“Turn over, please. And try to relax.”
Eyes fixed on the ceiling, she made an effort to slacken her tensed muscles and make herself comfortable. The doctor, or rather the trainee, placed a chair behind her head and sat down. Having rubbed his fingers with an oil that smelled like a jungle after the passing of a monsoon, he rubbed her nostrils and, like some mad painter, used the tips of his fingers to draw all kinds of doodles and scrawls on her cheeks, chin and forehead.
Now his fingers slid down her neck, over her collarbone, to her shoulders. They followed the shape of the bone from which the ribs emerge. Through her silk underclothes, they traced the outer circle of her breasts. Then, briefly, he put pressure on the breasts themselves. Half dead from the shock, she couldn’t so much as ask herself if this formed part of the treatment.
But the upper part of her body was already wrapped in a blanket, and the doctor’s fingers were now playing with her belly. They prodded its muscles, and, in a way that revealed they were experienced, put pressure there where the belly ends. At that moment she felt a wave of desire that spread rapidly to the tips of her fingers and the ends of her hair, and showed no sign of going away. The patient lay there with her eyes firmly closed, half maddened. The doctor’s soothing voice simply intensified her feeling of pleasure.
“I’ll be giving you this treatment every day for a week. What I’m doing is touching certain nerve endings in order to give your body energy, strength so that it will be able to cure itself.”
Then he picked up several folded paper envelopes, tied with different colored ribbons. He gave her instructions regarding the medicines she had to prepare for herself using the herbs in the envelopes which she had to drink in the form of infusions, and place on her body as poultices, especially on her chest, stomach, and kidneys.
“After this week,” he added, “I will let you rest for ten days. We will then go ahead with a further week of intensive treatment. At that point we’ll take stock of the situation. Perhaps you will already be feeling better and will not require any further care from me.”
As he spoke, he put his objects back into his case. Only now and again did he run his eyes over the face, neck, and shoulders of his patient, as if involuntarily, like a shy child. She suddenly felt that he wasn’t a doctor at all, but rather a little boy who in his innocence had caused some irreparable harm but was unaware of it and continued to go on happily.
“You may get dressed. See you tomorrow!”
These words, spoken from the half-shadow of the hall, cut through her dreaminess like a sword through a bridal veil. She wanted to run after him to make him stay, but she was half-naked. The sound of the front door as it banged shut went through her like an icy gust of wind.
That good-looking young man, with his broad shoulders and butterfly waist, has been visiting the Němecs’ apartment since Božena came back to Prague, in order to cure her. They say he is a real doctor. If he isn’t one, who cares, he’s so attractive. The kind of man I would describe as Oriental, at least that’s how I imagine Oriental people to look from the descriptions of František Skuhravý. Yesterday I dreamed of that young doctor. I was Božena and he came to cure me. But what was I thinking of just now? Oh, yes: if he’s a doctor, maybe he could show me some kind of exercise for my back, which I just can’t keep as straight as I should. I have the feeling that everybody laughs at it. Yes, people, even when they’re being serious, are forever staring at me, their mouths like open drawers.
My woman friends make fun of me too. When they told me that František had left me, they laughed. I will always remember their wide-open mouths, so happy were they that František got engaged to another woman. Never again will František share with me his enthusiasm for the ideas, colors, and perfumes of the Orient, never again will he tell me I look like an Indian girl. Later I saw them together at the theater. The golden hair of his fiancée had so stunned me that I preferred to look at her fan. I do believe it was painted by Hellich himself. At that very moment the brilliance of her engagement ring stung my eyes. When they went to take their seats, my woman friends laughed their heads off.
But now it’s me who’s laughing. I’m the one who’s got this woman writer—the one everyone’s talking about—whom everyone reads—by the scruff of the neck. All by myself, I can liquidate her, invalidate her, neutralize her, how and when I wish. Afterward, I will show everybody who the real writer is and what writing is really about. I wouldn’t bore my readers with legends and folktales the way Božena does, nor would I write stories about workers and peasants. I’m going to write about the kind of life I myself would like to live, which is like the one Božena has had for herself. She has her husband and her children, she publishes one book after another, people read her and worship her, and on top of all that she has dozens of male admirers, maybe even dozens of lovers! They adore her. Božena writes to one of them in a letter: “What you have written to me, about having a right to feel proud because people honor and respect me, you yourself cannot have really believed this even when you wrote it, and now I myself can do nothing but smile as I read it.”
That’s how she replies to her lover’s praises, playing at being a foolish little girl, the goody two-shoes, and delicate flower, to whom success means nothing. And the things she writes next! “A sincere heart, the endeavor to achieve perfection, the striving to help my people to the utmost limit of my capability—these are the only things at which I am superior to normal women, who do no good in the world.”
I will tell the police exactly what I know of you: that you are an illegitimate child, that the people you think of as your parents are not your real ones; that you married an imperial civil servant on purpose to cling to as you pave your way to Vienna, but in Prague, among Czech patriots, you also want to stand out, which is why you won’t stop boring the pants off us with your verses and stories and pretty words about the unity of the Slav peoples. In my police report, I will also include the fact that when only newly wedded you couldn’t bear to be with your husband, that you went in search of male friends and lovers, always in such a way that they helped your literary career; that you used the same criteria when choosing your female friends, who always had to be wealthy girls from good families, like Johanna and Sophie; that your friends are influential, well-known, and respected people, people such as Čelakovský, Purkyně, Erben, and Havlíček; and how you flirted your head off with all of them so they would contribute flattering reviews of your writing in the newspapers. I will not forget to add that you are a heartless mother, your children do not get enough to eat, while you just go on writing, even though you know that if you write you will hurt your family because the imperial police are after you. But above all, I will tell them that you have a lover. I do not know for certain, nor do I care. The police, and eventually society in general, will know that you are a fallen woman. From then on, no one will give you a helping hand, no one! What more is there to be said? I will fill in the details myself. I have a rich imagination and my dreams are in full bloom. Yes, you are a depraved woman who pursues relationships outside wedlock.
But no matter how much this may be the case, if, in the future, people remember ideas from this time, they will be yours. For they are easy to listen to. When you say: “What I long for is love, a true love, but not for one single person, but rather for everybody, for all humanity, a love that asks nothing in return, a love that would improve me, that would bring me closer to truth,” that sounds pretty, very much so, and when seen in an album of memorabilia, next to your phrase “it is better to be a martyr than a good-for-nothing who doesn’t even know why she’s alive,” people will be stunned and they’ll believe it as if it were gospel. They will always read your work, both today and ten years from now and probably a hundred years later as well, they will read your writing and marvel at your ideas and your style, and they will remember your physical appearance. It is far more romantic for a woman writer to be beautiful than disagreeable to look at, even though the latter might have
written volume after volume and suffered more.
And what will become of me? What will remain after me? A few reports written for the police, with which I will simply help turn you into a martyr, whereas I will always be a parasite for the coming generations, a shameless woman gnawed by envy. You will always be the superior one, even though you will die of hunger, even though everyone will abandon you.
It does not matter! If a parasite is what I must be, I might as well be a genuine one!
Božena Němcová is the illegitimate daughter of Duchess Katerina von Sagan. As to the identity of the aforementioned person’s father, we have only rumors to go on.”
No, no I can’t go on like this if I don’t want them to think I’m full of envy. First I will have to get everything straight in my own head and will then enforce upon all my thoughts a style and form that will suit the police. But do I really believe the Duchess von Sagan is Božena’s mother?
The other day, when she was flat broke, I gave Božena a little loose change so that she could buy milk for her children. I needed to search her apartment. In the cupboard I discovered an engraving with this curious inscription: “The artist dedicates this print to his daughter.” The artist was none other than the Spanish painter Francisco Goya. Perhaps a future historian or relative will try to prove that Božena is Goya’s daughter, to add a little extra charm to her history.
What is the relationship between Božena and the duchess? She told me how, in the park of Ratibořice castle, where she grew up, from time to time a beautiful Amazon woman would emerge from the trees and vanish in an instant: the duchess, out riding with her admirers. I am sure that more than one of the wonderful princesses and good witches in Božena’s stories have been based on this duchess.
Now they have summoned me to the prefecture. What a pity I can’t finish what I’m writing. What does that bore von Päumann want from me this time?
On the second day she realized she had to rein in her feelings and, when welcoming the doctor in and when bidding him farewell, she gave him her hand in a gesture that could only be interpreted as forthright and friendly.
In the evening, when thinking everything over, she jotted in her notebook: “What powerful and unfathomable charm, I ask myself, can be hidden within a person who with a simple look, a simple handshake, can strip me of all strength, whose tone of voice can make me flutter like a reed in the wind? Why does the heart remain calm when a friend presses my hand, while the handshake of another man injects fire into my veins? Today I have experienced the power of such magic.”
No matter what the cost, the prefect wants to uncover the conspiracy that he believes Božena is hatching, or at least, participating in. Von Päumann doesn’t strike me as feeble minded, but a conspiracy? Božena, a conspirator? For the lousy handful of pennies they pay me now I have to invent a detective novel, preferably one with a mysterious murder in it. Oh, I’m getting fed up with old man von Päumann.
Right away, Herr von Päumann. Let me catch my breath, I tired myself out climbing the prefecture stairs. All right, let us begin. Forgive this cough of mine, you see, I . . . The other day I visited Božena at her home near Emmaus church and it was raining a little. The lamplighter was lighting the blue flames of the streetlamps and on the far side of the Vltava numerous yellow lights flickered like dozens of illuminated cat eyes. Not all cat eyes flicker though, do they? You don’t know either? Excuse me, I am dithering on so. The Němec family was sitting in the kitchen, which they also use as a dining room and lounge. They had just finished dinner. Božena’s husband was reading the newspaper and puffing on his pipe, comfortably ensconced in a chair; her daughter was playing Schubert’s Impromptus on the piano (an old upright piano which the previous tenant had left behind); and the boys were looking for certain places on a map of the world. Božena was sitting at the table with her back to the others, her head bent a little to the left, and she was writing. Now and again, she turned to the boys to tell them where to find such and such a place on the map. It was one of those evenings that conjure up an idyllic image of an old, old world that has now ceased to exist.
“I was sitting on the sofa, reading the manuscript of Božena’s latest short story. Suddenly I noticed that Němec puffed on his pipe ever faster and more violently. I watched him out of the corner of my eye; he held up his newspaper not with calm hands but with clenched fists. He was hiding behind the Daily Prague, but I thought I could see how his pale face concealed an inner fury. His daughter, Dora, was playing something by Haydn, then fumbled and had to start again. I glanced sideways at her; she was biting her lower lip, hard, looking first at her father with fear and then at her mother with eyes of silk, as if she wished to protect her. The boys plied their mother with questions about Duchess von Sagan; Karel was to go to Germany, to the castle of the duchess, as a gardener’s apprentice. Božena answered them impatiently, because they kept on interrupting her work. In the end, she recommended they put such questions to their father, who could tell them not only where the Sagan family estate was, but also all the different places in Hungary where he’d worked during his years of forced exile. The brothers turned to their father and looked at him timidly; one shrugged his shoulders, the other signalled that they should drop the matter. They went silent. The newspaper in Němec’s hands trembled visibly. Dora lost her concentration altogether and stopped playing. Her mother sat up, glanced at the wall, and began to put her books and papers in order. She stood up. One of the boys went to her and the other followed like a shadow. I realized that there was no point in staying and got ready to leave. Němec’s slippers were so worn out that his bare feet must have been touching the floor.
“Whack! I nearly fell over. What a blow! By the time I’d recovered, Němec had left, slamming the door. The first bang had been a slam of his fist on the table where Božena sat tidying up her notes. Still frightened, I looked at the others. Dora appeared relieved, the boys smiled. Božena got up and headed out of the room. I followed her.”
“So Mrs. Němcová’s marriage is an unhappy one is it not, Fraülein Zaleski?”
“I have simply described her married life. That conclusion is your own, Herr von Päumann.”
During the next curative session, the doctor seemed cold and reserved. She thought he was afraid that someone might interrupt their session, her husband or the children. Everybody had been warned not to enter the apartment so as not to interrupt the cure. But it dawned on her that the doctor’s expression was one of fear, of concern. The doctor opened the curtains with a brusque movement, as he’d done on their first day. A milky light filled the room and she had the feeling she was sitting on a block of ice, in nothing but her underwear, drifting off toward the unknown. She tried to make the cold go away, putting all her energy into inventing questions for the doctor about the purpose of his instruments, about the countries he’d visited, but he answered only in a brief, clipped fashion. He left some of her questions unanswered.
“When that outburst was over, Herr von Päumann, Božena and I sat together in the half-shadow of her room. It was cold. But that smell of decomposing leaves, or of undergrowth after the rain, mmmm! Božena sighed with relief. She let herself go, and complained about her publisher, Mr. Pospíšil, a greedy man, a real stuffed shirt, who had released Božena’s novel, The Grandmother, in installments instead of turning it into an attractive book; and the fee he paid her, she said, was so little she couldn’t even buy winter clothes for the children. To change the subject and get the information I wanted out of her, I asked which of her jewels were the most beautiful.
“She opened a small box. Against the sky blue velvet, a pair of long earrings glimmered—Božena’s wedding present from Duchess von Sagan. Then Božena removed the inner layer to reveal the bottom section, in which lay a smaller box made of wood. When she opened it, a necklace glittered before my eyes: five rows of garnet stones, linked by a silver coin with the portraits of the Emperor Josef and the Empress Marie Therese. Božena told me that in the little ap
artment in Ratibořice far from Prague where she lived with her parents, brothers, and sisters, they were accompanied for a few years by their grandmother. This elderly lady possessed just a single dress for all the days of the week and one other for Sundays. Her only treasure was a painted trunk. Betty—this was Božena’s name back then, Betty; she did not adopt Božena, her nom de plume, until she arrived in Prague many years later—liked to look at the trunk with the red flowers painted on it. Her grandmother kept papers and dried medicinal herbs in it, and right at the bottom was this little wooden box, and inside this, a garnet necklace.
“‘Grandmother, why don’t you ever put this necklace on?’ Betty asked.
“‘I wore it while Jiří, your grandfather, was alive. Do you like it? Well then, do you know what, little girl? When I die, the garnet necklace will be yours. Yes, I want you, my eldest granddaughter, to wear it. My garnet stones will protect you from all sorts of evil. If you ever get rid of it, you’ll regret it. Remember, pretty one, if you want to make something of your life, always make sure you keep these garnet stones.’
“Božena remembered it clearly. She said that once at Christmas she didn’t have anything to give her children to eat, and was obliged to pawn a gold chain and a ring in order to buy a few apples, eggs to make a sponge cake, walnuts, and a little tea. But she would never part with her grandmother’s necklace, no matter what.
“Božena confessed to me then that as a young girl she used to laugh at her grandmother’s hopelessly old-fashioned clothes, her opinions, and her habit of speaking pure Czech, without a trace of German in it. Her grandmother taught her the names of the trees and plants in Czech, told her folktales. Betty asked her grandmother to tell her these stories at bedtime. The more often Betty heard a tale, the more she would like it.”
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