Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
-
Upload
robert-szanto -
Category
Documents
-
view
217 -
download
0
Transcript of Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 1/257 P u b l
i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
Men in black, a novel about Lidice, by Owen Elford.
Elford, Owen.
New York, N.Y., A. Unger [c1942]
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.$b300195
Public Domain, Google-digitizedh t t p : / / w w w . h a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s _ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
We have d etermined this work to be in the public domain,
meaning that it is not subject to copyright. Users are
free to copy, use, and redistribute the work in part or
in whole. It is possible that current copyright holders,
heirs or the estate of the authors of individual portions
of the work, such as illustrations or photographs, assert
copyrights over these portions. Depending on the nature
of subsequent use that is made, additional rights may
need to be obtained independently of anything we can
address. The digital images and OCR of this work were
produced by Google, Inc. (indicated by a watermark
on each page in the PageTurner). Google requests that
the images and OCR not be re-hosted, redistributedor used commercially. The images are provided foreducational, scholarly, non-commercial purposes.
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 2/257 P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 3/257 P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 4/257 P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 5/257 P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 6/257 P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 7/257 P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 8/257
MEN
INBLACK
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 9/257 P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 10/257
MENINBLACK
A NOVEL ABOUT LIDICEby
Owen Elford
ALBERT UNGER, NEW YORK, N. Y.
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 11/257
COPYRIGHT 1942, BY ALBERT UNGER PUBLISHING COMPANY
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reprinted in any form
without ^he written permission of the publisher, ex
cept by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages
in connection with a review written for inclusion in
a newspaper or magazine.
A.
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BY ERNST WILLARD, NEW YORK, N. Y.
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 12/257
Dedicated to
the victims of Nazism
all over the world.
M181234
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 13/257 P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 14/257
For a long time Police Corporal Anton Redtenbacher
had directed traffic at a street crossing in the City of
Vienna. It was not like those intersections that are to
be found by the thousands all over the world, where
sidewalks and roadways meet at right angles and where
the traffic is regulated impersonally by shifting red and
green signal lights. From his post Anton could see
just an intersection—the corner where the dark-gray
opera house stood. But his wooden platform was
placed in the middle of a broad, open plaza whose
many limbs and tributaries flowed
haphazardly togetheramong high patrician mansions, flat, modern market
booths, magnificent public buildings and spacious gar
den plots. Park paths and the tracks of the gleaming
red and yellow tram cars turned suddenly here and
there to wind around buildings.
Anton was a well-built man of medium height, about
forty years old; his keen, tanned face above the
tight-fitting, darkgreen uniform made him look much
younger. He stood in the center of the square, upon a
9
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 15/257
: rou^iwDHSn- platform, in the midst of passing pleas
ure cars, trucks, bicycles and pedestrians, his right arm
outstretched to halt the stream of traffic, or his white-
gloved hands waving in graceful, friendly gestures to
set the current in motion once more. Sometimes he
contented himself with a slight nod of his head or an
encouraging squint of his keen blue eyes.
He knew many people by sight, and he greeted them
by holding his upturned fingers on the visor of his cap
for as long as seemed justified by the social ranks of
each person. Sometimes his greeting was only the
briefest contact of his index finger with the rim of
his cap.
He stood at his post in the hot August sunlight when
gusts of wind blew toward him greasy scraps of paper
and green lettuce leaves from the long rows of booths
in the nearby retail market; he stood there when the
evening breeze wafted sweet and cool from the thick
foliage of the Leopoldsberg, whose silvery grey flank
he could make out on clear days above the confusion of
roofs and spires; he stood there on dark nights in heavy
rains that ran down to the gleaming asphalt along the
stiff, pointed monk's-hood of his sleeveless rubber rain
coat like the rain that runs down the grey sides of a
church. He stood there in wintry snowstorms, when
the bronze figures of the statues in the park wore whitefur coats and a tall Christmas-tree with electric candles
10
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 16/257
glittered on the corner where the Opera House stood
and Vienna's handsomest limousines vanished under the
arch of the ramp. He stood untiringly, with his strong
mouth smiling pleasantly, moving his head, arms and
hands rhythmically, as though keeping time to an in
audible melody. When he looked down past the Opera
House along the broad, elegant, busy Kaerntnerstrasse,
he saw the delicate ashen spire of the Stephansdom,
towering above weatherbeaten roofs and chimneys. On
his right, almost at the other end of the spacious square
and flanked by two high spires, gleamed the wonderful
green copper dome of the Karlskirche; behind him the
business streets fanned out to the railroads and factories
on the periphery of the city.
In the days of the Danube Monarchy, when Vienna
was still the capital and imperial residence of a colorful,
many-tongued empire, old Kaiser Franz Josef had rid
den across this square when he left the ancient greywalls of the Hofburg and rode down the majestic
Ringstrasse to his pleasure castle of Laxenburg. He sat
in his open coach above the golden wheels in a bright
blue military cloak, on his head the tall general's hat
with a plume of dark-green feathers, his chin smooth-
shaven between the short sideburns that grew whiter
and whiter as the years passed, his watery blue eyes
expressing paternal approval as he nodded to the
cheering populace. Beside him sat his adjutant, in
11
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 17/257
front of him, on the raised coachman's seat, a gold-
braided servant and the livried coachman who guided
the noble, thoroughbred horses with a sure hand.
Through this square, on one of the highest church
holidays, the colorful Corpus Christi procession passed
in solemn magnificence over strewn branches that bore
the first green leaves of spring. And in the midst of
the procession, beneath a brocade canopy, strode the
archbishop of Vienna in full ecclesiastical regalia.
Here rifles and machine guns had blazed after the
First World War, when a small Republic struggled up
out of the grave of the great monarchy—a miniature
state, but one that valiantly sent forth fresh shoots, like
a flower that has been transplanted from the soil of an
ancient garden to a narrow flower-pot.
Silently, heavily, the long rows of the Worker's
Defense League had marched eight abreast before
Anton's eyes; noisily, in
double-quick time, the short,
brown-shirted columns had later swung by; broad and
peaceful, with pheasant feathers in their caps, the
Heimwehr battalions had marched.
Days of chaos had come, when Anton's wooden plat
form stood deserted and Anton and his comrades, their
loaded rifles held at ready, had leaped across street
barricades. But always the small, well-trained forces of
law and order had won out after a brief struggle —and Police Corporal Redtenbacher would return to his
12
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 18/257
post to regulate the pulsating traffic of a busy city with
friendly, gracious gestures of his hands. He returned
more than ever convinced that it was the inviolate
mission of his profession to maintain order. For he
had seen for himself how small was the number of
troublemakers and lawbreakers. In the eyes of all the
complex and different types of men who dwelt within
his beat or passed through it he read the assurance of
their essential goodness and their loyalty. For all their
feverish partisanship, these people loved their native
land above all else, and they were grateful to the
guardians in the dark-green uniforms for their tenacious
defense of it. Anton's own roots were sunk deep in
this soil, and he knew these people as a sheriff knows
his village or a forester his woods.
For some weeks now he had been aware of an
unusual disquiet in the faces of the people. It was like
the sudden fright of people
who in the midst of a
family quarrel are attacked by robbers. One of the
ne'er-do-well younger sons has often warned them
against the robbers, but no one had taken him seriously,
now the house is surrounded by them.
More and more often Anton had to blow his whistle
after pedestrians and drivers who absent-mindedly hur
ried by him without regarding his signals. People seized
the newspapers more eagerly from the hands of the
newsboys on the street corners, and daily the headlines
13
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 19/257
became more stirring and more ominous. In the
evenings small groups of boys and young men appeared
suddenly to demonstrate illegally. In the chantingchoruses that the Government had prohibited they
called for the dissolution of the State. "Move on now,
don't stand still," Anton cried dutifully, and they
would vanish like phantoms into the darkness of the
sidestreets.
For two days Police Precinct "Gumpendorf HI" had
been on an emergency basis. The austere precinct office
was located on the ground floor of a rooming house,
and always smelled of Russian leather, boot polish
and cheap cigarettes. There was a narrow private en
trance and three small barred windows, through which
the twilight casted deep shadows in the room. Out
side a small, almost deserted street sloped upward
between the grey walls of buildings.
A few yards down the street, in the main entrance
of the six-storey building, the rotund, robust figure of
the landlady appeared for a moment, haranguing with
fluent tongue and expressive gestures one of the tenants
of the house. The man, whose leashed dog had in
fringed upon the sanitary code, listened in shamefaced
silence.
Dampened by the row of buildings in between came
14
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 20/257
the regular humming, rattling, and honking of horns
from the main artery one block away. From that direc
tion, too, came the heavy tread of the policemen who
had just been relieved.
Frau Leopoldine Redtenbacher, the landlady, fin
ished reprimanding the unfortunate tenant and started
to retreat from the chill of the early spring evening to
the comfortable warmth of her kitchen. She looked up
as the tread of the approaching men came nearer,
recognized her son, Anton, and waved to him. By
expressive gestures she conveyed to him that a cup of
hot, strong coffee was waiting for him.
As he came abreast of her, Anton smiled gratefully
and replied in the same sign language, that as soon
as he could find a free moment he would visit her.
Then the men vanished one after the other through the
narrow entrance to the precinct office.
On the stairway Frau Redtenbacher encountered theold, invalid university professor, who today looked
more wan than usual. He was a frail old man with a
high, finely-chiseled scholar's brow, set in between two
tufts of snow-white hair that puffed out from under his
hat. He walked heavily, leaning upon a rubber-tipped
cane. "Evil times," he murmured as he stepped out of
the elevator. "What does your son have to say, Frau
Redtenbacher? Will the police be able to keep the
upper hand?"
15
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 21/257
"Has anything special happened, Herr Professor?
My son is still on duty . . . I'll turn on the radio right
away . . .""You won't get anything new on the radio. But
take my word for i t ,
Frau Redtenbacher, there's some
thing in the air, something very bad ..." He went
out on the street and waved for ataxi. The landlady
followed and helped him in. She stood staring thought
fully after him for amoment, arm akimbo. Then she
began to shiver with cold and went in again—back to
her warm kitchen and the security of commonplace
things.
Anton had meanwhile delivered his report and gone
into the ready room with his comrades. Here he and
his fellows could smoke and rest upon the hard cots
whose crude wood was notched and nicked from years
of use.
Suddenly the men started. From the street, low at
first but quickly mounting in intensity, came strange
howls and shouts.
The police captain looked up. His dark-ringed eyes
and his grey stubble between the wings of his open
silver collar betrayed uninterrupted work. He lis
tened for amoment, briskly put the telephone receiver
back on the hook and nervously buttoned his collar.
The instructions he had just received from his superiorscontradicted strangely the confident declarations of the
16
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 22/257
Austrian Government in the newspapers and over the
radio. The captain got up, and opened the middle
window. A wave of wild, inarticulate shouts, mingledwith an undercurrent of low, rhythmical battle-cries,
washed into the room. And the next moment a shim
mering white thing flew silently between the black bars
and into the room, shattered like a loosely-packed snow
ball and sank in flakes upon the crude brown tables
and chairs in the room. Some of the men picked up
the paper flakes. There were a hundred or so small,
delicate, carefully cut-out swastikas.
The eyes of the others turned toward the lean police
captain who stood motionless, his lips pressed lightly
together as though tasting some new food, his thin,
hawklike face set. Then his right hand moved up and
down several times, as though he were trying to weigh
the feathery bits of paper he held in his palm. He
had been instructed not to react to provocation under
any circumstances, though he was to intervene ener
getically where the public peace was threatened. Now
he opened his hand. His mouth twitched with re
pressed scorn as he dropped the bits of paper into the
wastebasket near his desk. "Redtenbacher," he said,
turning to Anton, "take three men and clear the side
walk in front of headquarters. But don't make too
much of a
fuss."Anton rose to his feet, buckled his leather straps
17
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 23/257
and hurried out into the street, followed by three of his
comrades. He raised his whistle to his lips and blew a
short, shrill warning. As soon as the group of some
twenty youthful demonstrators saw the uniforms, they
broke into a run and disappeared. The four policemen
looked at one another with satisfaction. This game was
familiar to them. The paper swastikas alone were new.
But no sooner had the last of the four men returned
to the precinct office than across the street a new group
appeared out of a side street. This time the demon
strators were thin, fifteen to seventeen-year-old high
school boys, hatless, their hair fluttering, their voices
high-pitched and clear. They stood somewhat uncer
tain, ready for flight, opposite the police office and
began to speak in chorus. From a low, timid murmur
the chorus rose rapidly to a loud cry: "One People,
one Reich, one Fuehrer!" The words sounded clearly
through the bars of the open window.
This time Anton did not wait for orders. With a
surprisingly swift movement he sprang out on to the
street again. A second later he was across, and as the
band of boys scattered wildly in all directions his hand
fell heavily upon the loudest of them and held him fast.
All of a sudden the quiet street had come alive.
People stopped on both sides of the street, stepped out
of the doors of houses and
put their heads out
of win
dows to watch the brief encounter. "Hurrah for the
1 1 ,
18
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 24/257
police," an asthmatic voice cried excitedly from some
where on the second floor. "Boo," a shrill woman's
voice replied from the fifth floor on the opposite sideof the street.
Anton shoved his prisoner before him into the pre
cinct room. Outside doors and windows closed, and the
few bystanders continued on their way.
The captain turned on the light. In the glow of the
powerful, unshaded lamps the prisoner blinked. He
was of medium height with narrow shoulders and
thick, dark, close-cropped hair that stood up like the
bristles of a brush above his low forehead. There was
an angry gleam in his deep-set eyes. The left side of
his mouth was marred by a long, irregular saber scar
that reached almost to his ear. He was obviously older
than the boys he had lead.
The prisoner drew from his pocket, as identification,
an attendance card of the Technical University. The
name on the card was Eberhard Woitschek.
"I protest against this inhuman treatment," he said,
glaring at Anton, who had at last released him.
"Shut up," the captain snapped. "We know what
we're doing."
The boy trembled with rage, but his small eyes
turned mockingly to the office. "If you choose to
arrest me, captain,
I'm at your disposal,"
he said.
"You'll have to let me go tomorrow, anyway."
19
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 25/257
The captain seemed not to hear him. "Put him on
the blotter and give him a warning; if it happens
again he'll see the judge; dismissed," he snapped drily,in a businesslike tone. He turned his back on the
young man, fumbled with his collar until he had it
open again and went back to his desk to pick up the
ringing telephone.
A few minutes later Anton asked for and received
an hour's leave to visit his mother before he went on
night duty. The whole police force was still operating
on a twenty-four hour basis.
There was a door from the police headquarters to
the yard, and from here there was a hallway to the
landlady's apartment. Anton rang the bell.
"I have a surprise for you," Frau Leopoldine said,
as she opened the door. She gazed lovingly at her son,
who was a good head taller than she. "Erna is here.
It's good to have her here for a change."
"Erna? Here . . . ?"
"She has something important she wants to talk to
you about." With a mother's delicacy she went back
to the kitchen and let Anton enter the living room
alone. Erna, a tall, pretty girl with brown hair, bright
grey eyes and soft features, put down her coffee cup
and came quickly toward him. Anton could tell from
20
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 26/257
the way she kissed him that she was unusually ex
cited. "It's starting tonight, Toni," she said without
preliminary.
Anton gaped at her. He moved slowly away from
her and sank into the old-fashioned green velvet easy
chair. Erna sat down at the table again, her eyes
anxiously trying to read in his expression the effect of
her words.
"Nonsense," Anton exclaimed. "What do you think?
If you had been
right, the Nazis would have been here
when the Chancellor was murdered, and then after the
Olympic Games, and at least three times since ...""I can't help i t
, Toni. This time it's a fact. My
brother, Franz, told me two hours ago. All the illegal
Nazi workers are ready; whole railroad trains loaded
with secret Party members have come to Vienna from
the provinces. I f even the police don't know i t yet,
Toni, it's beyond me. The government must be asleep—or else they want to sleep."
Anton was silent for a moment. "That isn't my
affair," he said finally, and his voice was weary. "I do
my job and nothing else concerns me. I've told you
that often enough, I think. A Viennese policeman i s
not apolitician. That's the good old Austrian tradi
tion; without i twe would have gone to the dogs long
ago. That was the way i twas in the old imperial army
where I servfed my apprenticeship under fire. There
21
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 27/257
weren't any questions; orders were orders and that
was all a squad leader had to know. Come, Erna, don't
look so frightened and eat your cake." He got up and
went to the place at the table that his mother had set
for him. "The police are on guard—they always have
been, even though people don't realize it. In '18, with
the monarchy falling, we put down the communists.
Later on we put down strikers and marchers and dem
onstrators in spite of their infernal machines and
bombs. And right now we're going to restore order
again. After all, there must be order!" As though to
stress his words he bit emphatically into the yellow,
fluffy cake and his tongue flicked over the wavy brown
crust with its sprinkling of flaky confectioner's sugar.
Erna had listened to him with lowered head. Now
she raised her eyes and gazed squarely into his. "There
must be order," she repeated. "The only question is
who will enforce it. Franz says that no one in Austriais strong enough to do it. In the Reich they have order
—and we belong to that order. They will come and
establish order among us, Franz says."
"What else is there for him to say? He's been in the
jug five times because he's a Nazi and can't keep his
wisdom to himself. It's a pity."
"Do you know what he said today in reference to
you, Toni?""No . . . ?"
22
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 28/257
"Exactly what you just said: it's a pity. He means
that if you care at all about getting anywhere you must
join the Party tonight. Tomorrow will be too late. It
starts tonight!"
Anton's cup rattled against the saucer. "If he ever
lives to see me entering a political party—
by Jesus,
the world won't last much longer."
Frau Leopoldine came from the kitchen, she stood
a moment in the doorway, hands on her hips. "You're
quarreling as if you'd been married for ten years," she
laughed. Then she took her knitting from a pretty
woven basket, sat down at the table and began to
.chatter in her robust way. Her thick fingers wove the
long needles in agile turns, as though she were accom
panying the equally agile play of her lips upon some
silent musical instrument. She admired Erna's new
dress, informed them that the sweetest little girl had
been born in Number 12, that Factory Director Behr'schauffeur was unfaithful to his wife with the cook of
Number 15, that Aunt Peppi (who lived in Czecho
slovakia) sent her regards, that there had been another
riotous demonstration on the Ballbausplatz, and that the
horrible mutt in Number 9 had messed up the hallway
again.
Erna listened with assumed attention, but her eyes
lingered worriedly upon the face of her fiance who had
finished his meal and settled himself comfortably in
23
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 29/257
the green-upholstered easy chair. Anton contentedly
puffed blue rings of smoke into the air. After a while
Erna got up. "I have to bring a business letter to the
post office."
"Do you have night work in the lawyer's office?"
Anton inquired. "Is that the kind of work they give
highly-educated secretaries?"
"Not the only work, but there was no one else in
the office and it's an important letter . . . ." Her voice
was humorless. "Take care of yourself, Anton." She
whispered these last words into his ear as he helped
her into her coat. Then she said goodby to his mother.
As she and Anton stepped out into the hallway,
they met the freckled chauffeur of Behr, the factory
director. The husky, square-built man held a leather
suitcase in each hand and an umbrella case under his
arm. As he stepped out of the elevator he gazed up
at them and his watery eyes squinted
a
greeting. Behind
him came another man carrying a suitcase and two
plaid bags. A chambermaid with automobile blankets
and coats followed them.
In front of the building stood a long black Packard,
and inside sat Frau Behr in an expensive fur coat,
waiting for her husband. Beside her were two pale,
dark-eyed daughters and a restless boy. Herr Behr, a
masculine counterpart of his daughters, stood countingthe number of bags.
24
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 30/257
Anton and Erna noticed with amazement that behind
the Packard stood two cabs, so loaded down with suit
cases, trunks, blanket rolls and knapsacks that there
was scarcely room for the driver.
"Twenty-seven," Herr Behr was counting as Anton
greeted him. "Ah, the police department . . ." He
bowed with a genial smile.
"Are you going on a long trip, Herr Behr?"
"Just a little skiing tour in the Swiss mountains. The
doctor said the children need fresh air. Goodby,
In
spector — give your mother our regards." He shook
hands with Anton, then got into the car and closed the
door. "Aspern airport," he called to the chauffeur.
A moment later the procession began to move. Anton
stared after the confused heaps of baggage; he saw
none of the equipment needed for a skiing trip. "By
plane—that must be costing a fortune," he murmured
thoughtfully.Erna held his hand tightly. "The rats are leaving
the sinking ship," she said slowly. Then she strode
off down the street without looking back.
"God protect Austria!" With fervent nobility, in the
tones of a condemned man, the words of the depart
ing Chancellor sounded from the mahogany cabinet
of the radio in the Professor's library. At first glance
25
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 31/257
the room seemed to have no furniture but rugs and
tall book shelves. The professor, sitting alone at his
big desk, sighed deeply. His head was resting on his
hands, between painfully tensed fingers. Now he let
it sink upon the russet-veined wood of the table top.
Inexorably like the ringing of an alarm clock, the
transmitting signal of the station shattered the paralyz
ing emptiness of silent, frozen time.
Tormented, the old man started up to turn off the
radio. And then, suddenly, music flowed from the
cabinet; familiar, moving Austrian music. Beethoven,
Mozart, Schubert .... alluring, dancing, billowing,
thundering, whirring tones that conjured up sweet
images of his native landscape: sloping meadows of
delicate green shimmering with dew beneath the white
blossoms of cherry trees; dark, rosin-scented pine
woods below snow-covered precipices; grain fields
stirred by the wind into long, flat billows, among themthe dazzling, slender petals of blue asters and red
poppies; pointed church spires rising above ancient
graveyards overgrown with wild roses; shining moun
tain lakes; farmhouses of blackened wood high up
the sides of steep hills; village streets meandering wil
fully beneath linden trees and red-candled chestnut
trees; the splendor of autumn leaves in the luxurious
parks surrounding the former imperial palaces —and
the broad, ancient river carrying in its breast the re
'26
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 32/257
flection of clouds and blue sky and winding timelessly
between mined castles and vineyards, between great
modern buildings and gas tanks ....Every symphony, every march, every song that poured
into the silent room was intimately familiar to the
old man—but never before had this music sounded to
him so stirring, so moving, so overwhelming and trans
figuring. It was as though in its dying hour the
country was breathing out the beauty of its soul, like
some wounded wild thing.
Humming like distant shells, roaring, howling and
snarling, the German pursuit fliers swept restlessly
down over the roofs of the city, glided above the up
lifted faces of the excited throngs in the streets and
squares and shot up again with deafening noise into
the cerulean morning sky, where they hovered for a
while like hungry vultures before screeching down
toward earth again.
Anton, exhausted by endless hours on duty and still
confused by the events of the night, walked slowly and
dreamily up the sloping gray street, as though he were
toiling up a mountain. The circling silver birds above
the peaceful city seemed shadowy and unreal to him;
unreal and fantastic the long crimson banners with the
no-longer-forbidden black swastika in the round white
27
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 33/257
field. As though in response to a command they had
snaked out of thousands of windows and now fluttered
self-importantly above the streets.
Last night had passed like a moving picture before
his eyes as he stood at his usual post in the middle
of the intersection, directing traffic with his usual
gestures. Loudspeakers on the street-corners had
blarred forth world-shaking news. Ultimatum, troop
movements, cabinet meetings, advancing tanks. Anton,
still alert to guard law and order against any would-be
disturbers, found himself suddenly surrounded and
even kissed by a mob of frenetic, jubilant young men.
Total strangers embraced one another in intoxicated
joy; boys threw their hats into the air, shouted and
danced mad contortions as they raised their arms to the
starry sky in the long-banned Hitler salute. Then,
swinging around the corner from a side street, an
organized torchlight procession came marching pastAnton. The marchers sang in low, bass tones, alternat
ing with harsh, staccato spoken choruses. Two mounted
policemen who accompanied the procession called to
him: "Leave your post and report to headquarters."
As Anton pushed his way slowly through the close-
packed mob he realized that these cheers and shouts of
Heil were not spoken in the familiar Viennese dialect,
and that he recognized only a few faces. Where were
they, all the old inhabitants of his beat whose features
28
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 34/257
he knew as a sheriff knows his village or a forester
his woods?
At one of the many small park circles of the city,
where a bronze Neptune blew water from pursed lips
into a marble basin, someone was making a speech.
He was a thin-chested young man without a hat, with
thick, close-cropped hair standing up like the bristles
of a brush above his narrow forehead. By the light
of the passing torches Anton recognized the long saber
scar of Woitschek, the student. Standing on the rim
of the fountain, his eyes glaring hatred, his hand
resting for support upon the mighty arm of the water
god, he called for vengeance against the people's
oppressors and against the Jews. The crowd cheered
raucously. A few minutes later came the sound of
breaking window panes, almost drowned out by the
hoarse shouting.
Anton stood still and wiped the sweat from his brow.
Had he been walking so fast? The morning sun shone
coldly. A puff of wind blew several of the long red
banners over wall projections and gargoyles. They
became helplessly entangled and fluttered furiously in
wild efforts to get free. Anton suddenly recollected
that once before in his life he had had a similar ex
perience. That was almost twenty years ago, when
great, imperial Austria had fallen apart over night. Then, too, like so many others he had stuck to his post
29
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 35/257
and served his country. But at that time a long, hard
war was just over. He himself had fought on the
Isonzo and been wounded. All had fought, all hadbeen wounded and grown weary of fighting. As he
thought of those days, the events of the previous night
and of this morning seemed stranger and even more
unreal than before.
The screeching rubber tires of a big Mercedes touring
car that swerved around the corner at illegal speed
awoke him from his abstraction. He looked up in
time to see two tall, lean officers in Prussian uniforms.
"They will come and establish order . . . ." Erna's
words came back to him. He felt a dry, choking sen
sation in his throat.
He entered the precinct office. It seemed strangely
quiet; only the regular, cacophanous snores from the
ready room betrayed the presence of the exhausted men.
The Police Captain, his striped collar open beneath
his unshaven hawk's face, sat alone behind his desk,
the only man awake in the place. When he caught
sight of Anton, he rose silently. His gaunt figure
seemed to have shrunk; his thin lips were pressed
tightly together, as though he had difficulty keeping
his features in their normal position. Instead of the
customary military salute, the two men shook hands
in silent understanding.
Then the captain's posture
stiffened, and the same contemptuous twitch appeared
30
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 36/257
at the corner of his mouth as when he dropped the
paper swastikas into the wastebasket. "A first-class
funeral," he said bitterly."Why didn't the army fight, sir?" Anton's voice was
low and accusing.
"There are things no army can fight . . . Treason,
perjury, betrayal . . ."
"By Jesus . . ." The blood rushed to Anton's head
and his fists clenched. "Why did we stand day and
night for years, keeping order in the midsummer heat
and in the snow, never losing patience with any of
them, radicals or reactionaries? Why did we, if all we
do now is give up without firing a shot, while every
thing goes to the dogs and the people cheer and wave
flags and torches to the bargain?"
"Don't talk nonsense, Redtenbacher. Did you see
a single real Viennese face among all those brown
uniforms? Half-baked brats and paid tramps, profes
sional noisemakers, hysterical women and a few fools
who were promised the world with a fence around it—
those are the heroes of this revolution. And all our
good-hearted, dumb Viennese who haven't an inkling
of what they're in for have fallen for the torches and
the empty promises and the threats and the flags and
the music . . . ."
Anton tossed his cap on the desk. "My God, sir," hemurmured, and paused at the inadequacy of words.
31
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 37/257
Anton's rage seemed to help his superior regain his
usual self-possession. "Redtenbacher," he said, "all
of us have to live through it. It's happened now; itdoesn't do any good to grumble. Things won't change
so much for us policemen. Our motto has to be: 'Keep
your mouth shut and go on working.' Things may
change again—who knows—and then people like you
will be needed, Redtenbacher, real Austrians . . . ." The
captain's sober grey eyes gleamed for a moment, as
though illuminated by an inner flame. "Austria won't
die as long as we don't forget," he said slowly, stress
ing every word. He put his hand lightly on Anton's
arm for a moment. "Lie down and snatch a couple
of hours sleep," he said. "It's going to be a strenuous
day; we have to keep a grip on ourselves."
"Yes, sir."
"Redtenbacher!" This time the captain's voice was
hard and businesslike, though his fingers were nerv
ously tumbling at his collar.
"Yes, sir. . .?"
"We're old comrades and you know I want you to
do well. We're the only two in the precinct here who
were under fire together in the old army. That's some
thing that can't be wiped out; it's something that stays
inside of you. The younger boys have it easier ....I've
studied the Reich
system. Every one of us is
goingto be watched and spied on. So be on your guard and
32
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 38/257
don't say anything rash. 'Keep your mouth shut and
go on working,' understand. And if you need advice,
come to see me privately. All right?""Yes, sir."
"Dismissed."
The harsher his captain's voice became, the more
clearly Anton sensed that his superior shared his feel
ings. It was good to know that. He stretched out on
a cot between two of his fellows and immediately fell
into a deep sleep.
■
The March sun blazed, the banners fluttered against
the pale blue sky. The thumping marching step of
the brown storm troops began, stopped and began
again in response to harsh commands. Processions
recruited from gymnastic clubs filled the streets: white-
bloused girls
and shivering
school children. The
radio's phantom voice— 'coordinated' overnight —in
cessantly cried paeans of triumph, proclamations of
recommended joy, regulations and promises. Above the
church towers and the roofs, humming, howling, snarl
ing, the menacing alien birds hovered restlessly. The
people hurrying to work through the unaccustomed
noise looked up timidly and uncertainly. On street
corners men rattling collection boxes pressed tinymetal swastikas upon them. Everyone had to wear
33
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 39/257
one as testimony of his enthusiasm, if he wished to
reach his place of work unmolested.
Peter, Factory Director Behr's chauffeur, vigorously
pressed the bell at the entrance to the landlady's apart
ment. On his left lapel gleamed an enameled Party
badge: a black swastika within a red circle.
Frau Leopoldine opened the door.
"Heil Hitler, Frau Redtenbacher," Peter said, and
raised his right arm rather awkwardly in the prescribed
greeting. His watery eyes blinked with embarrassment,
and his tough, freckled face twitched.
"Since when are you a Nazi?" the landlady asked,
with mingled astonishment and contempt in her voice.
"A man has to keep up with the times, Frau Poldi,"
Peter replied, tugging at his chauffeur's cap. "I'm a
family man, I have to earn a living. I'm an old under
ground worker —I've been in the Party three months
now, because I knew how things
would go.
Now the
Party has rewarded me by making me Blockwart .... There wasn't anybody else," he added apologetically.
"Blockwart? What's that?"
"In every street or big building there has to be a
Party man who sees to it that all the tenants conform
to the requirements of the National Socialist People's
Community ... In plain words, the Jews must go."
As was her custom, Frau Leopoldine placed herarms on her broad hips. "You yourself are working
34
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 40/257
for a Jew, aren't you, Peter?" she said. With head
tilted to one side, she studied him.
"I was working for a Jew—until yesterday. I'll tell
you a secret, Frau Poldi. Herr Behr isn't coming back
any more. I told him it was time to clear out, because
I knew from the Party what was going to happen to
the Jews. I would have felt sorry if anything happened
to Behr. He was always decent to me—I might almost
say handsome. If all Jews was like him . . . ."
"And what will happen now to the others who
haven't such handsome chauffeurs as you, Peter . . . .?"
"Very simple. You must give me a list of the
tenants and mark the ones who are Jews."
"How should I know that? And anyway, I haven't
any list—the owner has them all."
"Don't try to put anything over on me!" The
freckled face flushed. "And please think before you
speak, Frau Redtenbacher. I have authority now andyou have to follow my instructions."
"A big mouth, that's what you are," the landlady
said, her eyes flashing. "I take my orders from the
owner, you poor idiot, you. I wonder what Behr paid
you for tipping him off. A nice piece of change, I
suppose. But that didn't stop you from joining the
Nazis and bringing the Prussians down on our poor
Austria!" The landlady's agile tongue wound on at
high speed, and the chauffeur shrank back.
35
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 41/257
"What's a man to do?" he said. "I have a family
to think of "
"A fine family man you are. The cook in Number 15
has something to say about that. Go on, I don't want
to hear any more from you." And before the baffled
chauffeur realized what was happening, she slammed
the door in his face.
At seven o'clock in the morning the entire precinct
force was assembled in the main room for roll call.
The captain, freshly shaved and wearing an im
penetrable mask, read the order of the day from the
newly appointed Chief of Police. "It is to be expected,"
the concluding words ran, "that the people's spirit,
given free rein by the Fuehrer's historic deed after
years of shameless suppression, may here and there
overstep the bounds in the jubilation of the first few
days. In their enthusiasm the people may go farther
in justly punishing their oppressors than would norm
ally be the case. It is not the affair of the police to
interfere with the people's vengeance. The police must
rather restrict themselves to preserving public order
and protecting public property. In particular, notorious
supporters of the former criminal system, such as
proved Free Masons, Bolsheviks and Jews, are not to
be accorded police protection."
36
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 42/257
Anton pricked up his ears. Although he did not
grasp immediately the full sense of this order, he had
the unpleasant sensation of a man standing upon
heaving ground during an earthquake.
Shortly after the roll call one of the open riot cars
drew up in front of the door. Ten men, Anton among
them, were ordered into the car, which then set off
toward the outskirts of the city. The men were in
formed that the workers in one of the great steel
plants had struck in protest against
the dismissal and
arrest of their shopcommitteemen. SA men had been
beaten and swastikas trampled in the dust.
When the police entered the factory yard, men and
women were standing idly in small groups around
the few bare trees in the yard, their faces dark and
their fists clenched. In their sober, sorrowful eyes was
no trace of the noisy enthusiasm of the paraders who
had marched down the main streets of the city. Therewas an uncanny quietness about the way these people
stood around. And when they saw that resistance was
useless, they went back to their machines with the same
uncanny quietness, one after the other, with lowered
heads. But the machines would not run ; some hothead
had cut the electric cable.
Anton saw many strange things that day. Again and
again it seemed to him that all these events were un
real—shadowy images on a gigantic movie screen. His
37
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 43/257
short, deep sleep had refreshed him physically, but
even the blinding sun in the cloudless sky, which
brought out Sharply all the glittering lines and colors
of the city, did not restore his sense of reality.
Riding back down one of the broad main avenues
the police car was forced to stop before a large crowd
gathered in front of an old, ornate baroque building.
On the sidewalk a small semi-circle had been cleared
by a group of brown-shirted men with swastika arm
bands. Smoke rose from their midst. Anton sprang
down from the car and pushed his way through the
crowd. Within the semi-circle, at the foot of a large
door decorated with curliques and lions' heads, he
saw a small bonfire. Above, on the second storey of
the building, open windows shone in the sunlight.
Through the windows boys with flushed faces were
throwing down books, accompanying each armful of
books with hoarse cries. As they fell the books
opened,as wounded men helplessly spread out their arms. The
shining gilt-trimmed volumes were caught amid roars
of laughter and handed to a black-uniformed SS man
who held each book quizzically up to his eyes, read
the title aloud and solemnly cast it into the flames.
"Despicable." Anton heard almost in his ear the
low voice of an elderly man who wore horn-rimmed
glasses and a high hat. "Why don't the police do
something?" someone else asked.
38
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 44/257
The crowd parted willingly before Anton, and in
voluntarily he found himself in the middle of the
circle, almost upon the crackling pyre. For a momenthe recalled the order of the days: "In their enthusiasm
the people may go farther than would normally be the
case . . . ." But the habit of intervening whenever
the peace was disturbed was too strong in him. He
spoke in his quiet, polite manner: "What's going on
here, gentlemen?" he said, turning to one of the brown-
shirted men who were keeping the space around the
fire clear. The man in the black uniform, a thick
leather-bound book in his hand, turned to Anton and
saluted him with a careless, challenging gesture.
"Fuehrer's orders, officer. We're destroying literary
trash and filth." He spat scornfully upon the book
and dropped it into the fire, while his accomplices
clapped and cheered. Before he turned to face the
building again, Anton recognized the narrow-shoul
dered fledgeling SS man by the ugly saber scar that
ran from the corner of his mouth to his ear: Woit-
schek, the student.
Anton was strongly tempted to take the young man
in tow. It was really too much; ever since yesterday
he had been meeting this student wherever peaceable
people were being incited to some sort of odious de
monstration. But a shrill whistle blast and wavinghands from the police car reminded him that he was
39
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 45/257
only supposed to clear the way for traffic. "Move on
now, don't stand still," he said mechanically, and
turned his back on the smoking bonfire. The crowd
parted and the police car drove on.
They turned into a broad side street and drove for
a while along the outskirts of the city. Here only a
few flags fluttered from the older houses and from
the massive modern communal apartment buildings
that stood here and there among them. The car
rolled on through almost deserted streets. At one of
the high, arched, soot-blackened railroad stations, a
group of the men were detached. While the car stood
still for a few moments, Anton saw pale, excited people
hastening up the steps of the station and rushing to
the ticket windows. As he watched, more and more
came from all directions: old men who struggled with
heavy trunks and suitcases; women with crying infants
in their arms. Harried faces: a steadily growing stream
of fleeing humanity, unreal in the cruel reality. In
their midst, young toughs in brown SA uniforms
shouted mockingly and waved their arms menacingly
at the hurrying throng. In the park opposite the
station a brass band played a military march that was
soon drowned out in a roar of Heils and jubilant
shouts.
Then the police car turned toward the center of
the city, driving along the long, wall-like enclosure
40
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 46/257
backed by the towering tops of high trees that already
bore pale, copper-colored buds. Through an ornate
barred gate they caught sight for a moment of the
handsome Belvedere castle. Then they drove by the
high, shimmering green dome of the Karlskirche,
passed through broad squares and neat parks, and
crossed the majestic Ringstrasse. All along the broad
avenue, as far as the eye could see, were milling
throngs and waving flags. Then the car turned into
the dark and crooked streets of the Inner City. At the
grey old building that housed the Commissariat of
Police they were dismissed and ordered to return to
their posts singly, and to stop only when they en
countered traffic jams.
On his way back Anton paused for a moment be
fore the imposing bulk of the Stephansdom. The dwell
ing houses and commercial buildings grouped around
the Cathedral had crowded so close that when you
leaned against the wall of one of them you had to
pull your neck far down between your shoulders to
make out the sunlight Cross atop the lofty spire. The
spire, adorned with Gothic capitals and grotesque
figures, seemed to grow ever brighter, whiter and
more slender as it strove toward the sky. A song
about the Cathedral flashed into Anton's mind. "Alter
Steffel", the Viennese familiarly called their Cathedral,and the song told how it had withstood the siege of
41
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 47/257
the Turks and the reign of the French, and promised
that it would survive many another peril.
"They have already grabbed our gold reserve andour foreign exchange
—that was the first thing they
did," Anton heard a bearded man saying to a
younger, smooth-shaven companion. The two passed
without noticing Anton standing in the niche of a wall.
Anton set out for home. He had almost to fight his
way down the Kaerntnerstrasse to the Opera House;
the huge mob had surged almost to the rim of the
Stephansplatz. Once more he saw many strange faces,
and only now and then someone he knew by sight.
Officers in German uniforms, recognizable from afar
by their loud voices, came out of clothing and leather
stores carrying all sorts of packages, obviously pleased
with the success of their shopping tours. A few had
women with them; the women generously gave from
their store of benevolent smiles to the populace.
From the open door of a lingerie shop Anton was
greeted by an employee he knew. "How's business?"
he asked in passing. The man wiped the sweat from
his brow. "If this goes on we'll be sold out by to
morrow," he said in a choked voice.
Three well-dressed young men passed Anton. "You
just watch," one of them said, "I'm going to buy a
Kaffeehaus. What do I mean,
buy? I'll Aryanize the
big Jewish cafe on the Schottentor
42
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 48/257
"Do you know anything about the business?" one
of the others asked.
"Like hell I do. But the main thing is to get it
cheap, isn't it? What are you doing?"
"I don't know yet . . . ."
"Get hold of a textile firm. I know one you can
get .... I wanted to take it at first, but I like the
idea of a cafe better."
In front of the State Opera House traffic was jammed
solid. Anton was now within his own beat; he worked
his way through the intricate arcades and corridors of
the Opera House to reach a less crowded intersection.
As he approached one of the many small public
gardens he saw two wooden poles rammed into the
earth, with a broad white canvas stretched between
them. On the canvas in gigantic crimson letters were
the words: "For the poorest of the poor—the National
Socialist People's Welfare Committee, Berlin." Behind
the sign stood a mobile field kitchen. A plump cook
in a white cap was tossing portions with practiced
motions into the tin cups and bowls held out by the
gaunt creatures who had been lured by the sign.
"Starvation times are over once and for all," the cook
cackled in his ugly Prussian dialect. "In the Third
Reich every comrade has something to fill his belly."
And once more he tossed a portion with sure aim into
the bowl that was held before him.
43
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 49/257
Anton caught up to the people who were slowly
streaming toward the other exit of the park. Most of
them were old women; only a few men were among
them. As Anton was about to leave the park, his eye
caught the gleam of an odd, silvery mound that gave
forth an unpleasant fishy odor. Just then he saw a
poorly-dressed woman empty her bowl with a gesture
of disgust upon the mound of silverly scales. "Stinking
Prussians," she murmured between her teeth. "Even
the pigs in Austria won't eat this stuff."
Anton went to a telephone booth and tried to call
Erna at her office—he had not been able to reach
her all day. This time she answered. Her voice
sounded harried. "We're frightfully busy, Toni," she
said. "I'm afraid I can't get away tonight. We're tak
ing over two closed Jewish offices. I'm going to be
promoted," she added excitedly. "I'm so glad every
thing has gone smoothly. I'm sorry, but I must hang
up now—I'm wanted on another phone. Is everything
all right?"
"Same as ever," Anton said. And Erna hung up.
The high, clear church bells in the nearby main
street and the dull boom of the tower clocks in the
distance struck ten as Anton returned with heavy stepfrom his last evening patrol. He reported briefly in
44
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 50/257
the precinct office, then made his way across the dark
courtyard and rang his mother's bell. There was no
answer.
"Toni!" He suddenly heard his mother's frightened
voice at his back. "Come up with me to Number 18."
"What's wrong, mother?"
"Something has happened .... hurry." Her round
face seemed to have become thinner from excitement.
She took Anton by the arm and drew him along.
With trembling fingers she groped for her keys and
opened the door to apartment Number 18. Not a
sound greeted them as they entered. Anton gingerly
turned the knob of a door inside the apartment, felt
for the lightswitch and turned on the lights. Low,
white furniture, walls decorated with children's
pictures and delicately painted flowers met his eye.
Besides the two little beds hung bright-colored child
ren's clothes; shoes and stockings
were placed carefully
beneath the beds. In one of the beds lay a ten-year-old
girl, in the other a boy somewhat younger. Both slept
without stirring. The lovely, peaceful, untroubled
features of the sleeping children and the almost in
visible bullet holes in their left temples showed that
the shots had been fired by a practiced hand. The
white-enameled door to the adjoining room stood open.
Anton, followed by his mother, again switched on the
light. In the glow of the shaded ceiling light he
45
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 51/257
saw a large painting of the Virgin, with the background
fading out in ever-darker tones. Below the picture
stood two oak-framed beds, that projected to the
middle of the room. In one of them lay a blond
woman, lifeless too, though she bore no mark of a
bullet. An empty glass and a flat pill-box on the night
table was explanation enough. Her fine, painfully
compressed lips showed that she had entered death in
despair and in full knowledge of her act. Beside her,
laying on his back across the bed, lay her husband in
the dress uniform of a high-ranking Austrian officer.
Beneath his stiff, dangling right hand lay the gleaming
revolver; his left hand clutched his wife's hand tightly.
The man's angular face beneath the dark-blonde mop
of hair bore an unearthly glow of transfiguration, of
deep inner pride in a liberating act.
It was some moments before Anton realized that a
broad cloth in the colors of Austria was stretched
across both beds. In golden letters the banner bore the
last watchword of the soldier: "Rot—weiss—rot bis in
den Tod!" ("Red, white and red to the death.") Anton
felt deeply moved—and ashamed. Was this the only
way the army could still fight and die?
"Good heavens," he heard his mother say, "such
lovely children. I can't understand it . . . ."
"I must make my report," her son said. In a hard,matter-of-fact voice, to conceal his own emotion.
46
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 52/257
Quietly as they had come, they left the weirdly
silent apartment. As they stepped out into the hallway
they heard an ugly hoarse voice coming through the
half-open door of the professor's apartment directly
across the hall. The voice rose and launched into
wild accusations and threats. It seemed to Anton he
had heard this voice somewhere before.
Frau Leopoldine was curious and professionally con
cerned about disturbances within her house. Her plump
figure moved swiftly and silently into the hallway of
the professor's apartment. She gestured excitedly to
her son to follow her. He obeyed mechanically.
The voice came from the living room, the door of
which stood wide open. In the shaded lamplight a
wall that seemed made of rows of books was visible.
To the right and left of the tall book cases, atop
smooth, green-veined columns, were two white marble
busts. To the left, in the full light of the lamp, the
Olympian head of Goethe; to the right, more in the
shadow, the bust of Schopenhauer, whose tangled tufts
of hair on both sides of the powerful brow were oddly
similar to the professor himself.
The professor sat in the opposite corner of the room,
in the leather armchair that stood behind his mahogany
desk. All the blood had faded from his finely-chiseled
face; the snow-white hair on the sides of his head al
most matched the colorlessness of his cheeks.
47
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 53/257
The young man, who was ranting at the professor
in a voice charged with hatred, stood near the door.
He turned sharply as Anton and his mother entered.
The ugly saber scar flamed red under his short, bristly
hair. Once more Anton had crossed the path of
Eberhard Woitschek.
"Heil Hitler, officer," he said, and raised his arm
stiffly toward Anton. "You've come in just in time. I
need a witness. Repeat what you just said," he com
manded harshly, turning to the professor. "Repeat it
now! What will happen soon?"
The professor remained silent. Then he recognized
Anton and his features relaxed into a weary smile.
"Will you please show this intrusive stranger the
door," he said politely.
"Shut up," the student bellowed. "I'm doing the
talking now. And if you claim you don't know me,
you're a stinking liar
.... I had to sit and listen to
your lousy lectures and take your damned exam—and
you flunked me, you remember damn well enough. Any
real National Socialist hasn't a chance with you. The
only ones you passed were the Jews. But that's over
now, and you'll pay for your behavior to me and the
German people."
The professor had slowly and wearily dragged him
self erect. His thin lips were twisted in an expressionof sorrowful scorn. "I doubt," he said slowly, "whether
48
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 54/257
anyone who possesses such a blaring voice can ever
express a cogent thought. A German philosopher once
made that remark
"I don't give a damn, see? You have no business
lecturing me and instructing me now. Now it's my
turn. And I ask you
"Just a moment," Anton interrupted, stepping closer
to him. "I think you'd better go now, Herr Woitschek."
The student started in surprise at hearing his name,
and turned to face Anton. In a moment he remem
bered the incident in the precinct office the night be
fore. "You're not doing any more arresting today,
officer," he said, and laughed challengingly.
"You heard the professor say he wants to be alone.
This is a private dwelling, so don't make any trouble,
Herr Woitschek." Anton's voice was more emphatic
this time.
The student's features dissolved in raucous, un
restrained laughter. "We'll see about that," he said.
From his breast pocket he took a paper bearing a large
seal and held it triumphantly under Anton's nose.
"This apartment, which belongs to a notorious enemy
of the people, has been assigned to me by the Party,
and I can remain here whenever and as long as I
please. Get that, officer?"
Anton could not believe his eyes. There it stood inblack and white, sealed with the stamp of the Gau
49
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 55/257
leitung—a seal he had never seen before. It was an
official paper that probably had to be obeyed now, like
any other official order. Nevertheless he hesitated and
stared indecisively at the sheet of paper. Finally he
looked up and said: "We haven't as yet received any
instructions about such assignments of private homes.
You'd better go now, Herr Woitschek."
"If anyone goes it will be you!" The words came
hissing between his teeth and his eyes flickered meanly.
"You're the last person to interfere when I'm dealing
with an enemy of the people. I still have charges
against you because of yesterday's brutal treatment. So
watch your step or I'll report you!"
Anton felt the blood hammering in his temples. To
him this was reversing the order of the universe —the
wrongdoer was threatening to report the policeman!
The student turned away from him as though this
threat were a dismissal. Once more he approached
the professor.
Something strange had happened to the old scholar.
He was gazing wide-eyed and fixedly at the illuminated
bust of Goethe. As Anton watched, his staring gaze
moved slowly along the shelves of books to the head
of Schopenhauer, which gleamed strangely in a play
of lights and shadow. Then his gaze moved again
back across the books to the head of Goethe. His lipstwitched in a low, grotesque laugh that broke in
50
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 56/257
voluntarily from him in staccato gasps. His fingers
clutched at the tangled tufts of hair that stood out from
his forehead.. "Failed," he cried sharply, and gestured
with both hands toward the marble statues. The sur
prised student shrank back at his commanding tone.
"Failed, Mr. Ignoramus, by the examining committee
of German culture. Failed, you and your whole class.
You've learned nothing. Ha ha ha . . . steel birds ....roseate flames .... bullets in the belly .... ha ha ha."
"Don't pretend madness," the enraged student
snarled. And in a helpless effort to stem the rapid,
violent gestures of the old man, he raised his right
arm in a solemn Nazi salute.
But the professor went on laughing. His frail body
trembled with insane, unrestrained laughter.
The student bent down suddenly. He drew some
thing from his tall boots. A moment later a pliant
yellow riding whip hissed through the air. There was
foam on Woitschek's thick lips and bestial fury in
his little eyes.
Frau Leopoldine, still standing paralyzed at the
door, cried out suddenly. "A sick man," she cried to
the raging student. "For shame."
"He has insulted the Fuehrer," Woitschek snarled.
"Whoever shields an enemy of the people is one him
self."Anton saw him raising the butt of the whip to strike.
51
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 57/257
Feverish impulses flamed up within him. It seemed to
him for a moment as though his was the task of
destroying the whole shadowy unreality of present witha single blow of his fist. All the ugly, criminal, dis
orderly elements he had fought all his life seemed now
to spring alive in this hateful, black-uniformed
creature. Before he realized clearly what he was doing,
his right hand, trained by years of practice, reached
out automatically, rudely seized the student by the
shoulder and shoved him vigorously aside.
"I warn you," Woitschek snarled, ducking as though
to evade an expected blow. Whatever self-control he
had possessed vanished utterly. "We're the masters
now, we Austrian Nazis, and behind us stand the
German bayonets and the German tanks. For years
you've stepped on us, you police bloodhounds, you
dirty dogs . . . ." He reeled as Anton's fist lashed into
his face just above the saber scar.
"Jesus, Maria and Joseph," the landlady gasped.
A second later the snub-nosed barrel of a revolver
flashed in the student's hand. But again Anton's
practiced hand acted without waiting for the command
of his mind. He snatched his gun from its holster,
the shot cracked and the student sank soundlessly to
Anton's feet. Behind him Anton heard the piercing
laughter of the professor. The old man vanished intothe adjoining room, closing the door behind him.
■
52
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 58/257
"Jesus, Maria .... is he dead?" the landlady asked
in a frightened whisper.
Anton inspected the gun. "Leave everything just as
it i s ,
don't touch anything," he said to his mother in
acool, informative tone. "I must make my report and
then an'investigating commission will probably come
up." He bent over the limp body. "Dead," he said.
Then he stood erect and straightened his uniform.
"It's hard to teach an old dog new tricks."
"The beast deserved it," Frau Leopoldine
said. "I
never in my life met such afilthy, rotten creature
Her voice rose in pitch as she launched into astream
of vituperation.
Anton interrupted her. "They may very well arrest
me for it," he said, staring at the floor.
"You, Toni? Have you done anything illegal? Jesus,
Maria .... Toni!"
Suddenly both turned and listened. Abrief, lowreport came from the adjoining room. Anton ran to
the door and wrenched i t open. The professor sat
slumped over abare table, on which lay astill-damp
sheet of writing paper, that fluttered in the breeze from
the open door. Anton carefully lifted the dead man
and laid him on the sofa that stood against the wall.
Then he took the sheet of writing paper and sat down.
His mother stood over his shoulder, reading.
"Destroy these lines at once. I am not mad. I am
53
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 59/257
lost anyway. My last book is on the Gestapo's black
list. It's merely a question of time before they come
for me. I loved Austria too much. Don't forget this:
/ shot the student and you caught me in the act and
shot me down. My hand was too weak for your shot,
but it belongs to me; give it to a dying man as a last
favor. It is of no value to you and will only make
trouble for you. Think of your mother and your fiancee.
My old army pistol from the World War has the
same calibre as your service revolver. You see, thus
we solve all problems. Farewell to you both."
Anton stepped to the window. Behind him he
heard his mother sobbing. There was a choking sen
sation in this throat; he felt the need for fresh air and
opened the window wide. Outside the night was clear
and starry. Like bloody weals the long, alien banners
hung motionless in the windless space before the grey
buildings. He bent out the window and saw
by the
flare of a searchlight the delicate ash-grey spire of the
Stephansdom, rejuvenated by the night. In the distance,
above the tangled mass of roofs, glistened the lights
of the Leopoldsberg. Below, on the street corner, the
coordinated radios snarled proclamations and cheers
into the night.
"Jesus, Maria .... My milk is boiling over." Thememory of her untended kitchen stove dispelled for
54
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 60/257
a moment Frau Leopoldine's horror-struck paralysis.
Anton looked up to see the plump figure of his mother
waddling swiftly through the door.
He sat down again at the table and stared at the
professor's suicide note. The fine, looping lines of
hasty writing began to dance before his eyes. He tried
to absorb their content and understand what such a
distortion of the facts would mean. Was it the fierce
urge for vengeance that had led the dying man to
write this strange note? Or was it a paternal feeling
for Anton? The more Anton considered i t , the more
his conscience insisted that there was no other course
for him but to report the encounter exactly as i t took
place, without considering the possible consequences to
himself. After all, he had used his own gun only in
self-defense; this was his legal right. I fthe new order
decided against him, he would have to suffer for it.
He got up, switched out the light and went into the
living room. From the book-lined wall the two marble-
heads looked down, immobile, yet somehow more alive
than the ugly crumpled thing in the black uniform
that lay on the Persian rug. At the sight of the rug
Anton thought of Erna, so well read and so artistically
inclined — he had admired her so much for her knowl
edge and taste. He seemed to feel her shrewd grey
eyes gazing at him and hearing her say cheerfully to
him: "I'm so glad everything has gone smoothly ....55
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 61/257
I'm going to be promoted . . . ." What would she say
about this note that crackled so disconcertingly in his
left hand?He looked up at the sound of rapidly-approaching
footsteps. Framed in the doorway between the living
room and the hall stood the lean, erect figure of his
captain.
"What's going on here, Redtenbacher ?" he asked.
"I hope you haven't done anything foolish."
Anton's last doubts vanished. He stood up straight,
saluted and said: "I beg to report, sir . . . ." And then,
gravely and precisely, coolly reciting each fact, he ex
plained the entire incident.
When he had finished the captain said nothing. Then
he turned and closed the door behind him. "Do you
know what you deserve?" he said harshly. "You fool
deserve a whipping. What the hell do you care about
this professor; why have you interfered here, in spite
of your orders? You're finished, done for. There's
no way to help you
Anton breathed heavily. His left hand crumpled the
professor's note into a ball and let it slip to the rug.
The captain frowned. "What have you got there?"
he asked, pointing to the paper. Anton picked it up,
smoothed it and handed it to his superior.
"What's the meaning of this?" the captain askedas he ran through the lines of writing. Suddenly his
56
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 62/257
eyes opened wide. Then his mouth twitched scorn
fully. "Why didn't you take his suggestion, Redten-
bacher?" he said softly."I beg your pardon, captain—I can't make a false
report."
"False report?" The officer's voice grew hard. "Who
said anything about a false report? You've not had
enough sleep these past few nights, my friend. Your
description of the incident was confused and full of
contradictions. Consider carefully what you're going
to report. What you told me sounds utterly incredible.
On the other hand, it's self-evident to me and will be
evident to everyone else that you shot down like a dog
the ruthless murderer of an SS man . . . ." As he spoke,
he reached into his pocket, took out a cigarette lighter,
snapped it open and held a corner of the paper over
it. Slowly and carefully he burned the professor's last
testament before Anton's eyes.
"You, my superior!
The captain gripped his shoulders and shook him.
"You have more luck than common sense, Redten-
bacher," he said, and the warmth of his feeling broke
through his reserve. "I haven't been your superior for
the past hour. I've been relieved and assigned to the
Chief's staff. A desk job. I no longer have any direct
authority over you. You must open your eyes andrealize that things have changed. I can't give you
57
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 63/257
orders now, but I can give you some private advice
as an old comrade. You must remember to 'keep your
mouth shut and go on working' .... And now will
you kindly go down and immediately report this matter
to your new precinct captain .... and don't forget to
inform your mother—she's been so worried about you
she's let all her milk boil over." He cleared his throat,
shook Anton's hand and left the apartment.
Anton took a final brief look around the room. He
had no regrets about the student. The marble busts
gleamed in austere calm to the right and left of the
book shelves, as though they wished to say: "All these
things will pass; that alone is important which will
be transmitted in the records and books of the future."
Was not the whole jubilant uprising of the people of
Austria a false report? An urgent desire to embrace
Erna suddenly awoke in Anton. He slammed the door
of the apartment loudly
behind him.
■
Frau Leopoldine opened her child's eyes wide with
relief when Anton told her of his decision to obey the
professor's last wish. Her anxiety for her son banished
her scruples; she felt that God would forgive this
necessary lie, which harmed no one and was Anton's
only salvation.When Anton entered the precinct office, the new
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 64/257
commandant was sitting behind the captain's desk. He
was a Bavarian policeman with a bulldog face and
double chin. The blue-green blouse of his uniform
seemed strangely alien amid the familiar colors of the room. From the side of the desk high black top
boots projected, covering moss-green trouser-legs. On
the table lay an ugly, misshapen military cap. Beside
the cap stood a glass of light beer and a half-empty
bottle.
The captain did not seem to notice Anton first.
He was busy with two officers who had just delivered
their reports. "Don't bother me with these Jews,"
Anton heard him saying. "Let them get their police
protection in Palestine." He lifted the beer glass to
his mouth and let a long swig flow down his gullet.
Anton was still standing on the steps at the entrance.
Suddenly he felt a thin body behind him, and some
one burst wildly past
him and into the room. It was
a withered old woman with greying black hair. "Help
me, officer," she cried desperately across the desk. Her
bare arms whipped in jerky movements through the
air and her piercing black eyes flashed —they alone
seemed alive in her thin, wan face. "They want to
take him away ... my father . . . he's ninety-eight
years old . . .he has a weak heart . . . they beat my
son . . . they took away our jewels . . ." Sobs overwhelmed her words.
59
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 65/257
The captain waited until the beer had gone down.
Then he put the glass back on the desk, without any
perceptible expression in his fat, good-natured face. He
gestured to one of the men and said in a bored, oily
voice: "Take the Jewess out and see to it that I'm not
bothered by any more of them." Then he poured him
self another glass, carefully tipping the bottle so that
the foam would not run over. The woman stared
helplessly for a moment, as though she had not heard
aright, then her sobs stopped and she fell into a numbed
silence. The policeman led her past Anton. Her bare
arm touched him in passing, and a shudder ran through
him, as though he had touched a cake of ice.
He stiffened, stepped forward and spoke his name.
"Redtenbacher? Oh, yes, you're the man with the
itchy trigger-finger." The captain's popping eyes smiled
benevolently at Anton. "The old captain told me about
you. I just received an order from the Gestapo that
the man you knocked off was to be taken immediately,
dead or alive. The Fuehrer needs men like you—as
long as they aim at the right one." A guttural laugh
rippled through his chins. "This time you had good
hunting. I've been ordered to recommend three of the
best-qualified men for officer's training—we need a lot
more officers. I'll see to it that you're one of them."
The blood pounded in Anton's temples. "Thank you,sir," he said mechanically.
60
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 66/257
"Have you the personal documents of the corpse
with you?"
"I've left everything lying untouched . . ."
"What are you waiting for? We have no time and
no men for formal commissions now. Go ahead, make
sure of the identity, send the corpse over to the
morgue, seal the apartment and hand in a short report
in writing. We'll take care of the rest. Any relatives
who show up are to be sent here. That's all." Again
the captain raised the glass and drank the foaming
yellow liquid, this time sipping slowly and savoring
the taste.
Anton saluted and left. He felt like a pupil who
has cheated and nevertheless been praised by his
teacher. Officer training? He had never dreamed of
trying for it. In spite of all that had happened, it
was a confusing, intoxicating idea .... He would be
able to come to Erna and say:
"I'm to be promoted;
before long I'll be a police lieutenant
He had crossed the dark hallway, and now he rang
the bell to ask his mother for the key to the pro
fessor's apartment.
To his surprise, Erna opened. She drew him in, put
her arms around his neck and gave him a long kiss.
Behind the closing kitchen door he saw the plump, soft
face of his mother, signaling that she had concealed
the real truth from Erna. . .
61
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 67/257
"I know all about it," Erna said, brushing her
heavy brown hair away from her forehead. "You did
your duty and shot an enemy of the people."
Anton sat down in the easy chair near the window.
He felt taken aback by her matter-of-fact acceptance
of things that came so hard for him.
"Think of it," she was saying, "I've only just come
from the office. But I had to see you, Toni, or at
least hear what you're doing . . . ." She took his head
in her two hands and slipped
on to his lap
as she
spoke. A releasing wave of well-being and happiness
colled over him; he was aware of her alone, of the
soothing warmth of her body.
"Now listen, Toni," she said, "everything is going
well. I was worried about you, terribly worried, be
cause I know how stubborn you are. But that's over
now." She sighed deeply, and he felt the movement
of her soft, elastic body against his. "Now I knowyou'll be sensible and find your place in the new
order. I'm so happy, I can't tell you how happy I am.
I've never loved you so much, Toni." She covered
his face with passionate kisses. Then she jumped up
suddenly and reached for her coat. "I must go home
now, it's terribly late. But I have two orchestra seats
at the Opera for tomorrow —my boss gave them to me
because he can't go. You must take the evening off,
Toni. You've earned it . . . and I have a surprise for
62
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 68/257
you, Toni. I've been made department head and my
salary has been doubled. What do you say to that?
If ever Herr Redtenbacher happens to think of marry
ing . . . money doesn't matter any more." And without
waiting for an answer she ran lithely to the door and
was gone.
Anton sat up straight and tightened his straps. Her
unclouded cheerfulness, which had always appealed so
strongly to him, now seemed vague and far away. Per
haps it was only his own fatigue. But he felt an odd
satisfaction that he had said nothing about his own
possible advancement.
Anton went in to his mother, who was standing
thoughtfully in the hall, arms akimbo, watching Erna
hurrying down the street. He asked her for the key to
the professor's apartment and left swiftly.
As Anton turned the key in the lock, it seemed to
him he heard a door closing in the interior of the apart
ment. He stepped in quickly and went the rounds of
the place. The courtyard window in the kitchen stood
open; a gust of wind must have made the sound. He
felt annoyed at his own jumpiness.
Everything lay just as he had left it. He turned on
the lights in all the rooms and set to work. In the stu
dent's pocket he found the attendance card of the Tech
63
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 69/257
nical University, which he had already seen. With it
was an appointment as squadron leader in the SS. An
ton took both documents. Then he went into the adjoin
ing room. The motionless white head of the professor
now seemed more than ever like the bust of Schopen
hauer in the library. Anton bent down and felt the
professor's coat pockets. No lumps, no crackling be
spoke the presence of a wallet or of papers. He went
back to the living room and tried to open the desk draw
er. It was locked. He was about to look for the key
when it occurred to him that he had not yet written his
report. His professional sense was aroused; he felt that
he ought to do it right here on the scene, where he
could test the credibility of his account by the position
of the dead men and the traces of the shots. He paced
off the distances and found that the professor might
very well have fired from where he stood, and that he
himself could easily have shot the
professor through
the temple, assuming that he had hurried in from the
hallway. There was nothing contradictory here. He sat
down in the armchair behind the desk, took a sheet of
paper and began to sketch the situation, as he was ac
customed to do with traffic accidents. Then he took out
his official notebook, inserted a sheet of carbon and
wrote his account in succinct, clear sentences. The
words flowed with ease and certainty, as though thekillings had taken place precisely as he described them.
64
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 70/257
The marble busts seemed to nod approval.
Before he put away his notebook, he looked for the
key in the finely-wrought gold boxes that stood on the
edge of the desk. It was not there. He got up and sur
veyed the room, again without success. Then he went
back to the adjoining room and again searched the
dead man's pockets, more carefully this time. He turned
to the many trays, vases, and bowls, products of all na
tions—that stood around the room; he looked under
the sofa cushions and finally crawled around on the
floor without finding the key to the desk. There was
nothing left to do but force open the drawer, for he had
to have at least one personal document to complete his
report.
In the library something stirred; a grandfather clock
with golden dial struck twelve low, metallic beats.
Again Anton felt annoyed with himself for suspecting
that he was not alone in the apartment.
He impatiently
banished the childhood memories that persistently arose:
memories of the tales about ghosts of the dead who
come to life again at midnight. He got up from the
floor, determined to break open the desk drawer in the
library.
When he entered the room, he stood stock still for
a moment. In the chair where he had sat only a few
minutes ago, with head bent over his official report, sata girl he had never seen before. She looked up as the
65
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 71/257
threshold creaked under his tread. The fine oval of her
head was accentuated by short brown hair, cut almost
boyishly; the color was nearly exactly like Erna's. But
her eyes were diff erent—a deep, gleaming black, like the
cherries of the South. Her nose and lips were delicate
and lovely. She wore a dark dress, and most of her
body was hidden by the desk, but he felt sure it was lithe
and slender. It was an extraordinary vision of beauty
to come upon at this midnight hour, in these rooms of
death.
She lowered her eyes and glanced through Anton's ac
count once more. Suddenly her whole body jerked con
vulsively. When she lifted her head again, a change
had come over her, like a thunderstorm over a peaceful
landscape. She glared at Anton with such savagery,
such boundless repulsion, that he involuntarily took a
step back. "Murderer!" her eyes said, while her lips
were silent.
Anton found it difficult not to reply. But he screened
himself behind his uniform and said in a cold, official
voice: "This apartment is under police surveillance.
Will you kindly identify yourself."
Nervously her thin white hands opened the snap of
a small Moroccan leather case with silver trimmings.
She took out a neatly-tied passport and dropped it on
the desk. On the cover Anton recognized the nationalinsignia of Czechoslovakia.
66
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 72/257
"What are you, a foreigner, doing here?" he asked
sternly.
"I'm a niece of the . . . deceased." Her voice had a
quality like the sweet bell-tone of the old grandfather
clock. She paused and her eyes gazed at him in silent,
merciless accusation.
"How did you get in here?"
"I have my own key to my uncle's library. May I go
now?"
"Please give me your address. You may be asked to
come to headquarters."
Again the girl opened her purse and placed a small
visiting card on top of the passport.
Anton hesitated. "I need some personal document
of the professor's," he said finally. "Perhaps you can
show me where he kept his papers."
For the third time the girl reached into her purse.
She took out a key ring and selected a key. She opened
the desk drawer, drew out a large envelope and placed
it silently beside the passport and visiting card. Then
she got up, turned her head with a peculiarly graceful
motion, and went toward the door. Suddenly she
stopped, though she did not turn around. "May I say
goodbye to him," she said. Her voice was utterly
changed; it seemed to drift toward Anton from far
away.For answer Anton wrenched open the French doors.
67
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 73/257
She stepped past him without looking at him, and he
followed her into the next room.
He saw her kneel down beside the sofa, but she did
not utter a sound. She did not sob or cry out, and in a
moment she straightened up gracefully. Once more he
felt the impetuous power of her gaze, though this time
it lacked the flashing hatred.
"How could you do it?" she said in a low voice.
"There wasn't a better man in the world."
It was an effort for Anton to contain himself. This
young girl seemed so composed, so pure ; it seemed so
impossible to deceive her that he felt an almost irresist
ible urge to confess the truth. "Duty is duty," he said
uncertainly, and cleared this throat.
"No," she exclaimed suddenly, and looked at him
with such directness and candor that he had to lower
his eyes, "no, you didn't do it. I'm only dreaming, I'll
awaken in a moment
Anton started and kept his eyes on the floor. She
was voicing his own thoughts; since last night every
thing that had happened to him had seemed unreal and
dreamlike.
He heard her clear, vibrant voice as from a great dist
ance. "You look just like all our placid traffic police
men," she said, "like all the men who take care of us
when we cross the streets, and who keep order in thecity. They stand somewhere on a wooden platform and
68
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 74/257
direct traffic with white-gloved hands, but ..." her voice
choked off, as though she were confronted by a vision of
horror, "but they don't shoot peaceable citizens."
Anton did not stir. He felt that in some nameless
manner she had won power over him, that he had to es
cape from her. He raised his eyes. There she stood at
the side of the dead man, her slender body vibrating
with a wild inner movement, her sparkling eyes fixed
upon him with an imploring gaze. "Say you didn't do
it. . ."
she cried, and stepped closer to him.
"I didn't do it." Anton heard the words pass over
his lips without volition. But in a moment he had re
gained command of himself. "I must ask you to leave
now," he said, feeling shielded by his familiar official
tone. "There's no use . . ."
He could not finish the sentence. She had paid no
attention to his last words, and had taken his hand
gently but firmly in hers. Her large dark eyes were
filled with radiant gratitude, and her fingers caressed
his hand ever so lightly. "You must tell me the whole
truth now. I promise never to tell anyone. I can feel
how you yourself are suffering. . . You'll never see me
again. But you owe me the truth about my uncle's
death."
Anton wanted to protest, but he could not. Her dark
radiant eyes were fixed upon his, and their command
was inexorable. Jerkily, subtly irritated with himself,
69
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 75/257
he told the story. When he came to the professor's
strange testament, he realized that the captain, by burn
ing the note, had destroyed his only proof. As thoughto help his memory, Anton looked at the dead man.
And in the dim light of the frosted lamp the pale, mar
ble-cold mask seemed to come alive and soundlessly
dictate to him the words he needed. >
When he had finished, he realized that the girl was
still holding his hand. Now she released it and thanked
him silently with her eyes. Then, after a brief embar
rassed pause, she spoke:
"You've been honest with me—I'll be the same with
you. You've seen my passport and visa. I'm leaving
early in the morning; by noon I'll be across the border.
I'm Austrian by birth, like you I've lost my country.
Our country has been betrayed, robbed, taken by sur
prise and overrun. But I'm not giving up. Many others
won't give up, even though they are forced to keep un
der cover now. My uncle had influential friends abroad ;
they must be told the truth about the killings and the
trumped-up enthusiasm in this city. I'll never forget
anything I've seen here—all the lies and the treachery
. . . Well—now you can arrest me if you like. Go ahead
if your conscience demands it—I'll not betray you if
you do. . ." *
Anton had turned away. Several times he made angry
gestures, trying to stop her from talking.
70
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 76/257
"Why have you told me all this?" he said, reproach
ful but deeply moved.
"Because I trust you," she replied simply, and once
more her clear voice reminded him of the resonant tones
of the grandfather clock. "And because I believe it's
important for you to know that Austria's fate is not yet
decided. . . I'm waiting for your decision —what are
you going to do with me?"
Anton stood still before her, his mind in turmoil.
What she was asking of him was the choice between
two diametrically opposite paths. One path was shame
ful, disgraceful and painful ; he would be compelled to
arrest an innocent girl whose "crime" was that she had
courageously spoken out the things he himself believed.
The other path was frightening, new, and its end could
not be foreseen. For it would transform him, the man
of order, into a secret lawbreaker; as soon as he took the
first dangerous step he would become a rebel. But had
he not already taken that step, with that first lie, even
though his own superior had encouraged him to do it ?
And by using his gun to defend his old, familiar world
of decency against the assault of chaos and baseness?
Confused, fragmentary pictures ran through his mind:
the jubilation and torchlight processions, the gaunt
workers standing around with clenched fists; pale, flee
ing Jews at the railroad station; burning books, march
ing music and banners; the mound of fish; the dead of
71
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 77/257
ficer, his lovely children, and the Austrian colors spread
on the bed; Erna's joyous face beside that of the despair
ing woman in the precinct office; the double chin andthe good-natured, popping eyes of the Bavarian captain
who had learned to drown all the vileness of his work
in glasses of foaming yellow beer.
Anton was now standing in the wide doorway bet
ween the rooms. He glanced from the one dead man
to the other. Now he must choose between their two
worlds.
This single glance was enough to form his decision.
Silently he took the passport and handed it to the girl.
Then he picked up the visiting card from the floor
where it had fallen, read her first name—Lydia—and
gave the card back to her. "Forget that you were ever
here," he said. "You found the doors locked and had
to go away without seeing your uncle. You don't know
me and I don't know you. ...""Thank you," Lydia said. "But I saw your name on
the notebook, Herr Redtenbacher—I shall not forget it."
She went into the hallway, but turned once more with
her peculiarly graceful motion of the head, and again
her dark eyes thanked him. Then she went, closing the
door almost noiselessly behind her.
Anton took a deep breath. The confusion of the day
just past was ebbing away. Were the stories of child
hood true after all? At midnight the clear, bell-like
72
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 78/257
voice of his downtrodden homeland had spoken to him,
spoken a challenge and called forth a decision. He felt
a new strength within himself. He was alone now; as
yet there were no friends or comrades to whom he dared
speak. But at the same time he knew that countless
others in this city and in the villages and mountains
would hide like himself behind their duties, their every
day work and their everyday lives. They would lie in
waiting until the time came to emerge from their hiding
places. It was his job now to treat this hateful mum
mery as reality and not to expose himself again. Noteven Erna, not even his mother, must suspect his in
tentions. The secret of this hour would give him the
strength to keep his mouth shut and go on working.
His notebook and the professor's documents from the
desk went back to the precinct office. Here he made
the arrangements for the removal of the bodies in the
professor's apartment and in the rooms of the army of
ficer whose family had joined him in death. By early
morning he was able to add to his written report that
both apartments had been cleared and sealed.
In the morning roll call his name was mentioned
with praise, along with two others who, like himself,
were destined to rise in the ranks.
Once more Patrolman Anton Redtenbacher stood on
his wooden platform at his old post, as much a part of
73
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 79/257
the scene as the ash-grey peak of the Stephansdom tower
above the weather-beaten roofs and chimneys, or the
two thick grey pillars beside the high, copper-greendome of the Karlskirche. With the usual friendly, eleg
ant gestures of his hands he directed the pulsating
movement of the traffic. And the many passers-by who
knew him by sight could detect no change in his clear
blue eyes.
Nevertheless, many things had changed for him, and
more changes took place every day. Under the gleam
ing cross atop the Cathedral waved a small red flag, and
Anton had put off his neat dark-green uniform and
donned coarse, greenish-blue blouse, rough, moss-green
trousers and the black top boots. The clumsy military
cap sat on his head like an oppressive reminder of all
that had happened.
And the people whom he knew so well had also
changed. Many familiar faces were gone; new, strange
faces floated on the surface of the current of traffic.
And those that remained seemed transformed in car
riage and behavior. Was this perhaps because the old
traffic rules had been changed to correspond with those
of the Reich? Now cars drove on the right instead of
on the left. Again and again he heard old cab drivers
and coachmen cursing; their habits were deep-seated,
and their inability to learn the new rules took lives al
most every day.
74
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 80/257
But this external reversal in the streets was only one
of the more obvious symbols of what was going on in
houses, shops and factories. All the newspapers spoke
of changes, transformations, revisions—and all the
newspapers printed the same stories. All the brown,
black and white-shirted columns that now marched past
Anton sang the same songs. All saluted in the same
way. Everywhere, the victims of "coordination" fell,
but these victims did not speak.
Anton worked as carefully and as well as ever. Now
and then he listened to stray bits of conversations, but
he did not ever seem to hear when the people aired their
sound impulses in his presence. "Fraternal guns," an
elderly storekeeper had once remarked during those
fateful March days when the endless trains of German
motorized artillery rattled past. "What are our Berlin
comrades sending in return for our butter and eggs?"
he heard one woman
asking another. "Blue Bean Sal
ad," was the invariable reply, and every Viennese knew
that this signified rifle bullets.
Anton stood at his post under the hot sun of August
when dust-charged gusts of wind brought greasy scraps
of paper from the long rows of vegetable booths in the
nearby market—there were no longer any green lettuce
leaves among them. Now it was eggs, then butter, then
fruit. But every night great sealed trucks, heavily laden,would rattle past Anton toward the north.
75
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 81/257
One morning a strange procession approached him
from the direction of the market: women with bright
aprons, and kerchiefs on their heads, vigorously swinging empty market-baskets. "We thank our Fuehrer,"
they repeated in chorus, and the bitter scorn in their
faces aJ lowed no doubt as to the meaning of this un
bidden homage. Anton saw them tangle with the riot
squad that had been called, and the belligerent market
women, fighting with nails and teeth and cursing vi
ciously, almost carried the day.
He stood at his post when the leaves turned red in
the autumnal parks and the newly-installed loudspeak
ers waged a new type of warfare against Czechoslovakia
—a warfare of incessant atrocity stories, threats and
proclamations. And he thought of Lydia, from whom
he had not heard since that night in March.
One foggy November day he was on patrol in the
quieter streets of his beat. This was the day when in
all the cities of the Greater German Reich the soul of
the people had flamed up at the command of the SA, so
that by evening thousands of windows in Jewish homes
lay shattered on the pavement and luminous clouds of
smoke rose from burning synagogues. Anton saw those
same rough, brown-shirted men he had seen months be
fore when they broke down the venerable baroque port
al of the Archbishop's palace and triumphantly walked
off with precious holy vessels from the treasure room of
76
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 82/257
the church. All those narrow-browned faces with close-
cropped, bristly hair reminded him of the student,
Woitschek. But he had learned to obey orders and keep
out of the way.
He went even further: he reproached his own mother
when she quarreled with Peter, the freckled former
chauffeur. Peter, in his capacity as Blockwart of the
house, protested that she spoke seditiously, and illegally
aided the only Jewish family remaining in the house.
Her seditious speech had consisted of a remark about
rationing. "We have butter cards again," she had said.
"So before long we'll have war."
Erna was so busy with her work that he saw her less
and less as the weeks past. He was surprised to find
that he did not care very much. There was no longer
the same feeling between them; his closely-guarded
secret had erected a dividing wall. Erna felt awk
wardness in their relationship,
but she ascribed it to her
self and her overwork. To make their evenings to
gether more interesting to Anton, she took to bringing
along her brother Franz. She thought, too, that Franz'
connections with the higher Party circles might prove of
practical advantage to Anton.
Before March Franz had been a minor clerical as
sistant in the central office of a large industrial firm.
Now, as the only Nazi Party member on the firm's staff,he had suddenly received spectacular promotions. With
77
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 83/257
in a few months he became purchasing agent, and short
ly afterwards one of the directors. He had exchanged
his rather shabby clothes for fashionable English tweeds,
which he had bought shortly after the Nazi invasion
when the city's finest stores unwillingly sold out all
their wares. In addition he wore flashy silk ties that
rarely matched his suits, and newly-acquired expensive
shirts. Instead of the cheap Memphis cigarettes, his thick,
characteristic lips now sucked constantly on long brown
cigars. During directors' meetings he strove to impress
his colleagues, absorbing from these cigars the business
experience and talent he lacked completely. His pale
grey eyes had the contented look of a man whose indub
itable merit has unexpectedly been recognized.
He always treated Anton with simplicity and friend
liness. Only now and then, when the three drank toasts
to one another, did he make political predictions based
on his private sources of information. In the beginning
he repeatedly tried to justify to Anton—who never chal
lenged him—the fact that he had joined the Party years
before; it had after all proved lucky for him and for
the firm, he pointed out. In recent months, however, an
odd change had taken place. After a few glasses of
Grinzinger wine Franz would often grow critical. At
first he criticized the attitude of a few of his colleagues
in the firm who from fear or ambition exhibited theirnewly-discovered racial consciousness a little too con
78
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 84/257
spicuously. Then he began to murmur about ordinances
that went "a little too far," and about street excesses.
Finally he even became critical of the ultimate aims of
the movement itself. Franz, risen overnight to a well-
paid, highly-respected position, seemed to be worried
about the permanence of his good fortune. Clearly, he
was afraid that the mounting injustices endangered the
new order.
Anton had got into the habit of listening more than
talking. But now, in order to disguise his true thoughts,
he found himself in the peculiar position of arguing
against Franz. Franz grew angry.
"As one of the oldest Party members I guess I have
a right to criticize certain evils," he said once.
"None of us has that right," Anton replied, and
looked down into his glass.
"Toni is right," Erna smiled. "Watch out, Franz;
you might run into trouble."
"Me? ... An old fighter? Don't be silly. You're
not going to tell on me, are you, Toni ?" he added with
an uncomfortable laugh. Many things had changed.
When the bronze statues in the parks were wrapped
in white and a Christmas tree stood on the Opera House
Corner, Anton and two of his comrades were orderedto report to the officers' course. One of the policemen
79
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 85/257
was known by the nickname of "Beppo" ; he was a close-
mouthed, extremely ambitious fellow with a sharp nose
and a sharp chin. Though he had an Italian name, his
parents were Sudeten Germans. The other man was the
son of a peasant from the Stubai Valley; a slow-moving
man with the tanned, ruddy complexion of a farmer.
His enthusiasm for the Third Reich sprang solely from
local patriotism. He had been told that when Austria
would be taken into the Reich, the Duce would present
the Fuehrer with the provinces of Southern Tyrol, which
had been given to Italy at the end of the last war. Like
all true Tyrolians, the separation from the Southern
provinces was to him a festering wound. But nine
months had passed now, and the promised restoration
had not yet taken place.
Everyone feared Beppo and guarded his tongue be
fore him. Before Sepp—the Tyrolian had been bap
tized Franz Josef, after the former Emperor, but was al
ways called Sepp—one could be as open as one pleased.
He was a loyal fellow who would not have betrayed his
worst enemy if that enemy wore the same uniform as
he himself.
Anton spent most of his leisure time between classes
and drills with these two. There were many new things
he had to learn, and some of them would not stick in
his untrained mind. But in conversations with Beppohe sharpened his tongue and perfected himself in the art
80
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 86/257
of conducting apparently innocuous conversations which
adroitly concealed his thoughts. Often, in the presence
of Beppo, he would censure the crude, straightforward
Tyrolian. Then, later, when he was alone with Sepp,
the two would make fun of the ambitious spy and ce
ment the growing friendship between them with a few
old-fashioned country oaths at Beppo's expense.
The requirements of the course, which was a kind of
cross between school and army drill, gradually took up
so much of Anton's time that he no longer paid atten
tion to what went on in the world. The eternal same
ness of the radio proclamations disgusted him, so that
he no longer listened. He rarely saw the headlines in
the newspapers, which he used to read from his wooden
platform as they lay on the nearby newsstands. And
so it came almost as a complete surprise to him when
one day—almost exactly a year after the occupation of
Austria —the entrance of
German troops
into Bohemia
and Moravia was announced. Once more he thought of
Lydia and her hopes and promises. Those hopes seemed
to fade more and more now before the relentless ad
vance of the Prussian conquerors. How was it possible
that the Czech Army, a well-prepared force of thirty to
forty divisions, armed with the most modern equip
ment, had been robbed of its chance to fight, just as had
the little band of Austrian peacetime troops ? He recalled his own words to his captain: "Why didn't the Army
81
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 87/257
fight, sir?" What mysterious powers came to the aid
of this pale, strange man who had been no good for any
kind of work in his native land of Austria, who had been
expelled from the almhouse where he had received the
bread of charity and where he had made confused,
revolutionary speeches? How was it possible that he,
by shouting louder than all the other malcontents, had
risen almost unopposed to a position where at a gesture
he could set in motion the whole gigantic machine that
German industry and German obedience had created?
How was it that this machine went wherever he directed
i t ,
in blind submission?
Anton had no clear conception of the outside world,
but he could not understand. Were there no longer
any forces of law and order to put astop to the dissolu
tion of all order ? Once more the house was surrounded
b y
robbers before the inhabitants had realized what was
happening. Anton felt that the Czechs shared his own
fate. They were a people whose fathers and grand
fathers had once been united with his own forbears in a
variegated family under the roof of the great Danube
Empire—the Empire that had stretched from the Adri
atic Sea to the Bohemian Forest, from the Swiss Alps to
the Russian steppes. Through the centuries there had
been many violent quarrels within the walls of that great
mansion. But what did these intense little disputes forindividual privileges mean now, compared to the descent
82
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 88/257
of hordes of armed barbarians upon both lands equally.
For these barbarians, deceptively clothed in the gar
ments of German duty and German order, were destroy
ing all the rights, liberties and securities of both peoples.
Anton knew the Czech people from childhood visits
to his aunt, who had married a Czech. He had even
gone to school in a Czech town for an entire winter when
his father was critically ill and his mother had wanted
the house free of children. He could imagine the help
less fury of his uncle, a quiet, hard-working foreman
who was one of the leaders of the Sokol—the Czech
gymnastic organization —in his small country town. It
seemed even more terrible when he thought that Lydia
was now in the midst of this new danger zone. And
this time he was not there to protect her against her own
rash and ardent love of liberty.
There was nothing left for him to do but to bury
himself deeper than ever in his books; to forget, if pos
sible, the things that were happening, the things he
could not change; to forget that his hopes of liberating
his country were flickering and on the verge of going
out—like those of so many of his countrymen. The
whisper of hope was drowned out by the victorious bel
lows of the enemy, and hope became more intangible as
the enemy's grip upon everyday life grew firmer and
firmer. There was no escape from this. SometimesAnton awoke in the middle of the night and felt
83
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 89/257
ashamed. Was his absorbtion in work in order to stupefy
himself any different from the behavior of the Bavarian
captain who drank so many bottles of foaming yellowbeer to forget the cruelties his office forced him to in
flict? Was this not worst of all, this hopeless dulling of
the senses that made decent men useful to the enemy,
that made them see as their sole choice obedience or
the concentration camp ? Then again, recalling his mid
night encounter with Lydia, he would say to himself
that this was his way, this his mission—to spy out the
hidden forces and resources of the enemy, to learn the
secret of his strength in order to be armed with knowl
edge when the day for action dawned.
He felt a profound gladness when Sepp returned
from a brief leave to his native Tyrolian village and told
him candidly that the peasants were refusing to give up
their cattle. They would hide the animals in the remotest
pastures. They lied to the German commissioners about
the number of eggs their hens laid. When the "brothers
from the Reich" vacationed in Tyrol, they were hated
and laughed at for their arrogance and their ignorance
of the mountains.
From the other Austrian provinces, too—they were
now known as districts—came similar stories, although
spreading such reports was severely punished. Now and
then a
factory would catch fire from unknown causes, a
powder magazine would blow up, an unmanned loco
84
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 90/257
motive would collide with a munitions train. Once all
the airplanes manufactured in a factory in Lower Aus
tria fell apart on their test flights.
Anton did so well on his examination that, together
with Beppo, he was assigned to a preparatory course
for the Secret Police. Only a few, carefully selected men
were admitted to this course. Sepp was not among them.
Those who attended the course took an oath of sec
recy that no outsider was ever to be told of the methods
they learned.
A Gestapo colonel from
Breslau, with thedrooping mustaches and the watery eyes of a grammar
school teacher, taught the principles of starvation, in
timidation, holding of hostages and extracting of in
formation from children. He spoke a good deal about
the lofty educational value of the practical doctrines he
advocated.
One evening after class Anton noticed a new bulletin
on the corridor wall. It was a call for volunteers to
work in the occupied Czech territories. Men with knowl
edge of the Czech language were preferred. Anton
volunteered at once. An inward voice told him that this
was his proper course.
That evening he found a postcard lying on his bed.
It was postmarked from a small town near the Bohem
ian border and read:
"Dear Anton, Do you still think of me occasionally?
I haven't forgotten you. I'm very well. Please write to
85
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 91/257
me about yourself. Yours, Lily." On the back of the
postcard was the name E. Gruber and a return address.
Anton knew no one in that particular small town.
Then his heart began to beat more rapidly. This
greeting must come from Lydia! There could be no
doubt about it. She was alive and, apparently, not in
immediate danger. The card did not indicate whether
she herself had again crossed the border, or whether the
return address was merely a cover from which her mail
would be forwarded. But why should she be writing
him now, after a whole year ? In any case, he had come
to associate her indissolubly with his secret hopes for
the liberation of his country, and as he read and re-read
the few meaningless lines of her card he felt a quiet,
sure sense of joy mounting within him. He wrote that
same evening that he was well and that within the next
few days he would make a trip that would take him
over the same route she had traveled a year before. He
was eager to hear further news from her, he added. He
took his friend Sepp a little into his confidence —Sepp
was always willing to help a comrade —and had Sepp
sign the card with his first name. He gave Sepp's rented
room as the return address. Sepp agreed cheerfully to
forward any mail from Lydia to Anton's new address,
wherever in Czechoslovakia it should prove to be.
Next day Anton was asked to fill out a lengthy form.
He had to answer such questions as when he had been
86
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 92/257
in Bohemia or Moravia, how long he had been there,
whether he could read, write or speak the language,
whether he was related by birth or marriage to any in
habitants of the territory, what inhabitants, what his
relationship was, and so on. In answer to these last
questions he wrote down the name of his uncle and his
family, adding that at the age of twelve he had attended
a Czech school for an entire winter and could both speak
and write the language. He was assigned to the first
group, which was to depart very soon. Beppo was sup
posed to follow within a few weeks.
For a long time Frau Leopoldine had not seen her son
so confident and cheerful as when he told her about his
impending transfer. She was unhappy at the thought
of a long separation, but soon became reconciled to it
and gave him an endless list of things she would like
her sister in Bohemia to send—in case he should find
himself anywhere near the remote town where she lived.
It was rumored that in Bohemia there were still ample
food supplies, and cloth of legendary wool content.
These things had been unknown in Vienna for months,
but the parcel post and express service were none too
safe, and written requests for shipments of food or
other scarce goods were noted by the censor; those
who made the requests were branded as suspicious
malcontents.
Anton took the entire list, although he doubted that
87
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 93/257
chance would ever lead him to his old aunt's town.
He spent the last evening before his departure with
Erna. He was glad that she came with her brother Franz,who also wanted to say goodby to him. Franz' pres
ence kept the conversation on a superficial level and
saved them both a serious talk they preferred to avoid.
Erna was clever enough to be a little worried about
Anton's cheerfulness, but she thought that she herself,
or rather her ambition and consequent overwork, was re
sponsible for his coldness. Besides, this was not a separ
ation forever, and her feminine intuition suggested that
a temporary parting might be the best way to win him
back. That was the way it always worked out in novels.
She carried the thought to its logical conclusion.
"If you happen to lose your heart to some Czech beau
ty, Toni," she said, imitating humorously the melodic
Czech intonation, "you mustn't think of me—you're
quite free."
"You, too, of course," Anton said, in order to evade
replying. "If you happen to fall for some handsome
black SS man. . ."
This remark seemed to offend Erna for a moment.
But Franz intervened. "Don't talk nonsense," he said.
"Waiter, another bottle of wine." And they drank to a
happy reunion.
* * *88
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 94/257
When Anton's bags were packed and everything was
ready for his trip, he still had an hour to spend. He felt
a need to say goodbye to the city itself, to its streets,
spires and palaces. He went strolling through the streets,
and without realizing where he was going found him
self suddenly in the broad plaza where he had spent so
many hours of his life standing on a wooden platform
and gazing up over the roofs and chimneys to the ash-
grey spire of the Stephansdom or, on clear days, to the
distant, silvery-blue shimmering flank of the Leopolds-
berg. How often had he heard or read the phrase:
"Beautiful Vienna"; how often had he laughed at
wrinkled old men and women whose eyes filled with
tears when they spoke of the "good old days inVienna" ?
Had he ever realized how good they were when he stood
upon his wooden platform, secure, accustomed to the
routine, sometimes even a little bored? Had he realized
how achingly
beautiful was this city of his ? Now anoth
er man stood at his post, and an uncertain future await
ed him. Anton looked at the clock and began to hurry,
in order not to miss the train.
Anton had been ordered to travel in civilian clothes
and to report to the headquarters of the Gestapo in
Prague. When he arrived at the glass-ceilinged hall of
the old railroad station which still bore the name of
Emperor Franz Josef, the express train already had
steam up. The hissing white clouds beneath the long
89
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 95/257
body of the locomotive, the inscriptions in many lan
guages on the maroon walls of the dining car and on
the dark-blue walls of the sleeper, the bustling pas
sengers and porters—all gave a sense of intimate con
nection with the world. The impression was strength
ened by the soft cloth of his grey summer suit—it was
so long since he had worn "civvies" —and the fact that
he was to travel first class.
After looking around he chose a compartment in
which the two corner seats near the corridor were al
ready piled with baggage. He stuffed his handbag and
coat into the net and stretched out comfortably on the
red plush seat.
Just before the train pulled out, the occupants of the
corner seats appeared. One of them was a broad-
shouldered tall man in the uniform of a German Gen
eral Staff officer. He wore a rimless monocle clamped
against the right side of his strong, hooked nose. As
he talked he would release it by raising his bushy eye
brows, catch it in his open palm and immediately re
place it in his eye.
"Eleven minutes late at the start," he said to his com
panion. Each word came from his mouth like metal
from a punch-press, and as he spoke his right eye con
temptuously expelled the monocle. His companion was
a small, thin man with violet eyes, blonde hair and abroad forehead; he was dressed in a stylish light flannel
90
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 96/257
suit with a black shirt and black tie. On the lapel of
his jacket, above his Party badge, he wore the insignia
of the "law-preservers" —lawyers no longer existed in
the Third Reich. His pronunciation betrayed his Berlin
origins, but it had also the polish of the man of the
world. "It won't be long now, Colonel," he said, set
tling himself in his seat, "before we teach these Austrians
what punctuality means." As he spoke he glanced quizz
ically and encouragingly at Anton. But Anton, swallow
ing his annoyance, had turned to the window and was
ostentatiously gazing at the passing landscape.
They had already passed out of the city. Everywhere
the gables and small towers of villas and country estates
rose above green lawns and meadows. Everywhere the
cherry trees bloomed, white as foam of the sea under
the pale blue sky. Bathing tents and small summer cot
tages stood under willow trees along the tributaries of
the Danube. Here and there boys in bathing trunks
waded out into the waters and splashed one another.
Then churches and houses grew rarer; the train flew by
sleepy villages. And then came the plain, broken here
and there by chains of hills.
The train rattled and shook as though it had heard
the officer's scornful remark and was doing its best to
make up for the delay. The unaccustomed rocking
movement lulled Anton. He had stopped listening tothe murmured conversation of the two other men in the
91
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 97/257
compartment. But then, just as he snuggled comfort
ably into the soft back of the seat, yawned heartily and
closed his eyes, the thin lawyer said something that
made him listen attentively. No change of expression
flickered over Anton's face; he lay still, pretending to
sleep.
"No more business in the Ostmark," the man was
saying. "We've milked the place dry. My office Aryan-
ized a lot of factories and commercial houses and got
rid of our Jewish colleagues. We made plenty, Colonel,
plenty. But now what? Everything's gone. I need new
fields to conquer. So I'm going to Prague."
"I say—"
the officer's voice growled, and he paused
for a moment, apparently to make sure that Anton was
really sleeping; Anton began to snore lightly —"I say,
you must have got a good idea of Austrian business.
How are the chances for increasing production under
our Five Year Plan? I've heard all sorts of rumors. . . .
Lax bastards, these Austrians, aren't they?"
"Plenty lax," the lawyer grumbled. "Between you
and me, Colonel, a serious tactical mistake has been com
mitted there. I've already sent my cousin in the Reich
Economic Ministry a detailed report about it. These
Austrian workers were treated as though we were home
in the Reich and dealing with our own people. Instead
of doing
a thorough job right away, installing
German
managers and German foremen, we've tried to soft
92
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 98/257
pedal things. If we'd smashed the old set-up right off,
their production wouldn't have dropped to eighty and
in some places fifty per cent of its former level. We'vebeen duped by our own propaganda. Occupied countries
have still to be conquered. But believe me, we won't
make the same mistake in Bohemia. We'll make a thor
ough clean-up there right away."
Anton had been holding his breath; now he released
it in a long gasp. But then he really fell asleep, and
when he awoke his two fellow-travelers were just leav
ing the compartment, on their way to the dining car.
He was alone when the border guards came around
for the inspection. After showing his police card, he re
ceived a stiff salute and was passed by.
In the late afternoon the lawyer began making con
versation about conditions in Vienna before the "liber
ation." But Anton had no chinks in his armor; the cun
ning he had learned in the course of the year stood
him in good stead and he easily turned aside every
question that the man's skillful tongue proposed.
It was about ten o'clock at night when they emerged
from the almost unbroken darkness of the Prague sub
urbs into the brightly-lighted hall of the Wilson Station.
To the right and left of the tracks stood rows of soldiers
in field dress, wearing steel helmets. As each passenger
left the train he was directed to one of the exits, wherepassports and papers were examined. At both ends of
93
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 99/257
the station Anton saw the gleaming barrels of machine
guns.
When he showed his papers he was instructed to re
port to Ticket Window C. Here he was given the ad
dress where he was to spend the night, and a written
order to report to his superiors the following morning.
His hotel was located in a narrow street back of the
railroad station. As he walked there, with. a silent port
er gloomily pushing his suitcase along on a small cart,
he noticed that the big open square in front of the sta
tion, as well as the nearby streets, were almost deserted.
In the empty streets he heard the clumping, regular
tread of the pairs of sentinels, and now and then a grey
military car roared past him, a waving swastika pennant
on the radiator.
To find out how well he remembered the language,
Anton tried to talk to the silent porter. The tall, strong-
looking boy did not reply. When Anton stood still and
repeated his question, the boy shrank away from his
cart, raising his arm as though he feared a blow. Anton
called to him to come closer and get his tip, but the boy,
apparently afraid that this was designed to lure him
within reach, vanished swiftly into a sidestreet. Anton
picked up his bag and carried it the rest of the way to
the small hotel. At the entrance an old waiter received
him with low bows, took his
baggage and murmured in
broken German that he would show him to his room.
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 100/257
The room was on the top floor. In the linoleum-carpet
ed corridors through which they passed dusty soldier's
shoes and high riding boots stood before the doors.
Anton slept soundly and long in the soft bed. In the
morning, after washing and shaving carefully, he put
on his grey suit and went down to the small dining room
for breakfast. The room was filled with men in uniform
who talked boisterously as they consumed big, crumbling
slices of white bread with several cups of good coffee.
After breakfast Anton still had an hour to kill before
he was due to report to the Gestapo office, which was
across the river, near the Burg. He asked the old waiter
for directions, learned that he had plenty of time and
decided to take a walk through the Old City.
He crossed the broad Wenzelplatz, where scattered
modern buildings stood in the midst of grey old pat
rician dwellings. Then, he strolled through narrow,
crowded business streets until he reached the stout old
Gunpowder Tower. The massive Tower, looming slant
wise above arched gateways, seemed to close off the
street. Anton did not feel strange in these streets, al
though this was his first visit to Prague. The churches,
shop windows and portals reminded him of his native
city. Centuries of similar development and similar cul
ture had stamped the character of both cities. Here, too,
the long red swastika banners seemed as out of place as
bloody welts on a peaceful, venerable countenance.
95
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 101/257
When Anton finally emerged from the dark tangle
of the Inner City on the bank of the Moldau, he saw
across the river, shimmering in a faint haze, the magicalvision of the high Hradschin. All around the old castle
were delicate spires and walls, and down to the shore,
like gigantic steps, were a succession of smaller palaces.
Among them stood clumps of trees and beautiful gar
dens, resplendent with the tender green of spring. Anton
crossed one of the long bridges that spanned the broad
stream and slowly climbed up to the Tower. Through
out his walk he kept meeting detachments of the Ger
man army of occupation. And throughout his walk he
had the feeling that he did not stand out among the few
timid natives who were in the streets. When he asked
directions in Czech he was answered politely and found
the old Ducal Palace without difficulty. His headquart
ers was located within the thick walls of this ancient
building.
From the medieval sentry-box near the main gate
stepped a heavily-armed guard who demanded his pa
pers. Anton identified himself and was then turned
over to another guard who led him through corridors
and up stairways to an old assembly hall, where he was
instructed to wait. He had time to study the large oil-
painted battle-pieces on the walls; they, were enclosed in
the same kind of ornate gold frames as the pictures inthe Vienna Imperial Museums.
96
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 102/257
One of the tall wooden doors opened and Anton's
name was called. He entered a small room, whose ceil
ing had the same far-flung arch as the hall, and found
himself facing a young Gestapo officer. The man's chest
was covered with medals, most of which Anton did not
recognize. The officer did not get up from the enormous
baroque desk at which he sat. He nodded to the guard,
indicating that he wished to be alone with Anton. Anton
noticed now that his uniform bore the insignia of very
high rank. The man's narrow head with its straggly
light-blond hair was the kind of head one would expect
a German tax-collector or assessor to have; he had the
forehead of a man who could understand orders and
learn them by heart, the eyes of one who knew how to
obey, a mouth that could say "yes" easily and bawl out
subordinates with equal ease. His face was so ordinary
and impersonal that Anton thought he might fail to
recognize him if he should meet him an hour afterwards
in the street. He would have to remember the man's
insignia, for therein lay his entire personality.
The man looked up from the papers he had been ex
amining.
"You have relatives in the Pilsen district?" he said
in an unpleasant, ugly voice which he obviously con
sidered benevolent. Anton said yes.
"We have a special mission in mind for you. Youspeak Czech." Again Anton said yes.
97
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 103/257
"Your record before, during and after the Anschluss
of the Ostmark is satisfactory. You have already proved
that you have the ability to act energetically on your
own initiative." His small sharp eyes gazed penetrating
ly at Anton; then he went on, speaking even faster than
before: "What we need desperately here are men who
can give us reliable information on the secret leagues
and organizations the Czechs have set up. Arrests and
executions aren't enough; we must know what they're
up to. . . Your uncle and his son were both arrested
with the other "Sokols" in their village. I'll order both
of them released . . . and you can let it be known that
it was you who persuaded the authorities to take this
step. ...""Why, will I see them?" Anton asked in amazement.
"Look here, Redtenbacher!" The gentle, ugly voice
strove to be even more benevolent. "We're giving you
a big chance. We've studied your record. You were
picked for reliability, discipline, courage, knowledge of
the language and close relations among the native pop
ulation. I don't doubt that you'll prove worthy of the
confidence of the Fuehrer and of those to whom he has
delegated his authority. We're sending you as though
by chance to this village where your relatives live. You'll
establish contact with them, but on the quiet, behind our
backs, so to speak. Win their confidence, systematicallyingratiate yourself —that's the first thing. By and by you
98
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 104/257
start finding out a few things—especially what's really
going on in these Sokols . . . Once a month, let's say the
fifth of every month, you'll come up here and make a
detailed report. Naturally, if you make any special dis
coveries you're to report them immediately. Our district
commandant there will be instructed. You're to main
tain contact with him, but you're directly responsible to
headquarters here in Prague. If you do this big job the
way you've done smaller jobs before, Redtenbacher, I
can congratulate you in advance —you'll be an officer of
the Gestapo by Christmas. I needn't tell you the kind
of career any one of us has a chance to make in these
times!"
Anton stood stiffly. Not a muscle in his face twitched.
He knew very well that the slightest hesitation, the first
uncertain question, would inevitably render him suspect.
At the same time he had the vague feeling that this new
assignment was a part of the road he had to travel, wasa preparation for the work he connected in his mind
with Lydia's picture. "Thank you, sir," he said. A mo
ment later he was turned over to an aid who instructed
him in the details of his mission.
By afternoon Anton was again on a train, this time
riding second class—there were no first class cars in
this passenger train. He sat alone in a window seat and
watched the passing landscape. Gradually the countryside grew hilly; waving fields of grain, dense forests,
99
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 105/257
large ponds and small lakes flew by, and over even the
smaller ponds gulls circled.
Anton tried to recall his uncle's modest home. It had
stood close to the factory, the last of a row of similar
low, close-packed houses. Next to it was the yellow,
three-storey dwelling with columned entrance and round
towers that was known in the village as "the palace."
Here the factory manager lived. The palace stood in an
open square. Opposite, along the width of the factory,
the street ran to a small bridge. Below this bridge the
river flowed along the foundation of the factory. If,
however, you walked along the front of the palace, you
found yourself crossing a longer bridge, for the river
widened here. This bridge led to the crowded older
section of the town. Here stood old factories and anc
ient homes, as well as the school Anton had attended.
There was not too much he could remember. But just
beyond the
bridge was the
pastry shop that smelled so
wonderful when you stopped to buy the delicate white
cookies that were no bigger than your thumb. They dis
solved so sweetly on the tongue that they were popular
ly known by the Czech word meaning "little kiss." He
remembered, too, the bumpy cobblestone road in the
street where his uncle lived; the cobbles were small,
round stones that soon gave way to clay and mud-
puddles.He remembered his aunt well, for a picture of her had
100
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 106/257
always hung in his mother's room. His uncle had worn
straggly whiskers. There had been no children in the
house. It occurred to him as he thought of this that his
cousin, of whom his mother had occasionally told him,
must by now be a grown man. Old enough, at any rate,
for the Gestapo to put behind bars. He reckoned back
and discovered to his amazement that it was almost
thirty years since he had spent a winter in this country.
Through the train window he saw a German military
car stop on the highway because a flock of geese had
blocked the road. At every honk of the horn they
stretched their long white necks and honked wildly
themselves. The train rounded a curve and stopped
at a small station; on the wall was painted the name of
Anton's destination. He took his bags and sprang down
from the train. This little station, too, was heavily
guarded by soldiers. After satisfying the curiosity of
the commander of the guard, Anton took his seat in a
small hotel bus which was to take him to police head
quarters in the town square. Already it was almost dark.
During the short ride, Anton saw many new houses and
factories; the town seemed far larger and more impos
ing than he remembered it.
The officer in command at headquarters was away
when Anton arrived. He had left word, however, for
Anton to take a room in the small hotel opposite the
headquarters building and to report again at eight the
101
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 107/257
following morning. Anton looked at his watch, gave
his baggage to the sleepy bellboy and set out to find his
aunt's house. The streets had changed so much since
his childhood, there were so many new and handsome
buildings, that at first he had difficulty finding his way.
The main square itself had once been merely an irreg
ular space between the row of modern buildings higher
up and the low-lying border of old, one-storey houses.
Now two parallel paved streets ran through i t ,
one on
the upper, one on the lower level. Along the upper
level street arow of handsome shade trees had been set
out, and the street was lined throughout with tall build
ings. The cobblestones in the street leading down to
the palace had also been replaced b y
smooth asphalt.
Where once the pastry shop had stood alone beyond the
bridge, i twas now surrounded b y
buildings, so that he
almost passed i tby. The show window was filled with
luxurious cakes, but in one corner he saw abowl con
taining the delicate white cookies of his youth, piled in
atantalizing pyramid. Anton went in and bought abag
ful of them. He intended them as a present for his
aunt, but he could not resist tasting afew and thought
fully letting them melt on his tongue.
The electric lights of the nearby cafe were already
on. Now, lights gradually winked on in all the sur
rounding buildings. By the light of the rather sparsestreet lamps Anton saw gloomy, careworn faces that re
102
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 108/257
minded him of the workers in the Vienna suburbs. The
impression grew stronger and more disconcerting as he
approached the palace and heard the long-drawn howl
of the factory siren. A moment later a stream of home
ward-bound men and women poured out of the factory.
He reached the narrow alley where the low, grey
house of his uncle stood. The irregular cobblestones
were still there, a little more worn, perhaps, but un
changed. Anton stepped into the arched hallway and
pulled the old bell-cord. After a long silence he heard
footsteps slowly approaching the door, and a small win
dow opened. "Who's there?" a woman's voice asked in
Czech. The voice was startlingly like his mother's.
"Toni from Vienna," Anton said pleasantly, as though
he had been absent no more than a week.'
"Who?" The door opened. "Jesus, Maria . . . Toni !"
She drew him in, and switched on the light. Then she
threw her arms around him and kissed him, while jerky
sobs shook her plump body. She released him, placed
her hands on her hips and wiped her eyes with the rim
of her apron. "What a surprise," she said, in unspoiled
Viennese German. "My, how big you are. But I would
have recognized you by your blue eyes."
She pushed him along in front of her into the simple,
spotlessly clean living room. Along one narrow wall
stood the most prominent piece of furniture in the room:a tall china closet of polished oakwood that contained
103
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 109/257
pretty porcelain bowls, silver jugs and other small, or
namental tableware.
"How is mother?" she asked, and took a seat oppositeAnton. Anton began to tell her about home. He gave
her the bag of cookies, and they both ate busily as they
talked.
Suddenly his aunt's eyes began to blink, as though
she had suddenly recalled the tragic events of the past
months, which she had temporarily forgotton in the sur
prise of Anton's visit. Anton saw the deep marks of
grief in her plump face. "I'm alone with the girls," she
said. "They took both of them away from me, uncle and
Frantisek. It's weeks now—they just came and took
them. ...""I have good news for you, Aunt Peppi," Anton in
terrupted. "They'll both be back by tomorrow at the
latest."
"What's that?" She stared at him wide-eyed.
"I've just come from Prague. They promised me. . . "
"Toni! Have you become a big shot?" She shrank
away from him as the significance of his words came to
her. "Toni . . . are you . . . are you with them?"
"I'll explain that to you later on, maybe tomorrow.
Now tell me about yourselves and don't get excited
again. Everything will be all right." He spoke with a
conviction that surprised
himself.
"Never again, Toni," she said, and again her eyes
104
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 110/257
began to blink. "Things will never be the way they
once were. Too many horrible things have happened
here. ..." They heard the front door slam. "That's the girls
coming from the factory," his aunt said, and wiped her
eyes hastily before her daughters entered. "We have a
visitor," she called to them, "a nice visitor," she added
as the tw<5 hesitated shyly at the door; "Toni from Vienna." She added a few words in Czech, speaking so
fast that Anton did not understand. "These are the
twins," she said, turning to Anton. "Your mother must
have told you about them. They weren't born yet when
you were here. . . Yes, it makes us realize how old we
are."
The two slender, well-dressed blonde girls gazed at
Anton out of lively brown eyes, and shook hands with
him. They were about eighteen years old, and had pert
little uptilted noses and round, soft cheeks. They tried
to say a few words in German, but immediately glided
into their own language when Anton jokingly replied
with a bit of Czech gallantry that he still remembered.
Then he looked at his watch and said he must go.
"You must promise to come again tomorrow," his
aunt said. "Where are you staying, anyway?"
Anton gave the name of his hotel. When he turned
his back to the girls, he seemed to feel their searching,
suspicious gaze upon him.
105
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 111/257
He returned by the same route he had come. Al
though it was still early, the streets were almost deserted.
Pairs of German guards in steel helmets patrolled the
bridge.
Anton slept fitfully that night, awakening frequently.
The bed was hard and none too clean ; a vague, dampish
odor suggested the presence of vermin. Several times
Anton turned on the light and inspected the lumpy quilt.
He was too warm when he kept himself covered with i t ,
too cold when he threw i toff the bed.
He became more and more aware of his difficult po
sition; he had to keep the confidence of the authorities
and of his relatives at the same time. The suspicious
glances of his aunt's pretty daughters and his aunt's
own incredulity worried him. Would he be able to
keep up this infernal rope-dance? In Prague i thad
seemed easy to him, especially when he thought of
Lydia. But here? And suppose he could not? Would
he use his candid face and his frank, honest eyes to de
ceive these oppressed, tormented people, to find out their
secrets ? Would he finally be defeated b ythe refined,
intricate system of supervision? And i fhe were, would
not that mean the loss of everything, of all self-respect
and sense of decency? In that case, would i tnot have
been better to have followed the example of the Austrian
officer right at the beginning, to send a
bullet into hisown brain ?
106
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 112/257
Toward morning he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
And when he arose and stood before the wash-basin in
the bright sunlight that poured in through the open win
dow, the spectres of the night seemed utterly vanished.
He felt a profound strength within himself, a joyous
confidence that he would not yield; that, if necessary, he
would find a thousand roundabout ways and a thousand
disguises in order to deceive this greatest of deceivers,
in order to restore order and decency.
He reported punctually at headquarters. The head of
the Civil Guard Division, a big-boned East Prussian with
the lean face of a good watchdog, gave him his general
orders. He then turned him over to an officer whom he
introduced to Anton as Commissar Strehse. Strehse was
a Saxon. His lips were thick, his straw-blonde hair was
combed straight back from his receding forehead, and
his chin was cleft under his wide mouth. The hair on his
temples already had a
silvery sheen; his
greenish eyes
shifted uneasily behind polished glasses as he talked.
At times his eyes were still for a moment, and then a
hard gleam was visible. But this was never for more
than a moment. He showed Anton to his desk and in
structed him in his duties.
At noon Strehse suggested to Anton that they lunch
together in the restaurant on the opposite corner of the
town square. Over a few glasses of stinging Pilsnerbeer he grew talkative.
107
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 113/257
"A hell of a town, this," he said to Anton. "Not a
single decent place to eat or drink in the whole town.
A pampered Viennese like you won't like i t ,
let me tell
you. In Dresden, too, we had i tpretty good. But what
can we do—our duty to Greater Germany comes first. . .
The only things worthwhile here," he went on, nudg
ing Anton with his elbow, "are the dolls." His green
eyes blinked meaningfully. "In the textile factory over
there beyond the bridge there are some nice pieces, be
lieve me. Good Slavic bodies. . . Some marvelous broads,
believe me." And as though he had just swallowed a
juicy morsel, he wiped his thick lips with the paper
napkin.
Anton's stomach turned. I twas hardly pleasant to
think of this greying philistine with his ridiculous
paunch playing the Casanova among young girls.
"You seem to be quite aman with the ladies, Herr
Strehse," he said, forcing himself to look at the man
with an admiring gaze.
"Well, I take i tmore or less in line with business,"
Strehse replied. "With alittle gallantry you can often
get more out of these girls in asingle night than you
can in days of examining these goddamn stubborn men."
"No doubt you've already had considerable experi-
"So so, thanks. Iwork myself to death for the cause."
He giggled foolishly.
108
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 114/257
After lunch the two went back to the office. The
Saxon immediately put on his most businesslike man
ner and with exhausting loquacity continued to instruct
Anton in his duties.
It was somewhat later than the previous evening when
Anton once more entered his aunt's gloomy hallway
and pulled the old bell-cord.
This time the door was opened quickly. One of the
two sisters greeted him and led him into the living
room. The family was at supper, sitting around the
oval table. All stood up when Anton entered. He saw
the square-set figure of his uncle, whose beard was as
straggled as ever, but had changed color. It was not
yet white, but it was considerably lighter. The uncle's
voice was deep and calm as ever, and his speech delib
erate. "Your aunt has already told us about you," he
said. "Come, sit down at our table. ..."
While Anton was shaking hands with his uncle, hethought he heard a low, excited exchange of words bet
ween his aunt and his young cousin, whom he had only
seen for a moment. Then a door slammed and the
young man was gone before Anton had a chance to greet
him.
"I'm sorry, Toni," his aunt said. "Frantisek will be
back later. He just remembered that he has to report
over at the factory, so that he can start work in the
morning. ... I hope you'll take potluck with us."
109
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 115/257
"I didn't expect to at all," Anton said. "I just wanted
to say hello and see if everything's all right. Are you
sure I'm not intruding? ...""Come, no exaggerated politeness now," he heard
his uncle murmuring, and he remembered that this was
one of the old man's favorite phrases.
They all sat down. Conversation was halting. How
ever, there was plenty of food, and it was all good. After
supper the girls helped to clear away the dishes and
then joined their mother in the kitchen.
Anton's uncle took out a bottle of brandy and some
cigarettes. He and Anton sat down in the bay window
near the china closet.
The old man slowly poured two glasses of brandy.
He held the glass toward Anton and then drained it all
at once.
"You got us out of jail, Anton," he said slowly,
weighing every word. "I thank
you for that . . . But
you must tell us what it all means. . . Do they know at
headquarters that you come here to us ? . . . How do you
stand; where do you stand? We must know, or it's go
ing to be unpleasant for all of us."
Anton, too, gulped down his glass of brandy and
put it back on the table. "I've been transferred here," he
said, "because I know the language. . ."
"As an interpreter?""Yes, an official interpreter. . . . Naturally they know
110
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 116/257
I'm visiting you. If they didn't know, they'd find out. . . .
They're efficient, our German brothers."
"That's what Frantisek says. He says they must know.
And there's no need for exaggerated politeness. He
says they've sent you here to spy on us. That's why he
wouldn't sit at the same table with you. . ."
The old
man spoke gravely, in a composed, moderated voice.
Anton had anticipated some such reaction, but it had
come sooner than he thought. Nevertheless, he was glad
his uncle had posed this delicate question now.
"If you'd rather I didn't come any more," he replied
without embarrassment, "I'll stay away. ...""What are you thinking of, Anton?" the old man in
terrupted him. "We're grateful to you in any case. Who
knows what might have happened to the family if the
boy couldn't work any more. He was always a good,
quiet boy. He did his work well and spent most of his
time over books
—neither talked much, nor went out
too
often. But since the ocupation he's seen so many un
believable things—and he's changed. . . . The way they
examined him up there in Tower, I was afraid some
thing bad would happen. . . . He's like a good horse, my
boy is; he won't take blows."
"Did they hit him?"
"They beat us all. . . But it didn't do them any good."
"The swine!" Anton's face flushed with rage as the
word burst from him.
Ill
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 117/257
The old man gripped his hand. "That's enough for
me, Toni," he said slowly. "Now I know where you
stand. It will be better if you and I say no more about
it. And I wish you'd have a talk with the boy one of
these days— just the two of you. Maybe he can learn
from you not to be rash. ..."Aunt Peppi came in from the kitchen and sat down
beside them, her knitting on her knees, very much like
Anton's mother. They talked of the old days and for a
while they forgot the present. Later, one of the two
sisters came in with a basket of fresh cherries. Frantisek
did not return.
Anton was pleased when the occupation authorities
began to call upon him frequently to act as interpreter.
It was a task that gave him both insight into local con
ditions and practice
in the language. At times, however,
he was appalled at the brutal insouciance with which the
life or death of the Czechs was decided. In Vienna—
except in the cases of Jews and of so-called enemies of
the State—the Nazis had preserved the semblance of
orderly procedure. But here no one, of whatever race
or class, had any rights at all. People were casually ar
rested and sent to Prague, or they were simply stood up
against a wall and shot."The country hasn't enough jails," Strehse remarked
112
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 118/257
to Anton in reference to one such case. "We have to do
our best with what we have. Anyway, they all have
something on their consciences. Every Czech we knock
off is a gain for the Reich. If you want my advice, the
best way I know is to report them 'shot while trying to
escape'. You get me, don't you? Then nobody can
complain; everything is squared up."
Anton had often heard of this special Gestapo method,
but this was the first time anyone had ever openly re
commended it to him. From then on he tried to avoid
lunching with Strehse. It was not easy; the fat Com
missar seemed to have taken a liking to him.
"I've discovered a new doll," he said one day, raising
his glass of Pilsner beer, "a marvelous piece, believe
me. I'm going to wait for her this evening and take her
out in my car. That goes to their heads like a glass of
champagne. . ."
That evening Anton was sitting in his aunt's living
room when one of the twin sisters came panting into
the house, her cheeks flaming and her whole body trem
bling. She said that a strange man had waited for her
on the street corner and tried to lure her into his car.
He must have been one of the occupation officers in
civilian dress; he could hardly speak a word of Czech.
When she refused, he had grabbed her arm and tried
to drag her into the car by force, but she had managedto slip away and run home.
113
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 119/257
Anton did not voice his suspicions to the family. But
the following morning he reported the incident to his
commandant."Can you swear to it?" the man bellowed, drawing
his chin up above his high white collar. Anton said yes.
The Prussian became cold and business-like. "We don't
stand for playing around with women while on duty,"
he growled. "It was your duty to report this and I'll
pass on your information. Thank you."
He was good as his word, for a week later Strehse
informed Anton with a sickly smile that he was being
transferred to a more interesting post in a neighboring
district.
The time for Anton's first report to Prague drew
nearer, and he became uneasy whenever he thought of
it. Anton was now having dinner with his aunt's family
twice or three times a week, and his young cousin sat
at the table—obviously under pressure from his parents.
But Frantisek never took part in the conversations; he
claimed he could not understand a word of German,
which was always spoken at table in honor of Anton.
Whenever Anton spoke to him in Czech, he replied curt
ly in monosyllables. But Anton always felt Frantisek's
dark-brown eyes gazing searchingly at him. And in his
turn Anton observed his cousin. He liked the boy's
gravity, his handsome, tanned face topped by curly
blonde hair, and the graceful movements of his muscles.
114
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 120/257
The more he saw of him, the more convinced he be
came that this young man knew all the secrets of the lit
tle town, that he was involved in all the clandestine illegal activities the German authorities were so eager to
uncover.
On the eve of Anton's departure for Prague he found
himself for the first time alone with Frantisek in the
living room. It seemed to have happened by chance.
His uncle had been delayed at the factory and his aunt
was in the kitchen with her two daughters, preparing
supper.
The two sat in silence for a while. Then the young
man spoke suddenly.
"Mother says you're going to Prague," he said in
Czech. "I suppose you'll report what you've spied out
about us. . . ."
"That won't be very much," Anton laughed. He felt
glad that the cold silence between them was at lastbroken.
"If you really mean to help us, as father and mother
say, you can do something for our people who are still
locked up in the Tower. None of them has done any
more than what father and I did."
"What can I do for them?"
Frantisek took a crumpled piece of paper from his
pocket.
"Here is a list," he said. "None of the people on
115
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 121/257
the list are alive any more. You can tell the Gestapo
bloodhounds in Prague that you got the list from me,
and that it's the complete list of the ringleaders amongour Sokols. If they believe you they'll release the others;
if they don't, the worst they can do is shoot me for try
ing to trick them. ..."Without hesitation, Anton reached for the paper.
"Give it to me," he said. "I'll try i t ,
anyway."
For the first time he saw aflicker of gratitude and
dubious trust in his cousin's brown eyes. And he him
self felt doubly grateful. For now he had abasis for
his report. '
: i ^ j
While Anton waited in the spacious assembly hall of
the Ducal Palace, he thought he heard alively alterca
tion in the commandant's office. Several times the high
oaken door was thrown open and slammed shut again;
guards and officers hurried past him. Inside he heard
the ugly voice that had explained his assignment to
him in such mild and benevolent tones. Now the voice
was angry and broke into excited falsetto tones. "We'll
wipe them out," he could hear clearly, even through the
thick wood of the door. "Fairies like you ought to work
in aladies' seminary. Get hold of the wives and chil
dren of the men who escaped.
Start with Intimidation
Scheme II, at once! Post awarning in both languages
116
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 122/257
that the hostages will be shot immediately if there is one
more slightest disturbance of the peace." The voice
broke off with a harsh oath. After a brief pause Anton
heard several men apparently giving information or de
livering reports. They spoke lower and he could not
make out what they were saying. Finally the sound of
conversation died down. The door opened again and a
portly high official, his face red with embarrassment and
his eyes fixed on the floor, strode heavily past Anton
to the exit. A few moments later Anton's name was
called.
The commandant's thin, impersonal, undistinguished
face was pale and revealed his irritation. When Anton
entered, he waved his hand and the other agents left
the room. Each of them was visibly relieved that the
commandant had discharged his fury at someone else's
expense. However, they walked out with lowered heads,
as though they feared a sudden attack from the rear.
"Make it short," the commandant said, getting up.
I'm leaving for Berlin at noon. Did you accomplish
anything?" Anton answered briefly and handed his su
perior the list of conspirators that Frantisek had given
him.
"Are you sure this double traitor isn't tricking us?"
the officer asked. His narrow eyes looked up from per
usal of the list and gazed penetratingly at Anton. "Did
you promise the man a good reward?"
117
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 123/257
"Nothing definite," Anton replied, a little embar
rassed. "I didn't want to anticipate the decision of
headquarters. After all, the information hasn't been
checked yet. ...""Oh, the devil with that!" the commandant barked.
He reached for a pad and hurriedly scribbled a note.
"In cases like this you have to fling the marks around—
that's what they're for, after all. We'll never get any
information for love, not here or anywhere else. I don't
think much of this list the man gave you. But it gives
you a good pretext to toss him some bait. Take this,
cash it in Room 23, and pay the man. And let him know
that he'll get ten times as much from us as soon as he
does us a real service." He ripped the note from the
pad and handed it to Anton; it was an order for ten
thousand Czech crowns.
The telephone rang, and the commandant dismissed
Anton with a
gesture that indicated he could
spare no
more time for him now.
When Anton returned from Prague, he found a let
ter from his mother awaiting him. There was not much
news from Vienna, she wrote. Both she and Erna were
well, although she had not seen Erna, merely spoken to
her on the telephone. His friend Sepp had visited herto say that he had had no word from Gruber.
118
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 124/257
Anton was bitterly disappointed. Why had Lydia re
vived his memory of her by her card just before his de
parture, if nothing was to come of it? Or had some
thing happened to her? Would he ever hear from her
again ?
The following night, when he visited his aunt, he
managed to get a moment alone with Frantisek. He
told the boy how his list had been received in Prague;
that he had been given money for him, but that he could
hold out little hope for the release of his friends, since
the commandant had been so wary. Anton had expected
an indignant refusal of the bribe. But his cousin held
out his hand, saying: "I'll give it to those whom they
have robbed of everything." And his dark eyes gleamed
at the sight of the huge sum.
Frantisek stepped closer to Anton and his voice
dropped to a whisper. "I'll give you a present in re
turn," he said
gaily, blinking his blonde lashes.
"Well?"
"There'll be war soon." A profound inner joy lit up
his handsome face, as though he were speaking of the
imminent arrival of some dear one. Anton thought of
his mother's ominous remark about the buttercards,
which Blockwart Peter had called seditious.
But this young firebrand was right, of course. Pos
sibly only the bloody flame of war could melt the chains
that were daily being forged tighter around the helpless,
119
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 125/257
enslaved peoples of his country and Frantisek's. Almost
all those who had fought in the last war believed for the
past twenty years that nothing could be worse, nothingmore insane than war; that war was a senseless slaughter
of human beings, monstrous, meaningless destruction of
property and uprooting of all normal living. But Anton
had seen that there were worse things than this.
"How do you know?" he asked, and unintentionally
his voice became stern and officious.
Frantisek shrank away from him and gazed at him
askance, as though all his suspicions had returned. But
he could no longer contain his knowledge; the words
burst forth. "We have secret information from our
people in England. France and England are arming.
Probably Russia will join them. They'll march before
next fall."
"And what about all of you here?"
"We. . . ? Our whole people will rise in revolt when
the armies of our allies march. We'll wipe them out;
we'll exact tenfold vengeance for every one of our vic
tims!"
"If war comes," Anton said, "they'll guard you more
closely than ever before. Every attempt at revolt will be
suicidal. No methods will be too terrible for them. Iknow them well. They're strong and their soldiers are
tough. In war they'll be
stronger still,
perhaps stronger
than all the others. ..."120
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 126/257
The young Czech did not answer. He bowed his head,
but his eyes gleamed fiercely. "You don't belong to us,
after all," he said slowly.
From then on he was as distrustful and reticent as
ever in Anton's presence. He did not relent even when,
several weeks later, most of his comrades in the town
were released. Anton never found out whether their
release had anything to do with his report, or whether
it was merely an application of the general instructions'
to the occupation troops to "systematically ingratiate"
themselves. In any case, other Czechs were arrested to
take the place of the released men. The factory director,
who lived in the "palace," his secretary, and a bookkeep
er of his firm were among the new arrests. They were
charged with clandestinely sending money abroad.
Frantisek, too, who worked in the export division of the
factory, was examined closely, but he was not arrested.
Anton acted as
interpreter during the
questioning.While these investigations were in progress, the time
for Anton's report to Prague arrived. Since he was
temporarily indispensable, his superiors in the town re
quested that he be permitted to postpone his report a
month. The request was granted, and the next month
passed in long and wearisome hearings. As the time for
his report again approached, Anton wondered what he
would say. Perhaps it would be best to report that he
had not yet accomplished anything and doubted he
121
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 127/257
would ever penetrate the secrets of the underground
movement in the town.
A few days before his scheduled departure came the
news of the German invasion of Poland. This time there
was fighting, and this time, too, the Powers declared
war on Germany. A week of feverish expectancy surged
through the little town. Anton saw the expression of
hope in the eyes of his cousin and the rest of the towns
people. But as yet no revolt could be risked. The guards
at street intersections, bridges and the railroad station
were doubled. An entire German army division paraded
through the streets of the town for hours, on its way
north. At the same time, a new wave of arrests spread
over the entire country.
Anton's train to Prague left late, and was forced to
stop several times on the way. The midsummer sunshone with undiminished intensity upon the metal roofs
of the cars. During one long stop Anton went to get a
cold drink, and returning entered the wrong car by mis
take. In the corridor he encountered the Saxon Com
missar, Strehse, who had been transferred because of
his excessive interest in the factory girls.
"Aha, my young friend from Vienna," the man
greeted him. "One of the hottest days in the year, letme tell you. You on your way to Prague, too ?"
122
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 128/257
Anton said yes. They talked a while, and Anton
learned that Strehse was escorting a number of persons
who had just been arrested to the Prague headquarters.
He had them stowed away in a locked compartment of
the train, he said. The rest of the train was crowded
with soldiers.
Strehse's green eyes shifted uneasily behind his thick
glasses as he talked. "Every one of them," he said, "al
ready has his ticket to Dachau or one of the other sum
mer resorts. And they take an express from there straight
to Heaven. Most of them haven't any idea where they're
going ; some of them are even looking cheerful. There
are a couple of women, too—two swell dames. A
blonde and a brunette. I wouldn't mind giving them a
better time than they'll get in the camp. ..."Anton felt disinclined to continue the conversation.
He said he had to look after his bags, and fled. As he
passed the locked
prisoners' compartment, he glanced
through the glass of the door. A violent tremor ran
through his whole body—he had recognized Lydia, sit
ting in one of the window seats. His momentum carried
him past, and he was not sure whether or not she had
seen him.
Anton's long training stood him in good stead. He
knew that now he must not make a single move. And
so he walked on as though nothing had happened. Hereached his seat and sat down, outwardly calm. But his
123
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 129/257
mind was in turmoil. Lydia was condemned to death;
the Commissar had as much as told him this. He dared
not even think of the cruelties and torment in store forher before she died. Was there anything he could do
to save her ? Even as he asked himself this question he
knew that he was prepared to face any peril for her, pre
pared to die in her stead if need be. But what could he
do ? If it were only a matter of shooting down the re
pulsive Saxon who was escorting the prisoners, he
would not have hesitated a moment. He could feel no
remorse for taking the life of this murderer, who, by his
own admission already had the lives of hundreds of in
nocent human beings on his conscience. . . But it was no
good to kill Strehse; the train was full of soldiers. And
how would she escape? The compartment was locked
from the outside and Strehse probably had the key. The
train was heavily guarded, as was the entire railroad in
time of war.
Beads of perspiration formed on Anton's brow. Had
he found her after so long, only to sit passively a few
yards away from her, knowing she was doomed, and un
able to aid her? His temples throbbed painfully; he
saw no solution. Hours passed. The time was grow
ing shorter; before long they would arrive in Prague
and then there would no longer be any chance at all.
It was already growing dark outside; cool air, mingledwith streamers of smoke, poured in through the half
124
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 130/257
open window. Anton recognized a castle standing in a
large park on the edge of a forest. Now they were barely
an hour and a half from Prague. Something had to
happen. He got up. He would go over and talk with
Strehse. He felt that he had to be near her, at least; see
her and wait for his chance.
As he entered the corridor, he saw the Commissar
leading a blonde woman, who had just come from the
washroom, back to the compartment. Strehse closed the
door behind her and carefully locked it; then he put the
key-ring with the key to the compartment back in his
pocket. There was the key. Anton knew he must ob
tain possession of it.
Strehse was standing with his back to Anton, and had
not yet noticed him. The sliding doors of the other
compartments were almost all open to admit the eve
ning breeze. Anton heard groups of men singing sol
dier's songs. Three or four men, their shirts unbut
toned, stood smoking in the corridor.
During the moment while Strehse's back was still
turned to him, Anton looked over the man's shoulder
and caught Lydia's attention. He felt certain that she
had recognized him before, when he passed by, for
there was no surprise in her dark, glowing eyes—only
relief that he had come.
He called Strehse's name. The Commissar turned onhis heels and greeted him cordially. "Where have you
125
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 131/257
been hiding yourself all this time?" he blustered cheer
fully. "You can't expect me to pay you a return visit;
I'm stuck here with these damned prisoners. A hell of a note, let me tell you. But I'm personally responsible
for every one of them and can't let them out of my
sight. ..."In spite of his inward turmoil, Anton forced himself
to adopt the Saxon's light tone. "I see you've been hav
ing a little fun with your female prisoners," he said.
"Fun ? I can think of better things to do than sit out
here in the corridor and keep my eye on that crew in
there."
"Why don't you go in and sit with the girls?"
"Oh, hell—in this heat, with seven in one compart
ment. Not me. I'd rather sit out here and have some
fresh air."
The brakes of the car suddenly began to screech and
the train lurched to an unscheduled stop at a small sta
tion. Evidently the heavy traffic on the line was delay
ing them again. Back of the station, beneath the thick
foliage of tall shade trees, they could see a beer garden.
Foaming glasses of light beer stood before the guests on
the uncovered wooden tables.
Strehse sighed. "If we only knew how long the train
was stopping. . . A glass of beer would hit the spot."
An idea leapt into Anton's mind. He bent out of thecorridor window and asked the conductor, who was
126
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 132/257
standing near the track, why the train had stopped.
"Military trains ahead of us," was the answer.
"How long will we wait? Is there time for a beer
over there?"
"Plenty of time. We won't start for at least twenty
minutes. . ."
"Did you hear that, Herr Strehse?" Anton asked,
turning to the Saxon. "Plenty of time, twenty minutes
at least."
"Well, this is too good a chance to pass up. You'll
do me the favor and take over here, won't you, Redten-
bacher?"
"Of course," Anton said. "Be sure to bring me some
beer." And he took the key from the Commissar's damp
hand.
"Just in case," the Commissar said. "In case I should
miss the train."
Anton's knees shook. It seemed to him his agitation
must be obvious to the other. What had seemed impos
sible had been accomplished almost without effort. But
what now ? He looked out the window at Strehse, who
was hurrying toward the beer garden, and saw that men
were jumping down from other cars and heading the
same way. Gradually the darkness grew thicker. Lights
flickered on in the beer garden and in the train itself.
Anton hesitated no longer. He drifted casually overto the glass-windowed compartment door and waited
127
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 133/257
until the corridor was empty. Then he looked in. Some
of Lydia's fellows were sleeping, others were staring
blankly into space. The blonde woman sitting opposite
Lydia was busily knitting. Lydia alone saw Anton's
face at the glass pane. She seemed alert and tense. He
felt he could communicate with her without words. He
raised his hand and showed her the key. At once she
stood up and indicated by pointing that she wished to
go to the washroom. Anton opened the door and she slid
past him into the corridor. He closed the door behind
her at once. One of the older men in the compartment
lifted his eyes in astonishment for a moment when she
brushed past him, but immediately relapsed into his
gloomy abstraction. How strange it i s ,
Anton thought,
it's all working out as though i thad been planned. "A
spade," he heard someone say from the adjoining com
partment, where soldiers were playing cards. He took
Lydia b y
the hand and drew her around the corner of
the compartment, where they could not be observed.
"Your life depends on this," he breathed, hoarse with
excitement.
"I know," she replied coolly. Her voice still rang
with the soft bell-tone, but i twas hushed and tremulous
now. Anton realized that the calm expression of her
face as she sat near the window had been only amask.
Inwardly she was aflame, as she had been that
night in
the dead professor's apartment. Her body was tense as
128
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 134/257
that of a doe fleeing from the hunter. She wanted to
rush past him to the door of the car. "You're mad!"
Anton exclaimed. He seized her wrist firmly and
wrenched her back. "The train is guarded. . .
"His
painful grip upon her wrist seemed to restore her com
posure somewhat. "I'll hide in the washroom and jump
off when the train starts moving," she said. "I must get
away, away." Her eyes, her whole trembling body,
pleaded desperately with him.
Anton relaxed his grip, but he held her right hand
firmly.
"We have fifteen minutes yet," he said. "The Com
missar won't be back for fifteen minutes. We must think
out some plan. . . If you jump from the moving train,
you'll break your neck."
Her face suddenly grew radiant, as though a revela
tion had come to her. "The emergency signal," she
said, and looked up at the lead-weighted red lever on
the wall above Anton's head. "I'll pull the emergency
signal, wait until the train has slowed down, and
then . . ."
"We haven't time for that," Anton interrupted.
"When the Commissar comes back he'll see at once that
you're missing. The washrooms will be the first place
they look. . ."
"We can pull the shade on our compartment door. . .""He wouldn't fail to notice that. His business is to
129
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 135/257
watch the prisoners. . . And even if we succeeded in
getting you off the train, what then?"
"Then I'll be free and I'll make my way as I always
have before!" She threw her head back in a resolute,
graceful movement, and her brown hair swirled defi
antly.
"Do you have any friends who could hide you? Do
they know whom you're connected with ? Would they
have any trail to follow?"
A sudden transformation came over Lydia's features.
Again he felt her dark eyes gazing hostilely at him, as
on the first night they had met. Her eyes seemed to ask
whether this strange attempt to rescue her was no more
than an old trick to extract from her the secrets that no
torture could make her reveal ?
Anton guessed her thoughts. "You needn't answer
my questions," he said, looking squarely into her eyes.
"But just in case, I'll give you my aunt's address. They
won't look for you there. . ." He took his note pad,
tore out a sheet of paper and wrote down his aunt's
name and address.
"Thank you," she said, taking the paper from him.
Her tone was guilty, and with her glowing eyes she
apologized to him for her unjust suspicions.
Anton started suddenly. He had glanced down at
his watch and seen that already thirteen minutes hadpassed since he had spoken to the conductor. Seven
130
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 136/257
more minutes. And they still had no more than a vague
plan for saving Lydia. Already he could envision the
inevitable failure: Strehse would come to the door and
the whole childish plot would burst like a shimmering
soap-bubble. As he pictured the Saxon's cynical ex
pression, he recalled a remark the man had once made
to him: "Report them 'shot while trying to escape'; then
nobody can complain."
The solution came to him in a flash. It was fascinat
ing; he would use the man's
suggestion against him
self.
"Listen," he said to Lydia, "I still don't see where
and how I'm going to hide you until the train pulls
out, but I know what to do afterward. I know this
section of the country well. A few minutes' ride from
here those woods over there extend almost to the tracks.
Further down the slope there's a river. I'll pull the
emergency signal. In the first confusion, as soon as thetrain slows down, you jump out and run into the woods.
I'll pursue you before the others are alarmed and keep
firing in the dark until you find me. I'll lead you to
the river. Then I'll go back to the train and report you
shot while trying to escape."
Lydia had listened tensely to him. "Will you really
do so much for me ?" she said in a soft, tremulous voice.
But Anton paid no attention; he was immersed in his
plan, anxiously trying to pick out weak spots. "You
131
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 137/257
must leave some identifying paper in your coat, and leave
the coat in the bushes along the shore about a hundred
yards down the river. Hang it so that it will appear to
have drifted ashore there. Then I can say I shot you
while you were swimming the river and saw your head
go under. If we're lucky, they'll find the coat next day.
Then you'll be officially dead and won't be troubled
any more."
Lydia shook with suppressed laughter. The hope that
Anton held out to her was so intoxicating that she forgot
the present danger. It was as though all the tension of
her excitement broke forth in this hysterical laugh,
which she could hardly control.
At that moment the locomotive whistle blew three
short, high-pitched blasts. An icy chill gripped Anton.
What help was all this plotting when there was no
place to hide Lydia. Through the car window he could
see the Commissar and the other passengers hurryingfrom the beer garden to the train. Lydia's flushed face
lost color and the laugh froze on her lips. Her hand
clutched helplessly at Anton's arm. Anton felt the blood
pounding in his temples. There was not a moment to
lose; Strehse was barely fifty yards away.
"I have it," Anton exclaimed suddenly, and his blue
eyes gazed triumphantly at Lydia. "I'll take you back
to your compartment now—that's the only place you're
safe. But I'll only pretend to lock the compartment. It
132
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 138/257
won't occur to him to test it. For the rest, we follow my
plan. As soon as the train starts to slow down, leave the
compartment . . . And don't jump too soon."
Unresisting, she allowed him to lead her back to the
compartment. He could feel by the pressure of her
hand that she understood and approved. No sooner
had he closed the door and pretended to turn the key
in the lock, than Strehse appeared at the other end of
the corridor. He seemed refreshed and in good humor.
"Well, I almost did miss the train," he said, chuck
ling as though there were something extraordinarily
funny about it. "But these Czech swine brew a beer
that makes your head ring. Here's yours. . . Thanks,
Redtenbacher," he added, handing Anton a paper cup
filled with beer and taking the key. He snapped it on
to the key ring, put the ring in his pocket and then took
out a big, colored handkerchief and wiped the sweat
from his brow. When the train started, Anton saw thathis companion was no longer too steady on his feet ; he
seemed to have difficulty keeping his balance. With a
super-keenness of mind born of his inner tension, Anton
realized at once that this unsteadiness would hamper
Strehse and help him when the moment for action
came. Every trivial thing now could make the difference
between life and death for Lydia.
He had to distract the man's attention. Any means
would do, the wildest and most foolish if necessary.
133
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 139/257
Anton gulped down the beer, then ventured the first
idea that came to him.
"Planes," he said, and squinted out the window at the
starry sky that flew by overhead. Involuntarily, the Com
missar's eyes followed his gaze. "I don't see anything,"
he said. "Probably shooting stars you saw."
"Now they're right over that clump of trees there.
But they have queer lights—yellow and blue. . ."
Strehse bent out the open window. "Just a moment,"
Anton said, "I'll get my binoculars from my compart
ment." And without waiting for an answer, he ran
off. At the end of the corridor he looked around and
made sure that Strehse was still staring out the window.
Then he reached up and pulled the lever of the emer
gency brake so hard that the safety weight swung into
his face.
A second later a shudder ran through the entire train
and Anton was hurled against the wall. He heard the
howling, grinding and screeching of the brakes as they
gripped the tracks. In a moment he had unlatched the
exit that Lydia must use to escape. And then he felt
Lydia's slender, tense body pressing past him; he had
not even heard the compartment door open and close.
"Wait," he whispered. It seemed to him the train was
still moving too fast. But she slipped by him and stood
on the step. "No one noticed me," she breathed in thefaintest of whispers. Then he saw her leap skillfully
134
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 140/257
from the train and vanish into the darkness of the pine
forest.
Immediately, Anton dashed into his compartment in
the adjoining car. Here his fellow-travelers were striv
ing to keep their balance and to avoid tripping over
the bags and packages that had tumbled down from the
nets. In the general confusion he grabbed his field-
glasses unnoticed and ran back down the corridor.
Strehse had lurched forward and half fallen from the
shock of the sudden stop; he was clinging to the door
knob of a compartment and trying to pull himself erect.
"Shrehse, Strehse," Anton cried as he ran toward him,
"Look after your prisoners. I'm sure I saw someone
jump from the train and run into the woods. Alarm the
guards; I'm going after him."
"What?" he heard the man gasp in dismay. But
Anton, gun in hand, was already at the steps.
"Who goes there?" someone cried from below, and
the steel helmet of a guard appeared out of the darkness.
"Gestapo," Anton replied in the same tone. He hasti
ly showed his card by the beam of his flashlight. The
guard lowered his rifle and let him pass. As Anton ran
toward the woods, he saw soldiers forming searching
parties all along the length of the train. Low commands
mingled with incisive warnings to the passengers not to
leave the train.As soon as he had gone a short way among the trees,
135
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 141/257
he fired several shots so that Lydia could find him. She
answered from close by with a choked scream. Once
more Anton had the feeling that they could communicate without words. It was so simple. She was where
he could find her, where he had to find her.
"The danger isn't past yet," he said quickly. "You
have to face the hardest part of it now, Lydia." It was
the first time he had ever spoken her name aloud. He
could not see her in the darkness, but again their hands
touched.
"As a child I never dreamed that God would send his
guardian angel to me in the guise of a policeman," she
said, laughing a little hysterically.
There's no time for joking, Anton thought. Both of
them were doomed if his plan did not work perfectly.
Silently, carefully, he led her between the trees, hold
ing the low-hanging boughs aside. Once she slipped on
a fungus growth and lay for a moment in his arms,
breathing heavily. The woods seemed wider than Anton
had thought. But it was as he recalled: at the other
end a slope covered with willow shrubs led down to
the bank of a river.
"I must leave you now, Lydia," Anton said. Here
among the low bushes he could almost make out her
features. "If you can't find any place to hide, remember
the address I gave you. I'll be back there myself withina few days. ..."136
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 142/257
Lydia did not reply.
"Don't be frightened now. I'm going to shoot sev
eral times. Stay here, hiding in the bushes, until you
hear our train pull out. Then walk down the river to
the next village. Go into any peasant's house there and
say the Germans are after you. Any Czech will help
you. . . Have you money for a railroad ticket?"
"No, they took away everything I had."
Anton hastily placed a few bills in her hand. "Good
bye, Lydia," he said.
He could not see her face, but suddenly she threw
her arms around his neck and kissed him. For a brief
moment her pliant form pressed against his body in an
impulsive expression of gratitude and trust. Then she
moved lithely away. "Fire!" she commanded softly,
holding her hands over her ears.
Anton raised his revolver and fired. When he looked
around again for Lydia, she was gone. A feeling of
joyous gratitude overwhelmed him. For the first time
he felt certain that she would escape and he would be
able to cover her flight and deceive the pursuers.
As he climbed the slope to the lower rim of the
woods he heard the heavy tread of the soldiers, the
crackle of snapping branches and low- voiced commands.
He called to the officer in command of the search. When
they met,Anton reported that he had seen the fugitivespring from the train, followed him and shot him 'while
137
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 143/257
trying to escape.' The officer questioned him closely,
and Anton answered each question satisfactorily. Then
the search was abandoned, and shortly afterwards the
express train continued its interrupted journey.
Anton returned to his seat, wondering whether he
should avoid talking with Strehse. But he realized at
once that this would be noticed and would inevitably
make the man suspect him. He decided to go to see
Strehse and try to allay the man's suspicions—for he was
fairly sure Strehse would be suspicious anyway.
The Saxon was still wiping the sweat from his brow
with his big handkerchief. His green eyes shifted un
easily behind his thick glasses. "Absolutely a mystery,"
he exploded when he saw Anton. "Absolutely inexplic
able! . . . Did you notice anything suspicious while I
was outside, Redtenbacher?"
"Not a thing," Anton replied, and he was pleased
with himself that his voice was clear and steady.
"I questioned the other prisoners," Strehse said, and
it seemed to Anton that his thick lips twitched in an ex
pression of sly mockery. Sudden alarm assailed Anton.
He remembered that one of the prisoners, and old Czech,
had glanced up when Lydia brushed past him.
"But they all say they saw nothing," Strehse went
on. "Either that damned girl had a lock-pick on her
somewhere —though
she was searched carefully —or else
I must have forgotten to lock the door when I let that
138
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 144/257
other girl in before. I can't believe that is possible.
"Was it one of the girls?" Anton asked. "I couldn't
see clearly enough to know.""Lucky you were right there, Redtenbacher. I con
gratulate you on your wonderful shot in the dark. . . .
Those planes with the blue and yellow lights were in
teresting, too. Too bad you didn't have time to bring
me your field-glasses."
The blow struck home. It was clear that the man's
trained mind had immediately grasped the possibility
of Anton's complicity. It may have seemed improbable
to him, but he would not dismiss the idea casually. And
although he was neither courageous enough nor sure
enough to say it openly, he wanted Anton to know his
suspicions. Probably he thinks he can frighten me into
exposing myself, Anton thought.
"In any case, I'll take the liberty of naming you as
witness when I make my report," Strehse concluded.
"And thanks, Redtenbacher."
"Glad to help where I can," Anton said, and returned
to his compartment. He knew now that he must be on
his guard. If possible,he must try to forestall the oth
er's attack as soon as they reached Prague.
While he was still considering the matter, the train
pulled into the Prague Station.
* * *
139
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 145/257
That night, in his small hotel room near the Wilson
Station, Anton had a nightmare. He dreamt he was
fighting to the death with the Saxon Commissar. Againand again he felt the repulsive breath of his paunchy
opponent in his face and freed himself only at the last
moment from the man's stranglehold. Then he awoke.
His mind cleared slowly, but the vision remained.
"He or I!" an inner voice repeated again and again.
There was no doubt about it: it was a struggle to the
death. As he considered i t , i tseemed inevitable that one
of them would lose out in the official investigation.
And i t was equally inevitable that the clever Saxon
would do his utmost to prevent even an accusation of
neglect of duty from spoiling his record. What could
Anton do? I fhis own story were doubted, Lydia, too,
would be endangered. As yet there was no certainty
that his plan would work; her coat might not be found,
or the trick might be seen through at once. And so
much depended on this small detail.
Anton sat up suddenly in bed. A thought had flashed
into his mind that at first seemed diabolic to him. Sup
pose he himself made against Strehse the very charge
that might cost him his life? Strehse was anotorious
woman-chaser. Anton knew the Saxon's record would
reveal this, because he himself had reported the man and
was responsible for Strehse's transfer. Why should not
Anton repeat under oath the words the Commissar had
140
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 146/257
said to him shortly before Lydia's escape: "There are
a couple of women, too—two swell dames. A blonde
and a brunette. . . " The suspicion that the leader of
the escort himself had been duped by the beautiful girl
and had contrived her escape would, once aroused, be
hard to lay. And then he, Anton, would appear to his
superiors as a clever, alert officer whose swift and reso
lute intervention had foiled the plot. The circumstantial
evidence favored Anton rather than Strehse. And An
ton could certainly locate witnesses to swear that the
Saxon had gone to the beer garden shortly before the
escape. This, too, would count against Strehse. There
were no possible witnesses against Anton, except the
other prisoners. But he was certain the Czechs would
not talk; none of them would admit having seen any
thing. Whatever charges Strehse made against Anton
would appear as a crude attempt to divert suspicion
from himself.Anton was appalled by his own scheme. Could this
be called self-defense? Could he argue away the real
significance of this and sacrifice the life of another man
because that man was a danger to him and to Lydia?
Could he use their weapons, he who had always wanted
to fight honestly for decency and order? The answer
was no longer so simple as it had once been; many of
his ideas had changed. Had it been possible to defend
peaceful Austria by peace? Could you shrink from em
141
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 147/257
ploying the methods of an utterly ruthless foe if by those
methods you could strike him before he overwhelmed
you ? Anton remembered that he would not have hesit
ated for a moment to shoot the Saxon, if by doing so
he could have assured Lydia's safety. This present
scheme of his was far less drastic. Strehse would at
worst only be suspected; there could be no conclusive
proof one way or the other. Who knew how their su
periors would react? Moreover, Anton ran the risk of
having his own weapon turned against himself.
Toward morning, he felt utterly fagged out from
wracking his brains and fell asleep again. When he
awoke from his dreams, only the vision of Lydia re
mained. But in sleep the decision had been made; he
was resolved to enter the lists with his opponent.
When he reported
in the Ducal Palace, he was led
at once to the office of the Commandant. Here the of
ficer on duty questioned him briefly; then he was dis
armed and confined in a small room. The Saxon must
have acted fast, he told himself, and reproached himself
for not having carried out his plan that night or at least
early in the morning. But he did not lose heart. With
nerve and resolution, he could still win out at the hear
ing.It took some six hours before they came for him
142
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 148/257
again. During this time he waited alone in a bare room.
They had promised to bring him something to eat at
noon, but no one came. Anton had time to think through
every possible question and answer over and over. When
his mind wavered from the immediate problem for a
moment, he thought of Lydia and tried to follow in his
imagination the dangerous road she must be traveling.
The consciousness that by boldly striking back at
Strehse he was helping to protect her cheered and en
couraged him.
During the hearing he remained cool and objective.
He answered every question without hesitation, with a
kind of somnambulistic sureness. There were several
lengthy interruptions. During this first day he was
questioned four separate times. That day he saw neither
the Commandant with the undistinguished assessor's
face, nor the Saxon Commissar. Toward evening some
food was brought
and at the same time an iron army
cot
was set up for him.
This went on for two days. Everything was the same,
except that the hearings grew shorter and rarer. On the
fourth day he was unexpectedly confronted with Strehse.
This time the commandant himself presided, and in his
ugly voice threw catch questions at both of them.
Strehse seemed older and in bad form. His green eyes
shifted incessantly, and often his thick lips trembled inthe midst of an answer.
143
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 149/257
Anton was encouraged by Strehse's insecurity. Al
though he was in the wrong, he felt that his conscience
was the clearer. It was strange, he thought; things had
changed so much and yet a clear conscience was still
terribly important in a police investigation. Whenever
he looked straight into Strehse's eyes with his own clear
blue eyes, the Commissar lowered his gaze.
Anton was not told what interpretation his opponent
had put upon the incident. But from the questions and
the facial expressions of the examiners he guessed they
were trying to decide whom to believe. After the cross-
questioning both men were taken under guard back to
their rooms.
About five o'clock that afternoon Anton was again
sent for and led into the Commandant's office. "You're
free," the Commandant said without preliminary. "I had
the area of the escape searched once more and this time
traces of the fugitive were discovered which support
your story. Moreover, investigation has shown that this
is not the first time Strehse has been guilty of such der
elictions. He was mixed up with a number of women
before this and was never reported because some of
our men had a false idea of comradeship. What's more,
he threw away government funds on these women. A
poor specimen, to put it mildly. You've worked with us
long enough to understand why I had to arrest you andexamine you just as strictly as Strehse. I'm sorry that
144
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 150/257
you've lost several valuable days because of it. We have
a big job to do in Poland and, who knows, perhaps else
where before long. I've proposed you for special service
in our Mobile Corps. Hold yourself in readiness for
marching orders within the next few days."
Anton stood stiffly at attention. He thanked his su
perior for his confidence and asked where he was to
await his orders. "At your present post," he was told.
Anton's jubilation at the success of his counterstroke
was dampened by the impending separation from Lydia.
Separation? As yet he did not know whether she had
made her way to his aunt's, whether she had made any
effort to go there. It was strange: during these last few
days in Prague he had never for a moment doubted that
if all went well he would meet her again in his aunt's
home. Instead, he had been constantly tormented by the
fear that he himself would not arrive in time to take
care of her. But now all the imps of the imagination
conspired to convince him that they would never meet
again, that he would wait in vain for some word from
her. During the whole return journey this disturbing
conviction gnawed at him.
Anton arrived in the little town late at night. When
he reported to his office next morning he found all themen intoxicated with victory. The news of the first suc
145
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 151/257
cessful battles in Poland made it appear certain that the
German troops and German tanks would win a quick
victory. Then, they said, England would follow her traditional role of accepting the facts and would be glad
when the Fuehrer offered a peace with honor.
Anton left at the first opportunity and hurried to his
uncle's house. His heart was pounding as he pulled the
old bell-cord. His aunt opened the door; she was alone in
the house. "Nothing new?" Anton asked as he entered.
"Nothing but German victories in Poland," she replied.
"The same thing is happening to the Poles that hap
pened to us."
Anton paled. No mention of Lydia. It was inconceiv
able that his aunt would conceal Lydia's arrival.
"You seem upset," his aunt said.
Anton considered for a moment, then decided to pre
pare her, in case Lydia came. "If somebody asks after
me", he said, "have him or her wait here for me. I'll
drop in again later."
"You've been away a long time. Will you come this
evening, Toni?"
"Thanks, I'll be glad to. Especially since I'll probably
be transferred away from here soon."
"Back home?"
"I don't know yet."
"In any
case, I'll pack
the things your
mother want
ed." She placed her hands on her hips and looked after
146
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 152/257
him with a worried expression as he hurried off. In his
disappointment that Lydia had not come, he had for
gotten to thank his aunt.
Early in the afternoon he again stopped at his aunt's
for a moment, but no one had been there for him.
In the evening, at supper, conversation lagged. The
news from Poland depressed them all. Anton tried to
relate some of the superficial events of his trip to
Prague, but his mind was not on what he was saying.
Suddenly the words froze on his lips. The bell had
rung. Everyone looked up. Who could be coming at
this hour?
One of the sisters went to the door and brought Anton
an official telegram that a soldier had brought from
headquarters. Anton tried to conceal the doubly pain
ful deflation of his hopes. He opened the telegram and
read: "Report in Vienna tomorrow and await orders to
depart with Eastern Group." The telegram was signed
by the Prague Gestapo headquarters.
This was what he had feared all during his ride from
Prague. Now he would be separated from Lydia when
he had only just found her. Perhaps separated for ever.
He stayed with his aunt's family longer than usual
that evening, clinging to the last to the improbable hope
that a miracle would happen, that she would appear at
the last moment. When the clock struck eleven, he roseand thanked them all for the hospitality he had enjoyed
147
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 153/257
so often. None of them suspected how hard it was for
him to leave.
"No exaggerated politeness now," his uncle said, andshook hands with Anton in his dry, quiet fashion.
"We've all been glad to have you Anton."
Aunt Peppi hastily brought in a large package. "I
almost forgot to give you these things for your mother,"
she said. "There's a whole roast goose in here, and the
liver is wrapped separately in waxed paper. Mrs. Neme-
cek, who was in Vienna last week, told me you can pass
that much as a snack for the trip. So you won't have
any trouble with the customs. As an official you can
easily pass the woolens and the linens, as well as the
butter and eggs and the other little things. Give my love
to your mother. And the next time you come, Toni, she
must come with you. Tell her I said so."
The eyes of the twin sisters grew moist when they
saw their mother's emotion. Frantisek gazed at Anton
with grave, penetrating eyes. "Is anyone else coming
to take your place here?" he asked, extending his hand.
"I hardly think so," Anton replied.
He said goodbye to all once more. Then, at the door,
he added: "I'll drop in for a moment in the morning
to give you a letter in case the person I expect asks for
me after I leave."
"All right," his uncle replied. "We'll take care of it."
"The package!" his aunt called after him.
148
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 154/257
"Thanks, I'll take it in the morning." Anton closed
the door behind him. He crossed the rough cobblestone
street and set out for his hotel. He had reached the
path leading up to the 'palace' when he heard steps be
hind him in the deserted street. He turned and saw
Frantisek.
The young Czech hastened up to him and whispered
excitedly: "Come right back with me. Someone has
come for you."
Anton could scarcely believe his ears. It must beLydia. The miracle had happened.
"A girl?" he asked, to settle his lingering doubts.
"A beautiful girl, a wonderful, beautiful girl !"
They had reached the street lamp over the castel gate
and Anton saw that his cousin's sullen reticence had been
replaced by the expression of frank trust that Anton had
glimpsed once before.
Frantisek took him by the hand and drew him into the
dark hallway. "If you need anything for her," he whisp
ered, "count on me. She's one of our people; she
brought me vital news from the Pilsen Sokols. If she
trusts you, I trust you too."
Anton did not answer. He was too choked with joy
ful anticipation to speak. They entered the living room.
His uncle sat alone in his armchair in the bay window.
"You have no time to lose, Frantisek," he said coolly.
"We must have a baptismal certificate and residential
149
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 155/257
certificate for her tonight; by tomorrow everything must
be in order. We'll call her Maria Svoboda and say
she's the daughter of my late sister."
Anton looked around for Lydia. Things were hap
pening so fast his head was reeling. But the new name
pleased him. It was a common Czech name, but the
meaning of it was "liberty."
"I'll go to see Sokoup right away," Frantisek said
eagerly. "He's our former town clerk," he added, turn
ing to Anton. "He managed to save all our rubber
stamps and official seals so that he can forge any kind
of certificate with genuine signatures." Swiftly and
smoothly as a cat, he went out again.
The door of the adjoining bedroom opened and Lydia
appeared. Behind her, giggling and chattering, came
the two sisters, and then Anton's aunt.
Anton stood gazing at Lydia across the table. Her
lovely oval face smiled radiantly at him, but there was
something strange about her. Then he realized that it
was her clothes; she was wearing the bright, charming
costume of a Czech peasant girl.
His uncle rose silently and led his wife and daughters
into the bedroom. A moment later Anton felt the lace
of Lydia's peasant blouse against his throat and her lips
on his. It was as though they had belonged together
for years, as though they had been marking time duringtheir brief separation and only now awoke once more to
150
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 156/257
the fullness of living. Questions, answers, exclamations
of astonishment and joy burst from them. Within a few
minutes each knew everything that had happened to the
other in the interval since they had parted.
Lydia's severest trials occurred during the first night
of flight. She had walked downstream along the river
for hours without finding a house she, dared enter. Twice
she had almost run into patrolling German soldiers and
had hidden only at the last moment. She had almost
collapsed from hunger and exhaustion. For several
hours she had slept among bushes and awakened half-
frozen. Shortly before dawn she had finally reached a
small village and knocked on the window of a house.
An old woman had heard her and opened the door. Sh<
was taken into the kitchen, given potato schnaps and
warm tea and put to bed. Toward noon she had awak
ened refreshed, told the old peasants her story and been
given the clothes she was now wearing. She had offeredto pay them with some of Anton's money, but they had
indignantly refused and sent her to the next village on
a wagon loaded with bricks. From then on everything
had gone smoothly, except for a few tense moments
when she had to hide again from German guards. On
the second day she had reached the railroad and might
have come to him that night if she had not had business
more important than her safety. She had gone to the
nearby town of Pilsen, where she had stayed in hiding
151
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 157/257
for several days. Then she had taken the night express
here and easily found her way to Anton's uncle's house.
Lydia listened anxiously and her dark eyes sparkled
wantonly when Anton told her how he had overcome
his dangerous opponent. She lightly kissed away his
doubts about the ruthless methods he had employed.
"Only a man could be so scrupulous," she exclaimed.
"We women know by intuition that against these ban
dits all the bars are down." With clarity and self-as
surance she had voiced the thought he himself had
found it hard to defend before his own conscience.
Time had ceased to exist. They were still standing in
close embrace at the spot near the table where they had
found one another again. The painful realization awoke
in Anton that he must soon leave her again. He would
have to tell her. And yet, there were so many questions
he must ask before he left. He could not part from her
again without knowing what her secret work was, what
dangers she was facing, what she had done in Pilsen and
what he himself could do to help safeguard her.
As he took the telegram from his pocket, he saw by
her expression that the others had told her he would
be leaving soon.
"We still have tonight," she said, her dark eyes fixed
upon his. "But I don't think we ought to trouble your
aunt any longer. Your uncle and the children must workin the factory tomorrow and need their sleep."
152
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 158/257
"Where will you stay?" Anton asked anxiously.
"I'll ask them. I won't stay here long in any case."
Anton knocked at the bedroom door. His aunt came
out.
"Your bed is ready," she said to Lydia. "Aninka
will sleep on the couch tonight and tomorrow we'll
make better arrangements. ...""Oh, I can't impose on you like that," Lydia replied.
"No exaggerated politeness", said the uncle, standing
in the doorway. "Our house is at your disposal as long
as you stay here in town. And I think there's no safer
place for you."
Lydia thanked them and accepted the invitation.
"Both of us have a good deal to talk over," she said,
hesitantly.
"Don't worry about us," Anton's uncle replied.
"We'll just go to bed. Good night."
"Good night," his aunt said. "And don't forget tocome for mother's package tomorrow, Toni."
"And the letter," his uncle added.
"I won't have to leave the letter now," Anton laughed.
The others left the room and once more he was alone
with Lydia. They sat down at the table, and only then
did they notice that Aunt Peppi had set out an assort
ment of sweets and a bottle of homemade rose wine
for them.
Anton got up again to make sure that no suspicious
153
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 159/257
gleam of light shone through the windows. The high,
tightly-closed shutters reassured him; no light could
possibly penetrate through the smooth brown wood. He
knew he could easily explain his long absence from the
hotel—though it was unlikely anyone would question
him—as due to a farewell party.
As he uncorked the bottle and poured the golden
liquid into their glasses, the old clock on the sideboard
opposite the china closet began to strike. Twelve har
monious chimes sounded, and again
Anton was remind
ed of Lydia's voice. He looked into her eyes, and she
returned his gaze. Both knew they were thinking of
that midnight they had first met. Wordlessly, they
touched glasses and drank. Then, as though she were
the mistress of the house, Lydia took the bowl of sweets
and offered them to Anton. For a while they sat in
silence, letting the delicious "little kisses" melt upon
their tongues."Strange," Lydia said, "here we are far away from
home, in a strange room, sitting together as though it
were the most natural thing in the world. And yet neith
er of us knows anything about the life of the other."
She jumped up suddenly and went to the bay window.
She had noticed there a framed engraving on the wall
near the china closet. It was a print of the Stephansdom
in Vienna. She began to hum the song "Old Steffel," the
song that recounted the many trials the old cathedral
154
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 160/257
had experienced. Anton's deep bass hummed accompa
niment. But almost at once he put his finger to his lips
to silence her, and Lydia came back to the table.
They began to question one another and to talk of
their childhood days in old imperial Vienna. Lydia
knew it only through the descriptions of her parents,
both of whom had died very young. But she knew the
Vienna that had slowly reawakened in the period bet
ween the two wars. She knew all its suffering, its sor
rows and its hopes.
And she cherished it for its un
spoiled magic and charm and its unspoilable joie de
vivre.
They found that they had lived for years in the same
district of the city, without ever having met before that
fateful night. The delicate oval of Lydia's face, seem
ing even frailer in contrast with the peasant dress,
darkened, and the fire of hatred came into her eyes as
she recalled those sad days of March when Austria hadlost her freedom.
Anton hesitated to hurt her. Yet he felt that he must
make use of the short time they still had together to
find out about her life, to learn of its wounds and its
secrets.
The strong rose wine had flushed her cheeks. She
seemed to Anton almost divinely beautiful. And finally
she consented to talk about herself.
She had been born on her father's small estate near
155
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 161/257
the former Austrian city of Gmuend. The estate was
close to the Bohemian border, and she had learned
Czech and German at the same time. Now her com
mand of the two languages stood her in good stead.
Both her parents were dead by the time she was nine
and she had been brought up by relatives in Vienna. The
estate was sold, and the proceeds were enough to as
sure her a modest living. She fitted in easily everywhere,
and everyone was kind and friendly to her. But her life
had seemed to her dull and purposeless until her uncle,
the professor, had opened up to her the world of in
tellect. All sorts of interesting people came to his house:
musicians, students of the various arts and sciences.
There were foreigners, too: Americans and Rus
sians and Chinese. Conversation flowed free and fast,
and Lydia felt that she had probably learned more vital
things about the world in her uncle's living room than
others ever learn in time-consuming travels. Occasion
ally she had helped the professor with his work, and he
had got into the habit of dictating his letters to her.
Gradually she had become his secretary; she had been
familiar with all his business and all his interests. He
had been one of the few men in the world to see through
the lying German promises and assurances of peaceful
intentions. In his writings he had bitterly fought the
Nazis and all they
stood for. He knew that he was per
sonally doomed if the Nazis should ever enter Vienna,
156
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 162/257
but he never dreamed of retracting or fleeing abroad,
though several foreign universities had offered him seats.
Lydia withdrew her hand from Anton's. Her features
tautened and her dark eyes flashed as she continued:
"During the crisis in Berchtesgaden, when for the
first time the Germans openly threatened to employ
force against Austria, a group of us were gathered at
my uncle's house. Four students, a concert violinist, a
painter, my best friend and I myself. My uncle ex
plained to us what was facing Austria. And all of us
took an oath not to let Austria be swamped by the flood
of German propaganda lies, not to be taken in by their
myth of the union of all Germans. We knew that the
eight of us couldn't hold back the course of history. But
we felt we were at least strong enough to fight for truth,
to help reveal the monstrous lie to the free nations of
the earth. "We Austrians are as different from the Ger
mans as the Americans are from the British,' my uncle
had said over and over again. But the trouble was the
Austrians were not used to making a fuss about being
Austrians. Many of them didn't understand until after
our country was invaded. Then they learned to their
dismay that an alien race had fallen upon them, an
enemy with whom they had nothing in common but a
literary language. . . Forgive me, you know that as well
as I." She broke off and glanced at his face.Anton nodded. He did know. But Lydia did not
157
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 163/257
give him a chance to speak. "I want you to know ev
erything now," she said, gazing down at the table. "The
eight of us formed a secret league that night. Each of
us swore to my uncle to sacrifice his personal happiness
and personal safety without hesitation in the fight for
our goal, for the liberation of our country. We decided
on an order of rank—who would lead our league after
my uncle. Actually it is the violinist; he succeeded in
crossing into Tyrol and then into Switzerland. The
painter, two of the students and my girl friend fell in
to the hands of the Nazi hangmen. My friend is dead ;
I don't know what happened to the others. Two of the
students succeeded in remaining in Vienna and work
ing unobtrusively. Our secret radio station has been in
constant contact with them. I myself succeeded in taking
my uncle's important papers and his letters to his friends
over the border on the first day—thanks to you!"
She stood
up, and Anton drew her down at his side.
"Did you know that night how I felt, Lydia?" he asked.
"I didn't realize at first. But still I sensed that you
had to share my opinions and my feelings. Your face
and your familiar green uniform, which always meant
order and security to me, were as much a part of the
Austrian landscape as the profile of the Leopoldsberg or
a mountain slope at Salzburg. . . But it was only when
your face appeared at the door of the train compartment, the same as ever in spite of the terrible danger,
158
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 164/257
that I knew it hadn't been chance that brought us to
gether that first time. ...""For me you are my native land," Anton said. He
kissed her and they clung together in a long embrace.
Suddenly they started up. A sound like the opening
of a door came from the hallway. A moment later
Frantisek bounded into the room, his brown eyes alight
with pride and zeal.
"Here are the papers, all ready," he burst out breath
lessly. He threw two judiciously crumpled sheets of
paper, resplendent with official seals, on the table in
front of Lydia. "We tried to make them look old," he
laughed, blinking happily.
"Marvelous!" Lydia exclaimed as she examined the
papers. Anton joined in her praise.
The young Czech said a few words to Lydia in his
native tongue. He spoke too fast for Anton to under
stand, and when Anton looked up questioningly Fran
tisek repeated what he had said in fluent German.
"Since when did you learn German?"
"I attended the Technical Trade School at Aussig for
three years."
"You deceiver", Anton laughed.
Meanwhile Lydia had taken another glass from the
sideboard. She poured Frantisek the remainder of the
rose wine. The clock struck two."I haven't finished my story, Anton," Lydia said.
159
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 165/257
"Your cousin has heard what happened through his
friends in Pilsen. A week ago our secret transmitter
was discovered —we'd been broadcasting to England,
Switzerland and Austria for over a year. In connection
with that I was arrested. The most important task we
have now is to see to it that our voice doesn't vanish
from the air. Our friends must hear us and know they
can count on us. . . We must do something. . .
"Again
the inner fire that Anton knew so well smoldered in
her eyes.
Frantisek interrupted her. "You use our transmitter
in the factory," he said, with an involuntary worried
glance at Anton.
Anton was astounded. "You have a secret transmitter
here in the factory?" he exclaimed. "Here, under the
noses of the occupation authorities?"
The young Czech smiled proudly. "They'll never find
it," he said. "It's built into father's dye-room,
hidden
under hundreds of bottles and tubes. And it has special
equipment that diverts suspicion a thousand miles away.
The Germans are looking for the transmitter somewhere
abroad."
"Your father knows about it?"
"He runs it."
Anton gasped. It was hard to believe that the old
man's dry moderate manner concealed the knowledgeof such a dangerous undertaking.
160
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 166/257
"Do you send to Austria?" he asked.
"They don't know our wave length there yet . . . at
least, I don't think they do.""That's too bad," Lydia said. She seemed to be
thinking hard. "We must let my friends know the wave
length and broadcasting time. ..."Anton understood before she turned to him. "I'll
take care of that," he said eagerly. He was rewarded
by a warm glance that expressed all her gratitude. Fran-
tisek sprang to his feet with a low cry of joy. "If Anton
helps us," he exclaimed, "there's nothing we can't do."
They began to talk excitedly. Outside the silent night
pressed upon the room; inside the three conspirators
exchanged ideas, plans, hopes. Lydia named her as
sociates in the free nations abroad. She knew the trem
endous forces that were slowly but inexorably gathering
to oppose the German conquerors. Frantisek amazed
them both when he revealed how widespread and tight
ly-knit was the band of determined conspirators among
his countrymen. And Anton saw clearly for the first
time why he had traveled his long and bitter way; why
he had been forced, almost against his will, to enter the
very body of the monster in order to strike, to blind and
to kill it. He promised to use his position to help their
cause; to obtain information about impending German
actions; and to help^ protect
the underground
workers
against the German police, as he had done in Lydia's
161
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 167/257
case. He vowed to trace the movements and stopping
places of the highest Nazi leaders, and to probe all the
weak spots of their system. The clock struck three, then four, and still the three
conspirators sat around the oval table, no trace of weari
ness in their eyes. They thought out a hundred possib
ilities and probabilities, decided on passwords and on
code words for all important information.
Shortly after four in the morning Frantisek got up to
go; this was one of the days when he met his fellow-
conspirators in a corner of the castle gardens. All that
he felt and thought was expressed in his handshake as
he bade Anton goodbye. A new confidence in victory
flamed in his dark brown eyes.
"Be careful, Frantisek," Anton said. "Don't do any
thing without uncle's advice."
When he was again alone with Lydia, he silently em
braced her. "Now you belong to us," Lydia said, laying
her cheek tenderly against his. "And tonight we've ful
filled a part of the oath to sacrifice our own happiness
to the cause. But we will see each other again, Anton,
and then I'll belong to you fully.". Her soft body pressed
against him in confirmation of her words and the kisses
of her iips.
The following morning,
when Anton stopped by
at
his aunt's to fetch the package for his mother, Lydia
162
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 168/257
was still sleeping soundly. Anton was glad. Why should
they endure another painful leavetaking, now that her
whole being had become forever a part of himself.
This time he had a compartment to himself during
the greater part of the journey. He stretched out and
made up for some of the sleep he had lost the night be
fore. At the border he showed his papers and was
passed without examination of his baggage. Early in
the afternoon his train pulled into the Franz Josef Sta
tion in Vienna, in the midst of a pouring rain. He en
tered one of the few taxis waiting at the ramp and gave
the driver his mother's address.
During the brief ride he was troubled by the thought
of Erna. How far apart they had drifted! Not once
during his absence had she written him, and although
he had always intended to send her at least a postcard,
he "had kept putting it off. Since that last evening to
gether he had
scarcely thought of her. And after his
reunion with Lydia, the memory of her had almost van
ished from his mind. Now that he was probably going
to see her again, she seemed to him no more than the
pleasant, cheerful and inconsequential girl he had once
thought her, before he fell in love with her. Pretty and
well-mannered, to be sure, but far too concerned with
small pleasures and a secure future. The fate of all the
good, honest people she had been intimate with meantlittle to her. Indeed, she had scarcely been touched by
163
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 169/257
the great changes that the cruel invasion had brought.
Her only reaction was excitement at the prospect of
material advancement —which meant taking the placesof the victims of the new regime.
Anton wondered how he could ever have imagined
he loved her. And yet he must have; he must have
loved her for a long time in those distant days when
he had stood stolidly on his wooden platform, perform
ing duties that often proved difficult, but that were al
ways definite and simple. Now the current of events
had changed all this. Through all the turmoil of de
cisions in his own uprooted life, Lydia's dark eyes smiled
at him, tender with love and at the same time afire with
the exciting knowledge of a common fate—and a com
mon peril. Their future was obscure, but it would not
be dull.
Through the rain-spattered windows Anton could see
little of the city. They drove past the white, Gothic twin
towers of the Votive Church. Then the cab turned into
the majestic Ringstrasse, where the red and brown leaves
of autumn already were swirling down from the lanes
of trees. Then around a corner and up the familiar grey
side street.
"Home!" he whispered to himself as they stopped
before the building that housed the police precinct.
Frau Leopoldine
stared wide-eyed
when she saw her
son standing in the open doorway. Her plump face
164
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 170/257
seemed thinner. She threw her arms around Anton.
Anton, to conceal his own emotion, soberly put down
his bags and gave his mother the packages from his aunt.
While she unpacked i t ,
carefully, not to tear the string
or the strong wrapping paper, she asked questions and
chattered in her old lively manner. Each of the presents
called forth exclamations of delight; i twas along time
since such delicacies had been seen in her kitchen. She
told Anton that almost all important foods were already
rationed, and that even with ration cards they could not
always be obtained. There were shortages of clothes,
linens, cotton-goods and shoes. Things that could be
had without cards were usually of the worst quality.
Nevertheless, she had saved some of her good old
coffee for Anton, and soon the familiar fragrance was
wafted to him as he sat smoking in the old green arm
chair b y
the window.
His mother told him that the declarations of war at
the end of the summer had opened the eyes of many
misguided Viennese. The war had been aterrible blow
to the city as awhole, and had depressed everyone.
They had been promised apeaceful revival of economic
life within the newly-established Greater German Reich.
Instead they faced aperiod of privation and hardship
for who knew how long. The freckled chauffeur, Peter,
had been drafted and with almost his entire company
had fallen in abattle in South Poland. In fact, i twas
165
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 171/257
said that Austrians were always sent into battle first,
whenever a situation was critical. If they won, well and
good; if they died, the Prussian generals didn't worry
too much about it. Erna's brother, too, had been called
to the colors, although his firm had tried to keep him
as an indispensable man. He was to be sent to the front
in a few days—Anton's mother had heard from a mutual
acquaintance. She no longer saw Erna at all. Had Erna
and Anton quarreled? The same acquaintance had
hinted that she had seen Erna going out with another
man.
"If it were only true," Anton thought. For his cons- ■
cience still troubled him about Erna, although she had
jokingly released him that last night they were together.
Anton washed, and drank his coffee. Then he set out
for headquarters. The rain had stopped, the dark as
phalt gleamed and the air had a fresh, autumnal frag
rance. He crossed the Ringstrasse to the Schottentor.
The tall, ornate park railings along both sides of the
Hofburg were gone, so that you could touch the trees
in passing. "Melted into cannon," Anton thought. He
observed the faces of the people. Most of them were
blank and weary; it was as though an invisible leaden
cloud had descended upon them. Many people stopped
talking and looked around cautiously when he ap
proached them. On the backs of the benches along theboulevards, in thick black letters, were the words: "For
" l r -
166
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 172/257
Aryans only." The benches gleamed wetly and were all
unoccupied. Every second man seemed to be wearing
some kind of uniform: grey, brown or black. A proces
sion of the BDM, the League of German Girls,—also
in uniform—marched past, singing in sweet, youthful
voices the coarse melody of the Horst Wessel Song.
The palaces, monuments and churches still stood in their
old places. But Anton, with his sharpened awareness of
street-traffic, could sense behind all the outward show
the helpless resistance of this city to the unwanted, sense
less, alien war that was like a cancer upon the inner life
of the people.
At police headquarters he delivered his report. No
new orders had come for him; he was instructed to re
port on the following day to another headquarters,
where he would be trained and instructed for his new
tasks. He asked one of the men he knew what had hap
pened to his old police captain, whom he
wanted to
visit. "Transferred to Pomerania," he was told. Trans
ferred—like so many others. The Nazis systematically
exchanged Austrians with police officers from the prov
inces of the Reich. Beppo? Beppo was supposed to be
on a secret mission in Linz. And Sepp ? Sepp had not
yet passed his examinations. Anton decided to visit him
in the morning.
He waited in a cafe until after dusk and then tookthe tram to a district near the Leopoldsberg, where he
167
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 173/257
hoped to find one of Lydia's students. It was already
quite dark by the time he reached the hilly, slippery
side-street in which the student lived.
After searching for some time with the aid of his
flashlight, he found a small house that bore the number
Lydia had given him. He climbed the wooden steps to
the second story. On one of the doors a small metal
strip bore the name of the student. He stood at the
door for a moment, listening. It seemed to him he
heard voices from within the apartment. He lifted the
knocker and rapped sharply. The voices fell silent, but
no one answered. He knocked again. Still nothing
stirred. He began to pound heavily on the door. A
barely audible sound came to him, like the careful open
ing of a window or a chest. Then silence again. "They
think I'm—what I am," Anton realized. What could
he do? Today might be his only opportunity to dis
charge his mission and carry out his
promise. Tomorrow
he might be sent away again. He must get in. He began
to pound heavily on the door again, until his knuckles
smarted. Still no answer.
There was no help for i t ,
he decided; he must use
extraordinary methods to break this senseless, paralyz
ing silence. "Open at once, State Police," he cried in
the urgent, threatening tone he had learned so well.
Again no answer. "If you don't open immediately we'llbreak down the door."
168
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 174/257
At last he heard footsteps approaching. The door
was unbolted and Anton stood face to face with a tall
young man with the blonde hair and blue eyes of the
ideal nordic type. "I beg your pardon, officer," he said
calmly. "I was working in the next room and didn't
realize the knocking was for me. My roommate seems
to have gone out. What can I do for you?"
Anton entered and closed the door behind him. "I've
just come from Bohemia," he said without preliminary,
"and I've been asked to bring you regards from Lydia."
"Lydia. I don't happen to know anyone by that
name." Not a muscle twitched in the student's strong,
angular countenance. "It must be a mistake. ..."He sounded so convincing that for a moment Anton
was nonplussed. But how could he expect the man to
admit his connection with Lydia to an utter stranger—
and one, moreover, who had just cried aloud that he
was a Gestapo agent."I'm sorry that appearances make it hard for you to
believe me," he said. "Your own caution made it neces
sary for me to take such drastic measures to get in. But
I am not your enemy. I know the whole story of your
secret league, not because I spied out your secrets but
because I've become a member —even though I do be
long to the Gestapo!"
The student still seemed hesitant. He now wore a
puzzled expression, as though he were listening to the
169
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 175/257
disconnected, incomprehensible talk of a madman.
"Yes," Anton continued gaily, "I am a member, even
if I did not swear an oath to the professor, like Lydiaand the violinist and the painter and the other. ..."
The student suddenly gripped Anton's hand, and his
cold mien warmed instantly. "I believe you," he said
cordially. "No one of us would have betrayed the oth
ers. Forgive my suspicions; I was rather amazed, as
you can well understand . . . You've really seen Lydia ?
She's alive ?
"She's free and living in a safe place."
"Thank God. . . We haven't had a word from her for
over a week; we feared the worst. ..." There was much to talk about, many questions to be
asked. The student led Anton into his study. "Heinz!"
he called. The door of a large chest opened and a young
man clambered out. He looked like a smaller edition
of the nordic student. He was the younger brother of
Anton's host. Otmar, the eldest brother, was soon to
take his doctoral examination in chemistry; Heinz had
specialized in radio. Both brothers were blonde young
giants who looked like typical nordics. They were the
kind of men whose pictures were constantly being print
ed on the covers of magazines of "racial science", as
typifying the master race. Laughing, they told Anton
how safe they
were behind their "nordic"
masks. No
Nazi spy dreamed of suspecting them.
170
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 176/257
Within an hour all important details had been dis
cussed. Anton was given secret telephone numbers and
addresses which he could use to keep in touch with the
two. But most important of all, the two now had the
wavelength of Frantisek's station. Tonight, within some
forty minutes, they would hear Lydia's voice on the air.
They left the apartment and Heinz led them by a de
vious route to where he had cleverly installed his re
ceiving set.
And in the midst of a world oppressed by sorrow and
killing, the miracle took place. Across mountains, rivers
and plains the voice of his sweetheart came to Anton ;
her clear, vibrant, bell-like voice. For a moment Anton
was terribly afraid for her. Wasn't she running an in
sane risk; wouldn't the Gestapo listening posts recognize
her voice? Then the manufactured death by drowning
would be exposed and the hunt for her would begin
again. But the two brothers reassured him. Lydia had
never spoken before; she had always acted merely as
the liaison agent between them and those who ran the
secret radio station.
Anton listened breathlessly. He yielded completely
to the joy of being with her once more. Otmar took
down her speech, which lasted for some twenty minutes.
Later they would check it over for code words contain
ing special messages. Only once, during the broadcast,did an interfering station try to jam the air waves.
171
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 177/257
When the message was decoded, Anton learned that
America was leaning more and more to direct aid to
England. This was news that the German newspapers
completely suppressed. In addition, there were greet
ings to Anton and word that Lydia and her friends
were well and safe.
Anton wanted to come again to hear more broadcasts.
But he decided not to. Visiting the students once more
might lead to complications; there was always the
chance that he might be seen with them. He knew that
chances must be taken only when the risk was worth
while.
He would not see them again. But the peril they
shared in common had linked him closer to these two
young men, whom he had known for so short a time,
than years of ordinary acquaintanceship could have done.
Anton left them before they reached Otmar's apartment
again and rode back to the city, which was already
shrouded in the gloomy semi-darkness of the blackout.
In the course of his official duties the following day,
Anton met his old friend, Sepp the Tyrolian. As soon
as they were alone Sepp burst into a series of dialectal
oaths. Apparently he had been storing them up ever
since Anton's departure, for lack of suitable listeners. The two had not seen one another since the outbreak
172
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 178/257
of the war. If before the war the officers and officials
from the Reich had been arrogant and superior, they
had now dropped all pretenses and behaved like feudallords in Vienna, demanding gratitude and loving hom
age. Slow-moving, easy-going Sepp was one of those
who had secretly begun to grumble soon after the oc
cupation. But only now was he beginning to under
stand what had been lost. With tight-lipped sullenness
he told Anton what terrible losses the Tyrolian regi
ments had suffered during the first weeks of fighting. In
his own tiny village in the Stubai valley alone, a dozen
families mourned their sons. Meanwhile, the German
lords drank up the new wine in Grinzing and guarreled
with the natives, who evinced no eagerness to join them
in drinking to victory and world empire. Some of the
instructors in the courses Sepp now attended were also
"stinking Prussian swine who cheat the life out of you."
Anton let the man talk. He felt that the day was not
very distant when this essentially good fellow, who was
a slow but unyielding hater, would be a valuable ad
junct to his cause.
That afternoon Anton was stopped in the street by a
soldier whom he failed at first to recognize. It was
Franz, Erna's brother. In his sober military grey he did
not look quite so distinguished as he had in the soft
flannels of the industrial director. He was in a hurryand only stopped to say hello. Nevertheless, he found
173
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 179/257
time to make a remark in keeping with his position of
former industrialist — about the economic idiocy of
warfare. There was no knowing whereto all this wouldlead, he added timidly. When Anton asked after Erna,
Franz shifted uneasily. "She's always terribly busy,"
he replied evasively. Anton asked him to give her his
regards and to tell her she could probably reach him
at his mother's during the next few days.
"There's still some hope that things will turn out all
right," Franz said in parting. "Maybe a miracle will
happen."
The following day Anton was unable to leave the
building on the Schottenring that housed the police
headquarters. With others who were to join the
Mobile Corps, he was given instruction in the "pacifica
tion of occupied territory" and the treatment of the
civilian populace. The same Breslau Gestapo Colonel
lectured, the one with the drooping mustaches and the
watery eyes of a grammar school teacher. He pounded
home his doctrines of how to choose hostages, how to
destroy existing offices and organizations, how to main
tain unostentatious but constant watch over the entire
intelligentsia. He spoke on the technique of systematic
provocation and the degrees of persecution to be appliedto the local Jews.
174
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 180/257
They were to depart in two days, and each man
could expect to spend at least six months in Poland.
Anton left the building that evening tired out from
the hours of lectures. When he stood at last on the
street, taking deep breaths of the stimulating cool breeze
that blew down from the Leopoldsberg, he resolved that
he must make good use of the short time still remaining
to him in Vienna. He did not want another six months
to pass without his having done anything to extend the
webb of intrigue—for liberty. It was bitter enough that
an endless time must pass before he would see Lydia
again. At least he could arrange for her to hear from
him soon and to know that even during his absence
progress was being made here.
He looked for Sepp. The Tyrolian had already left,
but Anton found him at his home. Together they went
out to a small, obscure cafe where there was no one to
disturb them.
Anton spoke openly for the first time. He knew that
at worst Sepp would simply refuse; the man would
never betray a comrade. The effect of his little speech
was not at all what he had imagined. The Tyrolian
listened attentively, and his ruddy peasant's face seemed
to flush even deeper. Then he put down his half-empty
glass of wine and said, "Well, well, here I thought I
knew you well and I haven't known you at all." Thenhis big hand slammed down on the table so heavily
175
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 181/257
that the glasses danced. "And you didn't know me
either!" he roared, shaking with laughter.
Anton stared at him in astonishment."Do you think you Viennese have a lease on brains?"
Sepp went on. "Before those German dogs came we
Tyrolians in Vienna had our club and our "Berg-Isel"
evenings. They said it wasn't "desirable", so they dis
solved our club. They didn't know us. Let them stop
us, we said, and since then we've been meeting at the
home of a minister. ..."
Anton's face lit up. "Prosit, Sepp!" he said, and
drank down his glass. "Why didn't you ever tell me
about it?"
"We were sworn to secrecy," Sepp replied. "But your
own damned frankness made me spill it."
"What do you talk about when you meet?"
"We don't talk much, we swear. And ever so often
we do things. Our ministers have connections all over
the country. And we have some Tyrolians working in
factories. Sometimes machines have broken down and
now and then we've smuggled fugitives over the mount
ains. . . If only we knew what the others are thinking
and feeling, in Lower Austria and in Kaernten and in
Steiermark. They must be catching on that they've been
tricked. ...""Don't you have any contact with them?"
"It's too dangerous to speak openly with anyone you
176
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 182/257
haven't known all your life. And those Nazis watch
us like hawks. Once they almost caught us."
It was nearly eleven o'clock when the two men left
the cafe. There were no longer any secrets between
them. They both agreed that it was hopeless to venture
anything like an open revolt at the moment. But for
that very reason it was vitally important to recruit re
liable friends and prepare the way for the hour of libera
tion. And it was clear to them both that the Austrians
had a special task to perform. They must catch the
conquerors in their own net of lies, penetrate into the
ranks of their oppressors in the guise of "German broth
ers", bore from within among the officials, the army of
ficers and the enlisted men. Then, when the time was
ripe and the enslaved peoples rose up, they would be in
a position to strike the weapons from the hands of the
rulers.
Before the two men parted it was arranged betweenthem that Anton would introduce Sepp to the two stu
dents. Thus contact would be established with the
Czechs, and also with a former union leader who worked
in a factory town in Lower Austria. With the help of
these men, the web could gradually and cautiously be
extended to other parts of the country.
As Anton was bidding Sepp goodbye on the street
corner near the latter's home, they saw a uniformed
figure emerge from the doorway of Sepp's apartment, —
177
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 183/257
it belonged to a tailor from whom he rented a room.
In the dim light they could just distinguish the man as
he walked away in the opposite direction. "Beppo!"
Sepp whispered, and meaningfully put his fingers to
his lips.
"Is he still spying on you?"
"He's more dangerous than all the rest of them!"
Twenty-four hours later, seven hours before Anton
was to leave the city, he found time to meet Sepp and
the two students. Otmar and Heinz, it developed,
had
done a good deal of mountain climbing among the Stu-
bai glaciers and precipices, and a common chord was
quickly struck between them and the Tyrolian. Once
more, as a farewell gift to himself, Anton listened to
Lydia's distant voice over the hidden radio. Again it
seemed like a miracle to him that she was one of them.
Lydia had decided that the safest way for Anton and
herself to exchange mail would be through Frau Leo-
poldine and her sister, Aunt Peppi. On the eve of his
departure, Anton confided in his mother. He knew her
mettle, knew that for all her love of gossip she would
be able to guard such a secret behind an irreproachable
air of innocence. Still, he had hesitated to speak to her.
He was afraid she would be terrified by the perils he
faced. But she listened thoughtfully to him with hands
178
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 184/257
on her hips, and made no interruption. When he fin
ished he realized that she was rubbing her eyes with the
hem of her apron. She put a brave face on the matter.
"Good boy, Toni," she said, and a few fat tears rolled
down her cheeks. "Sometimes I almost thought you'd
become a Nazi!"
Relieved that she had taken it so calmly, Anton ex
plained to her just how she was to pass on his reports
in her letters to her sister. The code was very simple:
in his letters every word after a semicolon would havea hidden meaning and was to be used by her in her let
ters to Aunt Peppi. The same code applied to the letters
from Bohemia that contained messages for him.
Anton's mother asked many questions about Lydia.
She seemed to find it extremely interesting that her son
had such a dramatic relationship with this beautiful girl.
She knew Lydia by sight, having met her when she came
to visit the professor. With a mother's wisdom, she
grasped the situation immediately, and declared em
phatically that Erna was not worth a straw compared
to Lydia.
Anton also instructed her to include in her letters in
formation from Sepp, whom she already knew, and
from the two students, whom Sepp would introduce to
her. Fearing her memory might fail her, he wrote down
the code she was to use. But she waved the paper away
from her. "The words after the semicolons are the
179
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 185/257
important ones," she said. "I can remember that easily,
and I don't like having notes like this around the house.
Nowadays you can never know when your house willbe searched, and I'd rather not have anything around
for them to find. ..."Anton was happy that his mother had not failed him.
He felt satisfied that everything had been arranged
rather well under the circumstances. He slept soundly
and peacefully that night in his own bed, which he had
to leave now for longer than ever before.
They rode eastward. Endless fields of waving grain,
farmhouses that grew more dirty and ramshackle, vil
lage churches with bulbous cupolas. Wherever the rail
road tracks approached a highway he saw long convoys
of grey military trucks and horsedrawn wagons. Often
they were scarcely visible within the clouds of dust the
wheels churned up. Farther along in the plain the loose,
snakelike columns of marching infantry wound along
little roads —roads that were often indistinguishable
from the surrounding plains.
It was all so familiar to Anton. He himself had
tramped along just such roads more than twenty years
ago, when they marched against the Russians. The sol
diers seemed a little more comfortable now; they rode
more and marched less than in the last war. But, Anton
180
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 186/257
thought, the "blue beans" must taste just as bitter.
Since they had passed beyond the magnificent slopes
of the Carpathians, decked with the varicolored foliage
of autumn, the landscape had become a continuous, mo
notonous repetition. Fields, villages, bulbous cupolas,
strips of gloomy fir forests, then more villages and fields.
The night fell and Anton tried to sleep as best he
could in the crowded compartment. And on the follow
ing morning the unchanging plain was still there, as
though the train had not moved during the night.
On the evening of the third day the landscape
changed. Streamers of smoke and glowing red roofs
were warnings of the nearness to the front. More and
more frequent now, roofs shot high with flames into the
blackness of the night. Whole villages were burning ;
bare foundations, smoke-blackened and hollow, gaped
like craters under the sky. . . And twenty years ago, too,
the paths of warfare had been seared into the peacefullandscape and its milestones made by burning towns
and villages.
Misery was commonplace. Vacant lives of broken
men; sightless eyes; desperate, furrowed faces of old
men; pale, pleading mothers; blonde young men,
bloody from beatings, their throats defiant as those of
chained bulls; shy, ragged, hungry children; dead priests
nailed to crosses; girls whose cheeks had lost their
bloom, whose gay laughter had been strangled; scat
181
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 187/257
tered household goods trampled into the brown mud of
the streets; the wailing murmur of pale, feverish Jews
penned in a barn or haymow, intoning their prayers;bodies of guerilla fighters bloated with the brackish
water of the swamps and woods where they had been
shot down; the hate-filled, immeasurably bitter eyes of
weavers driven at bayonet's point back to their looms;
hostages dying proudly, silently; nocturnal raids by oc
cupation troops who from fear of hidden snipers fired
wildly in all directions; burning houses, ruins—these
were Anton's impressions of the land of Poland. Thiswas what he looked upon for days, weeks, months. So
profound was the resentment and torment of these peo
ple that no effort of Anton's could console and help
them. He tried whenever he was alone with them, but
they did not trust him. Dying men to whom he offered
water thought it was poisoned and dashed it upon the
charred earth.
Sitting at the long, well-provisioned table in the com
mon mess of the occupation officials, he had to put on
a cheerful face. Every night he had to drink to new
victories of the German Army, toast with the wines and
liqueurs plundered from the cellars of helpless citi2ens.
The army post office transmitted letters slowly, but
regularly. Anton learned that the underground move
ment in Bohemia and Moravia was making life difficult
for the "protectors" by discreet sabotage that was hard
182
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 188/257
to detect and almost impossible to stop. The two stu
dents had established cells of their secret organization
in Upper Austria and in Kaernten. Even in the Styriancapital of Graz, once a stronghold of Nazified Austrian
youth, a big boiler had inexplicably blown up. Lydia
was well, and spoke every night over the secret radio.
This news was a consolation to Anton, but it hurt him
that he was chained here in Poland, where he could do
nothing for the cause. What work could he do but send
reports on the inhuman cruelty and atrocities he saw all
about him? His mother transmitted these reports to
Lydia, who broadcast them to the free world—stirring,
hate-filled messages.
Anton now wore the dreaded black uniform with the
death's-head emblem. To his own surprise he had be
come accustomed to it. It was like a strange, constrict
ing garment of chain mail that protected him well
against the prying eyes of Nazi spies within the ranks.
At the year's end, when soft snow, like a coverlet fringed
with glistening borders of icicles, fell upon all the ruins
and corpses, Anton was appointed lieutenant of the
Secret Police. At the same time he was assigned in
dependent command of a district. Externally, this made
little difference in
his life, except that he
could be alone
more often. It did him good to use his tours of inspec
183
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 189/257
tion as a pretext to go walking through the broad snow-
sheathed pinewoods where glistening blue- white crystals
hung in figures delicate or grotesque upon the trees andcrooked branches. He inhaled the pure, biting, frosty
wind that swooped the heaped snow off from the branch
es. After all the horrors he had witnessed, the purity
of the winter woods soothed him. He felt obscurely
that the horror of the things he saw every day was too
great for words, that the syllables broke on the tongue
when you tried to strive and wrestle with Fate about it.
Be silent and endure —this was the fate and the message
of the sturdy trees in winter.
Winter was still lying heavy over the land, though
the calendar proclaimed the beginning of spring, when
Anton was unexpectedly recalled from his post. At the
end of March he and a group of other officers were sent
into the hinterland. They took the northern railroad
route to Berlin, and then beyond. For days they stopped
in small stations and waited. On April 10, while they
were traveling between two small towns, word was
passed around that on the day before the German Army
had successfully invaded Denmark and Norway. Short
ly afterward Anton received his orders —he was assigned
to Oslo. But the army did not seem to be making the
expected rapid progress; Anton's group had to stop off
in small fishing ports on the Baltic Sea and wait forfurther orders. Their new orders changed their destina
184
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 190/257
tion, and after a brief stormy crossing they finally ar
rived in a region of precipitous slopes and chasms—the
Norwegian Coastal Mountains —where the climate remained cold and wintry as in Poland. Anton was not
used to boats and fell seasick during the crossing; he was
glad to feel land under his feet once more. From the
mountain, the view down to the rocky, reefy fjord that
licked into the land with a thousand grey tongues re
minded him somehow, in spite of its newness, of his
own mountains at home. The open sea, half concealed
by low-lying clouds, seemed not unlike a large lake.
Everywhere along the coast German soldiers and ma
rines thronged. Heavy artillery was set up between
cliffs, their long smooth snouts pointing out to sea.
After a few hours' journey they reached the headquar
ters to which Anton had to report. The slowly retreating
bellow of the mountain cannon and the storklike clack
ing of machine guns made it apparent that the Nor
wegians, though still resisting, were gradually being
pressed back into the mountains of the interior.
Anton was ordered to take a small detachment of
men and relieve the temporary military command in one
of the small market towns near the coast. His secret in
structions read differently here from those given in
Poland. As in Poland, the local offices and organizations
were to be dissolved and all
suspicious persons, particu
larly members of the intelligentsia, were to be placed
185
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 191/257
under constant supervision. But here the orders concern
ing the treatment of the local populace were the same
as the former policy
in Bohemia: "systematic ingratia-
tion." After his first contact with Norwegians, Anton
smiled a little quizzically at the orders. As soon as he
met the people he sensed what they thought of their
"German blood brothers and liberators." His first im
pression was confirmed again and again: the Germans
were surrounded by a whole nation of cool, tenacious,
irreconcilable enemies, not one of whom seemed to
doubt that sooner or later they would throw the plundering conquerors back into the sea out of which they
had crept by treachery and stealth.
From the very first Anton felt drawn toward these
people. Was it because he saw the Austrian betrayal re
peated here ? Treason among the guards— the familiar
treacheries committed by a handful of bribed and mis
guided Judases. Now they were destined to play the
same sardonic farce of Germanic Racial Unity and En
thusiastic Jubilation over their own subjugation.
Strangely enough, Anton found things far easier for
his purposes. The Poles, whom the Nazi leaders were
systematically trying to exterminate, had spat out the
water he offered them. In Bohemia it had taken him
months merely to win the confidence of his own cousin.
But here in Norway the people looked into his face with
alert eyes and knitted brows. "Austrian?" they asked
186
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 192/257
when there was no one else about. "Yes," he said, and a
peculiar warmth would illuminate their grave faces.
"That's good!" their eyes seemed to say. Later Antonlearned that a company of Austrian Alpine troops had
been posted in the village for several days. Obviously
that had been long enough for the straightforward
minds of these coastal fishermen to perceive the differ
ence that the propagandists of the Reich were eternally
striving to deny.
And a day came when beneath his black uniform
Anton's heart beat harder and prouder that it had done
for years. Again a regiment of Austrian Alpine troops
were landed in the town, and a company of them was
detached to relieve the Pommeranian Grenadiers in the
garrison. The people of the town, freed at least tem
porarily from the deliberate ill-treatment and the un
conscious cruelty of their conquerors, seemed to breathe
a sigh of relief. But this was not all. The very first
evening Anton spoke with several of his countrymen.
Among them he met a Stubaier from Neustift who
turned out to be a former schoolmate of his old friend,
Sepp. After cautiously feeling out each other's opinions,
they spoke openly and Anton learned that no less than
ten men in the newly-arrived garrison belonged to the
secret league. Here, in this little town, such a number
of conspirators could
accomplish wonders. For the me
thod of "systematic ingratiation" soon proved a failure.
187
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 193/257
Throughout the whole occupied portion of the country
there were daily incidents of sabotage, stubborn resist
ance to the German authorities, and military assistanceto the British forces who had landed further north.
Hostages were chosen at random and shot. And then,
Austrian soldiers risked their own lives to help im
periled men escape to freedom. Several times Anton
reported to his superiors that an escaped partizan or
rebel leader had been pursued and "shot while trying
to escape"—when in truth the fugitive was already
crossing the North Sea on board a British destroyer.
Early in June, the last Norwegian battalions were
forced by the superior power of the enemy to lay down
their arms. The British destroyer flotillas evacuated the
landing forces and restricted their activities to nocturnal
raids. But during all this time, when open battle could
no longer be offered, every dark, stormy night saw fugi
tives, men who had been hunted like wild beasts find
their way to the quiet, unimportant coastal town. For
word had soon got around that here was a gate out of
the prison, kept by men who despite their field-grey uni
forms were nevertheless friends. And at the same time
the secret league of Austrian soldiers grew, for it was
cemented by the revulsion of plain, decent men for what
was being done to the peaceful peasants, fishermen and
shopkeepers of Norway.As often as he found time, Anton wrote to his mother.
188
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 194/257
But it was not until May that the first letter arrived from
her; it had been forwarded to him from Poland. Shortly
afterward he received several direct letters all at once,
though they had been sent off at intervals. From the
code words in the apparently innocent notes Anton
learned how depressed Lydia and his friends were at
the continued—and unhalted—series of German suc
cesses. In mid-May Holland was overrun; at the end of
the month the King of the Belgians capitulated; on
June
14 came the climax of the steady, victorious march
of the Germans: the Nazi army entered Paris. The Prus
sian officers, with whom Anton occasionally had official
dealings, expressed the conviction that there would be
a victorious peace in the near future. In the course of
the summer, after the inhabitants of the British Isles had
had bombs and incendiaries rained on them, after they
had shown the world that though their homes were shat
tered their courage remained high, Anton heard less talkof the victory of German arms. The bombing squadrons
had come back bleeding heavily; they were no longer
strong enough to repeat their mass attacks. Both op
ponents seemed to be pausing for breath and gathering
strength.
However, the Mobile Corps to which Anton was as
signed had all the more to do. A tremendous area of
Europe was occupied and had to be guarded; and soon,
it was whispered, there would be new territory in which
189
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 195/257
order had to be maintained. Furloughs were granted
only in very special cases and from month to month
Anton lost hope of seeing Lydia again. In August he
was transferred from Oslo, where he had earlier been
sent, to Rotterdam—a city of dreadful ruins. Soon
afterward he was again transferred to sleepy old Bruges,
where it was almost possible to forget the war, were
it not for the constant warnings in the orders of the
day—for several times single German sentinels had
vanished without a trace.
Once Anton carried out a night raid on the quarters
of an escaped Flemish political leader who was suspect
ed of having comunicated with the enemy. Well hidden
in the cellar of the house Anton found a radio receiving
set equipped with earphones. He made sure he was
alone, then sat down and began feverishly to turn the
unfamiliar dials of the apparatus, trying to find the
wavelength over which Lydia spoke at this hour. Helost precious time setting the instrument. Finally, just
as he was about to give up, he heard her voice— loud
and bell-like in clarity—coming from the earphones.
Quickly he reached for the dial and lowered the volume.
But already two of his men, attracted by the sudden
sounds, came hurrying in from the hallway, and there
was nothing for him to do but officially confiscate the
apparatus and have it dismantled. Nevertheless, he had
heard his sweetheart's voice for a second, heard her
190
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 196/257
talking to him as though she stood at his side. It was
like the first sip of a precious wine after a long, thirsty
journey, more wonderful and refreshing than a whole
glass full might be at other times. At the same time,
there was bitterness in the thought that it had only
been a taste, granted to him by perverse chance.
It happened more and more frequently nowadays that
Anton was
transferred from
place to
place staying onlya few weeks in each. Nowhere could he stay long
enough to do any appreciable work, as special circum
stances had enabled him to do in the Norwegian market
town. However, wherever he went he found the op
portunity to note down the names of men whom his
superiors had marked as especially suspect, for that
alone qualified them as good prospects for his own
cause. At times he wondered why he was being trans
ferred around so often. Was it being done intentionally,
this sending him into a new territory almost as soon as
he had got the hang of working in his present place?
Did it mean that the authorities were on the trail of
the secret league ? But no, if that were so, it was pre
posterous that they should have waited so long; they
would have arrested him at once. Perhaps it was simply
their device, because they no longer had time to watch
all the thousands of watchers. It helped them somewhat
191
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 197/257
if none of their agents remained long enough in one
place to gain a foothold.
So, with dizzy rapidity, Anton became acquainted
with foreign lands—a strange, unwilling traveler. In
the spring of 1941 his knowledge of Slavic languages
won him a transfer to the Balkans, now emerging once
more into the spotlight of history. In July, shortly after
the outbreak of the war with Russia, which had surprised
them all, he was in Belgrade. Here he received orders
to depart for the newly-opened Eastern Front. With
some dismay he reckoned that this would be the six
teenth different post to which he had been assigned in
the past ten months.
His route included Vienna as a transfer point. At last,
after nearly two years, he was going home again. As the
train slipped past the first of the small stations whose
names were familiar to him, he became moody and
sentimental. On what a
tangled, adventurous
path the
events of the past three years had led him ! The simple
traffic cop of former days had become a tried conspirator,
familiar with all the tricks of his opponent and wearing
the enemy's own garb of terror in order that he might
stand close to the heart of the monster when the time
came to strike the first blows. And he felt certain that
the longed-for hour was approaching. The new, gigan
tic armies that had sprung into being in the east gave
new hope.
192
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 198/257
As he had expected, Anton had barely twenty-four
hours in Vienna before his group set out for the East. If
the atmosphere of the city had been gloomy during his
last stay, it was now embittered and despairing. Now
that Russia had been made another of the enemy nations,
there was no hope felt for an early peace—which had
been promised so often. The people were no longer de
ceived by the army communiques which spoke of the
greatest victories in the greatest battles of world history.
Day by day new recruits were called up, and even the
older married men, who until now had been spared,
were called to the colors in ever-increasing numbers.
Again Frau Leopoldine had heard from reliable sources
that the Austrian regiments were suffering the worst dis
asters under the red fire. Erna's brother lay in a hospital
with a bullet in his lung. This she heard from the "mu
tual friend", who had also reported that Erna was ex
pecting her second child around Christmas time. It was
strange—the letter in which Frau Leopoldine had in
formed her son of the marriage of his former fiancee to
a functionary of the National Socialist Motor Corps,
had somehow never reached him . . . must have gone
astray en route. Second child—it gave you an idea of
how much time had passed.
Anton visited Franz at the hospital. He found him
already convalescing from his wound and was able totalk privately with him in one of the reception rooms.
193
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 199/257
"Bandits and criminals," the former industrial direct
or declared. "That's what they are. Isn't it absolute
madness to attack Russia, in addition to all the rest?Don't we have enough enemies in the world ? . . . From
the economic standpoint," he added self-importantly,
"it's nothing but suicide. I can tell you that." And
there followed a long list of charges against the meas
ures and restrictive regulations which in the eyes of this
"old fighter" had robbed the Nazi system of all the al
lure it had had at the time Austria was first overrun.
Anton had to calm him and reminded him that in his
condition he must not talk too much.
"On the road to recovery —and not only from his
bullet wound," Anton thought as he left the hospital.
In the evening he accompanied Sepp to the house
where he had once met the two blonde brothers. Sepp
was unchanged and had a good many encouraging sto
ries to tell. Three days ago, on July 25, the anniversary
of the murder of Chancellor Dollfuss, warning inscrip
tions had once more appeared over night on the walls
of the Administration Building where the Gauleiter had
his office. And on the lamp-posts opposite the building
were found little cards bearing the word "reserved",
each followed by the name of one of the hated Nazi
leaders. "To the lamp-posts" had always been the mot
to of lynch justice
in Vienna, so that there was no doubt
as to the meaning of the little cards.
194
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 200/257
All these things were but isolated symptoms of the
rankling defiance. Occasionally its outbreak took a more
violent turn—as when a football match ended in a loud
demonstration against the "German brothers," and the
Gauleiter who was present at the game had his tires
slashed. Factories were now closely guarded against
sabotage. But nevertheless sand often got into the ma
chinery; sulfur and zinc put into blast furnaces spoiled
the steel; explosions took place in munitions factories
and the authorities could find no traces of the saboteurs.
Heinz had been drafted in the fall of 1939. Otmar,
working in a chemical laboratory, had been granted de
ferment as indispensable to the war effort. He now car
ried on the liaison work with Bohemia alone. Anton
could not find time in his crowded schedule to wait for
the broadcast from Bohemia. But he was pleased to
learn that the secret radio had evaded all the investiga
tions by Anton's colleagues
in the Gestapo,
and broad
cast daily the vital news from the outside world. "It
always feels good," the lanky student remarked, "to
answer one of their propaganda lies with the facts and
then watch the effect—for the truth always makes the
lie seem foolish."
After they left Otmar, Sepp remarked to Anton
with a kind of grim pride that he had failed the final
examinations of his course because, as he put i t ,
htcouldn't get their "refined swinishness" into his head.
195
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 201/257
Since then he had been assigned to the riot squad. Here
he had good opportunity to observe that more and more
of his comrades were sickening at their orders topersecute and torture innocent persons. And wherever
posssible they avoided their duties.
Sepp accompanied Anton home. He could not hear
enough of Anton's experiences in the other occupied
lands. His eyes sparkled with pride when he heard
what had been done in Norway with the aid of the
Alpine soldier from Stubai.
Next morning, when Anton rode across the broad
plaza between the parks, where his old wooden plat
form still stood, a driving rain was beating down upon
the pavements and the dusty, summer-dried shrubs. A
yellow flash of lightning darted above the ash-grey spire
of the Stephansdom; gray against a gray sky stood the
two thick columns before the copper-green dome of the
Karlskirche. Was it only the lowering storm that made
the once-festive buildings seem old and grey and
gloomy, untended and deathly silent? Or was it Anton's
own disappointment that the vague hopes he had un
reasonably founded upon this visit home had shattered
against harsh, unyielding reality? For during this one
summer day he had seen over and over again, reflected
a thousand times, one single image: a tortured, plund
ered, terrorized, subjugated city. When would the
dayfor courageous, resolute action finally dawn; the day
196
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 202/257
for the great act of liberation, in lieu of these petty, al
most childish acts of sabotage and scribbling on walls —
with which his friends so pitifully fed the quiet, steady
flame of their faith ?
Often in the following months Anton thought of his
native city, seen through a thunderstorm, sapped of all
color. Sleeping on his camp bed or on the bare ground,
the hard Russian earth, there flickered through his
dreams the streets, mountains and villages of the various
and variegated lands he had seen. Sometimes nightmar
ish visions came to him, as though all the enslaved,
tormented, starving people who had been driven from
their homes were screaming at him in insane, helpless
rage; as though all their voices flowed together to form
menacing thunder, as though all the fire in their eyesbecame bolts of yellow lightning. Was their wild hatred
directed only at the accursed death's-head uniform he
wore, or was it not also meant for him who wore the
uniform, for the compliant, obedient link in the endless
chains that shackled them? To these millions of ruined
people could he be anything but the damnable lackey
of the pitiless plunderers ? Did it matter to them what
his heart felt beneath the black cloth? Was he any
less guilty of the monstrous crime than all the thousands
197
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 203/257
of sober, honest Germans who had taken their place in
the system without protest; than the Bavarian captain
who drowned his disgust in beer; than Erna who went
her way gaily, ignoring the death around her, who bore
the children of a Nazi? . . . Shivering, Anton would
start up from his sleep. There remained only one justi
fication, he would say to himself. An Act. An act such
as he alone could attempt ; an act that would turn the
whip against its brutal masters; an act whereby the be
trayed, defenseless, oppressed people would summon
up their will to freedom. This, he felt, was his special
mission he must fulfill it even at the cost of his life.
It was a strange place, this land of Russia. All day
the fiery August sun brooded over the plain, but in the
mornings the dew was frozen and crackled under An
ton's feet. The Polish woods had been broad and wide,
but the Russian forests were unending. You felt in
significant with your detachment
of fifty men in a district
embracing many square miles. Here, too, you saw ruins ;
blackened foundations and flaming church steeples be
hind the battle lines. But most of the villages were
deserted. People and animals had fled; they had retreat
ed into the impassable swampy thickets among the fir
forests. Here there was no opportunity for house-search
es, or for the pacification of the civilian populace, re
quired by Anton's orders. For there was no real civilianpopulace. Every man, and the women as well, carried
198
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 204/257
away their rifles as their most important possessions
when they fled their homes. What was officially called
"service in the hinterland" became a matter of securing
fortified camps. Again and again there were nocturnal
alarms. Cossack raids from woods that had already been
"mopped up"; continual skirmishing with guerilla
fighters. It seemed as though the system of terror which
had held all Europe in bonds had at last outreached
itself here—because there was no one to terrorize. Per
haps the system worked as usual in the conquered cities
—but there were so few cities. How could the lawyers
of an occupied area be put under protective custody
when there were no lawyers there? How could the
mayors be arrested as hostages when the mayors lived
in the woods? And when wrinkled old women who had
been picked up somewhere would persistently shrug
their shoulders when asked for the name of the village
elder. "I don't know," they would say, indifferent to
threats. "I don't know. . ." That was what they all
said when they were captured. And if you didn't know
the way and let them guide you, they would lead you by
a tangle of little paths back to where you started from.
If you shot them, they died, but you were no closer to
the right road, and time was lost.
Nevertheless, the army moved forward. Regions
greater than many lands of Europe were assaulted by
the armored impetus of the German tanks and overrun
199
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 205/257
by the infantry. Mighty rivers were crossed, bridges
sprang up overnight. Endlessly, they marched eastward,
and Anton's little troop marched with them.
Then the cold began. Silently, suddenly it came. The
frost that had frozen the morning dew in August set
tled over swamps and pools. The great streams froze
hard, and bridges were no longer necessary. On the
warmer days snow fell, myriads of downy white flakes
sifted softly down upon the myriad fir trees. For weeks
on end the snow fell, and at times the soldiers sank in
up to their hips in the snow-covered bogs. Anton was
reminded of Poland. "God is beginning to speak out
again," he thought, and continued the long march.
Around the middle of November Anton was assigned
to guard the railroad station of an important communi
cation center. He and his men were provided with
newly-arrived winter uniforms, warm woolen under
wear, heavy mittens and fur boots. It was good to be
dressed warmly against the biting winter cold, but it
was a dismaying testimony to the magnificent organiza
tional ability of the Germans. So it wasn't true, Anton
told himself —all the things the foreign newspapers
wrote about shortages of materials, and thin ersatz
overcoats. Just propaganda,
like the German propagan
da. But he soon found out the truth. Loaded in the
200
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 206/257
homeward-bound trains he saw wounded soldiers with
frozen limbs and faces. All of them were dressed in
the thin summer uniforms, with inadequate underclothesand rent shoes. Only the officers and the guard troops
were equipped like himself. And what they had to
guard were mainly the soldiers returning from the field.
More and more wounded, half-frozen men came from
the front. Shuddering, they told tales of their many
comrades who after infinite hardships had remained ly
ing in the deep snow.
Guarding these freezing soldiers, whose pain often
drove them to mutiny, soon became a commonplace to
Anton— just as had the ironic task of standing by and
observing the first days of occupation in Vienna; just as
had the exercises in the Gestapo school, the interpreting
during the brutal examinations of Czechs, the searches
of private homes from Norway to Belgrade, and the
posses in Volhynia. All familiar, all commonplace, all
routine. Months passed. More and more often Anton's
nights were troubled by the unanswered question: how
in this eastern wasteland, at this snowbound railroad
station, could he ever find the chance he sought ? Some
times in dreams he saw Lydia's eyes, gleaming black
like the cherries of the South. Those eyes seemed to
look upon him with a sad, questioning expression. Had
he aimed too high ? Would he gradually be worn down,
a little cog in the onrushing machinery of destruction ?
201
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 207/257
Then, one day, the order came for him to escort a
large transport of Russian war prisoners westward. He
felt relieved, released. Slowly, with endless pauses, the
train of cattle cars, equipped with small field kitchens
and wooden partitions, neared the former border of
Poland. An ancient passenger car had been coupled on
to the train for Anton and the rest of the escort. But
Anton seemed to take his responsibilities very earnestly
and spent many hours with the prisoners. He spoke
with them in Czech, and pieced together their Russian
answers. Almost all of them were peasant's sons and
workers; tall, handsome boys, easy-going and docile,
but absolutely convinced that their army would win the
victory. The most interesting of them was an engineer
of artillery from Kharkov, who had only recently re
turned home from America to take part in his people's
battle for freedom. He refused to tell Anton whether
he had come over with war machines and munitions
from the United States, but he readily recounted his im
pressions of the greatest industrial country in the world
-—the German papers had been suppressing all mention
of America for a long time. From him Anton learned
to his utter amazement that the United States had de
clared war on Germany, Italy and Japan over a month
before. The Russian smiled his impenetrable Asiatic
smile when Anton at first refused to
believe him, for
in the section of the front from which he had come not
■"3
202
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 208/257
a word had been published about Germany's new enemy.
"You can never win this war," the Russian said, "no
more than you were able to win the last one. Yourpropaganda has succeeded in convincing your own peo
ple of your greatness and splendor and strength, but it
hasn't convinced the rest of the world. The entrance of
America into the war has made your defeat a cer
tainty. . . ." Anton's dutiful objections seemed to have no
effect upon the Russian. "We'll see "he said quietly.
Anton's orders were to escort his prisoners only as
far as Warsaw, and he feared he would be sent back
to the front again from there. But he had luck; he was
ordered to remain with the escort and take the prisoners
to their camp, deep in Saxony. When he handed over
the official papers to the commandant there, he was
given a letter that had arrived for him from Gestapo
headquarters. His head reeled for a moment after he
had opened
the letter and glanced through
it. It was an
order to go at once to Prague by the shortest route;
there he would be assigned to his new duties.
The commandant of the camp curiously asked him his
destination. When Anton told him, he did not seem
surprised. "No peace in that damned Protectorate," he
growled. "Headquarters are sending in every man who
understands a few words of Czech. ..."* * *
203
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 209/257
People in Prague seemed changed. Their looks were
more bitter, more suffering, grimmer than before. And
at the same time more courageous and hopeful. As the
old waiter in the small hotel opposite the railroad sta
tion served Anton his ersatz coffee and black bread for
breakfast, the corners of his mouth twitched maliciously,
though the rest of his face was expressionless. Anton
saw the same expression in the faces of almost all the
Czechs he met as he crossed the broad Wenzelsplatz
and walked down the narrower Graben into the Old
City.
The February sun glittered upon the ornate forms
of the snow-fringed baroque portals. From the roof of
the old Gunpowder Tower that defiantly stood athwart
the street a frozen mass of snow slid loose, as though
by chance, and fell in the midst of a short line of Ger
man SS troops who were marching through the arched
gate. Anton was some distance away. He saw the line
break up at a quick command, and even as the clump of
ice flew to pieces against the pavement the soldiers were
rushing to both ends of the street, guns at ready, to
form a cordon around the Tower. Several bystanders
were arrested and led away.
Anton noticed numerous proclamations in German
and Czech posted on the walls of buildings. Many of
them had been slashed, or corners had been ripped away,so that the contents could not be made out. But already
204
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 210/257
German soldiers with pots of glue and brushes were
pasting clean new posters over the old ones.
Several times Anton stopped to read one of them.
Warnings, threats, reports of executions that were in
tended to terrify the populace. All those posters were
signed by the newly-appointed supreme commander, the
Reich Protector for Bohemia and Moravia, whom Anton
knew as one of the highest Gestapo functionaries. In
his special training course Anton had learned that this
man was famous for inventing the marvelously efficient
system that was used in the Dachau concentration camp.
To all appearances, this man was now engaged in trans
forming all of Bohemia and Moravia into a single great
concentration camp.
And nevertheless the people seemed better-spirited
and more hopeful. It was not hard for Anton to guess
the reasons. The reasons were Russia and America. In
stead of
the embittered desperation among
the Czechs,
which Anton had seen three years before, there was now
grim confidence and a malicious joy.
Across the river, gleaming white under a pale blue
sky, was the snow-covered Hradschin, surrounded by
delicate white spires and walls and palaces built down
to the shore like gigantic steps. Anton crossed one of the
long bridges, between the old, grey carved stone figures
that guarded the walks, and climbed the short slope
to the Ducal Palace. His headquarters were still here.
205
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 211/257
After waiting for some time he was led through the
assembly hall to the small high room, where an adjutant
of the commandant received him. The commandanthimself had been called to the castle only an hour ago.
Anton saw by the lettering on the door that the com
mandant was no longer that blonde young man with the
impersonal assessor's face who had once given Anton
his orders. Anton learned that he himself would be as
signed for the present as an assistant to a special In
spection Department of the Gestapo command. He was
to go on duty immediately.
The Inspection Department had its headquarters in
the next street up, in a plain-looking building. The
chief, who looked a little like a uniformed bookkeeper,
was nervous, overworked and in a hurry. He barked a
few instructions, in the form of slogans, haphazardly
picked out one of the dossiers that were piled high on
his desk and gave it to Anton. Curtly, he ordered Anton
to leave at once for the village in question to check up
on the case at its proper locale.
Taking the dossier, Anton went to his assigned desk
in one of the improvised office rooms. He spread out
the dossier and began to study it. Anton had never
heard of the village it concerned. He asked one of the
men sitting opposite him for a map and was told there
was one on the wall of the adjoining room. He studiedthe dossier more closely, trying to locate the village
206
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 212/257
on the map. The name of the district in which it
was situated was also unknown to him. Suddenly he
started, and the pencil with which he had been trac
ing the thin lines of the map slipped from his hand.
The province in question bordered on the Pilsen dis
trict, and the village Anton had to investigate could not
be more than ten miles from the little town where his
aunt—and Lydia—lived ! The country road that linked
the two places snaked in a wide curve around a wood
ed mountain slope. Across this mountain there was a
footpath, indicated on the map by a tiny hairline. An
ton recalled the name of the mountain top. He had
never climbed i t ,
but his uncle had once told him that
on the summit were remains of aburial vault of the
ancient Celtic inhabitants. They had intended awalk
to visit the historic site—the people of the neighbor
hood seemed very proud of i t—but bad weather had
intervened.
Anton felt as though alump of ice around his heart
had begun to melt. A feverish inner turbulence gripped
him. But he knew he must think coolly now and do
nothing premature that would betray himself or en
danger others. With outward calm, he took his dos
sier and left the office.
As he descended the street to the Moldau bridge,
his heart lighter than i t
had been for along time, hecame to his decision. I twas clear that the summit of
207
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 213/257
the mountain was destined to be a meeting-place for
him and Lydia. As soon as he reached his hotel, he
wrote a few lines to his aunt. In the letter he remarked
casually that he intended tomorrow night to visit the
Celtic ruins, as they had once planned. He had be
come so cautious that in his letter he avoided any pos
sible hint that would be significant to strangers, al
though it was hardly likely the letters would be cen
sored. Nevertheless, he had seen often enough how,
for no apparent reason, men were placed under special
observation by the Gestapo. Then every letter they
received was picked out and examined. This might
quite possibly happen to his uncle's house. Consequent
l y ,
he signed the letter merely with the Czech trans
lation of his nickname, and dropped i t into amailbox
at one of the last railroad stations he passed through.
That same evening he arrived at his destination—
in civilian clothes, as he had been ordered. The last
two hours of his journey he had ridden over asingle-
tracked local railroad in an ancient, jolting car. He
reported at the local Gestapo headquarters, and found
that only afew men were posted here. There was no
officer permanently on duty, and the non-commissioned
officer who was in charge seemed so busy that he feltcertain the man would not bother him. Anton took
208
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 214/257
a poorly-ventilated room in the sole village inn. Here,
too, even in this outlying village, the walls of build
ings were plastered with the posters he had seen in
Prague.
Anton slept little that night. His whole life since
his parting from Lydia ran through his feverish mind.
He had opened both windows in the stuffy room, and
he shivered with cold, although he had spread his coat
and clothes over the blanket. But such petty discom
forts meant little. His mind was filled with the com
ing meeting. Repeatedly, he rose on his elbow and
struck a match to look at the clock on the night table.
Every hour seemed to pass more slowly than had weeks
and months in the past.
Finally, toward morning, he fell into a deep sleep.
He awoke shortly before seven, a little surprised to
find himself in such unusual surroundings, but re
freshed and full of confidence. The work Anton had to do in order to complete
the information in the dossier was neither difficult
nor interesting. He was supposed to examine the village
archives and church books to check the statements of
a man who had been arrested six months before. The
arrested man had said he was born in this village and his
family had lived there for five generations. It was sus
pected that his papers were forged; he might be guilty of more serious infractions of the new laws. Anton po
209
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 215/257
litely questioned the village clerk and the pastor in
Czech, and the two men answered readily enough. The
prisoner's allegations seemed to be true, but in orderfurther to check them Anton found he would have to
visit other parishes some distance away. This was pre
cisely what he had hoped, since it gave him a good
pretext for remaining away from Prague another night.
As he glanced through yellowed old books and as
he walked between the small villages, he kept thinking
of the evening to come. He did not dare to imagine
what he would feel if Lydia did not come to the ren
dezvous. He was not sure of his own self-control.
Perhaps he would not be able to resist the insane tempt
ation to walk down to his uncle's house; and if he did
not find her there, to try to trace her and follow her
trail wherever it led, to prison or to death. Then again
he argued with himself that fate could not have led
him all this long way in order to have him chase after
his sweetheart like a sentimental boy; that his destiny
was to meet the act he had dreamed of for so long,
the act that was to justify all that he had done until
now. He would meet i t ,
together with her or, i fmust
be, alone.
In the afternoon his way took him b y
chance to the
fork in the road where the footpath mounted steeply
up the side of the mountain. He fixed the spot wellin his mind. From this place i tcould not take more
210
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 216/257
than an hour to reach the summit. On Lydia's side the
mountain sloped more gently and the distance she had
to travel was correspondingly greater.
At last dusk began to fall. Anton remarked casually
to the innkeeper that he still had work to do in a neigh
boring village and would therefore be back late. He
made a similar remark to the non-commissioned officer
who was in command here.
At six o'clock Anton stood once more at the branch
in the road which he had noted earlier in the day. He
began to climb slowly, taking calm, regular strides.
But gradually he increased his pace and marched hur
riedly through the snow. In a small circle around the
trunks of the tall pine trees the snow had already melt
ed, and now and then an earthy fragrance rose from
the
damp soil, mingled with the
tingling odor of rosin.
Although the sky was cloudy, there was still a good
deal of light over the snow-covered clearings among
the trees that lined the path. Now and then Anton
turned on his flashlight for a moment to see whether
there were any footprints on the path. He found them
only along the lower end of the road. After he passed
an isolated farmhouse the double trail ceased.
When Anton reached the upper rim of the woodsand saw before him the flat summit, sparsely covered
211
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 217/257
with bushes, he began to run. Although less than an
hour had passed since he started up, he dashed madly
ahead, as though he were in danger of arriving too
late and losing an opportunity he would never find
again.
When he reached the summit, he looked around for
the Celtic burial place. He had no exact idea of what
it looked like. He found nothing. Somewhat annoyed
with himself, he realized that the plateau up here was
larger and more difficult to survey than he had assumed.
And the growing darkness made the prospect of a
meeting seem unlikely, especially since he had not set
tled any specific time; he had merely mentioned the
hour he planned to start out.
Anton considered. What should he do? Should he
call, or flash his light ? Minutes passed. Now and then,
through the clear, still night air he heard distant noises
from the village and the long-drawn howl of a watch
dog in the lonely farmhouse. He looked in vain for
the lights of the little town on the other side of the
mountain. Obviously a complete blackout had been
ordered, for occasionally British bombers came over
this section.
Then Anton heard the faint tapping of footsteps
coming from the rim of the woods on the side toward
the town. He thought he saw a solitary figure detachitself from the trees. He held his breath and his pulses
212
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 218/257
hammered. With a few strides he reached the dark
figure. Frantisek stood before him, excited and breath
ing hard from his rapid climb.
Anton stood numbed. He could not even speak a
word of greeting, so paralyzed was he by disappoint
ment and the wild anxiety for Lydia that surged up
within him. The young Czech took his hand and shook
it heartily. "Maria is waiting down below in the cave,"
he said. Maria? Then Anton remembered that this was
the name Lydia had been given
at her new birth. Maria
Svoboda, and Svoboda meant freedom. The painful
physical tension relaxed into silent rejoicing. He fol
lowed his cousin some fifty yards down the hill. Here,
as his cousin explained, low dunes in the bluish, shim
mering mantel of snow revealed the presence of the
Celtic ruins. Anton would never have found the place
by himself. Unable to speak for the excitement of
anticipation, Anton followed Frantisek a little fartherdown. Here they stepped upon the half-frozen, dry
soil of an outflung strip of woodland, and their foot
steps left no visible tracks. Anton had to bend down
and they passed beneath low-hanging branches and
through thick underbrush. Finally Frantisek knelt and,
with an effort, cautiously lifted an ordinary flat stone.
He raised it on its end and pushed it aside. From with
in the earth came the faint light of a lamp. "Youmust follow the glow of the lamp," Frantisek said.
213
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 219/257
"If you need me, whistle. I'll keep watch on the foot
path. Maria will tell you all about us. Usually a pa
trol passes by here at night; they pass along the east
side before they approach us. I'll give you the signal
when they're past. It's good you're here so early; I
still have time to clear away the tracks before I go
home. Father and mother send their regards; they hope
to see you soon. ..."It was still difficult for Anton to speak. "Thank
you, Frantisek," he said finally. "Tell your parents
I'd like very much to see you all. I'll come as soon
as I can without endangering our cause. . ."
A sudden gleam in Frantisek's brown eyes and a faint
smile on his handsome face, which was dimly illum
inated by the light from the underground passageway,
showed Anton that his cousin understood.
"Goodbye and good luck," Frantisek replied. And
Anton stepped past him into the passageway. Behindhim Frantisek pushed the flat rock back into place.
Involuntarily, Anton rubbed his eyes, wondering
whether he was not dreaming all this. Was this reality ?
Was it possible? He felt as though the replacing of
the rock were a gesture from a higher power, sealing
the world behind him for a brief span: the world of
confusion, the world of cruelty and heavy responsibility.
It was as though this had been granted him to strength
en him for the great task he had still to accomplish:
214
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 220/257
these few hours outside the world, beyond the events
of the world, wholly alone with the one he loved.
The sweet odor of earth surrounded him as he
groped his way along the crooked corridor. After some
ten yards, a doorless entrance, almost head high,
opened into a small room to one side of the passage.
He saw that the room was fully furnished, but he did
not have time to wonder at this underground dwell
ing place. Lydia sprang toward him with a cry of joy
and they held each other in a silent embrace, lips pressed
tightly together, as though nothing could ever part
them again. It seemed now, even more than it had
so long ago in his uncle's living room, that they had
belonged to one another for years, and as though they
had been marking time during their separation and
only now awoke once more to the fullness of living.
Lydia's soft brown hair on his cheek, her dark eyes
with their inner radiance so close to his, her lips, herpliant, quivering body—to Anton these were now the
only real things in the world. Everything else, outside,
was shadowy and distant.
Slowly she released him, tossing her head with a
gracious movement of her neck. "We must secure the
entrance," she said, and drew him into the passage
way along which he had just come. She shone her
flashlight upon the flat rock that Frantisek had pushed
back. Anton saw a strong iron hook set into the mid
215
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 221/257
die of the stone. Lydia lowered the beam of her flash
light and showed him a coil of steel cable. One end
was fastened to a pile that had been rammed into the
earth. The other end had a short, spiral spring and a
ring. Anton had to exert himself to draw the rope
taut enough to pass the ring over the hook in the stone.
It was a clever arrangement which made it almost im
possible for anyone on the outside to break in. But
should the rock be smashed and an entrance made—
even this was provided for; a meandering underground
passage led some thousand yards to an emergency exit
lower down, which was closed in the same manner.
Anton was amazed and impressed. He learned that
for more than a year this cave had served as the secret
meeting place of the movement. And Lydia, who had
succeeded in obtaining, by devious routes, a part of
the money she had abroad, had transformed the cold
and uncomfortable hole in the ground into a very liv
able, neat little room that bore the stamp of her own
personality. Proudly she pointed out the paneled walls.
Along the upper border of the paneling ran a carved
shelf on which stood colorful dishware and pottery.
The same light-brown wood served as floor and ceil
ing. On one of the walls a window was simulated by
bright, flowery drawn curtains that hung from a shiny
brass curtain rod. On the opposite
wall a green
tile
stove gave out a comfortable warmth.
216
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 222/257
"We don't heat with wood," Lydia laughed. "We
have a new, smokeless fuel. One of Frantisek's friends
who works in "a military factory got a chance to ex
amine the patent application and built this model for
us. ... "She drew the heavy, dark-green curtain over
the doorway and invited Anton to sit down at the table,
which was already set. Nothing was lacking, not even
the rose wine and the sweet white cookies for dessert.
Anton could not understand how the chance of his
being sent to the neighboring village had led him to
pick this mountain summit, of all places, for their ren
dezvous. Was there any such thing as chance? At all
the crises of his life he had sensed something like pre
destination, but never so sharply as now.
The meal was simple but nourishing, enhanced by
delicate, graceful touches. It lasted overlong because
their eager questions and answers often made them
pause with forks and
spoons halfway to their mouths.
Just as Lydia had finished clearing away the table
and was spreading a bright cloth over i t ,
Anton started
up. He heard astrange, humming sound. The sound
was repeated three times at brief intervals. Lydia
breathed asigh of relief. "Now they've passed," she
said, setting down close to Anton on the wooden arm
of the sofa, which stood under the "blind window."
Anton remembered that this must be Frantisek's signal; he had quite forgotten about it.
217
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 223/257
He had eyes and ears for Lydia alone. He drank in
every one of her graceful movements, he intoxicated
himself with the crystalline tone of her voice. Thiswas something more, he told her, than sitting in the
damp cellar of the Flemish political leader and rejoic
ing to hear a few words of her distant voice over the
air. Of all the things Anton told her, this little story
seemed to please Lydia most. Perhaps because it re
vealed to her so simply how boundless had been An
ton's longing for her.
"Today I'm not speaking over the air," she said.
"Today my voice is for you alone. You can make me
speak or be silent, as you like. ..."And he silenced her voice, first by kisses, then by
embraces. For Anton this night became a night be
yond the world, beyond all temporal things. Here be
neath the earth time stood still. Yet it flew by all the
same, though stars could not rise here nor sun set.
Their cave was a tiny island in the universe, where noth
ing existed but their two souls flowing together, their
two heartbeats become one, and at last, their sweet
sleep without desire, sheltered in one another's arms.
Anton was awakened by the faint clatter of cups.
Lydia was just setting the cups and the steaming teakettle on the breakfast table. Anton awoke from the
218
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 224/257
commonplace world of his dreams to the fairy-tale of
reality. He jumped up and asked Lydia what time it
was. It might as easily be three in the morning or
twelve noon. Actually, it was six o'clock in the morn
ing.
"Hurry and get ready," Lydia said. "I didn't want
to wake you too early, but we have a great deal to talk
over."
Lydia was no longer wearing the dark, fine dress
in which she had received Anton. She had donned a
coarse, dull grey smock, which she wore to her work
in the so-called quilt section of the factory. Here, day
after day, she sat at her sewing machine between the
twin sisters. She got on well with the other girls and
no longer attracted any attention. She had been granted
permission to stay away from work today in order to
visit a sick relative of Anton's uncle, who lived in a
small community halfway up the mountain. In orderto avoid suspicion, she intended to pay this visit punct
ually on the way back.
It was a different Lydia who sat opposite Anton now
in her grey work clothes, who, between quick swallows
of ruddy tea, told him of previous successes and future
plans of the secret organization. She spoke coolly, sob
erly, resolutely. Disguised behind this poor and com
mon dress was the fellow-conspirator of oppressed millions; Lydia was ho longer the sweetheart of the night
219
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 225/257
just past, who had belonged to him alone. And he
felt that precisely because of this she meant more to
him, not less; because the same inner voice had obvi
ously spoken for both of them—the voice that had told
him earlier that this meeting was their last repose be
fore the impending action.
And the act was being prepared. From Lydia's re
port it was apparent that her comrades had not wasted
time. In spite of all the threats and bloody executions,
the number of conspirators within the country had
grown. But what was needed now was a signal to the
outer world, a blow that the oppressors could no longer
suppress by silence or lies, something that would make
the conquerors tremble and the free peoples take heart.
They had heard from London that the Allies would
govern the time of their landing on the European Con
tinent by the striking power of the underground move
ments. The coordination between the individual groups
made it seem likely that the men who committed the
act could be concealed and their trail could be covered
over. In the course of time sufficient explosives and
weapons had been collected and stored in such hide
outs as this. What had to be avoided—and this had
led to many quarrels between Lydia and the impatient,
reckless Frantisek —was a premature blow. If the blow
were not well enough prepared, it would fail, andwould result only in more bloodshed for their people.
220
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 226/257
There had been a poll taken among the members of
the conspiracy to find out who should be the victim
of the first great blow. The answers had been almost
unanimous: strike at the highest in the land, the prime
head of the monster, the new Protector himself. The
notorious bloodhound of Bohemia must be the first
to fall. But how reach him, how penetrate through the
thousands of armed guards and lackeys around him?
He never appeared in public unless surrounded by a
whole company of military police. He was seldom
seen; he seldom spoke in public; but all death sentences
bore his name. When he had selected a victim, the
man died ; there were no delays. Spreading terror and
death, he had passed through other countries. Where
the torturing and slaughtering was vilest, there he was.
For almost five months now he had been wielding his
bloody scourge over Bohemia, and in every one of those
months hundreds of
the Czech leaders in "protective"
custody had been tortured to death.
Lydia's dark eyes flamed; her own words had added
new fuel to her fury. She seemed to see the hated, mur
derous tyrant in the flesh before her; she seemed on
the point of striking him in the face as he stood there
in the corner opposite the tile stove. And suddenly
Anton felt that somewhere in the room he, too, could
see the man. Over the black, death's-head uniformrose the outlines of a thin, ordinary face, topped by
221
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 227/257
sparse, light-blonde hair, like the face of the man who
had first issued orders to him in the Ducal Palace at
Prague. Perhaps the sallow forehead was a little higher; the lips, tightly compressed in blind obedience, a
little thinner; the piercing eyes of an even more in
definite color; the chin a little more ordinary.
"Why have you picked him?" Anton asked.
Lydia turned to him. "I saw him once," she said.
"It was in the village where I hid during my flight and
was given the peasant dress. Since that time I've visited
the old woman three or four times. And once, when
I was sitting in her living room, her son—a hulking
peasant about fifty years old—brought the news that
a bridge had just been blown up by a bomb on the
main highway to Prague. The Protector, who had ob
viously been the object of the attack, was delayed for
some time. I went outside with the man to see if we
could find out more about the incident. Suddenly a
motor columri raced toward us and stopped in the mid
dle of the village. We all realized it was the blood
hound and his escort, who had had to make a wide
detour around the wrecked bridge and were now pass
ing through here. In the third car, very close to where
we were standing, a window was rolled down as a
motorcyclist rode up to make a report. A narrow head
appeared in the window, wearing a cap with the visorpulled down over the forehead. I knew at once that
222
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 228/257
it was he. He listened to the report, glanced around
, and then waved to my companion to come to the win
dow. From inside the car a voice asked in German:
"Who set the time bomb ?" The peasant shook his head.
"I don't know anything about a bomb. . ."
he said.
The bloodhound made a gesture I shall never forget,
while at the same time his thin lips moved as he said
something indifferently to his companion in the car.
That gesture! His right index finger made a swift
movement across his Adam's apple and at the same
time he blinked at the SS man, who was leaning on
his motorcycle about a yard away. The next moment
a whistle shrilled. Several other SS men sprang from
one of the cars, seized the peasant, overpowered him
and dragged him behind one of the houses. I wanted
to tear at the murderer's throat with my bare hands.
But before I quite realized what was happening the
motor roared and a few seconds later the first few cars
of the column were gone. Then I heard shots from be
hind the house. The men, with smoking rifles, swung
into their car and the rest of the column began to move.
Never before and never since have I witnessed such
helpless rage, such terrible grief, as I saw in the face
of that old woman, the peasant's mother. Never have
J so deeply felt the nature of the paralysis that still
hung over those heavy, slow-moving peasants besideme. They could not move, nor could they understand
223
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 229/257
this cold-blooded murder as part of a system of ter-
rorization. And even after the murderers had passed
like an ominous storm, they still stood unmoving. . .
"
She paused for a moment. "The other, who sent him,"
she said finally, "may be an insane criminal. But this
man is a cold-blooded, cynical hangman, and I've sworn
vengeance against him. . . Forgive me!" she broke off,
tossing her head gracefully. "What I've just told you
accounts for my personal hatred, so it really doesn't
matter. Certainly, every one of those wholesale murd
erers deserves death, at least. But this man is in our
reach ; once we almost had him. A plan has been worked
out to the last detail—where and how we can strike
at him. There's only one thing lacking. He's become
sly and careful. Chances such as I had then, when he
suddenly came within two yards of me, don't happen
any more. We never find out in time when he's leav
ing the Castle at Prague. Again and again we've missed
opportunities. We can only carry out our plan if some
one on the inside helps us. . . ."
She fell silent. Anton
had understood before she was half through. It was
his long-awaited task she was assigning to him.
In her dark eyes Anton could read the conflict bet
ween her fear for her lover and the demand she wanted
to make on him. "Don't worry about me," he said
firmly. "I've been waiting for years for this . . .
I'mready."
224
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 230/257
Lydia kissed him. Then she took from a hiding place
in one of the walls a number of sheets of paper, and
handed them to him. There were sketches of the place
and exact details on how the planned attack was to
be executed. Each person named by code numbers in
the plans was assigned a definite part, including Fran-
tisek and Lydia herself.
"When? ..." Anton asked.
"As soon as you send us word on what day he is
going to Berlin by car. But we must know it at least
twenty-four hours in advance. We must be certain. If it fails this time, it will never be possible again." Then
she gave him addresses and passwords of liaison men
in various towns and villages throughout the country,
so that whenever the time came he would be able to
send word to her.
Anton held her close as they said goodbye. "When
will we have each other again, Lydia?" he demandedpassionately.
She drew away from him and tossed her head. The
motion was different this time, painful and weary, as
though she were seeking some resting place for her
gaze upon the wooden ceiling. "We must be strong,
Anton," she said, a soft vibrancy in her voice. "We
must not see each other before .. . . before it's done."
The stern voice within himself, which he knew wellfrom many nights in Russia, told him she was right,
225
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 231/257
haxd though it was for him to admit it. Once more
he kissed her; then he tore himself away and groped
his way through the passage. Lydia did not have the
will to accompany him to the exit. He released the
steel cable, pushed up the flat stone and ascended into
the blinding sunlight, among bushes and pine trees.
Carefully he pushed the rock back into place, and
strode downhill in the cold winter morning.
That same day Anton returned to Prague and re
ported the results of his investigation, which confirmed
the prisoner's story. From the eternally nervous, over
worked Departmental Chief with the face of a uni
formed bookkeeper Anton received another dossier to
investigate. And when this was done, he was given
others. Almost all these investigations concerned small
towns and
villages in the
provinces; the dossiers had
piled up in the Inspection Department for lack of time
and personnel. -
Anton had little free time, and months passed in
which he had noopportunity
to find out where the
enemy was staying at the moment or where he intended
to go. It proved to be a serious disadvantage that the
office in which he worked was situated in the grey,
plain-looking building up the hill, for he seldom hadthe chance to visit the Castle or the Ducal Palace,
■ K, i.
226
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 232/257
where he would be more in touch with the highest
circles.
Sometimes, at night, he sat tensely studying the pa
pers Lydia had given him; the papers containing the
plan of attack. Here, at the heart of a super-efficient
spy system, their plot seemed to him a hopeless, insane
undertaking, and he was often on the point of send
ing Lydia word that he thought it impossible.
Once a fellow-agent pointed out to him a grey auto
mobile with a long hood that was being washed in an
open garage they were passing. "The chief's car," he
said, and Anton knew whom he meant. A little later
he came back and succeeded in drawing the chauffeur
into conversation. He pretended interest in the speed
of the car, and cautiously felt his way toward more
important questions. But the closer he came to them,
the more taciturn the chauffeur became. "Official
secret,'" he growled
at last, saluted stiffly
and turned
to examine the newly-washed car.
The snow melted from the roofs. A warm rain
washed the stone figures on the bridges, and under
the bridges the Moldau flowed cloudy and swollen.
The twigs in the garden on the lower slope of the
Hradschin were already tipped with their first tender
green. And Anton had accomplished nothing.
In the middle of April he had occasion to visit the
villages mentioned in Lydia's plan. He used the op
227
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 233/257
portunity to study and fix in his mind the details of
the marked places and the surrounding landscape. He
found that all the information in the sketches wascorrect, and he thought, too, that the terrain had been
cleverly chosen. But what good was all this when the
most important prerequisite of success, which depended
on him, could not be obtained ? Twice he had learned
too late about trips of the Protector that had passed
through this district, and each time his blood had- run
hot with rage and shame that the chance had been
missed.
The fresh green of spring covered the land. In the
mornings one heard birds singing merrily through the
open window. In the so-called "vineyards", which
were really orchards, the fruit trees bloomed in foam
ing whites and delicate pinks. And still nothing had
happened. Outside, in the world, the war went ort,
slowly, with changing fortunes. The exaggerated hopes
that the winter successes of the Russians had aroused
in the Czechs were not fulfilled. Day after day there
were new arrests in Prague, and none of those arrested
earlier were ever released. Day after day the people
heard or read of executions and atrocities in Bohemia
and in other occupied countries. And on every poster
on every wall, below threats, penalties and execution
orders, was signed the hated name of the bloodhoundof Bohemia.
228
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 234/257
Then, toward the end of May, an unexpected and
incredible opportunity came to Anton. The Gestapo
command in Prague had sent a large number of its
officers and men to Bruenn to help on a big raid. The
commanding officer called upon the Inspection Depart
ment to release all the men it could spare for urgent
special duty. The uniformed bookkeeper shrugged
nervously, decided that it hardly mattered if the long-
neglected investigations were neglected a little longer,
and said he could spare Anton.In the small high room adjoining the assembly hall
Anton, together with a number of other officers, was
given his instructions by the same adjutant who had
received him when he arrived in Prague. Anton could
scarcely believe his ears. The "special duty" was to
supplement the escort which was to accompany the
Protector on his trip to Berlin next day.
With pulses hammering, Anton left the Ducal Palace.Now the hour of decision had arrived. He looked at
his watch and started in dismay. Not quite twenty-four
hours were left before the scheduled departure from
Prague. Nevertheless, he told himself, this time it
must be risked. His personal presence at the scene,
which had not been reckoned on in the plan, opened
all sorts of new possibilities.
What he had to do now had been carefully planned
and was very simple. He merely had to mention the
229
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 235/257
time of departure to the barber in a small barber-shop.
The barber would immediately call up a soap dealer
and casually repeat the hour, subtracting six from i t ,
so that even i f the telephone conversation were over
heard no suspicion would be aroused. The number six
had been chosen because i t yielded the same result
whether added or substracted, so that even in the ex
citement no misunderstanding was possible.
When Anton entered the barber shop, a Prussian
colonel was just having cut the sparse ring of hair
around his shiny bald pate. Again and again he felt
the length of the remaining wreath of hair, trying to
make his complicated demands understood b ymeans
of sign language. Anton suppressed the urge to speed
up the procedure b y
volunteering his services as inter
preter. He did not want to make himself conspicuous
in any way. Finally the shorn Colonel declared him
self satisfied and left the shop. Anton, alone with thebarber, spoke the hour without preliminary.
"Just amoment, sir," the barber said, his expression
unchanged. "I'll be with you in aminute." Then
Anton heard the man speaking over the telephone in
the adjoining room. When he came back, he began
to shave Anton, and not another word was exchanged
between them. But Anton felt the barber's hand tremb
ling, and several times the man had to put down the
razor to avoid cutting him.
230
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 236/257
Punctually at the scheduled hour the line of motor
cars assembled, manned by heavily armed elite guards
and police officers. In their midst was the steel-walled
armored car of the Reich Protector.
Anton had succeeded in getting a front seat, next
to the chauffeur; from this position it was easiest to
watch what went on along the road. The car in which
he rode was in the line of rearguards, the third car
behind the high chief's.
They swept past the gloomy factory buildings on
the outer rim of Prague and past the blooming gardens
and fruit trees of the suburbs. The pace grew swifter;
dust flew up as the car hit the dirt on the side of the
road while rounding a curve.
Anton's feverish excitement of the night, which had
given him scarcely a moment's rest, had ebbed as soon
as he got into the car and the procession began to move.
Now the decision was already made, the wheels were
in motion, and he himself could do nothing but ob
serve and be prepared. As always in moments of peril
ous anticipation, this gave him a sense of cold certainty
and command of himself. He remembered having had
the same feeling in his early days as a policeman, when
he set out with his comrades in pursuit of notorious
criminals. You never knew whether you were going
to come back with a whole skin from such expeditions.
Strange, he thought, today much the same thing was
231
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 237/257
happening. Except that now the defenders of order
and justice had to crouch bushes along the road, while
he himself rode with the criminals, wearing policeuniforms.
The pace slowed; they were passing through a
village. Anton knew that this was an important moment
for the success of the attack. Somewhere along the
road here sat a well-hidden observer. As soon as an
artificial obstruction had reduced the speed sufficiently,
the observer would determine the order in the line of
the bloodhound's car. Then he would speak the number
into a field telephone. The line had been specially
laid for this purpose and would be taken up at once.
Now they were scarcely three miles from the fateful
spot, which Anton had studied during his trip there in
April. The drivers had a broad, smooth roadway before
them; they followed their instructions and drove at
full speed. The telephone message was to be passed
on by primitive wigwag signals. Would the signals
match this furious pace and reach their goal before
the enemy roared past them and out of reach for ever ?
Anton's heart stopped beating. Now, in the distance,
a church steeple rose above the hilly fields. At this
wild pace it could not be more than a minute before
they would reach the spot. Anton had rolled down
the window at his side, as though he wanted a breath
of fresh air. On his side of the road he saw the tumble
232
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 238/257
of hay piled close to the edge of the road. He knew
that beneath that pile of hay death lay concealed. Al
ready the leading cars had roared past it; Anton's own
car was scarcely two hundred yards away.
There came an explosion, like the sound of a tire
blowing out at full speed. Anton, leaning out the
narrow window, saw that the Protector's car had been
struck directly by the bomb; it swerved helplessly from
side to side and finally plunged into the ditch at the
side of the road. At the same time Anton felt a violent
pressure in the pit of his stomach as his own driver
jammed on the breaks. "An attack" the man screamed
at Anton as the car, brakes and tires screeching, lurched
hard into the bumper of the car in front and came to
a stop.
Anton tore open the door and sprang out. The men
in the cars behind, who obviously thought a tire had
blown out, slowly followed his example. Even beforeAnton touched ground, a series of shots rang out from
the direction of the haystack. For a second it seemed
to him he caught a glimpse of Frantisek's brown eyes
gleaming triumphantly from amid the yellow hay.
A moment later the men in the two cars ahead of
Anton began to fire. More and more shots were fired;
the men began shooting wildly in all directions. Anton
had to stand still to keep out of the line of fire. Thecars in front of the bombed car had raced on. An
233
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 239/257
SS man from the motorcycle escort was sent ahead to
fetch them back. Shrill commands were hurled through
the air. The shooting slackened and Anton couldapproach closer. He glanced at the automobile in the
ditch. The chauffeur hung twisted and motionless over
the steering wheel. From inside the car came whimper
ing sounds. Then a voice cried for help. For but the
fraction of a second Anton made out the narrow, blood
less face beneath the visor of the cap; the face for
which he had been anxiously looking. In the small,
glistening eyes stood the fear of death; the thin lips
were twisted as though by an ugly wound. And from
those lips came the whispering, gasping sounds.
"All officers over here!" snarled the voice of the
commander of the escort, who had climbed uninjured
from the car. Even as he spoke lines of men, their
rifles held at ready, were swarming out in concentric
circles to comb the surrounding terrain. Anton stepped
forward with the others. He knew that the next few
seconds would determine whether Frantisek and his
companion got their headstart, as the plan provided.
He saw an SS man approaching with a self-important
expression. The man was carrying a raincoat and an
empty leather wallet, apparently dropped by the fugi
tives while running. From somewhere deeper in the
woods someone cried that he had found an abandonedbicycle. Involuntarily, the lines of black-uniformed men
234
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 240/257
surged toward the left side of the road, where these
finds had been made. Anton breathed easier. He knew
that the false clues had been placed there to mislead
the pursuers; meanwhile Frantisek and his friend were
fleeing into the woods on the other side of the road.
Here the two would crawl through a hidden water pipe.
If all went well, they would by now have passed
through tall bushes and have reached an isolated farm
house, where they would vanish into the shaft of a
dried-out well. At an exit some distance downhill they
would find two bicycles. As soon as they were away,
the wall of the well would be dug out immediately
by men standing ready and connected with the new
well nearby. The pursuers would find nothing but
water, so that even bloodhounds would lose the trail
from here on. On the bicycles the two would ride
parallel to the highway for a while, behind a fence of
high bushes. Finally they would exchange the wheelsfor waiting motorcycles and, apparently coming from
the opposite direction, ride into the village where Lydia
had once been given her peasant dress and where Anton
knew she was now waiting.
The commandant had unfolded a General Staff map
and was angrily trying to hold it smooth in the high
wind that persistently whipped it awry in his hands.
"Knowledge of the neighborhood is extremely im
portant," he growled. "The abettors of these assassins
235
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 241/257
in the neighboring villages must be located at once.
Reinforcements have already been sent for from all
nearby garrisons. Until then all approaches must be
closed off and the nearest villages occupied. Everyone
who knows anything about this district report im
mediately."
The officers bent over the map. Anton glanced at
it for only a second. "Lidice," he said. "I know it
from my inspection work
"Take four men there at once. Report your find
ings!" the colonel growled. And a moment later Anton
again sat beside the driver. Lidice was the name of
the village where Lydia, disguised in the uniform of
a German nurse, was waiting for the arrival of the
two fugitives.
Anton directed the driver over the narrow, dusty
country road.
The colonel's swift order to investigate the
villagesbefore making a mass search of the surrounding terrain
threatened to spoil all their plans. But Anton thought
he had averted this danger by his prompt volunteering.
This gave him the opportunity to intervene personally
in the events of the village
His mind raced feverishly. Already they were ap
proaching the first houses. Then, from the other end
of the village street, several shots rang out. "Stop!"Anton ordered. "Ready for action!" He considered.
236
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 242/257
The shots could mean only two things: either the few
guards in the village were firing on suspicious persons
--or else the conspirators were proceeding with the
plan, and overpowering the guards in order to take
possession of their ambulance-car in which the two
fugitives were to be carried out of the village.
Whatever the case, he must act now. As always in
moments of danger, Anton's mind was already determ
ined. "Take cover along the right line of buildings and
proceed," he commanded. He allowed the four men
to pass him und then followed cautiously behind them
as they crept along the walls from house to house. A
few yards down the street curved. Anton waited until
the men were well ahead. Then he raised his revolver
und fired four well-aimed shots, one after the other.
Three of the men in front of him sank silently to the
ground. The fourth, at the head of the row, had
turned sharply
at the first shot. Now his eyes were
staring uncomprehendingly at Anton and his finger
was tightening around the trigger of his gun. Then he,
too, fell heavily against a gate.
Anton had sprung to one side. He felt a searing
pain in his left shoulder. But he had no time now to
worry about it. He must not run the risk of being taken
for one of the hated enemies or he would be shot down
by his own people. The wound in his arm began to
pain him. Until this moment he had not seen a single
237
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 243/257
one of the inhabitants at this end of the village. Now,
as he came around the curve in the road, he heard a
confusion of voices and loud outcries. He knew the
conspirators' password, and called it out.
The voices fell silent suddenly. Again Anton cried
the password. When he turned the corner, a small
number of men and women fled in all directions with
wild cries.
Several of the men, however, pointed their guns
threateningly at Anton. Once more he cried out the
password in Czech. Loud cheers greeted him. In one
of the small houses at the other end of the street a
window flew open. The wrinkled, white-haired head
of an old woman bent out. Her feverish eyes, red
from weeping, flamed fanatically. "Don't trust him !"
she shouted in a fierce piercing voice. "One of them
murdered my son!" And then, from the door of a
nearby house, a shot rang out. Anton felt a hard blow
against the left side of his chest. He reeled. Then he
lost consciousness.
When he came to, he saw through a thick haze
Lydia's dark eyes over his. He did not know where
he was, or whether he was dreaming. He felt no pain,
merely a pleasant fever that pulsed through his veins.He felt Lydia's cool, gentle hand upon his forehead,
238
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 244/257
then her soft lips on his mouth. Then everything
vanished and he fell into a deep slumber.
When he awoke for the second time, he felt strength
ened from hours of sleep. He lay alone on a hard bed
in a strange peasant's room. He felt bandages on his
chest and on his left arm. Slowly the memory of what
had happened returned. Then the door opened and
again Lydia£ stood before him, her dark eyes glowing
with pleasure at finding him conscious once more. She
was wearing the costume of a German nurse.
"Is everything all right?" Anton asked painfully.
"Don't talk!" she said gently. "We're going to take
you to the ambulance now . . . We obtained it and kept
it by a miracle!"
"I . . ." he began, and pointed his finger at himself.
She put her hand imploringly on his lips. "Darling!"
she said tearfully.
"I . . . shot the four men
..." He felt his
strengthebbing and fell silent. Lydia kissed him on both eyes.
"Anton!" she whispered passionately. "Promise me
you'll lie still now and get better!" Her voice broke
from agitation and anxiety.
The cloud once more descended upon Anton. It hurt
him when they lifted him from the bed and placed him
on a stretcher. Then, under Lydia's directions, he was
carefully placed in the dark interior of the ambulance."If I only knew whether the bloodhound is dead," he
239
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 245/257
v
heard Frantisek's voice say, nearby. The memory of the
whimpering pale face gave Anton renewed strength
for a moment. "He won't get up any more ... I sawhim," he said grimly. A cry of joy from the two men
at his side was his answer. Frantisek sprang from the
car for a moment and announced the joyous tidings.
A distand roar of unleashed triumph mingled with the
close roar of the motor. Then Frantisek was again at
Anton's side and the car drove off slowly. Soon the
speed increased. "Is Lydia along?" Anton asked feebly.
Frantisek replied that she was sitting in front with the
driver. And Anton yielded once more to the profound
unconsciousness that closed over him like a dark wave.
Anton slept. He saw and heard nothing of the count
less police cars and military cars that roared past them
in all directions in the lowering twilight. Unlike the
others, he did not start when they were halted midway
by a barbed wire roadblock and a harsh voice asked
the destination of the ambulance. And he did not
hear Lydia's convincing replies, snapped out in im
peccable German. He did not feel it when Frantisek's
friend, who was experienced in the care of the wound
ed, gave him liquid nourishment during brief stops. All
the rattling and shaking of the old ambulance did not
awaken him from his deathlike sleep.
* * *
240
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 246/257
Late in the evening he awoke and could not believe
what he saw. In the shaded lamplight he glimpsed a
green tile stove, light, paneled wooden walls, flowerycurtains in front of a blind window. He did not know
when and how he had come here, but he knew he was
in the same incredible cave he had come to three
months before.
The dark green curtain over the doorway parted and
Frantisek's friend entered to look after Anton. He bent
over him and felt his pulse. "The doctor prescribed
absolute rest," he said in a calm, pleasant voice. "He'llbe up tomorrow and look you ovef again. He gave us
exact instructions . . ."
"Where is . . . ." Anton tried to ask.
With a commanding gesture, the man forbade him
to speak. "Maria is coming up tonight ... If she stayed
away too long, it might be noticed when the house is
searched. Besides, she felt it was her duty to send out
the great news over the air to the rest of the world . . ."
Anton felt relieved. She was safe and he would see
her tonight.
"Do you want to hear her speak?" the man asked.
"We can switch on our set here."
Anton nodded gratefully. A moment later he felt a
new weakness overwhelm him, and a vague anxiety
that his strength would not last until she came. He
felt no fear of death, only an aching longing for her.
241
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 247/257
Then Lydia's voice filled the room, muted, but
clearly audible and pure as a bell. The broadcast was
almost over, approaching
its end.
"This is a
brief de
scription," he heard her saying, "of what happened this
afternoon on the road from Prague to Berlin. The
first great blow has been struck; one of the most ruth
less killers and hangmen in history, the bloodhound of
Bohemia, lies tonight between life and death in the
Castle at Prague. A quick, honorable soldier's death
would have been too good for him. He is suffering,
before he dies, a fraction of the torments he has merci
lessly inflicted on thousands and tens of thousands of
innocent people. And the memory of those thousands
whom he smilingly, cold-bloodedly slaughtered, will
increase a thousandfold the torments of his own
death!" She had spoken these last words in a hard,
unemotional voice. It seemed to Anton he saw a
wondrously beautiful angel of vengeance waving a fiery
sword in the heavens.
Now once more there came into her voice the warm
belltone that reminded Anton of the clock in the
library with the two white marble heads. "Free
brothers and sisters of the world," she cried ardently,
"What happened today near Lidice was the outcry of
millions of enslaved, downtrodden human beings, not
only in Bohemia, but in all the lands conquered by the
bloody madness of the Germans: in Greece, in Yugo
242
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 248/257
slavia, in France, in Belgium, in Holland, in Luxem
burg, in Denmark, in Norway, in Poland, in Austria.
Every one of us is ready to die in this fight for freedom.
We know that every one of our deeds will bring upon
us new suppression, new deaths among our ranks.
Already a state of siege has been declared in Bohemia
and Moravia, and once more innocent blood is flowing.
But we know, too, that in this struggle we, the op
pressed, will be the victors in the end. We know that
even today, at the news of what has happened, thealmighty leader of Germany trembles upon his tyrant's
throne . . . ."
The voice broke off. Frantisek's friend
turned off the receiver before the last words, which
were repeated every day.
Anton felt weary. The new weakness had spread
through his body, and seemed to be growing steadily.
A terrible fear came over him that he might die now,
now when he could no longer hear her voice and had
not yet seen her eyes. It would take at least another
two hours before she could be here with him.
The man at his bedside seemed to guess his thoughts.
"Just go to sleep now," he said. "I'll wake you when
she comes."
An hour later Lydia pushed aside the hangings over
the door. She sent Frantisek's quiet, modest assistant
home. The young man had a long way to go, to a
district so far from the scene of the bombing that it
243
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 249/257
was unlikely any house-to-house searches would be
made there at once.
Lydia was out of breath from her long climb; she
had run almost the whole of the way. She had hurried
to say farewell to Anton. The doctor had told her that
one of the bullets had lodged in his heart; there was
no use attempting an operation.
It was almost midnight when he opened his eyes
once more. He smiled blissfully when he saw her. Her
dark eyes were dry, as they had once been at this same
hour when she knelt before the dead body of the pro
fessor. As he had then, Anton sensed now something
of her great inner strength, her inflexible courage. From
the very beginning her voice had been to him the voice
of his native land. That vibrant voice would go on;
its message would pulsate through the air, even when
he himself was no longer. Strange, now the last re
maining fear of death had departed from him. Sweetly,
peacefully, the dark cloud sank down upon him.
It seemed to him he heard soft music, familiar, mov
ing Austrian music that Lydia had caught out of the air
like a bird on the wing and brought down for him.
Alluring, dancing, singing tones that conjured up bright
images of his native landscape. The silvery grey flank
of the Leopoldsberg above the tangle of roofs; the
broad open plaza before the thick columns standing at
either side of the coppergreen dome of the Karls
244
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 250/257
kirche; the wooden traffic platform and the ash-grey
spire of the Stephansdom, towering over chimneys and
rooftops. Then visions of earlier times rose in his
mind: the good, plump face of his cheerful mother; ice
packs gleaming in the Danube; the bright military
band playing marches in the inner courtyard of the
castle of Vienna; old Emperor Franz Josef in an open
carriage, riding above golden wheels ....But at the last, through the dancing, darting frag
ments of many visions, he saw Lydia's dark eyes,
gleaming like the cherries of the south. His bloodless
lips opened for the last time: "We are home . . ." he
breathed into her ear. And then he no longer knew
whether the crystalline bell-tones of her voice as she
gently answered him came from this dark island of
freedom hidden beneath the soil of a foreign
land, or whether they came to him through the ether
waves, or from a place where the ether waves, vibrating
in strange, magical chords, lost themselves in infinite
starry spaces.
245
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 251/257 P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 252/257 P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 253/257 P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 254/257 P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 255/257
RETURN TO the circulation desk of any
University of California Library
or to the
NORTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITYBldg. 400, Richmond Field Station
University of CaliforniaRichmond, CA 94804-4698
ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS2-month loans may be renewed by calling
(415) 642-6233
1-year loans may be recharged by bringing books
to NRLFRenewals and recharges may be made 4 days
prior to due date
DUE AS STAMPED BELOW
my 11990
JU?\ 41991
MAR 0 9 2004
P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 256/257 P u b l i c D o m a i n , G o o g l e - d i g i t i z e d
/ h t t p : / / w w w . h
a t h i t r u s t . o r g / a c c e s s_ u s e # p d - g o o g l e
7/23/2019 Men in Black, A Novel About Lidice, By Owen Elford.
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/men-in-black-a-novel-about-lidice-by-owen-elford 257/257