The Twelve Little Cakes (22 page)

He drew himself to his full height, but he couldn't hide the fact that his legs and arms were shaking. Barry lay in a shivering heap at his feet and, as I watched, a few of the local villagers followed Comrade Berka as he swaggered over to my dad. I was much more afraid than I had been on the mountain.

As I stood trembling in the middle of the road, the side of the pub was lit by car headlights, and before I knew what was happening, my mother had swept me up in her arms and carried me over to my father's side. She thrust herself between him and the cooperative chief, whose eyes were bloodshot and puffy and whose breath reeked of cigarettes. His fists were up and he was glaring at my dad, and he didn't register my mother's presence until she was standing right in front of him.

“Excuse me! Can't you see that my husband is exhausted?” she snapped. “Our dog has had an accident, so he has just skied down a mountain with a Saint Bernard on his back!”

“You're kidding!” one of the men from the pub said incredulously.

“It's true!” I cried. “Barry's paws were bleeding and he couldn't walk, so my dad had to carry him the whole way down from the plateau.”

“The whole way down track two?” another villager gasped. “That's the steepest slope on the mountain. Why on earth would you go down track two?”

“I didn't know there was any other way,” my dad admitted.

“That's incredible,” someone else said. “I can't ski that slope on a good day!”

“You could probably use a shot of rum, comrade,” a fourth man said. “Your dog looks like he could use a shot of rum, too. He really is Bohousek, right? From the movies?”

As Comrade Berka looked on in disbelief, his drinking companions insisted that we accompany them to the pub for a shot of rum. We were really too tired to accept, but we accepted anyway, and my father won his public confrontation. He sat shivering near the fire with a stunned look of triumph on his face. Even the toughest-looking drinkers were charmed by Barry, and the story of my father carrying him down the mountain passed into local folklore. From that moment on, we were characters, not enemies, and as we left the pub and Mr. Glatz drove us home, it was as though half the town had gathered outside to see us off.

“Hezky vecer!”
they called out as we drove away. “Have a good evening!”

We arrived at the cottage where Klara was waiting anxiously, and hurried inside to the warmth of the stove. My mother wrapped me up in a blanket and boiled some water for my bath.

“Poor Trumpet,” she whispered. “I do hope you're not going to catch a cold.”

After my bath, she tucked me up in bed and piled sleeping bags on top of my blanket. I floated deliriously in a sleepy haze, listening to my father tell Klara and Mr. Glatz about our trip down the mountain, and as I listened, I could see his words floating through the air and piling up beneath the ceiling like balls of wool. Just before I drifted into a feverish sleep, I had a vision of the little god from the Czech fairy tales. He sat on top of the wool as though it was Heaven, and contentedly blew smoke rings from his pipe. I wasn't sure if I was dreaming or not, but there was no mistaking the barefoot old man with a white beard and piercing blue eyes.

“Hello!” I said. “Are you the little god?”

The old man smiled delightedly, and my body was filled with the most incredible warmth.

“Thank you for watching over us all the way down the mountain,” I told him.

He nodded and waved his arm as if to say “Not at all,” and as I tried to think of some more questions to ask him, his wool cloud drifted into the distance and I fell asleep with the smell of his tobacco in my nostrils. It was the only time I ever saw the little god, but I spent a great deal of my childhood trying to see him again. Every time I went to sleep, I would secretly hope that he would appear and smile at me once more, and I often found myself talking to him, especially when I was sad and lonely.

I woke up with a fever the following morning, and my dad and Barry were very sick, too. Tomas Glatz had to drive us home. I snuffled and coughed the whole way back to Cernosice, watching poor Barry through the window as he lay in his trailer. When we finally arrived at home, he crawled out of the trailer and slunk down to his kennel. My father and I went straight to bed, and Mr. Glatz carried his backpack down to the train station and went home to try and patch things up with his wife. It was a disappointing end to a wonderful vacation, but there would be many other opportunities for us to go back to the cottage and talk and laugh around the stove.

On Monday morning, my father forced himself to get up and go to work, and my mother took me to the local pediatrician, who took my temperature and ordered me to stay in bed for the whole week. My mother was due back at the Economic Institute, so Klara was delegated the responsibility of looking after me, which she did with surprising tenderness, feeding me a steady diet of chicken soup, camomile tea, and fairy tales. I lay in bed for the full five days, but as soon as I was back on my feet, I hurried down to tell Mrs. Sokolova about our adventures up in Semily.

“Hello, Mrs. Sokolova!” I knocked on her door. “I've been sick for the whole week. I had to stay in bed because my dad and Barry and I skied the whole way down a mountain without stopping, and the three of us caught a nasty cold!”

There was nothing but silence.

I knocked again but nobody answered, and when I tried the door handle, it was locked. I pounded some more, and then I raced around the side of the house and up the stairs to the apartment of Mrs. Sokolova's daughter and her husband.

“Hello!” I called out desperately. “Is anybody home?”

“Who is it?” a voice replied, and after a few moments, Mrs. Sokolova's daughter came outside. Mrs. Bendova was a worried-looking woman in her late forties, and while I was always welcome in her mother's apartment, I could tell she disapproved of my frequent visits.

“Why, it's Dominika.” She sounded worried. “What are you doing up here?”

“I'm looking for your mum,” I sobbed. “She hasn't gone away, has she?”

Mrs. Bendova smiled bravely. “I'm afraid she has, sweetie,” she said. “She had a nice long rest and then she went peacefully.”

“But I didn't get to say good-bye!” I wailed. “She was sitting in her chair and then she fell asleep. I should never have gone to the mountains!”

As I stood on Mrs. Bendova's balcony, I suddenly noticed that the floor was covered with trays of food. There was smoked salmon and hors d'oeuvres and many different kinds of cheeses, and even though I didn't know much about the preferential system of shopping under communism, I knew enough to understand that this was the kind of food that ordinary people couldn't buy.

I stopped crying and looked at the food in amazement.

“That's a lot of food,” I sniffed.

“Yes, it is,” Mrs. Bendova agreed. “We're having a—” she faltered. “Our West German relatives will be here tomorrow, and this is the food I couldn't fit in the fridge. Please try not to step on the trays. In fact, maybe it would be better if you went home now.”

“Okay,” I whispered. “Do you know when your mother will be back?”

Mrs. Sokolova's daughter shook her head and sighed. “Perhaps you should ask your parents to explain this to you,” she said. “You're old enough. You're not a baby anymore.”

I retreated down the stairs, and as I walked home past Mrs. Noskova's and Mrs. Liskova's empty apartments, I felt terribly sad. My three fairy godmothers had gone, and the abruptness of their departure made me think that I might have done something wrong. As I opened the front gate and wandered down to Barry's kennel, the full realization hit me: I had no one to talk to and no one to play with. My mother and father were frantic with work, and my sister was spending more and more time away from home. All I had was Barry, and while I loved him very much, all he ever did these days was sleep and eat.

“Hello, Barry! How are you feeling?” I asked him.

Barry looked up and slowly wagged his tail.

“Mrs. Sokolova has gone away and I didn't say good-bye to her properly,” I crawled inside his kennel and wrapped my arms around his neck.

“I shouldn't have gone to the mountains,” I whispered. “I should have stayed home and seen her off.”

Barry lifted his head and began to lick my hand, and I pressed my face into his fur and started to cry. There wasn't much space in the kennel with Barry inside it, but as I patted him, I suddenly realized how sick he really was. His breathing was labored, and he had lost a ton of weight, and he had left his food untouched, which was something he rarely did.

“Why aren't you eating?” I asked him. “You have to eat your food, Barry, otherwise you won't get better.”

I pushed the bowl in front of his nose, but he just stared at it listlessly.

“Please, Barry,” I begged. “Please eat some food. Just for me, okay?”

I reached into the bowl and picked up a handful of dog food pellets. Barry sniffed disinterestedly at first, but then he started to lick a few pellets from the palm of my hand.

“Good boy,” I said. “When Mum gets home, I'll ask if she can cook you something special. Would you like that? Maybe she could make you something really yummy, like the food I saw at Mrs. Bendova's house. Oh, Barry, you should have seen it.”

As I described each tray to Barry, his eyes lit up and he licked the pellets from my hand as though they were the exotic meals I was describing. By the time my mother came home, he had eaten many handfuls and was snoring contentedly in his kennel, like a bear.

That evening, my dad finally gave in to the flu that had been plaguing him all week and declared himself too sick to drive his taxi, so we ate an early dinner and went to bed after the Radio Free Europe news broadcast. I snuggled in my sheets and drifted off to sleep, only to be woken in the early hours of the morning by the sound of our telephone. It seemed to ring forever, and then my father picked it up.

“Hello? Any idea what time it is?” I heard him growl, but he was silenced by a female voice that shrieked so loudly from the receiver I could hear it through the wall.

“
Jezis Marja,
Mrs. Bendova!” my dad finally said. “I'm sick as a dog, but I'll come over as soon as I can throw on some clothes.”

I leapt out of bed and ran into my parents' bedroom.

“Was it Mrs. Bendova?” I asked. “Has her mother come home?”

My father was stepping into his pants. He looked very tired and his forehead was drenched in sweat.

“I have no idea,” he replied. “She was hysterical, but I gather she wants me to go over there right now.”

“I'll go with you!” I cried, and before he had time to say no, I dashed into my room and threw on one of my sister's flannel shirts. A few seconds later, I joined my dad at the front door. We walked down the road to Mrs. Bendova's villa, which was the only house in the street with its lights on. Her husband met us at the front gate, wearing a striped bathrobe.

“Come with me,” he motioned us up the stairs in the solemn manner of a policeman inviting two detectives to witness the scene of a spectacular crime. When we reached the balcony, there was Barry lying in the middle of the floor, surrounded by a vast number of empty dishes and trays. His belly was even bigger than it had been up in Semily, and his nose and mouth were covered in whipped cream. My father and I stared at him in astonishment, while Mr. Benda shook his head and Mrs. Bendova sobbed hysterically from behind her French doors.

“Oh, Barry,” my father sighed. “What have you done?”

Barry looked up, and despite the fact that he was obviously in a lot of trouble, he also seemed rather pleased with himself. He had eaten every scrap of food that Mrs. Bendova had left on the balcony.

“I had to buy this food on the black market,” Mrs. Bendova wailed. “Our rich relatives are coming for my mother's funeral. You have no idea how much trouble I've gone to!

“I'm terribly sorry,” my father apologized. “I will of course pay for all the food Barry has eaten.”

“That's going to cost you a fortune,” Mr. Benda said grimly.

“Your stupid dog has ruined everything!” Mrs. Bendova cried. “I have to feed more than twenty people tomorrow evening! How on earth am I going to do that now?”

“We'll have to take them to a restaurant,” Mr. Benda added. “And I'm not even mentioning the emotional damage—”

“Yes, yes,” my father cut him off. “How much?”

Mrs. Bendova blew her nose. Her husband thrust his hands in the pockets of his bathrobe and looked inquiringly at his wife.

“Four thousand,” she sniffed.

“Four thousand?” my dad gasped. “I don't suppose you have the receipts?”

Mrs. Bendova burst into tears again, and my father let out an exasperated sigh.

“Okay, I'll square this with you before your guests arrive,” he said. “But we'll work out the price tomorrow morning, okay? Right now, I've got to get my kid and my dog home.”

He slapped the side of his leg and clucked his tongue. “Come on, you silly beast!” he commanded.

Barry let out a huge groan and climbed to his feet. His belly was so swollen, he dragged it down every single one of the steps and it took us a very long time to walk him home. By the time we reached the gate, he was wheezing like a steam train, and he looked up at my dad as though he expected to be told off.

“So, my old friend,” my father snorted. “It looks like you just ate the most expensive meal of your life.”

He patted Barry behind the ears and the old Saint Bernard licked his hand gratefully. They had had so many adventures together, it was impossible to treat this disaster as anything more than another chapter in Barry's extraordinary life. Barry really was like an aging Holly-wood star. We took him down to his kennel and tucked him up in his blankets, and his eyes twinkled briefly with amusement as though he was somehow reliving the glories of his past.