HE WALKED THROUGH THE SEPTEMBER NIGHT

 

…

 

…the wind blowing and the sky ablaze with stars. Gevorg didn’t look up – without his glasses he wouldn’t even have been able to see the constellation of Cassiopeia directly above him. With his gaze focused ahead and his hands in his pockets, he took his usual shortcut between the dark blocks of high-rise flats. He walked quickly, with only the noise of his footsteps and the wind in the trees disturbing the quiet of the sleeping housing estate. That was why he registered the quiet purring of the engine before the car appeared from around the corner. He realised immediately that it had come for him. What he had imagined and feared so many times was coming true. They had chosen the place well: there was nowhere to hide. Even so, Gevorg did not lose hope and started to run. Journalist’s Shocking Death was the headline that flashed through his head, though he rejected it just as quickly. There was nothing shocking about him meeting his end here like this. Since childhood the Czech capital had been preparing him for his death. Methodically, day after day.

A kind of aimless, toxic pattern could be seen in the breath, movements and pulse of this city. A city of wandering souls, Gevorg had thought when he first climbed up onto the plinth of the demolished monument to Stalin and watched the people below. One of Kazmenia’s oldest written sources mentioned a world for the souls of those who had done nothing particularly good or bad in life to deserve heaven or hell. Their sins and good deeds cancelled each other out and, according to the anonymous author who penned this pre-Christian myth, after they died they were condemned to dwell in Dormahor, where they would wander in endless circles without any possibility of escape. Prague was Dormahor.

If Gevorg Arojan had been given the choice of where to live some years ago, he would have chosen London, Paris, Madrid or maybe even Tel Aviv. All those places had large, active Kazmenian communities. If his mother were alive, she’d have argued the case for America, which she dreamt of as the promised land. “If”. “If” is not life, as Kazmenians know only too well. The Czechs say “kdyby jsou chyby” (if wishes were horses). Arojan’s father had no dreams, and if he ever had a wish, he never shared it with them. After the break-up of the Soviet Union, he had taken Gevorg to Prague because he had found work there. There was no threat to them there, the atmosphere was friendly. Prices were rising as in the other countries of the former socialist camp, but the cost of living was not yet so high that the son of an industrious Gastarbeiter couldn’t get a decent education. Gevorg’s life and the lives of his family, his nation, the people behind the so-called Iron Curtain as well as those on the other side, had been shaped by politics since time immemorial. It was everywhere, it encroached upon every aspect of life, and it fascinated as well as terrified Gevorg. He chose to study political science.

Even after finishing university, he found no compelling reason to leave. He remained in Prague after his father’s death. He took his ashes to Kazmenia, where he scattered them in the mountains behind the village wheere his father grew up. Although they had never discussed it, he felt that for his father it would have been the most acceptable funeral option. Kazmenia did not represent an option in life. The shadow of Russia had fallen over it and the shared border was like a time-bomb. No-one doubted that it would explode, it was just a question of when. Gevorg organised a generous wake for the whole village in honour of his father, and after a short stay with his relatives, he returned to Prague. He had grown used to its aimless bustle and had accepted the status of a wandering soul.

When the time-bomb went off and armed conflict flared up on the Russian–Kazmenian border, it couldn’t have come at a worse time for Kazmenia. The world had fallen into chaos, bloody clashes were on the rise and terrorist attacks had become an everyday occurrence. Europe was undergoing an existential crisis as the result of internal and external problems. It had neither the courage nor the inspiration to tackle them and completely lacked the strength to intervene in a war in what Brussels saw as its distant, irrelevant eastern suburb. And what’s more, a war that involved Russia, a country the Union had a tense relationship with. No-one wanted to exacerbate it further. The consequences could prove to be fatal. At any rate, they soon made themselves felt: several thousand Kazmenians who had lost their homes swelled the number of refugees from various corners of the world. As hopes for peace began to evaporate, the tide of refugees grew and so did the backlash against them.

Gevorg’s life had also been fundamentally changed by the war: his wandering had been given direction. He had spent the last few months as a war correspondent in the thick of the fighting as well as in the Kazmenian hinterland, which the war had bitten deeper and deeper into. It was like the relentless progress of a disease. He didn’t believe in miracles and had no illusions about his country making a sudden recovery. He knew he had to put all of his strength into alleviating at least some of his countrymen’s suffering, of which the rest of Europe had only the vaguest of notions. For them the war in Kazmenia was just as fictitious as Star Wars, though much less appealing.

Before he left his friends today, they had been discussing the current situation. It was becoming increasingly hopeless. The peacefully sleeping Prague housing estate seemed a million miles from Jeremesh, Vaparan (where Gevorg had picked up a painful souvenir in the form of a shrapnel wound under his ribs), Gregoripol and other cities in his homeland. They were separated by entire galaxies. At a bus stop at the intersection between two streets formed of long rows of tower blocks, Gevorg and his friends had said goodbye and gone their separate ways. After taking a few steps, it had occurred to Gevorg that he should be more careful and alter his usual route. Breaking ingrained habits was one of the cardinal rules of self-preservation, but in the end he didn’t do it. He was tired and the wind was blowing through his light shirt. He wanted to get home as soon as possible.

The first shot hit his shoulder and as the second hit him between his shoulder blades he collapsed. The shots had been muffled, the street was deserted and no sound came from any of the windows. None of the residents of the massive complex of flats was going to let this night-time episode disturb their sleep. Gevorg realised he didn’t stand a chance – his time in Dormahor was coming to an end. However, the strong self-preservation instinct he had inherited from countless generations of stubborn Kazmenian ancestors commanded him not to give up. Despite being in pain and losing consciousness, he obstinately crawled towards a nearby bin shed, though he knew that even if he managed to drag himself there, he still wouldn’t be safe.

The car stopped, he heard rapid footsteps and he began to recite Aboon Dbash-mayo. His mother had once promised him that if you believe in Him, Heaven will open up to you. The last time he had prayed was when she was still alive, and since then the Lord’s Prayer had never entered his mind. Now he remembered it without the slightest difficulty. He recited it up to nehwe sebyonokh, and then came the third shot. It was aimed straight at his heart. Heaven opened up.

 

 

A serious incident occurred on the outskirts of Prague two hours ago when a man out walking at night was shot. Unconfirmed reports suggest that it was the journalist and blogger Gevorg Arojan, originally from Kazmenia. Although the police have refused to comment on the incident, a number of disturbing facts are already coming to light. There will be a more detailed analysis following the morning news programme.

Rádio Gejzír

 

The road was muddy with some patches of gravel and led between fields that had been harvested. It wasn’t yet dark, but a thick curtain of rain obscured the outline of Prague on the horizon. Milan stopped near the edge of a small wood and kept the engine running. He reached into the compartment under the radio where he kept his cigarettes, but then changed his mind. Afterwards.

“He’s here,” he said. He recognised the shape of the off-road vehicle parked amongst the trees. It was undoubtedly Goatee’s – or, to be more exact, it was the one Goatee had come in. He was also sure that none of the cars Goatee drove actually belonged to him. He simply made use of them. And because they tended to be expensive cars which Goatee changed the way he did his socks, Milan respected him for it. He admired money and the people who were able to access it. But that didn’t make him any less cautious – these were precisely the people who couldn’t be trusted.

“Sit tight,” he said to Denis, who was about to get out.

“Is something up?”

“If you get your hands dirty for someone, you don’t have to get your shoes dirty too. He’s not paying you for that.”

“That’s true.” Denis let go of the door handle and leaned back comfortably. “We’ve done our part. Now it’s up to him.”

“We can only hope he sees it the way we do.”

“You think he’s trying to screw us over?”

Milan looked thoughtfully past the moving windscreen wipers at the off-road vehicle. If Goatee had wanted to double-cross them, he’d have done it by now. He looked like a sucker but he was smart and experienced. Milan didn’t know who he worked for, but he reckoned it was some heavyweight. You could tell from Goatee’s self-assurance, but more importantly from the money he had offered them without batting an eyelid. That kind of generosity raised a number of questions. The first one, and from Milan’s perspective the only important one: Did he even intend to pay up? They’d received a third up front as soon as they shook hands on it and now they were supposed to collect the rest.

“I wouldn’t advise him to try anything on with me,” said Denis. “It could end badly.”

Milan had first witnessed his short temper and brutality when he was a prison guard, shortly after Denis had ended up in his unit. He realised there was more to this little squirt than meets the eye when he saw an incident from which Denis, despite his height disadvantage, emerged if not victorious then certainly with honour. Coping with a big-hitter like Segedín – especially in the prison clubhouse, which the others had cleared out of to avoid getting in the way – was no mean feat. After that Milan began to take more notice of Denis. He soon discovered that the secret of his success was not down to his muscles but his highly charged fury. Fate had been unkind to him – in addition to his small stature, he had also been born with a cleft palate (his deformed upper lip resembled the female genitalia, earning him the nickname of Fanny Lips in prison) – and so the only way to protect himself against all the rats running around in the world was through unconditional selfishness. He compromised with no-one, cowed down to no-one, relied on no-one. Even the pact he had established with his former guard was strictly business. There was an unspoken agreement that as soon as they got their hands on the money they’d go their separate ways.

“Look what he’s doing!” Denis said angrily, leaning forward and looking through the wet windscreen towards the wood. Goatee’s car, which had been parked right at the edge, suddenly began to reverse deeper into the wood. “Go after him!”

Milan had no intention of leaving the open space to go into the dark forest.

“Christ, calm down.”

“Do you want him to give us the slip?”

“If he wanted to clear off, he wouldn’t have shown up in the first place,” objected Milan with greater certainty than he actually felt. “He’s here to square up with us.”
The off-roader turned round between the trees and headed across the field towards them. Denis’s hand disappeared into the pocket of his jacket where he kept his gun.

“I wouldn’t trust those Chechen bastards as far as I could throw them,” he said.

“Calm down,” repeated Milan, though he himself was nervously gripping the gearstick. He didn’t think that Goatee was a Chechen, but that was about the only point he disagreed with Denis on. He fully shared his mistrust. He was always disconcerted by people who behaved illogically and preferred to keep out of their way. He decided to make an exception for Goatee. He had been unhappy with his life for a long time now and longed for a change, but the right opportunity had never come along. Goatee had provided him with it. It involved a high degree of risk and presented a series of question marks, but it was extremely tempting. Milan had calculated that he’d be able to start a new life with what he earned in a single night.

The car stopped within arm’s reach. It was an Audi. Goatee’s window was rolled down, his elbows resting on the steering wheel. A shirt with several buttons undone and a loosened tie poked out from under his checked jacket. He looked like an office worker who had made himself comfortable on his way home from work. Apart from him, Milan couldn’t see anyone inside the car.

“He’s alone,” he said to Denis. He could fell his nervousness falling away. He rolled down the window and nodded. Goatee greeted him in return. His face was expressionless.

“Everything go as planned? Or was there a problem?” he asked. He spoke fluently with barely a hint of an accent.

“No problem,” replied Denis.

“You sure?” Behind his glasses, Goatee’s eyes surveyed them through smoky-grey irises; his chin, covered with a thin beard, drooped slightly as though he was trying to stifle a yawn. Milan wasn’t fooled – he saw an alertness behind those smoky eyes, so he remained vigilant.

“When I say no, I mean no,” said Denis firmly.

“It was a clean job,” confirmed Milan in a tone which eliminated any doubts – except for his own. He couldn’t convince himself that helping someone to their grave against their will was a clean job. There were people walking the earth that other people had passed sentence on, and someone had to carry that sentence out. That was clear to Milan and in no way shocked him, although he himself had never taken on a job like that. It was lucrative, but it had unpleasant side-effects. They didn’t reveal themselves immediately. Last night, when Denis had come back from the bins and nodded to signal it was over, Milan had felt nothing. Let’s just get out of here was the one thing in his mind as he sped off along the straight road between the blocks of flats, his gaze fixed on the rear-view mirror. The motionless body in the orange shirt quickly receded, but it continued to lie there. Even when Milan turned off at the nearest junction and the bin shed disappeared from view, the image on his retina did not fade away completely. It was there the whole time they were disposing of the car and the gun. He lay down to sleep with that image and it didn’t vanish even after he woke up. It was still lodged there now, faded but still clearly visible. It irritated him like a nervous tic that you just can’t get rid of.

“Let’s settle up then, eh?” said Denis impatiently.

“Good accounts make good friends,” added Milan, glancing at the plastic bag lying on the Audi’s dashboard.

“Do they? Really?” Goatee’s sleepy expression flickered with amusement. There was obviously no such saying in his mother tongue.

“That’s what they say.” Milan didn’t take his eyes off the plastic bag. It was the right size and it was the only reason he had come to this meeting. He wasn’t interested in being friends with Goatee.

“ I also know a guy who says: Good accounts save ammunition costs,” remarked Denis.

“Smart guy.” Goatee took the bag and passed it to Milan through the window. “There’s a bit extra there. I didn’t have any change. Hope you don’t mind.”

“We’ll get over it,” Denis assured him.

Milan had originally intended to count the money, but Goatee’s remark made him change his mind. It was a hint that what seemed like a real fortune to him and Denis was only small change to Goatee. Even if that were true, he didn’t see why he had to spell it out. He glanced into the bag and then placed it by his feet. He expected Denis to reach for it immediately, but he didn’t budge. His hand still in his pocket, he was watching Goatee’s every move.

“Just to be clear – we don’t know each other,” he warned him. “We’ve never seen each other. And it’d be better if we never see each other again. That is, unless…”

He paused significantly and Milan guessed what he was going to say next. He wanted to stop him, but he knew it was no use: he wasn’t the warder here, he wasn’t in command. It was Denis who had got Milan into this business, who had set the rules and taken on the most difficult part of the job. It was Denis who was the conductor of this performance, waving his baton as he saw fit.

“..unless something interesting should turn up again,” he said, exactly as Milan had expected. “Clear?”

“Absolutely,” agreed Goatee, the sleepy expression returning to his face. “It was a pleasure, gents!”

He made a gesture of farewell and slowly drove off across the field. Milan watched the back of the car disappear, scouring the landscape at the same time. He still couldn’t believe it had all gone so smoothly. Even Denis remained in a state of high alert.

“Look and see how much there is,” he said to Milan. “Before we lose him.”

Milan lifted up the bag, emptied the contents out onto his lap and counted the banknotes in one bundle. He whistled in amazement. Goatee had given them a quarter more than the agreed amount. He was pleased but unnerved at the same time. It wasn’t normal. Milan didn’t know anyone who behaved like that.

“D’you understand this?” he asked.

“What do you need to understand about money? Either you have it or you don’t,” sneered Denis. “I prefer the former, don’t you? Or do you want to give it back to him?”

Milan had no intention of doing that, but on the other hand he couldn’t just shrug it off like Denis. He wasn’t going to go on about it, but neither could he get it out of his mind. He thought about Goatee the whole time he was driving back along the waterlogged country road. About all the contradictions in his behaviour. About his suit and tie and the expensive cars he drove, his flawless Czech and unplaceable accent. About his sleepy expression and alert grey eyes. He had introduced himself as Johnny at their first meeting, which they couldn’t take seriously, but there was also a contradiction in the nickname they’d given him. The sparse stubble on his chin looked nothing like a goatee. It invited ridicule. By calling him that, they were turning him into a figure of fun and playing down other features of his personality which were less ridiculous and harder to read. Milan knew many different types of big-time and small-time crooks; the majority had specific features that could be used to categorise them, but Goatee didn’t fit into any pigeonhole. He remained a mystery to Milan. What puzzled him most was why they had been hired for this job. Was it by chance or was he following strict orders from his boss? Who was his boss? And why would he spend so much money getting rid of one little Kazmenian?

“What was that Kazmenian called?” he asked when they were back on the main road and he could finally light his cigarette. He had been holding back the whole time they were with Goatee. He didn’t want his attention distracted. Now the savoured the tobacco like a welcome reward.

“Sarajan?”

“Arojan.”

“First name?”

“Gevorg. Why?”

“No reason.” He decided he was going to find out more about him. “I don’t have a very good memory for names.”

“You can train it.”

“How?”

“You have to repeat each name you hear sixteen times. Then you won’t forget it.”

“Really? Have you tried it?”

Denis shook his head. “I can remember names. I’ve got a bad memory for things I’ve seen. If you asked me whether that Arojan was wearing shorts or long trousers, I couldn’t for the life of me tell you.”

“I think it was jeans,” said Milan, but he couldn’t swear to it. Arojan’s orange shirt had pushed everything else into the background. When he fell to his knees after Denis’s second shot, it had struck Milan that he looked like a Buddhist monk in religious meditation. It was Arojan’s shirt, vibrant and bright, which was to blame for that night-time image so clearly imprinted on Milan’s retina. He screwed up his eyes, opened them again, blinked. It achieved nothing. The memory did as it pleased; one moment it wouldn’t work and the next it worked only too well. You couldn’t control it. Perhaps only help it slightly.

“Arojan, you say? George?”

“Ge-vorg.” Denis pronounced the name slowly and clearly.

“Gevorg Arojan,” repeated Milan. Sixteen times. He wondered if he’d remember it.

 

 

Are Czech correctional facilities think-tanks for future crimes? This question was raised by Ivo Janiš at the conference of the Union of State Prosecutors. He reminded participants that prison staff had a duty to help achieve a positive transformation in convicts’ values. However, the opposite is often true. Convicts successfully “re-train” prison officers for criminal acts. According to Janiš, a change could be brought about by introducing more effective psychological tests for recruiting prison officers and by raising their starting salaries.

www.ceskajustice.cz

 
 
 
 
Translated by Graeme Dibble