Petra’s head kept sinking for a second or two of unconsciousness and then jerking up again.
“You should lie down,” said Karel. “Your father is taking the evening train and won’t be here until nine.”
She made no move to go to his bedroom, and he didn’t insist.
Vlasta stopped rocking her empty coffee cup on its saucer and said, “Why don’t you stretch out for a while, Petra? You’ve been on the go since we left the Institute, you didn’t sleep last night, you didn’t sleep on the train, you’ve eaten practically nothing, and you’re all in.”
Thomas thought he should bolster Vlasta’s advice. Besides he hoped that Vlasta would pay some attention to him once Petra was out of the room. The few hours of the few days he’d had with Vlasta in Prague had been intensely alive. There had been nothing physical between them—not that he hadn’t longed to possess her, to watch her eyes dim in the moment of giving—but he’d felt so close to her, and happy in a way he could not remember ever having experienced. Since Petra’s liberation, however, Vlasta had hardly talked to him. The two girls had been reliving the getaway and life under the Old Crow; their prattling had amused him at first, their affection toward one another had charmed him; after enough of the same thing, though, he had begun to wish Petra’s vivacity to hell.
“I think Vlasta and Karel are right,” he said magisterially. “And furthermore, if you expect the session with your father to be easy, you’re mistaken. You’ll need all your wits about you, Petra, and in the state you’re in, you couldn’t talk sensibly to a cowherd.”
Petra shook her head obstinately and said with a simplicity which softened Thomas, “All the people I love in this world are here with me now, and you want me to leave this room and sleep. I haven’t seen Uncle Karel for ages; now I want to look at him and hear him talk.”
The slate gray in Vlasta’s eyes became darker, and she smiled at Thomas as if to say: You see?
Karel said, “I’ll still be talking tomorrow, Petra.”
Petra was insistent. “The Old Crow even had the lights shut off in the punishment room. I’ve done nothing but sleep and eat.”
“Suit yourself,” shrugged Karel. He was in no mood to argue, or to arrange, or to plan ahead. He had opened his home to the three fugitives, because they had no other place to go. He was ready to put up with Joseph, too, because where else could they hold the council? Joseph’s house would have meant Lida clamoring implacably for Petra’s immediate return to the Institute; and he could understand that Thomas didn’t want to bring Vlasta to St. Nepomuk.
Beyond that, his thoughts were muddled, his observations incongruous and disconnected. His impression of Vlasta was blurred. She made him think of a palimpsest under whose surface lettering faint traces were discernible—but whether these were streaks in the parchment or the remains of the original writing was impossible to ascertain. There was something about her of an unrobed nun who, regardless of what she might wear, could not hide her former calling. She was close-mouthed and retiring and opened up only when she spoke to Petra, or talked of Petra, or looked at her. This could be a way of protecting herself—she had been brought to Thomas’s home grounds and probably was unsure of herself, of the behavior expected of her, and above all, of her future. She must be aware of the fact that a wife would have to be faced at one time or another; she might be bothered by the whole small-town setup in which even the most innocuous words and gestures and chance meetings set tongues wagging; and there was himself, about whose position and role and attitudes she knew nothing.
Nor could he find a simple denominator for the relationship between her and Thomas. It was obvious that Thomas was taken with her. Thomas would say a few words to her in a diffident voice, and then stop. He would reach out and recall his hand. He would mention his part in what he called the kidnapping, and suddenly laugh at the silliness of it. He would praise the advantages of Rodnik and reverse himself and belittle everything in the town.
Vlasta let him dangle. Karel would have found her cruel if he had been able to say definitely that her manner was the result of design or of reaction to Thomas’s approaches. But for all he could see, there was no reaction, there was no design—she was completely bland, she was irresponsive with such a lack of guile that he couldn’t even get annoyed at her.
The one positive feature, Karel thought, was that Petra, despite her protestations, seemed less infatuated with him. But his relief over this was a minor item compared to the turbulence unloosed in him by the entry of Thomas with this oddly beautiful girl. All his feelings for Kitty, controlled by Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Brother’s Wife, repressed by denying himself her company, sublimated by hard work, had leaped up like a flame out of ashes. A man can build himself a cage and resign himself and go on for a long while and even be quite happy—until a glimpse into other possibilities buckles and breaks the bars. What if Thomas let go of Kitty? What if the reserved young teacher was the acid that ate through the chain by which Kitty was fettered and by which his own moral code was held in place?
He wished Petra had never seen the inside of the Declerques Institute; he wished that Thomas and Vlasta had never met, or if they had to meet, had never come to his flat. A minute later he wished that his brother would commit adultery so that he might be justified in committing adultery with his brother’s wife—only to condemn himself for the wish and be agonized by it.
Vlasta fingered her silver heart uncomfortably. He caught himself. He had been staring at her as if her face or the line of her throat were features on a map and could show him a way. “That’s an interesting old locket, Miss Rehan!” he said. “May I see it?” And he stretched out his hand.
The paleness of her cheeks changed by a shade. Her fingers left the medallion, and it glided to its place between her breasts.
“Karel!” said Thomas, “that’s Vlasta’s affair!”
Karel’s hand still lay open on the table; the sleeve of his shirt had slid back, and the white, sinewy lower arm with the blue of the tattooed serial number was exposed.
“Vlasta never shows it to anyone,” said Petra. She was jealous of the locket.
For a moment, Vlasta’s eyes rested on the tattoo; then she reached up, unclasped the thin chain, and handed the silver heart to Karel.
He knew he should not open it. But there was a compulsion in him—he had to see the man’s picture inside; it would give him the answer, about Vlasta, about Thomas.
He unsnapped the catch, looked—and quickly closed the locket and gave it back.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“It’s no secret,” said Vlasta, “nothing mysterious, nothing holy.” With a light pressure of her smooth thumb, she opened the silver heart again and held it in front of her, her face set.
Both Thomas and Petra saw that inside the delicately hammered shell lay another heart, roughly shaped out of brownish-gray matter.
“Chewed bread,” said Vlasta, “smuggled out of a death cell at Pankrac Prison....We loved one another.”
Petra began to sob.
“Don’t cry!” Vlasta said harshly, snapping the silver heart closed. “Don’t cry! Help me to put it back on!”
Her fingers shaking, Petra fixed the stubborn clasp at the nape of Vlasta’s neck.
Vlasta sat rigid.
“I’m sorry,” Karel said again, “terribly sorry.” He felt cheap.
Joseph slammed his hat down on the table, slipped out of his coat, wiped the sweat off his forehead, sat down, looked from one to the other, and said, “Well?”
“Well—what?” said Karel.
“I want an explanation!”
“I gave it to you over the phone.”
“I think you’re utterly irresponsible—all of you! Young people are in school to learn discipline, and their teachers are there to teach it, not to further infractions. Members of the family, no matter how sympathetic or romantic they may feel, cannot go in for the kind of escapades Thomas arranged and you, Karel, have abetted.”
“Coffee, Joseph?” Karel asked, and to Petra, “If you don’t mind, get the pot out of the kitchen.”
“Thank you, no,” said Joseph. “I don’t intend to make a social evening of this.” On the train, he had had several hours’ time to prepare a scathing reproach. “I just want to say a few words to all of you. But first—Petra, tomorrow you and I are going back to Prague....”
Perhaps it was best so, thought Karel. Remove the kid, remove Vlasta, remove everything that was vexing and unmanageable.
“Please—” Petra spoke up in a high voice strained by the excitement and hope of the recent days. “Please—I’ve never had a friend. Vlasta is my friend....”
It stopped Joseph.
It dragged Karel out of the fog of his what if’s. The business of the evening was not his fine cerebrations and measurings of conscience.
“Vlasta is her friend,” he repeated, pointedly.
Joseph was fumbling. “Petra,” he said, “what do you think your mother is going to say about this?”
“We can find that out later—after we know what we’re going to do, and can tell Lida.” Karel took his pipe out of the ash tray on the table. “I do think, however, that returning Petra to the Institute solves nothing and will be bad for her.” He lit the pipe deliberately.
Joseph threw him a furious glance. “Keep your prescriptions! You don’t like me in the job I have, and you don’t like my child in the school I picked for her. If you want to run people’s lives, get yourself some people who’re too dumb to know your game. And for Christ’s sakes, buy yourself some decent tobacco!” He noticed Vlasta’s eyes wandering from him to Karel and back, and felt embarrassed over the dirty family linen he’d been washing before her. “And you, Miss Rehan!” he said gruffly, “did you know that Petra actually struck your employer in the face?”
“Yes,” said Vlasta. “Mademoiselle had it coming to her.”
Joseph studied her coldly. “Once upon a time, Miss Rehan, I was an employer myself. Mademoiselle Declerques is fully entitled—”
“I have left her employ, Mr. Benda.”
He looked at her shoulders and breasts and grunted something. He seemed to have spent his anger, but recovered with an attack on Thomas, “By God, you know what I’ve been exposed to! And on top of that—the Declerques woman was hysterical. She came running to Parliament, had me pulled out of a committee meeting. She was on the verge of starting a police search! I had to threaten her to stop her, otherwise the whole mess would have come out in the Prague papers. Don’t you people ever realize the consequences of what you do?”
Karel knocked the ashes out of his pipe. “And now that you’ve got all that off your chest, Joseph, what do you propose?”
Petra’s head was nodding again, her dark curls hung loosely over her cheeks and moved slightly with her regular breathing.
“You should have put her to bed!” Joseph whispered hoarsely. He got up from his chair. One arm under Petra’s knees, the other around her shoulders, he lifted her gently and carried her to Karel’s bedroom. The door remained open behind him, and his brothers and Vlasta saw him lower her carefully to the bed, take off her shoes, cover her, and kiss her. Petra sleepily raised her hands to him and let them fall again on the tufted quilt.
“Poor waif,” said Joseph as he noiselessly closed the door. “And I thought she really enjoyed being at the Institute....”
Vlasta gave him a tired smile. “Did you enjoy being young, Mr. Benda?”
“I don’t know,” he said, “I don’t remember.”
“It’s awfully difficult,” said Vlasta, “especially if you get your love in dribs and drabs.”
He liked her. The way she held her head reminded him of Magda Tessinova. “Now, now,” he placated, sitting back and showing his masculine unconcern, “after all, every one of us managed to grow up!”
“Why, yes!” Thomas said maliciously. “We grew up, and it’s plain that we’re as happy as can be....Why don’t you give Petra a chance? You know she needs support and companionship and warmth—”
“Since when do you know when someone is in need of that?” Joseph cut into him. “You’re as callous as you’re irresponsible.”
“Joseph!” Thomas had seen Vlasta’s face. His own reddened with chagrin over the drunken boasts he had made to her of the secret bond between himself and his brother.
“What do you propose, Joseph?” Karel asked again.
“Bless the child’s heart!” said Joseph, “she’s bound to outgrow this, and one day will laugh at it. I will say, though, that she’s shown courage—the Benda courage, Miss Rehan!” He was talking to hide the fact that he was baffled. If the Institute was bad for Petra—and he was half prepared to believe it—what could he do with her? And what would he tell Dolezhal and what would Dolezhal say? “Well, Miss Rehan—you’ve observed her. What do you feel we ought to do?”
Vlasta hesitated. One step after another, she had let herself be led into something that grew increasingly unfeasible, almost forbidding, and she certainly couldn’t advance Thomas’s plan and promote a job for herself. She restricted herself to, “It would not be advisable to send Petra back to Mademoiselle Declerques.”
“Well,” said Joseph, “is there any other boarding school of equal standing in Prague?”
“No. There are, of course, families that will take in boarders.”
“Why not put her in an orphanage?” suggested Thomas.
“Oh, stop it, now!” Karel was very serious. “Here we are sitting together, the three of us, for the first time since I don’t know when, to discuss the one thing—I hate to say this before Miss Rehan—the one thing that can bring us together, namely the only Benda of the next generation—and look at us!”
“I am neither callous nor irresponsible,” Thomas stated. “Before Miss Rehan and I ever set to work to get Petra out...” He spoke guardedly. He had to hide how deeply he desired Vlasta to stay in Rodnik. “Before any of that, we had in mind a sort of arrangement...”
“You did?” Joseph said with some irony. “You might have consulted me. And if you’re so considerate and responsible, Thomas—why didn’t you come to me and let me know what was up at the Institute? Why did I have to be told by Mademoiselle Declerques that my daughter had disappeared? Why did I have to fret and eat my heart out, hour after hour, imagining all sorts of things, worrying that she was in the hands of unscrupulous people, or run over, or wandering through the streets cold, and hungry and without a penny? I’m her father, you know? I’ve got feelings, too!”
Thomas, whose attempt had been indecisive enough, reacted with morose silence. But Karel said coolly, “Leave your feelings out of it, Joseph. For once, we’re going to tackle the issue not from your viewpoint, but from someone else’s—Petra’s.”
“And I suppose you know what’s best for the child and have it all down pat!”
“More or less,” Karel replied. “It’s Thomas’s proposal, and it’s good.”
Thomas sat up. He hadn’t expected Karel to back up his plan that solidly. Then he thought: The heart has done it. A heart made out of bread chewed by a lover I’ll never be able to replace—a dead lover, a man who died in a cause for which I only mouthed words....There was a tie between the blue number on Karel’s arm and the age-hardened bread, and this tie excluded him.
“All right!” Joseph said impatiently, “let’s have it!”
“Oh. Yes...” Thomas came to. “What I had in mind was—”
He began to develop the plan for Petra’s education, the way he had sketched it to Vlasta in Prague; but his effort to be impersonal about it made him sound ponderous.
Joseph easily peeled the oratory off the essentials. The project had its points. He let Thomas talk on, and spent the time eying Vlasta. He had had women in Prague. There was an address on Avenue King George VI, first class and guaranteed to be politically reliable, because you had to watch your step in these affairs. But Vlasta was something else, something out of the ordinary, and to it wo
uld be added the titillation of her being under his own roof.
Thomas seemed to have finished. Joseph felt that the others were waiting for him.
“And you approve of this idea, Miss Rehan?”
“It’s better for Petra that she stay here,” she said.
“Very well, then!” Joseph tried to organize the scattered details of Thomas’s suggestions, “so we’ll re-enter her for form’s sake in the Rodnik High School, and Miss Rehan will live at my house—” he saw Lida’s flat nose puckered in doubt, saw the pleasant vista of the household with Vlasta at the breakfast table—“I’m happy to welcome you, my dear; I’m sure you’ll be comfortable.”
“I don’t know that I’ll stay,” she said.
“But without you, everything would be impossible!” Thomas’s mouth trembled. “Without you—what will Petra...”
“Please, stay with us,” said Karel—and wanted to retract his request the moment the words had formed themselves.
The ghost of his peasant grin played around Joseph’s lips. “You gave up your job, Miss Rehan—where else would you go?”
Where else could she go?...“But I can’t live in your home, Mr. Benda!” she said with renewed firmness.
“Of course you can!” Joseph was his most genial self. “There are no decent rooms to be had in this town. You’ll be our guest, Mrs. Benda’s and mine, and the financial arrangements, believe me, will be entirely to your satisfaction.”
He extended his big paw.
She took it reluctantly. “I know mathematics, and languages,” she said, and wanted to run. These Benda brothers who hacked at each other—and Petra, among them, had been like a stranger, too—the heart she had shown...What had she let herself in for?
“Oh we’ll divide the work!” Thomas’s voice came warm and soothing. “I’ve got a degree in philosophy; I’ll cover the other subjects.”
“You?” said Joseph.
“Don’t you trust me to know as much as a high school teacher?”
Joseph frowned. It was a remarkable offer coming from the great Spokesman, a most peculiar way of making up for a prank. “I’ll pay Miss Rehan, naturally, he said, but I take it your contribution is voluntary?”
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