Gerta

by Tučková, Kateřina

  “One more time tomorrow, while there’s still something left to gather. And then we’ll be set for winter,” she said, picking up little Anni who had finally given in to sleep, having waited as long as she could for the pickers to be done.

  By the wayside shrine at the edge of the field, still a good ten minutes’ walk from Perná, Zipfelová stopped.

  “Please, everyone, stop, wait a moment. Johanna, come back!”

  The women gathered around her.

  “Here, take her for a moment,” Zipfelová said, handing off Anni to Johanna, although she was already holding Rudi, also fast asleep, in her arms. Teresa darted over and took the little girl into her own arms.

  “Ida, let me have a handful,” she said, turning toward Ida, who was standing right behind her with a full kerchief. Zipfelová reached inside and pulled out a handful of stalks. She stepped over to the edge of the road, toward the wayside shrine.

  “This is for the Virgin Mary. May she bless our farmers and vintners, especially Hubert Šenk, and may she bless these fields again for next year, and may she also bring us a good harvest. And this handful here is for Járinka Führederová and her husband. May the earth rest lightly on them.”

  She reached over and tucked two handfuls of grain into the niche where a statue of the Virgin Mary once must have stood. She crossed herself, took a few steps backward, and rejoined the small group of women.

  “Let’s go,” she said, turning back in the direction of Perná.

  “That wayside shrine, just so you know, was built by my husband’s great-grandfather, also a Zipfel,” she started to tell them after she’d gone a few more steps.

  “He had it built to give thanks to the Virgin Mary for having survived a winter’s night coming back this way from Horní Věstonice. In our family, it was said that it was in that very spot that the devil and his minions jumped out at him and tried to take him away, because he’d been out carousing. It was only his praying to the Virgin that supposedly saved him. These days, it may just sound like a silly story to you, but back then, he really spent half of his savings to build that shrine. The cross you see on top, he had it forged in Brno, and a well-known wood carver there made the statue. And then every Sunday, for the rest of his life, he would come here to light a candle.”

  One of the girls in the back laughed. “All for having been out carousing?”

  “Supposedly he was the town drunk; that’s what my late husband used to say. He, thank God, was spared. In that family, one never had to go too far for a shot glass. Luckily, they weren’t vintners. I’m not sure how he would have managed if they’d had a wine cellar. Things might have ended up the same way as they did at the Šenks’.”

  Ida, walking two steps behind her, loudly clucked her tongue. Zipfelová grew quiet, and for a while they all walked in silence.

  “But I’ll always swear by that wayside shrine. Every year, on my Helmut’s birthday, we would go there to light a candle, because it was right there, in that very spot, that I begged the Virgin Mary and was granted my only child. Every time I passed there, I would plead with her. And then, one summer day, it was there that my late husband and I received her blessing.”

  She laughed softly as she welcomed back this memory from long ago.

  “And the Heinzes, the ones who had the farm down at the other end of Perná, by the road to Dunajovice, they would all gather here after the Dožínky harvest festival, and the whole family would ask the Virgin Mary to grant them a good crop and peace on the farm. And then, as if by a miracle, they were the ones who were spared by the great fire that I still remember from when I was a child. The entire farm next to them burned to the ground. Back then, people named the Lindovs lived there, and they ended up burned to a crisp, along with all their buildings and livestock too. There wasn’t a trace left of them. Same thing with the cottage on the other side of the Heinzes, but there at least no one died. And the Heinz place, not even a spark touched it, just imagine. That’s why they go there, or at least they used to, and the villagers would go with them. That’s when the idea caught on, right after that big fire, that the Virgin Mary of the wayside shrine can help. And after they were done praying, Mrs. Heinzová would always give out angel wings. No other woman in the village made them as well as she did. Last year, we all still went, and now this year, who knows where the Heinzes ended up. They were such good people.”

  The small group of women was slowly approaching the first houses of Perná. They walked wearily, at an unhurried pace. In the first few courtyards, the dogs had already picked up their scent and started to bark. If Gerta had not given up on prayer, she would have gone to see the Virgin Mary of the wayside shrine every day to plead with her to return her former life. Her life before the war, when everything was still in order. And if that weren’t possible, then at least for a future life of peace in their Brno apartment, but without her father. She would live there by herself, with only Barbora and all the things she loved. Her mother’s set of little cups decorated with flowers, the long curtains in the dining room, where they used to have lunch. The peculiar flower stand with its assortment of wire hooks for hanging flowerpots—her parents had brought it back from some exhibition, and it had always fascinated her as a child. The carpet in her bedroom that received her feet every morning as she climbed out of her toasty bed. Every day she would have gone to see the Virgin Mary, to plead for the return of her home with its tranquility and the soft and steady ticking of the pendulum clock. If only she could, she would go and spend hour upon hour praying there. But she couldn’t. Neither God nor the Virgin Mary had helped her, not even when she had most needed their help. Never again would she need them as much as she had needed them back then. And so she had shut the door on both of them.

  By the time they finally got back to the small bedroom, it was already pitch dark, so they lit the single candle given to them when they first arrived in Perná. So far, they hadn’t needed to light it often.

  “It’s all coming to an end. Soon it will be time for Dožínky, the harvest festival,” said Ula, tucking the quilt around Dorla at the foot of the bed and giving her a goodnight kiss.

  “It is for all of you, but I’ve still got a stretch to go,” sighed Teresa, who worked in the vineyards.

  “Nothing’s coming to an end. There’ll be plenty to do around here in the winter too. Some of the women will leave, and you, if they end up not letting you go, might get moved over to the animals. Šenk has plenty of them, and his mother is old.”

  “Why wouldn’t they let me go once the season is over? And besides, Ida might be taking care of the animals by then, don’t you think?” Teresa sniggered, and took the opportunity to quickly stretch out across the whole bed again, spreading her arms and legs wide, which she could only do before Ula and Gerta climbed in on either side.

  “Did you notice how we’d barely come in, and she was already running back out?” whispered Ula softly, so that ten-year-old Dorla wouldn’t overhear.

  “I did. And I also noticed that she took off before Zipfelka got back to the kitchen. I’ll bet she didn’t tell her again,” said Teresa, making a catty grimace.

  “Then she’ll lock her out of the room again, won’t she?”

  “And Ida will end up sleeping in the kitchen again,” chuckled Gerta, who had already found her there once, fast asleep with her head resting on the tabletop.

  “Or maybe not, maybe they’ll finally wipe the slate clean and she’ll stay over at Šenk’s. Wouldn’t that be something?”

  “Zipfelová would have a heart attack!”

  “Don’t exaggerate. She’s not blind; it wouldn’t come as a big surprise.”

  “I say by Christmas, Ida’s moved in.”

  “First, they need to have Helmut declared dead, and Zipfelová’s not about to do that. Not before a full year has passed. And even then, it may be too soon for her.”

  “What if Ida were to have him declared dead? Even though the process, especially getting the court to issue the d
eclaration, can take a while. But still, if the younger one puts it in motion, Zipfelová can say whatever she wants. It won’t make a difference.”

  Gerta looked at Ula in surprise. “How do you know all this?”

  “She could also find somebody who was on the front lines with him and might be able to attest to his death. The testimony of a fellow soldier is the most convincing argument. Ida could be free before the year is over.”

  Teresa and Gerta were silent.

  “My husband is a lawyer,” Ula then said softly. “I used to work in his office and helped him prepare his cases. That was before we had Dorla and Adi. If only he could see what’s become of us now.”

  Ula turned away and buried her face deep inside the mattress. She wouldn’t cry in front of Dorla, who was always straining to listen in on their conversations before falling asleep. From the day she had come back from the vineyard and slept through the rest of that afternoon, that night, and the following day, she no longer cried. Gerta and Teresa had tried in vain to get her to talk to them about what had happened so that they could console her. She refused to say a word about it; she would only cover her face and remain stubbornly silent. She wanted to wipe that day out of her mind completely, as if it had never happened.

  “But you can’t,” Teresa whispered to her, once Dorla’s breathing had finally become regular. “When they did it to me, it was twice in a row, each one held me for the other, as if I were an object. That was near Ledce. They dragged me into the woods. All I could do was bite the hand they were shoving into my face. To get back at me, they beat me until I was black and blue all over, no mercy, even in my stomach. I howled like an animal. And my mom, who was trying to wait for me, walking as slowly as she could so that I could still catch up to her in the convoy, then told me, ‘Go on and cry, dear girl, go on and cry. Let it all come out and wash away. Go ahead and cry, and with time, it will seem as if it never even happened. But if you don’t cry, you’ll bury it deep inside you and never be rid of it.’ That’s what she told me. Poor woman, if only she’d known that two days later, I wouldn’t be giving it a second thought anymore, that instead, I’d be crying over her.”

  Ula said nothing. She didn’t cry; she didn’t complain. She was living for a future in which she saw herself reunited with her husband, and tried to present the stay at Zipfelová’s to Dorla as a summer holiday spent with Granny. How did she manage to do it? Gerta privately wondered. She herself had become skin and bones during the march; her milk had dried up, and the sound of Barbora’s crying would often set her on edge. By now, old Zipfelová knew how to handle Barbora better than she did. It was only toward the end of the summer that Gerta finally managed to calm her inner shaking and started sleeping more peacefully and eating better.

  “So shouldn’t someone tell Ida?” asked Teresa.

  “Tell her what?”

  “That she can have Helmut declared dead and stop having to meet Hubert in secret? I mean, after all, shouldn’t someone tell her that she’s entitled to a happy life?”

  “I’m certainly not about to tell her,” Ula said. “Let her handle her life on her own. I’m not going to tell her, for starters, because of how she treats us. If it weren’t for old Zipfelová keeping an eye on her, that hand of hers would be pretty quick, the charming little Ida. I can’t tell you how often I’ve seen it in her eyes, how much she’d love to slap me.”

  “Well, there you go, at least she’d get out of here quicker,” quipped Teresa.

  “Zipfelová would end up in her grave sooner, and then who knows what would happen to us. You’d go to the Krupas; I’d go to the Hrazdíras; and the Jechs would get the rest of us. No way am I saying a word. She can figure it out for herself, if Hubert Šenk is worth it to her.”

  “I’d be happy for Šenk,” said Gerta. “He worships the ground she walks on. He’s a grown man; by now, he deserves to have a good wife at home. He sits around in the evenings all alone with his mother. I kind of feel sorry for him.”

  “Supposedly, he looks after her all by himself. She can barely even walk, at least according to Zipfelová.”

  “He really could use having a woman around to help him. It’s high time for Ida to get herself over there.”

  Ula shook her head.

  “To each her own. She can fend for herself. But it won’t be easy for her. That case is going to take years. And the longer she waits, the longer it will drag on, especially if that Helmut of hers was an Austrian citizen,” replied Ula spitefully, turning over onto her other side.

  “Enough of this now, Gerta,” she added. “Let’s go to sleep.”

  Teresa looked at Gerta, shrugged her shoulders, and turned onto her side in such a way that her body curved around Ula’s back and buttocks. Gerta undressed down to her slip, tossed her work skirt over the handlebar of Barbora’s carriage, and blew out the candle. In the darkness, she slipped into bed alongside Teresa, also adjusting herself to conform to the curves of her back, her hips, and the crook of her knees. She draped her arm over Teresa’s waist and felt her hand. She placed the palm of her hand over the back of Teresa’s, and their warm, sweaty fingers intertwined.

  XXI

  For the first time since leaving Brno, Gerta felt almost happy. Her thoughts were no longer constantly turning back to her father or to Friedrich, not even to flashbacks from the march, nor was she being plagued by fears of the future. At least not for the moment. After many long months, she was finally carefree and delighting in every minute of this day.

  Inside the church, she stood next to Johanna and her two four-year-old know-it-alls, who were constantly searching for something on the floor. Barbora was fastened to her chest with a large white cheesecloth, which Ida had lent her for today’s occasion. Ulrika, Dorla, and Teresa stood behind her, leaning back against the wall of the church and inhaling the scent of incense, which they hadn’t smelled in such a long time. Up until today, they hadn’t been allowed inside the church. The Perná residents wouldn’t tolerate it. Gerta didn’t mind; she no longer needed any church or any God, but she was happy for Teresa. She saw that behind the cheerful facade that Teresa put up night after night for Ula, who was sinking ever deeper into her own world out of which at times not even Dorla could pull her, beneath the brave countenance, she was struggling and hurting, torn between wanting to forgive and wanting to take revenge on those who had done this to her, and perhaps even on herself. Her greasy strands of hair were plastered to her scalp and pulled back into a matted bun at the nape of her neck. Gerta never saw her bathe or rinse her hair with the chamomile extract that Zipfelová prepared every two weeks in a large pot on the stove. She observed the positive smile on her now-healed lips—with which she would try to cheer up Ula—and at the same time the neglected outward appearance in which she showed not the slightest interest. She’s going to rot away, Gerta thought all too often as she breathed in the pungent, sour smell of Teresa’s sweat before falling asleep.

  But right now, she was standing at the Dožínky harvest mass, inhaling the familiar scents that she and her mother used to look forward to every Sunday. The collective singing of the villagers, which on this day included the Germans as well as the Czechs, the old-timers as well as the newcomers, and even the harvest brigaders from Brno, filled her with happiness. Absurd as that was, given the circumstances. Yet when she looked around at the faces of Marie, Hermína, Johanna, and the others, she saw that they, too, were smiling.

  The priest ended the mass. Everyone made the sign of the cross, and people began to get up from the pews. Gerta along with the other German girls waited until everyone else left, and only then, under Zipfelová’s supervision, did they peel themselves away from the back wall of the church and walk out into the sun, still warm on this last Sunday in August. In front of the church, the crowd assembled for the Dožínky procession.

  Everyone was visibly excited by the commotion, which for the past five wartime years the residents of Perná had only been able to enjoy in the form of a memory. Thi
s was the first time since the war ended that the Dožínky harvest festival was again taking place, albeit with a new cast of characters. For the past two weeks, Ida, who was involved with the preparations, had been going every other evening to meetings at the pub, and it was her doing that the German women were allowed to take part in the festivities. This was certainly not out of any sense of sympathy, but rather because she didn’t want to be stuck at home with old Zipfelová keeping an eye on them. Instead, she had managed to arrange for them to take part in the parade, so that she herself wouldn’t have to miss out on participating. The women were grateful to her just the same. It was an opportunity for them to feel like human beings again. Not the kind no one respected, who had no rights, who were only good for working, and whom everyone wanted to get rid of—but human beings entitled to enjoy the fruits of their labors.

  The procession lined up behind two festooned wagons. On the previous day, Ida, Gerta, Teresa, the women from the Hrazdíras, and all the children had helped to decorate them. They had wound stalks of grain and flowers, which they had picked in the meadows that morning, around the slats of the hay wagon and had decorated the scythes and sickles that would be carried in the procession as well.

  On this day, the musicians began to line up behind the wagons, followed by the residents of Perná, two by two, some like Ida wearing festive traditional costumes, others in their work clothes, because those were all they had. The new landowners stood off to either side of the procession; they didn’t know what to do as they weren’t familiar with the custom. Only one family from Kyjov, wearing more elaborate traditional costumes with different embroidery from that of the locals, got in line toward the end of the procession and tried to fit in among the Perná folk. The mother, wearing a sizable headdress, nudged her children along ahead of her like a mother hen, clucked something over her shoulder to her husband, who was tamping down his pipe and patiently waiting, and threw friendly smiles around at her new neighbors who smiled back at her. What a beautiful day, thought Gerta, standing off to the side and waiting to see where Zipfelová would position them.