Lights Out in the Reptile House (21 page)

He managed to stay away from the journals for another day. He sat and watched one hundred and forty-one trucks roll through the square at noon heading for the front. The cloud of dust they raised stayed level and thick. The trucks were coated with it. His eyes watered. The canvas flaps on the trucks were tied down on the sides and back. When they were gone the dust took its time settling. It moved unhurriedly past the buildings like wandering cumuli. He thumped his clothes to produce his own clouds and tried to loiter in the square afterward, but his dread of running into Albert finally drove him home.

He thought about going over to Leda's and worried: suppose the neighbors saw him. Suppose the police or Civil Guard were watching the house. He was passing through the kitchen in distraction when Kehr asked if he'd been listening to the radio recently.

Stasik was leaning on the stove, looking at nothing. Kehr had a file open on the table, and Karel wondered if that was all he ever did, sit at the kitchen table and look at papers. The top page was divided into three columns: names, addresses, and something he couldn't decipher in the third column.

Here was a hypothetical for Karel, Kehr said. A partisan near the capital had thrown a bomb into the backseat of a Security Service car carrying a Special Investigator. A group of kids Karel's age had deliberately gotten in the way of the Civil Guardsmen in pursuit. The partisan had escaped. The question was this: what would Karel have done with the kids?

Karel got a glass from the cupboard and poured himself a drink from the faucet. The plumbing still made noise. Was the Security Service man killed? he wanted to know.

“Blinded in one eye,” Kehr said. “Otherwise fine. Laid up for a while.”

Karel guessed he would have given them some sort of work detail, or something. Stasik snorted and told him they'd been flogged and given prison terms. Of course, before this they'd been good boys, he said bitterly. That was supposed to make a difference.

“My junior officer has an endearing faith in corporal punishment,” Kehr said. Karel imagined Stasik years earlier, in a place like this, standing where Karel was standing, an actor wearing Karel's clothes.

Karel said he had other things to worry about.

Kehr smiled. “Your father,” he said. “How he's doing, no doubt.”

Karel shook his head, a tight little shake.

Kehr continued to smile, and drew a straight, easy line through two of the names on the list. “Seems to me our friend Leda was happy to leave,” he said.

It wasn't that, Karel said.

“It's interesting,” Kehr said after a pause. “I had business at the station the night she left. Her train was delayed. I stopped to visit and she wanted to know, out of nowhere, if you'd assisted us in any way. I assured her you'd been as unhelpful as you'd ever been. In fact, I told her that even though we were letting you go we were not at all pleased with your performance.” He cast down the list, touching the pencil point to each name, and made rapid question marks beside a few of them. “I don't believe in not telling the truth,” he said. “But every so often a little fit overcomes me.

Karel thought, My head's made of glass. I might as well just walk around with signs. “What'd you say when she asked why you were letting her leave?” he said. He tried not to look as though the news had affected him.

Kehr stood the file on its edge and straightened the pages with short thumps on the tabletop. He set it down and clasped his hands over it. “Her friend Albert arranged it. Travel passes. At your request.

“She was, if I'm any judge of emotion, quite moved,” he added.

“You lied to her,” Karel said. But he was relieved. He felt better. He realized he'd now be doing things to keep people from finding out about things he'd already done. He imagined her on the train thinking of him, and his face heated with guilt at his excitement and pleasure. He
had
saved her, hadn't he? He had a flashing sexual fantasy of her gratitude.

Kehr and Stasik returned their attention to what they'd been doing, in Stasik's case, apparently, brooding. Karel got up to go, anticipating the illicit feeling of being alone with her journals again, but Kehr reminded him about dinner and pointed out the recipe on the counter for Flat Lamb Pie.

“I want you to do me a favor,” Kehr said later while they ate. The ringtail sat on its haunches by his chair and begged with its forepaws up like a dog. “After dinner I want you to pick up some packages for me. At Albert Delp's.”

Stasik smiled and then put his hand to his mouth.

“I don't want to go there,” Karel said, astounded Kehr had to be told that.

Kehr looked at him. “I'm asking you a favor,” he said.

“I can't,” Karel said.

Kehr shook his head at his lamb. He sawed gently at it with his knife. He said Albert had no idea about what had happened the other day. They'd done nothing to him. As far as he knew this was a routine search. It was being handled by a member of the Security Service and they were directed to share what they found with the Civil Guard.

Karel put his hands on his cheeks and rubbed them and looked over at Stasik, who was interested only in his food.

“Which considering the imbecile in charge won't be much,” Kehr said. “But you never know.”

“Why can't you pick it up?” Karel said. “Isn't it top secret or something?”

“This is not a discussion,” Kehr said. “And we aren't errand boys.”

“I don't want to go there,” Karel said. “I don't want to face him.”

Kehr nodded as if he understood completely. “A favor,” he said.

The Security Service officer who came to the door at Albert's house was Holter.

“Look who it is,” Holter announced. “Karel Roeder.”

Karel stared, open-mouthed.

“It's Karel Roeder,” Holter called over his shoulder, as if a good party were now getting better. He held the door open. “It's Karel Roeder, and he can't close his mouth,” he added.

Karel came in. “I tried to find you at the parade,” he said. “Didn't you see me? You're in the Security Service now?” He wasn't sure he was making any sense.

“However my country can use me,” Holter said. He wasn't wearing a uniform.

“I have to pick up the stuff for Officer Kehr,” Karel explained, dazed. He was standing in the hall, not wanting to go any farther. The tea cozy was off the phone and the magazine racks in the living room were empty.

Holter made a series of affirmative noises and led Karel into the kitchen. Albert was at the table. The kitchen cabinets were untouched.

Karel stood where he was, awkwardly.

“You know each other, of course,” Holter said.

Albert scratched the bristle on his Adam's apple with his fingernail.

Karel couldn't tell, but thought Kehr was right: Albert didn't know.

He turned to Holter. “My father,” he said. “Did you see him? Did he join the Civil Guard?”

Of course, Holter said. What a question.

“The messenger arrives,” Albert said.

Karel's face burned. He said hello.

Holter suggested Karel sit. His group would be finished in a minute.

Karel could hear people upstairs. Albert seemed tired and disgusted, but Karel could see he was listening, too.

“So,” Holter said. “Feel free to engage in zoo talk. Pretend I'm not here.”

“I'm allowing my house to be searched,” Albert said. “Like a good citizen. Do I have to submit to this as well?”

Holter shrugged theatrically. Karel looked away. There was banging upstairs. Holter drummed his fingers on the tabletop.

Karel stole occasional fearful looks at Albert, who seemed to be contemplating something disappointing. Holter studied his fingers. He had large moist-looking fingernails that were closely bitten down. He wandered the room and then sat on the table edge between them with a leg dangling and a foot on the floor in an imitation-jaunty pose that irritated them both. “Have you been listening to the radio?” he asked Karel conversationally.

“Now don't
you
start,” Karel said.

Holter knitted his eyebrows and gave up. His complexion made Karel wonder if blood could back up and pool. He said he'd been going to ask if Karel had heard about the assassination in Naklo. Subsecretary Wissinger, who maybe Karel had just heard right here in town. He'd been giving a speech about the Old Guard—what else did he ever talk about?—and asking that those executed for assassinations during the days of the Republic be commemorated from here on in as war dead. Apparently he'd been waiting for applause on that suggestion when he'd been shot.

Albert snorted, and Holter shot him a look so penetrating it frightened Karel.

It was sad what was happening, Holter said, after a pause. Everywhere it was the same. Where was the respect? Where was the order? The more they worked, the more there seemed to do.

“I need to be at the zoo before nine o'clock,” Albert said. “Some of the nocturnals need special care.”

Holter looked at him. “People don't realize that police have a hard time of it in a police state,” he said. “And what is it, really, that we want? We're not asking our citizens to love us, or even love one another. Just to do their duty.”

When no one answered he swung his leg down and walked to the window. He peered at his reflection. He pushed tenderly on his cheek with two fingers. “It's always the same tooth,” he said sadly. He made a sideways squeaking noise and opened and closed his jaw. He looked over at Karel as if testing his eyesight.

“But what you got is what you got,” he said. “Life is work. In bad times you work for nothing. In good you get a little something out of it.”

They could hear the others coming down the stairs. Two young men tramped into the room. They were also in street clothes. All that was left was the crawl space, one of them said. Holter nodded, and they left. After a pause Karel could feel them bumping around beneath his feet.

A lot of false travel papers had been turning up, Holter said to Albert apologetically. Duplicate birth certificates, fraudulent work papers. He crossed the room to the kitchen cabinets and turned, his back to them. Albert didn't have anything like that to worry about, did he?

Albert didn't answer.

“Rude question,” Holter said. “Of course not.”

“Yesterday one of my assistants' house was set on fire,” Albert said. “Now he and his family are out on the street. The neighbors said the men wore Party pins.”

“That sort of arson is really planned and executed by big-city types,” Holter said. “We're fairly helpless in cases like that. It's pointless, but who can tell them that? Or maybe they were partisans seeking to blame us. Who knows?”

He turned to Karel. “Do you?” he asked.

“No,” Karel said, startled.

Albert shook his head, and Holter looked over at him with amusement. “I don't understand why a citizen who respects the law would support the partisans,” he said. “I mean, everyone has his passion for reform in the early going, but most of us realize we're just wasting time and energy better spent in other directions. And who are the partisans trying to reform? Did you hear the joke about our countrymen who wanted to seize the train stations but couldn't because they hadn't bought tickets?”

“Couldn't you be helping them with whatever they're doing?” Albert asked. “Do you have to torment me?”

“One more story, not from the radio,” Holter said. He pulled a chair out and swung it around and sat on it backward.

Karel found Albert looking at him and had to look away, at his feet, at the table. What was happening here? Why had he been sent here? He understood something sadistic was going on but didn't know what or why.

“For months we knew a lot of people who'd gotten away from here were in hiding in the capital, in bunkers and mazes built out of subbasements, wine cellars, storm drains, everything. Informers told us that much and showed us one or two. Big question: how would we find the rest? Kuding, Lenz, Kruse—remember them?—they were all down there somewhere.”

Albert looked away, agitated. “It's eight-thirty,” he said.

“Well,” Holter said. “Finally, we hit on it. Bang: the electric bills of the businesses above! Get it? All those sites would be siphoning off electricity. Right away we found a central cell, maybe forty people. We've identified most of the bodies.”

Albert paled. He ran his hand up the back of his neck and let it drop.

“Kuding's actually alive,” Holter said. “Though he won't be a problem. As our Justice Minister says, show me a man and I'll show you a case.”

Albert put his hands over his eyes. He was trembling.

Karel stood up, abruptly, and had no explanation when Holter looked at him in surprise. The young men returned from the crawl space dirty and empty-handed and saved him. One had cobwebs hanging from his hair.

“I'm supposed to be back,” Karel said. He couldn't take any more of this.

Holter lifted two boxes from the hall and brought them to Karel. “Children need two things, don't you think?” he said, addressing Albert. Karel put his arms out and he loaded the boxes on them, tilting the weight back against Karel's chest. “If they don't get them, the result is unhappy children. Routine and discipline: the child who doesn't get them will have all kinds of trouble.”

Karel said goodbye to Albert over the boxes and left. He had to wait at the door for one of the young men to open it. Holter called after him as he went down the steps that what he recommended was that children be given plenty of little tasks, and then be made to do them regularly.

Today we tried to read the future by dropping melted wax and lead into bowls of water. E asked, Will Leda marry Karel? and everybody thought that was funny. Sometimes I feel so excluded from their company! and I just want to sit outside under the sky and feel sorry for myself, like mother says.