EDA KRISEOV
A
453
There was nothing in it for me, Blaha pleaded. Some people began
the war with nothing and ended it with beautiful houses. I helped peo–
ple.
By then it was so dark that the shadows had begun merging with
the gloom. Blaha covered his ears with both hands to keep out the aw–
ful
sh-sh-sh,
and slowly, cautiously, backed off to avoid touching them.
He felt the dead coming together in odd clumps, but he also felt his
body turning slick, fish-like: he would glide his way through. At the end
of the third room he saw a bright, warm crack - the kitchen door
slightly open.
There was nothing I could do, he whimpered. Our orders were to
stick to black marketeers. He moved slowly through both rooms, his eye
on the beckoning crack, but before he could reach it he tripped over a
basket of apples and fell. He felt their cold, slimy fingers on his collar,
but wrenched himself away from them and scrambled to his feet. Then he
limped his way into the kitchen and collapsed onto the table next to a
mug stained with dark tears of coffee. The cat rubbed against his boots.
I helped people, he said, petting the cat. He could feel its faithful
heart ticking softly inside its coat. I helped a farmer in the village who
had seven kids and was ordered to give up his geese. His family had
nothing to eat. I gave him a receipt saying two of the geese had died.
I did what I could, you know, he said to the cat, but in forty-five
they were drunk all the time and couldn't keep their mouths shut.
People make things so hard on you, he added with a sob. For six
years I risked my skin for them, the gallows over my head every minute,
the firing squad. For not reporting anybody.
Once, when they were rounding up suspects after the Heydrich assas–
sination, Captain Vodicka phoned to tell me to expect some gentlemen
requiring assistance.
At your service, I replied, and before I could get my clothes on, their
car had pulled up to the house.
Sind Sie fertig?
they asked.
Ja , ich bin fertig.
We drove to the neighboring village, to the school. They shut one
of the teachers in the staff room and posted the mayor by the door.
Nobody was allowed out of the building. The teacher had allegedly had
his pupils draw pictures of the Spanish Revolution and was in possession
of anti-German pamphlets.
They told me to search an area about three meters long, from the
window to the door. Hakl, the teacher, gave me a sign with his eyes
that said, There's something there . I caught on immediately. So I took
off my raincoat, snow and all, and laid it on top of the pamphlets on
