Goya's Glass (13 page)

The young man also got up and brusquely opened the other half of the curtain. The day burst violently into the room. He was surprised for a moment by the view of the Vltava River and the Smíchov Mountains on its far side. He stretched his arms lazily in the golden light of the afternoon. Like a leopard, like one of the Orientals, she thought.

“Show me your tongue, please.”

He studied it carefully and jotted something down in a notebook.

“Don’t blink.”

She looked up at the ceiling. The doctor’s breath smelled of coffee.

“Make a fist. Stay still.”

The woman heard blood pulse. Whose was it? Hers or his? It was banging away like a fire bell. Does a doctor really need whole minutes, which feel like hours, to find her heart rate? He stared at her with penetrating eyes.

“Kindly take off your blouse,” he said.

As if on purpose, the buttons refused to leave their button-holes.
He looked at her with imperturbable calm. Only one left to go, at waist level. Her vest, too? Remember he’s a doctor!

She had never felt as demure as when the young man listened to her lungs. He’s a doctor, she told herself time and again. His mustache tickled. In that instant the whole world was in that mustache. She lost interest in everything but the movement of that gentle paintbrush against her body. He’s a doctor! Nonetheless, the mixture of modesty and sweet pain didn’t go away.

While she buttoned herself up, he never so much as looked at her.

The doctor left. But during the day she felt the gentle touch of his mustache against the different parts of her body. In the evening, when she sat under the yellow lampshade with a cup of tea in one hand and a book open on her knees, she had the feeling that a Bengal light burned in the room, and that something moved in the corner.

“This is the dossier on Betty Niemetz, an Austro-Hungarian subject who uses the pseudonym Božena N
ě
mcová. In your report, you have written the following: ‘It is quite impossible to talk to her husband about the political activities in which Mrs. N
ě
mcová is involved.’ Do you wish to add anything? At this point I would like to remind you, Fräulein Zaleski, that you entered the secret service voluntarily, and that if we pay you, we do not do so in exchange for nothing.”

“Once I managed to get her talking about women who’d become famous during revolutions. Because I have made myself
out to be a revolutionary, Božena felt comfortable confessing all of her most secret thoughts. She told me the following. I shall read it to you: ‘As far as politics are concerned, women will achieve more than men, and I mean women from all social classes, from the proletarian to the most culturally refined. Because who could be more sensitive to the misery around her, be it material or intellectual, than a woman? She is the one who bears children, and so she is the one who foresees the future.’ She then added, ‘Who would dare to persecute or punish a woman? Especially a brilliant, cultured woman who has influenced so many people?’”

“Mrs. N
ě
mcová is making a big mistake by considering us to be so benevolent. What else does she say with regards to the state of affairs for women today?”

“I managed to look at her notes. I know where she keeps them hidden and was even able to take them home to make copies. At one point, she says, ‘We women have a heart of wax; any image which interests us is easily impressed upon it. Nonetheless, everything strikes me as being cold and pale and barren, and now having written this, I feel as if I had ice water running through my veins. When I look at myself, I feel an urge to cry, yet I know that within me burn the most violent passions. Sometimes I want to open my arms and hug the whole world to my breast, but I know it’s far too late for such idealism—’”

“Such useless moaning, so typical of women, is of no interest to me, Fräulein Zaleski. Concentrate on the information that I ask of you. We will only pay you for your work if it turns out to be useful to us.”

“Pardon me, I thought—”

“What relationship does this emancipated woman have with her husband, and with men in general?”

“Mr. and Mrs. N
ě
mec have completely different characters. He is tough, soldierly—”

“What I require is proofs in writing if possible.”

“Of course. Here, for example, she writes to her husband:

‘It often happens that when I go out for a stroll on my own, I feel very lonely and wish you were with me, but I have learned to do without many things and this, too, is one of them. On the other hand, I think that if you were here, everything would be as before, we wouldn’t get on, and then I would relish being my own woman again.’ Would you like me to go on?”

“Go ahead.”

“Very well. ‘Few women have had so much respect for the institution of marriage as I had, but I soon lost my faith in it. How could I have done otherwise? All I see around me are lies, adultery, gilded servitude, obligations, that is to say, vulgarity. I had very much longed to be loved. I needed love as a flower needs the morning dew, but I have only found overbearing men who wanted to become my masters. This cooled my passion, and bitterness and rancour took its place. They took my body, but my desires flew off far away. I don’t know where.’”

“Fräulein Zaleski, isn’t this all rather farcical? N
ě
mcová is a writer and she knows how to deceive people with words.”

“As I told you, I have delved into her heart. With me she is sincere, which is why I know her well. In these notes she has given voice to her soul. Shall I go on?”

“All right. But please do spare me expressions such as ‘delved into her heart’ and ‘given voice to her soul.’

“I beg your pardon, sir. She writes: ‘My children are my only joy yet their instinctive love does not satisfy me.’”

“Look, skip these sentimental outpourings and read only those passages that could be significant to our investigation.”

“Very well. What about this excerpt: ‘I have become a fervent adherent to the national cause, believing that it would satisfy my yearning. But no. It is true that over time this cause has become a firm conviction and the achievement to which I have dedicated great efforts, but .  .  . I have known the world, I have learned that there is no such thing as perfection in the world. The longings of my own heart have often disappointed me. What I thought to be gold turned out, in the end, to be nothing but mud.”

“
Gut,
Fräulein. But in these notes of hers is there anything that might be of interest to the police? Our next visitor is now in the waiting room.”

“This strikes me as of interest: ‘What I long for is love, a true love, not for one single person, but rather for everybody, for all humanity, a love that asks for nothing in return, a love that would improve me, that would bring me closer to truth. This is my objective. This gives me strength. What would I be without this love? Yet the world will not flatter me for this; the world would see me damned for that which I consider to be my finest and most beautiful quality; that which is natural is held to be sinful. Those who do not run with the herd to the feeding trough are crucified; sooner or later they become martyrs. But
it is better to be a martyr than a good-for-nothing who doesn’t even know why she’s alive.’”

“Before we finish, Fräulein Zaleski, is there anything this dangerous, emancipated woman has written that represents a threat to our Austrian fatherland?”

“I believe so . . . just a moment . . . yes, here. She writes the following to her husband: ‘What I really desire for both you and me is to do with pleasure everything that has to be done with pleasure, and not simply because we are obliged to do it. Goethe says,
Wat ist Pflicht?
What is an obligation? An obligation is that which one imposes on oneself as a duty. But one can’t do everything to order! Men ought to forget their conviction that they are the masters and to treat the women they respect as if they were their lovers. They should show their feelings more and behave with less vulgarity.’ Do you not think these are most dangerous opinions, sir?”

“You will have to carry out a far more detailed investigation into this woman. Write me a report on N
ě
mcová’s entire life. We need to know who has been such a bad influence on her, which other people we need to go after. I want a thoroughly detailed biography of Mrs. N
ě
mcová. Is that clear, Fräulein Zaleski? Keep in touch with her. Don’t let her out of your sight for a second. Auf Wiedersehen, Fräulein.”

Unnerved, she slept fitfully that night. Her dreams were flooded with the purple of a Bengal light, snake charmers, rat catchers,
and legendary paladins with the heads of dragons under their arms, appeared then vanished. She woke up feeling hot, until she got undressed so as to feel the pleasure of the sheets against her naked body.

The following day she would begin the medical treatment. She got up early in the morning to write. The words didn’t flow from her pen; she was distracted and allowed herself to be carried away by the confusion of images that each disappeared as soon as it appeared before her eyes. Then she decided she’d do some shopping. What a strange shape the bread has today, like a river stone, as if you have only to wet it for it to shine. And while the druggist filled a paper cone with a pound of sugar, she watched the fine sand and felt like sinking deep into that sweet white dune.

“No, don’t send in the next one, not yet. I’ll tell you when, Fritz. Inform this visitor that the prefect is busy carrying out some unexpected, important tasks.”

I had realized that to get N
ě
mcová, we needed a female informer. I told this to my superior, Kempen, but at the time he couldn’t make his mind up whether to do so. But he changed his attitude when I explained the matter to him in detail.

No, I most definitely had not made a mistake. We urgently needed a female informer, and this one was no fool. It is true
that she has allowed herself to be swayed by the woman who we have her investigating. Clearly, she envies her subject. That suits us just fine. Vít
ě
zka Paul, which is to say Fraülein Zaleski, cultivates certain literary ambitions, but has no talent for them herself. She is one of those ladies who scribble verses along the lines of
“Aus meinen grossen Schmerzen mach’ ich die kleine Lieder.
” She lacks any defined personality, not only because “out of her little pain she makes little songs,” but also because she is too unsure of herself and doesn’t know what it is she wants. She has eccentric friends, and above all that crank František Skuhravý who fills her head with his Oriental nonsense. But let us allow the girl to dream, because dreams are all she will ever have. She must be twenty-something, but seems older; seems, indeed, prematurely old, worn out, gaunt, curve backed, with bags under her eyes. She is not at all attractive, poor creature. I would bet anything that she also has tuberculosis. Better for us that she does! She will need money for her treatment and so she will work with greater zeal. Mr. Sacher-Masoch, who was prefect of Prague before me, complained more than once of the difficulty of obtaining an informer who could penetrate right to the heart of the conspiracies against the state. That was, until he found the father of this Vít
ě
zka, František Paul, who had been sentenced to years and years in prison for speaking out passionately as a Czech nationalist during the 1848 revolution. When he came home, he found that his wife had been buried, his house was in ruins, and he had five children to feed. It didn’t take him long to get in touch with us. When he did, Sacher-Masoch licked his lips and said, “His close ties with the Czech Nationalist Party—which, by the way,
regards him as a great martyr for their cause—will make him invaluable as an informer.” Soon his eldest daughter was here too, asking for a job with our secret service. We’ll get that Czech nationalism out of their heads, even if we have to beat it out of them! This is how Vít
ě
zka Paul has become Antonia Zaleski the spy.

In his last letter, sent by special courier to Vienna, Herr Kempen tells me to search N
ě
mcová’s house as soon as possible in order to investigate her writing and correspondence in particular. Very well, that is what we shall do. N
ě
mcová is a dangerous nationalist, as well as a feminist and . . . Is she really so dangerous? Is it possible that her writings could be a threat to our empire? “The world will not flatter you for this; the world will see you damned for that which you consider to be your finest and most beautiful quality; that which is natural is held to be sinful. He who does not run with the herd to the feeding trough, is crucified. Sooner or later he becomes a martyr. But it is better to be a martyr than a good-for-nothing who doesn’t even know why he’s alive.” Or that quote from Goethe, which I didn’t know.
“Wat ist Pflicht?”
What is an obligation? An obligation is that which one imposes on oneself as a duty.” Exactly. I have made this quote my own. My obligation is that which I impose on myself. N
ě
mcová says that one cannot be ordered to do absolutely anything. I, on the contrary, am convinced that absolutely any order may be filled, as long as one is convinced one is serving a just cause. And I am certainly convinced of the importance of my cause.