The Twelve Little Cakes (37 page)

“Apage, Satanas!”
I yelled, running up the corridor.
“Apage, Satanas!
Go away, Satan!” I threw the holy water and hit Cert squarely in his chest, and leaped back, expecting him to burst into flames. Instead, he merely looked surprised.

“Why isn't she hiding?” he asked my dad.

“I have no idea,” my father replied.

“Apage, Satanas!
You bad devil!” I cried again, then ran through the house as fast as I could and crawled beneath the couch. After a few moments, Saint Mikulas and his companions followed my dad into the living room. They were talking seriously like adults, and all I could see was their feet. My mother came up with a tray of drinks from the kitchen, and I could hear the clinking of glasses above me.

“Won't you please sit down?” my mother asked. “I'll go and see if I can find Dominika.”

Cert and Saint Mikulas sat heavily on the couch, while my dad and the angel occupied the two big lounge chairs. The devil was literally sitting on top of me. His feet were so close, I could have reached out and touched them.

“Your little girl is growing up,” Saint Mikulas remarked.

“Yes, she's a handful,” my father agreed. “She's keeping them busy down at the school.”

“So I've heard,” the devil said. “I bet that was holy water she threw at me just then. I've been doing this for six years, and it's the first time anyone's tried a crazy stunt like that!
Apage, Satanas!”
The couch rocked with his laughter.

“Do you have time for a refill?” my father asked.

“Of course!” the three visitors said in unison.

And, right then, I recognized the devil's socks. They were Mr. Caesar's green football socks, and the laugh above me sounded a lot like Mr. Caesar's, too. This was very reassuring, but very troubling as well. Right up until the moment when I realized that the devil was really Mr. Caesar, I had truly believed in Cert and Saint Mikulas. Most children growing up under communism did, because the fifth of December was an evening the community took seriously. It was a Czech tradition that dated back many hundreds of years, and was not commercialized in the same way that the Christian holidays are commercialized in the West. Prior to the Revolution, thousands of parents throughout the country dressed up in homemade costumes and handed out sweets to the kids in their villages. It was one night in the year when neighbors could be neighbors without the illuminated head of Karl Marx looking over their affairs.

I studied Mr. Caesar's socks and thought about climbing out and telling him that I was sorry for throwing the holy water at him, but then my mother's feet appeared and I could hear her telling the neighbors that she couldn't find me anywhere.

“Let's go, Dasha,” Saint Mikulas said to the angel. “I need to get home and make some eggnog for the kids.”

He stood up and thanked my parents for their hospitality.

“Tell Dominika we 'll see her next year,” he said. “I guess she's getting a bit old for this, isn't she? Mary doesn't even bother hiding these days. She just asks for her gingerbread as soon as we walk in the door.”

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Could it be true that Saint Mikulas was really Mary Hairy's dad?

“Apage, Satanas!”
Mr. Caesar laughed.

The springs creaked above my head and three pairs of socks marched out of the room. My parents escorted our neighbors to the door, then they switched off the lights and went downstairs to the kitchen to sit in front of the warm stove. I lay under the couch in the darkness for a while and thought about my little god.

If Cert and Saint Mikulas were really the neighbors in disguise, then maybe there wasn't any Heaven and Hell. Maybe the posters in the classroom were right. Maybe religion was something that clever men like Hugo Kraus used to frighten people with, just like the Communists. I had spent a whole week being afraid, and neither my parents nor Father Eugene had done anything about it. The whole thing was a game. No wonder my sister didn't take the church seriously.

I suddenly felt very sad.

If my little god wasn't real, whom was I going to talk to when I was lonely? The world would be such a big and scary place without him. I crawled out from the couch and walked over to the window. The sky was dark and empty, and there was no evidence anyone was up there, but I found myself praying to my little god, nonetheless.

 

On December 13, 1982, I was baptized in the Cernosice church. It was a quiet service, avoided by most of the people in town. Even Mrs. Jandova and Terezka didn't come. The gossip continued through Christmas and slowly died out the following year, and I was gradually accepted back into the local congregation. I planted yellow roses in the graveyard, and kept my promise to the Baby Rose by watering them regularly for the next seven years.

THE CHOCOLATE HORSESHOE

THE NICEST THING about living near a forest is that you really get to see the change of seasons. Leaf raking in autumn was a major event, and in the spring I could look out my bedroom window and watch the whole valley explode with color. The whites and browns of winter were replaced by vivid greens and golds, and the streets and fields were wet with melted snow. The Berounka River, which in winter was a giant ice-skating rink, abruptly came back to life and rolled across the weir like it was making up for lost time.

My favorite part of spring was Easter. In Eastern Europe, the Easter tradition is so ancient that a rational explanation of its origin is hard to come by. Easter Fridays and Sundays are similar to the Christian holidays of other countries, except that on Sunday, the men in the village go down to the river, find a weeping willow, and fashion themselves long canes made of eight braided willow branches, which are later decorated with ribbons.

On the Monday morning, men circulate through town, singing Easter carols and attacking the local women. A group of Czech men would knock on their neighbor's door, and after being invited inside, beat the man's wife and daughters silly with their canes. Young girls caught in their beds would sometimes be splashed with cold water, which would make their nightgowns cling to their bodies. You always knew it was Easter Monday, because the screaming of women could be heard throughout the valley. Fat matrons ran barefoot around their gardens, squealing for the benefit of their neighbors. Despite the flimsy design of the canes, an Easter attack could often inflict spectacular bruises, which the local women would later display as proof of their attractiveness. None of the women was allowed to fight back. In fact, it was the opposite. Visiting men would be rewarded with Easter eggs and candy.

On the Easter Monday after my baptism, I stood in front of the big mirror in our hallway and put my hair up in a bun. I was dressed in a pair of brown corduroy trousers and a miniature men's jacket I had borrowed from the ballet school. To complete the costume, I put on my father's cap, which I had lined with newspaper. I leaned closer and admired the cheeky little boy looking back from my reflection. He was very small but cunning, I thought. I picked up the cane I had made from willow branches and hit the air, making the ribbons smack against the surface of the mirror. My Easter basket was ready. I wasn't going to wait for the boys to catch me. I had no intention of collecting bruises, I was going to collect eggs and candy with the men.

Primroses and daisies sprouted from the lawns, and the sound of birdsong filled the forest. In the distance, I could hear Mrs. Backyard's rooster crowing. It was very early in the morning, and clouds of mist steamed up from the ground. I took my sister's shortcut through the forest and emerged through the hedges two streets below our house, where a group of small boys was hanging around Mrs. Machova's gate. They were summoning up the courage to enter, as the gate was guarded by two yapping dogs.

“Hello!” I called out. “The dogs won't bite! They're very friendly.”

The four boys watched with relief as I opened the gate. I called the dogs by their names and they immediately stopped barking and started wagging their tails.

“Here,” I said. “You should give them a pat.”

The boys hesitantly followed my example.

“Are you from Cernosice?” one of them whispered.

“Yes. Where are you from?” I asked.

“We're from Mokropsy. We rode our bicycles here,” the boy replied.

Mokropsy was the next village down the river. Its name translates as “wet dogs,” and it was very prone to flooding. It was one of the poorer neighborhoods in the region, and I immediately understood why the boys had ridden their bikes upriver. Their chances of filling their Easter basket were immeasurably better in Cernosice.

“Well, I guess you'd better stick with me, then.” I smiled. “I know the best places to look for eggs and candy.”

We knocked on Mrs. Machova's door, and she opened it with a big smile on her face. Mrs. Machova had dyed blond hair and wore a purple cardigan over her cupboardlike bosom. Like a swarm of wasps, we surrounded the greengrocer, slapping her legs and bottom with our canes. Mrs. Machova appeared to enjoy the attention. She danced around her front room, squealing and laughing. Then she gave us each a painted egg and some candy called “little strawberries.”

“Aren't you a bunch of cute little fellows,” she said, chuckling. “If I were younger, I would have given you each a kiss instead of an egg!”

I couldn't believe my luck. Everyone in Cernosice knew me, so I wasn't sure I would get away with dressing as a boy. But the four kids from Mokropsy provided perfect cover. Two of them were even wearing worker's caps that were similar to my dad's. And certainly, they didn't appear to suspect I was a girl.

“What's your name?” one of the boys asked.

I looked down at Mrs. Machova's dogs.

“Ferda,” I said. “What's yours?”

“I'm Marek,” the boy replied. “This is Honza, Jirka, and Peta.”

“Pleased to meet you,” I said. “Why don't we go to Mrs. Needy's house next?” I pointed at a yellow villa opposite the town's dilapidated ice-hockey rink. “She works in the pastry shop, so she'll have the best cakes!”

We found Mrs. Needy in her dressing gown and slippers. She was fat yet pretty in a voluptuous kind of way, and favored low-cut tops that showed off her massive bosom. She was a regular at the beauty salon and a popular attendee of the Communist drinking nights at the Rotten pub. Protected from our canes by her formidable girth, she withstood our blows with a serene expression on her face.

“All right, that's enough,” she told us. “The cakes are in the kitchen. You may have one of each.”

We ran excitedly to the kitchen table, where a pile of hedgehogs and Little Indians sat on crisp white sheets of pastry-shop paper. The Mokropsy boys had only one Easter basket, so they pooled their resources while I kept mine separate. As I carefully put the little cakes in my basket, I caught a glimpse of someone in the living room. I poked my head in the door and saw a man in an undershirt, pouring himself a glass of slivovitz. It was Mr. Lojda, the local maintenance man and plumber, who was known around town as Mr. Fix-it.

“Thank you for the cakes, Mrs. Needy!” I said. “Have your pipes burst?”

Mrs. Needy looked at me blankly. “My pipes?” she repeated.

“Your water pipes!” I said. “Mr. Lojda is here, so I imagine he's going to fi whatever it is that needs fixing!”

Mrs. Needy shook her head in amazement, and then she started to hoot with laughter until her double chin tripled.

“Don't worry, little fellow,” she laughed. “Mr. Lojda is very handy indeed.”

The next house in the street had a roof covered in lichen and a garden full of weeds. It belonged to Mrs. Kapustova, who was a Jehovah's Witness and a bit of a charity case. Poor Mrs. Kapustova had a schizophrenic daughter who gave birth to two children out of wedlock before her illness was diagnosed. The daughter ended up in an asylum, and the children were eventually sent to reform school. After that, Mrs. Kapustova didn't leave her house very often. When she did, she would carry old copies of
The Watchtower
with her and try to convert everyone she met. She opened her door nervously. Clearly, she wasn't expecting anyone to visit.