At last there's silence, but he doesn't dare move or look around or even examine himself. He hears footsteps, one of those motherfuckers yanks the door open and he's looking into the barrel of a machine-gun, and someone yells, 'Hands up!', like they do in films, but instead he just rolls out of the bus on to the ground, straight into a puddle of petrol leaking out of the bullet-ridden tank.
Míla is already dead; the driver is still groaning. They put cuffs on him and take him to the customs shed.
He's been inside twice, always the kind of slammer where you could work out ways to survive. Now they toss him into a hole all by himself, and they only take him out for interrogations. They try to get him to confess that someone has put him up to this and told him what to do, that he's a terrorist and a murderer who shot the poor driver, a father of two. Mostly he keeps his mouth shut because how could these bastards understand anyway? He'd only wanted to clear out of this god-forsaken shithole country where the one thing they care about is having him work his arse off and then give a public display of how happy that makes him. Then he gets the rope.
Robert doesn't know what else there is to say. If he could talk to this moron, maybe the two of them could find a way of making a run for it, even though he can't imagine how they'd break out of this hole, let alone from death row, then get over a five-metre wall and slip past the machine-gun nests at each corner of the outer perimeter. But at least they'd be making some kind of mental effort, rather
than just waiting for the door to open and the guard to call their names and say, get your things, or on second thoughts, don't bother, you won't be needing them any more.
There's a rattling in the lock, and then the bolt slides back and the door opens. He stiffens. He's always terrified when the guard appears unexpectedly. He stands to attention, looks into the guard's expressionless eyes and gives the regulation response. No, this can't yet be it. He's put in a request for clemency, and they can't have turned it down so quickly — if they had, they'd have had to let him know.
The guard handcuffs him and lets him walk out of the cell. Two more guards are waiting in the corridor and they motion him to go with them. This is the only moment when he might try making a run for it: with cuffs on his hands, two escorts on his heels, in a locked corridor. Right.
Now he's only got the strength to think about where they're taking him and why. Maybe they have turned down his appeal and taken pity on Gabo because they think trying to get out of the country is a worse crime than strangling little girls. Now they're taking him to the yard, or wherever it is they put up their fucking gallows.
They enter the lift and go down to the ground floor. His lawyer is waiting for him in the visitors' room. He's been assigned to Robert's case, he's a state-appointed lawyer, a young man with a ruddy complexion and a high forehead. When he speaks, the veins on it stand out. Robert, of course, doesn't know whether he's a good lawyer or a swine like all the rest of them. Probably the latter, although he'd been taken aback when the lawyer tried to persuade that rat in robes that he, Robert, had had no intention of killing anyone, as proved by the fact that he allowed all the children off the bus.
The lawyer, a tall, thin man, rises slowly and quietly to greet him. 'There are just a few small items, Mr Bartoš,' he says, and in this place, the formal salutation almost sounds like an insult: 'We've submitted the request and we can expect an answer within four weeks.'
'What kind of answer?'
'We have to hope for the best. But I've got two pieces of good news for you.'
Robert looks at him expectantly.
'When I asked you last time about the exact date of your birth it was because I have an acquaintance who is involved in astrology and wanted to do your horoscope.'
'I don't know — I don't understand what you're talking about.'
'You don't know what a horoscope is?' He shakes his head.
'It's an attempt to predict someone's future from the position of the planets at the moment of his birth,' explains the lawyer. 'Unfortunately, we don't know the exact hour of your birth,' he adds regretfully.
'My mum never told me. They locked her up when I was little and that finished her off. She only came back to die.'
'I know,' says the lawyer quickly, 'but my friend managed to chart your approximate horoscope, and he found that very event in it. All of last year was a very critical time for you, especially May and September. But this year you have several promising conjunctions.' The lawyer suddenly leans towards him and says, almost in a whisper, 'We've managed to establish a contact with the man who will decide on your appeal for clemency. This is very important. You know how these things work.'
'Thanks,' he says. The lawyer never speaks directly. It's difficult to understand what he's actually talking about.
'We have to hope for the best. We've done everything in our power. Everything else is in God's hands. Do you believe that, Mr Bartoš?'
'I don't know.' The lawyer is acting strangely today. He seems too formal and too ingratiating. It scares him.
'You ought to believe. It would certainly make your wait easier.'
'I don't really know much about it,' he replies, trying to be polite.
Yes, well, I didn't think so. Anyway, that's all I really wanted to say. Any complaints about your treatment?'
He shakes his head.
'Good,' nods the lawyer. 'So we have to believe—you have to believe — in that horoscope.' The lawyer lowers his
voice again. 'And in our contact with the man who can give you clemency.' Then, in a normal tone, he says, 'I'm quite optimistic about your case. Try to think about the mercy of God, even though you don't know much about it. People in your situation sometimes discover these things for themselves. There must be someone standing above all this. Above the world, above justice, above history — you know what I'm saying?'
Robert says nothing. He stares at the table in front of him. Someone has carved graphic representations of the female pudenda in it, along with some kind of caption. The words have been scratched out, but the symbols remain.
The lawyer leans close to him and asks in a whisper, 'Now that it's all over, I mean now that we've submitted our appeal, I wanted to ask you, Mr Bartoš, why did you do it? What could you possibly have been thinking?'
So the guy was probably just one of them after all, who had been given the job of dragging a last-minute confession out of him. 'Like I told you already, we wanted out.
'Yes,' nods the lawyer, 'you did say that. But why? What were you expecting on the other side? Did you think you wouldn't have to work there either?'
'The hell I thought that!' His face flushes in a sudden rush of anger. 'Why don't you just bugger off, you stupid prick!'
III
The convoy consists of two yellow-and-white police cars, three ugly, heavily chromed black limousines with white blinds covering the side windows, then one final police car. The ornamental wrought-iron gates swing open, the vehicles drive through the gateway, past a cluster of box trees and rose-beds, and pull up in front of the entrance to the château. A valet is waiting at the bottom step. He bows, steps up to one of the limousines and opens the
door, then utters the official salutation: 'Honour to work, and good evening, Comrade President.'
An old man is sitting in the car, alone. At one time his body must have been tall and sturdy. Now it is bent with age. His dark eyes are almost lost under bushy eyebrows, and he looks blankly through a pair of thick glasses at the man holding the door open. Then his eyes flash in sudden recognition. The old man turns, reaches for a briefcase lying on the seat beside him and hands it to the valet. Then he swings his legs out of the car and plants them heavily on the ground. 'Yes, that's right,' he says, and with his eyes fixed unseeingly ahead of him, he climbs the stairs and goes through the main entrance into the hall. Then he stops and hesitates. 'What time is it?'