. The studio smelled of chemicals. It was actually used as a darkroom, with an enlarger and trays with developing fluids. They chatted for a while, then there was silence. The pauses grew longer.

Finally Pokorny eased the awkwardness by bringing out a metal box and carefully counting out coffee beans. He took down a coffee mill from a shelf and concentrated on grinding.

Coffee, real coffee at a time like this – it was almost too much hospitality. Pokorny turned the handle of the mill
energetically but without a word, as if he were performing a ceremony. There was nothing for Jan to do but look around the room. Suddenly his gaze fell on the corner of something poking out from under a pile of papers. Surely that could be nothing but a
Kennkarte
. But why was it lying there, as if someone had quickly covered it up with papers but hadn’t had time to hide it completely? Ordinarily, people kept their
Kennkarte
in their pocket, for ready access. Or else they’d leave it out on a table to have at hand in case of an unexpected inspection. But to throw papers over it as if to hide it – that was strange. Perhaps it didn’t mean anything, perhaps it was a complete coincidence. But he kept having an odd feeling about Pokorny, partly because of his awkward embarrassment, his long silences, and also his strange behaviour when he opened the door. A name kept running through Jan’s head, and suddenly it came to the surface: ‘the Comet’! When people in his organisation needed false papers, they always said, ‘You have to wait for the Comet to arrange it.’ It could have been a person or a group. In an organisation with many branches, everybody knew only a few other people, and nobody asked questions about anyone else. But now it appeared that he had unexpectedly come upon a member. He glanced over at Pokorny, who was still concentrating on grinding the coffee, and their eyes met. Pokorny seemed to sense something, because he looked at him uncertainly. He stopped grinding and the atmosphere grew unbearably tense. And that caused Jan almost unconsciously to say out loud the name that was running through his head: ‘The Comet.’ Quietly, as if to himself.

Pokorny started, and for a moment seemed filled with doubt and indecision. And then suddenly, as if at a given
signal, they both began to laugh. The laughter broke the tension and cleared the air. Now Krulis spoke freely. The coffee smelled delicious. Its aroma overpowered the chemical smells. Everything was all right; now he could tell why he had come. He needed food, at least a little food, or a few food coupons.

He apologised for having come with such a trivial request. He would now look for other sources. He didn’t have to explain why he was apologising.

‘Don’t worry about it. And if by chance anybody stops you and asks what you were doing here, show him these photographs of the Hrzansky Palace. I’ll give you a bill, and keep a copy. But I don’t think it will be necessary. And I can get you some food, too, but nothing much – just sardines, Dutch cheese in a tin, Hungarian salami. I don’t have anything else.’