by Alison Pick
She touched her cheek again. Her fingers came away stained with blood.
The next night Marta lay in her single bed, breathing. Her palm on her stomach, the slight rise and fall under her ribs. Like the surface of the sea, she thought. She had never seen the sea, but she imagined its shimmer in late afternoon, the way the light would sparkle over the waves.
Cold black shapes slipped through her depths.
She shifted in her sheets, let her eyes slowly close. She tried to forget what had happened with Ernst the night before. His fingers digging into her flesh, the little row of bruises he’d left along her forearm. She tried to forget altogether that he existed. It had seemed so simple at first; not love, of course, but attention, something to relieve the monotony of her day-to-day. And for a time it had worked. But now the bubble had popped and the darkness was rushing back in. She should have known it would happen like this. The weight of Ernst’s body on hers was suddenly the same as her father’s; his hands were not a distraction but a terrible reminder. She worked always to forget what her father had done to her, the nights he would slink into her room, get in beside her, put a hand over her mouth. Her sister frozen with fear on the other side of the bed, the heat on her own face the following morning, not being able to look her sister in the eye. And now the old shame came back, newly disguised.
The Jews were dirty, Ernst had clearly said. But Jews were all that she had.
Ernst had explained his plan. The Bauers’ assets would be taken; it was unavoidable. If Pavel was going to loose his money anyway, Ernst could certainly use it. Pavel had always underpaid him, Ernst had told her. Marta knew this to be untrue, but Ernst seemed adamant. And now, he said, by keeping up the pretense of their friendship, he would get his due. He’d already convinced Pavel to transfer a portion of his investments into his name, “for safekeeping,” he’d told him. There was more, though. It would take time, and patience.
Marta wondered if Ernst’s motivations weren’t more complex; if, deep down, he didn’t still love his friend and feel more ambivalent than he realized. Regardless, she knew she needed to end their relationship—something had turned inside her. The filthy feeling, the repulsion, had come back stronger than ever. She could no more continue with him than she could willingly return to the country of her childhood. But Ernst would be angry. He could reveal their secret to Pavel, who would then have no choice but to fire her. Ernst was the one who was married, but she, the hired help, would be blamed. The same thing had happened with the Maršíkov maid, Helga: there’d been a brief affair with Mr. Maršíkov, and Helga was gone so quickly Marta had not even had a chance to say goodbye.
She pushed the sickness of her situation down into her stomach, but the images kept asserting themselves, rising to the surface like debris after a storm. A branch, a torn stocking. A silver key—to what? She reached out for it and it slipped through her fingers; she plugged her nose and dived down after it. There was the sound of the key turning in a lock; she sat up in bed with a start.
She must have been asleep.
She struck a match, touched it to the candle’s wick, and squinted at the clock on the wall: 12:15. She lay back down.
Pavel said, “Here, give me that.” The Bauers were standing directly under the stove vent; Pavel’s voice was so clear that Marta thought for a moment he was speaking to her.
But Anneliese said, “The slivovitz?”
“The absinthe.” Pavel paused. “You won’t embarrass me like that again.”
“Wouldn’t you say that this whole situation is a little—what did you call it?—embarrassing? Not being allowed out after ten o’clock and having to come home for a curfew like children?”
Marta heard the delicate snap of Mrs. Bauer’s earrings coming off and then the louder snap of her purse opening and closing. “Mathilde says we can stay with her and Vaclav in Prague if need be.”
Pavel snorted. “Will we bunk in with Clara and baby Magda?”
“She was just trying to be helpful. What’s happened to you? You’ve become so . . . contrary.”
“We’re not leaving.”
“All the more reason to consider my idea,” Anneliese said.
There was the barely perceptible click of her lighter.
Marta blew her candle out. She pulled her quilt up over her shoulders and willed herself to fall back to sleep. It was late, and she was beyond exhausted. And Pepik had recently taken to waking with the sunrise. But the longer she squeezed her eyes shut and focused on her desire to sleep, the more awake she became and the closer the Bauers’ voices seemed.
“That pork was undercooked,” Anneliese said, and Marta felt she personally was being accused.
“Listen to me, Liesel,” Pavel answered. “My grandfather was an elder of his synagogue. My earliest memory is of seeing him there on the High Holy Days, in his place of honour.”
“It doesn’t mean anything. To us. To you. When was the last time you set foot in a synagogue?”
“But this is my point. I am realizing it actually does.”
Anneliese scoffed. “You’ve chosen a perfect time to realize.”
“Do you know how long ago the Jews in Bohemia were granted equal rights?” The floorboards squeaked as Pavel started pacing.
Anneliese said, “I don’t know. And do you know something? I don’t care.”
“Which is odd, seeing as you are a Jew of Bohemia.”
“Hush, Pavel,” Anneliese said. But her voice was rising too. “I don’t feel Jewish,” she said forcibly. “No more than I feel . . . I don’t know . . .” Marta pictured her waving her hand through the cigarette smoke above her head. “. . . Catholic.”
“Yes, Liesel, I understand,” Pavel said. His voice revealed a sincere attempt at patience. “It’s not the religion I’m talking about. It’s the culture.”
“The culture?”
“The Jewish culture.”
“It’s not a culture, it’s a religion.”
Both of them were quiet then. Marta pulled her blankets higher, under her chin. She could tell from the silence that the Bauers were surprised to have stumbled on this difference of opinion about their faith. They had obviously never discussed it before, at least not from this particular angle; they had each assumed the other felt the way they themselves did. She had noticed this tendency in people who were married—the tendency to forget that the spouse was a separate person with a separate past, and secrets you would never guess at.
“My stomach hurts,” Anneliese said quietly.
Pavel cleared his throat. “It was 1848 when the Jews of Bohemia were granted equal rights. Less than a century ago.”
“That has nothing to do with our situation.”
“It has everything to do with our situation. My grandfather was the mayor of the Jewish City of Prague.”
“You said it didn’t mean anything. You said it was a charity that gave money to soup kitchens.”
“It meant something to him,” Pavel said fiercely. “All he wanted on his tombstone—the only thing he wanted—was Adolf Bauer, former Mayor of the Jewish City of Prague.”
“His poor wife,” Anneliese said. “And what about his children? I see you come from a long line of men unconcerned with the well-being of their children.”
Pavel now began to shout in earnest. “Don’t you dare speak to me about the well-being of my children!” There was a thump, as though he had thrown a heavy object to the floor, and the sound of the pacing resumed. “That’s exactly what this is about. I do not want Pepik to see his father shamed like a dog by a bunch of schoolyard bullies! He deserves a better example.”
“My sister had her girls baptized.”
“Alžběta? She has no more principles than you have!”
“It’s a good idea. It could save Pepik’s life.”
“Listen to me, Liesel. This is important. I want you to hear what I say now.” Pavel paused. “I would not convert to Christianity if I were the last Jew on earth. The very last Jew on earth!”
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“That’s fine. Because nobody is asking you to convert.”
There was a note of desperation in Anneliese’s voice that had not been there before. Perhaps, Marta thought, she knew something that the rest of them didn’t.
“It’s the opposite of what you think, Pavel. I’m thinking of the big picture. Please,” Anneliese said. She was begging now. On the verge of tears. “Just in case. He’s my only child . . .”
The cloaked reference to the dead baby worked in Anne-liese’s favour. The voices from downstairs quieted. “I know,” Pavel said softly. “I know he is.”
What would Pavel have been like if the other child had lived? As the father of a little girl.
Pavel’s voice was now just a murmur, the sharp edges of his words smoothed out. Marta rolled over and put the pillow over her head. The fights always ended this way, she thought, in a kind of mutual stalemate. They weren’t willing to give in, nor were they willing to go to bed angry. They needed each other too much. They would be moving towards each other now, she knew, reconciling, Pavel wrapping his arms around his wife.
Marta loathed them for this with a ferocity she did not understand.
It wasn’t that she was jealous because she had nobody to hold her after a quarrel; she had nobody to quarrel with in the first place. What she resented was the Bauers’ softness. She needed them to be strong, to be above mortal failings. Instead they were human, after all.
The boy with the wine-stain birthmark showed up to deliver the coal. He was wearing the national colours in his buttonhole, and a peaked cap of the kind popularized by Pavel’s hero Tomáš Masaryk. Only on seeing the delivery boy did it occur to Marta to wonder about the date. Was it? Yes, it must be. October 28, Czechoslovak National Day. Pavel had been acting remote and preoccupied, and she wondered if the boy’s blatant show of nationalism would buoy his spirits. He seemed not to notice though, and when Ernst arrived at the house after lunch, Pavel didn’t mention the holiday at all. “Shall we go?” was all he said.
“Ready when you are,” Ernst answered, without catching Marta’s eye.
They rushed off without saying goodbye.
Marta gathered up the soup bowls and wrapped the cheese in its cloth. In the parlour Anneliese was holding her compact in front of her face, her lips pursed, putting on lipstick. “Don’t worry about cleaning up right now,” she called in to Marta.
Marta paused, confused. “Pardon me, Mrs. Bauer?”
“You can do it when we’re back. We’re going out.”
Marta hesitated, a ladle in her hand. “Are you sure? I could just . . .”
But Anneliese wasn’t listening; she was looking out the window to make sure her husband was gone. Then she called to Pepik, “Come here and put your sweater on.” He was big enough to do this himself—it had taken Marta some weeks to teach him how—but Anneliese didn’t have the patience. She guided his arms briskly into the little sleeves. The zipper nicked his chin: “Ouch!” Pepik said.
“I’m sorry, miláčku.”
But Anneliese didn’t seem sorry—she seemed distracted, preoccupied, her eyes moving repeatedly towards the window. Marta wondered why she was putting Pepik in a sweater at all when the afternoon was so warm, the sun shining. It had continued to be a striking fall, the colours more vivid than she remembered from previous years: the dazzling golds, and the red leaves like so many bloodied hands.
“Where are you off to?”
“I told you, you’re coming with us.”
Marta knew better than to ask any more questions.
They went down into the street, the three of them, Pepik sullen but his mother determined. She led them out through the gate and along the path by the river, towards the edge of town. She was wearing an Elsa Schiaparelli tailored suit, with big shoulder pads like Marlene Dietrich’s. Large dark glasses shielded her eyes, as if she were a movie star trying to conceal her identity.
They walked for several minutes in silence, passing the milkman’s cart, the containers on the back of the wagon empty.
“Can I pat the horsies?” Pepik asked.
But Anneliese ignored her son, hurrying them past Sanger and Sons, where a Victrola was displayed prominently in the window, and Mr. Goldstein’s shop, which had a CLOSED sign on the door. Even Marta had to work to keep up. Down a cobblestone alley they went and across the footbridge over the river. Pavel’s factory loomed in the distance, like something from an earlier life. Marta thought perhaps they were taking Pepik to feed the ducks, but Anneliese stopped in front of the Catholic church. It dawned on Marta all at once what was happening: Anneliese was taking action despite Pavel’s wishes to the contrary.
The church was the largest structure in town, grey stone with a cone-shaped spire that reminded her of the tip of Mr. Goldstein’s beard. Anneliese led them up the side staircase and into the dimly lit nave. It was cold inside, and they squinted around, trying to get a feel for the layout of the room. The priest who stepped out of the darkness must have been waiting for them; he appeared before them like a ghost.
“I’m sorry. Did I scare you?” He was a thin man with a long face and drooping eyelids. “Father Wilhelm.”
He extended his hand, but it was a small town: everyone knew who everyone else was.
When the priest turned around Marta saw that he had a bald patch on the back of his head the exact size and shape of a yarmulke.
Marta had been in this church only once before, but she remembered the heavy oak pews, the stained glass windows showing the Stations of the Cross. The priest ushered the three of them through a side door into a much smaller and more functional room. There was a leather-covered desk with an ink-pot on top of it. In the corner a statue of the Virgin Mary with her eyes rolled up towards heaven.
Marta crossed herself instinctively, like someone flinching before a raised fist.
Now that they could all see each other clearly, Father Wilhelm addressed Pepik directly. “Hallo, mein Kind.” Pepik’s face was buried in Marta’s pinafore. Anneliese moved forward. “Pepik, come here,” she said, firmly. “Say hello to Father Wilhelm.”
Pepik stepped forward and extended his hand. “I didn’t touch the horses,” he said.
The priest smiled and took Pepik’s hand in his own. He was wearing a gold ring, Marta saw, with a cross on it. “Let’s begin.”
The priest’s Czech was rusty as an old knife—he kept switching tenses—but when Anneliese said, in German, “Denken Sie dass das sonderbar ist?” Father Wilhelm only shrugged and answered, “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
The priest busied himself with a folder on top of the desk, removing several sheets of carbon paper and spreading them out one next to the other. He dug in the desk drawer and came out with a quill. Then he turned to Anneliese and said, matter of factly, “If you’d like I can just sign the papers.”
There was a moment of confusion, and Anneliese and Marta looked at each other. They understood at the same time: he would baptize Pepik out of kindness. It was his small act of defiance against the Nazis. The priest knew this was not a religious decision.
Anneliese clarified, “You mean without the water?” She nodded at the font in the corner of the room.
Father Wilhelm nodded back and said, “I am happy to be of assistance in whatever way I can.” For the first time, though, he looked over his shoulder nervously, as though making sure nobody had slipped in the side door and was watching from the shadows. It was clear that he would prefer to get this over as quickly as possible. The whole thing had the feel of a shady transaction, Marta thought. Like a body being disposed of.
She thought of Anneliese in the tub, the water crimson red.
“Water or papers?” the priest asked, looking at the watch he wore on a gold chain around his neck. Anneliese was eyeing the font warily. Marta could tell she was worried that without the water the ceremony wouldn’t take. Not the actual baptism, but whatever protection it was supposed to eventually summon.
“Let’s do it pro
perly.” Anneliese’s tone implied that she knew she was being superstitious but was willing to take the risk.
“Ganz richtig,” the priest said. “Come here, Pepik.”
Pepik stepped forward gravely, a young Isaac about to be forsaken.
Marta was half expecting something elaborate: a choir of angels emerging from on high, complete with white robes and tarnished halos. Or maybe Father Wilhelm would pull back a velvet curtain to reveal a galvanized tub in which the naked Pepik would be entirely submerged—even held down for a minute or two, just until he began to struggle. But Father Wilhelm only took Pepik by his shoulders and said, “Close your eyes,” as though he was going to give him a surprise for his birthday.
He dipped his fingers in the font and touched Pepik’s forehead and mumbled some words that Marta could not catch. Pepik’s eyes were clenched shut as though he were steeling himself against a terrible vision. Father Wilhelm had to give him a little shake. “It’s okay. It’s all over!”
Pepik opened his eyes and wiped the drops of water from his forehead with the back of his sleeve. He looked around tentatively, as though expecting to see something marvellous—his mother turned into Saint Nicholas, or the priest turned into a frog. Pepik lifted his arm and looked at it closely, inspecting the sleeve of his shirt. The priest laughed. “You’re just the same, mein Kind,” he said. “You’re just as before.” And he shook his head—in satisfaction or in regret, it was hard to say.
Father Wilhelm brought his hands to his chest and folded them, his long, bony fingers interlaced. Marta thought he was about to start praying, but instead he said to Anneliese, “I’ll see you out now, Mrs. Bauer.” He paused, as though he might have forgotten something, and looked at the font slantwise. “Unless you’d like . . .” He made a sound in the back of his throat.
“I’m sorry?”
“Unless you’d like the same for yourself.”
Anneliese opened her mouth and then closed it again. Did she want to be baptized as well? It was obvious to Marta that the thought hadn’t occurred to her. “I see we’re not the only ones . . . ,” Anneliese started, but her words trailed off. She looked at the font intently, as though an answer might somehow bubble to the surface, like a dumpling in the hovězí polévka. Then she looked back at Marta. “Do you think . . . ?”
