The Cremator (Modern Czech Classics), page 17
‘So, these are the ovens,’ he said, shaking and gazing uncertainly.
‘That’s them,’ Mr. Kopfrkingl gave a smile. ‘Don’t tell me you’re frightened. Why, they’re empty. Why, nobody is being cremated. You’re always frightened,’ he gave a smile, ‘whenever we go somewhere, Mili. I don’t know who you’ve inherited it from. You were frightened in the waxworks some time ago, you were frightened when we went to see the boxing-match, and you were frightened in the lookout tower . . . did something happen to you then . . .?’ Then he said:
‘Here are the buttons for the iron curtain in the funeral hall. Here are the thermometers, and here’s the loudspeaker so that the employees can listen to the music . . . So, these are our fine mechanisms, and automatic processes . . . On that scaffold over there, in the ovens, are little windows of smoked glass, but you don’t really have to see them . . . Here’s the chart which you know. Wait, I’ll have a look . . .’ Then they passed the storage place for the tin cylinders used for ashes, with their calibre of 16 cm and height of 23 cm. It smelled of lysol, and the boy was shaking like a leaf . . . ‘That’s the storage place for the cylinders used for ashes,’ said Mr. Kopfrkingl. ‘They’re standardized . . .’ And then they entered the preparation room with the coffins.
‘Here you can see Mr. Daněk,’ Mr. Kopfrkingl gave a smile. ‘Here Dr. Veverka, his coffin is rather narrow. Poor thing, when they put the lid on, it’ll rest on his forehead. Here’s Mr. Piskoř with his angel’s wing . . . he died of rickets . . . but that doesn’t matter. I’ll show you this coffin,’ Mr. Kopfrkingl gave a smile and went to a coffin which was nailed down, bearing the number 5 and the name of E. Wagner. ‘It’s nailed down because it won’t be opened again. It won’t be put on view but will go straight from here into the funeral hall on Monday.’ Mr. Kopfrkingl took the little pair of pincers out of his pocket and opened the lid.
A sharp, pale emaciated face in a full-dress, grey-green uniform was revealed in the coffin. It had the Iron Cross on its chest, a peaked cap and white gloves. There was a laurel sprig in its buttonhole. Another sprig, possibly myrtle, was resting on its hands which were folded on his stomach.
‘This is Mr. Ernst Wagner,’ said Mr. Kopfrkingl to the boy, who was shaking like a leaf and desperately squeezing his own hands. ‘SS Sturmbannführer . . . he was fond of his people and of music. He’ll be laid to rest to the sounds of Wagner’s “Parsifal”. So, that boxer of yours is going to beat up the Germans?’ Mr. Kopfrkingl smiled sadly at his terrified son. ‘The bullies, the intruders. You’ve probably told him that you like sweets because he takes you to confectionery shops, doesn’t he . . .? Look here, this Mr. Wagner is a thoroughbred German. He’s no soft, effeminate soul . . . he’s of pure origin. Ohne Rücksicht auf den Dienstgrad muss jeder SS-Angehörige den Abstammungsnachweis erbringen, wenn er sich verloben or verheiraten will. This is what the Reich Law says. You know what it means in Czech . . .? Well, that regardless of rank, every SS member must produce a certificate of ancestry when he wants to get engaged or married . . . Laws are here to help people . . .’ Mr. Kopfrkingl gave a smile and then he said: ‘His coffin is as it should be, high and wide enough. What if you were to lie next to him, Mili? Lie next to him and be melted down, you and he together, to the sounds of “Parsifal” on Monday?’ And with a less than cheerful smile, he took the iron rod which lay in the corner by the niche with the curtain, forced the boy down on his knees, and standing astride over him in his high black boots and Tyrolean hat with the braid and the feather, he battered him with the rod. Then he lifted him from the floor and shoved him next to the SS man. The coffin was, as it should be, high and wide. It held them both like two very different brothers. He nailed down the coffin with the little pair of pincers, checked both the rod and tiles to see that they were clean, adjusted his hat . . . and went out. ‘Death unites,’ he said to himself, with his hand resting on the little pair of pincers in his pocket. ‘There’s no difference in human ashes. It doesn’t matter whether they are the ashes of a German Bannführer or of a quarter-Jewish boy. Poor boy,’ he said to himself. ‘How he would have suffered in his life otherwise. The things I have spared that good boy. He wouldn’t have been admitted to German schools, nor into the Hitler Youth now, let alone into the happy, new order when it comes. The only pity is I didn’t manage to take a picture of him . . .’
‘. . . Mili, don’t run away, wait for me,’ he called out in front of Mr. Fenek’s porter’s lodge so as to be heard inside, in the little room. Mr. Fenek was there, at that very moment, cowering, with his lips on his hand as though kissing it, his eyes dim. ‘Mr. Fenek,’ he said to him, ‘you’re licking your hand! You must have some medical treatment, Mr. Fenek. You can’t go on like this. You’re not going to ruin your life, are you? What you’re doing is Abartigkeit, monstrous. How about a psychiatrist?’ and Mr. Fenek raised his head, burst into tears and wrung his hands. Mr. Kopfrkingl then stepped out of the building and crossed the courtyard to the porter’s lodge, where he was greeted reverently by Mr. Vrána’s successor. In front of the courtyard gate he gave a twenty-heller coin to the old beggarwoman, who stood there not only on Fridays, but on Saturdays too, all the year round. She looked like a white figure of Fate. He headed for the tram. A young pink-faced girl in a black dress was standing there with a young man, with a camera strapped over his shoulder.
Four days later, Mr. Kopfrkingl went to the German Criminal Investigation Department to report that his sixteen-year-old son was missing.
‘It’s been four days now and he hasn’t come back,’ he said. ‘He’s been doing it to us ever since he was small. We even had the police search for him once. They had to go all the way to Suchdol to find him. He wanted to spend the night in a haystack there. He had all kinds of romantic ideas. I’m worried that he might have set out to join our army in Poland. He’s also been going about with a boxer lately.’ Mili had by then been mingled with the ashes of the thoroughbred SS man for four days. The act had been carried out by the director himself. Assisted by the understanding and accommodating smiles of the two who had been taken on to replace Zajíc and Beran, he refreshed his expert knowledge in front of the furnace, and, at the same time, showed his respect for their work: work such as he had started himself as a son of rather ordinary parents. This was accompanied by the funeral march from Beethoven’s “Eroica”. Before that by Wagner’s “Parsifal”.
XV
Following the victorious military campaign in Poland, Mr. Kopfrkingl was summoned to see Boehrmann, the head of the Prague Sicherheitsdienst and secretary of the Reich Protector — to Boehrmann in that light-coloured, broad building with the pillars and all the cars in front, and the Reich flag flying over it. Summoned to his office which smelled sweetly of sandalwood and contained several magnificent pictures as well as beautiful curtains, a thick carpet and a big portrait of the Führer. And here, in the office of the head of the Prague Sicherheitsdienst and the secretary of the Reich Protector, he was told in confidence about an experiment which was important to them. It was the autumn of 1939.
‘Here’s to the purification and honour of the German people. Here’s to the victorious struggle for a new happy Europe. Here’s to just world order, the Führer’s new order,’ they told him and lifted their glasses from the shiny table, revealing some kind of book lying behind them. Willi Reinke was also there, and asked him: ‘Can I give you something? Cognac? Czech plum brandy . . .?’ Then they told him:
‘You’ve got experience. You’re fond of mechanisms and automation. You’re a proud champion of Teutonism. We need to try out gas furnaces, you know, so eine treffliche Gaseinrichtung für die Zukunft. But utter discretion is necessary, it’s secret. You are being offered a great honour. You could be the expert in charge.’
‘Sort of gas furnaces for the future,’ repeated Willi and lightly touched the book resting on the shiny table top, ‘For the future which is always uncertain except for death and our victory. Not even horses are going to suffer,’ he gave a smile. ‘You are being offered an honour. This is,’ he said, ‘what I promised you when you were a beggar in Maislova Street. You’ll get a Mercedes saloon. You’ll be able to,’ he gave a smile, ‘take your family for a drive . . .’ Then he gave a smile, raised the glass and said: ‘You have been chosen. Are you sure you still don’t drink . . .?’
And with a smile, Mr. Kopfrkingl inhaled the sweet smell of the sandalwood, which permeated the office of the head of the Prague Sicherheitsdienst and secretary of the Reich Protector, glanced at the book behind the glasses and placed his hands on his lap. ‘Thank you, gentlemen,’ he said and shook his head. ‘Indeed, I still don’t drink. I don’t drink alcohol, I’m abstemious.’ And he accepted the honour offered to him.
And then he paid visits to the Casino, through its miraculous entrance with the three steps, covered with white marble. He had fairhaired mistresses, particularly Marlén, whose original name was Marie, and who looked like an angel or a first-class actress. He had about ten or twenty of them and visited them elsewhere too, and not only in the Casino, though never in the Malvaz pub, for he had stopped going there long ago. Some of them came to see him in his apartment in return. He had so many of them that he almost mixed them up. On the other hand, he did not drink or smoke, he was abstemious. He was sorry for those who did not have such beauties. He was sorry for Mrs. Prachař, whose husband had become addicted to alcohol, and for their unfortunate son, Vojta, who could inherit it from him. He was also sorry for the others, Dr. Bettelheim and his family for example, who no longer had either his car or his surgery. In the dining-room, he often gazed towards the window, at the picture of the wedding procession, which he had bought for Zina in Mr. Holý’s picture-framing shop on Nekázanka Street some time ago, and at the wall chart on the cord beside it, that most sublime timetable on earth, the timetable of death. He often gazed at the spot over the dining-room door where the Führer, a perfect print of a perfect gentleman, had been hanging for a long time instead of the Nicaraguan president, and he often said to himself, ‘I’ll get a letter soon appointing me head of the experiment, of the gas furnaces, and the Mercedes car . . .’ He also gazed at the family photograph over the cabinet, in which he was sitting next to Lakmé, between the children with the cat on his lap . . . He would also go to the adjoining living-room and gaze at the spot over the piano, where the glass box with the flies was hanging, the glass box with the drosophila funebris and fruit or vinegar flies, which had been used in the study of genetics while they were alive. And one day – it was towards evening – he recalled the aunt from Slatiňany, that good soul, who, had she been a Catholic, would certainly have been canonized when she died, and who was already a saint, and said to himself: ‘I must go to that beautiful dear bathroom of ours I’m so fond of . . .’ and he went in. He lit a candle by the butterfly under the ventilator . . . Then he returned to the dining-room and switched on the standard lamp because it was already getting dark. He took the law on cremation out of the bookcase and turned over the pages for a while. And then he took out, perhaps for the hundredth time, the book about Tibet . . . that sweet, fascinating book about Tibet, about Tibetan monasteries, the Dalai Lama and his reincarnation, and said to himself, ‘Why, I know it almost by heart now . . .’ and he went with it to sit down under the lighted lamp. When he opened it, he said to himself, ‘But I’m still looking after my sweet enchantingly beautiful one; God be thanked that they let her into the German school. Nevertheless, she does have some of her late mother’s features, that eighteen-year-old black-haired beauty of mine . . .’ And then somebody rang the bell.
Under the lamp, Mr. Kopfrkingl rose to his feet, put the Tibetan book on the dining-table and went to open the door.
‘Can I speak to Director Kopfrkingl?’ said the visitor at the door in German. ‘I’ve been sent here, it’s confidential . . .’ Mr. Kopfrkingl gave a bow and stepped aside for the visitor to enter. He then led him to the dining-room. The caller’s face was rather yellow, though this could have been the effect of the light from the standard lamp. However, he wore rather strange clothes, something like a black frock.
‘Would you care to sit down?’ Mr. Kopfrkingl motioned to the table without revealing any sign of surprise. ‘Excuse me . . .’ and he picked up the book which was lying there, ‘I’ve just been reading a book . . . Can I give you something? Cognac, Czech plum brandy . . .’ he said politely.
‘No, thank you,’ smiled the visitor and put his hands into his lap. ‘I don’t drink alcohol. I don’t smoke either. I’m abstemious . . .’ and then he smiled again and said:
‘If I may, I’d like some tea and a little piece of butter . . .’ And after Mr Kopfrkingl had rushed into the kitchen, made the tea with a little piece of butter in it and brought it back to the dining-room, the visitor glanced at him and said:
‘Kushog I’m a tulku from the Mindoling monastery. Our Dalai Lama is dead. Tibet, our blessed country, has been searching for his incarnation for years . . . seventeen, nineteen years. The incarnation of the great man whom Buddha has chosen, in whom he has been reincarnated, and . . . found him at last, after so many years of quest and search, after almost twenty years. I’ve been sent on this long journey to find you and tell you that it’s you. The throne in Lhasa is waiting for you, rimpoche.’
Then he said:
‘But utter discretion is necessary, it’s secret . . . I shall come here again several times to initiate you. Then we’ll leave for the Himalayas, for our paradise, our blessed country . . .’
‘Father, you’ve had visitors,’ said Zina when she returned home. ‘There are two cups on the table and there’s some butter at the bottom of one of them.’
‘I’ve had a distinguished visitor here, my dear,’ said Mr. Kopfrkingl watching her. ‘But you mustn’t talk about it, mustn’t let on. It’s secret. Utter discretion is necessary. How do you like the school, my own beautiful one? Your new German school?’
‘I’ve lost my friends,’ said Zina dejectedly. ‘I didn’t know I’d lose them. I thought everything would be as it was before. I don’t see Lenka and Lála any more . . .’
‘They were good, nice class-mates,’ Mr. Kopfrkingl gave a nod. ‘But what can you do? You lose all kinds of things. How many tragedies I’ve seen in my life already,’ he said. ‘Mrs. Strunný, Miss Čárský, Miss Vomáčka, Mrs. Liška, Mrs. Podzimek. Mr. Holý who lost his wife; Mr. Rubinstein who got himself a divorce; Mr. Strauss whose wife died of consumption of the throat and his son of scarlet fever . . . in fact, you lose all the time, that’s our lot. What about Mr. Míla Janáček . . .’
‘He hasn’t said anything so far, but I think we’ll break up,’ said Zina.
‘You’ll break up,’ Mr. Kopfrkingl gave a nod and glanced at the family picture over the cabinet. ‘There you are. He was a good, nice boy, from a good, decent family. His father was a mechanical engineer; he himself was fond of physics and machines; he was, like me, fond of music and various mechanisms and automatic processes. His future was before him. It’s a pity. At least you have these photographs to remind you of him forever.’ He pointed to the picture above the cabinet. Glancing at it, Zina said:
‘Still no news about Mili?’
‘No, my little girl, no. My God, where is he . . .?’ Mr. Kopfrkingl frowned and sat down.
She stroked his hair sadly, and he took her hand and said: ‘We live in great, revolutionary times, and we still have a lot of worries. We all lose. Dr. Bettelheim . . .’ he pointed to the ceiling where the doctor used to have his surgery, ‘is no longer allowed to carry on his profession. Nach der . . . durch die . . . vom 25. 7. 1938 sind Juden von der Ausübung der ärztlichen Tätigkeit im Deutschen Reich grundsätzlich ausgeschlossen. All Jews in the German Reich are, irrevocably, excluded from carrying out medical practice . . . it’s the law, and as you know, we have to respect the law . . . It’s true, he still lives above us, up there, in two apartments, with his beautiful wife, Anežka and his nephew, Jan. He has an old, magnificent picture in his former surgery, of some kind of abduction of a woman by Count Bethlén, but that’s all he’s got. His car’s no longer in front of the house. But there’ll be another one soon, a beautiful Mercedes, and it’ll be ours. And on that wall over there . . .’ he pointed to one of the dining-room walls, ‘a magnificent old picture will be hanging. But that’s a trifle, he said quickly. ‘After all, it’s completely insignificant what is and what’s not going to hang there. One mustn’t become a slave to one’s own possessions. We live in great, revolutionary times, my beauty, and it’s necessary to think of the whole. Of the nation, of mankind. What is an individual compared with it . . .? Don’t let this,’ he tenderly stroked Zina’s hair, apparently thinking of Zina’s break-up with Míla, ‘bother you, my heavenly one. The Czechs will be liquidated. Yes, my child, that’s the way things are now,’ he said when Zina started up. ‘We must face the truth courageously and openly. There’s no point in concealing things, my dear. If we are able to bear the death of our departed one and now the misfortune with Mili, then we should be able to bear this too. It is in the interest of our people and mankind to liquidate the Czechs. In the interest of the happy and just new order which is being built by the Führer. They’re not going to perish physically, no, they’re not,’ Mr. Kopfrkingl shook his head and raised his hands. ‘They’re not going to perish physically, we aren’t murderers. But they’ll be Germanized. It’s in the interest of our people and a happy Europe. This is our very own living space and we’ll run the world from here,’ he pointed with his hand round the dining-room and glanced at the cat, who had just made her appearance. ‘When this happens there’ll be paradise. For ever.’
