The Twelve Little Cakes

by Dominika Dery

  One day in early spring, I went down the street to show Mrs. Noskova my latest choreography, but when I came to her door, I was surprised to discover that it was locked. It had never been locked before, because Mrs. Noskova couldn’t open it and use her crutches at the same time. When I went next door to ask Mrs. Sokolova about her neighbor, she looked very sad and told me that Mrs. Noskova had gone away. Mrs. Sokolova and Mrs. Liskova said they would be happy to watch my new performance, so I danced for them in Mrs. Sokolova’s apartment. Both ladies seemed terribly distraught. I tried my hardest to cheer them up, but on this occasion there was nothing I could do.

  “I hope Mrs. Noskova comes back soon,” I told them. “It doesn’t seem right just seeing the two of you. It’s much better when you’re all together in the garden.”

  “We know, sweetie,” Mrs. Liskova said tearfully.

  A few weeks later, my mother took me into Prague with her to buy tickets for Romeo and Juliet. The box office opened at ten o’clock, but there was a crowd of people already waiting when we arrived at seven-thirty. I was very excited, and I couldn’t wait to see Mr. Slavicky again. As we waited, I danced on the sidewalk and did my best to imitate a swan. The pensioners in line watched with amusement, and one of the women even asked my name.

  “My name is Dominika,” I told her. “And I’m going to be a dancer when I grow up!”

  “Really?” she smiled. “Are you studying at one of the ballet schools?”

  “No,” I said. “I would like to, though. Do you know any ballet schools I could go to?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t,” the lady replied. “But the woman in the box office might. Why don’t you ask her?”

  “That’s a good idea! Mum, can we ask the ticket lady if there’s a dancing school I can go to?”

  “We’ll see,” my mother said patiently.

  I danced until the theater doors finally opened and the long line snaked into the lobby. It took another hour before my mother and I reached the box office window.

  “Are there any good tickets left for the Romeo and Juliet?” my mother asked the lady in the booth.

  “I have a few tickets at the front,” the lady shrugged. “How many do you want?”

  She was a stern-looking woman with the indifferent manner of a typical Communist salesperson. As my mother bought two tickets, I stood up on my tiptoes and peeped over the wooden ledge.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “Do you know any ballet schools I could go to?”

  The ticket lady had to lean forward to see me standing there.

  “Ballet schools?” she repeated. “The National Preparatory School is right next door. Why? Do you want to be a dancer?”

  “Yes!” I told her. “I want to marry Mr. Slavicky and dance with him in Swan Lake!”

  A bemused smile appeared on her face.

  “Do you now?”

  My mother was blushing with embarrassment. The ticket buyers behind us were already starting to grumble.

  “Usually it’s the parents who make this decision,” the ticket lady told me. “Are you sure you want to be a dancer?”

  “I’m very sure,” I declared. “What do you think, Mum?”

  “We’ll see,” my mother said.

  The ticket lady wrote an address on the back of our ticket envelope, along with the name of the woman who was the head of the children’s section. She took her time and glared at all the people who cleared their throat while she kept them waiting. (She would keep an eye out for me in the future. Whenever there was a good ballet, she would put tickets aside for my mother and me, and we never had to wait in line again.)

  “Good luck.” She handed me the envelope. “I look forward to seeing you in Swan Lake someday.”

  “Me, too!” I waved. “Thank you very much!”

  My mother grabbed my hand and led me out the side door of the theater, and we found ourselves next to the Federal Parliament building. It was a huge structure of granite, aluminum, and glass, decorated with Czech and Soviet flags and a sculpture of men in overalls, wielding rifles. Every so often, a small fleet of limousines would pull up in front, but for the most part the place seemed deserted. Only the back door appeared to serve any purpose. It was an enormous glass revolving door and people came and went in a continuous stream. My mother studied the National Theater emblem and directory that was mounted on the wall beside it.

  “The Preparatory School for the National Ballet,” she read. “Well, I guess this is it.”

  “Can we go inside?” I begged.

  “I don’t know, little one,” my mother said. “Are you really serious about becoming a dancer?”

  “I’m very serious,” I told her. “I want to dance Odette. I really do!”

  “Well then,” my mother sighed. “Let’s go and see what the teachers have to say.”

  She pushed through the revolving door and we walked inside, climbing the stairs to the first floor. At the end of a long corridor, we found a group of dancers in sweatshirts and legwarmers standing around a water fountain.

  “Excuse me,” my mother said. “I’m trying to find Mrs. Saturday? I think she’s the head of the Preparatory School.”

  “Second door on the left,” one of the dancers told her.

  We walked back up the corridor, listening to the music and the muffled pounding of feet, and sometimes even the cursing of the instructors. Eventually, we came to Mrs. Saturday’s door. My mother took a deep breath and knocked twice.

  “Entrez!” a voice barked from inside.

  We entered a large, bare studio with mirrored walls and a battered grand piano in the corner. A wooden bar ran along three sides of the room, surrounded by little girls dressed in white leotards and pink stockings. A fat lady with thick glasses and a grim expression sat behind the piano, playing a cheerful waltz, while a short and sinewy woman clapped her hands in time with the music. The woman wore an orange dress that looked like an apron, and her calf muscles were enormous. I watched as she strode around the room, correcting the postures of her students. She slapped their arms and legs and sometimes even pinched their bums to make them kick their legs higher.

  “Un, deux, trois, piqué!” she snapped. “Un, deux, trois, piqué!”

  The girls hung onto the bar and tapped the floor with their toes as if their lives depended on it. Then the music stopped abruptly and the teacher whirled around. “Yes?” she asked irritably.

  “Excuse me, are you Mrs. Saturday?” my mother inquired.

  “I am,” the woman said. “What can I do for you?”

  “My daughter would like to study ballet,” my mother told her. “And I was told to come and ask about your school.”

  Mrs. Saturday looked at me with her watery, blue eyes.

  “How old are you?” she asked.

  “Four,” I replied.

  “Well, then, you’re two years too young,” she said. “Come back for an audition when you’re six.”

  She turned and nodded to the pianist, and the waltz started up again. My mother’s cheeks were bright red. She took my hand and started to walk back to the door.

  “But I don’t want to wait until I’m six,” I blurted. “I want to start now. I want to dance with Mr. Slavicky before he’s too old!”

  Mrs. Saturday silenced the piano player with a wave of her hand.

  “You want to dance with Mr. Slavicky?” she asked me.

  “Yes, I think he’s wonderful,” I explained. “I want to learn to dance so that I can be his princess and dance Odette with him in Swan Lake.”

  Mrs. Saturday and the pianist looked at each other and laughed.

  “Does Mr. Slavicky know this?”

  “No.” I blushed. “I don’t think so.”

  “I see,” she said. She turned to her students and clapped loudly. “That’s it for today,” she told them. “See you on Wednesday, and please try not to be later than usual.”

  She walked past my mother, flung the door open, and indicated that we should follow her.

 
“Quickly,” she said. “I haven’t got all day.”

  We followed Mrs. Saturday through a series of passages to the studio where the National Theater Ballet Company was rehearsing. A dozen men and women were warming up in front of the mirrors. Sweat poured down their faces and it was very stuffy in the room, but they wore many layers of clothes, like homeless people in winter. They exercised without any music, and I could hear the cracking of joints as they contorted their limbs.

  “Excuse me, Marta?” Mrs. Saturday called out to one young dancer. “Is Jaroslav around today? There’s someone I want him to meet.”

  “He should be here any minute,” the young dancer replied.

  “This is Marta Drotnerova,” Mrs. Saturday said. “She played Odette in our most recent production of Swan Lake.”

  “Hello!” I was dumbstruck.

  The young dancer looked nothing like the beautiful swan I had seen at the Smetana Theater. She had big, sad eyes and a prematurely old face, and her ribs jutted through her costume like the skeleton of a chicken.

  “How do you do?” she said politely. “What’s your name?”

  “My name is Dominika,” I said. “I would like to dance Odette as well.”

  “Dominika is in love with Jaroslav,” Mrs. Saturday explained. “She wants to dance with him before he becomes too old for her.”

  “Really?” Marta Drotnerova smiled. “I’m sure he’ll be delighted to know he’s captured the heart of a lady.”

  The other dancers laughed knowingly.

  “Ah, here he comes now,” Mrs. Saturday said.

  We turned to see a blond man stroll through the door. He wore a tracksuit and a scarf, as well as thick woolen socks and a pair of checkered slippers. His face was pale and handsome, and he moved lightly and elegantly as he crossed the room.

  “Good morning, ladies!” he boomed in a deep and cultivated voice.

  Mrs. Saturday presented me to him and explained why I had come to see her. When she told him that I wanted to be his princess, he looked very pleased and gave me the nicest smile.

  “I’m very honored that you would like to become a dancer because of me,” he said earnestly. “You will have to work extremely hard to dance Odette, because it’s one of the toughest roles, but if I’m still around when you grow up, I would be delighted to dance with you.”

  Ballet enthusiasts might know that Jaroslav Slavicky was our country’s Mikhail Baryshnikov. He was a tremendous dancer, and the fact that he was kind enough to encourage an undersized, overconfident little girl shows that he was not only a wonderful dancer but a great gentleman as well.

  I felt my cheeks burning with embarrassment and pleasure.

  “I would like that very much,” I whispered.

  “Where are you studying?” Mr. Slavicky asked.

  “I’m thinking of sending her to Mrs. Sprislova,” Mrs. Saturday told him. “She can learn the basics before she comes to me.”

  “That sounds like an excellent idea,” Mr. Slavicky said pleasantly. “Well, the very best of luck to you, young lady, and I do hope to see you in one of these rooms someday.”

  He joined the dancers, and Mrs. Saturday ushered us out into the hall.

  “Come up to my office,” she told my mother. “There’s a school in North Prague that might take your daughter. I’ll give you the address and make a call on your behalf.”

  This turned out to be an incredible stroke of luck, because the national theater, opera, and ballet companies were the domain of the party elite. In the selection process for the various schools that prepared children for the State Conservatory, party connections outweighed talent every time. An unconnected kid like me wouldn’t have even heard about Mrs. Sprislova’s school. But by charming the lady at the ticket office, and then warming the hearts of Mrs. Saturday and Mr. Slavicky, I somehow managed to walk through a door that hardly anyone walked through of their own free will.

  When my mother and I eventually arrived at Mrs. Sprislova’s school, we discovered that Mrs. Saturday had indeed made a phone call on my behalf, and I was signed up for the beginners’ class without so much as taking off my sandals. Mrs. Sprislova seemed much more easygoing than Mrs. Saturday, and I liked her immediately. She was a tall woman with a kind face and blond hair tied back in a ponytail. When I told her that I wanted to dance Odette in Swan Lake, she smiled with pleasure, revealing a gap between her front teeth.

  “I danced Odette, when I was young,” she told me.

  “Really?” I cried. “So you can teach me all the steps!”

  Mrs. Sprislova chuckled. “I would be delighted to teach you, but you’ll have to learn the basics first.”

  “Okay! When can I start?” I asked eagerly.

  “The school year starts in September, but Mrs. Saturday tells me that you’re in a hurry, so I’m willing to make an exception,” Mrs. Sprislova said. “I can put you in the second semester class, but you must promise to work very hard and catch up with the other girls as quickly as you can.”

  “I will!” I told her. “I’ll work very hard, I promise.”

  Mrs. Sprislova took my word and told my mother to bring me to the school the following Monday afternoon. Classes were held on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and I would need a white leotard, pink stockings, and soft white slippers with leather soles, which ballet dancers called piskoty slippers after a popular brand of sponge biscuits. The hard slippers, the pointes, were pink and had wooden soles, but I wouldn’t be wearing them until the following year. Mrs. Sprislova told my mother where she could buy all the dancing gear, and the next thing I knew we were sitting on a tram, heading back into the center of Prague.

  The tram rattled along the left bank of the river, passing Stvanice Island and the Albatross Boatel, which floated near the quay like a big wedding cake. As we approached the Letna Gardens where the statue of Stalin had once stood, my mother pointed across the water to a majestic yellow building with large windows.

  “That’s the Frantisek Hospital,” she told me. “See that window with the blue light in it? It’s an operating theater. Your grandfather might be performing surgery in there.”

  “Really?” I said. “I’m sad that Grandma and Granddad don’t want to be our friends.”

  “It is a shame,” my mother agreed.

  “Tell me about Grandfather,” I asked. “What’s he like?”

  “His name is Wenceslaus Cermak,” she replied. “He’s the chief surgeon of the hospital and has saved the lives of many people, but his real passion is music. He always wanted to be a musician, but his parents made him study medicine instead. When I was a girl, he and I would go to the ballet and the opera, because my mother wasn’t interested. And I would accompany him on the piano while he played his violin.”

  I pressed my face to the window of the tram, watching the blue light and trying to imagine what my grandfather looked like.

  “It’s been fifteen years since we played together,” my mother said quietly. “I’m sure he’d be delighted to know that his granddaughter has inherited his love of music and dance.”

  “Would he?” I exclaimed. “Well, why don’t we tell him? He might become friends with us again!”

  “I’m afraid it’s not that easy, Trumpet,” my mother sighed.

  I kept my eyes on my grandfather’s window as we curved around the river beneath the Prague Castle and clattered past the narrow streets of Mala Strana, until the blue light disappeared from view.

  The following Monday, I began my new ballet routine. I would get up very early and accompany my mother to work. She, Klara, and I would eat a hasty breakfast, tiptoe across our muddy front yard, and dash down the hill to catch the 7:15 train. More often than not, we would arrive at the station just after the rickety wooden road gates had fallen, but with just enough time to cross the rails to the opposite platform. A few seconds later, a train would thunder past without stopping, and everyone on the platform would groan. Trains always ran late under communism, but you could never actually rely on th
eir lateness. Whenever you tried to anticipate the delay, the trains would miraculously arrive on time, or even half an hour early. The unpredictability of public transport added tremendous latitude to the Czech working week. Commuters could arrive at their offices anywhere from late morning to the mid-afternoon, raise their hands in defeat and say “Trains,” and all their colleagues would shake their heads knowingly. My mother, who prided herself on being very punctual, would insist upon us being at the station at 7:10 sharp. I would stand beside her and Klara, hugging the little backpack that contained my leotard, legwarmers, and piskoty slippers. They were the smallest slippers we could find, but my feet were so tiny I had to wear three pairs of socks to keep them on. My leotard was also too big, and my mother had tried to take it in by hand. She had spent a whole day working on it, but she wasn’t very good at sewing. In spite of her efforts, the leotard hung raggedly on my body, making me look more like a wet chicken than a swan.

  Usually at about quarter to eight, the 7:15 train would shudder into the station, and everyone would fight for seats. My mother, Klara, and I would invariably end up standing in the aisle, and the train rattled so violently I would have to hang on to my mother’s legs to keep from falling. After about twenty minutes, the screech of rusty brakes would announce our arrival at the Central Railway Station, and the disembarking crowd would push us out onto the platform and all the way down the steps to the tram stop. Klara’s school was right in the center of town, so she would run for the number 9 tram, while my mother and I would squeeze inside the number 18, which went to the Prague Castle and the Embassy District, where my mother worked. The Embassy District was where all the foreign diplomats and high-ranking Soviet officials lived. The streets were lined with chestnut trees and the embassies were surrounded by a large, floating population of cigarette-smoking, newspaper-reading STB agents propped up casually against lampposts and road signs. I was quickly able to recognize their faces in spite of the position rotations they halfheartedly undertook. The Czech secret police agents took their jobs about as seriously as everyone else in the country. Many an arrest was botched as a result of bad public transport; many an interrogation was suspended because the interrogating officer was too hungover. Whenever we walked past, they would pretend not to see us, but I often caught them staring at my mother’s legs from behind their newspapers.