‘I think she needs to get some stuff down from the cupboards. Cans and things. She can’t reach anything.’ God, he should have just said she wanted him to pick up some shopping. Something simple.
Babi nodded. ‘Be back for lunch,’ she said, and she looked down at her magazine again. Then she said, ‘You should help her more. She is old and on her own.’
‘Yes, Babi,’ Luděk said, and he stepped towards the door before he got a lecture about helping the elderly.
‘Wait!’ Babi said, and she got up off her chair and moved to the cupboard. She got the cake tin down from the top shelf. Inside was a whole bábovka, the one she had made early this morning, and the sight of it made his mouth water. The smell of it, the chocolate and vanilla swirls. Babi cut it in half, and then cut one half in half again. She wrapped a piece up in a clean white tea towel. A whole quarter.
‘Take this to Mrs Bláža,’ she said. ‘And don’t you eat any, even if she offers it to you. Don’t you dare!’
Luděk nodded. He opened his eyes wide to show that he knew she would find out if he had any. He took the cake in his hands.
What a price to pay.
It was always dark in the stairwell, always gloomy – scary in winter when the wind was howling. Jakub, on the first floor, was practising violin again and the shrill squeals rose up. He was not getting any better. He had no feel for the thing. He just liked playing football, and he was damn fine at that – fast and confident, his feet light and sure. But his father made him play the violin – Practise, practise, always you must practise! Bloody Dvořák! Luděk never got to play football with Jakub anymore because Jakub always had to practise. Poor old Jakub.
Out on the street, Luděk looked at the bottom-floor flat across the road. One of the old windows was open, and Old Lady Bláža was there. Just. Luděk could only see the top of her head. She had shrunk so much she could hardly see through her own windows. Luděk didn’t know how tall she had been before he knew her, but now she was so bent over it was like the world had crushed her down and squashed her. Soon she would be gone altogether. She must be two hundred years old and her teeth were all gone at the front. She wouldn’t even be able to eat the bloody cake. What a waste.
Luděk never spoke to Old Lady Bláža. He tried not to even look at her. He always ran past her as fast as possible, because one time she saw him in the street and called out to him, and then he had to help her with her shopping. He had to get it all to her door. It took forever. She walked so slowly. Why didn’t she have a trolley like all the other old ladies?
He had carried the two heavy shopping bags and she had walked behind him – wheezing, panting, coughing. When they got to the flat, Luděk put the bags down just inside her front door, and Old Lady Bláža had reached out and tried to touch his face. Luděk had pulled away, slipped past her and bolted.
Don’t touch me with that old crone’s hand of death!
Today, he was actually going to have to go into her flat. He was actually going to have to talk to her and maybe even sit down. Maybe even have a cup of her old lady tea. She was the oldest person he knew. She had lived in that flat forever, since the bloody war, and if anyone knew where Atlas was, surely it would be Old Lady Bláža.
Luděk knocked on the door and it fell open.
‘Mrs Bláža!’ he called. ‘Mrs Bláža!’ louder this time. A white cat padded up the dark hall and hissed loudly at him. Luděk could not care less about cats. What use were cats? They just wanted things, and once they got them, they ignored you. Cats thought people were a big joke.
Luděk stepped forward, over the threshold now. He stood in the hall, one hand on the open door.
‘Mrs Bláža!’ he called again, almost yelling the words now. ‘Hello!’
Nothing. But he’d seen her by the window, her white hair and the top of her head.
Luděk took a few brave steps down the hall.
There was that smell – the smell of old people, like a dusty museum, a place of no movement. A couch and three armchairs and a coffee table and a footstool and a sideboard and two bookshelves. Old Lady Bláža was still in front of the open window. Standing all bent over the way she did. Her eyes were closed. A patch of sunlight on her face.
‘Can you help me, Luděk?’ she said, clear as day. Her eyes suddenly open.
How the hell did she know it was him? It could have been anyone yelling from her front door. It could have been anyone standing here. The police, a murderer – anyone.
Old Lady Bláža pointed to the pot plants on the windowsill, and then to a metal watering can that was on the floor. Luděk held up the cake parcel, then put it down on the coffee table.
‘This is from Babi,’ he said, but she didn’t seem to notice. Her eyes looked closed again.
The rusted watering can had water in it but maybe Old Lady Bláža couldn’t lift it. How did she even fill it with water to start with? Luděk had no idea how she managed to do anything. He gave her plants a good soaking and he kept going until their little trays were full of water, too. How the hell had the plants survived this long? He knew one of the plants was a geranium, because of the shape of the leaves, and its flowers were bright pink, almost fluorescent. They looked so good there against the white cracked walls of her apartment building. A burst of colour – intense with life.
‘Where’s Pepík?’ Old Lady Bláža said.
Luděk didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. Who was Pepík? Her dead husband?
The white cat ran into the room and jumped up on the coffee table. It sat there and stared at Old Lady Bláža.
‘Ah,’ she said. ‘My Pepík!’
The cat started sniffing around the cake and Luděk rushed over and picked it up. The cat sniffed the air.
‘This is from Babi,’ he said again. ‘For you. It’s bábovka.’ Old Lady Bláža stared at him.
‘Marble cake,’ he said, and he waved the cake around.
Old Lady Bláža moved past him, one slow step at a time. She waved for him to follow.
The kitchen was very small, but it was clean and there was a white tablecloth on the table just like the one Babi had. Old Lady Bláža lit the gas ring underneath a chipped enamel kettle. When she blew the match out, she snapped it in half and dropped it into an ashtray. The ashtray was full of match halves – one half black, the other half clean and unburnt.
Luděk put the cake on the table. It would go dry, the bábovka, if it wasn’t put in a tin soon. Even when it was in a tin, the edges went dry.
‘Do you have a tin?’ Luděk said.
Old Lady Bláža stared at him.
‘A tin for the cake?’ Luděk unwrapped the tea towel and showed her.
‘Sweet bread,’ she said.
Luděk nodded. That’s what all the old-timers called cake. Sweet bread. And they only had it for Christmas, or on special occasions. Maybe it was something to do with those saints. The ones no one was meant to believe in anymore.
Old Lady Bláža pointed to a tall cupboard and Luděk opened it. It was crammed with jars and jugs and teapots and bowls, but he found a tin near the back. An old biscuit tin. He opened it and put the cake inside.
‘I’ll leave this here. It’s for you,’ he said loudly. And he put the tin down on the table.
He tucked the corner of the white tea towel into his back pocket so he wouldn’t forget it.
The kettle started to boil. It had no whistle. Luděk was pretty sure that a whistle would have been useless anyway because it was clear now that Old Lady Bláža couldn’t hear much at all. How was he going to ask her about Atlas if she was deaf? This was such a stupid plan.
Old Lady Bláža piled loose tea into the aluminium teapot. Luděk didn’t want any tea, but he was stuck now. Maybe she would offer him some of the cake with the tea? He would have to say no though. Babi would find out.
Somehow Old Lady Bláža managed to pour the tea into two cups. She got down a tray, and Luděk thought that there might be biscuits at least, but she just pu
t the two cups on the tray. She waved her hand to Luděk and he picked the tray up. Old Lady Bláža walked slowly back to the lounge and sat down in her chair.
Luděk was very careful not to spill any of the tea. He put the tray down on the coffee table. There were long dark tea leaves resting on the bottom of each cup. He better remember not to drink right to the end. He hated that bitter taste of tea leaves in your mouth. It ruined the whole thing. Why couldn’t people use strainers? They did exist. But old people liked the leaves. Old people liked the old ways.
He had to sit there for ages before she drank any of her tea. He sipped his and it was fine. It was good, actually, and the cup was clean. Luděk looked around the room. On the sideboard were framed photographs of people, babies, children, a bride and groom. Everything was dusty.
‘Nice,’ Old Lady Bláža said, and Luděk didn’t know if she meant the tea, or the room, or what, and there was a flash of white, and the cat suddenly jumped in through the open window. It padded down onto the carpet with a thud.
‘Oh, Pepík!’ Old Lady Bláža said.
Luděk coughed. A bit of tea had gone down the wrong way. The cat stared at him. Its eyes were crazy blue.
‘My friend,’ Old Lady Bláža said and the cat wound itself around and around her legs, and its purr was so loud Luděk could feel it in his bones.
And this bad feeling busted open inside of him then. In his chest. This old lady had nothing and no one but this dumb white cat. And maybe she was deaf or maybe she just couldn’t hear much, but how the hell did she live? She couldn’t even listen to the radio.
‘I’d better go,’ Luděk said and he stood up suddenly. He just wanted to get away now. He put his cup down on the tray. The old lady’s eyes went wide and she looked like she might try to get up, like she might try to say something.
Luděk shook his head, waved his hands. ‘I can let myself out, Mrs Bláža,’ he said, almost shouting.
She nodded then. Smiled. All those missing teeth.
Luděk put both cups on the tray, picked it up and started to walk towards the kitchen. And he heard Mrs Bláža say, with a whistle in her voice. ‘I see you – running, running,’ and she laughed then. ‘So fast!’
Luděk put the tray in the kitchen. He rinsed out the cups. Somehow, he didn’t mind that she saw him. Somehow, it didn’t bother him.
Back in the lounge, he told Mrs Bláža that he would come back again soon, and she just kept on smiling, kept on nodding. She probably had no idea what he was saying, but he knew that he probably meant it, that he would come back and see her. And he wished he had never come at all, because now he would think about her being all alone.
He walked down the hall and opened the front door. He imagined that Mrs Bláža’s eyes were already closed, and maybe she was already asleep, the white cat on her lap purring. And maybe she was dreaming of all the people in the photographs. Dreaming of a time when the ground floor flat was filled with voices and people and life.
Sometimes, when he was alone in the flat, Luděk would sit in the hallway under the phone table and pray that the phone would ring.
Ring!
Ring!
Mama, please call.
He hadn’t done it for a long time, but today, when Babi went out to the shops, Luděk crawled under the table and sat against the wall.
He knew their number by heart, 295371. Babi had made him repeat it over and over until there was no way he could forget, and she made him carry an emergency coin at all times in case he needed to use a payphone on the street – if he got into trouble, or if he got lost and could not find his way home. He didn’t really need the coin anymore, because he knew how to trick payphones without wasting any money. Uncle Bohdan had taught him that. Uncle could be useful sometimes.
The underside of the phone table had two initials burnt black into the wood – OV. Luděk traced his finger over them. Děda. He had made the phone table with a little seat attached a long time ago. There were photos of Děda, two in Babi’s bedroom and a large black and white one in the lounge. Děda’s eyes looked straight out of that black and white photograph and into the room – dark eyes just like Mama’s.
Luděk had not known him, but Děda was still here in the flat.
The armchair in the lounge, the one in the corner by the window, was Děda’s chair. No one ever sat in it, not even Uncle Bohdan, not even Uncle Bill. But the armchair stayed there anyway, as if it was waiting for Děda to come home from work, tired and done in, stepping through the front door and calling out Hello. Asking Babi what was for dinner. Taking his shoes off and leaving them on the shoe rack, putting on his slippers, then sitting down in his armchair by the window, his feet resting on the cream footstool.
Ring!
Ring!
Mama, please call.
And it suddenly felt like she was really gone. Forever gone, not just away. Maybe she was never coming back.
Luděk shut his eyes. He tried not to think.
Please call.
That last time on the phone, she had sounded so small. She had almost whispered. She said that she was just tired, that they had been working very hard – night after night, with two shows on Saturday. And maybe it was because they were always listening when she called from overseas, and maybe it was because she was trying not to cry, but he could feel it there down the line – something she could not say.
‘Where are you going next?’ Luděk had asked. He did not know any of the places she told him about. London, Las Vegas, Singapore. He could not picture them. He knew he would never see them, never visit them, but he asked her anyway, about the food and the weather and the hotel breakfasts because he wanted her to keep talking. He wanted to hold on to her for as long as he could.
Luděk put his head in his hands.
Please call.
The front door opened and cold air rushed in, and there was Babi with a bag of shopping, looking down at him.
‘LUDOSLAV!’
Luděk stood up and dropped his comic on the bed. He knew he was in for it when Babi called him Ludoslav. She must have found out about something he had done. But what? He stepped into the hall. He tried to think.
Yesterday, at school, he had not eaten his lunch because it was absolutely dis-gus-ting. He had to sit there and sit there and sit there, and he could not leave the table until he finished everything on his plate. But he could not eat. He refused. And one of the lunch ladies had written down his name.
He poked his head through the kitchen door. Babi was sitting at the table, her eyes dark like the night.
‘Well?’ she said.
Luděk stepped forward and threw his arms up to the heavens.
‘You don’t understand!’ he said. ‘The lunch ladies – they steal all the good food and give us the slop. You have never seen anyone so FAT. They are scoffing while we –’
‘LUDOSLAV!’ Babi yelled, and Luděk stopped talking. He closed his mouth.
The cake tin was on the table. The lid was open but there was nothing inside. Not one bit of bábovka. Not. One. Crumb.
His eyes went wide. He had been thinking about that cake all day. He looked at Babi. ‘It wasn’t me,’ he said. ‘I didn’t take it.’
Babi slapped her heavy hand down on the table. ‘You act like I don’t feed you – like I don’t give you everything!’
‘It wasn’t me!’ Luděk said again.
‘What have you done this time?’ It was Uncle Bohdan. He walked into the kitchen and stood there grinning like an idiot. He was meant to have fixed the leaking tap in the bathroom but it was still dripping. Luděk could hear it from here. It sounded worse than before.
‘Well, I can’t fix it,’ Uncle Bohdan said, and he wiped his hands on a tea towel. ‘I will try and get some parts. Tomorrow. Next day.’
Babi’s hard stare was on Uncle Bohdan now.
‘That dripping is driving me crazy,’ she said.
Uncle Bohdan shrugged, he put the tea towel on the bench. ‘Ah! Put a bucket under it
. I don’t know.’
‘A bucket? Luděk could put a bucket under it. Anyone could think of that!’
Uncle Bohdan pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. He sighed.
‘I’ll fix it,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow. Next day. I’ll fix it,’ and his eyes were suddenly on the empty cake tin. Luděk watched his face carefully. He was not grinning now.
‘Babi?’ Luděk said and he dropped his head down. ‘I’m sorry.’
Babi was silent.
‘So sorry.’
Luděk looked at the floor, at his feet. His slippers were old. They were faded and old and they were too small. But he could not ask for new ones. He would have to wait – wait for Christmas, wait for Mama to come home. He would have to wait. He heard the sound of the cake tin being shut tight.
‘Maybe I will stop making cakes for good. Then you will be sorry,’ Babi said. She told Luděk to go to his room and stay there.
Luděk turned and walked to the door. This would all be forgotten soon, but the cake was gone. There would be no cake tonight. No cake this week. No cake for ages. Uncle Bohdan was always scoffing.
‘Wait,’ Babi said. ‘What did you say about school? The lunch ladies?’
Luděk turned slowly. A hot jolt ran up his back, settled on his cheeks. Why had he spilled his guts? When would he ever learn to shut the hell up?
Babi stood up, the cake tin in hand.
‘I do not want you calling people fat. You can’t go around calling people fat. Do you hear me?’
Yes, Luděk nodded.
Uncle Bohdan was smiling again now. Bloody traitor.
‘Do you call me fat behind my back?’ Babi said, and she stared at him. His face was trying not to grin, trying not to laugh, but it was starting to crack under the strain.
He shook his head, but he couldn’t stop looking at Babi’s stomach. She was a bit fat, a bit round, but what did it matter? Babičkas should be a bit fat. When you were old you could get fat like a pig.
‘Those lunch ladies are fat,’ Uncle Bohdan said. ‘Everyone knows they steal the meat.’
There Was Still Love Page 7