who carved up the Pomeranian baroness. Of course! A fellow Moravian. That didn’t excuse him, but it did narrow the field of possible perpetrators from seven million to three…
He realized that Buback would be missing the telltale linguistic signs, but kept it to himself until he could consult with Beran. He snapped face-on and profile shots of the watchman for the Prague caretaker and recommended to Vaca that he let the man go back to bed for the meanwhile. Then they set off southward.
He got in next to the German and asked if he had a particular route in mind. No, he learned, and risked a suggestion: would Herr Oberkriminalrat like to stop for lunch along the way? When Buback nodded, Morava even felt brave enough to propose a location: there was a decent pub on the main road; they would reach it around noon and—if this was acceptable—Morava could meanwhile stop briefly to visit his mother.
For the first time the German showed something like human interest. Morava briefly explained to him that he came, as his surname suggested, from Moravia—more precisely from what was once the Moravian-Austrian border region where they were headed. That was why he’d spoken passable German since childhood. His father, he continued, died a long time ago, and his mother lived alone next to the old family smithy, now rented out, since he, her only son, had fled to Prague to study law and his sister had married a vicar. Later, the Germans closed the Czech colleges and universities, halting Morava’s studies, and he’d landed, degreeless, in the police force.
Was an hour enough, Buback asked in telegraphic style, and the assistant detective made a mental note of the debt, one to pay back even if the creditor was a Nazi.
They fell silent (their driver, Litera, Beran’s favorite, was more taciturn today than usual) as the car wound along narrow country roads not built for the double load of spring farming and war traffic. When possible they passed the trucks carrying fertilizer and the army kitchen, and were themselves passed by official cars and couriers on powerful motorcycles.
Some soldiers with the insignia of the feared German field troopers (which reminded Morava of a tin spitoon) surfaced unexpectedly just past Rakvice. The policemen’s Protectorate identification papers got a good laugh out of them, but as the troopers were turning the car back, Morava’s companion showed his usefulness.
My God, Morava realized as he watched the three bandits change instantly into sheep, Buback really is a much bigger cheese than Beran.
The war had by this point squeezed spring off the carriageway; every once in a while deep ruts in the fields leading to the nearby woods hinted at huge quantities of hidden military machinery.
They found the pub on the village square closed. A toothless old man who did not recognize Morava whistled that the landlord had left with his family for Brno. Before the assistant detective’s spirits could sink, the German remarked dryly that he was not hungry anyway and would rather have a half-hour walk in the fresh air. Morava was decidedly grateful. They let Buback out, and Litera veered as directed down the muddy lanes toward the smithy. The tenant smith was finishing one horseshoe while Morava’s mother tended to the horse.
“Jan! My baby!” she shouted joyfully, and carefully put the hoof down onto the hard-packed soil. “It can’t be! It can’t! Oh!”
While the driver swallowed slabs of bread and bacon in the kitchen, washing it down with huge gulps of rose-hip tea, Morava’s mother repeated those words over and over again in the neatly kept sitting room. Her son, meanwhile, hastily told her that he had fallen in love with the sweetest girl under the sun and wanted to make her his wife, and that he intended to bring his mother back to Prague as soon as possible, so that he and Jitka could give her grandchildren while they were still working.
The farther they traveled, the more the land
He realized that Buback would be missing the telltale linguistic signs, but kept it to himself until he could consult with Beran. He snapped face-on and profile shots of the watchman for the Prague caretaker and recommended to Vaca that he let the man go back to bed for the meanwhile. Then they set off southward.
He got in next to the German and asked if he had a particular route in mind. No, he learned, and risked a suggestion: would Herr Oberkriminalrat like to stop for lunch along the way? When Buback nodded, Morava even felt brave enough to propose a location: there was a decent pub on the main road; they would reach it around noon and—if this was acceptable—Morava could meanwhile stop briefly to visit his mother.
For the first time the German showed something like human interest. Morava briefly explained to him that he came, as his surname suggested, from Moravia—more precisely from what was once the Moravian-Austrian border region where they were headed. That was why he’d spoken passable German since childhood. His father, he continued, died a long time ago, and his mother lived alone next to the old family smithy, now rented out, since he, her only son, had fled to Prague to study law and his sister had married a vicar. Later, the Germans closed the Czech colleges and universities, halting Morava’s studies, and he’d landed, degreeless, in the police force.
Was an hour enough, Buback asked in telegraphic style, and the assistant detective made a mental note of the debt, one to pay back even if the creditor was a Nazi.
They fell silent (their driver, Litera, Beran’s favorite, was more taciturn today than usual) as the car wound along narrow country roads not built for the double load of spring farming and war traffic. When possible they passed the trucks carrying fertilizer and the army kitchen, and were themselves passed by official cars and couriers on powerful motorcycles.
Some soldiers with the insignia of the feared German field troopers (which reminded Morava of a tin spitoon) surfaced unexpectedly just past Rakvice. The policemen’s Protectorate identification papers got a good laugh out of them, but as the troopers were turning the car back, Morava’s companion showed his usefulness.
My God, Morava realized as he watched the three bandits change instantly into sheep, Buback really is a much bigger cheese than Beran.
The war had by this point squeezed spring off the carriageway; every once in a while deep ruts in the fields leading to the nearby woods hinted at huge quantities of hidden military machinery.
They found the pub on the village square closed. A toothless old man who did not recognize Morava whistled that the landlord had left with his family for Brno. Before the assistant detective’s spirits could sink, the German remarked dryly that he was not hungry anyway and would rather have a half-hour walk in the fresh air. Morava was decidedly grateful. They let Buback out, and Litera veered as directed down the muddy lanes toward the smithy. The tenant smith was finishing one horseshoe while Morava’s mother tended to the horse.
“Jan! My baby!” she shouted joyfully, and carefully put the hoof down onto the hard-packed soil. “It can’t be! It can’t! Oh!”
While the driver swallowed slabs of bread and bacon in the kitchen, washing it down with huge gulps of rose-hip tea, Morava’s mother repeated those words over and over again in the neatly kept sitting room. Her son, meanwhile, hastily told her that he had fallen in love with the sweetest girl under the sun and wanted to make her his wife, and that he intended to bring his mother back to Prague as soon as possible, so that he and Jitka could give her grandchildren while they were still working.
The farther they traveled, the more the land
Similar Books
