SHE HAD DISAPPEARED. Not a soul in Prague hadn’t heard of the explosion, or that Svobodova’s body was not among the wreckage, only that of an as yet unidentified man. And the rumours had started, the theories concocted. This had all happened before, people muttered, just like with Dubček; the vehicle’s remains given only the most cursory of examinations before destruction, the driver unscathed. Moreover he had vanished.
Looking down onto the city from his imperious office in the Castle, President Čurda was worried. It was election day, Daleka was nowhere to be found and her advice was incomplete. The election should be called off, she had said, when Svobodova was dead. But who knew if Svobodova was dead at all and while he knew he should still make the call, the throng of people gathering below in Malostranské náměstí had him nervous. Headed by the obstinate Karol Černý, they were quiet, almost silent. They simply stood, en-masse, staring up at the castle, at Čurda, as if daring him to deny them their voice.
He snapped in irritation at the knock on his door and a young aide came scurrying in, breathless. “She’s been found!”
“Svobodova.”
“Where is she?” Čurda’s three words carried a world of dread and he silently willed the young man not to answer, but to no avail.
The aide stretched out his arm to the window and pointed to the growing crowd below.
“Out there,” he said.
The people present parted for her, and in her wake she brought others, the buzz of their confusion punctuating the stunned silence. Around her she could hear people quietly whispering of the Return of the Queen, or bestowing on her a new title, ‘ona jefénix’. Miroslava Svobodova stood, silent, looking around at them, taking in as many of the faces in the crowd as she could, wanting to look each of them in the eye, in the soul. Her delicate makeup betrayed the streaks of her tears, her skin was scratched from her descent, her outfit from the previous night’s concert tattered and brushed with the greenery of the hillside, yet still she was regal, still commanding, still in control.
Černý looked down from the small platform made up of crates and boxes on which he stood, as silent as she, an unused loudspeaker poised in his hand. Reaching the spot beneath him, Mirushka looked up into the old, proud eyes and offered him the gentlest of smiles; reaching out her own arm toward him.
“Karol?” She asked in uncertainty, wondering and hoping along with the crowd that he would accept her hand and have her stand alongside him.
For a moment he remained still, the great eyes burrowing and unreadable, his gaunt face an emotionless slate. All muttering in the crowd had ceased, and every head had turned to stare anxiously at Mirushka’s outstretched fingers, as though she were the leading lady in some romance, desperate for the embrace of her man.
A cheer erupted when he reached back, accepting her hand in his own still powerful grip, the touch tender, fatherly, and for the first time in her memory, she saw warmth when she looked into his piercing eyes. She stepped up onto the ramshackle platform and he pulled her gently level alongside him, the pair relaxing into a mutual smile while the crowd around them roared their bottled up approval.
“Děkuji Karol.” Mirushka whispered, leaning forward to kiss his cheek.
The old man’s smile widened further. “Prosim Mr Lowe?”
She shook her head and blinked away a tear. Černý bowed his head in genuine regret.
“I’m sorry.” He pressed the loudspeaker he still held into Mirushka’s hand, and moved to depart the plinth.
She tightened her grip on his other hand and looked quizzically at him, suddenly nervous at the thought of his departure, wanting to hold onto his presence a while longer.
He returned the squeeze of her hand and leant down to whisper back in her ear, “You were the face of the future,” he said, “now be the voice of the present.”
With that he slipped his hand from hers and stepped off the plinth, turning to face her at the bottom, alongside his fellow Czechs; looking up at her, excited and expectant.
“Many of you are wondering where I have been,” she began. “Well in truth that doesn’t matter. There was an accident, a man died, a good man. But what matters now is that we are together, together at the end of our campaign. And it was our campaign; your brothers and sisters in Slovakia fought it with you!”
Cheers bellowed out and Mirushka held up her hand for calm.
“We made mistakes, Karol and I,” she said, the crowd silent once more, drinking in her words, “mistakes between ourselves and mistakes with this campaign. When you look around Prague, around the Czech Republic, you’ll see our faces smiling back at you, like your Slovak brothers and sisters saw Herbert Biely’s last year. TV, the newspapers, all bestowed great titles upon us, titles like Europe’s Un-Crowned Queen, or Hero of the Prague Spring, and we clung to them jealously; we used them as weapons to beat down our opponents who couldn’t hope to match our personal glories for themselves.”
She paused, scanning the crowd, allowing her words to be properly digested in the silence.
“Yes,” she continued, “Herbert Biely was a great man, yes he was a hero to our country. So too is Karol Černý who stands before you today, asking to become your Prime Minister. But the faces on our posters should have been yours, not ours.”
A few sporadic cries of agreement broke out through the crowd, imbibing her with the confidence to continue.
“They should have been the faces of the doctors and nurses who healed us when we were sick, of the teachers who taught us when we were ignorant, of the parents who set examples for us. We should have seen the faces of our old who pass us their wisdom and of their families who return their care in old age. We should have seen the faces of our young, who inspire us with their drive and optimism, and their unwillingness to accept the inequalities of this world. We should have been looking into the eyes of the shop worker, who has packed our food each week for a lifetime, of the man who has swept our roads since his youth! We should have felt the warm smile of the friend, whose shoulder was there for us to cry on, or the priest who comforted us in our despair, or the tram driver who got us home safely! We should have seen the Czechoslovak people, whose sweat built a nation, only for it to be torn in two by the greed of selfish men!”
The sporadic cries had become cheers now, finishing each sentence Mirushka spoke with affirmative exclamation. She looked around once more into the eyes of the crowd, waiting for the applause to subside.
“But instead,” she began, when the buzz had dipped, “like in every other election, we politicians smiled down at you from our billboard thrones, desperate in our desire to have you believe in us; to put your trust in us; but just as important is that you put that trust in yourselves. Trust in your ability to piece together our two nations into one again. We, Karol and I, can put the pieces in place, but you are the glue that will hold it together, through your trust in yourselves and each other!”
Looking down, she saw Černý’s lined face smiling proudly back up at her, freely offering her the respect he had previously begrudged her; the new found warmth in his eyes a now constant shine. Smiling back, she lifted the loudspeaker once more to her lips and revelled in the crowd’s excitement.
“A good man once told me that if I was the Un-Crowned Queen of Europe then all of you are Princes and Princesses. We are the same; all of us. Whether Czech or Slovak, whether our roots are Austrian, Moravian, Hungarian or Romani; we are one family, with one future!”
The crowd bellowed their approval now, and Mirushka held up her hand, appealing for quiet.
“Right now, in his office, President Čurda wants to cancel the election; claiming grounds for a state of emergency. I say that it is the desperate act of a man who doesn’t want to see his people enact their will!”
The cheers were replaced by boos, the crowd turning their heads towards the castle, venting their anger at the President.
“They call me the Face of the Future. Well that face has a voice too, and that voice says that we will not accept a delay, we will not accept postponement! So raise your voices with me now and say to President Čurda, that we demand our right to choose!”
She roared the words into her megaphone, her stare fixed defiantly on the castle. Stepping down from the crates, she linked arms with Černý and marched through to the front of the crowd, the people making way for them, where they stopped, in the shadow of the castle. As the throng joined their leaders in linking arms, it was Černý who started the singing, before Mirushka and the crowd joined in; heads back, joyous and unashamed, they sang their anthem, the anthem of the old Czechoslovakia.
Up in his office, President Čurda chewed on his thumb as he watched the play unfold below. Behind him, the nervous young aide pressed.
“Is the election to be postponed Sir?”
The President continued to chew.
“Sir?”
It was much later that night, long after the polls had closed and the declaration of victory a formality, that The Greek, his arm freshly bandaged, caught up with Ivan and slid a knife into his kidney. He admired his new target. He had been quick to discard his uniform and make an effort to blend in with the tourists. But though he did feel some pity as he clamped his hand over the surprised mouth, alas, he had been spotted too quickly and The Child dictated that all failures must be punished. He bundled the dying man into the boot of the waiting car and set off to the river. Pulling him out, the effort making his sore arm sting in objection, he heaved him unceremoniously into the water, standing back to catch his breath.
The Greek staggered forward, as though he had been punched hard in the back, and he looked in incredulity at his feet, searching for the source of his stumbling. Then another punch, and another, and he fell head first into the freezing river. Shock tore the breath from his lungs and he gasped as the bitter cold was matched by the searing, painful heat which burned a trail inside him from the three punches. He tried desperately to kick but his legs no longer responded, and he strained to lift his head from the depths. Straining his blurring eyes in the darkness, he saw his target bobbing alongside him, weak, his resistance to the river almost exhausted. With a tremendous effort, the Greek reached out and grabbed hold of his victim, who responded in kind, pulling a heavy arm around the shoulders of his killer. Seeing the faintness he was feeling mirrored in the flailing man’s eyes, the Greek pulled closer to him and pressed his lips tightly to his cheek. “συγνώμη.” He wheezed to his victim, who tightened his own grip around his new comrade, in mute acceptance of his apology. The victim and murderer clung tighter to each other for comfort and in fear, as their thrashing stopped, and the dark, cold waters of the Vltava closed over their heads.
On the shore, watching the scene unfold with a bitterness in his mouth, The Child crossed himself in brief respect of another fallen at his command. His operative quietly slid his silenced weapon inside its holster and turned back to his master, who gestured him to start the car. Reaching into his pocket, he drew out the keys thrown at him by Peter, weighing them in his hand for a moment before hurling them far and deep into the waters.
The bitter cold masking the dampness in his eye, The lost Child of Lidice turned and walked briskly back towards his waiting ride, as the last drops of the season’s rain began to fall.