The Museum of Broken Promises

by Elizabeth Buchan

  He disappeared.

  She dashed for the wastepaper basket in the corner and was sick for the second time, regurgitating bitter, bitter guilt.

  She had been duped and, idiot and unbeliever, she had fallen for it.

  She heard the bedroom shut and their voices strike up behind it. Her hand holding the glass shook as she raised it to her lips and drained the lot which left her coughing and swimmy-eyed.

  She put down the glass on the table, hoping it would not leave a mark. Stupid to be worrying about such things at this moment. Stupid to have been in the apartment when the family returned. Stupid to have been proved so shabby a spirit, so traitorous.

  For the last time, her gaze slid over the room. The chandelier, the plastic chairs, the peeling paint. The beautiful proportions of the room. This was unreal. The sort of story that the marionettes would enact.

  A girl is awakened by a handsome prince who carries her off and the wicked witches give chase.

  The children had gone quiet. No doubt they were tired and had gone to their rooms. In the passage, Laure hovered outside their doors, wishing very much to kiss them goodbye.

  Behind the close bedroom door, Eva cried out and began to sob.

  In the hall, the phone rang.

  Adrenalin blasted in and she picked up her rucksack.

  Within a few seconds, she was down in the courtyard and heading out through the entrance. As she turned into the street, she glanced over her shoulder.

  Petr was the window overlooking the courtyard, staring down into it.

  She knew he knew she was there.

  She couldn’t be sure but, as she turned into the Malá Strana, she could have sworn he waved.

  Her hand throbbed in time with her pounding feet.

  If he loved her, he might give her a chance. Them a chance. He might hold what he knew.

  What she had told him.

  After a while, she slackened her pace. First stop: Tomas’s apartment to see about Kočka.

  Second stop: the British Embassy.

  ‘Don’t listen to what anyone might say about me.’

  His voice was in her ear.

  ‘Do you understand?’

  ‘Promise me?’

  But she had… listened …

  CHAPTER 28

  Paris, today

  THE MAISON DE GRASSE LUNCH HAD CREATED RIPPLES in the press and each party regarded the other with satisfaction.

  It was all change for the museum: finances, positioning, the sponsorship.

  ‘The requests for copies of your speech keep coming in,’ Nic informed Laure when she walked into the office a couple of weeks later. ‘And what have you got there?’

  Laure set down the cat basket. ‘A cat. No, my cat.’

  ‘And?’ said Nic.

  ‘She’s coming to live here. The vet thought it would be better. Not so confined as a flat. More room. When you’ve lived on the streets, you can’t take being cramped.’

  ‘At weekends?’

  ‘She’ll come home with me. I’ll probably have to move unless I can strike a deal with the landlord.’

  Nic peered into the basket at the scrawny, unglossy little form. ‘She’s no beauty.’

  ‘Don’t hurt her feelings. Her life has been bad enough.’

  Nic watched as Laure unpacked various bits of equipment, including a cushion. ‘There’s no room in here to… er… swing a cat, so where’s that going?’

  ‘On the ledge under the window where she can get the sun.’

  ‘OK,’ said Nic, unflappable to the last. He glanced at his screen. ‘You have two interviews this morning. A man with a pink plastic violin and someone who refuses to give his name but swears he’s not a murderer or a terrorist. Are you willing to take the risk?’

  He sounded dispirited.

  She leant back on her heels to look at him. ‘You’re missing May.’ As Laure had predicted, May had returned to the US to write up her pieces. Paris was expensive, she said, and she needed to earn her crust. She had been rueful and resigned and had not lingered over the goodbyes.

  Laure had refrained from asking how things were left between her and Nic. Had he netted her in? His expression suggested not.

  May had left an empty space. She had been nosy, mistaken, risky and fun, and her thin arms had been strangely comforting.

  The nameless man turned out to be called John Irvins, a stocky, bearded youth. After the introductions, he placed a golf ball on the desk between him and Laure.

  ‘Astic Company specializes in sourcing land for golf courses,’ he began, an indignant flush visible around the facial hair. ‘They bought up a swathe of land abutting our village, part of which was a bird sanctuary, and wanted to absorb the common land which had been left to the village in perpetuity. A big battle ensured.’

  Laure had an idea of what was coming.

  ‘The council was weak and cash-strapped. The villagers lost their fight and the golf course was built. However, we managed to extract the promise, which was put in writing, that no buildings would be built on the bird sanctuary. But as soon as the contract was signed off, the lorries arrives to put up a huge clubhouse on it.’

  He spread out photos of wrecked nests, wrecked habitat and, worst of all, the bodies of fledglings whose parents had been killed during the development.

  Irvins was sad and clearly angry at his and others’ impotence in the matter. ‘The common people had no rights. They were crushed and exploited by rich predators. This is capitalism at its worst, its most rapacious and most mendacious and there was nothing we could do about it. I would like to donate the golf ball to the museum…’

  ‘Ah, capitalism,’ said Laure, picking up the golf ball.

  Later, when she was writing up her notes of the meeting, she heard Nic exclaim. ‘What the—?’

  Importing the almost visible wave of energy on which she customarily surfed into the room, May was poised in the doorway, holding out a tray of coffees. A trick of the light made the fair hair seem electric.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ If someone could frown and grin at the same time, Nic was that man.

  May offered him the coffees. ‘Anyone would think you weren’t pleased to see me. However, I’m here on unfinished business.’

  She turned to Laure. ‘You asked me once what I would bring to the museum. Here’s my answer.’ She stood to one side and beckoned to someone outside the door.

  ‘I deny absolutely that I come from a bourgeois background,’ said a voice in thickly accented English.

  A second figure was now framed in the doorway.

  A tumult began in Laure’s ears.

  ‘But Spejbl…’ she said trembling, her chair screeching over the floor. ‘But Spejbl, your father was a well-known shop owner. You mustn’t tell lies in front of visitors.’

  Nic was staring at Laure as if she had gone mad.

  The man was approximately Laure’s age, dressed in a denim jacket and jeans. He had a set of white teeth, pepper-and-salt hair and a receding hairline that enlarged his forehead.

  The teeth were very much in evidence as he smiled broadly. ‘Don’t you mean, don’t tell lies in front of people you know. Visitors won’t know if you are lying and, therefore, won’t care.’

  And she was there again, backstage at the marionette theatre, peering over the backdrop, on fire with lust, love and the joy of being part of a resistance.

  Nic’s face was a study as Laure steadied herself on the desk. ‘Milos?’ she asked. ‘Milos, is it you?’

  She put out her hands. He put out his and they clung together.

  ‘A long time,’ he said.

  ‘Where? Where have you come from?’

  ‘Prague. Your colleague here found me and ordered me to come. She doesn’t understand the word “no”.’ He added, ‘We can travel now, you know.’

  ‘I know. I know.’ To Nic’s obvious consternation, Laure began to cry. Noisy, wrenching sobs.

  May slid her arms around Laure and Nic said, ‘I’m
going to put the kettle on.’

  Laure mastered herself sufficiently to ask, ‘Are you well? Is your life OK?’ She gestured to the chair. ‘Please sit.’

  They gazed at each other silently, mentally traversing the black holes and rocky terrain of their history.

  ‘I am changed.’ Milos spoke first. ‘You not so much. Smarter and more beautiful. And you have this…’

  ‘I have this,’ she echoed. ‘And you have?’

  He was finding his feet in speaking English. ‘A marionette theatre in Prague. I have a family. I married Lucia.’

  Laure was dumbfounded. All she could think of to say was, ‘I hope she wore the veil.’

  ‘It was destroyed when the authorities shut down the theatre.’

  ‘I want to know everything,’ she said. ‘Everything.’

  The noises of Paris could be heard through the open window. Cars, vans, the calls of the vegetable vendor.

  ‘How did May find you?’

  ‘Easy.’ May laid a tentative hand on Nic’s who snatched it up. ‘After we talked, Laure, I flew to Prague – I do recommend it – and started with marionette theatres. Didn’t take long. And here we are.’ She paused. ‘I owed you.’

  ‘You didn’t go home,’ said Nic.

  ‘No. Obv.’ She placed a hand on her hip. ‘Do I look as though I’m in New York?’

  Good luck, Nic, thought Laure, with a lift of her heart. With the future. With the fact that May most definitely has the upper hand.

  ‘I have something for you.’ Milos reached down and placed a battered-looking package on the table. ‘I have kept it for all these years. Just in case.’

  She stared down at the package. Time did a backwards flip. She began to be aware of her skin, her breathing, her pulse.

  Milos undid the parcel and the tissue paper parted like a bivalve to reveal a collapsed puppet, resembling nothing so much as a pile of bones in the ossuary.

  The beat at Laure’s temple intensified.

  She registered a black cap, wooden outstretched hands, folded limbs, the face of a marionette, tangled sundered strings and uttered a cry. ‘Pierrot.’

  ‘Tomas instructed me that, if anything should happen to him, I was to get him to you,’ said Milos. ‘He was insistent about that. He said it would be the most important thing I could do.’ He repeated, ‘the most important thing…’

  Laure was powerless to move.

  ‘Tomas said you would know what he meant by sending him.’

  Laure closed her eyes and hung onto the edge of the table.

  Nic coughed. May stopped writing.

  ‘He also said you were to promise to reattach the strings.’

  As usual, Chez Prune was busy but Laure managed to get a table by the window and ordered a carafe of red wine.

  It arrived with a plate of roasted nuts. Laure poured out the glasses and pushed one over to Milos. Together they raised them and drank a toast to Pierrot.

  At first, they didn’t talk much.

  She clasped her hands on her lap. ‘Tell me everything.’

  Milos had already downed his wine and helped himself to a second glass.

  After Laure fled, the theatre was closed down and everyone was scattered, he told her. Leo was eventually released from custody but his left hand had to be amputated. He was given a minor role in the new Czech republic. Manicki went to ground. Rumour had it he cut his hair and worked as a barber. Milos and Lucia got a bus south out of Prague and settled near Tabór where he set up a carpentry business and sat out the remaining days of the regime. He and Lucia had two children. After they had grown up, he and Lucia returned to Prague to set up the theatre.

  ‘It’s our one true love,’ he said.

  Laure held tightly onto her glass of wine. ‘Did Lucia betray me?’

  Milos detached her grip from the glass, set it down and took her hand. His was rough from years of labour but, as it had always done, felt safe in hers. She knew him of old and he knew her. It was enough.

  ‘Yes. But she had her reasons. You must forgive her.’

  ‘Is it Lucia asking for forgiveness?’

  ‘No, I do. She’s my wife.’ The new teeth were disconcerting, but she was glad Milos had had them fixed. ‘I am asking for her. Does she have it?’

  She thought of her own Gethsemane. The dry earth of regret. The guilt. The punishment of never living through a bright, golden day without it.

  Her grip tightened on his. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you must visit us in Prague and, maybe, we could sort out things between you two?’ His smile faded. ‘We could visit places and pay… our respects.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Laure. ‘I would like that. Very much.’

  Afterwards, they walked along the banks of the Canal Saint-Martin. It was now almost dark. The expensive boutiques were lit up. Someone had strung fairy lights across one of the iron-work bridges which only reached halfway across. The rough sleepers were cooking up meals where they could and securing their tents.

  The water slapped companionably against the banks.

  Laure stopped. ‘And Tomas?’ she asked, brittle with despair and dread.

  Milos walked on a pace, turned and came back. ‘Tomas is dead. They killed him, one way or another. You must know that.’

  She was silent for a long time then she sighed.

  ‘Always a tiny bit of me…’ she said. ‘Hoped. Prayed. That he had survived. I gave away the escape route because I was so angry. I’d been told that Tomas had married an American. I realised it was a lie but I couldn’t unsay it.’

  ‘Which American?’ asked Milos. She told him and he shook his head. ‘You’re right. It was lies, Laure.’

  ‘He warned me not to believe what they said about him. I failed.’ She looked directly at Milos. ‘In that crucial moment, I lost faith and it was enough.’

  ‘But Lucia put the goons onto you,’ said Milos, ‘which resulted in the raid. Think about it. It was the system that exploited what we felt, what we did. A chain of small repressions, making a big one. Most people were guilty of tiny betrayals. It was the price of existing.’ He spoke urgently. ‘Laure, look at me. To survive, we have to believe that.’

  ‘Can I forgive myself?’

  ‘We have to.’

  She thought about Tomas’s last moments. In fear and, without doubt, in pain. She hoped he had kept his faith. Please could he have kept his faith in his rightness. Maybe, he summoned music to help him.

  Maybe, maybe, towards the end he had thought of her once or twice?

  Milos drew Laure’s hand into the crook of his elbow and, together, they walked along the banks of the canal. ‘I will string Pierrot for you,’ he said. ‘Before I leave.’

  CHAPTER 29

  IT IS EVENING AND THE TEMPERATURE IS PLUMMETING. ITS colours and vistas subtly altering, Paris is shedding its autumn coating.

  Laure makes her rounds of the museum.

  In her office, Kočka is ensconced on the ledge above the radiator and Laure puts out her food and cat litter tray for the night. Recently, Kočka has allowed Laure to kiss her and she drops one on Kočka’s newly luxuriant fur.

  Laure moves on, closing the shutters as she goes.

  The rooms are still and quiet, the heating dying down for the night. In Room 7, Laure adjusts the frame containing the pillowcase and, in Room 3, brushes a coating of dust off a windowsill.

  The lights are already switched off in Room 2 and all the objects, except for the bridal veil that glimmers faintly, are shrouded in the falling dusk.

  She stands by the window. The lights pool across the rooftops and a couple of pigeons waddle across the roof tiles. A long time ago, she threw bread pellets at the Prague pigeons with Petr and she thinks of him now and of how he chose to pay his dues.

  She is grateful.

  ‘Go back to Alabama,’ she urges May before she leaves with Nic for the evening. ‘Go home soon and sort it out with your mother. You must not leave unfinished business unfinished.’

  ‘Li
ke you did,’ May says.

  ‘Like I did.’

  This is her house. Her life.

  The reverie is broken by a sound. She swings around.

  Two stringed marionettes are hanging on the wall, close enough to be touching. The female marionette wears a veil and has a brown plait. The male has a black cap, a Pierrot costume and a freshly painted face.

  Often, when the breeze filters in through the window, or an extra number of visitors go through the room, a draught is created and the marionettes sway and clack in response. Sometimes, it looks as though they are holding hands.

  She stands in front of them and looks up into their faces. It’s a constant source of astonishment how all-seeing their gaze, how tender and malicious their souls. To care for them is to cherish and to be cherished by them.

  She raises a hand and places a finger on Pierrot’s chest, searching for the heartbeat that is Tomas.

  It’s there.

  So is forgiveness.

  Her long path to consolation is traced.

  Clack, I loved him.

  Clack, he loved me.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  SOME YEARS AGO, OUR SON SENT US ON A LONG WEEKEND to Prague where we fetched up in the Museum of Communism. At that time, unlike its spanking and impressive home today, the artefacts were housed in a couple of rooms. But they left an indelible mark on me, including the black telephone in a small cell which rang when you stepped inside.

  The novel is a direct result of that visit. However, I could not have written it without consulting many histories. I would like to single out Kevin McDermott’s lucid and admirable Communist Czechoslovakia, 1945–89 (Palgrave). Anyone wishing to get a handle on the complexities of that time could not do better than to read it. Also Ivan Klíma’s My Crazy Century, a Memoir (Grove Press, UK), Timothy Garton Ash’s The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of ’89 witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin and Prague (Vintage Books), Under a Cruel Star: A life in Prague 1941–1968 by Heda Margolius Kovály (Granta) and the superb Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall by Anna Funder (Granta). I have taken facts, sentiments and scenarios from all of them. Any mistakes are mine.

  I would like to thank my super-nova editor, Sara O’Keeffe, and the team at Corvus. Also my agent, Judith Murray, without whom none of this would be happening and Justine Taylor for her skilled, tactful and meticulous copy-editing. To my fellow novelists, Fanny Blake and Isabelle Grey, who have been on hand to mop the brow, I owe you much. Equally, the dear friends who visited on a regular basis, bearing medicaments and cheer, when shingles struck I will never forget. A big thank you to my sisters, Alison Souter and Rosie Hobhouse. To Jane Thynne, author of the bestselling Clara Vine novels set in Berlin, and Jim Mitchell, both experts on the city, who pointed me to the places to go I offer deep gratitude. If I have got anything wrong, I know you will let me know. However, I have invented a couple of extra streets around the Canal Saint Martin in Paris for the purposes of the novel. I hope I am forgiven.