by Alison Pick
“Close family?” Pavel asked. He looked to her for confirmation and she shook her head almost imperceptibly: No. Something in the gesture must have told him not to push any further. “What about boyfriends? A pretty girl like you.” There was a sly look on his face, the start of a grin, and she saw he was teasing her, that she could get away without answering. But instead she said, “No. I’ve never . . .”
“Never. Really,” Pavel said mildly. He squinted, his eyes on the road.
They were quiet for a while, Marta reassuring herself: certainly Ernst didn’t count as a boyfriend. So it wasn’t a lie she’d told. Not exactly.
The countryside receded and buildings reappeared, first just a few and then many. The city was coated in a soft blanket of snow. When they got to the flat Pavel hopped out and opened the gate. He got back in and rode the clutch into the garage. He pulled the hand brake and punched the button that turned the lights off. But he made no move to get out of the car.
In the back little Pepik was still soundly asleep, his head bent back at an odd angle against the seat.
Pavel turned to Marta. He gave her a piercing look, his brow furrowed. “I’m sorry about Mrs. Bauer,” he said.
“Sir?”
“The way she behaved this morning.”
Something inside Marta tightened, like the lid on a Mason jar. It had been such a lovely day; why did he have to go and tarnish it like this? She was enjoying the chance to talk with Pavel—one on one, two adults—but the only way she could allow herself the intimacy was to put Anneliese out of her mind entirely. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” she said.
He looked at her tenderly, or at least with an expression she took for tenderness. “And that,” he said, “is why we adore you.”
Marta’s breath quickened; she could not force herself to meet his eyes. But Pavel continued, as though he were speaking not to her but to himself. “You’re loyal,” he said. “Which is—” He paused, nodding. “—not something to be taken for granted.”
“Thank you, Mr. Bauer,” she said, but she was confused by the remark. She had the sense that he was referring not to her character but some other event she wasn’t aware of.
“I don’t take your loyalty for granted,” he said again, meeting her eye. “I appreciate . . . many things about you.”
The space in the car seemed to have shrunk; Marta was aware of the proximity of her body to Pavel’s, of the musky smell of the leather blanket in the back seat, and of Pavel’s hand resting lightly on the gearshift just an inch or two away. She looked down at it, and his gaze followed hers. They were still for a moment, both of them looking at the hand. Then she watched—it really was like something from a dream—she watched him lift it and place it, ever so lightly, on her leg.
Marta couldn’t speak; then she realized she wouldn’t need to. Pavel had opened his mouth first. “I wanted—” he said. But he stopped, and she saw he was looking at her face—she could see his eyes circling her forehead, studying her nose, her dimple—and then he leaned forward and kissed her.
She was so taken aback that it was a moment before her body registered the sensation. His mouth was warm and his lips felt full and hot. The slight taste of cocoa. There was a glimmer of his tongue and she felt a pang low in her belly, a sharp tug like nothing she had felt there before. She waited to feel herself stiffen and pull back, but she felt a different sensation instead—she wanted, she realized, for him to continue.
But Pavel drew away. He looked at her again with that same tenderness and tucked a strand of hair back behind her ear. Then he leaned in one more time. A short, firm finish to the kiss. It was as if he had come to a decision, she thought, and this was his way to seal it.
After that, Marta would think later, everything was ruined.
The following morning Max’s foreman, Hans, arrived at the flat. Together he and Pavel were running the show in Max’s absence. Marta took his overcoat and said, “Welcome, Mr. Novak.”
He tsked. “Call me Hans.”
“Yes, Mr. Novak,” she said.
He was a man with a large stomach, and jowls that made her think of a hound-dog. The sort of man, Marta thought, about whom women would say He’s got such a nice smile, or He’s got beautiful eyes, but only because they liked him and it did not seem fair that someone so kind should be so unpleasant to look at.
Marta showed him into the parlour, where Pavel had lit a fire in the hearth. The men took off their leather shoes and stretched their legs towards the heat, Hans with his hands folded over his enormous belly. Marta served café au lait from the silver service while they sucked on their pipes. Her trolley was covered with a white linen cloth. “A whore’s breakfast,” Hans joked. “Coffee and tobacco.”
Pavel smiled.
“There are pastries too,” Marta said, smiling. She had bought tiny plum donuts, dusted with confectioner’s sugar, and two little Linzer tortes from the beautiful patisserie in the Vinohrady. Pavel liked Czech pastries, but served in the French way. He liked to peruse them with the silver tongs in hand.
Marta moved towards Pavel to let him have his pick but found she could not look him in the face. The memory of their kiss was like an ailment spreading throughout her body, making its presence known in her chest, then on her cheeks, then in that unfamiliar tug low in her belly. It had been so unexpected, so out of the blue. And yet she felt, somehow, that she’d loved him all along. The mess with Ernst lifted from her mind like a ribbon of grey cigarette smoke. This is what it was like to be kissed by a decent man, a man who respected you. And she realized it was true—Pavel did respect her, without a doubt. The situation was complicated, compromised, but his feelings about her were pure.
For his part, Pavel acted breezy, at ease. As if nothing unusual had happened. He selected a pastry without looking at Marta. “Intermarium,” he said to Hans. “What do you make of it?” He set the donut on his plate and held the tongs out in front of him.
“A pact between Poland, Romania, and the Hungarians.”
“But what about us?” The tongs snapped closed.
“We’re lost already.”
“I went down to the Swiss embassy to try to get entry permits,” Pavel said. “I put a small envelope on the edge of the diplomat’s desk. He waited until the end of my appeal and then he threw it back in my face.”
Marta registered this new piece of information: so Pavel had tried to bribe the Swiss for entry. He too wanted to leave Czechoslovakia. But had he changed his mind too late?
“We’re stuck here,” he said, as if answering her thought.
His voice seemed strangely loud, Marta noticed. Perhaps he wanted her to leave, to give them some privacy. She moved her trolley into the corner of the room but one of the wheels was sticking; she had to stop and kneel to adjust it.
Hans carefully set down his cup on the china saucer, the dainty gesture comical in contrast to his size. He took on a businesslike tone with Pavel. “You’ll get a little reprieve before the Wehrmacht arrives,” he said. “I’ve received word that you’re needed to go to the Hungerland factory. On a flax-buying mission.”
“Received word from who? Max?”
But Hans ignored the question. “We will need to be prepared,” he said. “The borders will close. We need stock in order to stay relevant.”
Marta thought she caught an unspoken criticism of the way Pavel had handled things in their old town. If he had been prepared, Hans seemed to imply, he might have avoided the factory’s occupation. But Pavel didn’t pick up on it or else chose not to indulge the foreman. “I see,” he said. “To Paris?”
“No, not to Paris. To Zürich.” Hans enunciated the city’s name clearly. “You are requested to buy as much flax as possible. And meet with the son, Emil. No, not Emil; sorry, he’s the one . . .” Hans circled his forefinger beside his temple to show the man was crazy.
“If only we could really spin flax into gold.”
“Emil’s brother, Jan. He’ll be with Mr. Hungerland
Senior. There will be a series of meetings about the matter I told you about earlier. You’ll have to go for three days.”
Marta watched Hans pop an entire donut into his mouth. He wiped the powdered sugar from his moustache. “Why don’t you take Mrs. Bauer and Pepik with you?” he said to Pavel, chewing, his mouth full. “Let them have a holiday. Marienbad is almost on the way. Perhaps you can join Mrs. Bauer at the spa.”
Pavel snorted. “And get covered in mud.”
Hans swallowed. “And then hosed down. That’s the good part, my friend. To be hosed down by a bunch of little milkmaids . . .”
“It’s supposed to be a medieval cure.”
“It’s some kind of cure! I’m not sure I’d say medieval . . .”
The men moved over to the big wooden chairs with hunting scenes carved into their backs, the same kind the Bauers had left behind at the old house. They filled the bowls of their pipes again and began discussing politics. There had been an urgent appeal for people to buy defence bonds to protect the republic, and the Bauers had invested in them heavily. “A lot of good it did,” Pavel said.
“I suppose it’s too late,” Hans agreed.
“If only Masaryk were alive.”
Hans said that in Masaryk they had briefly realized Plato’s philosopher-king.
Marta rolled her service trolley back into the kitchen. The name of the dead president brought back the pleasure of Lány, of Pavel’s kiss. She wanted to know the details of the Bauers’ trip, when exactly they would leave and where they would stay. They would be gone for three days.
Pepik.
Pavel.
She wasn’t sure, suddenly, if she could bear it.
That night Marta roasted a goose for dinner. She cooked red cabbage with apples and raisins and put a bottle of plum brandy from Max and Alžběta’s wine cellar on the table. Nobody asked what the occasion was. Marta kept thinking about the kiss, the unexpected heat of it. This was something other than what had happened with Ernst—the terrible push/pull of power—and something other than the violence she had suffered from her father. It was the same action, the same motion, but it sprang from a different place altogether. How was it that two entirely opposing emotions could take shape in an identical act?
There was something new here, something newly lit that she had not experienced before. A single bright candle on a birthday cake. She felt guilty about Anneliese but she tried not to think of it; she focused instead on feeling so alive.
At the table the Bauers were digging into their roast goose. “Is it true Hitler will invade?” Marta ventured. It seemed suddenly important to understand exactly what was happening around her.
She reached over and tucked a linen napkin into the neck of Pepik’s shirt. Red cabbage stained terribly.
Anneliese put down her monogrammed silver cutlery. “Yes, it’s true,” she said finally, shooting her husband a look.
Pavel said, “I told you, Liesel, we’re staying. Your brother-in-law needs me.”
Anneliese touched her napkin to her lips. “Keep your voice down,” she said. “Nobody has accused you of anything.”
Pavel cleared his throat. “Marta,” he said, “I almost forgot to tell you. I have to go to Zürich, on factory business. Mrs. Bauer and the Crown Prince will join me. So you’ll have tomorrow off and Wednesday as well.”
Marta nodded. He seemed nervous, she thought. She watched him move the knot of his tie below his Adam’s apple, and was suddenly hyper-aware of Anneliese there at the table between them. All it would take would be a little slip, a glance that lingered a moment too long, and everything would come crashing down like so much glass on Kristallnacht. But Marta was not afraid of giving anything away. Her job as hired help was to hide her emotions. She was paid for it; she was experienced. And Anneliese seemed oblivious anyway, her thin face bent over her cabbage.
“Are we going in the automobile?” Pepik asked.
“On a train.”
“On a train! Can Nanny come?”
Nobody answered.
After the Bauers were finished eating and had placed their knives and forks parallel on their plates, they sat smoking for several minutes beneath the oil portraits of Alžběta and Max. Pepik was excused and ran off to attend to his empire. In the kitchen Marta dreamily scraped congealed goose fat into the metal tin under the sink. She filled a big hrnec with water and added two whole onions, two whole heads of peeled garlic, and the heel of the red cabbage. All the while she imagined what would have happened if she hadn’t found Anneliese in the bathtub in time. If Mrs. Bauer hadn’t . . . made it. Could she—Marta—have been the new Mrs. Bauer? She ripped the one remaining drumstick off the goose and used the carving fork to lower the carcass into the pot. Pepik would accept her as his mother—God knows she loved him as one. But what about Pavel? She was a country bumpkin, unschooled in the ways of the world. It wouldn’t do for him to have someone like her for his wife. And yet she could have sworn, when he’d cupped her face in his hands, pulling her mouth towards his . . .
Marta lit the stove and left the pot to simmer. She would come back before bed and skim the fat off the surface. By morning the whole house would be filled with the smell of soup, and the Bauers would be gone on their mission to Zürich. She needed to go upstairs and pack Pepik’s bag.
Pavel and Anneliese had disappeared, which meant they must be in the bedroom with the door closed. There were two things they might be doing in there; she chose to assume they were fighting. Sure enough, at the top of the stair their argument came into focus. Something about jewellery, about Anneliese’s watch. “I want to bring it,” Marta heard Anneliese say.
“And where are you going to wear it?” Pavel asked. “In Zürich, where we are going for only three days?” He emphasized the brevity of the trip, but there was something else in his voice, some kind of resentment, or reproach.
“In the lining of the coat, then.”
“I told you, I was wrong. The market isn’t good. We can’t risk it.”
They wanted to sell the watch? Were things so bad? Pavel, she knew, had Canadian railway stocks, investments in a bauxite mine and in his friend Vaclav’s margarine factories. But Marta had caught only the tail end of the discussion, and the silence now meant that Anneliese had started to cry.
Marta moved down the hall to Pepik’s room. He was cross-legged on the floor, staring at the train, trying to divine some secret from the boxcars. She had a sudden urge to hold him tightly. “Come here, miláčku,” she said.
Pepik got up and came to her obediently, like one of Karel Čapek’s robots, programmed to do as it was told. He needed a haircut and his fingernails needed to be clipped. He was wearing, she saw, the same shirt he’d worn yesterday. She was overcome with remorse—she had let her mind wander, thinking of the father when the son was the one in need of her devotion.
She couldn’t imagine what it would have been like if the other child had lived and she always had to divide her attention. She sat down in the rocking chair and pulled Pepik onto her lap. “Já amor tebe,” she whispered in his ear.
His expression remained blank.
“Show me your Dopey face,” she tried.
It took him a moment to understand what she was asking. “My Dopey face,” he said, thinking. Then he rolled his eyes up and scratched his temple.
“Bravo!” Marta clapped. “How about your Happy face?”
He beamed. Just briefly—but it was enough to remind her of simpler times.
He ended with Sleepy, resting his head on her shoulder. Marta held him there, drowsing against her chest. She cradled him as if he were a baby and sang Hou, hou, krávy dou, about the cows dragging their heavy udders down to the river. Pepik was almost asleep when Anneliese came into the room, her eyes red. There was a streak of mascara below her left eye. “We’re leaving first thing in the morning,” she said.
Marta felt Pepik stir and awaken against her. “Up you get,” she said, patting his backside. “You’re a big boy.”
Pepik blinked and rubbed his eyes. “Will you measure me?”
“Not now, darling.”
“Why don’t you go make yourself a cup of tea,” Anneliese said to Marta. “I’ll get him packed.”
“Measure me,” Pepik whined.
“I’m fine, Mrs. Bauer,” Marta said. “I was just getting up. I’ll pack his suit, and the brown knickerbockers . . .”
Anneliese touched her pearls. “No,” she said. “You go on downstairs.” She fluttered her hand as though shooing away a stray dog.
Pepik pulled on Marta’s arm. She stood up, uncertain. “His nightshirt is in the bottom drawer,” she said, unable to restrain herself. Anneliese had never in her life packed a travel bag for Pepik.
Marta almost bumped into the door frame leaving the room. In the hall she passed Anneliese’s open valise, a set of silver hairbrushes slipped through the loops. The kitchen was already filling with the gamey smell of simmering soup. She skimmed off the fat and turned the heat up again. Fished out the limp vegetables and got a fresh cabbage to throw in. All the while going over it in her head. Why did Mrs. Bauer want to pack Pepik’s overnight bag herself? Had Marta done a bad job last time? When was it? The trip to Paris last winter to see the mechanical Père Noël—there hadn’t been any complaints.
And why the fuss about the diamond watch? Why had Anneliese suggested sewing it into the lining of a coat?
Marta turned her back and the cabbage rolled off the counter and thudded onto the floor. She picked it up, brushed it off, and laid it back on the board. Lifted the cleaver and hacked it in half. The pattern inside was intricate, the tight curls like two halves of a brain. Marta put the cleaver down on the cutting board, wiped her hands on her apron. She stood, not moving, next to the soup on the stove.
It began at that very moment to boil.
She knew where to look. There was a silver letter opener on Max Stein’s desk, and some creamy stationery with the factory’s address running across the top. Pavel’s Star of David lying next to the pot of ink. There were telegrams stacked under a paperweight: a round stone painted red with a ladybug’s black dots by Max’s daughter. Marta picked it up carefully, as though it might be hot. Under it were telegrams from Ernst and from someone named Rolf Unger. And beneath the telegrams, there they were—passports.
