Lenka speaks very quietly, looking up at the rows and rows of careful lettering. Ellie and James stand beside her, neither of them understanding what to do with this. They have both read about the camps in books, seen them in photographs, watched the horror on film, of course they have. They know the facts and the figures. But this is none of those things – this is just a list of names.
Lenka peers upwards, pointing. ‘My grandparents are there.’
There’s a shock of the unexpected, like a physical blow. ‘Your grandparents?’
‘Vadinský Elias and Vadinská Sára.’
They try to follow her finger and make them out, as though the sight of the names will somehow mean a sight of the couple itself, her father’s parents, who stare out of the photo frame on the dressing table in her room in Jitka’s flat.
‘Yes, I can see them,’ James says, but he can’t. It’s just that he doesn’t want to disappoint her. He tries some mental calculation, guessing at her age. ‘How did your father…?’ The question fades away but, of course, Lenka understands what he intends.
‘How did he survive? He was part of the communist underground. For the first years of the war he was in hiding, then things got too difficult and he escaped to Moscow.’ She’s still staring up, perhaps so they cannot see her expression. ‘My mother was already pregnant with me by then, but she was a Christian so she was as safe as anyone could be. But the rest of my father’s family stayed in Prague and they were not safe. His sister, my cousins, all of them’ – looking hopelessly round the white space and the myriad of names – ‘they are all here somewhere.’
Here and not here. The fleeting nature of presence marked only by shadows on photographic paper and names inked onto the wall of a synagogue.
‘Perhaps he always had – what do you call it? The guilt of the survivor.’
Later they make their way outside, into the old cemetery where a narrow pathway leads through a chaos of tombs and headstones to nowhere in particular. The air is ripe with the smell of earth and mould and weathered stone. ‘This is just a historical cemetery. There is also a very big modern Jewish cemetery in Žižkov.’ A pause. The sound of birds in the trees, traffic in the street beyond the walls. ‘But of course now there are no Jews.’
No Germans in the border areas, no Jews in Prague, dissidents dead or in prison or relegated to menial work out of the public eye; a country defined by its absences. Until the last few months, that is, and these moments of strange, frenetic freedoms.
That afternoon, after the synagogue, she takes them to a political meeting in one of the many theatres of the city. The auditorium – black stage, black curtains and backdrop – is packed with an audience as vocal as the people up on the stage. Jitka’s husband is there behind the microphone, his voice as sharp as a blade, while Jitka herself is in the audience. Lenka provides some kind of summary translation of the speeches. There is argument, debate, laughter as well as shouting. Her boyfriend from the embassy is there as well. James has forgotten the man’s name. ‘Samuel Wareham,’ Ellie whispers. ‘His father’s at New College. A physiologist.’
How does she know these things? Physiology is more in James’s line than hers, and yet he hasn’t made the connection. He feels stupid and naive, possessed only of limited knowledge that is useful to no one. Then, as they watch the proceedings on stage, the focus of the whole theatre shifts, rotates, swirls giddily round in a vortex until, absurdly, they have become the centre of attention.
‘Representatives from English University of Oxford,’ Jitka’s husband cries over the loudspeakers, pointing at them. Lenka is telling them to stand up and take a bow. Voices in broken English are all around, urging them on. Zdeněk, that’s his name, is calling them to come up on stage, to speak on behalf of the famous University of Oxford.
‘I can’t speak on behalf of anyone but myself,’ James protests. People laugh. People applaud. People stamp their feet and cheer. Lenka has him by the hand and is pulling him down the aisle. Ellie is quite happy with the whole thing, as though this is some ridiculous revolutionary drama put on by the Oxford Revolutionary Socialist Students. But for James they are Fando and Lis, clambering onto the stage, finally arriving in the fantasy city of Tar. They are bathed in light. Zdeněk is showing them where to stand.
‘Greetings from Oxford!’ Ellie yells into the microphone. Her voice is edged with nerves but the audience cheer appreciatively. ‘Greetings from the students of Oxford and greetings from the workers of Oxford.’ More cheers. She’s growing in confidence, standing small and indomitable before the crowd. ‘Socialism has a human face!’ she shouts, and those that do understand explain to those that don’t. The cheering grows. ‘Nothing,’ she cries, ‘is more powerful than an idea whose time has come! You can resist the invasion of armies but no one can resist the invasion of an idea!’
James has never seen her like this, doing her Pasionaria thing. The audience cheer and he stands there reflected in the light that falls on Ellie. They both smile and wave. In the wings Lenka is there to congratulate them and lead them back to their seats with the audience watching and still applauding and the English guy, Sam Whatever, smiling wryly at them and saying ‘quite a rabble-rouser’, in that nasty, sarcastic manner that people like him possess. Schoolmasterly. It gives James the shivers.
27
The building is close to the river, close to Kampa with its ancient waterwheels and historic flour mills. With conscious reference to the club in Liverpool this place is called Kaverna. It consists of brick-lined storerooms, like an ancient vaulted church of three naves with arches leading from one to the other. Each nave is packed with worshippers heaving and gyrating as though in the throes of religious ecstasy. The walls are painted black, so illumination is limited to small pools of light. The air is rank with sweat and smoke. At one end of the central nave is a wooden stage raised two feet from the floor. On it, bathed in the uncertain light from three spots and flanked by speakers, are the musicians. Their name is blazoned on the bass drum: THE IDES OF MARCH.
The leader, John, stands centre stage like a preacher in a revivalist meeting, his mouth almost enveloping the microphone, his voice booming round the vaulted ceiling: ‘I don’t understand what the fuck anyone is saying!’
His audience cheer.
‘Y’all off your heads!’
They cheer some more.
‘Just a couple a days ago we crossed our own Rubicon – the Iron fucking Curtain!’
Laughter from those who have understood.
‘That’s’ – he glances at a scrap of paper in his hand – ‘Shelezna-shoustani-opona to you.’
More laughter. Cheering and laughter.
‘An’ we find you cats all spaced out here on the far side, just like the kids back home. So now we gonna sing about it.’
More cheers. Those who understand make some kind of translation for those who don’t. The drummer – it’s Archer, isn’t it? – begins a thumping beat, the bass guitar adds a grating undercurrent of threat and they launch into their signature song, adapted for the occasion: