The Twelve Little Cakes (34 page)

“Sixty-nine and a half,” I replied, and covered my face with my hands.

“Well, that sounds like enough,” she smiled. “Why don't you pack up your things and go home?”

I took my hands away from my face, and she laughed. “Dear me, you can't go home like that. You'll frighten your parents.”

I looked at my reflection in the window and saw that I had smeared ink all over my cheeks.

“Come on,” the headmistress said kindly, putting her arm around my shoulders. “Let's get you cleaned up.”

We went to the bathroom, and I washed my face with soap. Comrade Richmanova stopped by her office, and when she came back out, she was holding a banana.

“Are you hungry?” she asked. I hesitated, because bananas were very rare in Czechoslovakia at the time, but she gave it to me and patted me on the head.

I took the banana and eagerly started to peel it.

“I'm sorry you won't be reciting tomorrow,” she said. “Comrade Humlova says you're very charming.”

“I like reciting!” I said with my mouth full. “I just have a problem with all the violence in the poetry.”

“Do you now?” Comrade Richmanova smiled. “Your house is right at the top of the hill, isn't it? Why don't I give you a lift in my car?”

Like everyone else in Cernosice, Comrade Richmanova drove a Skoda. Her car was very clean and I liked the way it smelled. I was happy to sit next to her and eat my banana, and even happier to realize that she didn't think I was a terrible person for tearing down the poster. As we drove up the hill, it suddenly struck me that the worst was over. I could stop pretending to be a Pioneer. I could concentrate harder on my ballet lessons. I wasn't going to upset my parents. I felt almost dizzy with relief.

When we arrived at the house a few minutes later, Comrade Richmanova surprised me by unbuckling her seat belt and walking me to the door. She hadn't said anything, in fact. She stood beside me and waited until my mother answered the door, then she quietly asked if there was a place where they could talk for a few minutes. I thanked her for the banana, and she ruffled my hair as she followed my mother downstairs to the kitchen. She didn't seem angry or upset. Her manner could be best described as cautious. I was sent out to play in the yard while the two adults had a cup of coffee and a chat. As I played, I began to understand how dangerous communism could be.

Comrade Richmanova was an important regional official, whereas Mrs. Vincentova wasn't even a party member, but I could see that when Mrs. Vincentova demanded justice “as a committed Socialist,” she had made both the headmistress and Comrade Humlova nervous. So nervous that Comrade Humlova was prepared to cut me from her poetry group, even though my recitals had made her look good. My father had warned me about the complexity of the system, but this was the first time it had affected me directly, and I resolved to be more careful in the future.

 

 

FOR THE NEXT THREE YEARS that I attended the state school, Mrs. Vincentova kept a watchful eye on me and was always ready to denounce my bad behavior. Fortunately, I was protected by a handful of teachers who quietly approved of my strong personality. Comrade Richmanova saw that my father's bad papers disappeared from my file, and Comrade Humlova wrote a long report commending me for my stirring poetry recitals. She persuaded me to recite at a few more functions in spite of my fear that my parents would find out, and oddly enough, when they eventually did, the whole thing had a positive outcome. My dad went down to the National Committee one day to renew his license to reconstruct our house, and Comrade Holoubek, the local chief of state and public works, was unusually friendly to him.

“Here's your permission, comrade engineer,” the old Communist had smiled. “I have to say, I always thought of you as being the enemy of the regime, but when I saw your daughter reciting at the people's militia reunion, I changed my mind. The way she shook her fist while she spoke! Honestly, it brought tears to my eyes!”

My father was very surprised to hear this, but he was also very glad that he didn't have to pay Comrade Holoubek under the table to have his license renewed. When he came home, we had a friendly chat about politics and art. He told me that if I loved reciting poetry, reciting it for the State didn't necessarily make me a collaborator.

I was a good trumpet. It wasn't my fault that the orchestra was bad.

THE LITTLE YOLK WREATH

THE FOLLOWING SUMMER was even hotter than the last. Weeds and scaffolding covered the construction site, making our house look like a ruined castle. My father had driven off in search of a job, and my sister had put on a white blouse without a bra and caught the train to Radotin, where she made heaps of money as a waitress. All the children in the neighborhood were away on holidays, and my mother was back at the Economic Institute, working on a new book about the Soviet oil trade. I wandered through the backyard where a spade truck had dug a ditch the week before we ran out of money. I poked the bottom of the ditch with a stick, making clusters of frog eggs float to the surface. Tadpoles swam in the water beneath my feet, and I imagined that the pool was the Mediterranean Sea and the tadpoles were boats sailing from Italy to Greece. I hit the water with my stick, making waves and trying to sink them, pretending to be the goddess of the ocean.

When I finally got bored, I walked down the street to Terezka Jandova's house. Terezka was one of the quiet girls in my class. She had long, braided hair and often brought Comrade Humlova apples. I was never really comfortable visiting the Jandas. The last time I had played in their garden, Terezka's brother Tomas had pissed in my shoes when I took them off to climb a tree. They were devoutly religious, but also kind of mean.

“Hello, Mrs. Jandova!” I called out to Terezka's grandmother, who was reclining on a deck chair beneath a yellow beach umbrella. “Is Terezka home?” Half a sweater hung from the knitting needles she held in her lap. She appeared to be asleep.

“Hello! Mrs. Jandova? Are you asleep?” I tried again.

Mrs. Jandova sat up in her chair. She looked at me without a trace of recognition.

Then she frowned. “Ah ... you're Furman's little girl.”

She lifted her knitting needles up to her nose.

“Terezka's at church,” she said briskly. “It's her first communion on Sunday, so she's preparing for it with the other girls and boys.”

I looked around the yard. It was full of nice trees and there was a swing hanging from one of them.

“The other girls and boys?” I asked. “I thought everyone was away at Pioneer camp.”

“Not at all,” Mrs. Jandova replied. “The church has been holding a communion workshop all week. Children have been coming in from as far away as Radotin and Mokropsy.”

“Really?” This was very interesting.

Mrs. Jandova began to fiddle with her knitting.

“How many children?” I asked.

“I really don't know,” Mrs. Jandova sighed.

“Just a few, or lots and lots?”

“I have no idea,” Mrs. Jandova sighed again. “What time is it? Shouldn't you be running home for lunch?”

“There's no one at home!” I complained. “My dad's looking for work and my mother's at the Economic Institute and my sister's making heaps of money at the Portland pub in Radotin. I have no one to play with.”

“I see,” Mrs. Jandova said gravely.

“But perhaps I could go to church,” I pondered. “I've never been to church. Maybe I could go! What do you think? Do you think I could go?”

Mrs. Jandova dropped the knitting into her lap.

“You would like to go to church?” she asked suspiciously.

“Maybe,” I said. “I have nothing else to do.”

A wince of a smile crept over the old lady's face. She looked up at the sky and made the sign of the cross. Then she climbed out of her chair and folded her knitting on the seat.

“If you are really interested in going to church, I will take you,” she said. “But you must promise to behave. And no talking. You're not allowed to talk in church, is that understood?”

“Yes!” I said happily.

And then I talked to Mrs. Jandova all the way down the hill.

The local church was a small, sand-colored building with six vaulted windows and a classic Czech baroque tower. It stood near the Under the Forest pub and the War Memorial, and was surrounded by a wall of boxwoods. There was a small graveyard at the back, where my dad's father was buried. Mrs. Jandova walked me to the ivy-covered balustrade in front of the gate.

“You must be quiet now,” she said. “This is God's house. You're sure you haven't been here before?”

“No, never,” I replied. “My granddad is buried in the backyard, but I've never been inside.”

I hadn't been inside the church, in part because it was rarely open. There was a Mass on Thursday afternoons and a service on Sunday mornings, but the rest of the time, the building was locked. There were many beautiful cathedrals in Prague, of course, such as the Snow Lady, the Saint Martin in the Wall, and the Holy Mother Under the Chain, and my mother and I had often visited them during our long walks around the city. Their cold, silent naves were filled with the smell of incense and mold, and pigeons cooed behind their dusty, stained-glass windows. My mother would lift me up and I'd dip my fingers in the font of holy water, but more often than not the basin would be empty, because religion was discouraged and many people were too afraid to go to church. Most of the city's wonderful cathedrals stood forgotten beneath a permanent coat of scaffolding.

“The Communist Party has liberated the working class from the cage of superstition!” Comrade Humlova would preach from the front of her classroom. “God is the residue of the bourgeois mentality, and the personage of Jesus Christ was invented by priests to fool the working class and steal its money!” A poster with an illuminated head of Karl Marx hung near the door, bearing the slogan RELIGION IS THE OPIATE OF THE MASSES!

 

 

 

AS A LITTLE GIRL, I believed in Heaven and Hell, because the Baby Jesus gave me presents every Christmas, and the devil came to our house every fifth of December. I was very afraid of the devil. His name was Cert (pronounced
churt
), and he accompanied Saint Mikulas as the latter passed through the town. Saint Mikulas had a fluffy white beard and wore a bishop's miter on his head. Every December, he would walk through Cernosice seeking out the girls and boys who had been good for the year, assisted by an angel who carried a basket of sweets. Whenever they visited our house, they would come inside and ask my parents if I had done my homework and been respectful to my teachers, but they would always leave the door open and Cert would sneak in. His face was painted black, and big red horns stuck out of his head. He rattled a chain and made terrible noises as he ran through the house. Every year, my parents would help me find a good place to hide, but no matter where I hid, the devil would find me. He would pick me up and carry me to the living room, and then he would laugh horribly and beg Saint Mikulas to let him take me down to Hell. Saint Mikulas would consider this very seriously. He had a big book with everyone's name written in it, and my heart would leap into my throat as he looked up my behavior. So far, I'd been good. Saint Mikulas would grunt approvingly and tell Cert that he would have to take some other boy or girl this year, and Cert would become so wild with anger my mother would have to fetch him a drink to calm him down. Saint Mikulas would pull some gingerbread from his sack and the angel would give me some sweets from her basket, and then they would take Cert outside and tell him off for sneaking into our house. He never listened to them, though. As long as they kept leaving the door open, he kept sneaking inside. All I could do was be on my best behavior and hope that some other kid in town was worse than me.

 

 

MRS. JANDOVA LED ME INSIDE the Cernosice church, and we sat down in a stall next to Terezka. There were quite a few children in the stalls around us, and they were very quiet and looked up from their prayer books when I whispered hello. I wanted to ask many questions, but Mrs. Jandova nudged me with her elbow.

“We have to pray now!” she whispered, kneeling down onto a prayer cushion she produced from her bag. She clasped her hands together and moved her lips in silent prayer.

I lowered my bare knees onto the floor and tried to pray. I hadn't seen the little god since we sold our cottage in Semily, but whenever I was sad or lonely, I talked to him inside my head. I had never officially prayed to him though, and I didn't know any prayers. But I had a good imagination. The flame of the eternal light flickered above me and the pipes of the organ sighed from the balcony. I closed my eyes: