Free The Widow Killer by Pavel Kohout Page B

technological wonder—a refrigerated counter from Electrolux—to check which delicacies needed replenishment.
    This brief eventless event turned his life upside down. He began to spend all his free time in the cafe, but even so was rarely rewarded with her long-awaited appearance. He prepared his best admiring gaze for her, which, he smugly knew, was infallible—but it never hit its mark: not once did the girl raise her eyes from the sweets.
    Later she confessed to a small deception. From the very beginning she had seen him through the grating in the kitchen, so she knew of his numerous companions. He had captivated her from the first with his masculine good looks and suave manner, and for precisely this reason she resolved not even to look his way lest she fall victim to his charm. She was afraid of ending up like the rest of his transitory acquaintances. Hilde had been born and raised for one great relationship; she intended to offer her love only once and forever. If she were mistaken, she told him soon after the wedding, she would crack. How? he said, not understanding. The way bells crack, she answered; they keep their form, but lose their sound and with it their purpose.
    He had no choice but to bring the mountain to Muhammad and, for the first time in his life, take sole responsibility for meeting a girl, instead of letting her do the work. The only polite way of doing so at the time entailed more serious obligations.
    “Dear Miss Schafer,” he wrote her,
    I beg your forgiveness for troubling you; as an excuse I can offer that I know you by sight, as a regular customer of your establishment. If I may be permitted to make a request of you and your parents, I would like to invite you this Sunday for tea at five o’clock at the Waldruhe Restaurant. Should this request meet with your favor, I will call for you at the private entrance of the Schlosskonditerei at half past four. With deepest respect, I remain
    Police Clerk Erwin Buback.
    Eventually he received Ludwig Schafer’s letter of cautious agreement (which, he later learned, Hilde’s parents had argued over for two days and nights). On the day, he arrived with a bouquet for her mother and had the carriage wait outside so he could converse politely with Hilde’s parents, all of which made a suitable impression. Hilde was released with the admonition to be home no later than half past seven.
    As it turned out, he only needed the first ten minutes. Before they brought out the service, he had the opportunity to look through her tender eyes into the depths of her soul, and as they stirred the tea, he addressed her.
    “Dear Miss Schafer, I don’t know how it happened, and I know this flies in the face of convention, but I am simply in love with you. I’ve never actually loved anyone before in my life, and I thought I lacked the capacity for true feeling. Then I saw you, and from that moment I’ve known what love is. I beg you, put aside your shyness and the suspicion you feel toward me, a man you barely know. Please hear me out; I’ve felt love for the first time and now I know I cannot live without you. What do you say?”
    Even now, in the car heading down the shattered road toward Brno, he could see the scene in his mind’s eye as if it were yesterday, and suddenly he realized that he could honestly and forthrightly say virtually the same words to the young Czech woman, whom he had known roughly as long as he had Hilde when he proposed to her.
    In his comic fashion, Morava coughed timidly before addressing him.
    “We’re already in the suburbs of Brno, Herr Oberkriminalrat…” So?
    “Would you like to go to the hotel first?”
    His body ached from sitting turned toward the right; he would gladly have lain down for an hour, but knew that he’d do better to break this train of thought.
    “No. Let’s get straight to work.”
    He sat in the rocking chair and slowly swung his weight there and back. Forward. Backward. Forward. Backward. The regular motion