Františka’s flat has been modernized: a bathroom with a shower, wall heat behind pine panels, a cast-iron spiral staircase winding up to loft bedrooms. Winter tourists have started coming for the skiing. For two weeks each Christmas, the height of the season, Františka and her husband are required to vacate the premises so that Jungmann can put up clients here. Yes, he has owned the property since 1990. He bought it shortly after evicting Anežka and the kids from the orphanage. She shrugs. It’s a quiet life with little trouble, a price she and her husband decided they were willing to pay.
Waiting for Anežka, nibbling snacks, I ask her what she meant by trouble, exactly, and would she mind if I took notes? No notes. She does not want to chance that anything she says can be used by the police. Františka explains that she trained to be a school teacher. Her husband studied mechanical engineering. They currently take care of this property and farm the few hectares out back. She is Mr. Zámečník’s mole. Her husband doesn’t know this. He called the police yesterday when I was snooping in the orphanage. He claims he’s worried that the building is a fire trap. Does he know Anežka was here last night? No way to be certain. We should not stay long.
“Did you know Anežka growing up?”
“Ne, ne. I studied education at Charles University. Prague was my home. I only come back here in 1990.” At my prompting, she admits that after landing her first teaching job in Prague she foolishly signed Charter 77.
“You were original signer?” Josef sounds impressed.
“Ne, I was not dissident. But I felt is wrong we must look over shoulder at each step for StB. Why we should live like this?”
“ ‘There are certain causes worth suffering for.’ ” Josef admits he’s quoting Havel.
The cost outweighed her feeble protest’s worth. Not only did she lose her job, so did her husband. Their friends in Prague had telephones disconnected, driver’s licenses taken away. Neighbors no longer spoke to them. She and her family had no choice but to move home with her mother, my aunt Marie, in Žamberk. With no opportunity to teach, she earned what she could as a nanny. Her husband found pick-up work as a mason. In 1990, with the new government, she landed a teaching position at the high school in Letohrad. That’s how she got to know Anton Zámečník.
We are encouraged to finish our tea. Time is short. Anežka must be fussing over her precious child. We’ll find her in the orphanage. Františka will keep an eye on the road. We should watch for her signal. She’ll put the African violet in the side window if her network alerts her that the police are approaching. If we’re quick, we can escape through the field past the barn into the woods. She’ll stall the police, but, if questioned, she’ll claim she had no idea we were here. If we’re caught and say otherwise, she’ll testify in court that we’re lying. Her sacrificial days are over. Understood?
Chapter Eighteen
Saturday Morning’s Meeting with Anežka
The ivy dismantling the stone foundation has sent legions of runners up the log walls. It’s an inexorable process I understand well and I feel a great deal of sympathy for the besieged orphanage. Those shrinking aqua-blue islands of plaster and rotting eaves and chipped gargoyles once graced a handsome building. Is it nostalgia for better times that lures my sister back here? What does she want with this place?
“In a cavern, in a canyon ...” I finger the harmonica in my pocket. I brought it to show her. Dana gave me the idea. One thing from home.
A panel wagon with a yellow lightning-bolt logo is parked in the mud between buildings. The engineer husband’s wagon, no doubt. “Want to disable it?” I say to Josef. “Pull a spark plug wire?”
He gets that I’m joking and smiles, but his smile is thin-lipped.
After crossing the muddy field we wade into the uncut tallgrass near the building and my toe stubs something immoveable. I stop and part the grass and discover a grave monument, a gray slab, canted almost horizontal. Scraping away a layer of algae, I uncover a decoupaged photo of a pilot in the Czech air corps. I ask Milada to read the inscription. Neither Josef without his glasses nor I without my magnifier can see it. There he is. František Kacalek, the name on Anežka’s birth certificate. Cast into the concrete pad at the base of the fallen monument is a weathered bronze statuette of an American bison maybe six inches tall, the size of a child’s toy. We can speculate about the grave, but a toy buffalo?
“Save questions for your sister. Come. We must hurry.”
* * *
The cavernous interior of the orphanage is damp and chilly. The stout beams bearing up the loft will support the sky long after the roof has collapsed. Somewhere behind that shaft of sunlight streaming down through that gaping hole, Anežka must be watching me, but I can’t see her.
“Ciao,” Milada says to my invisible sister.
The answering “Ciao” is hesitant. Gradually my sister—if she’s actually my sister—coalesces out of the ether like a developing Polaroid. By degrees I notice a cane leaning against a chair. Sitting on the chair, back erect, knees primly locked as though waiting to be deposed, she’s wearing the same fifties-era schoolgirl outfit—gray wool sweater over white blouse, plaid wool skirt, knee-high sheer white stockings, loafers—I saw on the woman I met yesterday at my aunt’s house in Oucmanice. Lounging on her lap is the same plump cat that skittered away last time I was here, its gray fur blending so well with her outfit the cat would be invisible if not for the sweep of its tail.
“If you wish to ask questions, we must begin,” she says matter-of-factly. “We may be interrupted soon.”
“I understand you have some questions for me?”
“Would you mind to sit? You are very tall. When you stand like this …”
Milada shakes, sniffs, spreads out the crib blanket. We sit on cacti and bucking broncos. Having trouble today with his left leg, Josef excuses himself and stands to one side. He volunteers to be the one to check for Františka’s signal.
“Blanket was gift from my father. I never know him. He was shot down over France when I have one year. You have seen his grave?”
“The monument with the buffalo? Yes, just now, coming in …” She’s looking at me earnestly, but not, I suspect, for the reason I’d hoped. “It’s true, Mr. Zámečník did find a birth certificate listing the pilot as your father.” Her round face with its porcelain pale skin varies its blank expression with just a hint of a curious smile.
“You have reason to doubt?”
“Yesterday we saw a record book at Halbrstat’s that lists my father as your father. Your date of birth is April 2, 1939, right?” She nods agreeably enough, her hand the while stroking her cat’s fur. “Someone tried to erase my father’s name, we don’t know who. It’s faint, but you can still see his name written on the page for House Number Seven on the line beside your name.”
“Your father?”
“František Lenoch.”
“My mother has spoken of him. Where is he?”
“In Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He left Písečná in December, 1938. He was sixteen. A few months later you were born.”
“I have been told you have letters written to your father by my mother, yes? I should like to see them.”
“As a matter of fact, I was the one who found those letters. I had them translated. That’s how I learned about you. I was told you are my half-sister.”
“I am sorry for this mistake you have been told. You see it is not true.”
“But why would your mother write to my father in Iowa when she was pregnant with you?” The way she methodically strokes her cat, I see she’s going to believe what she came here believing. “Anyway, tell me …” I blurt this before better judgment can stop me, “why is there a buffalo on your …?”
“I have not lived here for three years. It gave no money for repair. Someone cutting hay has knocked over stone. Buffalo, it was my toy. It came with me. I do not remember, of course. I had only two years then. Nuns say I asked to put to grave so I might feel close to my father.”
The theft of the translations might work to my advantage. “Those letters are in Prague. I’d be happy to show them to you, but we should probably get going. Come to Prague with me. I have to return to Seattle. I’m sorry I can’t stay longer, but at least we’d have a chance to talk and you could read your mother’s letters.” Hearing the distant grumble of a truck on the road, Josef ducks out to watch for Františka’s signal. Anežka leans forward, tipping her chair. Her alarmed cat ceases sweeping her lap with its ragged tail. “I’m not trying to convince you of anything.” The chill is getting into my bones, the odor of rodent is unpleasant, and I especially don’t want to be here when the police arrive and risk any bureaucratic entanglement that could delay my departure. “If you are really not my sister, then you’re not. I’m sorry I bothered you. I didn’t mean to cause trouble.”
“Don’t worry, is trouble already.” Did I really imagine she would simply fly away the moment I opened her cage? Images of jitterbugging Isis come to mind. “My mother said to me, if you will live at inn, you will work for Jungmann. Is good enough for Anežka.”
“Work for Jungmann? In his club?” Some mother. I’m more curious than ever to meet this strange woman.
She strokes the cat until it lies quietly again. “Rosalie, my little gold lady bug. Anežka will not leave you alone. Never again. Anežka give promise to you.”
“You named your cat after your mother? That’s sweet.”
“Jste příliš laskavý.”
Milada translates this in a whisper. “She say you are too kind. She does not of course really mean kind.”
Lest we think she’s merely being sentimental, she explains that for three years she’s been hiding in Oucmanice. She has taken the train to Lanšperk and then walked here, moving mostly at night, so she could bring food to her child. “When she was kitten, one hind leg almost chew off. She is left to die by her mother.” Calling on her nursing skills, Anežka sewed and bound the ripped tendon. “In 1989 Jungmann close orphanage. I am forced to move to Písečná inn. My little golden bug is terrified. She hide. This is only home she has ever known. I could not find her to bring with me. She is grown now, but she expect me to bring food.”
“What if Františka fed her? Just while you were away, I mean.”
“Husband from Františka will put poison.”
“Františka will explain to her husband.”
“Ne!” she says, losing her composure. “You must keep your tongue behind your teeth.”
Milada asks me what I want to do. It seems unlikely that I can convince her to take the train to Prague today. If only to help her elude the police, Milada would be willing to put her up in the storm cellar at the farm, though Anežka would have to be kept hidden from her father as his loyalty in this matter might be questionable. It would be at best a temporary solution. What, I ask, if Anežka doesn’t want to go?
“What do you remember of the orphanage, I mean when you were growing up?” I’m trying to understand her attachment to this forsaken place.
“Oh, in early days it was crowded.” I nod, pen busy in my Steno. “More than fifty childrens are pushed together in one room for school. Room was just here.” She points along the corridor of posts where interior walls have been removed. “We sat at desks that are like table. Two kids to one table. Boys with boys. Girls with girls. We sat always with shoulders very straight and say respectfully ‘yes sir’ to teacher. A nun watch at back of room. If you are not giving eyes to teacher’s authority, Pocítíte ránu rákoskou. You will feel lash of her stick. On wall was old map of Europe left from war. It show our land belonging to Germany. I look at map and think my father die to save our country, but is like he die for nothing. Still, it gave to me comfort to know that my father was hero.”
“Did you receive visits? What about your mother? She lived not very far away. You knew this, right? She come to visit?”
At this mention of her mother, Anežka’s eyes take on a drifty look. Though she continues to sit with her knees primly locked, her hand ceases stroking the cat and its fur bristles.
“It was unlucky child who receive letter or visit. We hid ends of candles. If girl receive letter we force her to light candle and we put heads under blanket and she must read so we will pretend what is in house of them.” She points upstairs. The dormitory for the girls was in the loft. “We were very jealous, so if she don’t cooperate we report to nuns and enjoy when she is beaten with stick for stealing candles.”
“But what about your mother? You hear from her?”
She pauses before answering. Her arms encircle the cat, which shows no sign of protesting. “Saturday afternoon was visitor time. Each Saturday afternoon when I am small I refuse to go outside and play with others. Each Saturday afternoon when I am small I stay inside. I am certain she will visit so I am waiting.”
“She never visited?
“She send money. Yes? On Sunday I eat fresh koláč and fat sausage.” She sighs and releases the cat and the cat reclines again and its tail resumes its sweep of her lap. “Is better she never visit. There was such terrible crying after visit.” She shakes her head at the sadness of this memory. “We pitied those children. Their hearts never stop breaking.”
“Ever hear from the guy’s family?” I resist the impulse to add the pilot you claim is your father.
“Ano, samozřejmě. Each week.” I catch the sarcasm even before Milada translates. “If your father is my father, like you say, why he did not write letter?”
Milada is giving me the high sign. We shouldn’t be here when the police arrive, which they’re certain to do before long. “It’s a fair question. I don’t know. I was hoping you or your mother could enlighten me.”
“He say I am his daughter, why he is not here? Jungmann say it, too. It is funny, don’t you think? All my life I have no parent. Now everyone want to claim me.”
“Come with me to Prague. I’d love to talk some more.”
“You know what will happen to my little golden bug?”
“Happen? What do you mean?”
“My child. If I leave, what do you think will happen?”
“We’ll bring her along.” I look to Milada for confirmation. “Not a problem.”
“This is her home.” She leans toward me again. So far no sign from Josef, but how long can we chance it? The cat again arches its back, threatening to leap from her lap. “Jungmann took away my home but he don’t care. Is nothing to him. Investment. Maybe he will build ski resort.” Her porcelain visage, oddly smooth given her age—this may just be my eyes and the dim light—hardly shows a flicker of the emotion in her words. “You know why I am here? Why today I do not hide? I am here to make deal with him. I want my home back. You understand, yes?”
“Not entirely sure. What about the fire? What’s to prevent him from simply having you arrested?”
“It make me sick how he make big business from young girls. It make me sick at heart. I raised some of those girls. They were my children.”
“I have a room in my home in Seattle with a giant map of the Czech Republic. It takes up most of the wall. It has every village. It even has Hnátnice.” I see by the way she hesitates that she is surprised to hear that her tiny tiny village might be visible to the world I inhabit. “I was hoping I could convince you to come there and live with me. You and your … child.”
She wrinkles her brow. Isn’t it true that beginnings often happen suddenly? The door opens to the flight cage, the bird hesitates, and suddenly the world is new again?
“We have a passport for you and a visa.”
“If I try to leave I will be arrested. What I must do with my child?”
“Looks to me like if you stay here you’ll be arrested. What will you do?”
“I did not start fire. Jungmann know this.”
“Anyone else know this? Any witnesses?”
“One. Pavel Halbrstat.”
“He was there? He saw?”
“He was in kitchen. He saw oil spill. Jungmann always smoki
ng pipe. Jungmann drop match, oil leap to flame. Halbrstat is near sink. He could throw water, but it is oil, maybe only sand will stop fire. Soon is smoke like crazy. I leave. My worry is to warn to everyone take children immediately outside.”
“If Halbrstat cooperates with him, you get blamed.” I look at Milada, I can’t help it. She doesn’t need the reminder. “Could your … could Mr. Zámečník hire a good lawyer for her?”
“Of course. But Anežka can be held for months without hearing.” She’s looking meaningfully at me. Anežka, as far as we know, has not been apprised of my medical situation. “Is better if she will leave now before arrest.”
But it’s not to be. The plump cat, feeling her mother’s agitation, leaps from Anežka’s lap, throws itself along the hall with a hitch in its stride, swivels, slips, and skitters as though possessed up the ladder stairs into the loft. Anežka rises, steadying herself with the cane. Trouble with a hip slows her down.
“She run away when I was forced to leave. It is week before she trusted me again.” Her sagging shoulders, her tone, her weary expression, everything about her is resigned to the inevitable. “Go now,” she says. “It is best if you are not here when Jungmann come.”
“You know for sure he’s coming?”
“I have arranged. I will offer deal. I am prepared.”
She never says what deal. It doesn’t matter. Nothing I could do or say would convince her to leave with us. My last image, in her waning moment of freedom, is of her shaking and folding the crib blanket and pressing it to her cheek, her slate hair pulled back into a knot that is mirrored in her expression as she looks up, despairingly, toward the loft. Her mistrusting child has disappeared again.
An anxious Josef is outside watching the road. The main thing is to stay out of sight and avoid unnecessary trouble. We keep to the birch woods, ducking deeper into the trees the few times we hear a vehicle approaching.
At most a half hour after leaving the orphanage, ensconced on the bus to Písečná that’s making the milk run and stopping in every village, wondering how any of this can come to anything but an unpleasant end, I tell Josef and Milada I regret leaving her there like that. Milada shrugs. It was her choice to stay. Still. I tell them a story of something that happened to me when I was three.
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