“I was a bit frightened,” I admitted. “But I’m very glad I’m here.”
“Are you now?” she laughed. “And what’s that you have there? It looks like an oven mitt.”
“It is a mitt,” I said. “Sometimes he talks, but he’s feeling a bit shy at the moment.”
“I see,” Mrs. Liskova smiled. “And what kind of stories would you like me to tell you?”
“You were going to tell me all about how nice things were when you were a little girl,” I said.
“Was I now?” Mrs. Liskova sat down on a bench and folded her wrinkled hands in her lap. I sat down on the grass in front of her, using my mitt as a cushion.
“Well, let’s see. When I was your age, Cernosice was a popular holiday town that people from Prague used to come and visit on the weekends,” Mrs. Liskova said. “The river was clean and there were many excellent hotels and restaurants to go to, and the forest was full of mushrooms you could pick yourself and eat.”
“That sounds very nice,” I said.
“It was nice,” Mrs. Liskova sighed. “Back in those days, Prague was one of the most civilized and influential cities in Europe. Lots of great writers and musicians and artists lived here. Did you know that Mozart wrote Don Giovanni while he was living in Prague?”
“I know who Mozart is,” I said proudly. “My mother has his records.”
“He was a very great composer,” Mrs. Liskova agreed. “Many people think that if he had stayed in Prague instead of moving back to Vienna, he would have lived longer and written more music.”
“I like it here in your garden,” I told Mrs. Liskova. “It’s very noisy at my house at the moment.”
“So I can hear,” she said. “And look, here comes Mrs. Noskova.” She pointed to the villa next door, and I saw her neighbor limping slowly through her garden.
“Hello, Mrs. Noskova!” I called out. “What are you doing?”
“I’m gathering strawberries,” she replied, leaning heavily on her crutches. “Mrs. Sokolova is baking a cake and I promised to bring her all the ripe strawberries I can find.”
“Would you like some help?” Mrs. Liskova asked. “Maybe Dominika could give you a hand.”
“I love strawberries,” I said excitedly. “I’ll help you!”
There was a low hedge separating the two gardens, and I noticed that Mrs. Noskova’s garden was slightly nicer than Mrs. Liskova’s. There was a row of cherry trees and a little strawberry patch, not to mention the bright green coal shuttle that looked like a miniature train. Mrs. Noskova waited for us by her strawberry patch, leaning on one crutch and using the other to turn the leaves and see if there were any ripe strawberries beneath them.
“I can help because I’m small,” I told the two ladies. “I can find all the strawberries that are hiding.”
I knelt down and started to look through the patch. There were lots of strawberries, but only a few of them were red and juicy. I crawled on my hands and knees and carefully inspected each of the clumps, and whenever I found a ripe strawberry, I put it in Mrs. Noskova’s basket. Many of the nicer-looking strawberries were already half eaten.
“I keep telling my son to put a scarecrow in the garden,” Mrs. Noskova said. “The starlings are really bad this year. They always get to the strawberries before I can pick them.”
“The hawks and falcons have left the forest,” Mrs. Liskova pointed out. “A lot of the big birds have moved on. Remember when the owls were so noisy it was impossible to sleep?”
“That was a long time ago,” Mrs. Noskova said wistfully. “I actually love the chirping of the starlings and swallows. I just wish they wouldn’t eat all my strawberries.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m doing a good job down here.”
I filled the basket with as many strawberries as I could find, and then we went over to Mrs. Sokolova’s apartment. All three ladies lived on the ground floors of the villas their families owned, but Mrs. Sokolova’s apartment wasn’t damp and claustrophobic like Oma’s. It was warm and cozy, and smelled of cinnamon and vanilla. The door was open, and in the living room there was a little round table with a hand-embroidered tablecloth. Mrs. Liskova and Mrs. Noskova leaned their walking sticks and crutches against the wall and eased themselves into the chairs. Mrs. Sokolova was brewing a pot of tea, and I helped her carry the milk and sugar to the table.
“Would you like to help me wash the strawberries?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “I found all the ones the starlings didn’t eat.”
“Well, aren’t you a good girl,” Mrs. Sokolova smiled. “We’ll wash the strawberries and then maybe you can help me put them on the cake.”
“Okay!” I said happily.
We washed the strawberries, and then Mrs. Sokolova put on her own oven mitt and removed a baking tray from the oven. I put my mitt on, too, and watched as she transferred the cake from the tray to a plate. We covered the cake with strawberries and topped it off with a big squirt of whipped cream. Then she gave me the plate and I carried it carefully to the table while Mrs. Liskova and Mrs. Noskova smiled encouragingly.
“It’s a good thing I brought my mitt!” I said. “Normally he sleeps under my pillow. My mother doesn’t let me use him in the kitchen.”
“She probably doesn’t want him to get burned,” Mrs. Noskova said.
“But that’s what he’s for,” I pointed out.
“Do you have other dolls or toys to play with?” Mrs. Liskova asked.
“I have my sister’s teddy bear, but mostly I play with Barry in the garden,” I told her.
“Barry must be getting old now,” Mrs. Noskova remarked. “Your parents got him around the same time I got Corina.”
“He’s on television every Christmas!” I said proudly. “And when it snows, he pulls my sled.”
“Who would like a piece of cake?” Mrs. Sokolova asked. “I’ll slice it, and maybe Dominika can put it on the plates.”
She cut the cake into pieces and directed me to put a large slice on my plate and very small slices on everyone else’s. Mrs. Liskova and Mrs. Noskova ate like birds, pecking away at their portions with their forks. I finished my slice very quickly and Mrs. Sokolova gave me a second piece, which was something my mother would never have done.
“It’s good to see someone with a healthy appetite,” she smiled.
The afternoon drifted lazily by and the shadows grew longer outside the kitchen windows. The three ladies may have moved and talked slowly, but it was obvious that they had known each other for a long time, and it was fun watching them laugh and tell childhood tales as though they were still young women. Their stories were wonderfully enchanting, and I felt hypnotized by the slow rhythm of their speech. We finished the cake and were on to our third cup of tea, when Mrs. Sokolova’s middle-aged daughter appeared at the door.
“Mum, Klara Furmanova’s here looking for her sister,” she said. “Dominika ran away from home this morning and her family has been searching for her all day.”
“Good heavens!” the old ladies exclaimed. “Is it true? Did you really run away from home?”
“I didn’t mean to,” I said softly. “I just didn’t want to go to Oma’s apartment.”
My sister joined Mrs. Sokolova’s daughter in the doorway.
“We’ve been looking for you everywhere,” she said in a stern voice. “Dad had to get his workers to search the forest. We were afraid you might have gone to the ravine.”
“I went to visit Mrs. Liskova,” I whispered. “I’ve been here all afternoon.”
“We’re awfully sorry, Klara,” Mrs. Liskova apologized. “We thought your parents knew she was spending the day with us.”
“They didn’t,” Klara said grimly. “Mrs. Habova is in tears, and Dad had to pay his workers to search the forest instead of working on the roof. The day has been a complete disaster.”
“Well that’s unfortunate, but the main thing is that Dominika is safe,” Mrs. Sokolova said firmly. “She’s been keeping u
s company and we’ve enjoyed having her, haven’t we?”
Mrs. Liskova and Mrs. Noskova agreed heartily, and Mrs. Sokolova shot me a sympathetic smile.
“You’re welcome to visit us any time, Dominika, but you must ask your parents first,” she said. “Next time I see your mother, I’ll have a word with her, but in the meantime you must tell them that you’re very sorry for running away. Will you do that?”
“Yes,” I said sadly. “I am very sorry.”
“Very well,” Mrs. Sokolova nodded. “You had better hurry along now so that everyone will know that you’re safe.”
Klara took me by the hand and led me out of Mrs. Sokolova’s apartment, and as we walked up the street to our house, I could see a crowd of people outside our front gate. My mother was comforting Oma, and my dad was talking to the roofers and Mr. Hasek from next door. Everyone seemed anxious until one of the roofers spotted Klara leading me home. My father was particularly relieved, but the brief glow of happiness that crossed his face was quickly replaced by anger. The sun had started to sink through the forest, and the shadow of the crowd stretched a long way down the road. I walked slowly through the shadow until I reached my father’s feet. When I looked up into his eyes, they were yellow and bright with concern.
“We were sick with worry,” he growled. “Do you understand what you have done?”
“I’m very sorry, Dad,” I whispered.
“I’m going to have to spank you,” he said. “You must never, ever run away again. Do you hear me?”
Big and strong as he was, my father had always taken the greatest care to be gentle with his daughters. I had never been spanked before, and I could tell that he was very reluctant to do it, but the neighborhood had become involved in my disappearance and it was important for him to discipline me while everyone was watching. As the roofers stood around and nodded approvingly, he bent me over his knee.
I clutched the mitt and looked up at my father.
“Okay, Daddy,” I said tearfully. “But malinko a pomalinku.”
The Czech language is full of diminutives. What I had meant to say was, “Not too hard and not too fast,” but by diminishing the sentence, what I ended up saying was, “Only a little bit and very slowly.”
My father’s hand wavered above my bum, and then his knee started to shake as he spanked me.
“What can you do with a kid like this?” He laughed.
The punishment was over before I knew it, and my dad set me back on the ground. The roofers and Mr. Hasek were roaring with laughter and even my mother and Oma were smiling. My father, of course, had given me the lightest spanking he could manage, and the whole ordeal was more theatrical than harsh, but I learned my lesson and never tried to run away from home again.
The next morning, Mrs. Sokolova had a chat with my mother and told her that I was welcome to visit her and the other ladies whenever I wanted. My dad somehow managed to put together enough money to hire the roofers for one more day, and, once the difficult work was over, Mrs. Habova retired as my surrogate grandmother. From that time on, whenever I wanted someone to read to me or feed me biscuits, I would get my mother to phone Mrs. Liskova, and then I would carry my big book of fairy tales down the street to her front gate, where my three fairy godmothers would be waiting.
I never got to know my real grandparents very well, but in those early years of my life, the three old ladies who lived in my street did a wonderful job of making me feel loved.
three
THE LITTLE COFFIN
THE DAY OF WORK we lost when I ran away from home turned out to be a major set-back for my dad. At the end of July, all the tradesmen he had hired went back to their real jobs, and we spent the rest of the summer living in a house without a roof. The walls on the second floor were unfinished, and the naked truss looked like a skeleton picked clean. From the street, the exposed floor made our villa look like a doll’s house, and my mother was particularly upset by the fact that our neighbors could see us using the bathroom. We hung up sheets to try and make it more private, but I actually loved having a bath in a bathroom with no walls. We would wait until the sun had set, and then we would take turns in the bath, sharing the water, because our boiler was broken. I would always get to go first, while the water was still hot, and there was nothing nicer than sitting in a warm bath, feeling the breeze against my neck and looking up through the rafters at the night sky overhead.
As the end of summer approached, my father had no choice but to finish the house by himself. He drove his taxi in the evenings, and his days were spent sourcing and transporting material (bricks and tiles were hard to come by), to rebuild the roof and attic on his own. My mother raced against time to complete her book, and the moment she finished, my dad conscripted her to mix mortar in his old cement mixer. Klara carried buckets of mortar up the scaffolding to where he was frantically laying bricks, and the remarkable thing was that he got his walls up faster than a six-man team of melouch workers. I was the only one who didn’t have to work, until my dad saw me playing near the cement mixer one day and decided that I was old enough to help.
“Come with me,” he said. “I have something for you to do.”
He led me to a pile of old bricks from the demolished walls of the Nedbals’ apartment.
“I’m running out of bricks and I don’t have money to buy any more,” he growled. “But these old bricks are good. They’re just covered with a bit of mortar. What I want you to do is try and knock the mortar off the bricks with a hammer, like this.”
He pulled a hammer out of his carpenter’s belt and tapped off a chunk of mortar.
“Now you try,” he said.
He handed me the hammer and I gave the brick an enthusiastic bash, splitting it in half. My father took the hammer from me and gently demonstrated the best way to clean the brick.
“See? Malinko a pomalinku,” he smiled.
I made myself a seat using a piece of timber, and selected a brick from the pile. It took me a while to work out a good technique, but I eventually got the hang of it. By the time my mother called me in for my bath, I had a small pile of clean bricks to show her.
“I cleaned these all by myself,” I said proudly. “Look, I can do it with only one hit.”
I expertly tapped a brick with my hammer, making the mortar fall away like the shell off a walnut.
“Very impressive,” my mother smiled. “Dinner’s nearly ready, so why don’t you go up and get your father to run your bath?”
I trotted upstairs and found my father at work on the bathroom wall. He was smearing the last of his new bricks with mortar and tapping them into place with the handle of his hammer.
“Hello, Dad! I cleaned a lot of bricks.”
“Aren’t you a good girl,” he laughed. “If I were the captain of a ship, I would sail the stormy seas with you as my first mate.”
I blushed with pride as he started my bath. A splutter of brown water exploded from the taps and my dad wearily sponged clean the bottom of the tub. Once the water had cleared, he plugged the bath and we waited a long time for the broken boiler to fill it. Dusk seeped through the valley. My father pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and laid it across a dusty pile of cement bags.
“Here. Sit on this,” he told me.
He sat on the cement bag next to me and lit himself a cigarette.
“Are you going to drive the taxi tonight?” I asked him.
“Yes,” he yawned. “But I’m going to try and finish this wall first.”
“Why did you want to make the roof more higher?” I asked. “I thought the house was nice as it was.”
“I’m not just making the roof more higher,” he replied. “I’m adding another floor to the house so that you and Klara can have your own bedrooms.”
“I’d like my own bedroom,” I told him.
“Well, you’ll have one,” he said. “And it will have big windows you can look out and lots of space to play in. And in time, when you grow up, your children will have a p
lace to live in as well. You see, I’m really building this house for you and Klara.”
“Did your parents build you a house, too?” I asked.
“No. They couldn’t afford it,” my father replied. “They were very poor, but there was also a war going on and we spent many years living in a cellar. Have I told you this story?”
“No.” I loved it when my father told me stories.
“Well, we were invaded by the Germans before the start of the war, and they made a lot of their weapons in Czech factories,” he said. “So when the Allies started dropping bombs on Germany, they dropped a lot of bombs on us as well.”
“Did they drop bombs on you?” I asked.
“Not on me personally, but they dropped a lot of bombs on Ostrava,” he explained. “Your grandparents and I lived right next to a factory that the Allies were desperate to destroy. It was the Ritkers chemical plant that produced fuel for the German V1 and V2 missiles, and it was so full of rocket fuel and explosives, the Allies would have wiped out half the city if they had hit it.”
“You would have been blown up!”
“We were incredibly lucky,” my father said. “Whenever the sirens went off, the workers would set fire to a dozen barrels of tar, sending a cloud of black smoke above the factory. The English planes would arrive half an hour later, and they wouldn’t be able to see anything, so they just dropped their bombs in the middle of the cloud. They must have dropped thousands of bombs above Ritkers, but for some reason they always missed.”
“Where did the bombs end up falling, Dad?” I asked. “Did they fall on anyone’s house?”
“They fell on a middle-class neighborhood on the other side of the factory,” my father told me. “I’m sure the Allies didn’t want to hurt these people, but hundreds and hundreds of families were killed. That’s what war does, you see. It kills innocent people.”
He turned off the water and helped me take off my clothes. The evening breeze was cold, and my teeth chattered as he lowered me into the bath.
“How’s that?” he asked.
“It’s lovely and warm!” I squealed.
The Twelve Little Cakes Page 7
