Most of the stories

in this book take place in, or at least end in, the twentieth century. A century which broke characters, families and bones. Most of them are based on real events or at least set against a plausible background. There were thousands of such stories…

 

She felt

her cheeks starting to burn and tried in vain to count how many toasts to the health of the newlyweds there had already been. Alois was sitting next to her, trying to slice the meat from a goose thigh. Then he glanced around with the look of a street urchin, exactly the same expression with which he had looked at her for the first time, and picked up the thigh in his hand. He took a bite and the grease gleamed on his chin. Then he put his trophy back down and glanced around again. She could no longer control herself and burst out laughing. He turned to her and kissed her with his greasy mouth, managing at the same time to surreptitiously wipe his greasy hands on the white tablecloth. Street urchin. Her friend Vlasta stood up, wobbled slightly, and proposed a toast to the newlyweds. Marie wondered if the pinkish-orange liquid in her glass was the sea-buckthorn wine from the priest from Vrbatův Kostelec that they had been given on the way from the church. If it was, she hoped the bottle wouldn’t make its way over to her. Her head was already starting to hurt as it was. Jiříček Sýkora was walking around the garden, pushing a pram in which his little sister Miládka was complaining loudly. He was clearly not enjoying it one bit, and every so often he would snap a branch off the fruit tree as they passed under it. He would then chew it for a while before throwing it onto the grass. Miládka seemed to have finally fallen asleep. Alois gave Marie another kiss and then swapped her for the goose thigh. Alois’s father, Václav, was watching the newlyweds and smiling. Then he looked down at his hands lying on the white tablecloth and placed the right one on top of his wife’s. Jiříček Sýkora had finally gotten rid of the pram and was now running around the long wedding table with the other boys. The musicians began to play and all of the children were the first to get up and dance. The bride’s mother, Františka, leaned over the table and took an apple from a bowl. When she lifted it up, a wasp flew out from between the other apples, buzzed angrily and disappeared into the orchard. They’re early, thought Františka, cutting a slice of apple with a small knife. Young Olda Dušek finally managed to talk one of the women in the kitchen into fixing him a slice of bread with dark honey. The honey leapt over the crust and crawled onto Olda’s wrist. He was about to lick the source of the honey, but fortunately he realised that it would have meant turning his hand over, thus causing an even greater disaster. People were dancing outside now; in the sunshine a glass of sea-buckthorn wine drew an orange mark on the tablecloth while the smell of cabbage wafted from the kitchen.

Ležáky, early summer 1940

 

Carefully,

he poked his chin out from the safety of the duvet. He didn’t understand how he always managed to do it, because the duvet was much longer than he was. And yet his head stuck out at one end and his feet at the other. He waved to himself with his toes and smiled at them, though his feet were a bit cold. The morning sun was shining through the window, but there were still patches of snow on the roof opposite. One of the patches looked like a hippo; another reminded him of Mr Kraus, the chemist from down the road. One time they had managed to buy a box of matches and a bottle of paraffin on the same day. Then in the park, in the bit behind the artificial cave where not even the watchman went, they had poured the paraffin over a rag and set fire to it – it had burned beautifully. But he then had got ill, so he hadn’t been to the chemist’s or the park in a long time. But on the other hand when he had a fever he often dreamt of travelling across Africa, and one time he had even stroked a sleeping lion. He kicked off the duvet and pulled some thick woollen socks (the ones his Aunt Julie had knitted for the whole family) over the toes that had been waving at him a moment ago. He had been given light-blue ones – well, better than the yellow ones his sister had got. He had never seen her wearing them – she had probably hidden them at the bottom of the chest of drawers. He went over to the window and stood on tiptoes to see onto the street. There weren’t many people there – one man with a turned-up collar and a hat was rushing off somewhere, and there was a paperboy on the corner, bent under the weight of events and newspapers, shouting out what was new, though you couldn’t hear him from up here. Then a group of boys ran across the street and he felt a yearning. For the park too. Although apparently they were no longer allowed to go there, so maybe it was just as well he was at home. Since he’d been feeling better, he would either draw or play with the train set his dad had bought him. Dad had always been at the law firm until late in the evening, helping people with their problems, but he no longer worked there. Now it was better – he would get home early in the afternoon. It’s true that he was always dirty from the coal dust and his back hurt, but on the other hand he could play with the trains. In the evening they had put together a train so long that it derailed at the bend. But maybe the points hadn’t been set right. He opened the door and went into the living room. The train set was spread out across the floor where the piano had once stood. Before he got ill, he had had to practise. He had tried to pick out the melody with his small fingers, but he had never been very good at it. He liked the revolving stool better than the piano. When the removal men were taking it through the corridor, they had gouged out a groove in the wall. He enjoyed walking slowly along the corridor with his finger in the groove. Afterwards it smelled of plaster and was almost completely white. Actually, everything was better now that he was convalescing. He didn’t have to practise the piano and Dad came home earlier and played with him much more. Maybe he’d be able to go out into the sunshine soon. He went through to the kitchen and smiled at his mother, who was sitting at the kitchen table. She was holding his coat and sewing a star made of yellow material onto it.

Prague, Maiselova Street, September 1941

 

Hans sealed up

the broken window of the hospital barracks using a piece of card with the remains of a Maggi sign on it. Jacek and Vladimir were carrying off an enormous pot which until very recently had contained skin – probably from a pig – swimming in hot water, with an abandoned slice of turnip rolling about at the bottom. The pot was empty and behind the barracks Kazimír and Samuel were fighting over the skin. In complete silence they tried to punch each other in the face – using their right hands, while clutching the skin with their left. The men were so weak that the fight looked more like a slow-motion ballet performance or a film that Jakob the projectionist had put in the wrong way. The whole block was watching the fight – also in complete silence. As it seemed to be going nowhere, the kapo lost patience and clouted both men, one after the other, across the back with a pick-axe handle. He was in a good mood, so he kicked the skin over in the direction of Kazimír, who grabbed it and stuffed it down his overall. Samuel remained lying on the ground after the blow, and only then did he realise that the sky was perfectly clear. Then he turned over onto his side, curled up into a ball and imagined that he was lying ill in bed at home in Lodz. He could hear a tinkling sound from the kitchen as his mother stirred some tea to dissolve the honey in it. It was so long ago and so far away. His mother had also passed through here. When the kapo kicked him in the kidneys, his mother disappeared in a cloud of pain, even though it was a clear day. Mordechai found a piece of bread in the coat pocket of someone who had arrived yesterday and who had also died yesterday. It was possible to come across things like that while sorting through the belongings. Everything was supposed to be handed over, but you could eat a piece of bread straight away. Mordechai ate half of it, broke off a small piece and let it dissolve in the saliva on his tongue. Then another piece – it lasted him almost half an hour. But he continued sorting so that no-one would notice anything. Without knowing why, he tried to mould the figure of a pony out of what was left, but it looked more like a fat dog. Suddenly he heard it bark and saw it wag its tail. He walked along by the fence of the mayor’s house in his home village, and the dog, as fat as its master, followed him, barking. Mordechai put his hand between the planks and patted it on the head. Better to have a dog than a horse – what use was a horse when sorting out dead people’s possessions? A dog could help you find food in their pockets.

Auschwitz concentration camp, March 1942

 

He walked through the gate

and for a moment considered going back for his umbrella. In the end, he headed across the small park towards the tram depot, because the clouds had moved off and the April sunshine had painted his shadow on the pavement. He then decided to cut across the park and down to Michle, where he would wait for a tram. Near the entrance to the park, he sat down on a bench and stretched his right arm along the backrest. Suddenly a rag-ball rolled towards him and two boys’ heads appeared from behind the bushes. One smiled and the other frowned. He reached for the ball and threw it in the boys’ direction. The one who had been frowning ran out from the bushes and kicked the rag-ball high into the air. He got up from the bench and continued through the park. The slight downhill slope forced him into a trot for a while. His briefcase knocked against his thigh, and when he reached the gazebo he stopped again for a moment. A postman carrying a satchel walked past and greeted him. He returned the greeting and then set off at a run again. He finally came to a stop at the bottom in front of the pub. He went up to the bar and ordered a beer. His eyes stung from the pipe smoke of an old man who was sitting in the corner of the pub, most likely drinking tea. He kept nodding his head up and down so that it looked as if he was humming a tune to himself. The man put the beer glass and some coins down on the metal counter and went down the stairs to the pavement. A tram was just approaching the stop. He quickened his pace and helped an old woman up the steps to the tram, passed her up her bag of apples and jumped into the carriage. They both sat down and the woman gave him two apples. He smiled at her and put one of them in his briefcase. He polished the other on his jacket lapel before biting into it. The juice dripped onto his hand, and before he could straighten his arm, it had run onto his shirt cuff. He sank his teeth into the apple to free his hands and tried to get rid of the stain by rubbing it between his fingers. Then he noticed more stains on his shirt cuff. He would have to roll up his sleeves at work or take an old shirt with him. Robert Týfa, assistant to the Prague executioner, wondered whether the blood had spilled onto the cuff when the guillotine’s blade struck, or if it had happened when he was handling the head. He would carry an old shirt in his briefcase.

Prague, Pankrác, April 1943

 

She wasn’t certain

if she had been woken from her dream by the dawn or by a strange man. She jerked upright in bed, brushing off the imaginary hand from her thigh, though she could still feel its damp warmth. It began to sink in that it was morning, that the sun was shining through the farmhouse windows and that Hans had been gone longer than he’d promised. She got out of bed, went into the hall and scooped up a handful of water from a basin. She splashed it over her face, neck and body. Konrad from the neighbouring village had stopped by yesterday morning to talk to Hans about something. Then Hans had taken the gun he had got hold of a fortnight before, fastened an army belt with pouches around his old overcoat and pulled an armband over his sleeve. She just had time to cut him a piece of fatty bacon and a large hunk of bread, and then when she noticed Konrad staring at the food, she sliced some for him too, although a smaller piece. Hans put his food in a military haversack and Konrad stuffed his into his old leather jacket. He was wearing an armband too. The two men assured her they would be home by nightfall. They weren’t. She had stood by the window which had the best view of the path they had taken to the neighbouring village. She had fallen asleep before morning. They had still not returned – neither Hans nor Konrad. She got dressed, fed the animals and then went out to the orchard. Soon the trees would begin to sprout leaves. She stroked the apple tree and then turned towards the path again. No-one. She ate the rest of the bread, keeping aside a small piece of bacon. Then she looked at the path again. No sign of anyone. She chopped wood for a while in the woodshed, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Hans. He should have been back long ago. She stuck the axe in the chopping block, threw a shawl around her shoulders and set off along the path she had been watching so attentively. Behind the farmhouse, the path led up into the forest. She had walked this way a thousand times before, but never with such urgency. Occasionally a stone would crunch underfoot, and she stopped to pick one up. White-vein quartz. She put it in her pocket and climbed further up the hill. At the top, the path hugged the hillside before meandering down towards the clearings and the next village. Konrad appeared from around the bend, a rifle over his shoulder and a stick in his hand. A line of women followed behind him. They were dressed in rags and every second one had scabs or something on her shaved head. Some of them were barefoot. One soldier and a boy in Hitlerjugend shorts with a machine gun swinging around his neck wandered alongside the group. The line of women broke up at the end and one of them fell down on the path. She finally caught sight of Hans. He lifted up the heavy stick and hit the woman over the head with it several times. The Volkssturm armband described red lines in the air. She turned round and disappeared into the forest. She would never worry about him again.

Šumava, April 1945

The light

tried to squeeze through a crack between two boards. This was the way she always used to lie in the barn – on a beam under the roof timbers, slightly fearful of the drop below. She used the same crack to observe the farmyard: her father unloading the hay from the cart with the farmhand, her mother trying to stuff about the tenth pellet down the goose’s throat. The barn smelled of hay and the wood of the timbers and walls. When she tried to widen the crack between the boards and peel off a splinter, it got stuck under her fingernail. The pain made her start so that she nearly fell off the beam. She carefully made her way to the ladder and then climbed down. The farmhand was just opening the barn door, and in the flood of light he looked much bigger than he actually was. She pulled her skirt down to her knees and brushed the hay from her backside. She walked past him and squinted into the light. Then she went up to her mother and, on the verge of tears, showed her what had happened to her finger. Under her fingernail the splinter was stained with blood. The goose raised its neck out of curiosity. Her mother smiled but at the same time grasped her palm tightly with her left hand and yanked the splinter out with her right. The pain finally made the tears flow. Her mother took her other hand and led her to the sitting room. The cat jumped down from the stove and licked three drops of blood off the floor. Father’s bottle of pear brandy was in the dresser and was now used as a disinfectant. It burned and smelled of pears at the same time. Her mother took a swig and smiled at her again. She pulled out a handkerchief from her apron and wiped her face. The finger had almost stopped bleeding and the cat, disappointed, returned to the stove. She was keen to get back to the barn and recreate her own private picture house using the crack between the planks. She had only been to the cinema once – with her mother and father. When she reached the doorstep, the dog rushed up to her. She scratched him with her left hand but decided to keep the right one behind her back. She went back into the barn and climbed up the ladder. The crack really did seem bigger to her, so the pain had been worth it. Suddenly she was so exhausted she couldn’t even lift her arm. She couldn’t even push away the corpse that was pressing against her. Through the crack she could see a moving landscape – they had just passed an orchard in bloom. Perhaps it smelled of pears there. The memory left her. It was sweltering in the wagon, the breath of dozens of women merged into the wheezing of one creature. The dead were utterly silent. She could breathe a little through the crack – it had been worth that splinter beneath her fingernail. She licked her bleeding finger.

Railway line near Lovosice, early May 1945

Claudiu

took off his boots and pulled off his faded socks. He unbuttoned the tunic of his Romanian Royal Army lieutenant’s uniform and sat down on a chair. He couldn’t resist putting his feet up on the table. His toenails needed cutting and he needed a wash and a shave. There had still been shooting yesterday afternoon; the Wehrmacht hadn’t wanted to give up Kroměříž, but in the end they had been forced out. His men had found an empty school to stay in and made a fire in the courtyard. The officers, including him, had commandeered a villa across the street. He examined his feet. It looked as though the war really had ended or would end soon. An empty cart passed along the street. His soldiers shouted something at the man driving it, but he didn’t even look round. If he had been transporting anything, they would have stopped him. So many of his men had fallen along the way. They hadn’t even had time to bury some of them. They had killed Germans and Hungarians, and Germans and Hungarians had killed them. They had also killed a couple of Germans here, in this town with the unpronounceable name. But as soon as the firing had stopped, the locals had started bringing them food and drink. Beside his feet on the table, there was a bottle of spirits, a loaf of bread, a chunk of smoked meat, a large jar of pickled gherkins and a smaller one filled with stewed cherries. He leaned over in his chair and alternately held up the gherkins, cherries and spirits to the sunlight from the window. He wondered if they were morello cherries – they certainly looked sour. There was a knock on the door and he turned round. An elderly woman wearing a dress came in carrying a roasting pan. She said something which he didn’t understand a word of and left the pan on the table. The roast duck glistened with fat and perhaps also with shame. The woman said something else and then left. Claudiu lowered his feet to the floor and pierced the body of the bird with a knife. He bit into the meat and the grease ran all the way down to his shirt. He sliced some bread and reached into the jar for a gherkin. Then he sniffed his fingers – a bit of duck, a bit of gherkin. He walked over to the window with the duck thigh, the rug tickling the soles of his feet. Maybe the war really was over. One of his men was in front of the school, trying to ride a bike, but he’d already lost his balance twice and fallen over. Another one was trying to entice a dog with some greasy paper. The dog studied him for a moment before scarpering. A sad song drifted down to the street from a window on the first floor. He followed the duck with some bread and uncorked the bottle of spirits. It smelled of apricots and summer. He probably wouldn’t have any of the cherries today. There was another knock on the door and the same woman entered. Another roasting pan, or this time maybe a baking tray. A cake, which seemed to have poppy seeds in it. Again she said something he didn’t understand, but this time he at least tried to thank her – in both Romanian and German, to be on the safe side. The table was practically full. In this town they probably wouldn’t even need a field kitchen or carts filled with potatoes and beets. Food aplenty. A man stood at the door fumbling with his hat. A second one passed him another bottle of spirits. Claudiu smiled and indicated his bottle. The man shook his head, pulled two glasses out of his jacket and uncorked the bottle with his teeth. He filled the glasses and now, instead of the aroma of the duck and the bitterness of the gherkins, the room was filled with the smell of grain. Claudiu reached over and clinked glasses with the man. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that the soldier had fallen off the bicycle again. The alcohol went right through him all the way to his stomach and Claudiu exhaled sharply. It was excellent. The man downed his glass and left the bottle on the table. Then he gave a small bow and left. Claudiu looked at the mass of provisions and then reached into his jacket pocket for a cigarette. German. He lit it, spat on the match and threw it into the empty glass. The last time he’d had so much food was probably October three years ago in Odessa, when he received the order to slaughter all of the Jews.

Kroměříž, May 1945

 

A brief

stop – some of the tanks needed to refuel. The tanker-trucks would reach them in a few minutes. The lieutenant leant his back and head against the tank turret, so tired he didn’t even know if the metal was hot or cold. He reached out to touch a tree branch with white blossoms, which he reckoned was a cherry tree. Pity it wasn’t a month later. Ilya the driver lay beside him, lighting a Russian filterless cigarette from the one he had just smoked. He had often wondered where Ilya kept getting the tobacco to satisfy his craving. The rising sun tickled his face and the birds in the trees and bushes made such a din it was as though their lives depended on it. Kolya from the tank behind them was carving his name into a tree with a bayonet. He had been carrying that German bayonet with him as a talisman since the Oder. The last time he had used it to scratch his name into the wall of some church in Dresden. One of the few remaining walls of the church. His commander, Nikolai, was standing next to him, explaining something to him. It was impossible to hear him above the noise of the birds. The lieutenant tried squinting into the rising sun and thought of hot food. Perhaps at the end of the journey. Then he had a proper look around and realized that the tanks were parked in some kind of garden or park. There were several rows of blossoming trees with greenhouses behind them. Then some kind of building. The lieutenant jumped down from the hull of the tank and headed towards the greenhouses. On the way he kicked the stones on the path with his boots, looked up into the treetops and regretted the fact that they were only in blossom. He felt like some fruit. The sunlight reflected off the greenhouses. He could hear the birds, but also the sound of engines. He turned round. The tanker-trucks were approaching. He’d have to get a move on. And then, as well as the noise of the birds, he also heard a girl screaming. He couldn’t see into the greenhouse because the sun was shining on it, but the screaming was definitely coming from there. He opened the door and the sunshine reflected off it and hit his eyes. Then his ears were assaulted by another scream. And crying. Finally his eyes began to function normally again. The first thing he saw was a hairy, bare bottom with military trousers at half mast, and boots below the trousers. The bottom was moving faster and faster. All he could see of the girl was her legs, her blue knee-length socks and one shoe. Now she was just shouting. Then the soldier bellowed too, and his bottom stopped moving. After that several things happened at once. The lieutenant grabbed the soldier by the collar and the arm and flung him against the side of the greenhouse. The soldier got tangled up in his loose trousers and his head smashed through the glass of the greenhouse. It was only then the lieutenant realized it was Grigory from tank number 25. The girl stopped screaming and turned onto her side. Tears ran down her cheeks and blood flowed down her thighs to the edge of the table and onto the floor of the greenhouse. All around her were flowers in small flowerpots. Some of the flowerpots were broken. She must have cut her back. The lieutenant tried to pull her skirt over her hips, but the girl flinched and whimpered. He turned to the soldier, who was lying on the ground, bleeding from the wound to his face. He took his hand and pulled him to his feet. He made no effort to resist. He didn’t even try to pull up his trousers; he just bled quietly, keeping his eyes closed. The lieutenant pushed him out of the greenhouse. The girl whimpered again. The lieutenant went back and put the soldier’s coat over her. Then he noticed that there was a tomato plant at the side of the greenhouse the soldier’s head had smashed. The fruits weren’t quite red yet, but he picked one and bit into it. Better than nothing. He returned to the soldier, who in the meantime had been trying to put on his trousers. He had just about managed it. The lieutenant took his pistol out of its holster and looked at it for a moment. Then he put it away again. His commander should be the one to shoot him. The tanker-trucks had finished refuelling the tanks. He grabbed the soldier by the shoulder and led him back to the tanks. He put the last piece of tomato in his mouth. He should have picked another one. The tank engines drowned out the birds. And even the sun. He handed the soldier over to his commander. He didn’t hesitate. The shot was almost inaudible. Lieutenant Goncharenko climbed onto tank number 24 and slipped down into the turret. The tanks gradually jerked into life and then headed towards Prague.

Veltrusy, morning of 9 May 1945

 

Translated by Graeme Dibble