Under a Cruel Star: A Life In Prague, 1941-1968

In February 1956, Nikita Khrushchev attempts to strengthen his political position by making Stalin’s crimes public. As a result, thousands of political prisoners are released. The released prisoners are declared innocent, but those who had been executed remain labeled as guilty. Meanwhile, the country grows more divided: “Lying and play acting became a way of life; indifference and apathy became its essence” (165).

Pavel is offered a job at the Academy of Sciences, and through his employment, Heda receives her first translating job. She translates German writer Arnold Zweig’s 1927 satirical war novel The Case of Sergeant Grischa. Heda realizes that she is now doing what she was “born to do” (166). At first, her translations are published under Pavel’s name, then both of their names and, finally, in 1968, under her name alone.

In the spring of 1963, after “seven years of stalling and fencing, the Party decided to admit that the Soviet Union had been its model for the execution and torture of innocent people” (166). Those who were executed were finally deemed innocent. Heda struggles, unsure how to tell Ivan the truth of his father’s demise.

Heda decides to tell Ivan everything. He is fifteen years old now, and after he learns about his father, he grows silent. A few days later, he approaches Heda with questions. At this moment, Heda writes, “[a] load fell off my heart. The worst was behind us” (168).

In April 1963, Heda receives a summons to appear before the Central Committee. Once there, Heda calls the Party leaders monsters, slamming her fist on the table. The officials try to calm her, and they show her a document that proclaims Rudolf’s innocence.

This gesture is not enough for Heda, however, and she demands a public retrial. At the very least, she wants a document she can take with her proving Rudolf’s innocence. The Party does not accommodate these wishes.

Heda writes a formal complaint to the Prosecutor General, calling for the prosecution of all individuals involved in the death of Rudolf. She claims they are guilty of murder. Soon, she is called to the Ministry of Justice to report the losses suffered by Rudolf’s death. She makes a list of her losses that includes the loss of honor, health, employment, education, faith in the Party, and property. She challenges the officials by listing intangible things that cannot be returned. At the meeting, she scolds them for thinking they can “buy her off” (175).

Heda decides to vacation at the Black Sea in Bulgaria with Ivan. They enjoy themselves, swimming in salt water and watching albatrosses. That June, the Party finally publishes a small notice detailing the innocence of the men executed in the Slánský trial. The Party, however, does not admit fully to their crimes.

Heda plans to visit a former schoolmate’s brother, Pavel Tigrid, in Paris to leak a top-secret communist document. She takes from a secret hiding place “a copy of the Communication, the Party’s most closely watched top-secret document” (177). She plans to smuggle the document by train, and she hides the document under a square of linoleum on the train car floor. She is searched many times, but the document is not found.

At one point, she is moved to another compartment on the train. She purposefully leaves a glove behind so that she can return to her former seat and retrieve the document. Pavel Tigrid publishes the document in full. Its leak is never traced back to Heda.

At the end of 1968, Heda attends a public lecture on crime in Czechoslovakia. An older man stands up and asks about the unlawful hangings, demanding an explanation regarding the “laws and courts we have when innocent people get hanged” (178). This initial question at the public forum prompts many others. Soon, people are shouting, expressing their growing dissent.

That spring, youth marches take place. The city is infused with life and happiness: “All public places were packed then as if, after all those years of isolation, people could not get enough of one another’s company” (181). People still fear, however, that the Soviets will not allow the growing freedom. A declaration circulates pledging loyalty to socialism that does not “murder or intimidate or lie” (182). Heda believes that if this kind of socialism can be achieved, Rudolf will not have died in vain.

A meeting between the governments of Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union is held in Cierna, a small town on the border of the USSR and Czechoslovakia. The negotiations end in a compromise that “satisfies no one,” but all are relieved when the meeting is over. On August 21, the Russians invade Prague. Heda attempts to cross the border illegally; at this moment, Ivan is in England and her husband is in the United States, and she fears that borders will soon close. Heda attempts to cross on foot and is caught. She argues with her captors, but she agrees to return to Prague.

The resistance in Prague is lively. Heda believes it is “the supreme moment of our lives […when…] we all strove for the same things” (187). Heda participates by handing out leaflets and broadcasting over the radio with a friend from a town near Germany. When the Polish army arrives, Heda is tasked to help translate, as she learned some Polish in the concentration camps.

At the end of September, Heda decides to leave Prague, and she boards a train. Although Prague cannot overcome Russian forces, Heda sees that:

[O]ne important change had already occurred—the spell under which the Soviets had held many die-hard true believers was broken for good. There would be no more illusions, no more self-deception about the nature of Big Brother. The grim reign of ideology was over, and maybe truth in its own oblique, unpredictable way, had prevailed after all (191).