Silver Wattle (6 page)

From his wording, it was finally clear that Uncle Ota had meant his letters for Klara and me. He had never mentioned Mother and Milosh directly before. I wondered what Mother would say about the matter. For the past few months she had been lethargic and withdrawn. Even her paintings had been lacklustre in recent times, variations on the view from our window. But this recent letter seemed to have a positive effect on her. The following morning she was up at dawn, sketching the birds from the book Ranjana had sent. Later in the day, Mother donned a dress of violet
crêpe de Chine
and asked paní Milotova to keep us company while she ran some errands. She returned in the afternoon with truffle chocolates and a set of watercolours. The next morning she was at the dining table, surrounded by paper, paints and water jars, working on a picture of a superb fairy-wren.

Klara sat beside her reading out the habits of the bird, in quite good English considering that Mother had only recently started giving her lessons. ‘Male superb fairy-wrens have blue and black plumage above and on the throat. The birds give a series of high-pitched trills, which the male extends into a full song. They are often found in urban parks and gardens in eastern Australia.’

My mother acted like someone who had carried a burden that had suddenly been lifted. It was as if she had been given a second chance at life.

A few nights after Klara’s tenth birthday in September, Mother suffered acute stomach pains. The family physician, Doctor Soucek, was called.

‘Now what ails your dear mother that you should disturb an old man’s rest?’ was the first thing Doctor Soucek said in his raspy voice when he arrived on our doorstep.

His manners were surly but his hands were gentle. He had no son to take his place and the pauses in his speech and the twist in his spine put him well beyond retirement but he was the only doctor Mother trusted, having brought not only Klara and myself into the world but her as well.

‘He may act like a stablehand but he cures like the hand of God,’ she said.

After examining Mother, Doctor Soucek spoke with Milosh and me in the drawing room.

‘I cannot find a physical cause for the pains,’ he said, casting his eye over Milosh. ‘It would seem to me that they are due to anxiety and a lack of exercise.’

‘Whenever they can’t find a physical cause they put it down to nerves,’ Milosh said to me after Doctor Soucek had left.

If Mother was feeling anxious, I had no doubt who was the cause of it. But Milosh surprised me. The weather had turned bitterly cold and Mother could not walk outside. So every morning and afternoon, he would link arms with her to stroll around the house.

‘I feel like a tourist in my own domain,’ Mother laughed.

Milosh laughed too. I would never like him, let alone love him as much as I had loved my father. But I was glad things had improved between them.

By Christmas, Mother was feeling better and Milosh remained attentive. He also taught Klara to play chess and me how to dance the Viennese waltz without becoming dizzy.

‘Don’t trust him,’ Aunt Josephine warned me when I went to visit her on New Year’s Day. ‘He’s just worked out which side of the bread is buttered and has decided to be more pleasant. Paní Benova couldn’t keep him in the same style as your mother does and he knows it. You and Klara will inherit your mother’s house and fortune. We may not yet have the vote in this new republic, but we are still the mistresses of our property—married or not.’

I turned away. I never liked to talk about inheritances or wills. I could not imagine life without Mother. I wanted her to live forever.

Aunt Josephine, in her efforts to introduce me to the world of independent women, arranged for us to take typing lessons in the spring together. It was a strange exercise as neither of us needed to work, but Aunt Josephine was fascinated by women who were ambitious to improve their place in the world through means other than marriage. So once a week, under the pretence of sewing together, Aunt Josephine and I travelled over the Charles Bridge to the medieval streets of Stare Mesto where we joined the typing class at the back of a leather-goods store. While Klara produced beautiful music under the guidance of paní Milotova, Aunt Josephine and I sat in a cramped room with the ambitious daughters of shopkeepers and postmistresses and learned to touch type. I was amused by my aunt who, having lived the privileged existence of an upper-class lady, was so enamoured of women who worked for their living.

I enjoyed the lessons and the chatter of the girls before class, even though our instructress, paní Sudkova, was a tyrant. At first, her cold stare made me so nervous that when she looked over my shoulder, my fingers slipped and I ended up with a jam of keys all trying to print at the same time. ‘You must train your fingers to press and lift independently,’ she said, raising her thick eyebrows and slapping my wrist with a ruler. ‘And strike the keys harder.’ Nonetheless, once I sped up to twenty words a minute, I found myself looking forward to the classes. There was something about the rhythmic clack of keys striking the platens and the ‘ding’ of the bells when the students reached the end of a line that was hypnotic. It was not long before I progressed from drills to typing letters.

Summer that year was more pleasant than the previous one had been. There was no sign of paní Benova, although Aunt Josephine was adamant that Milosh was only being more discreet. Mother, however, was much happier. Her stomach pains disappeared and she and Milosh attended summer balls and parties together. Aunt Josephine and I graduated from secretarial school and Klara excelled in her lessons with paní Milotova. But by the end of summer, Mother’s pains returned more severely than before. She was bedridden for days at a time. Then the unthinkable happened. I was on my way home from Aunt Josephine’s when I turned the corner to the square and saw Klara sitting on the front steps of our house. She was leaning with her head against the stone balustrade.

‘Klara!’ I cried, running up to her. ‘Mother will have a fit if she sees you sitting out here like an urchin!’

Klara lifted her face and the terror in her eyes sent me reeling backwards.

‘Mother,’ she said, pointing to the second-floor window. The curtains were drawn. A sickening feeling rose in my stomach.

‘What’s happened?’ I asked. My chest constricted so tightly I could barely get the words out.

Klara trembled. ‘Mother collapsed soon after you left. Milosh said Doctor Soucek was hopeless and called another doctor to see her. Doctor Hoffmann examined Mother and said her appendix is on the verge of bursting. He didn’t want to risk taking her to the hospital. He is operating on her now. There is a nurse with him, and Paní Milotova is helping too.’

The ground shifted beneath my feet. The pinks, yellows and greens of the houses of the square melted together. When I had left, Mother was sitting in the morning room, writing letters. I was running late so I blew her a kiss before heading towards the door. She called me back and when I peered into the room, she smiled and said, ‘I love you.’

I grasped Klara’s hand. ‘Come inside,’ I said.

The eerie quiet of the house was a contrast to the hammering of my heart. Paní Milotova rushed out of the kitchen carrying a saucepan of boiled water. She wore a white kitchen apron that was smeared with blood. I nearly fainted.

‘Pray for your mother,’ she said, before running up the stairs.

I guided Klara to the parlour and sank to my knees. Klara threw herself down beside me. My head was swimming too much to pray but Klara closed her eyes and pleaded with God for Mother’s life, offering up everything dear to her if he would save her. She even promised to give up music if that was the sacrifice God wanted.

Half an hour later, Milosh trudged down the stairs. His shoulders were slumped and his eyes were bloodshot. Without his arrogant air he was almost unrecognisable.

‘Your mother is gravely ill,’ he told us, just as the priest arrived. ‘The doctor will try to save her.’ He led the priest upstairs but did not ask us to follow.

Klara and I clung to the sliver of hope that Mother would survive the operation as fervently as we clung to each other while we awaited further news. There was a knock at the door and Marie hurried to answer it. I cried out when I saw Aunt Josephine standing in the hall.

‘Marie sent for me,’ she said, throwing her arms around us. ‘Has anyone made you supper?’

‘I can’t eat,’ wept Klara.

‘I’m not hungry, Aunt Josephine,’ I said.

Aunt Josephine embraced us again. Her face was ashen and the lines around her mouth seemed to have deepened since I saw her only a few hours ago. She was distressed. But instead of obeying an impulse to rush upstairs and find out what was happening, she did exactly what Mother would have asked her to do: she took care of us.

After making us drink some tea and eat two shortbread biscuits each ‘for strength’, Aunt Josephine returned us to the parlour. ‘Let’s pray,’ she said. My mind calmed in her presence. Aunt Josephine’s prayer was a more peaceful appeal than the desperate petitions Klara and I had made. She shunned the church as hypocritical and followed her own path. ‘I’m spiritual but I’m not religious,’ she always said. Now, she thanked God for the beautiful person my mother was and prayed he would watch over her and her daughters. It occurred to me that she spoke to God as one does a friend, although her voice broke on the ‘Amen’.

A short while later the doctor came down the stairs. He was nothing like doddery old Doctor Soucek who usually attended Mother. He was younger with black hair and long sideburns. Aunt Josephine was surprised not to see Doctor Soucek and I quickly explained why Milosh had chosen someone new.

‘The girls had better come up now,’ Doctor Hoffmann said.

The smells of iodine and blood pervaded the air of Mother’s bedroom. The priest had finished administering the last rites and the expression of pity on his face made me buckle at the knees. A nurse stood in the corner washing and wiping instruments. Paní Milotova hovered beside her, weeping. When she saw us she reached out her arms. ‘They opened her up but it was too late,’ she whimpered. ‘They could do nothing but sew her up again.’

In the dim light, I saw Mother lying on her bed with a sheet pulled up to her neck. She was so pale she looked like a marble statue on a church crypt.

‘Mother?’ I sobbed, moving towards her.

I was not sure if she heard me, but then she murmured, ‘Adelka, come here.’

I pressed my cheek to hers. It was cold. ‘Chest,’ she whispered to me. ‘Look in the chest.’

Mother turned to Aunt Josephine and tried to say something to her, but lost her strength. She was fading before our eyes.

The doctor sat down on the bed next to Mother and listened to her chest. ‘Her heartbeat is faint,’ he said. ‘She is close to death.’

Mother’s eyes closed as if she had fallen asleep. Suddenly they opened. ‘Emilie,’ she said. ‘Look, Emilie is here. She is as beautiful as ever.’

Mother gasped for air, but as quickly as the spasm started, it finished. Her eyes glazed over and the breath rushed out of her in what seemed like a long sigh.

My legs shook and I pressed my palms against my forehead, trying to stop myself from fainting. ‘What’s happened?’ Klara cried. Aunt Josephine sank into a chair and buried her head in her hands. I returned my attention to Mother’s face, desperately searching for a sign of life. Doctor Hoffmann pressed his fingers to Mother’s throat, feeling for a pulse. He found nothing and closed her eyes.

Then the surreal became the real and the walls pressed in on me. The doctor gave Milosh some instructions, and the priest began a prayer, but their voices sounded distant and hollow. The nurse stepped forward, made the sign of the cross, and folded Mother’s arms across her chest. I felt the veil of separation slip between us and Mother. The person on whose bosom I had drawn my first breath had breathed her last. I turned to Klara, who was trembling from head to foot. I wanted to throw my arms around her, to comfort her and have her comfort me. But I was frozen to the spot.

M
other was laid out in a dress of shimmering indigo. The windows were draped in black curtains and the Delftware porcelain replaced with candles in silver holders. The exterior of our house was still blue with white trimmings, but inside it was as gloomy as night. Milosh, Aunt Josephine, paní Milotova, Klara and I, all dressed in mourning attire, took turns sitting with Mother who lay in her rosewood coffin for three days before the funeral. I stared at her impassive face, not able to believe that her eyes would not open at any moment and that she would come to life again.

Despite my grief, I held to my promise to watch over Klara, who had reacted to Mother’s death with stunned silence. She had barely said a word since the terrible event. On the second night after Mother’s death, when Aunt Josephine and paní Milotova watched over her coffin, Klara and I lay in bed together, listening to a storm brewing. Drops of water slid down the windowpanes. I ran my fingers through Klara’s river of hair.

‘Mother is with Father now,’ she whispered.

I wrapped my arm around her. Her skin smelt sweet, like vanilla cream, and I thought of the cake Mother had intended to make for the following day, which was Klara’s birthday. Lightning flashed and I saw Klara’s tear-filled eyes. I was thankful that she was handling Mother’s death so courageously.

‘When our mourning period is over we will celebrate your birthday,’ I promised her.

Early in the morning I was awoken by screams and the sound of glass breaking. Marie rushed into the room. ‘Slechna Ruzickova!’ she cried, addressing me formally. ‘Your sister!’

I leaped out of bed so quickly that the room turned white and I had to grip onto the wall. I ran after Marie down the stairs to the kitchen. My breath caught in my throat. Klara was standing barefoot on the black and white tiles surrounded by broken glass. Her nightdress and hands were stained red. I imagined Mother discovering Emilie in the sewing room after she had cut off her fingers, but then I realised that the stains had clumps of seeds in them. They were not blood but raspberry jam. Across the benches and floor were strewn the smashed jars of jam Klara had made with Mother the previous month.