The Wooden King. Thomas Maxwell McConnell

if his ankles were shackled.

      Not many waited for the tram. A mother cooing into a blanket, a sturdy woman with her shopping netted in each hand, two men with silent eyes in the shadows of their hat brims. Through the trees on its long ridge the ancient hulk of the castle spied out beneath the scarlet flag, the crooked cross unfurled over its keep. A number fourteen drew up and paused and departed. An eleven rattled down the line, squealing to a stop on the rails, and Trn took the steps after the woman and her shopping. The two men behind their brims stood together in the aisle not talking and the mother whispered into the crying blanket until a man rose and she heaved down beside a woman with a round hat angled over chestnut hair fanning across the shoulder of her coat. He could see nothing of her face, but the hair, the brightest object in the tram, was lustrous, washed today, this morning. Dried before the fire, swung limp and wet to be treated to the rough toweling while she wore her slip. The tram lurched to a stop and Trn sighed at the interference of passengers. When they all swayed at the bend he stepped to the other side of the aisle but still she was out of his sight. A man with a toothbrush mustache read a newspaper, another little Hitler with his homage neatly trimmed. The headline declared the French had been repulsed again. Through one stop and another Trn gazed past the news for a glimpse of the chestnut hair. He consulted his watch. When the door folded open he took the steps to the street, a vain glance back for the luster, and then the tram jolted and left him behind. He would have a long extra block to the library, down another street fretted with bloodred banners, but today he had the time.

      Under the cold sunshine he waited, cold but still sun revolving them into a new season. He unbuttoned his coat. The first boys came out putting on caps, swinging satchels. One slung his into the back of another boy and ran on, a gaggle joining him down the sidewalk, all of them laughing except the target, his knees jogging further and further behind. Finally he stood and watched, shrugged one shoulder and plodded on. Aleks was among the last. He took Trn’s reaching hand, gave up his satchel to the other.

      “How was your day today?”

      “It was good.”

      “That’s good. Do you have much homework?”

      “It’s Friday.”

      “That’s right.”

      “What will we do tomorrow?”

      “I thought we’d go hiking. Would you like that?”

      The boy nodded.

      “Look at that sun.” Trn settled back his hat. “Won’t it be fine shining through the needles tomorrow?”

      “If it doesn’t rain.”

      “What’s wrong?” Trn asked.

      “I don’t know.”

      “Is it Adam?”

      They were stopped at a corner for a staff car with the WH license plate of the Wehrmacht to thrush over the pavement. The boy watched the gutter.

      “Yes.”

      “Did he hit you? I thought that ended some time ago.”

      “No. It’s not about hitting.”

      “What then?”

      Aleks shrugged. They crossed and climbed on. The shadow of one great cloud rolled over a far wooded hill and Trn squinted to see the sun blinded behind it.

      “Tell me what happened. I thought this was all resolved.”

      “Adam is a kind of hero.”

      “How is he a hero? Because he bullies the other boys?”

      “No. Because of his father.”

      Trn said, “I see.”

      “His father was in the army. Then he went to Poland to be in another army. Then he died.”

      “So now Adam is a hero for having such a father?”

      Aleks said, “Were you in the army?”

      “We all had to be for a time.”

      “But you weren’t in a war.”

      “My father was. The last war. I know you know that already.”

      “And he was hurt.”

      “That’s so.”

      “He had to have a plate of metal in his head for the rest of his life but you couldn’t see it. But you could see the surgeon’s scar when he lost his hair.”

      “You have a good memory.”

      They made the top of the hill, kept the gymnazium to their left on the crescent road round it.

      “That’s where you went to school.”

      “Secondary school. That’s right.”

      An iron-gray van drew up to the iron gate, gray smoke choking from the tailpipe until two guards swung the gate.

      “It’s kind of you to walk me to school every day. And home.”

      “Do you like it?”

      He shrugged.

      “I like it,” Trn said. “It’s the best part of my day.”

      “But you don’t have to anymore. I know the way now.”

      “I know you do.”

      “And the German boys, they don’t push us into the street now. Not really. They don’t shove us down. We can walk on the sidewalk.”

      “If you would like to take yourself to school we could arrange that. Or I could go only part of the way. What would you like best?”

      “I don’t know.”

      “Or we could go on as we do now.”

      Trn squeezed and a warm hand squeezed back.

      “Alena, you know I don’t have the English for that.”

      “But you do,” she said. “You had that time in London. And Oxford. You used to talk about the library there, the round one. I’m sure universities in England and America would be—” Her eyes searched at two corners of the ceiling for a term. “Very excited to have a Czech scholar of history on their faculty.” Her teeth smiled at the idea.

      Trn glanced to the clock on the sideboard.

      “First of all how can a professor who doesn’t have a position in his own country get one in another? And who would want to study the history of a lost tribe?”

      “It’s not your fault the Germans closed the universities. You can explain it all in a letter. Benes taught in America.”

      “Benes was president, Alena. Of course he found a job.”

      “He believes he’s president still to listen to him on the wireless, even though he ran away.”

      He could say, “You want us to run away,ˮ but he only watched her standing there in her white dress. Woven into the hair at her temples a few white threads. The war or life with him?

      “So. Let’s say then that I could get a position, though I couldn’t. How are we to travel, even as far as England?”

      She waved a hand. “I’ve thought of that. We cross into Slovakia. They haven’t been independent long, their borders won’t be fast. And besides, Slovaks are still our brothers. We can talk to the guard. Maybe bribe him. Then on to Yugoslavia. From there we take a train.”

      “A train to where, Alena? Yugoslavia and Slovakia don’t have a common frontier. They don’t meet. And what about papers? The Gestapo won’t knock on our door with exit permits.”

      She concentrated on a fingernail, bit. She inspected the floor.

      “Well first to another country, then Yugoslavia. Hungary, Bulgaria?”

      “Hungary.”