Bławat

First I went to Bławat. 

Daniel Bławat was a pre-war Communist, a veteran of the civil war in Spain where he fought with the international brigades. Amazingly he survived through the post-war reconsolidation and in the moment when all his comrades at arms were becoming members of the central committee, generals or ministers, Bławat suddenly came to the conclusion that the whole of communism was nothing more than one grand swindle. 

So he took up employ as a coat check attendant at the most elegant cafe in town. I frequented it almost daily. It was situated on one of the main streets, across from the opera house and a top rated hotel, where word had it an apartment was taken before the war by Herman Goering, one of the largest war criminals. The distance to the pool was maybe a hundred meters and the coffee shop was named after the street by which the pool stood. 

Bławat was an old monastic, a Jew, which for me had a very positive significance in this case. At the time many Jews desperately sought out departure from this place by any means possible. I’d like to add that in these times, legal travel outside the country was in practice completely impossible. It was rare, only for those who as deposit left their families or their own highly-placed party sponsors; for normal people the national borders were hermetically sealed. Bławat was a person of virtue, honesty and intelligence. 

I knew him for a long time and had, which in this situation was very important, one hundred percent confidence in him. When I told him my plan to leave the country, he thought for a moment and told me to think long and hard, because this was freakishly dangerous. Jews have, in a certain sense, mitigating circumstances, that they may be going as if to build their state in Israel. 

Bławat added laughingly that primarily they built this purported state in the USA, Canada, Western Europe, South America or even Australia. Nevertheless right away he made serious his tone, that I, in any case, did not have any mitigating circumstances, and would not have them, and they’d have my ass under three thin pretexts: 

For treachery to the socialist state.

For the illegal attempt to cross the border

And... For desertion.

Not being too impressed by my idea, he decided that it was the lesser of two evils that I came to him with this, because I had no clue how full this country had become of agents provocateur, snitches, informants and confidence men. 

He asked if anyone else knew of my plan. I told him that absolutely no one knew, because it wasn’t a whole hour ago that the idea came into my head, and I came with this straight to him. Bławat ordered conspiratorially that no one, and that’s absolutely no one, had any right to know of this, and that I should return in three days, by which time maybe something would have come up. 

Waiting three days was a kind of funny proposition, because I saw him almost daily. Over the next few days, entering the coffee shop I optimistically looked Bławat in the eyes, but each time he was stone, as if completely ignoring me. I couldn’t sleep, forever waiting and checking the mail, that by chance they hadn’t already sent me the entire order to appear at the EXTRA term. I knew that I had very little time, and meanwhile the business with Bławat dragged on horribly. 

From nerves I began to consider that at some point I should work on two or even three fronts, but for the time being, as Bławat ordered, I had not begun any discussion on this matter with anyone. 

On the fifth or sixth day, when anxiously but hopefully I entered the coffee shop, Bławat beckoned me with his hand, holding some horrible Soviet magazine. “Tomorrow, at the fish probery, in the restaurant at three thirty, you take one of the two-person tables under the wall across from the bar. You’ll read this magazine. Someone will come up to you and say... NICE AUTUMN WEATHER TODAY... you will respond while reading the magazine... FOR SOME NICE, FOR OTHERS EVEN NICER... This will be the person that you need. And now repeat the passwords.”