Let’s look at the matter from another point of view. It’s evident that the following men, at least, have awakened in Sonya an inclination toward love: 1. Volrab (a father); 2. Ruda Mach (a man); 3. The Stranger from Prague (a cultivated person). So one could readily construct a pattern for Sonya’s behavior according to these three models:
1 - FATHER
2 - BODY
3 - SPIRIT
But when I put on overalls, rolled in the grass out back, and laughed out loud (à la 2: Ruda Mach), Sonya was just as silent as when I admonished her like a father (model 1) or when, all dressed up, I employed choice, sophisticated words to invite her to the Usti opera, and after the performance I took her to the Zernosecky wine bar…
From which of these three models can we extract an effective principle and appropriate it for myself? The most successful, of course, was the masculine model 2 (Ruda Mach), but how then could model 3 (the Stranger from Prague) win out so quickly? And what is it about model 3 that made him so effective?
Deep in reflection, Jakub drew three little men (he was a technician), on the body of the first, bearded one he wrote the number 1, on the second, muscular one the number 2, on the third one, with spectacles, the number 3, and above them he drew a large figure, on the figure’s chest he drew an enormous X and then, after long minutes with his fists on his temples, he gazed at his diagram so fixedly that all four figures began to merge into a single one, a single one, A SINGLE MAN—
—and in a flash of discovery Jakub feverishly wrote the formula:
X = 1 + 2 + 3
X is now a known, and so now I’ve got it: THIS IS THE MAN FOR SONYA—
Jakub leaped up from his tubular desk, knocking over the tubular chair so that its tubes clanged against the floor, he marched back and forth across his room, then skulked at a more peaceful gait, then slunk, and finally dropped to the floor in utter despair. This is no discovery, this is a banality: such a man would be ideal for any woman … that sort of 1 + 2 + 3, that divine trinity of FATHER-BODY-SPIRIT would be a miracle of a sort that simply doesn’t exist — and the young engineer wept bitterly on the floor and beat his fists against the roughly woven, thin, firm blue carpet.
After a long time, he took hold of himself, got up, skulked around the room, then walked, and finally he was marching again: I LOVE SONYA and that’s all I know. And instead of further extrapolations, I will get down on my knees before her—
He crossed the corridor and knocked on Sonya’s door—Sonya did not respond. Quietly he entered the room and quietly he greeted her—Sonya did not respond. That bronzed Madonna with a strawberry-blond halo, glowing with burning emeralds—
“Sonya, I love you—” said Jakub, and he got down on his knees before Sonya, “and I’ll do anything you want me to.”
“Anything?” SHE HAD SPOKEN!
“Anything.”
“Let me go away from here.”
“Anything but that. Please — ask for something other than that…”
“All right. Give me my letters.”
“But I haven’t got any letters of yours—”
“The letters that came here for me in care of you.”
“But no letter came here for you—”
“Really?”
“I swear it!”
“I’d like to believe you. What should I ask for myself? … At least as much as a soldier confined to his barracks — is that within your power?”
“I promised you anything you want.”
“All right then, I want to go for a walk every day. And pocket money, as much as Engineer Jagr’s future wife would have.”
“She had said the magic words: ENGINEER JAGR’S FUTURE WIFE—
“You can go wherever you want. And I’ll give you money, as much as you need. But promise me that you won’t abuse your freedom or go away—”
“Idiot. I could go away the first day after our wedding—or are you going to tie me up right after it? Am I your fiancée or your prisoner?”
She had said YOUR FIANCÉE—
“You’re free and I’ll give you the money right away. May I kiss you now?”
Sonya smiled and, like the princess in the historical drama Angelica, she held her hand out to the lips of her kneeling husband.
“And now you can paint the garden bench white,” she said over his bowed head.
On the second floor of the Orts’ yellow villa, the curtains billowed out imperceptibly, and when they came to rest again, on the window ledge, next to the ficus in its majolica pot, was a yellow watering can.
In a little while, a precisely identical watering can appeared on a ground-floor window ledge of the Jagrs’ villa, among flower pots planted with cactuses — Zlatunka Jagrova placed it as a sign to Kamila Ortova that she had received her message (not even Staff Sergeant Jagr himself had unraveled the meaning of this secret telegraphy employed by the two princesses in the white and yellow houses).
Zlatunka glanced at the thick convex crystal of her tiny gold watch: 8:22. Dad is going through the newspapers looking for airplane crashes and hijackings (Staff Sergeant Jagr is as easy to read as the timetable on the wall at the train station), it would take no less than a crash right in our garden to draw his attention, but to be safe she went out the back door of the house, stole along the fence to a loose board (Zlatunka had deceitfully constructed a false secret exit under the gaze of her father’s binoculars in order to draw his attention away from a second secret exit, through which she went often and without a worry in the world), quit her familial domain, traversed the clay surface of Valley Street, ran across the concrete highway to the north and, rounding the pre-fab high-rises, came finally to the development’s heating plant.
Dressed in a bright yellow dress, Kamila Ortova popped out from behind a pile of wet heating-plant ash, and the two princesses sat down on a low wall. Kamila offered Zlatunka a Peer cigarette from a yellow pack belonging to Daddy Ort, then she helped herself and for a while the girls smoked together in silence.
“I’ve been making her sweat,” Zlatunka said finally, “but when she springs right back…”
“For rubber you need a really sharp knife,” said Kamila, she blew smoke out through her nose and with the tip of her shoe she kicked away a moldy roll.
“I prefer razor blades … Yesterday she deigned to speak to us, and since then they’ve all been waiting on her hand and foot…”
“Even Jakub?”
“Him especially. Can you really still want to marry him … after all this?”
“I want to. And when I want something.—”
The two girls smoked together in silence.
“So it looks to me as if you’ve run out of ammunition,” said Kamila. “And that means you’ve given up the apartment on the second floor—”
“That whore has to clear out. At any price. As soon as possible.”
“We have to think of something … painful.”
“I should be able to come up with something…”
“Me, too. You go first—”
“Eggs?” Mother Jagrova was surprised.
“Just the yokes,” said Sonya, skillfully she separated the yellows from the whites and poured them into a lemon sauce (the staff sergeant’s gastritis was acting up again). “And now just a bit of rind…” Sonya grated a heap of lemon rind, sprinkled it into the sauce, let it cook, and with a smile handed it to Mother Jagrova so she could taste it.
“Wonderful!” said Mother. “You know, in all these years it never occurred to me to combine egg yokes and lemon rind…”
“And we could mix the whites with carrots and have carrot whip — do you like that?”
“We’ve never had it—”
“It’s quite simple, like this—” and Sonya nimbly washed and scraped some carrots, dribbled in the remaining lemon juice, added the egg whites and some sugar, and whipped it into a froth.
“Isn’t that wonderful!” Mother exclaimed as she gulped down an enormous spoonful.
“It�
��ll be even better when we chill it in the fridge and then serve it with lady fingers.”
“If I don’t manage to get to it first … oh, what a treat! And yesterday those cheese-and-nut sandwiches … please tell me the recipes.”
“Sure. You take twenty dekas of medium-grade flour, baking powder, a smidgen of nutmeg—”
“Good Lord, why am I writing all this down when you’re here to stay with us now! You’re a wonderful cook — and that’s better than the finest dowry … Now something does occur to me … Come with me—right away, before Zlatunka comes back from school. And quiet, so Dad doesn’t know—”
Quietly, the two women went to the dining room, Mother Jagrova unlocked the sideboard and took out a large black leather box. As the lid opened, they could see a long row of silverware sparkling on a bed of blue silk.
“Beautiful, isn’t it,” Mother whispered.
“Very…,” Sonya whispered. “May I hold one in my hands?”
“I’m giving all of them to you. Zlatunka was to have them—but I’ll give her the engraved ones from Uncle Ada, they’re so heavy you can’t even eat with them. But not a word about this to anyone till after the wedding!”
“You can trust me, Mother.”
“Well then, why don’t you go and get dressed — we’re going to the tailor’s right after lunch.”
Right after lunch (the staff sergeant was in ecstasy over the lemon sauce and the carrot whip. Zlatunka ostentatiously turned up her nose at these innovations until her father broke her spirit with countless Hms! and Hmms!, Jakub doesn’t come back from the factory until late in the afternoon), Father Jagr started the blue van and personally took charge of the driving, he made Mother sit in back and politely seated Sonya next to him.
“Ha! Hold on tight, Sonya! I’ll be driving very fast! Ha! Ha!” he roared joyously, nervously he put his hand through his thick gray crewcut and every so often he wiped his hands on his trousers — the car pranced around in front of the garage and unexpectedly (especially for the staff sergeant) ran into a bed of poppies.
“Ha! That’s a machine for you! Fifty horsepower! Ha! Ha!” Father Jagr rejoiced.
“Careful, Dad!” Mother the backseat driver was alarmed and held her hat tight against her head. At a speed of twelve miles an hour, we hurtled along the concrete highway toward town.
Emphatically better then riding in back bound with laundry cord, like a calf — Sonya smiled at herself in the mirror. I’m going to get myself a bridal outfit—
Mr. Joachim Schwarz, the tailor, is the longstanding purveyor to the court of the Jagrs, and his best customers try on their clothes in his “private comptoir” which looks out on the main square of Usti. He made me a white dress with a long lacy train and he had made to measure (by his longtime supplier Mme. Albina Zwetschkenbaumova in Frydlant) white lacy sleeves that went all the way down to the elbow… just like what Angelika wore in the film, from the square we could hear the noise of the city, the buzz of cars, and the clang of streetcars — they’re red here, like the ones in Liberec…
In the tall mirror I can see Sonya the bride, and tears burn my eyes, for the fourth time I am getting ready for my wedding —
From the tailor across the square to the shoe cooperative Springtime (we’re friends of the manager’s, Mrs. Reznikova) for slippers: white slip-ons (for both weddings, in church and at the town hall). White slip-ons (for changing before the refreshments at the Hotel Savoy). Beige slip-ons (they always come in handy). Beige loafers with gold buckles (for the honeymoon). Black slip-ons (for the honeymoon). Red slip-ons (for the honeymoon). Black slip-ons with silver clasps (for the honeymoon). Black mules with fur lining (for the wedding night).
“Ha! Your foot is smaller than my hand!” the sergeant was stirred. “Ha! Ha! Ha!”
From Springtime across the square to the goldsmith’s shop, Precious Stones (we’re friends of the manager’s, Mr. Strunc), for wedding rings (massive, keglike, fourteen carats, the Jagrs had given up three of their great-grandmother’s teeth for them, together with 750 crowns) as well as a heavy gold ring with a large amethyst.
As if from one point of a star to another, we crisscrossed the main square, made our purchases, and brought back to the car two crates of sparkling wine, twenty sacks of salted almonds, a hundred bright-colored plastic straws, a pink lampshade, a frying-pan in which, even without fat, nothing would burn, a green bathroom brush with a stand, hairclips, briefs, washcloths, spotcleaner, iodine, band-aids, and three kinds of bandages, and they made an appointment at the hairdresser’s and placed their order for a three-tiered cake.
“I’m happy you didn’t bring anything with you,” the ebullient mother said from the back seat of the van. “I so enjoy shopping and I’d have missed out on it…”
“But you brought me here shotgun—”
“Ha! That was really something! The storming of Liberec! A sally in broad daylight! Ha! Ha!”
“But you promised her you’d never say a word about that,” the mother said hastily.
“Ha! Hmm! Nonsense. My say is said. Hm,” the sergeant said, and in a bravura performance he passed a bicycle (something behind us went bang).
Attempts to go through our blue gate in front of the garage ended, after lengthy maneuvers, in failure (Mother and I each held one of the two garage doors and were forced to listen to no fewer than sixty Hmms!) and the staff sergeant finally resolved to park on Valley Street, Operation Driveway was postponed until sometime later. Hm!
Sonya admitted that it had all made her a bit nervous (“Of course you’d be!” Mother smiled, and the staff sergeant added his “Ha! Ha!”) and that she needed to walk a little, she crossed the clay surface of Valley Street, ran across the concrete highway to the north and around the pre-fab high-rises, she finally came to the development’s heating plant and disappeared behind the pile of wet heating-plant ash.
I’m sitting here on a low wall shivering all over as if I had a fever, what is going to happen to me now? — And then I cry, just as I do every day and every night. Why hasn’t my husband Manek Mansfeld, who can do anything, been taking care of me here—and why hasn’t he answered the letters I send him every day, in the first one I described my imprisonment here in detail for some thirty-two pages, and every day I send him one more despairing supplication—
At the base of the black mountain of ash I shiver and weep until I’m exhausted, and as I do every day I run through the meadow to the village of Skorotice, where in a shop behind the church they sell everything from rolls to Lada sewing machines, I buy a roll and stamped letter paper, then back to my little low wall where I throw the roll away (there are five of them lying here molding), I lick my pencil and write as I’ve done five times already before:
My Manek,
Come for me. I’m in Usti nad Labem, No. 4 Valley Street, at the Jagrs’. I love you. Please come for me soon.
Your Sonya
And on the envelope: Mr. Manuel Mansfeld, Hotel Imperial, Liberec.
“Registered, right?” said the woman at the Vseborice post office.
“Registered express.”
At 6:44 all of us—Mother, Jakub, Zlatunka, and I—have to sit down to our soup, at 6:44 the staff sergeant comes, intermixed with his chidings (“Hm!” or “Hmm!”) he praises me (“Ha! Ha!”) and all we hear after that is a fivefold sipping of soup.
Suddenly someone rings — I jump up from the table and run to open the door, MANEK HAS COME FOR ME — but Zlatunka, who’s sitting right next to the door, gives me a kick in the shins. “Out of the way!” she hisses, and she opens to someone I’ve never seen before.
He is short, with a tiny head and an extremely high forehead, he is said to be infinitely talented (Mother has told me about him), he is the second-highest-ranking surgeon at the hospital, his name is Lubos Bily and he’s Zlatunka’s fiancé (just before lunch I had deprived him of part of Zlatunka’s dowry—the silver).
“Hm! You might have left him in the vestibule, since he was late getting h
ere. Hmm!”
“But Daddy—”
“But Dad—”
“Hmm! They don’t even let you into the movies during the newsreel. Hm.”
No one ventured to open his mouth till dinner was over, and Jakub introduced Dr. Bily to me only after his father had gone off to his workroom.
“I didn’t expect you to be so beautiful…” Dr. Bily told me when I smiled at him prettily … but the smile froze when I looked over his shoulder and caught sight of Zlatunka giving me the evil eye — how much malice can be contained in a single look!
The engaged couple was going to the movies and Dr. Bily invited us (actually he said me) to come along with them, Jakub looked at me beseechingly so that I would stay home with him—but that’s just what I feared more than anything, that look from Jakub’s sincere blue eyes. We went to the movies in Dr. Bily’s American car and parked right in front of the movie house.
In front of the movie an enormous poster proclaimed that the historical film Angelica was playing there: the princess in the coach gives King Louis her hand in its white lacy sleeve all the way down to the elbow, the same sleeve I had bought today—
“No!” I said. “I wouldn’t go in for anything in the world!”
“But we will, won’t we, Lubos,” Zlatunka said to her Dr. Bily, “and you’ll come with us, Jakub—”
The men decided to go to another movie house to see an Italian farce.
“Zlatus, please don’t have a tantrum on me now,” Lubos Bily laughed. Gray with rage Zlatunka laughed convulsively and from that moment on she was like honey to me — damn the attention I have to give that cunning serpent.
The Italian farce dragged on endlessly, Jakub held my hand in his, my cold and dead in his warm and eager — when we got home I told him I had a terrible headache, double-locked myself in my room and, still dressed, threw myself onto the bed. Lord, another night—
The next morning I stayed in bed as late as I could, so the day wouldn’t last so long … before night came again, which I fear even more (each evening Jakub comes to knock on my door, more and more often, longer and more insistently). In the morning cooking and peace, after lunch shopping, in late afternoon tears on the low wall behind the black mountain of wet ashes and another letter to Manek … What will happen to me now?
Four Sonyas Page 20