“I don’t want to know,” Karel said. “I don’t care about that.”
Kehr smiled. “See what I mean?”
He lifted the pencil with a slightly mocking anticipation. “Now,” he said. “I have some questions for you.”
“I have questions for you,” Karel said.
“I would limit myself to comments that don’t endanger your life if I were you,” Kehr said.
Karel was quiet, his attention focused on avoiding another blow.
“I need names,” Kehr said. “Albert’s associates. You were close to him; you know who I mean. It’s the fault of those people the zoo was destroyed.”
“The Civil Guard destroyed the zoo,” Karel said. “I saw it.”
“After a while one’s patience runs out,” Kehr said. “I understand the men’s feelings. If Albert’s friends had turned themselves in, the zoo would be standing today.”
Karel sat lower against the wall and looked at the blood on his hands.
“The names,” Kehr said.
“I don’t know any names,” Karel said.
“What did I tell you about tone?” Kehr said with a softness in his voice, and Karel was frozen with fear. They were quiet for several minutes. Karel could feel his heart. Kehr breathed out exaggeratedly and said, “What have these people ever done for you? Have you asked yourself that?”
“At least they left me alone,” Karel said, despite himself, and he waited in terror for Kehr’s reaction.
Kehr sat back in his chair and put his chin in his hand and gazed at Karel. “Let me give you an idea,” he said, “of what you’re playing with here, playing the hero: your friend next door. And her family.”
“You have her family?” Karel asked.
“My subordinate when interviewing the older brother asked him his rank in the organization,” Kehr said, shaking his head at the memory. “I said, ‘Organization? Mr. Stasik, he was in an institution, a home.’ On the other hand, it had been considered by many to be a possible staging ground, and that was never disproved. So on the whole the entire family would be safer outside of Mr. Stasik’s custody.”
“I don’t know anything,” Karel said. “If I knew I’d tell you. But I don’t know anything.”
“Your friend wouldn’t even have to know her family’d been taken,” Kehr said. “They could be back on the street that fast. As could she. As could you.”
“I don’t know,” Karel cried miserably.
Kehr seemed to be pondering him. Finally he arched his eyebrows, as if he’d come to some conclusion. “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world,” he said, standing up. “The unreasonable man adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on unreasonable men.” He crossed to the front of the table and leaned close to where Karel was sitting on the floor, and took Karel’s chin in his hand. Karel shrank back. “Later on, if you haven’t changed your mind, I’ll kill your friend, while you’re listening,” he said. “And then I’ll come here.” He drew his finger delicately across Karel’s belly. “I’ll open your stomach and play with your insides.”
Karel was breathing out as if getting ready to hold his breath. He said, “You’re trying to frighten me.”
“Yes, I am,” Kehr said. He stood up, and knocked on the door.
“Leave her alone,” Karel blurted as he was leaving. “Do whatever you want with me.”
That was very good, Kehr said offhandedly, on the way out. Those were admirable sentiments. He signaled something Karel couldn’t see to the man outside and shut the door behind him.
It was cold. There was a mattress on the floor but no blanket. He ran in place and waved his arms to keep warm but only succeeded in making himself sweaty and even colder. The peephole opened with a sliding sound and an eye appeared in it, blinking, to see what he was doing.
He felt better for the company. “What am I doing here?” he asked, and the peephole slid shut.
The floor was wet. He rolled the mattress into a tight tube to keep himself off the dampness, and half sat, half lay on it, but it was damp and cold and smelled and he couldn’t sleep. He stayed like that for long stretches thinking of nothing. He called and pounded on the walls but Leda didn’t seem to hear him. He held imaginary conversations with her in which he told her everything he’d done and she forgave him, forgave anything. He tried to imagine them back in the Golden Angel, but it seemed to have been shattered from within.
He heard shots and listened attentively for more, and then listened to the silence. He played a game of geography with Leda’s face. He began to be more aware of basic needs: to eat, to relieve himself, to sleep, to find the resting position that was the least painful. He lay on his side on the rolled mattress and resigned himself to being wet on that side. He thought about raisins with cinnamon, and the image was momentarily soothing.
He was dozing when the door rattled and opened and he jerked upright in alarm. The damaged part of his face throbbed with the movement and he felt some trouble completely closing his jaw. Someone was peering over him. He realized it was his father. He burst into tears and then stopped, angry with himself, and started rubbing his eyes. His father set the lantern down and reached over and patted his head and shoulder helplessly. “How are you?” he said. “How are they treating you?”
“They put me in prison,” Karel said. He sat up farther, shivering.
His father had brought a small blanket, and laid it on Karel’s lap. “What happened to your face?” he asked.
“Kehr hit me,” Karel said. “The soldiers who took me hit me.” He had to look away. He thought that this of everything was the worst; that before this moment maybe his father hadn’t known, maybe his father would’ve helped.
“They hit you?” his father said.
“Will you help me? Help us?” Karel asked, though he felt himself sliding hopelessly down the sentence as he asked it, knowing the answer.
“Of course,” his father said. “Kehr’ll listen to me. All you have to do is your part.”
“My part?” Karel wailed. “My part?”
His father made patting motions on the air, teetering in his crouch. “We’re talking about just confirming what we already have information on,” he said.
“I don’t know anything,” Karel cried.
His father nodded, and looked puzzled. “Kehr says you do,” he said.
Karel closed his eyes tightly and wanted everything different.
“Does it hurt a lot?” his father asked.
He didn’t answer.
“I can help you, but you’ve got to help me,” his father said. “Karel.”
Karel was crying silently, now, and refused to see his father anymore. He looked at the door.
“What position do you think I’m in?” his father asked. He got to his feet. “You think they’re happy with me about this?” He waited, but Karel would not look at him. “Who are you to judge me?” he finally said. He was angry again. “You know better than all these other people? You’re so sure what the right thing to do is? Which one of us is obeying the law here and which one of us isn’t? Who are you to judge me?” he shouted.
Karel kept his face to the wall.
The peephole slid open. “Everything okay in there?” a voice asked.
Everything was fine, his father said. He waited for the peephole to close and then went over to the door. Nothing happened for a minute or two, and then he sighed, as if exhausted. “I’ve never known what to make of you,” he said. He sounded drained, and Karel felt acutely sorry for him. “I’ve never known how to get any support, any …” He sighed again. “… support out of you.”
Karel was quiet. He thought that all his anger at his father’s failures had turned inward. I never hated you, he wanted to say; I only always wanted to talk, I never learned how to talk. Why didn’t I ever inspire talk? And he thought he understood his father a little and pitied him, but was ashamed of him, and ashamed of himself. He was thinking all that when his father left.