Prague Pictures: Portraits of a City by John Banville Page A

events, Philip can be depended upon to show you how fatuous and shallow you are in your grasp of reality, how hopelessly limited in your thinking. In Phil's version, everything that happens is either the innocent-seeming tip, glistening there in the sun, of an immense, malignant iceberg, or a deliberately manufactured smokescreen behind which a secret inferno is raging. Nothing, for Phil, is as it seems, and he has the inside information. Yes, all that I have heard about Ceau§escu and his doings is correct, Phil can tell me. In fact, I do not know the half of it. When Phil was in Bucharest, Ceau§escu was returning from one of his many triumphal progresses through the world's capitals. To mark his homecoming, or so Philip swore, a full-sized replica of the Arc de Triomphe, made from plywood, or maybe even cardboard, had been erected on the road along which the President would travel on his way in from the airport. In the city centre the boulevards along which the President's motorcade would pass were emptied of onlookers - that is, possible troublemakers - by squads of security police in ankle-length leather overcoats and slouch hats, just like the Gestapo, on whom, or on movie versions of whom, they had probably modelled themselves. Yes, typewriters were licensed, and could be confiscated without warning. The Ceau§escu family ran the country like a mafia, for their own aggrandisement and to fill their secret Swiss bank accounts. All this was true, all this and more. Jan, making abstract designs with his fingertip in , nodded gloomily: yes, yes, all true. 'Ceau§escu is a vampire,' he said with a sigh, 'his wife too, that bitch. Between them they have brought Romania back to the Middle Ages.' The Russians knew it, of course, knew how bad things were, but what could they do? 'If they invade, take over the government, the Americans will howl; let matters go on as they are, the country will explode. Either way, is a disaster.' Big Phil, however, was shaking his big head slowly and smiling his pitying smile. How could we be so dumb? Could we not see the true situation? The fact was, Reagan and his people were Ceau§escu's real sponsors and protectors. This made even Jan sit up. Phil looked from one of us to the other, still smiling, still shaking his head, like a teacher regarding two of his most favoured pupils on one of their less brilliant days. 'Listen,' he said, and when Phil said 'listen' in that soft, patient tone you knew you were about to get the real stuff, the lowdown, the insider's inside information. 'It's simple. What is the worst advertisement for MarxistLeninism, atheistic communism and the Soviet so-called Union?' He opened his hands and showed us two broad, soft, pink palms. 'Romania!' Ceau§escu was a precious asset for Reagan and the CIA. The Agency, as Phil familiarly, almost fondly, called it, regularly ferried Ceau§escu's top security people to a base in Turkey for training in state-of-the-art - it was the first time I had heard the phrase - anti-insurrectionist techniques, developed in the jungles of South America. The Israelis too were involved. 'The Israelis!' Phil cried, with a harsh laugh. 'The frigging Israelis!' He knew for a fact that Ceau§escu had commissioned an Israeli arms firm to provide him with a fleet of attack helicopters specifically designed to tackle urban guerrilla warfare. He reached out and traced a triangle in the spilled salt on the table, cutting through Jan's designs.
    'There it is,' he said, 'the axis: Washington, Tel Aviv, Bucharest.' Then he sat back and folded his arms.
    Jan, I could see, shared my doubts about all this, frowning into the middle distance and running his fingers through his scant beard. Neither of us, however, was willing to speak up. It is the nature of secret knowledge such as Phil claimed to possess that it is unverifiable, and therefore unchallengeable. Why had we heard nothing of Reagan supportingof the CIA training Romanian security police, of Israel