Karel said he had other things to worry about.
Kehr smiled. “Your father,” he said. “How he’s doing, no doubt.”
Karel shook his head, a tight little shake.
Kehr continued to smile, and drew a straight, easy line through two of the names on the list. “Seems to me our friend Leda was happy to leave,” he said.
It wasn’t that, Karel said.
“It’s interesting,” Kehr said after a pause. “I had business at the station the night she left. Her train was delayed. I stopped to visit and she wanted to know, out of nowhere, if you’d assisted us in any way. I assured her you’d been as unhelpful as you’d ever been. In fact, I told her that even though we were letting you go we were not at all pleased with your performance.” He cast down the list, touching the pencil point to each name, and made rapid question marks beside a few of them. “I don’t believe in not telling the truth,” he said. “But every so often a little fit overcomes me.
Karel thought, My head’s made of glass. I might as well just walk around with signs. “What’d you say when she asked why you were letting her leave?” he said. He tried not to look as though the news had affected him.
Kehr stood the file on its edge and straightened the pages with short thumps on the tabletop. He set it down and clasped his hands over it. “Her friend Albert arranged it. Travel passes. At your request.
“She was, if I’m any judge of emotion, quite moved,” he added.
“You lied to her,” Karel said. But he was relieved. He felt better. He realized he’d now be doing things to keep people from finding out about things he’d already done. He imagined her on the train thinking of him, and his face heated with guilt at his excitement and pleasure. He had saved her, hadn’t he? He had a flashing sexual fantasy of her gratitude.
Kehr and Stasik returned their attention to what they’d been doing, in Stasik’s case, apparently, brooding. Karel got up to go, anticipating the illicit feeling of being alone with her journals again, but Kehr reminded him about dinner and pointed out the recipe on the counter for Flat Lamb Pie.
“I want you to do me a favor,” Kehr said later while they ate. The ringtail sat on its haunches by his chair and begged with its forepaws up like a dog. “After dinner I want you to pick up some packages for me. At Albert Delp’s.”
Stasik smiled and then put his hand to his mouth.
“I don’t want to go there,” Karel said, astounded Kehr had to be told that.
Kehr looked at him. “I’m asking you a favor,” he said.
“I can’t,” Karel said.
Kehr shook his head at his lamb. He sawed gently at it with his knife. He said Albert had no idea about what had happened the other day. They’d done nothing to him. As far as he knew this was a routine search. It was being handled by a member of the Security Service and they were directed to share what they found with the Civil Guard.
Karel put his hands on his cheeks and rubbed them and looked over at Stasik, who was interested only in his food.
“Which considering the imbecile in charge won’t be much,” Kehr said. “But you never know.”
“Why can’t you pick it up?” Karel said. “Isn’t it top secret or something?”
“This is not a discussion,” Kehr said. “And we aren’t errand boys.”
“I don’t want to go there,” Karel said. “I don’t want to face him.”
Kehr nodded as if he understood completely. “A favor,” he said.
The Security Service officer who came to the door at Albert’s house was Holter.
“Look who it is,” Holter announced. “Karel Roeder.”
Karel stared, open-mouthed.
“It’s Karel Roeder,” Holter called over his shoulder, as if a good party were now getting better. He held the door open. “It’s Karel Roeder, and he can’t close his mouth,” he added.
Karel came in. “I tried to find you at the parade,” he said. “Didn’t you see me? You’re in the Security Service now?” He wasn’t sure he was making any sense.
“However my country can use me,” Holter said. He wasn’t wearing a uniform.
“I have to pick up the stuff for Officer Kehr,” Karel explained, dazed. He was standing in the hall, not wanting to go any farther. The tea cozy was off the phone and the magazine racks in the living room were empty.
Holter made a series of affirmative noises and led Karel into the kitchen. Albert was at the table. The kitchen cabinets were untouched.
Karel stood where he was, awkwardly.
“You know each other, of course,” Holter said.
Albert scratched the bristle on his Adam’s apple with his fingernail.
Karel couldn’t tell, but thought Kehr was right: Albert didn’t know.
He turned to Holter. “My father,” he said. “Did you see him? Did he join the Civil Guard?”
Of course, Holter said. What a question.
“The messenger arrives,” Albert said.
Karel’s face burned. He said hello.
Holter suggested Karel sit. His group would be finished in a minute.
Karel could hear people upstairs. Albert seemed tired and disgusted, but Karel could see he was listening, too.
“So,” Holter said. “Feel free to engage in zoo talk. Pretend I’m not here.”
“I’m allowing my house to be searched,” Albert said. “Like a good citizen. Do I have to submit to this as well?”
Holter shrugged theatrically. Karel looked away. There was banging upstairs. Holter drummed his fingers on the tabletop.
Karel stole occasional fearful looks at Albert, who seemed to be contemplating something disappointing. Holter studied his fingers. He had large moist-looking fingernails that were closely bitten down. He wandered the room and then sat on the table edge between them with a leg dangling and a foot on the floor in an imitation-jaunty pose that irritated them both. “Have you been listening to the radio?” he asked Karel conversationally.
“Now don’t you start,” Karel said.
Holter knitted his eyebrows and gave up. His complexion made Karel wonder if blood could back up and pool. He said he’d been going to ask if Karel had heard about the assassination in Naklo. Subsecretary Wissinger, who maybe Karel had just heard right here in town. He’d been giving a speech about the Old Guard — what else did he ever talk about? — and asking that those executed for assassinations during the days of the Republic be commemorated from here on in as war dead. Apparently he’d been waiting for applause on that suggestion when he’d been shot.
Albert snorted, and Holter shot him a look so penetrating it frightened Karel.
It was sad what was happening, Holter said, after a pause. Everywhere it was the same. Where was the respect? Where was the order? The more they worked, the more there seemed to do.
“I need to be at the zoo before nine o’clock,” Albert said. “Some of the nocturnals need special care.”
Holter looked at him. “People don’t realize that police have a hard time of it in a police state,” he said. “And what is it, really, that we want? We’re not asking our citizens to love us, or even love one another. Just to do their duty.”
When no one answered he swung his leg down and walked to the window. He peered at his reflection. He pushed tenderly on his cheek with two fingers. “It’s always the same tooth,” he said sadly. He made a sideways squeaking noise and opened and closed his jaw. He looked over at Karel as if testing his eyesight.
“But what you got is what you got,” he said. “Life is work. In bad times you work for nothing. In good you get a little something out of it.”
They could hear the others coming down the stairs. Two young men tramped into the room. They were also in street clothes. All that was left was the crawl space, one of them said. Holter nodded, and they left. After a pause Karel could feel them bumping around beneath his feet.