Spaceman of Bohemia

A VERY BRIEF INTERMISSION

MASTER JAN HUS did not burn to death. In fact, he spent his last days in the warm bed of a widow, his thoughts at peace with God and love.

Hanuš unearthed these truths in a long-abandoned archive sealed by the keepers of history. Thirty-two days into his imprisonment and torture, Hus received a guilty visit from King Sigismund, who offered a pardon under a simple condition. Hus would travel secretly to the edge of the Christian lands, where no one could recognize him, and live out the rest of his life in exile. At first, Hus refused. He predicted that his public death would cause the desired uprising in the Bohemian lands. This was to be his part in God’s plan for Europe’s rebellion against the Catholic Church.

Then entered the widow. She ran her fingers along the bruises and cuts on Hus’s ribs, cheeks, hands—those he had received from his tormenters. She said she saw the love of God in him. She said that one of God’s sons had already died and caused the world a great sorrow. Soon, Hus and the widow were on their way to a quiet Moldavian village. They baked bread, bathed with each other, began to sleep with each other as husband and wife. Hus no longer felt compelled to preach. The torture had broken him—after the suffering, he was ready to die or to take on another life. A simple life—one that did not force him to become a symbol.

Of course, the necessity for symbols did not disappear with Hus. The king hoped that the master’s crimes would simply be forgiven, but the church leaders would not let go of the despised heretic, and demanded his return. They smelled blood and spectacle. The king sent three dozen of his best men to seek a villager who resembled Hus. They found a few, and of these few, a man dying of consumption agreed to take on the role of Hus. In return, the wife and child he left behind would benefit from the king’s generous coin. The man grew out his beard and took a few beatings to look even more like his doppelgänger before marching onto the platform and burning at the stake. The mob, blind with rage, could not tell the difference. Neither could the church leaders celebrating the death of their dissident.

Following Hus’s death, the people of Bohemia rebelled and a civil war broke out between the Hussites, avengers of their beloved philosopher, and the monarchs, representatives of the dreaded church. Hus told the news of the impending conflict to his widow over tea with milk—calmly, as if the wars were happening in a world he’d never visited. The widow asked him whether he would go back and fight alongside his countrymen. Hus declined.

His death, whether it was his or someone else’s, had unleashed the revolution Bohemia needed to free itself. No amount of fighting he could have done as a living man would have achieved the impact of his death at the stake. He had served his part in history.

Now, Hus could truly live.