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Authors: Pavel Kohout
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in this distant and deserted place, Beran looked cautiously around.
“What’s your opinion of Buback?”
“He’s a capable detective… to judge by his position, at least.”
“Exactly. Kind of a big gun for a little case, don’t you think?”
Morava felt hurt, as if his own importance had just been downgraded.
“I had the impression that you were giving this matter the highest priority, sir.”
“Of course, of course,” Beran said, as if trying to soothe him. “That’s why I took the case myself. But in reality, you’re the one working on it while I continue directing daily operations. Consider that Buback runs the whole Prague office of the German criminal police; isn’t he spending a bit too much time and attention on this?”
“Not given the victim’s significance,” Morava objected. “After all, she was—”
“That’s precisely the point: she wasn’t! I put out some feelers and discovered something interesting. The Nazis were deeply suspicious of the von Pommeren family. The general’s posthumous decoration was supposed to signal that even the old German nobility supported Hitler, but there’s a rumor circulating in Prague’s German community that the Russian partisans got him just before the Gestapo did. Von Pommeren had long been suspected of supporting the ideas that led to last year’s assassination attempt on the Fuhrer.”
“Aha.” Morava tried quickly to pick up the thread. “So they’re just feigning an interest so they can terrorize us?”
“Berlin—and State Secretary Frank here in Prague—can hardly risk inflaming the populace for no reason, given how close the front is and the way the war is going. No, Morava, the Germans’ plan is to keep the lid on us.”
“Why should they be so interested in our criminal police?”
“Because in every time and place, it’s the heart of the whole force. There’s only a handful of us, but we outlast regimes; I’m a living example. And under certain circumstances, our knowledge of the system would let us run the whole force, and not only the force.”
Morava was still in the dark.
“Under what circumstances… ?”
“Didn’t it ever occur to you, Morava, that, railway workers and firemen aside, only the Prague police could defend this castle—and all of Prague with it—from destruction? And who can block the Germans’ retreat to the west once the great flight from the Russians begins? Won’t it be crucial for the Germans, then, to sound us out up close and neutralize us in time? Buback isn’t just a detective, Morava; he’s Gestapo.”
Barbora Pospichalova actually enjoyed going to the cemetery. Death had taken a cruelly long time to claim her husband, playing with him like a well-fed cat with a mouse. Its final strike meant freedom for both him and his wife.
After taking years to choose the right man, she had married Jaroslav at thirty for love; the rapid onset of his chronic illness thereafter only strengthened her feelings for him. Therefore she was more surprised than anyone at how quickly she resigned herself to his death. She would have sworn it would be months, perhaps years, before she could lead a normal existence. And it was absurd to think—yes, she had found the very idea distasteful—that she might ever again have a lover, let alone a husband. A month after the funeral, however, she heard a new confession of love and a marriage proposal.
Her suitor was Jaroslav’s brother, who had cared for him unflaggingly by her side until he breathed his last. During that whole time Jindfich had never revealed his feelings and even now agreed to her request. This only endeared him to her more.
She had decided to mourn for half a year, and that period was just over. Tomorrow her brother-in-law was coming for dinner, and Barbora was sure he would stay the night. She suddenly realized that even here—where only a layer of clay divided her from the body she had touched so tenderly—she was looking forward to
“What’s your opinion of Buback?”
“He’s a capable detective… to judge by his position, at least.”
“Exactly. Kind of a big gun for a little case, don’t you think?”
Morava felt hurt, as if his own importance had just been downgraded.
“I had the impression that you were giving this matter the highest priority, sir.”
“Of course, of course,” Beran said, as if trying to soothe him. “That’s why I took the case myself. But in reality, you’re the one working on it while I continue directing daily operations. Consider that Buback runs the whole Prague office of the German criminal police; isn’t he spending a bit too much time and attention on this?”
“Not given the victim’s significance,” Morava objected. “After all, she was—”
“That’s precisely the point: she wasn’t! I put out some feelers and discovered something interesting. The Nazis were deeply suspicious of the von Pommeren family. The general’s posthumous decoration was supposed to signal that even the old German nobility supported Hitler, but there’s a rumor circulating in Prague’s German community that the Russian partisans got him just before the Gestapo did. Von Pommeren had long been suspected of supporting the ideas that led to last year’s assassination attempt on the Fuhrer.”
“Aha.” Morava tried quickly to pick up the thread. “So they’re just feigning an interest so they can terrorize us?”
“Berlin—and State Secretary Frank here in Prague—can hardly risk inflaming the populace for no reason, given how close the front is and the way the war is going. No, Morava, the Germans’ plan is to keep the lid on us.”
“Why should they be so interested in our criminal police?”
“Because in every time and place, it’s the heart of the whole force. There’s only a handful of us, but we outlast regimes; I’m a living example. And under certain circumstances, our knowledge of the system would let us run the whole force, and not only the force.”
Morava was still in the dark.
“Under what circumstances… ?”
“Didn’t it ever occur to you, Morava, that, railway workers and firemen aside, only the Prague police could defend this castle—and all of Prague with it—from destruction? And who can block the Germans’ retreat to the west once the great flight from the Russians begins? Won’t it be crucial for the Germans, then, to sound us out up close and neutralize us in time? Buback isn’t just a detective, Morava; he’s Gestapo.”
Barbora Pospichalova actually enjoyed going to the cemetery. Death had taken a cruelly long time to claim her husband, playing with him like a well-fed cat with a mouse. Its final strike meant freedom for both him and his wife.
After taking years to choose the right man, she had married Jaroslav at thirty for love; the rapid onset of his chronic illness thereafter only strengthened her feelings for him. Therefore she was more surprised than anyone at how quickly she resigned herself to his death. She would have sworn it would be months, perhaps years, before she could lead a normal existence. And it was absurd to think—yes, she had found the very idea distasteful—that she might ever again have a lover, let alone a husband. A month after the funeral, however, she heard a new confession of love and a marriage proposal.
Her suitor was Jaroslav’s brother, who had cared for him unflaggingly by her side until he breathed his last. During that whole time Jindfich had never revealed his feelings and even now agreed to her request. This only endeared him to her more.
She had decided to mourn for half a year, and that period was just over. Tomorrow her brother-in-law was coming for dinner, and Barbora was sure he would stay the night. She suddenly realized that even here—where only a layer of clay divided her from the body she had touched so tenderly—she was looking forward to
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