To Aunt Agata’s surprise, Kata chose Hamlet for three evenings in a row, although she had seen it with her class a year earlier. And to Kata’s surprise, her aunt no longer wore the pale peach lipstick that smelled like rotten eggs. She now wore a shiny, translucent one that had a burgundy hue and tasted like cherries. All the while, the grownups avoided the subject of the missing toddler as carefully as if they were playing “dodge the ball.”
Kata looked forward to her mother’s weekly visits, but only for news about Grandma and the village. Conversations about the missing child were carefully guarded. But the hushed voices in the next room never failed to draw Kata to the door.
“Where is Kata?” her mother asked. “She could hear us.”
“She’s in my room, reading. Loves her books,” her aunt replied. “Did something happen again? You seem troubled.”
“They found her.”
“Angela’s baby?”
“No, no. Not the baby.”
“Who, then? Who did they find?”
“They found Angela.”
“Angela?”
“Yes. In a neighbour’s well. Drowned.”
Chapter X
Evil Eye
Papa Novak pulled Kata’s suitcase out of the luggage compartment and placed it on the gravel shoulder of the road. He straightened up and gave her a wide smile.
“Welcome home, my girl. Had a nice long visit with your aunt, I hear.” He waved to the driver as the bus rumbled away, leaving behind a whiff of diesel fuel.
“Kept good company with all those artsy friends of Agata’s,” Grandma said cheerfully. “She’s become a big-city girl. The Art Gallery one day, the theatre another. Goodness gracious, hope she remembers how to feed the chickens.”
Kata slung a bag of books over one shoulder, clothes and souvenirs over the other and ran to the rutted path between two cornfields, inhaling deeply the scents of late summer, her eyes absorbing the green and gold of the fields below. They had not walked long, when Grandma dropped her large straw bag on the ground.
“Dear God, there she is again!”
Papa Novak placed the suitcase on the ground, the worn leather the colour of the dry earth. He waved his arm in greeting.
“Good day, Roza.”
“Good day, Professooor,” Roza said glancing at them with suspicion before cautiously approaching. “Shhh. He’s asleep. Take a peek! Here. Just a quick one,” she whispered, holding out the bundle in her arms. “Isn’t he handsome?”
“Yes, yes, Roza dear,” Grandma said. “We’re just on our way home from a long bus ride – ”
“Well, if you don’t want to see him,” Roza cut in.
Kata stepped forward and perched on her tiptoes, about to peek into the swaddle of rags. But Roza yanked it away.
“You! Spit! Spit three times. I said, spit!” She jutted her chin out, her face turning a furious red. “Don’t you cast your evil eye at my baby! You spit first! You hear?”
“Go ahead, Kata,” Grandma said. “Just make the motion, dear.”
“Tpp! Tpp! Tpp!” Kata spat toward the bundle while keeping her distance.
“What are you waiting for?” Roza said, her eyes glaring. “Look! I said look! You all want to see him, but you’re all afraid to look.”
Wearily, Kata leaned over and peered into the bundle of folded garments. Then she stared at Roza, before turning towards Grandma.
“Ha! What’d I tell you?” Roza said deliriously, whole body quaking with wild laughter. “Alex’s heir! The handsomest of them all! My Alex! The proudest father on this earth.”
Kata stepped back quickly, her eyes on the white patches expanding through the purple on Roza’s forehead and cheeks.
“Gotta bake bread. Milk those cows. Can’t stand here all day talking to you. You all wanna see him.” Roza turned and walked away hurriedly, her voice scolding the summer air.
“Her baby …” Kata said.
“They didn’t tell you, did they, my girl?” Papa Novak said. He picked up the suitcase and began walking ahead. “I’ll let the two of you talk.”
Grandma took Kata’s hand. “I told them not to tell you right away. To wait a little.”
“I don’t understand. I know about Angela, but what’s – ”
“There’s more to it, dear. We thought we’d give you a nice long break from all of this.”
“There is no baby in there. Just some clothes.”
“It was in Roza’s well, dear, where they found Angela.” Grandma propped her arms on her hips and sighed: “Roza lost the baby that same day. She bled through the whole village. Wouldn’t let anyone come near. By the time Alex got back from the fields, it was too late.”
For a moment, Kata felt as if the fields spun all around her, blending colours and sounds into a jumble. She crouched down and placed her hands over her face – and now she saw it all from another angle – from above, from the cushy plastic chair in her bus-world, where Chubby Checker sang The Twist. She glided along a paved highway to a place with theatres and art galleries and vegetable markets where potatoes came from a bin rather than the hard earth, and her aunt’s apartment where water came from a faucet rather than a singing well. She felt Grandma’s arm around her shoulders, lips planting kisses in her hair, murmuring prayers. She took Grandma’s hand and pressed it against her own cheek, and the two stood up holding on to each other.
“But what’s in the bundle, Bako?” Kata asked.
“Nothing, dear. Alex’s shirts. She cradles them, gives them her breast. Thinks it’s her child.”
“Aunt Agata said Roza wasn’t well.”
“She wanted to tell you.”
“She said I should think about things that make me feel happy. About the plays I’d seen and the paintings. And I should come to visit her again very soon. But she didn’t tell me …”
“Hard for any of us to explain, dear. Roza comes every day and cooks for them, for Alex and her brother. Goes back to her parents’ house to sleep, all alone. The farm’s been run down, overgrown for years now. She carries bread in her apron, back and forth, wanders the fields day and night.”
“I didn’t know.”
“I hoped to spare you some grief. Hoped things would get better. But it’s not to be.”
“I’d rather know.”
“In time, dear. You’ll know more than you can bear.”
Chapter XI
Angela’s Baby?
(Summer 1964)
“Go in and get the nipples,” Grandma said pointing to the pharmacy, “a dozen or so. That calf hasn’t suckled for a few days now. We’ll likely have to bottle-feed it for a while.”
Kata did as instructed and came back out, excitement rising in her chest. The next errand on the list was what she’d been waiting for – an early gift for her twelfth birthday, just a few weeks away: a pair of store-bought shoes.
This was the first time Grandma had agreed to such impracticality. She firmly believed that comfortable shoes were one’s single most important item, and had to be made of soft but durable leather by the only shoemaker in town who, in her opinion, measured up to the task. The procedure was tedious. First, one’s feet would be measured, a template traced and cut out of cardboard and then the leather would be chosen. Children had no say, for only adults could discern the quality of such a pricy item. Three weeks later, the shoes would be ready.
Lately, Kata had been very unhappy with the type of shoes she was forced to wear. Sure they were comfortable and kept her feet dry and warm, but they certainly detracted from the look she had been trying to achieve.
Every time she glanced in the mirror in the guest room, where she could see her whole body, she thought she’d make a better clown than a girl.
Her mother’s voice echoed in her head: Too tall for her age, too skinny, too flat-chested. She wondered how Grandma saw beauty, to call Kata such endearing names as my princess, my butterfly, and Kata’s favourite, my swallow. The last two she could relate to the most. She wanted to do
so many things at the same time, she often wished she could fly. And when Grandma called her these names, she actually felt beautiful, felt she could do anything.
But then she’d stand in front of the mirror and grimace at her skinny scarecrow legs stuck in her father’s old work boots. “You’re a clown,” she’d yell into the mirror. “You’ll never look like Lena. Ever.”
Lena had a curvaceous body, with a round behind and chubby legs and little feet, and breasts already bulging under her sweater.
Every time Kata checked under her blouse, she was bewildered by her breasts’ refusal to show any sign of expansion. She had overheard Lena’s chitchat with another schoolgirl.
“My breasts are as big and firm as the largest apples on our apple tree,” Lena lisped in the childish voice that caused all the boys to swarm around her.
“You’re lucky,” her friend replied, disheartened. “Mine are already the size of small melons. All the boys are asking them out. My breasts, not me. As if I’m nothing but a walking pair of blubbers. I just wish they’d stop growing.”
Kata was perplexed. Since her eleventh birthday she’d been checking hers daily. Then she realized that perhaps her fixation had jinxed them. So she’d stopped looking and only occasionally, in bed at night, she would pass her hand, as if by chance, across her chest. But the little bumps under her nightgown remained the size of green plums she often picked from her neighbour’s trees along the road to school. So she’d given up hope of growing breasts, and thought that she should try to change other things, the ones she could, like the clunky shoes.
Each time she went to the shoemaker, he would insist the shoe needed a little extra toe-wiggling room. For her growing foot, he’d say with a wink. Her growing foot? How terrifying.
She remembered the times she’d looked forward to visiting the shoemaker, believing he was a magician, with black, bushy hair crammed under black hat and long white sideburns extending all the way to his chin. He’d recheck all his measurements through an eyepiece, and nod with satisfaction. He had an assortment of dark wood boxes with leather samples in some, spools of thread in others, shoe horns and all kinds of strange looking do-jiggers in yet others.
He used to tell his favourite story, The Elves and the Shoemaker. And he, like the shoemaker in the story, made sure that every pair of shoes he made was as perfect as if it were his last. Each time Kata bent her toes or arched her foot to make the shoeprint just a little smaller, he would catch her trying to trick him. He would gaze at her over his eyepiece in mock disapproval, and start retelling the story, stressing his pride in his workmanship.
But now, the story had lost its appeal. The good magician had been transformed into an unyielding evil sorcerer who refused to acknowledge just how stylish the store-bought shoes were in comparison to his frumpy, comfortable, and so annoyingly durable ones.
After a winter spent watching Lena prance around the classroom with a pair of store-bought, brown suede boots that came all the way up to her knees, Kata became determined. Her new spring shoes? They would be store-bought. But it appeared she did not need a new pair, since the previous pair had much toe-wiggling room.
To make matters worse, Lena wore her suede boots even in spring. She’d walk indolently, the suede folded in pleats so the top of the boot reached only halfway up her calf, dragging her feet as if her boots were the least important part of her attire. But the other girls knew better. They knew the foot-dragging helped Lena draw even more attention from the boys. They whispered behind her back:
“That’s not lisping, that’s baby talk.”
“She’s doing it for the boys.”
“She’s the living, breathing, puss in boots.”
So here was Kata, in town for one important purpose: Grandma would buy her an early birthday present, a pair of red, pointed-toe shoes with a narrow little heel that would make clicking sounds when Kata walked nonchalantly past Lena’s desk at school, as if her shoes were the least important thing on her mind.
She recalled the way they looked and felt when she and Maja tried them on. Since that time, she could even hear the clicking sounds of the little red heels in her dreams. She could see the pointed red toe protruding under an oversized red bow with a shiny silver buckle that stretched along the whole width of the shoe. She had been doing the chores diligently and making promises, most of all promising not to be disappointed when her birthday came. She could hardly believe that she and Grandma were here, in town, on their way to pick them up.
Since they had gotten up early, they looked forward to the special breakfast at the town bakery: a fresh piece of burek, a pastry made of thinly-layered dough filled with meat, cheese, or apples. While Grandma preferred the cheese-filled burek, Kata hoped they wouldn’t run out of the apple one. They rushed because this was a popular breakfast item for townsfolk as well as those coming especially to the market.
The streets were a jumbled mass of horses and buggies, buses loaded with people, and a few automobiles, all claiming priority in the cramped space. A bus driver stuck his face out the window and began yelling at a farmer to move his horse and wagon. Unconcerned, the farmer continued to unload what appeared to be a gigantic necklace of chickens. Each chicken’s legs were tied to a segment of a long rope, as if they were strung on a clothesline. He was passing this string of chickens on to his wife, who seemed about to lose her hold on the squawking mass of flapping wings and fluttering feathers.
Another farmer now stopped his horse and wagon right in front of the bus. He began unloading potatoes with young shoots growing right through the sack. Seeing the chicken farmer’s dilemma, he dropped his sack and ran over to help. A bright blue Volkswagen Beetle was stuck behind the bus. It beeped rhythmically as if to accompany the teenaged accordion player who was leaning against a hydro pole. The young musician squeezed the bellow pleats open and shut, fingers of his right hand dancing on the keyboard, the left ones caressing the studs. His eyes were closed; chin gently leaning on the bellow, foot tapping to the rumbles of the accordion. A few copper dinars lay in a greasy, wide-brimmed hat at his feet. The bus driver, head now swollen red with rage, shouted obscenities, while through open windows several passengers joined in, waving their arms and hollering at the farmers.
Grandma led the way, masterfully, away from the throng of shoppers and vendors. Following as if she were still a little girl, Kata walked behind with her neck craned, gaping at the market scene. The crowds were now partially blocking her view, but she caught a glimpse of the chicken farmer. He was untangling himself from the squawking wings and feathers, smiling with his single yellow tooth, and with one free hand waving at the bus driver and his load like a movie star acknowledging his fans.
They were walking toward the bakery when Grandma pointed to a middle-aged gypsy woman with a child she used as a beggar. The child, propped up with a cardboard box behind her, was sitting on a pile of rags on the sidewalk.
It was difficult to tell the age of the little girl. She could have been about five or six years old. She was so thin that her skin appeared transparent and bloodless, stretched over her face as if it were a mask. She was blind, but the most frightening part for Kata was that she appeared to have no eyes. Her eyelids were closed as if they had grown together – or as if they were glued. They seemed hollow, as if she had no eyeballs. A yellowish tear oozed from the outer corner of each eye. A dark yellow sticky substance, the consistency of beeswax, was clumped on her sparse eyelashes. Her right hand seemed completely bent backwards at the wrist. It remained frozen in that position as if it were broken, as if it could not be moved. Her legs could not be seen from the rags piled around her. She looked like a stump, stuck in a pile of rags, a living head with brown, matted hair hanging to her shoulders, a broken wrist extended in a begging manner. A lidless shoebox sat in front of her.
The woman called loudly to passers-by to have pity on this unfortunate child, cursed by God Almighty, and to give generously if they wished to save their soul and help the hungry. Ev
ery time someone threw in a coin, she grabbed it eagerly. Then her eyes resumed searching the faces of people approaching her, and she began her wailing refrain again. On the sidewalk in front of her lay a greasy paper bag with chunks of smoked bacon and half a loaf of bread. She kept stuffing chunks of bacon in her mouth and taking large bites of bread. She chewed continuously during her rant, grabbing coins while the child next to her sat quietly, hunched in its pile of rags. Every once in a while a whimper escaped its pale lips, and a nervous twitch flitted across its glued eyelids. Occasionally, the stump that stood for its body seemed to shiver, causing the rags to tremble.
Grandma’s face was a frozen mask – the look Kata dreaded – as if the face belonged to a stranger.
“God help me,” Grandma said as if speaking to herself. “Even I can’t help but think … that it just … could be … She could be about that age.”
Kata squeezed Grandma’s hand even harder, afraid of becoming separated from what provided all her warmth and security.
“Do you really think … this could be her, Bako?”
“I don’t know. God forgive me I could bet my life they had nothing to do with it. But who am I to say? They are people like all others. Good people and bad people. When so many in the village think that gypsies had something to do with it …”
“But if they didn’t, who did? Somebody must’ve …”
“And when I see something like this God forgive me I see that poor woman, Angela, wandering the fields. Sometimes in my dreams, she comes to me. As if she has something to say. But she says nothing, just like when she was alive. She never really spoke much to anyone. Such a sad young woman.”
Summer of The Dancing Bear Page 10