The Museum of Broken Promises

by Elizabeth Buchan

  She wanted to lay her head on Tomas’s hot body and to listen to his heartbeat. She wanted to kiss the purple bruise that had sprouted on his arm and to splash water over their hot feet.

  How visceral her responses were these days, she reflected, amazed at the way her mind now operated. They were about sex, the flesh, sensation… and all about the other thing which had violently seized her. Love.

  ‘Coming?’ Tomas stripped off his shirt and stepped out of his trousers.

  Her fingers were not quite steady as she unzipped her shorts and eased off her shirt.

  ‘You look like an ice cream,’ she said. ‘All pale here…’ She touched his groin, ‘but so brown here.’ She laid her hand flat against his chest, searching for the heartbeat.

  He laughed. ‘Same for you,’ he said. ‘Stand still.’ Very slowly he ran his finger up Laure’s body, staring at the knee. ‘Lovely brown legs, haunches that the poet should write an ode to, shoulders and arms to match your legs. A face that has seen the sun but, somehow, is as luminous as the moon and a mouth for which men would gladly die.’

  ‘Sounds like a song,’ she said.

  ‘In a way, it is.’

  He took her hand and drew her down to the water’s edge. ‘Be careful of your feet.’

  The ground was rock hard but turned to mud at the water’s edge. Her toes sank into it and she tried not to imagine which insects or worms would scurry around her flesh. A root caught her around the ankle and she clung onto Tomas.

  Thus entwined they waded into the river, sliding and slipping over the uneven river bed. At first tepid, the water was cooler in the middle of the river where the undertow was strong and the water deep. The colder water was silk on her heated body.

  It took her two seconds to recognize that Tomas was not a good swimmer. But she was and easily negotiated the current as she swam upstream.

  She raised her hands and let herself sink below the surface.

  Bubbles drifted surface-wards, her hair streamed behind her, the outlines of her flesh wavered and refracted and, on the river bed, ribbons of weed flowed towards the mother river.

  For one second, she asked herself if it would be better if she never resurfaced and broke the perfection of it. She imagined the struggle as her lungs filled and how she would search for the comfort and sweetness of Tomas’s image as the darkness took over.

  Gasping, she rose to the surface and swam back to him. ‘Do you know the legend of Rusalka?’ he asked.

  Weightless, she hung onto him. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘She is an unquiet, dangerous being who lives in the river. She lures men to their deaths.’

  Laure found a foothold and stood up. ‘Have I lured you?

  He wrapped his arms around her. They smelt of heat and river water, of underwater things. ‘Not to my death, Laure. But you have cast a spell.’

  He drew her towards the riverbank.

  At that moment, she was washed clean of doubt and worry and sensed that Tomas was too. Here in this tree-fringed, water-lapped place with the birds making free with the sky, she groped towards an understanding… that her spirit had undergone a rebirth. That bones, flesh and spirit had realigned themselves into the Laure who whispered over and over again: I love you.

  Yet, on the return journey, Laure felt inexplicably sad and Tomas was mostly silent.

  The outlying houses of the city came into view. Without warning, Tomas put on his brakes and got off the bike. ‘Stop.’ Laure obeyed.

  Grass-stained and grubby, they gripped each other, hard and a little frantic, the sun beating on his bent head and her raised face.

  ‘I wanted to do this before it all begins again,’ he said. ‘Away from everything.’

  ‘Do you know something?’

  ‘No.’ He snatched up a fistful of her hair and gently pulled her head back. ‘I’ve learnt that every moment like this has to be felt. It vanishes, of course. But, also, it can be taken away before it vanishes.’

  She wondered what was bothering him. What it was he might not be telling her?

  Listening to the beat of his heart, Laure held him hard against her, not wishing to move, or to think and they remained like that for a long time.

  Back in Prague, he made her dismount before they reached the Kobes’ apartment. ‘I’ll take the bike and you go back. It’s best that way.’

  She watched him wheeling the bikes down the street until he was out of sight.

  Sometimes Laure thought she had fetched up in a Czech surrealist story.

  She could not prove it, but she was convinced that she was being followed, which had a superficial thrill attached to it. On the other hand, paranoia was infectious. Why would she, the girl from Brympton, be a target?

  As the days went by, she found the situation less intriguing and more sinister. The encroachment got to her. Once, she was so incensed that she whirled round and sent whoever it was a V-sign with her fingers. It was a stupid thing to do but it offered a tiny release.

  She warned Tomas. ‘I think I’ve become an object of interest.’

  ‘Any foreigner is. It’s a condition of life here.’

  ‘Petr was asking questions. Talking about the Parallel Polis.’

  Tomas shrugged. ‘Hardly a surprise. He’s an informer and a stooge. A weak man. He doesn’t know what’s really going on.’

  He spoke with a contempt that, curiously, Laure couldn’t match. ‘I’m not sure that’s right. Petr has principles which make him strong.’

  ‘Ask him where his principles are when he informs on someone.’

  ‘You’ve got him wrong,’ she explained. ‘It’s not people he’s interested in, it’s his work at Potio Pharma.’

  He placed a finger on her lips. ‘Did you know you’re very sweet?’

  She nipped at his fingertip with her teeth. ‘And also right. Bear that in mind.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  That was one of the good things about being with Tomas that she was discovering. He listened to her and, as a result, she was developing the mental resources to help her interpret the experiences that were coming her way.

  They were backstage in the marionette theatre. Tomas’s arm was wrapped around Laure’s waist. ‘Did you tell him anything?’

  ‘Not as far as I know.’

  ‘It’s the not knowing that’s the problem.’ He pulled her to him and his leg nudged between hers. Bending over he kissed her thoroughly and the sweet, sharp sensations took over. Resting his forehead against hers, he said, ‘That was nice.’

  Her hand was on his back and she splayed her fingers to feel the bumps of his vertebrae: I love him.

  Tomas kissed her again and another thought flashed: I would die for him.

  Laure followed him into the kitchen where Milos was drinking mint tea. He smiled at Laure and made a remark to Tomas in Czech. Manicki and Leo, plus Vaclav the electrician, also rolled in and a heated debate struck up which was, as far as she could tell, something to do with storing Anatomie’s instruments at the theatre.

  She was conscious that a pane of glass had inserted itself between them and her through which she was observing. They were like the men she knew back home and, yet, they weren’t. They were smaller, paler, less nourished, more volatile. Tomas had his back to her but Vaclav, with whom she had struck up an infant friendship, smiled at her.

  She knew they were discussing her. ‘Tomas?’

  He explained. ‘They wanted to know about your employer and Manicki agrees with me that he works for the KSČ.’ Laure frowned. ‘The KSČ is the Communist Party.’

  Manicki interrupted in broken English. ‘And/or the Russians. It fits. They only let the most trusted ones work abroad. He’s probably controlled by someone high up in the party.’ He stepped up to Laure. ‘You must say nothing ever. Ever.’

  Manicki smelt, not entirely unpleasantly but significantly, of unwashed clothes, and she wondered if he was living on the run.

  Laure thought rapidly. ‘OK. I take the point.’ Tomas made a rapid t
ranslation. ‘I know you think I’m problem but remember that I could always relay information on him.’

  Where on earth had that come from?

  Milos gave a soft whistle and looked up at the ceiling. The others stared at Laure and she realized she had made an error.

  Manicki said, ‘We don’t joke about those sorts of things.’

  She wanted to protest that she wasn’t joking but realized it was better to shut up. Everything was suspended – almost breathing – until Tomas dropped his hand on her shoulder and kissed her cheek. ‘That was sweet of you, Laure, but… don’t play. Please.’

  Later, as she packed up for this session, her cheeks burned. She had been guilty of flippancy, of unprofessionalism, of treating something very serious as a game.

  Returning to the Kobes’ apartment, Laure stepped off the Charles Bridge. Instead of continuing straight ahead as she normally would have done, she turned right and followed the street running north for several metres and stopped in front of a shop with the sign ‘Truhlář Marionety’. Displayed in its window were a couple of marionettes: Pinocchio and a jester with a cap and bells.

  Close up, she could see that the carving of this pair was sinuous, but the paintwork crude. She gazed long and hard at their white faces. We are aware, they were telling her, that we only have life when you say so. Yet we have souls too. We feel pain and suffer. We offer you the ecstatic and the surreal. We can be angry and malicious.

  She lingered at the window, which, as she was also known to be working with marionettes, was legitimate. However, she was using the reflection in the shop window to track the movement of the man (today dressed in beige trousers and a white shirt) who had been following her. Cornered by her manoeuvre, he was loitering by the entrance to the bridge. He had flat features, a small mouth and looked tough.

  She leant forward, ostensibly to obtain a better look at the jester marionette. Being followed had got to her and her bravado was replaced by the worry that she didn’t know how to cope.

  By the time she moved off and continued on her indirect route back to the Kobes’ apartment, she had pulled herself together. Why should goons win the mind-game battle?

  A couple of nights later, Anatomie were performing at a theatre off Wenceslas Square and the group were all there.

  Laure was at the marionette theatre where the evening performance of The Bartered Bride was in jeopardy. The lighting was in melt-down and, with much cursing, the company gathered around to sort it. Unable to contribute, and with Lucia cold-eyeing her, Laure gathered up the used mugs and carried them into the kitchen. They required intensive scrubbing and there was no such thing as a Brillo pad to be had.

  Milos came in for a drink of water and she stood aside so he could run the tap. He drank thirstily and said in his fractured English, ‘Tomas tells me your employer has been asking questions.’

  Laure nodded.

  Milos rinsed the glass. ‘Never answer questions,’ he said. ‘Or ask them. Never.’

  ‘But how do you find anything out if you don’t ask?’

  ‘You don’t.’ He replaced the glass on the shelf. ‘Nobody knows anything. It’s the rule.’

  Hand on hip, she regarded him. ‘This country is like a maze. Never ask questions. Never answer them. Just blissful ignorance?’

  Milos approved. ‘You’ve got it. Our greatest novel, The Good Soldier Schweik, is about a man who fights militarism and bureaucracies and wins but, I think, always by mistake because the good soldier is also very stupid.’

  ‘You never know what’s forbidden?’

  He grinned in his good-natured way but his eyes were bleak. ‘And you do in your country?’ He saluted with a clenched fist to the forehead. ‘This is Comrade Milos, Grade Three, Marionette Pioneers, first battalion, based in The Milos Marionette Theatre, in the People’s Republic of… Czechoslovakia.’

  Milos always made her laugh.

  The lighting problem solved, the customary pre-performance frenzy erupted into which she was pitchforked. A tiny gingerbread figure was missing. Could Laure look for it?

  It was lurking in one of the boxes in the kitchen. Milos snatched it from her and disappeared. Laure was left to tidy up and to ready the back-up marionettes in case there was a disaster during a performance.

  She lifted a marionette called Marenka and pulled gently at her strings. ‘Good evening, dear Marenka,’ she said.

  Marenka did duty as Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella, or any ingenue part.

  ‘Marenka is the young, innocent one who finds herself in puzzling situations but wins through because her innocence has the power to resolve,’ Milos had told her. ‘And this Marenka is a messenger. Look at the eyes.’ Marenka had one blue eye, one green. His voice was full of mischief. ‘See. It means there are different ways of seeing. But,’ he tapped his lips, ‘you must never say anything.’

  ‘Your life is a busy one, it seems,’ she told Marenka and could have sworn that the marionette’s mismatched eyes and full red mouth moved in response. Laure touched the painted cheek.

  Marenka sighed and settled back onto her perch.

  The marionettes’ clothing was stacked beside them, ready for quick deployment, including the Prince’s red-checked shirt for his peasant persona and his Pierrot costume. The Sleeping Beauty’s nightgown and the diminutive lace bridal veil used for wedding finales were folded alongside.

  Enchanted, Laure held the veil up to the window. No expert, she could see that the lace itself was of the highest quality and so was the skill that had made it possible to include one of the smaller lace flowers at its centre.

  ‘Do you wish to see where it came from?’ asked a voice.

  Laure turned to see Lucia in the doorway. She seemed out of sorts and spoiling for a confrontation.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ said Laure. ‘And looks antique.’ Lucia frowned. ‘Old, I mean,’ Laure added.

  Lucia crossed over to the cupboard in the corner. Opening the cupboard precipitated a shower of paint flakes onto the floor, which was dotted with them.

  Lucia took down a box from the shelf. ‘Are you ready?’

  The contents were shrouded in yellowing tissue paper, which Lucia peeled back. ‘My mother wore this, her mother before her, and her mother before that. If I marry, I will wear it. It’s old. Nobody knows how old.’ She took a piece of rag from the pile in the corner, dusted the table and lifted out the veil out for inspection.

  A waterfall of lace flowed over the table. There was a square missing from it in one corner but, otherwise, its colour was still pure and the silk netting, with a border of lace flowers, intact.

  Lucia watched Laure’s reaction. ‘It’s different in your country? Yes?’

  Laure touched the lace which felt like honeycomb on silk. ‘A bride often wears a veil but not many would have one as beautiful as this.’

  ‘You don’t like what I did. Cutting it?’

  Laure spoke before thinking. ‘No,’ and hastily amended, ‘but it’s none of my business.’

  Laure frowned. ‘Of course, you would not understand. How could you? In your country, you can keep things, I think, even if they are old. But not here. We have to sacrifice precious things for the greater good.’

  ‘I see.’ Laure did not ask where on the spectrum of the ‘greater good’ the desecration of beautiful lace figured. Then, she felt ashamed at her failure to understand.

  Lovingly, reverently, Lucia traced the shape of one of the flowers. ‘You don’t see because you’re a stranger. The marionettes mean a lot to our culture. More so than you could ever know.’

  Lucia was being insulting but Laure decided to let it ride.

  Lucia picked up the veil and pulled it over her head. ‘The veil doesn’t mind if it is cut. What we do here is more important.’ It sounded as if Lucia was warming up to a battle speech. ‘If we don’t have our stories, then we’re finished. This theatre is important.’

  ‘The marionettes send messages?’

  The silken shroud masked Lu
cia’s features but could not disguise her eyes glittering with hostility. Or the touch of fear. ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘I’m curious.’

  ‘You shouldn’t ask those questions.’ The words were so viscously articulated that Laure took a step back. ‘Don’t you know that you should never ask questions here.’ Laure shook her head. ‘It’s only ignorant, stupid foreigners who do.’

  ‘For St Nicholas’s sake, we need help.’ Milos appeared and vanished.

  ‘Why don’t you go back to England? It would be better for everyone. You are… how do you say? A nuisance.’

  ‘My employers wish me to stay.’

  ‘Ah. And you will, I think.’ Lucia was stopped in her tracks. ‘Don’t imagine that you will have Tomas.’

  ‘Isn’t that for him to decide?’

  ‘You know,’ said Lucia, ‘you’re nothing special. Any man here who can gets himself a girlfriend from the West. It’s the thing to do.’

  A cold feeling enveloped Laure. ‘And?’

  Lucia pulled off the veil, folded it and laid it in its box. She seemed to be deciding what to say, or to do. ‘Next year, I’ll wear this.’

  ‘You’re getting married?’

  ‘Yes, and yes.’ Lucia stuck her face into Laure’s and enunciated slowly. ‘We’ll be getting married. With a big ceremony and all the family.’

  There was a sick feeling in her stomach. ‘We? Do you mean Tomas?’

  Lucia didn’t say yes. She didn’t say no.

  ‘It’ll happen,’ said Lucia, slotting the box back into the cupboard. ‘You’ll go. Soon, I hope. Gone like the snow. You are no use here, only a problem.’ The cupboard door was warped and required pressure to shut it and she exclaimed angrily. ‘God help us, we have no furniture, no locks, no fucking future.’

  CHAPTER 25

  ARE YOU ENGAGED TO LUCIA? ARE YOU MARRYING HER? Have you decided to marry Lucia?

  There were so many ways to pose the question which – with choking intensity – trembled on her tongue. Thinking about which one to choose, and how and when to broach it, made her faint. And, also, angry.