He looked at the old-fashioned clock which once had hung on the wall of Vesely’s first house, when old man Vesely still operated a wheel himself. Two brass cylinders, hanging from chains, pulled down the seconds and minutes and hours. It was always difficult for Blaha’s near-sighted eyes to read the exact time from the Roman numerals on the face of this clock.
He climbed back on his stool. With his ill-shaped, almost claw-like hands he reached for the bowl. There was the star on which he had been working, two of the diagonal rays still missing. He twisted himself into position. He slowly raised his hands to the exact level of the wheel and set the bowl to it. He listened with grim happiness to the first screech of the wheel cutting into the glass.
Then there was another pain. The bowl dropped, and he heard it crack.
Otakar Blaha, elbows still on the board, stared at his empty hands, let his head sink into them, and wept.
This was a rich, mellow autumn. It was as if the weather, sunny and mild, wanted to make up for the trials of spring and summer. The farmers at the foot of the hills were finished with their harvesting; it had been a good harvest, and they were plowing their fields for the winter wheat. The woods were reluctant to let go of their leafy pride, and the green of the pines which crowned St. Peter, St. Anna, St. Maria, and St. Nepomuk was deeper than ever.
In this air, the four peaks seemed to come closer to the town. Petra, standing in front of the schoolhouse, the full weight of the books in her bag dragging down her left arm, gazed vacantly at the hills. The instant the bell had sounded, the others had tumbled out of the building and, resuming their usual squabbles and overheated, childish disputes and confidences, had disappeared. They neither fought with her nor told her secrets. She was very well satisfied; her concerns lay elsewhere.
Her concerns lay with Karel, with Karel’s feelings about her. She knew exactly how she felt about him; she had more than enough time to herself to think that out. She was determined not to show what she felt as long as everybody, including Karel, considered her a child. And she was a child; her own body told her so; she had to accept the evidence of the slanting mirror above the dresser in her room. She was resigned to having to wait until she could step forth, full-blown and ready. Every morning, she wished it were evening, every Monday that Saturday would come; each month passed was a month gained.
She ambled to the curb, set her right heel on its edge and with the tip of her shoe tried to reach the dried mud in the gutter. She should go home and have her afternoon milk. “Drink it,” the maid would say as always, “it’s good for you.”
She balanced herself on the curbstone and began to walk carefully, setting heel to toe, heel to toe, and counting her steps. If they came out uneven at the corner, she’d go home to the maid and the milk. But if they came out even, she’d go up to St. Nepomuk and try to see Karel. And although he might behave noncommittally, now, she knew how it would be on the day when he saw her as Petra, the woman. She knew what she would say at that hour and how she would act, down to the last gesture and expression.
The books tended to throw her off balance. If she stepped into the gutter, the whole deal was off—
“Petra!”
There—the damage was done. She turned angrily.
“I’ve been watching you all the way down the street,” said Thomas. “Playing a game?”
“No!” she said, and compressed her lips.
“Having a bet with yourself, then?”
If he guessed that much, he might even guess the whole truth! “I didn’t know you were down here,” she said hastily.
“I had to go to the post office. I’ve written a story for a big magazine in Prague, a story on America, and I sent it off.”
“Yes?” She hesitated. “Kitty up at the house?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Uncle Karel, too?”
“Uh-huh.”
Even—uneven...if only she had reached the corner, she would know what to do.
“Why don’t you come up with me?” he asked.
She said nothing, swinging her books.
“Well—” he raised his brows—“you’re up there practically every other day—why not today?”
She blushed. “I’ll come with you,” she agreed haltingly.
“All right! Let’s go!” He went ahead, his gait easy. He didn’t seem to care whether or when she caught up with him. Petra fell behind, her forehead creased in thought. So he was aware of how often she came to St. Nepomuk....
At the bridge over the Suska River he stopped and waited. “You should always drop in on me, too, when you visit,” he admonished.
The crease vanished. He knew she came to the house, but he didn’t know why. Testily, she remarked, “Kitty says you can’t be disturbed.”
A frown glided over his face.
He must be lonely, too. The conclusion made Petra feel expansive, and she stuck close to his side as they walked uphill, leaving the houses of Rodnik behind them. She decided she liked Thomas very much. He was never condescending to her; never asked her to fetch and carry, and talked sensibly to her. He was a lot nicer than Kitty, anyhow.
Thomas nudged her. “What are you brooding about?”
“People don’t always feel talkative,” she said wisely. “Do you?”
“No. But I’m older.”
“People stress age too much. You’re as old as you feel. There are days when I feel very old, at least as old as Kitty.”
“Kitty? Do you think she’s old?”
She watched him. His steps were no longer brisk, and he was breathing hard. “Sometimes,” she answered. “But sometimes I think she behaves very childishly.”
“Oh, she does? When?”
“When she’s with Uncle Karel.”
He was smiling; a labored smile, Petra found. She sympathized with him. Thomas was handling Kitty’s capers wonderfully. He was biding his time, acting as if he didn’t see anything. Or—and the idea disturbed her—perhaps he actually didn’t see it?
“The way she dances attendance on him,” she said critically, “he’ll never get well.”
Around a bend in the road, the black-tiled roof of the house showed between the trees. Thomas stood still, blinked a little in the glare of the afternoon sun, and dried his forehead. Then he said matter-of-factly, “You know something, Petra? I believe you’re jealous.”
She laughed as if his statement had been too funny for words. It was a strident laugh, and its sound made him uncomfortable. The kid has been needling me, he thought, and I let her. He strode forward again, annoyed with himself and with Petra, and also with Kitty.
He hurried along the hawthorn hedge that was almost man-high and needed trimming. Where the hedge divided into a gateway, he entered upon the graveled footpath leading to his house, and stopped. On the sunny side of the lawn, Kitty and Karel sat in garden chairs, playing Chinese checkers. Heads bent over the board set up on the small table between them, they seemed thoroughly absorbed in their game. Karel’s old American battle jacket was slung over his shoulders, and the way he wore it made it look jaunty rather than bedraggled. There was on Kitty’s face the reflection of a gay moment still being savored. A gentle wind stirred the leaves strewn on the lawn and rustled in the trees of the woods of St. Nepomuk rising behind the house.
“Hello, there!” called Thomas.
The heads came up. Kitty waved and smiled. Karel’s chair creaked as he leaned back with the air of someone completely contented. “Hello. Petra!” He stretched. “Back already, Thomas? You must have flown.”
Thomas checked with his watch. “I was gone an hour and a half,” he said, walking over. “I don’t see how anyone can play at that idiot’s delight for so long.” He scrutinized the board. “I did try to teach Kitty chess, but she isn’t very logical.”
“She’s been beating me, all right,’ Karel informed. Besides, I suppose it all depends on what you see in a game. It relaxes me. I had no idea I could be this relaxed and let time and everything go by.” H
e laughed. The battle jacket slipped off his shoulders and came to lie over the back of the chair. He flexed his arm, which was still pitifully thin. “Look, I’m getting full of vim and vinegar, sitting in the sun!” And turning to Petra, “You want to try my muscle?”
Petra had sauntered over, following after Thomas. “No, thank you,” she said primly. Karel’s superficial “Hello!” had throttled her impulse to run up to him, and Kitty’s smile of sweet welcome sickened her. Now Kitty was holding out her hand to Thomas. He fondled it lightly and let go of it. Kitty moved one of her marbles—she was playing blue—and in three jumps landed in Karel’s home triangle.
“We’ll be through soon,” Kitty said with a tinge of regret. The serenity of the afternoon was crumbling.
“Never mind!” Thomas was magnanimous. “Play! I’ve got work to do. Did the stationer send up the two reams of paper?”
“No...” said Kitty, surprised.
“Well, didn’t you call him up? I asked you to, this morning!”
“Blame me,” said Karel, “I’ve been monopolizing her.”
“Don’t you apologize; it’s not your fault!...Kitty, how do you expect me to write without paper?”
“I forgot. I’m sorry.” Queer that she forgot. Why? Because of these silly marbles that were being pushed over a board? There had been something so pleasant, so companionable about the game with Karel that her mind had pigeonholed everything else, including her chores for Thomas. “When I remembered, it was too late. And I thought since you were at the post office—and the stationer’s is just around the corner...”
Thomas’s face grew peaked. “I’ll call up myself,” he said, but made no effort to go.
Karel placed his yellow marble. Kitty once more hunched over the board. Petra saw her fingers come close to Karel’s without actually touching them. There was, to Petra, something sensual about Kitty’s hand. It revolted her, as did the plainly visible shape of Kitty’s bosoms which she had always envied. But she could find no reaction on Karel’s face; he was studying the changed position of the marbles. She followed his eyes; she saw the many openings he had; and she suddenly knew that he was throwing the game to Kitty, and that for all the suggestiveness of the fingers, for all the bosomy wrigglings, he wasn’t taking Kitty seriously.
“And there’s another matter, Kitty. You told Petra to keep out of my study. Well, I like her to visit me. When I want people to stay out of my hair, I’ll tell them myself.”
“Yes, Thomas.” She jumped her marble with unruffled deliberation, but her ears were reddening. If only she hadn’t told Karel that Thomas had forbidden her to enter his study! “Your move, Karel!”
He played mechanically, wondering if Thomas nagged at her just as much when no stranger was living in the house. However—the stranger’s presence must heighten the tension.
“I’ve brought you a visitor!” Thomas’s tone was mildly censuring.
Karel looked up at his brother. He saw nothing vicious in Thomas’s expression, only petulance, an almost childish hurt. He decided to take the reproach as if it had been directed at him instead of at Kitty, and said, “I know Petra is here....I promised you a walk, Petra—but don’t you think it’s a little late for today?”
“I’ve had my walk, with Uncle Thomas!” Petra announced. “I believe I’ll go home, now.”
“Nonsense!” scowled Thomas. “I brought you up here; you’re my guest. Do you want some hot chocolate? Shall we go into the kitchen and make some—”
Kitty got up. “I’ll do it. For all of us. Or do you want coffee? Petra, please, finish the game for me.” She was at the door of the house before Thomas reached it.
Petra fell into the captured chair. She set up a new game as if she were sweeping the board clean of every last trace of Kitty. When the marbles again were in marching order, she held out her closed fists to Karel.
Karel came to. “I thought—but we were not yet finished!”
“You were losing,” said Petra, her resentment gone, “it was no fun for you! Which hand do you pick?”
Lightly, he tapped her left fist.
She opened it. “You’ve got yellow again. I like blue. Blue is a good color for you, too. A blue tie—for your birthday? Your eyes are gray, your hair is gray, blue and gray is a lovely combination.”
“Am I very gray?” he inquired, making the conventional opening moves of the game.
“I like it. Now that you’re a little tanned and your face isn’t just bones, it looks very handsome.” She pushed one of her marbles so as to block his progress. “Uncle Karel—why didn’t you ever marry?”
“I guess I didn’t find the right girl.”
She kept her gaze to the marbles. “And the right girl—what would she have to be like?”
“Honestly, Petra, I haven’t thought much about it.”
She took a deep breath. She saw that her last two moves had been wrong, but that was unimportant. She was at a crossroads in her life. She began a circumspect description of herself as she imagined she would be three or four years from now. He seemed to be listening, and occasionally he would nod and grunt approval.
I’m a fifth wheel, he kept thinking under her chatter, a fifth wheel, turning and consuming energy and supporting nothing.
“Uncle Karel—women grow old faster than men, don’t they?”
“Uh-huh....” I must snap out of it. But there is all the time in the world to be busy and to thresh about. Now I want some peace—I want more of what I felt this past hour and a half. Peace and rest. I don’t want to care for others, I want somebody caring for me, not just breakfast and making the bed, but talking to me when I need to be talked to, and knowing exactly what to say and the tone in which to say it—
“Uncle Karel!”
“Yes?”
“Your turn!”
“Sorry.”
Petra blanched. He hadn’t been listening. How could she repeat the things she had been saying? They’d sound flat and unreal. And there was Kitty again, coming across the lawn, sprightly and bright, as if she had no other business on earth than to flutter about Karel.
“Coffee is ready, and hot chocolate for you, Petra.”
“In just a moment,” said Karel, with some bad conscience about his inattentiveness to Petra and the game. He jumped one of his yellows. “I’ve got to win this. My first winning game today!”
Petra caught the scent of Kitty’s perfume. She could feel Kitty leaning against the back of her chair. The marbles blurred before her eyes.
Kitty reached over her shoulder, picked up a blue marble, jumped it over two others and landed it at the apex of Karel’s triangle. A perfect move. “There, Petra—” she said. “Does that help?”
Petra sprang up. “Keep your fingers out of my game! Leave me alone! Leave Karel alone!” The board clattered off the table, the table tipped over, the blue and yellow marbles rolled through the grass.
Kitty stared helplessly from the child to Karel and back.
Karel righted the table. “That’s a quick way to end the game—” He stopped. Petra’s face was quivering and the tears were heavy on her lashes.
She wanted to flee. She had spoiled everything. She should have annihilated Kitty, but she had behaved like a child. She couldn’t flee. The garden path was blocked by a man.
“Excuse me!” the man said, doffing his cap. He was cutting across the lawn toward them. “Good afternoon. I hope I don’t come at a bad time...”
“Do you want to see someone?” Kitty questioned.
“This is Frantishek Kravat,” Karel rose, “a friend of mine. No—any time you come you’re welcome. This is my brother Thomas’s wife.” Then he turned to Petra. “And this is—” He’d better not insist on formalities. He said softly, “Now you go inside and wash up, Petra. Swollen eyes aren’t any too pretty at the table. After your chocolate, you’ll pick up the marbles.”
Petra averted her face from the stranger and stalked to the house, smudging her cheek with the back of her hand.
“I did come at a bad time,” said Kravat. “To tell you the truth, I’ve been standing at the hedge for quite a while. I hated to break in on you.”
“Won’t you join us for coffee?” asked Kitty.
Kravat looked down at the bulging knees of his worn pants. “Thank you kindly. I came directly from work, as you see. And I only came to bring a message....Karel, we need a doctor. Today. Now.” He bent down and began to gather up the marbles.
“Please, Mr. Kravat!” Kitty said into the awkward pause. “Leave them there.”
“I thought I’d save the young lady some trouble....Can we count on you, Karel?”
“But you know I have nothing to work with, even if I wanted to!”
“Perhaps you can help,” Kitty suggested. “It may be an emergency, an accident.”
The lines around Karel’s mouth hardened. He was very conscious of her expectancy. “Was it an accident, Kravat? Where? In the Works?”
Kravat poured the marbles from one hand into the other. It was an accident—but nothing very messy. And not at the Benda Works.
Karel seemed relieved, “What is it—a burn? A cut? Loss of blood?”
“Neither.”
“Well—don’t move the man. I can’t do anything about internal injuries. Call the ambulance from Limberk.”
“It isn’t internal injuries.” Kravat put the marbles on the table. He lifted his right hand and slowly cramped it into a claw. “It’s this.”
“Grinder’s Hand—” said Kitty.
Kravat nodded. “It’s Blaha, at Vesely’s.”
“Blaha!” Karel ruffled his hair.
“Poor man!” said Kitty.
“Do you know him, ma’am?”
“No.”
Suddenly angry, Karel turned on Kravat. “You know that doesn’t come in one day! And how can I help him? There’s not a thing a doctor can do about it, with or without instruments. Why didn’t he stop grinding long ago?”
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