The Twelve Little Cakes (38 page)

“Happy Easter, Mrs. Kapustova!” I cried

Mrs. Kapustova looked at us in surprise. Her body appeared to be mere skin and bones, and none of us had the heart to hit her. Her hands fluttered with excitement as she showed us into her living room, and there on the table was a little basket of eggs. She gave us each a plain brown egg with a premade sticker on each side.

“Tell me, young men,” she said earnestly. “Have you met Jehovah yet?”

The boys looked at me for help.

“They don't know anyone around here, Mrs. Kapustova,” I explained. “They've ridden their bikes all the way from Mokropsy!”

For the rest of the morning, we worked our way through the streets. I was pretty sure that no one recognized me, although I did receive a few strange looks. It was nice to be invited inside the houses I

was usually not welcome to visit, and to see the Communist families in a more friendly light. A lot of them had gone to great trouble painting their homemade Easter eggs. My sister was very good at this, and I always envied her ability to dye her eggs an even color and paint simple, elegant designs on them. My paint jobs were always so sloppy. By midday, the boys and I had filled our baskets and eaten so much candy we could hardly walk. We sat on a bench near the train station and listened to the screams and laughter in the distance. Once the clock struck twelve, there was an official amnesty for the women in town. The men would return home for lunch, and the women would assess their bruises competitively, reasoning that the most attractive women would have received the most attention.

As we sat on the bench, I pulled from my basket the plain brown egg Mrs. Kapustova had given me. The rest of the eggs I had collected were gorgeous, and I was going to take them home and show them to my parents. The plain egg was ugly and I decided to eat it, so I tapped it against my forehead to break the shell. For some reason, this was the traditional way of cracking Easter eggs. You'd tap them against your head and peel the shell in your hands, and I had done this so often I could remove the shell without looking. But the second I tapped the brown egg against my forehead, I knew that something was wrong. Mrs. Kapustova had forgotten to boil her eggs. The shell cracked against my forehead and raw egg splattered down my face, causing the Mokropsy boys to burst into laughter. I told them to shut up, but they continued laughing, so I wiped the egg off my face and snatched up my basket.

“If you're going to laugh at me, I'm going home,” I said with dignity. “You can ride your bicycles back to Mokropsy and tell your parents you wished you lived somewhere nice where it doesn't flood all the time.”

“Oh, come on. We were only joking,” the boys protested.

“I don't care, I'm going.” I sniffed. “And don't expect me to help you next year, either!”

I left the station in a huff and walked around the post office to the narrow laneway that led up the hill. I was halfway up the path when a gang of boys appeared in front of me. There were six of them, and I recognized Tomas Hairy, Mary's brother, at the head of the group.

Tomas was three years older than me, and spent most of his time playing tennis on the public court. I put my head down and tried to hide beneath my father's cap, but it was no use. He had recognized my face. I clutched my basket and tried to edge around him, but he knocked the cap off my head and ruffled my hair until it fell down to my shoulders.

“Dominika Furmanova!” he cried. “You're not allowed to collect eggs! You're a girl!”

“It's past twelve o'clock,” I reminded him. “You're not allowed to hit me!”

“Check out her eggs!” One of the boys whistled. “A full basket!”

“It's after twelve,” I said desperately. “I'm going home!”

“Not with those eggs, you're not!” Tomas laughed.

He grabbed my wrist and started to pry my fingers loose from the basket. I thrashed and fought with all my might, but Tomas was surprisingly strong. A few summers ago, I had been able to hold my own against him, but now he broke my grip with ease and passed the basket to his friends.

“Give it back!” I shouted. “I worked really hard to collect those eggs!”

The boys surrounded me in front of Mrs. Fejfarova's gate. It was the widest point of the lane and had a thick patch of nettles between the fence and the gutter. They chanted an Easter carol and started to hit me with their canes, beating my arms and thighs until they really hurt. I wanted to cry, but I didn't until they rolled me in the nettles. Then they stole my eggs and left me with the empty basket, laughing as they ran down the hill.

I sat in the nettles, sobbing with anger. The grip of Tomas Hairy's hands and his scornful laughter made me realize that the days when I could fight with boys were over. More humiliating, this was the first time a boy had treated me like a girl, showing no respect for the challenge of fighting me. He only used half his strength to steal my eggs, and this was worse than the sting of the nettles and the loss of the eggs combined.

 

 

THE FOLLOWING DAY, I was back at school. I limped up the steps and Mrs. Vincentova blocked my way with her broom.

“What's that on your face?” she asked suspiciously.

“Nettle rash,” I replied.

“Nettle rash?” she snorted, leaning down to look closer. “That doesn't look like nettle rash to me. It looks like psoriasis. You've brought another disease to the school!”

“But look at my bum, Mrs. Vincentova!” I said, lifting my skirt to show her my bruises. “A gang of boys hit me with their canes and rolled me in a patch of nettles!”

“Pull your skirt down, young lady!” the caretaker snapped.

“It's true!” I said. “They hit me really hard!”

Mrs. Vincentova gave me a black look. Then she shook her head and swept me inside the building.

In class, I had a hard time sitting on my bench. My legs and bottom were itchy and sore, and I scratched all morning. I noticed that a lot of the popular girls, especially the twin sisters Monika and Alice Rabbit, were looking at me with admiration and envy. They were very jealous of my Easter bruises. Only Marinka Novotna, the third-grade teacher, was not impressed by my scruffy appearance. During the history lesson, she gently tugged one of my pigtails and told me to wait behind after class.

“Listen,” she said when the other children had left. “I saw you walking around Cernosice yesterday, dressed as a boy. Look at your legs. They're always covered with adhesive strips. Look at your fingernails. They're always dirty. Do you think any of the boys in the village will want to marry you if you keep fighting with them all the time? You're a young lady now. Isn't it time you started behaving like one?”

“I guess so,” I said.

“What you need is some friends,” Mrs. Novotna smiled. “How are things working out at ballet?”

“Okay,” I replied. “But I'm the only one from Cernosice. Everyone else is from Prague.”

“I see,” Mrs. Novotna said. “Do you play after school with any of the girls in your class?”

“Not really,” I shrugged. Most of the girls were from families that didn't like my parents, and the ones who went to church were still recovering from my baptism scandal.

“Well, you should try,” Mrs. Novotna advised me. “There's more to school than just learning, you know. One of the things it teaches you is how to get along with other people.”

I loved Mrs. Novotna and wanted to take her advice, but the truth was, it was hard to make friends. I went to ballet three afternoons a week, and had a piano lesson and choir practice when the other children were out playing. All the kids in my street had either outgrown me or were disinclined or not allowed to play with me anymore.

As I peeled my orange during the snack break, I surreptitiously observed the other girls in my class. Many of them were in love with horses, and a few of them went to Mrs. Backyard's farm in the afternoons and helped feed the horses in exchange for the privilege of riding them. These were the tough girls from the bottom of the valley. They didn't want to dance in
Swan Lake.
They wanted to be farm girls and have lots of animals around them.

Dana Bukova was the leader of the horse-loving girls. She was small and willful, with bangs that almost covered her eyes and a mocking smile that she could use to great effect. I watched her enviously during the snack break as she sipped milk from her plastic bag and expertly sketched a horse's head from memory. I couldn't draw a horse's head even when I tried. It always ended up looking like a sausage or a dog.

The bell rang for class, and I got up and walked over to where Dana was sitting with Helenka Vesela.

“Hello, Dana! Hello, Helenka!” I said. “Can I look at your drawings?”

Dana looked at Helenka and grinned.

“I didn't know you liked horses,” she said. “I thought you were too busy reciting poetry at Red Cross reunions.”

“I love horses,” I said. “I ride them all the time at Mrs. Backyard's farm.”

This was a lie, but I had a habit of believing my lies as I told them. “Mrs. Backyard lets me ride the baby horse and the black horse with the white dot on his forehead,” I continued. “Do you know which horses I mean?”

“Sure, the black horse is Sandy.” Helenka rolled her eyes. “But Sandy's not a he. She's a her.”

“Oh,” I said.

“And the baby horse is a pony,” Dana laughed. “You're a terrible liar.”

Her eyes shone bright beneath her bangs and I could see that they were full of scorn. My cheeks burned with embarrassment as I retreated to the classroom, and I distinctly heard Helenka behind me, “I bet she doesn't know the difference between a gelding and a stallion!”

“Are you kidding?” Dana said. “She couldn't tell the difference between a donkey and a goat!”

I felt humiliated and discouraged for the rest of the day, but when the bell rang at the end of school, I hurried home and collected my milk pails. I had been visiting Mrs. Backyard's farm twice a week for the past two years, and it had never occurred to me to ask if I could ride the horses. My Tuesday afternoons had become free, and I was fiercely determined to show Dana and Helenka that I did know the difference between a gelding and a stallion. I was good at schoolwork and dancing and piano. I would become good with horses as well.

I opened the gate to Mrs. Backyard's farm and followed the path down to the stables.

“Hello? Mrs. Backyard?” I called. “Are you in there?”

Mrs. Backyard emerged from behind a pile of hay in her rubber boots.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I've come for the milk!” I said. “I thought I'd come early and have a chat.”

Mrs. Backyard looked vaguely alarmed.

“I haven't milked the cows yet,” she said.

“I know,” I told her. “But I'm free on Tuesday afternoons and I really do like to come and visit your farm, Mrs. Backyard, because I'm very interested in all the animals you have . . . especially the horses.”

“Ah.” A weary smile appeared on Mrs. Backyard's face. “The horses,” she sighed. And without saying another word, she turned around and continued to muck out the stables.

“You know, Mrs. Backyard,” I talked as she worked, “I could help out. I'm really very good at shoveling sand into my dad's cement mixer.”

Mrs. Backyard didn't answer.

“I'd do it for free,” I offered. “And then maybe I could ride the horses with the other girls. What do you think?”

“I don't know.” Mrs. Backyard paused to wipe her forehead. “Everybody wants to ride the horses these days.”

She lifted her barrow and wheeled it out of the stable. I followed her to the compost heap.

“Please, Mrs. Backyard?” I wheedled. “If I helped you, would you let me ride one of your horses, please?”

Mrs. Backyard shooed a fly with her hand.

“It's not up to me,” she said flatly. “You're going to have to ask my daughter. They're her horses. She doesn't ride them much anymore, but we got them for her. Five years ago, she quit ballet to ride them. Now, she's too fat to climb into the saddle.”

I found Mrs. Backyard's daughter sunbathing in the small cherry orchard behind the house. She looked like a beached whale in a yellow bikini.

“Hello, Vendula!” I called out. “Are you awake?”

Vendula Backyard stretched and rolled onto her side, moving her sunglasses to the tip of her nose.

“I am now,” she yawned. “What do you want?”

“I was talking to your mother and she told me that if I helped you clean the stables, maybe you would let me ride one of your horses,” I explained. “She said you used to study ballet. I go to the National Theater Ballet School, but I also want to ride horses like Dana Bukova and Helenka Vesela.”

Vendula rolled onto her belly.

“Come here, sweetie,” she smiled. “Could you please rub some cream on my back?”

She handed me a bottle of suntan lotion.

“There are too many girls riding Sandy and Bonnie at the moment,” she said as I rubbed the lotion into her shoulders. “But if you like, you can ride Nikina the pony. She's a bit frisky, but at least you won't break your leg if she throws you. How does that sound?”

“That sounds great!” I said excitedly.

“And the next time you go to the National Theater, say hello to Professor Paskova from me,” Vendula yawned. “She used to say that I had heaps of talent. She should remember me, but if she doesn't, she'll definitely remember my dad.”

By the time my classmates turned up, I was feeding sugar cubes to Nikina, who was snorting and licking the palm of my hand. Dana, Helenka, and three other girls entered the stables with one saddle between them, and were clearly not happy to see me there.