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‘The Window’
Prague:
Czechoslovakia: Late August 1968
©
Jan awoke, his hold body ached. He wondered how long he
had been unconscious. He remembered the blows to the head, then to the
legs and arms; even stronger r blows to the head, then merciful
darkness, oblivion.
The prison cell was small, airless and smelly; he had
regained consciousness on its only piece of furniture, a small hard bed
with a well worn mattress and no sheets. As he slowly recovered his
senses Jan found that the smell the heat and perhaps even the pain all
paled in the face of an overwhelming sense of De Ja Vu that seemed to
pervade his every thought.
He had been twenty-one That Spring of twenty-nine years
ago, the same age as the Republic that had in the year of his birth
freed itself from the shackles of a foreign, autocratic Empire following
centuries of domination. At the time his life mirrored that of his
homeland, the present comfortable, and the future hopeful. He had a
steady job with a modest wage at a local electronics factory and he had
married his childhood sweetheart Sasha a few months previously.
It was that very Spring though that the first
totalitarian hordes had descended, ripping up the very foundations of a
peaceful existence and settled lives everywhere they went. His parents
and younger sister had perished in the Camps. He never did find what
became of Sasha, she ‘disappeared’ in 1943, he never saw her again.
He glanced around his cell, there were no windows, a
light bulb hung from its socket in the ceiling, beside it loose wire
dangled from where it seemed there had once been another socket, the
light such as it was, was dim, the walls, greatly in need of paint were
covered with graffiti. In the dim light he could just make out words
critical of the government. Here and there graffiti relating to the
wartime government of occupation could be seen. Jan reflected on how
little had changed since his previous ‘visits,’ in the 1940’s and again
in 1956. It seemed that in this place time had stood still. His
tormentors wore different uniforms, answered to a different leader, and
were in theory at least bound to a different ideology than those of a
quarter century and more ago but the experience to Jan was identical.
Before the war he had been indifferent when it came to
politics, even as the approaching clouds of war grew more darker from
1936 onward he was largely, and perhaps intentionally, ignorant of
political matters and political developments. Not until they had
affected him personally did that change. Largely due to his apolitical
stance he was, apart from a few incidents in the 1940s when he had
demonstrated against the occupying power and been arrested, largely
spared the excesses of imprisonment torture that had been the fate of
many of his close friends. What had happened to those he loved though
filled him with a hatred of that regime, its ideology and all it stood
for that at the time he thought he could never again experience.
Jan heard the sound of footsteps approaching his cell. He
heard the locks been withdrawn and the clatter of the door as it swung
open. A tall, broad balding man of about forty-five entered. “Get
yourself cleaned up, the chief of police wants to see you in an hour”
the man bellowed. “I need some food and drink replied Jan, I’m hungry
and thirsty” “You will eat later” screamed the guard. “I need food now”
pleaded Jan.
“You will eat when we say so you Fascist pig.” At that
the guard struck Jan across the face with his fist. Jan tried to fight
back but he was felled by a series of brutal kicks to his body, the
guard then left.
The coup in 1948 three years after the end of the wartime
occupation had left Jan and many others largely unmoved. He had had
though despite his previous disinterest in politics joined the ruling
Party the following year. His motivation was less a concern for the
working-class of which he was part of and which the Party was supposed
to represent and more a legacy of his wartime experiences and his hatred
of the wartime regime. He had though always been a patriot, fiercely
proud of his nation. He reconciled these conflicting beliefs of a strong
sense of national pride and an allegiance to a Party controlled in every
aspect of its existence by a foreign power by convincing himself that
security ensured national salvation.
Once again Jan struggled to his feet, his white shirt now
soaked with blood, his body aching all over. He was fifty years old, for
many years now he had been a line supervisor in the same factory in
which he had worked when a young man. He had never remarried, his love
for Sasha and her loss had been too great for him to overcome, too
heartbreaking. Over the years he had become more politically active at
the time of the unrest in the summer and autumn of 1956 and joined a
national resistance pressure group, one of many that flourished at that
time, demanding democracy and liberty. After that he had been arrested
on suspicion of being an “Enemy of the State” on the most flimsy of
evidence that he had allegedly been heard in a local café declaring his
support for Imre Nagy in Hungary.
He recalled his arrest at 3am two days later by the State
police. He remembered also during his week long captivity the
starvation, the sleeplessness, the beatings, the torture, at least this
time there had been no outright torture, not yet anyway.
It was after the experience of 1956 that his political
‘awakening’ really took-off, his initial optimism about the future
having long since vanished he had belatedly come to the conclusion that
these new oppressors of his nation were no better than those of the
wartime regime. Oppressors they most certainly were. All Jan and his
fellow countrymen had wanted was to be left alone to rebuild their
shattered, ravaged country, to be able to proclaim their national pride
and to be visibly and openly proud of their national heritage. On a
personal level all Jan ever asked was to be able to say what he liked,
go where he wanted to and to live his life the way he desired, in short
to be in control of his own destiny. All these things had been denied to
Jan and his fellow countrymen between 1939 and 1945. In the first years
after the war he, like many others had envisaged a “new beginning,” the
“security” that had been felt even for a brief period after 1948 had
been mistaken for salvation, for hope. This mistake was now starkly
illustrated and the freedoms, the rights, and the democracy that had
taken root in 1918, grown throughout the 1920s and 1930s only to be
destroyed in 1939 were once again consigned to the dustbin of history.
It was the invasion that had finally pushed Jan over the
edge, finally pushed him into full blooded opposition to these new
oppressors of his beloved homeland. Things had looked much brighter
recently, comrade Alex had become a national hero, it seemed this time
as if a whole new future really was about to dawn. The
slackening of the grip of the foreign oppressor had become increasingly
noticeable, with many subtle changes. Some reforms had been introduced,
some individual liberties restored. A sense of optimism was now being
felt, perhaps to a degree not experienced since the heady days of the
young Republic in the 1920s. Many of Jan’s fellow countrymen now, if
somewhat cautiously came to believe that their ‘David’ would be
victorious and that something they had long hoped for but never really
expected was about to happen. ‘Goliath’ was about to submit.
Yes, the invasion, Jan had solemnly watched it from the
window of his home, the same window where from where he had looked as
the goose -stepping occupying forces of 1939 marched past, the same
window from where he had in 1945 watched the army of the new
totalitarian masters, their marching style so similar to those of 1939
originally hailed as liberators. Jan had seen them as such. Now, almost
a quarter of a century later these same armies were the symbol of
everything that he and his countrymen held in contempt, the symbol of
their nations’ subjection by a foreign invader. Jan had felt the
bitterness, the outright hatred gradually build within him, just as it
had in the 1940s. Later that day he had joined a crowd of people
demonstrating against the invasion. At one point he had thrown stones at
the passing tanks, then, with a few of the he had helped to rip up a
giant photo of the 1917 revolution. He had screamed and cursed at the
invaders with an intensity that had surprised even himself. It was then
that he had been arrested and that was how he had come to find himself
in this hell hole of a prison.
He tried to straighten himself, sat down on the bed and
waited. Soon the guard would be along to escort him to his next session
with the police chief. Once more anger, outright hatred welled within
him. Is this what it had come to? On a personal level forced to beg a
mere glass of water from his tormentor and on a wider scale reduced to
a helpless onlooker as his country was once more crushed and humiliated
by the forces of a foreign power once regarded as a friend.
He heard the footsteps approach the cell once more. The
guard once again shouted “get up.” “I need water” said Jan. “No water
until later” screamed the guard. The guard dragged him from the bed,
again beating him on the face. Jan struggled; he somehow reached to the
low ceiling, somehow managed to grab the wire hanging from the ceiling
and ripped it out. In an instant he had overpowered the guard, knocking
him to the floor. As the guard struggled Jan wound the wire round the
throat of his tormentor. The guard struggled, Jan strengthened his grip
on his makeshift weapon, in less than a minute the guard had ceased to
struggle, he was dead. It had taken in all a matter of minutes.
Jan knew that the guard would soon be missed, knew that
within minutes other guards would be along to investigate.
He made no attempt though to flee the open cell. He was
“free.” ©
Written c.1999.
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