Gottland: Mostly True Stories From Half of Czechoslovakia Read Free Page B

Antonín, son of his father’s second wife, is twenty years younger. Tomáš calls him a blockhead in front of the staff and kicks him, just like he does with the rest of his employees.
    A while ago, he ordered analyses of his closest colleagues’ handwriting from London graphologist Robert Saudek. He keeps them under lock and key so the victims know nothing about it. Egon Erwin Kisch will find them in the archives (in 1948 he’ll start his report,
Shoe Factory
, but after writing the first page he’ll die of a heart attack). Graphology Analysis #9—Jan’s—reads like an arrest warrant:
    1.  Honesty: uncertain. If he is one of your office workers, I would not wish to cast suspicion on him on the basis of the handwriting presented to me, but I must say that I would never recommend him.
    2.  Initiative: greedy for short-term success, initiative of an aggressive nature. He is not a blackmailer, but he has a tendency towards it.
    3.  Openness: on the surface, he is frank, since he mainly comes into conflict with people. At the same time, a hypocrite.
    4.  Ability to make judgments: he completely misses the point.
    5.  Development potential: if you gave him free rein, he would be more likely to develop in a negative sense.
    (In six months’ time, Jan A. Bata will be given that free rein by fate. He will terrify people even more than his brother does.)
    Meanwhile, Tomáš Bata must create a site for the small graveyard in the forest.
APRIL 1932: THE OPENING
    “We are accustomed to regard a graveyard as a place where one comes to mourn. But, like everything in the world, a graveyard should serve life. So it should not look frightening, but like a place that the living can visit in peace and joy. Going there should be like going to a park, a place to have fun, to play, and to enjoy happy memories of the dead.” With these remarks, Tomáš Bata opens the Forest Graveyard in Zlín.
    (It probably doesn’t occur to him that he will be the first person to be buried there.)
JULY 12, 1932, MORNING: FOG
    When, at 4 a.m., he arrives at his private airfield in Otrokovice, there is a thick fog. He insists on flying. The pilot asks himto wait. “I am no friend of waiting,” replies the fifty-seven-year-old Tomáš.
    They take off, and seven minutes later, at a speed of ninety miles per hour, the Junkers D1608 airplane crashes into a factory chimney. The plane breaks into three parts, and a broken rib pierces Tomáš Bata’s heart.
    “Tomáš Bata’s orders were sacred. He alone was above them. One day he gave himself an order, and died of it,” writes Kisch.
HALF AN HOUR LATER: THE CHIEF
    When his thirty-seven-year-old brother is informed of the disaster, he picks up the phone and calls the factory manager. “This is the Chief speaking,” he introduces himself. Without batting an eyelid, he uses his brother’s title, which those around him regard as blasphemy. It is said that he has taken the news of Tomáš’s death as a sign from God, and has consequently started to imagine that he is the most important man on earth.
JULY 13, 1932: THE ENVELOPE
    At the district court in Zlín, the envelope containing Tomáš’s last will is opened. The company directors, his wife, son and brother are present. Eighteen-year-old Tomík receives cash from his father, Marie Batová receives cash and real estate. A second envelope is inscribed “ FOR JAN A. BATA ,” and is dated a year ago. Tomáš writes that he has sold all the shares in Bata SA Zlín to Jan.
    Jan opens his mouth and can’t believe that for a whole year he has been the owner of Zlín and all its foreign branches! (The factory manager, one of the very few people who knew about this idea earlier, had asked Bata the reason for such a surprising decision. “The biggest scoundrel in the family will still steal less than the most honest outsider,” the boss had apparently replied.)
    According to the will, Jan is to manage the business at home and abroad. For quite a