LITMIR.BIZ

       2

      The barber’s shop on Prag Strasse in Laun was busy that morning. It could have been taken for some kind of symbol or national expression of independence that men arrived early to get their hair cut. Apart from Mass at the church of St Nicholas, it was the only good excuse any man could invent to be seen so early. The horizontal blinds of this front-room barber’s shop gave an excellent view on to the main street, on to the pub across the road and everything that moved through the town.

      There was a group of men waiting to have their hair cut, four men and a small Down’s Syndrome boy who stood by the window. They all had seen the new armoured patrol arrive to replace the night patrol on the square. And the German woman on foot, in her red coat, along with a German officer.

      The men sat along a wooden bench and said nothing. They felt the silent, reflective moment that all men feel before their turn comes up in the barber’s chair, the moment preceding change. From time to time they found something to whisper about. Occasionally the barber joined in with a discreet word in somebody’s ear as he drew the sheet up and stuffed it into the collar of his next customer. But the clicking of scissors took over and covered everything with a feverish whisper of its own.

      The boy with Down’s Syndrome clapped when his father settled into the barber’s chair. He ran back and forth to the window, excited about everything, occasionally receiving a smile of acknowledgement from the men along the bench. He had red hair. Saliva ran down to his chin and there was a damp stain on his chest where it collected. He was no more than four years of age. Born during the war. The very existence of a boy with Down’s Syndrome was an overt act of revolution in the Reich.

      The Czech liberation came late. They could have waited for the Russians but they were anxious to strike a blow for independence. A home-made revolution.

      Throughout April the resistance movement had obstructed German military movement by bombing railways, disabling locomotives, tanks, armoured units and generally supporting the Russian advance. The aim was to be a nuisance. They blew up fuel reserves, and when the German Army resorted to using alcohol to power their vehicles, the Czechs began to spill bottles and barrels of schnapps and slivovitz into the streets; bottles they would soon need to celebrate victory when they were eventually liberated.

      The men in Laun were waiting for the signal. They were already aware that on the previous day men from the nearby mining town of Kladno had marched to Hriskov, south of Laun, with no more than a ration of cigarettes in their pockets, to take over the German arms dump there. The Czechs needed weapons. In Prague, they planned to fight with furniture. With barricades. In another north Bohemian town, the people tried to do without weapons altogether and came out on the streets for a peaceful protest, a premature but unsuccessful attempt at the velvet approach. General Schörner told his troops ‘to quell any such disturbances with the most ruthless force’.

      The men at the barber’s shop in Laun were waiting for the right moment to assemble and form a National Committee of independent Czechoslovakia. All they needed was a leader. They sat watching the boy with Down’s Syndrome playing with the cords of the blinds by the window. The boy groaned in a world of his own. Occasionally, he turned around and addressed one of the men without the slightest hint of shyness, his upper lip drawn up toward his nose, genetically disfigured into a permanent smile.

      ‘Who’s next?’ the barber asked, knowing that a son follows after a father.

      The boy sat down on his father’s knee and allowed the barber to hang a sheet around him and tuck it under the collar. It was all new to him. He was silent, reassured by his father’s words, until the barber began to clip rhythmically with the scissors. ‘There’s a good boy,’ the barber kept saying. But even before the scissors had touched the boy’s hair, he began to struggle and make life difficult. The white sheet had already come undone. There was no point in putting it back. Instead, the barber manoeuvred himself around the chair as best he could to try and get at the boy’s hair.

      Both the father and the barber tried to distract the boy. ‘Look, look in the mirror. Look, there’s a good boy.’ The barber tapped the mirror with his scissors. ‘There’s a good boy. Nearly finished,’ he kept saying.

      But the boy soon began to wail. Not so much like crying, but a solid howl; half fear and half mistrust. He kept looking around to see what was going on but he couldn’t understand the purpose of the scissors. He tried to free his arms from his father’s grip. Wisps of cut hair fell into his eyes, tickled his nose and his neck behind his collar. Nobody could explain it to him. The barber got a scented towel and wiped it over the boy’s face, taking away a mixture of saliva, cut hair and tears.

      Another armoured car went by outside. The barber managed to deflect the boy’s attention for long enough to clip a semi-circle over the ears. The fingers of his left hand pinned the boy’s head down vigorously. But the sound of the scissors magnified in the boy’s ears to the size of shears and he resumed his howls, louder than ever.

      The whole barber’s shop had become occupied with the boy’s haircut. Once again the barber made an attempt to distract the boy. He took out two ivory brushes, clacked them together and gave them to the boy. The barber rushed around, exploiting the moment. It was a race against time, before the boy dropped the brushes again and put his hands up. That was enough. His father released him and the boy jumped down, running into the centre of the room.

      ‘Vla, vla,’ he said, holding his ears, showing off his haircut to the men waiting on the bench.

      That was the morning the Czechs finally decided to liberate themselves from the fascists and hand themselves over to the communists. The grand uprising in Prague had begun. The whole country was rising up in support. In Laun, a man named Jaroslav Süssmerlich walked into the pub U Somolu at 81 Prag Strasse and convened the first meeting of the National Committee. The men at the barber’s shop abandoned their places in the queue and joined him.

      They demanded the immediate surrender. They wanted nothing but outright capitulation. By phone, Jaroslav Süssmerlich translated the anger of the town and told the Germans they were ready to attack the garrison. The men from Kladno had already taken the arms dump at Hriskov. But the German commander in Laun made it clear that he had no authority to capitulate until orders came from Prague; from the German High Command. Besides, they held a number of key prisoners; Czech resistance fighters. It became a hostage drama. Negotiations became a race against time. Nobody realized that the Russians were approaching from the north instead of the south.