THE DEATH OF DRAHOMIR NOVAK

...From Bohemia and Moravia came 7 chiefs, 3 from Slovakia, which makes a total of 15, for one must not forget the representatives of ministries, and in particular those of the Party, thanks to whose tireless efforts, understanding and support, it was possible etc., etc., etc...

...Comrade Lubomir Novak was indeed supposed to watch comrade Zvonimir Novak, however, he had lost the latter overnight, and when he didn't find him even in waitress Fanny's bed he finally sallied forth into the field in order to solve the mystery...

...For several years after the Soviet occupation he was alternately hospitalized, unemployed, and imprisoned while his satiric works circulated widely in typed copies and in exile editions...

...Comrade Bohumir Novak was just about to scramble out from under his rowboat, when at that point also comrade Lubomir Novak, Chief of the Personnel Department of the County Distribution Center of the Central Bohemian County appeared on the trail, gazing around with circumspection...

...Lo and behold—what did he see...

...What a gas, thought comrade Bohumir Novak, hidden under the rowboat...

...These samizdat editions, neatly bound volumes of onion skin pages and typed in twelve copies, are the readers' effort...

...Everything had been turned upside down, the cigarette lighter was in his pants, the revolver in his sock, and the sock in his briefcase...

...At 7:45 comrade Drahomir Novak was still sitting, alive and well, in the abandoned ice cream parlor and although he had an urge, he did not leave his advantageous post...

...Present at the funeral of comrade Drahomir Novak were all the participants of the unlucky National Conference at Slapy, and that including comrade Mojmir Novak...

...His novels and short stories appear regularly in the West European press, are printed by exile publishing houses—and copied by hand in Czechoslovakia as samizdat...

...In the meanwhile, moreover, out on the trace ran also Slovak comrade Vasil Novak, Chief of the Personnel Department of the County Distribution Center of the East Slovakian County, who was searching for comrade Lubomir Novak, but seeing the overturned rowboat, as a former partisan, he swiftly hid beneath it, for he heard a dull crash, the echo of the fall of comrade Vlastimil Novak who had slipped while hurrying after his Slovak comrade Vasil Novak...

...Since his expulsion from Czechoslovakia, he has supported himself by teaching journalism at Ohio State University while continuing to write...

...Razl...

...Comrade Jaromir Novak was not following him, but rather his Slovak comrade Ludovit Novak, Chief of the Personnel Department of the County Distribution Center of the West Slovakian County, who had proceeded down that same trail already ten minutes earlier, and since comrade Ludovit Novak had run out clad merely in his pajamas, he had a head start...

...In the morning he found that somebody had even ransacked his pockets...

...Thus it happened that comrade Vlastimil Novak got ahead of comrade Vasil Novak, even though it had been his original intention to get behind him, and on the other hand comrade Vasil Novak had between himself and comrade Lubomir Novak already comrade Bohumir Novak, who had been under the rowboat previously, in addition to which comrade Kazimir Nowak from the North Moravian County had run into his path, who in turn was investigating the cause of the matutinal absence of comrade Vlastimil Novak, and since comrade Kazimir Nowak was younger and in excellent condition, he jumped over the rowboat including comrade Vasil Novak, whereby the search was further tangled up...

...K. The National Conference of Personnel Department Chiefs of County Distribution Centers took place that year at the beginning of April at the tried conference site on the shores of Lake Slapy...

...The aforesaid comrade Svatomir Novak, apparently angered by these predicaments, had the unfortunate idea of climbing up a mighty walnut tree spreading its branches above the ice cream parlor, which tree, then, crashed with him at 8:10 upon the deserted ice cream parlor and together with the latter on comrade Drahomir Novak finding himself still inside it...

...But while leaping over the rowboat, comrade Kazimir Nowak landed on the stern of the craft, which slid off the boatrack and settled on the grass, concealing thus the surrounding area from comrade Vasil Novak's view, as well as preventing the latter from crawling out in a hurry, so that comrade Svatomir Novak, Chief of the Personnel Department of the County Distribution Center of the South Bohemian County, who hastened to investigate the strange behavior of comrade Kazimir Nowak ran by, unheard and unnoticed by comrade Vasil Novak...

...Comrade Jaromir Novak, Chief of the Personnel Department of the West Bohemian County Distribution Center, was coming, sneaking cautiously down the path behind him...

...However, at night he took some phenobarbital so that he slept soundly...

...Behind comrade Lubomir Novak there was a gap of which comrade Bohumir Novak swiftly took advantage in order to crawl out from under the rowboat and set out in a northwesterly direction on the heels of comrade Lubomir Novak, however with the intent of overtaking him by means of a detour and thus getting hold of comrade Jaromir Novak who had been assigned to him, not suspecting, however, that the latter had been assigned comrade Ludovit Novak of West Slovakia, who, in turn, was in front...

...And Zvonimir Novak briskly ran out in his red shorts in order to observe inconspicuously, under the pretense of jogging, the doings of comrade Svatomir Novak who had been assigned to him as Chief from Budejice within the framework of regionalism...

...Well, well!—said comrade Bohumir Novak to himself, snatching away his hand just in time—how come comrade Lubomir Novak follows comrade Jaromir Novak, when he ought to be rightly watching comrade Zvonimir Novak, Chief of the Personnel Department of the County Distribution Center of Usti on the Elbe...

...However, as an experienced cop he kept his cool...

...The secret of the latter's nonparticipation on the trace of that fatal morning comrade Drahomir Novak had taken with him on his final voyage...

...The March of the Fallen Revolutionaries resounded majestically through space, and everyone was tearful, most of all the cook, Mr...

...At this moment comrade Zvonimir Novak (Chief of the Personnel Department of the County Distribution Center of the North Bohemian County) woke up, indeed not in waitress Fanny's bed, where comrade Lubomir Novak had looked for him, but rather in Mr...

...Razl's, the cook's, where he would not have been sought by anyone...

...COMRADE Drahomir Novak who as representative of the Ministry of Distribution had been assigned the task of keeping watch over everybody was sitting meanwhile vigilantly in an abandoned ice cream parlor and nervously observed that he was still missing comrade Mojmir Novak, Chief of the Personnel Department of the County Distribution Center of the Central National Committee in Prague, who was supposed to be in the field long ago, properly then between comrade Vasil Novak and comrade Vlastimil Novak...

...In that he was right...

...They attest, not that the author wanted topublish, but that readers wanted to read, badly enough to pay the price of copying the manuscript by typewriter and risking police harassment...

...Pretending to go for an early morning walk, he hid under an overturned rowboat and waited...

...However, comrade Bohumir Novak was mistaken...

...1969) — Translated by MARKETA FREUNDOVA...

...Not until after supper, when he went to his room to get an Alka Seltzer did he discover that someone had rummaged through his suitcase...

...He, therefore, could observe comrade Ludovit Novak who was returning in his pajamas while he, too, searched in vain in woods and ravines for comrade Mojmir Novak, though he himself had been caught up with and was being followed by comrade Kazimir Nowak who, however, mistakenly believed him to be comrade Vlastimil Novak, because they wore similar pajamas...

...For the purpose of better orientation it must be added that comrade Vlastimil Novak as Chief of the Personnel Department of the County Distribution Center of the East Bohemian County did not have the proper footwear for sports activity in the field...

...What a way to organize things...

...Comrade Bohumir Novak, still hidden under the upside-down rowboat, obviously knew nothing about comrade Ludovit Novak, and therefore his suspicion that comrade Jaromir Novak was following him and not comrade Ludovit Novak, of whom he had not caught a glimpse, was rather well founded...

...As a cousin of the County Party Secretary he had hanging around his neck long-range field glasses from the German Democratic Republic, and since he was sneaking closely along the rowboat, he nearly trod upon comrade Bohumir Novak's hand...

...During the Dubcek revival, Hochman turned the weekly of the Journalists' Union,Reporter, into the liveliest voice of awakened freedom...

...Comrade Bohumir Novak, who finally got behind comrade Jaromir Novak, was forced to join comrade Lubomir Novak who had never caught up with his comrade Ludovit Novak, and both, therefore, speedily followed comrade Svatomir Novak who himself, however, strode in the footsteps of comrade Zvonimir Novak, unable to prevent an unknown old woman who was watching her only goat grazing on the fallow from getting between himself and comrade Zvonimir Novak, still clad in his red shorts...

...While I should be unobtrusively watching you, brother, you come creeping up behind me...

...The man behind it is a Czech journalist whose satiric reportage helped undermine the Communist facade in Czechoslovakia...

...Jiri Hochman is not a pseudonym: it is a by-line long coupled with datelines Washington, Peking, and Moscow...

...However, even if he should have run out now, comrade Mojmir Novak would have had difficulties finding his right place at this point, due to the fact that his comrade Vasil Novak was lying under the rowboat, while comrade Vlastimil Novak whom he should have had behind himself would by now be separated from him additionally by comrade Kazimir Nowak, not to mention comrade Lubomir Novak who at this moment, resting in the bushes, remained unnoticed and was finally overtaken by all with the exception of comrade Vasil Novak who was imprisoned under the rowboat, and comrade Drahomir Novak who was sitting in the ice cream parlor, and finally, of course, with the exception of himself...

...Comrade Bohumir Novak, Chief of the Personnel Department of the County Distribution Center of Southern Moravia was assigned room number 13, but as a Marxist he made no complaint...

...Comrade Vlastimil Novak, although he should have been followed by comrade Kazimir Nowak, returned finally not followed by anybody, since comrade Vasil Novak whom he was seeking was still imprisoned under the rowboat, and comrade Kazimir Nowak who was seeking him was already back at home base, confused by the color of comrade Ludovit Novak's pajamas...

...These private typewriters have produced a literary renaissance, including such scholarly volumes as Jan Patocka's Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History (whose distinguished author died recently after a long and grueling interrogation at Secret Police headquarters in Prague), major novels like Pecka's The Shattering or Klansky's Exile—as well as humor in the tradition of Ha.Iek's Good Soldier Schweik—E...