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Jiri Kratochvil: Slib (The Vow

Kamil Modráček, is an architect in what for much of this book is the 1950s in Czechoslovakia, specifically in Brno. He did work for a private company but with the arrival of the communists this has now been taken over by the state and now he works on designing barracks and Soviet style blocks of flats. However, he has problems with the authorities, firstly because he has left wing views but more particularly because he designed a well regarded villa for an SS official . He did not do this for money. His sister was an artist and her studio was implicated in anti Nazi activities and she was arrested and was likely to be executed. He agreed to design the villa forGruppenführer SS Günter Wagenheim, which was to be in the shape of a swastika. As a result can be clearly seen from the air as a swastika because it is such a wonderfully designed building it has been kept. It is now used by theCzech secret police authorities. Because of this he has to have frequent interviews with a state security official, Lieutenant Láska, who asks the same questions every time and gets the same answers.Unlike other architects he has not built a grandiose villa for himself , partly for this reason, partly as he tells us a for various personal reasons.

Kamil maybe the main character but is certainly not the only major character in this book. Daniel Kočí is a butcher. It is not a job he enjoys. The job he used to have is the job he enjoyed, namely as a private detective. This is not a business one can carry out under communism. Despite this he is asked by a friend to investigate the friend’s wife whom he suspects of being unfaithful. Dan takes a couple of days of unpaid leave from his job and sets to work. It does not take him long , with some clever sleuthing, to find out that she is having an affair with a higher ranking official. It also does not take him long to find out that the high ranking official is about to be arrested. He tells his client that his wife is innocent. He assumes that is the end of his detective career, but it is not. He gets contacted by the head of an electronics company., more or less for the same reason but this man wants his wife to be proved to be adulterous so he can have sole possession of his villa, designed by Kamil Modráček. Once again, his sleuthing comes to the fore, though he does have to almost confronting a tiger.

The shoe is on the other foot when he is tricked himself though this turns out to be an admission test for the secret police which he passes and is admitted.

We learn more about Lieutenant Láska who is not highly regarded by his colleagues and who, as a result has been allocated a very poor quality residence while his colleagues have better ones.

Other people are involved in the investigations, including one of his neighbours, Mrs Kratochvilová, mother of Jiri Kratochvil, which is of course the name of our author. More worryingly for him his beloved sister also seems to be caught up and Lieutenant Láska endeavours to get Kamil Modráček involved, offering him a deal to reveal more information about his sister. He himself has stated that his sister is the most most important person in his life, more important than his wife and daughter, so when she is arrested, he is devastated and even more devastated when she allegedly hangs herself in prison. He is given that sealed coffin and told not to open it and a few of her items and told not to approach her villa at any cost. He does go and look and finds it is occupied by.Lieutenant Láska. The eponymous vow involves his getting his revenge.

We now step back a bit and learn thatKamil’s father had become acquainted with Nabokov and that Nabokov had even visited them and, as a gift, and left behind the text of a story, which involved expat Russians in Berlin kidnapping a KG be officer and keeping him locked up. The father had translated the text into Czech. By chance ,Kamil finds that the cellar in his house has a wall which was accidentally broken sand seems to lead into a massive tunnel system under the city. It is clearly old but also clearly had modern usage, firstly as a bomb shelter during the war but then for a place for the Germans to hide when the Russians were taking over.

He is aware that the local antique dealer has a bear’s ‘cage for sale and he purchases it and sets it up in the tunnel.

Meanwhile, we are back with Dan who has been given his first job with the secret police – to find Lieutenant Láska who has mysteriously disappeared without trace.

Of course, we know what has happened to the lieutenant. However, for Kamil, things get complicated when first when a neighbour and then Dan discover the hideout and they have to be chloroformed and join the lieutenant in the tunnel. Then he realises that there are others who might have suspicions and of course he needs one or two useful people, such as a priest and a doctor.

We learn what happens toKamil well into the future when the whole matter has been resolved. It gets even more complicated when, seemingly out of the blue, we meet, in the future, a radio journalist who is to interview a woman composer, originally from Brno. What is she got to do with this story? The answer, it turns out it is quite a lot.
This is a very complicated story and great fun to read. Our journalist even meets the by now decrepit.Jiri Kratochvil who borrows money from him to buy a copy of Midnight Children. Indeed, there is a lot of humour as he takes great pleasure in mocking communist and the secret police above he is a thoroughly enjoyable story.

Publishing history

First published in 2009byDruhé město
First published in English in 2021by Glagoslav
Translated by Charles S. Kraszewski