Leda was explaining the situation to the sergeant, who said finally, “You’ll want to speak to the lieutenant,” and left to fetch him.
The lieutenant was thin and deferential and conscious of his posture. It looked as if he resented being called out here for this. He gave the sergeant looks while he listened to Leda. The sergeant, settling back down to his lunch, refused to notice.
“So,” the lieutenant said, pleased it was only a girl, “this isn’t about a plant?”
“No, it isn’t about a plant,” Leda said, and her voice rang through the room. The lieutenant made the same patting conciliatory motion the nurse had made. He asked what was going on then, and Leda, grimly, her teeth set, explained it again.
“Ah,” he said. “The Civil Guard.” He nodded. Leda stared at him. He was sorrowful, as if this were all a regrettable local custom or inevitable process that couldn’t be prevented. The Civil Guard just did things, he said, and informed the police afterward, if at all. Relatives complained, the police had to write to them, fill out forms, it all took forever. He said he’d complained many times and could show Leda the correspondence on the subject. He said they’d do their best in this case. He asked exactly who in her family was missing.
“No one,” Leda said.
“No one?” the lieutenant said. The humor left his face in a way that frightened Karel. “What’re you doing? You think we have time for games?”
“My brother says people were taken from the hospital,” Leda said stubbornly. “I’m not related to them.”
“Concerned citizen,” the lieutenant said. The sergeant grunted.
Leda looked at him. Everything was quiet. “I think you know what happened to them,” she decided. Karel thought, Oh, God.
The lieutenant looked at her a moment more, and then made a show of arranging papers on the counter, indicating the interview was over.
“I could go to the mayor,” Leda said helplessly. The mayor was notorious for his timidity.
The lieutenant gazed around the room for the next citizen in trouble. The shy fat man lifted a hand hopefully.
The lieutenant said quietly to Leda, “You know, a town of three thousand, a country fighting for its life — all that doesn’t stop because someone’s crying about a missing person.”
“You know something, don’t you?” Leda said.
The lieutenant stood. He returned to the back room. Leda left without waiting for the sergeant to get up. Karel stared into the eyes of the fat man opposite him and thought, How am I ever going to keep her out of trouble?
BASILISK
David caught up to them on their way to the mayor’s office and told Leda that their mother was worried and angry and wanted Leda home now. Karel was relieved. Leda told him she’d come by later to plan strategies. David asked to plan strategies for what and Leda asked him how he got so dirty.
There were four trucks and a donkey cart around Karel’s house when he returned. The trucks were open-backed and empty and the cart was being unloaded by a few privates from the Civil Guard.
His house was filled with boxes. It smelled like a rabbit hutch. The privates were unpacking cartons marked FRAGILE in the living room and straw and excelsior were all over the floor. There were stacked cages of rabbits and chickens in the hall, and the chickens were making a lot of noise.
The uniformed officer from the Fetschers’, from the café, was sitting at the kitchen table. Parts of Karel seemed to constrict as he stood there. He flashed on the way he and Leda used to invent the scariest possible nightmares while safe on the beach in the sun, and had the sense that that was what this was: some sort of play nightmare.
The man was considering a deep open box in front of him. Two chickens were bumping and scraping around inside. Karel remembered his name but the man introduced himself anyway, as Special Assistant Kehr of the Civil Guard.
“Who do you assist?” Karel asked, and the man smiled.
“I should explain,” Kehr said. He started peeling the white inner skin from sections of an orange. Each section took a while. When he judged one properly stripped he eased it into his mouth with an in-the-sun squint at its sourness.
He was going to be billeting himself at Karel’s house on national business. He hoped it would not inconvenience Karel seriously. He had laid in some supplies. He reached into the box in front of him to demonstrate, and one of the chickens screamed. In the hall cages the rabbits padded sideways, nervously.
“There’s no room,” Karel said. “I live here with my father.”
One of the subordinate officers from the Fetschers’ and the café stopped into the kitchen to listen. The other came into the house and remained in the background in the living room. He lit a cigarette on the window seat. The smoke hung around him in a gauzy and unpleasant way.
“Your father’s not going to be using his room,” Kehr said. When he saw Karel’s face he raised a hand against foolish assumptions. “Right away,” he clarified.
“What’s happened to him?” Karel said. “Is he in trouble?”
“None whatsoever,” Kehr said. “At some point we can talk about him. Of course, I asked his permission to make these arrangements, and he granted it.”
“You talked to him? Where is he?” Karel asked. “Where is he? How do I know he said that?” He realized that that was stupid question.
Kehr looked at him. The officer in the kitchen leaned against the lintel of the doorway and guffawed quietly. “You don’t,” Kehr said.
The rabbits rummaged and tumbled around in their cages, the sound like someone’s drumming fingers. “What are you going to be doing here?” Karel asked.
“That’s the nation’s business,” Kehr said. “Unfortunately, not yours. We’ll expect you to do the cleaning you normally do.” He looked around the kitchen. It was a mess. “And help a little with the dinner. That’s at seven.”
Through the window Karel could see neighbors outside, standing around and speculating. “Why are you letting me stay?” he asked. “Why don’t you just kick me out?”
“If you’d like, we will,” Kehr said mildly. He was becoming more interested in some papers on the table. “Do you have a place you’d go?”
Karel thought of presenting himself to Leda, and her mother: The NUP threw me out. He didn’t think he had the courage.
“Of course, I assured your father you wouldn’t be displaced,” Kehr said. “In these troubled times.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Karel said.
Kehr leaned back and brushed his palm down his chest like a man sweeping away crumbs. His tunic was lighter than his trousers, and there was a golden pin of a winged hammer on his collar and another of a winged anvil on his breast pocket. The embroidered oval beneath with the sword penetrating the nest of snakes into the skull Karel had seen.
“You have nothing to do but not interfere,” Kehr said. “Which in these times is not easy.”
The interview seemed to be over. Karel hesitated in the doorway. The officer leaning on the lintel regarded him levelly.
“It’s a particularly bad time to be a vagrant,” Kehr said. “With the turmoil in the streets and the various bureaus and Special Sections in such competition with each other, and no clear lines of jurisdiction.… I should introduce you to my assistants,” he said. “They’ll be staying as well. Assistants Stasik, here, and Schay at the window.”
Neither made any gesture. This seemed to be a joke to them. Karel maneuvered through the boxes and went up to his room.