The Cowards Read online

  I felt fine. The room was warm and dim, the score for ‘Yellow Dog Blues’ lay open on the piano, lunch was over, and outside the window the flags hung limply in the rain. I sat that way for quite a while daydreaming about it all, and then a bit about Irena again, and all of a sudden the clock struck in its nice deep tone and it was nearly three. I’d have to go meet Lof. I was glad. It felt good now to put on a raincoat and leave the warm room and go out into the misty rain on a conspiratorial mission to the castle drive, while everybody else’d still be digesting lunch and waiting till things blew over. Setting off alone to prepare for the uprising. It was great. I went into the hall and put on my raincoat. The glass door into the kitchen was closed. Then it suddenly occurred to me that I ought to change my clothes. I still had on my best clothes and it was raining out. It’d be too bad to get them wet. I took off my raincoat again and went into my room. I took off my brown jacket and pants and opened the closet. I got out my everyday suit – a dark blue double-breasted pin-striped suit – and put it on. I carefully hung my best suit on a hanger and put it back in the closet. Then I went out into the hall again and opened the storage closet. It was called the maid’s room actually, though we hadn’t had a maid for a long time. But it really was a maid’s room. At least nothing else would fit into it except a maid. It was terribly tiny and it didn’t have a window, just sort of an airhole that opened on to the corridor, so it was almost completely dark inside. The maids must have gone crazy in there. It was like a dungeon in a castle. It didn’t surprise me at all that our last maid had thrown herself in front of a train. Boy, living in a hole like that would drive me crazy, too. Maybe not to suicide, but I’d have given notice. Only that had been during the Depression and she’d found out she was pregnant and so she was in a pretty tight spot, I guess. I opened the shoe cupboard and took out a pair of my most beat-up shoes. I took off my good pair, stuck in the shoe trees, and put them away in the cupboard. Then I put on my old shoes and came out of the closet. I put on my raincoat by the coatrack and fixed my hat in front of the mirror. Then I opened the kitchen door.

  ‘Well, so long,’ I said.

  ‘Where’re you going?’ Mother asked.

  ‘Over to Benno’s probably, to listen to some records,’ I said.

  ‘Be careful, Danny. I wish you’d stay, though, just to be on the safe side today.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘Now listen to your mother, son. And be careful,’ said Father from the couch.

  ‘Sure. Don’t worry. Good-bye,’ I said.

  ‘Good-bye, Danny,’ Mother said.

  ‘So long,’ said Father.

  I closed the door and went out in the corridor. I hurried down the stairs without getting stopped this time. Old lady Strnadova was probably washing her dishes. As soon as I was out on the street, I headed towards Serpon’s mansion. There were still clusters of people milling around on the streets, all decked out in tricolours and cockades. Only it was raining, so a lot of them had stayed home and were just looking out their windows. Most of those who were still outside were young kids in raincoats, the same faces you saw out strolling around every Sunday. They must never eat lunch, since no matter when you go out they’re almost always there. I hurried along and a thin rain drizzled on my head. It was chilly against my face and felt like at the seashore. I got into my part right away. I was hurrying through occupied Paris in the rain with important documents for the Intelligence Service. The rain drenched my face and I walked quickly down the street towards the square. It was practically empty. I crossed it and doffed my hat as I passed the church but made it look as if I was just adjusting my hat. I turned off the square, went past the drug store, and turned right at the loan association office towards Serpon’s place. I soon saw it. It stood on a little elevation among a lot of rose beds which weren’t in bloom yet. There was a high wall with spikes on top all around the whole property and behind it there was a rock garden and a bit of French-style garden. There was a huge iron gate which always reminded me of a cage in a zoo, and a little booth for the gate-keeper. I knew him. He had two boys who’d gone to grade school with me. He lived in the big house and I always envied him on account of the gate. He had a daughter, too, besides the two boys, and just recently his wife had had another child but it had died. A wide sandy driveway led from the gate up to the house and ended in front of an imposing-looking row of columns that supported the balcony. Above the columns the windows of the banquet hall were a grey gleam. It was a modern mansion, almost a palace. Built in the 1930s. Inside, there were potted palms, a winter garden, a fountain, a ballroom and a music room, and lots of bedrooms and bathrooms. Lada Serpon had his own three-room suite on the top floor of the tower. There was a wonderful view of the town from there and you could see far beyond the frontier. Lada had a piano in his room and a phonograph and a huge ten-tube radio set. We used to go up there sometimes during the war, generally in spring, because the tower was flat on top and you could dance there at night, right under the moon, and since there wasn’t any railing around it, it had a special kind of charm, as if you were dancing on the edge of the world. Lada Serpon was crazy about Irena, too, but she didn’t care about him either, because he was as ugly as a Habsburg. I liked Lada. Now the windows in the mansion were dark in the rain. They stared boldly up at the next hill where the old castle was enthroned. Through the trees you could get only a small glimpse of the ramparts with their old gun emplacements, a couple of windows, and the turret. The hillside was steep so I saw the castle from a very sharp angle. Greyish-white clouds scudded low over the top of the turret, but the top itself stood there motionless.

  The rain grew heavier and fell with a soft murmur on the trees in the drive. I turned up my collar and it made my neck feel cold. I quickly turned it down again. Why hadn’t I had sense enough to turn it up when I first went out? Now I wouldn’t be able to any more. I started off on the path that ran along the stone wall of Serpon’s place. The path was filling up with puddles and I could already feel mud underfoot. It was raining harder and by now it was almost a downpour. Lousy weather. I got to the drive and tried to take shelter under the trees, but the rain was coming down too hard and there weren’t many leaves on the trees yet. I looked at my watch. Quarter past three. I was late. I’d have to wait here. I dawdled along up the drive. I could feel I was rapidly getting soaked through my raincoat. Christ! A new downpour drenched my trousers. My shoes were full of water and the cold wet chilled my feet and legs half-way up to my knees. Damn! That dumb Lof. Why couldn’t he come on time? Or maybe he’d already been and had left. I dragged myself slowly up the hill and the cold climbed up my legs. I was mad. I tried thinking about Paris again and the rain and the Intelligence Service, but it was raining too hard for that now. I was going to come down with the flu. I could already feel the flu coming on if I didn’t get to bed in time. There on the road ahead I saw one of the castle gates. It was open. The Queen of Württemberg hadn’t barricaded herself inside. A coat of arms of some sort was carved in sandstone over the gate – some kind of shield and a bunch of spears and old cannons and piles of funny-looking cannonballs. Underneath there was a plaque with a Latin inscription. Something about Octavio Piccolomini Anno Domini MDXXXVI or something like that. You couldn’t make it out and, anyway, I can’t read Roman numerals. I went through the gate and found myself in a courtyard. I could smell the manure from the stables. At the left was an archway with firewood stacked underneath. That was the steward’s apartment and Ema lived there. In the tower. Ema was a sour grape. But I liked the archway. Lof must have come from Black Mountain along the drive from the other direction. He would have had to come through this courtyard and through the gate to get to Serpon’s place. I stood under the archway and watched the rain come down. It was pouring in the courtyard, spattering off the tin sheeting on the old ramparts and on the stable roof and it made muddy puddles full of bubbles in the courtyard.

  I was cold. That crazy Lof still didn’t come. I looked at my watch again
and it was half past three. I decided I’d wait till a quarter to four. Anyway, Prema and his Black Mountain headquarters were all just a joke. You couldn’t expect any help from up there. The whole thing was nothing but a joke. The boys were just playing war. A bunch of fools, that’s all they were.

  I got awfully cold standing there in wet shoes in the wind and I could feel my cheeks getting hot. That was always a sign you were coming down with the flu. Damn fools! Why couldn’t they fix a meeting in some better place? I could have kicked Prema in his teeth. And all the rest of them. What the hell do they need Lof for? Lof in particular and Black Mountain. There were dozens of villages all over the mountain, but no – he had to come here. Christ Almighty! Goddamn! I swore and whipped up my anger. The worst of it was that I had to stay put because I couldn’t just walk off. I had to keep my idiotic promise. Prema set great store by that. Christ! I couldn’t just drop the whole thing. And meantime Prema was sitting inside the warm warehouse with an electric light in the ceiling, oiling guns with the rest of the boys. And here I stood in the cold and wet, waiting for Lof who wasn’t going to show up anyway. But I had to wait. A disgusting life. Nothing good ever lasted long. You climbed out of one mess only to stumble right into another. I was so mad I could have bawled.

  I looked at my watch again. Twenty-five minutes to four. Ten more minutes. I decided to think about Irena. So I started thinking about her and it worked. Like now she was probably sitting at home in her bathrobe reading. She had a nice plaid bathrobe; I’d been at her place once when she’d been taking a bath. Her mother told me to sit down in an armchair in the living-room and left me there. But I could hear the splashing from the bathroom and the rush of the shower and I could imagine Irena naked and soapy all over and how she was rinsing off the soapsuds with the big sponge, how her pretty naked body was glistening with the water and how she was completely naked except for a red shower cap on her head, and I got so excited, sitting there in the armchair, that I had to cross my legs so if anybody came in they couldn’t tell. And there I sat inspecting the gilded backs of the History of the Czech Nation, and collected works of Alois Jirasek, and Russian Adventures by a local councilman, telling about his experiences in the Czech Legion, and then I looked at the artificial bananas and plums on the flowerstand by the window and the flourishing, thick-leaved rubber plant and some kind of green mess around it and at the various pictures and the bust of Jirasek on the bookcase and Kramar’s* autographed photograph and a big yellow female torso by Lebeda that Irena had bought in Prague once when she suddenly got interested in art. And then Irena had come out with her hair tied up in a kerchief, German-style, wearing that thin plaid bathrobe, and as she walked, the bathrobe opened in front and you could see her suntanned thighs up as far as God knows where, and when she sat down, the bathrobe fell open and she left it like that for quite a while and I got a glimpse, but I couldn’t get a good long look so I had to stare like I was nailed to my chair and there wasn’t anything I could do about it, and then she closed her bathrobe and crossed her legs and it was all over. I thought about that and I felt good. I forgot about the rain and about Lof.

  When I finished thinking about Irena I looked at my watch and it was already after a quarter to four. I could leave now, but I didn’t feel like standing here until four o’clock either. It’d been fun with Irena and maybe she’d think it over after all. Even if you can’t talk to her about anything. But she’s pretty. Awfully pretty. Prettier than the Queen of Württemberg. She’s dumb, but then all girls are dumb. Girls just weren’t put on earth for their wisdom and you’ve got to pay a price for everything in life. Like, in exchange for the pleasure of being with Irena, you also have to pay sometimes by being bored stiff. I didn’t feel like leaving yet. Then I had an idea. I felt like looking down at the town from up here. Towards where Irena lives. At her house. I forgot about Lof, jumped off the porch steps, and headed across the courtyard through the rain. The narrow embrasures flashed past, one after the other, as I passed and I went through the open gate into the second castle courtyard where there was a well. It was dim and I went up the stairs into a small stone courtyard surrounded by arcades on all sides with the base of the main tower rising from one corner. I went along a narrow passageway in the western gallery. There was no one around. It wasn’t raining in here because the wind was coming from the north and so the roof, supported by a row of thin sandstone columns, shielded the gallery from the rain. From the western gallery you could see all the way down to Serpon’s mansion with a regular little lake on the flat top of the square tower and, below it, Koletovic’s villa built in Alpine style on an artificial hill. Behind it was the swimming pool where Lucie went swimming in the summer time and where I sometimes went to sunbathe. Sokol Hall stood a bit to the left, white in the middle of a sea of shabby-looking little houses at the edge of town – New World, they called it – and the railroad tracks ran glistening alongside leading out from under the viaduct, and aboye, there was St Matthew’s Church and the big yellow high school building.

  Not a soul in sight. Not yet anyway. And Irena was sitting and reading in her little room with the desk and bookcase and armchair. I started back along the gallery and turned the corner. Somebody was sitting in the pergola in the middle of the gallery on the south side. I could see the edge of somebody’s hat and the back of a green loden coat. I leaned against the stone balustrade and looked down over the town. I’d done that lots of times before. Black Mountain, the hillsides, the woods, the hospital, the Port Arthur, the commercial high school, the courthouse, the bridge, the county office building, and Irena’s house behind it at the edge of the woods.

  I could imagine the dim light inside and the armchair and the table set for supper. And me down there in that house with a paunch and how I’m eating. And Irena sitting opposite me and she’s pretty and has a nice red mouth. I looked around and saw the same person still sitting in the summer house. I wondered who it was. One of the nobility, no doubt. Maybe it was the Queen of Württemberg, bidding farewell to Kostelec in the rain. I moved slowly towards the summer house. The person in the loden coat didn’t move. I came closer and closer. Then I saw who it was. He was sitting there with Irena and they were necking. It was Zdenek. It was Zdenek and Irena. They were absolutely glued together and he’d been sitting there kissing her the whole time I was looking out over the town.

  I turned away and shivered. So that’s the way things look in reality. Just like that. I left. That was the way things stood, then, and all those daydreams could go jump in the lake. To hell with daydreams. That was Irena. And that’s the way it stood with Irena. She wouldn’t reconsider. I was absolutely calm. I was unhappy. Spurned – or whatever you call it. I felt like curling up in the dark under the blankets and eating my heart out. I didn’t want anything around to take my mind off it, didn’t want to see or hear anything, all I wanted to do was just eat my heart out. Boy, the way they’d been kissing each other! I could just imagine her wet mouth and saliva and her darting tongue and it got me all excited. And now all that was his. I’d never had it like that with Irena and never would. I’d just stand under her window and pretend to be her friend, that’s all. I hurried through the little courtyard, then past the well into the second courtyard, past the stables and through the gate out into the drive. I walked fast and I tried not to think about it too much. The tree branches swayed and I still felt a drizzle against my face. I loped past the wrought-iron gate of Serpon’s mansion. Lof was nowhere to be seen. From the drive I headed straight for the loan association building. I wished I was already home. But I still had to go to the warehouse. Nuts. I decided I wouldn’t go. I’d telephone Prema from Pilar’s tavern. I went inside. The hallway was dark and full of kitchen smells. I used to go there every Wednesday for tripe soup when they still had tripe. Mrs Pilarova always let me use the telephone. I went into the taproom. The phone was beside the tap. I picked up the receiver and dialled Skocdopole’s number, 123. When Prema answered, I told him Lof hadn’t come.
/>   ‘That’s bad,’ said Prema. ‘And you were at Serpon’s place?’

  ‘Sure I was. I waited there till half past three and then I walked up the drive towards the castle and back but he still hadn’t shown.’