by Alison Pick
Marta looked to Mrs. Bauer, but her face was blank, unreadable. “Of course it couldn’t have been us,” she scoffed. “We’re different. He was . . .” She did not need to finish her sentence. Mr. Goldstein had been Orthodox, practising. The Bauers were assimilated, secular.
Pavel shook his head. “Those distinctions don’t matter any more,” he said.
“What do you mean ‘don’t matter anymore’?”
Pavel drew on his pipe; Marta found the smell familiar, comforting. There was something almost sweet about it, like cookies ready to come out of the oven.
“I mean just what I say,” said Pavel. “Things have changed. The Germans care only if you’re Jewish. It’s black and white. In their minds.”
“Really?” Anneliese asked. “How is that possible? We couldn’t be more different if . . .”
But Pavel didn’t answer. He’d been looking at the silver candlesticks in the middle of the table; he now lifted his face towards his wife. “I’m proud to be a Jew,” he declared. Marta shrunk back, waiting for Anneliese’s answer, but she was silent. “I didn’t realize it,” Pavel said, “until now. Until all of this.” He moved his eyes in the direction of the window. The drapes were closed tightly. Behind them someone had taken the old tailor’s body away.
“Proud, darling?”
Marta could see Pavel searching around for what he was feeling, discovering it himself as he spoke it aloud. “It makes me . . . I’ve always been so proud to be Czech, to be a vlastenecký. It’s like I’d forgotten this other . . .” He cleared his throat. “This thing that has happened to Goldstein,” he said. “It’s changed me.”
“I hope it’s not you next.”
“What I mean is, I’m starting to know our own value. As a people.”
“I hope I won’t have to sit shiva and tear my clothes into rags!” Anneliese’s laugh was shrill. “And cover . . . the windows?”
“The mirrors,” Pavel said quietly. Then he added, “I finally understand what’s important.”
“Being Jewish?”
“Teaching Pepik who he is.”
Marta locked eyes with Anneliese. She knew the baptism was fresh in both their minds.
“You see what happened to Mr. Goldstein?” Anneliese started. “You see why it happened? Because of his religion.”
But Pavel took his wife’s words not as dissent but as agreement. “Yes,” he said. “Exactly! We’re lucky, Liesel. There’s still time for our son to grow up knowing the worth of his people. With a fierce sense—” He was smiling now, wryly, aware of the irony of the timing. “With a fierce sense of Jewish identity!” He put his hands on his wife’s shoulders, shaking his head. “Who would have thought,” he said.
Marta was frozen in her chair, her mind racing, as though she, not Anneliese, was going to have to answer for the baptism. And wasn’t she equally responsible? Hadn’t she gone along with it willingly? She could have resisted, could have stood up for what she knew Pavel felt. Part of her wanted to leave the room, to find something that needed washing or mending and escape the consequence of her actions. Another part, though, longed to be held accountable. Something of great magnitude had happened, something she’d been involved in, and the feeling of importance was hard for her to deny. Although, of course, she’d have to defer to Mrs. Bauer.
Marta looked up at Anneliese; she was holding a knuckle on her right hand between the thumb and index finger of her left. “Pavel,” she said.
“My darling?”
“I should tell you.”
“You should tell me what?”
Marta thought for a moment that Anneliese was about to confess. But she only paused and looked up from her hands.
“I should tell you that I love you,” she said.
Pavel hatched a new plan. He would negotiate with the government—with the Czech government, in Prague—to be sent on a goodwill mission to South America. He would go as a sort of ambassador for the Czech textile manufacturers, to try to persuade the business community there that Czechoslovakia, even in its reduced form, would continue to be a reliable trading partner.
Anneliese agreed with Pavel’s new idea but wasn’t sure how they’d pull it off. “Who are you, to represent the whole Czech textile community?” she asked one evening as she and Pavel relaxed in the parlour. Marta was ironing quietly in the corner. She could see a copy of the new Henry Miller book, Tropic of Capricorn, and a Czech-English dictionary open in Anneliese’s lap. “I’m playing devil’s advocate,” Anneliese clarified.
“That’s a racy book,” Pavel said.
“And do you like my reading glasses?” She batted her eyelashes at her husband from behind the thick frames. Marta knew that Anneliese would wear them only in the privacy of their own home.
“Okay,” Anneliese said, “let’s figure this out.” She clapped her hands together like a schoolteacher. “How can we convince them that you’re the one to represent the industry if your factory has been occupied by Heinlein?”
“My reputation precedes me,” Pavel said. “Perhaps I am the man for the job precisely because the factory has been occupied.”
“How so?” Anneliese asked.
Pavel paused, and Marta could tell he was grasping, that he couldn’t make it make sense. “Now that Hácha has been elected . . .” he said, referring to Beneš’s replacement.
“Hácha will be of no help,” Anneliese said. “He’s a Catholic with no political background. A lawyer. A translator.” She snapped her Czech-English dictionary closed in disgust. “I have faith in you though, miláčku,” she said to her husband. “I know you’ll think of something.”
Pavel had pulled his grandfather’s Star of David out of his pocket. He touched it now, as if it might help.
There was a knock at the door, three short raps. Marta set her iron down; it let out a hiss, a steam engine departing. She went into the front hall and undid the deadbolt. Ernst was standing there, two inches from her face. Her hands rose of their own accord to smooth down her hair.
“Hello, Mr. Anselm,” she said.
Ernst mouthed something Marta could not make out. She looked over her shoulder to make sure nobody was watching, and leaned in to better hear him.
“Tonight,” he whispered. Then: “May I give you my coat?” he said loudly.
“Certainly.”
Marta reached out for the boiled wool cloak and summoned her courage. She shook her head. No, not tonight.
Ernst raised his eyebrows, not angry so much as concerned. He took a step in towards her. “Marta,” he whispered, “what’s wrong?”
The Bauers were still in the next room, Pavel saying English words and Anneliese repeating them back to him. Marta shrugged, her arms crossed over her chest. She bit her bottom lip, afraid that if she spoke she’d start to cry.
“Has something happened?” Ernst whispered. It was as though he’d forgotten the other night entirely, how rough he’d been with her, how cruel. His gaze was soft, genuinely worried, and part of her wanted to relax, to lean her head against his torso and have him stroke her back like a child. But she touched her upper arm and felt the bruised skin, the place where he’d gripped her so tightly. She remembered Mr. Goldstein, the terrible tumble of his body to the street. “Pavel trusts you,” she whispered back.
A flush rose to Ernst’s face. “And what does that have to do with you and me?” His voice hardened and she felt suddenly young, afraid of standing up to him and losing everything. Who else did she have?
Pepik, she told herself. She had Pepik—and he depended on her. It could have been him, Pavel had said.
Ernst looked over Marta’s shoulder at the doorway beyond. They only had another second or two before the Bauers would wonder about her absence. He lifted his hand in the air. Marta had a sudden, unmistakeable feeling that he was about to strike her—her father’s memory evoked yet again—and she flinched, her arms lifting automatically to shield herself from the blow. But Ernst only laid his palm against her cheek. “Don’t
be silly, darling,” he whispered. “I’ll see you tonight.”
He’d never called her darling before, but she braced herself against the endearment. She thought again of old Mr. Goldstein, the way the boys had dragged him by his earlobe, and how helpless he’d looked in the light from the flames. His death had clarified things. She could no longer deny what Ernst stood for. Not to others. Not to herself.
“It’s settled,” he said.
But she shook her head: No.
“I’ll hang your coat behind the door,” she said. And she turned on her heel before she could lose her nerve, and left him standing in the hallway without her.
The following morning Anneliese’s brother-in-law Max showed up at the house. He was a barrel-chested man with a moustache and white hair, and Marta had always liked him. He didn’t ignore her as some of the Bauers’ other friends did, treating her like she was just another piece of furniture that happened to have legs and a face; instead he asked after her, remembering little details like the needlepoint she’d been working on when he’d last seen her several months ago. Maybe this difference in attitude came from not taking his good fortune for granted; he’d met Anneliese’s sister Alžběta late in life, Marta knew, at a charity ball given for the volunteer firemen of his father’s factory. His life with her and their two young daughters were gifts he would never stop being grateful for.
“I’ve fired Kurt Hofstader,” Max said now, coming into the front hall. He smiled at Marta as he passed her his hat.
“Your foreman?” Pavel asked.
Max paused. “Thank you, Marta.” He looked to Pavel: “Yes, please. Half a glass.”
“It’s a vintage ’29.”
“Not foreman. Plant manager.”
“A Nazi?”
“You know I wouldn’t let politics get in the way of business.” Max lowered his voice. “But I think he was informing.”
Anneliese came into the room. “Informing about what?” she said darkly, from the corner of her mouth, pretending to be Sam Spade. She laughed at her poor imitation and threw her arms around her brother-in-law. “Hello, Max!”
Marta made her way into the small sewing room off the parlour. Several pairs of Pepik’s stockings needed mending; things had been so chaotic lately that she’d let them pile up. From the other room came the sounds of a cork being pulled and of liquid being poured. Chairs squeaked across the floorboards. Marta licked the tip of her thread—it had split a little—and squinted, guiding it through the eye of the needle. She had to make several attempts; the light wasn’t good, she thought, or perhaps her eyes were getting weaker. She heard the click of Pavel’s steel Adler—he was jotting something down on a pad of legal paper. Then Max said, “I was wondering if you’d come and replace him.”
Marta paused, the threaded needle pressed between her lips. Max wanted Pavel to replace his plant manager? Did he mean they should go to Prague? She shifted her chair so she could see around the door frame and into the parlour.
Pavel cleared his throat; there was a long silence before he asked the same question. “In Prague?”
Max laughed. “You make it sound like the moon.”
Pavel cleared his throat again. “I’m flattered you’d ask,” he said. He lifted a hand and touched the chandelier directly over his head, as though to steady it, or himself. “I will certainly consider it,” he said finally.
Anneliese said, “I’ve been wanting to go to Prague all along.”
Pavel turned to his wife. “And now, my darling, we’d have a reason to go.”
“A job?”
“Employment.”
But Marta knew Anneliese wouldn’t let herself get excited too quickly. “What about the factory?”
He shrugged. “You know as well as I do.”
“And your mother?”
“She wouldn’t come.”
Max interjected. “I could send someone down to keep an eye on her.”
“Won’t a Jewish plant manager be as much trouble as a Nazi?” asked Anneliese.
Pavel smiled at his wife. “Prague is not under Nazi rule. And Max is your brother-in-law!” He grasped Max’s shoulder and shook it.
“You could stay in our flat,” Max said. “I’ll be leaving the country for a while to visit Alžběta and our girls.”
Anneliese straightened at the mention of her sister and nieces, but Max had made it clear he could tell nobody where they’d gone.
“Yes,” Anneliese said. “Yes, that sounds . . .” She was quiet again. And then she said, all at once, “I’m thrilled!”
Pavel threw an arm around his wife’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “We’ll leave in the morning.” He was wearing his overcoat; he looked as if he planned to rush out the door that very minute.
Marta was still, her sewing needle poised. Was this really happening? After all her years of service to the Bauers she was about to be abandoned after all. They were acting in their own best interest and forgetting about her entirely. And why shouldn’t they, she asked herself. They had never promised her anything; her position in their family was as hired help, nothing more. Still, she felt a panic rising in her chest. She tried to reassure herself that things would work out somehow, but another part of her couldn’t see how; she would starve to death all on her own. And part of her thought she deserved to.
“We’ll need some time to pack,” Anneliese was saying in the other room. “To wash the linen and cover the furniture and thaw the icebox and . . .” She gestured around the parlour.
Max cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Anneliese, but I’ll need him as quickly as possible. Hofstader has already been let go. And I have a business to run.”
He smiled at Pavel as though to say that the world of commerce was beyond a woman’s comprehension. Marta thought perhaps he was not as kind as she’d imagined him to be. She felt tears rising and blinked in rapid succession, trying to clear her eyes. Be patient, she told herself; there’s time to figure something out. But clearly there wasn’t. The decision made, the Bauers had moved immediately into planning mode. “Your mother could look in on the house,” Anneliese said.
“Or Ernst. I’ll meet with him to tell him the plan.”
“And the school?”
Pavel grimaced. “They’re not teaching Pepik anything worthwhile down there anyway. They’ve got him facing the back of the class. Did you know?”
Anneliese coughed; there was the furtive sound of her raising a hand to her mouth and lowering her voice. “What about . . . ?” Marta looked up to see Anneliese tip her head towards the sewing room.
“Pepik can’t be without a nanny,” Pavel said loudly. “Marta will come with us.”
“But Sophie’s already run off. Maybe Marta is about to do the same.”
“You want to look after him yourself?” Pavel teased his wife. “You want to . . . you want to . . .” He was clearly searching his memory for what it was Marta actually did. “You want to cook his dinner? You want to give him a bath? Every night? And dry him, and dress him, and—” But Anneliese smiled and waved her hand to show he could stop. She did not want to do any of those things, and they both knew it—certainly not in Prague, where there were opera houses and movie theatres and her old friends from her teenage years.
“Marta!” Pavel called.
Marta made a stitch and pulled the thread taut. She waited a moment before setting down her needle and standing up and entering the room.
“We are going to Prague and you will come with us,” Pavel said, magnanimous.
He paused.
“If you wish.”
Marta had to blink some more to clear her eyes of tears. Such fear, and now such relief. She had nobody else—especially not Ernst—and deep down she knew she wasn’t capable of getting by on her own. Surely Pavel must know this? But he seemed to be waiting for a reply, so she bobbed her head quickly and said, “Of course, Mr. Bauer.”
Marta knew she should get Pepik ready to go first. But she was so relieved she couldn’t help
herself: she hurried upstairs to pack her own belongings.
Two days later something woke Marta in the middle of the night. She lit the candle on her bedside table and lay still, straining to hear. There was the sound of someone putting a foot down at the top of the stair, then pausing, then slowly putting another foot down. An image of Ernst flashed in front of her eyes and she was overcome by the familiar feeling of being dirty, that compulsive need to wash and clean that she knew, in the back of her mind, was what made her such good hired help.
The footsteps continued on, ever so carefully, past her door.
Marta began to fear for Pepik. His room was at the end of the hall, in the direction the footsteps were headed. There had been looting reported again recently, in a Jewish home in Kyjov; a young girl had been taken by a hooded man and was still missing. Marta swung her legs over the edge of the bed and lowered herself to the floor. The wood was cold but she didn’t feel for her slippers; she took her robe from the back of the door and held it to her chest like a towel. Her movements made the floor creak loudly. Whoever was outside froze. Marta summoned her courage all at once and flung the door open.
She and the intruder stood there, gaping at each other. Sophie’s hair was loose and frizzy, the candlelight playing over her face.
“Soph!” Marta whispered. “What are you doing here?”
“Lovely to see you too.”
“Are you here for your things? I thought you already—”
“I forgot something. I came back for it.” Sophie held up her silver key to the house. It glinted like a pirate’s tooth.
“What time is it?”
“I’m finished with cooking.”
“But your room, it’s . . .” Marta pointed in the opposite direction, towards the other end of the hall.
Sophie looked uncertain. “It’s none of your business. What I’m doing is none of your business.”
Marta put a finger to her lips, then wondered why she was whispering. Shouldn’t she call out and wake the Bauers?
“I thought the Bauers had left,” Sophie confessed.
“Shhh! Did you hear something?”
“I thought they’d gone.”
