Four Sonyas
Page 21
I loathe this white house which smells of laundry soap, oil, and sweat, this gymnasium with its barracks-like concern for physique, in which spirit is supplanted by nothing but the vigor with which the male officers give commands to the women who man their squad.
I try to be a good soldier, and the staff sergeant is continually thanking me for this. When I found an article in the attic about an explosion aboard a Mexican airplane, he neighed ecstatically “Ha! Ha! Ha!” for a good minute, gave me a drink of cherry brandy, and seemed about to promote me to the rank of corporal: in the kitchen I am the head chef and Mother carries out my orders. And Zlatunka is learning to cook under my command — I don’t let her off easy, and her badly peeled potatoes (the girl has two left hands) get tossed back into her lap, even if they’re boiling hot — Zlatunka is now like saccharine to me.
Before lunch (Zlatunka can finish cooking it by herself now) Mother takes me for the first time into the bedroom on the second floor. Towering haughtily over the marriage bed is a pile of overly starched superior linen, the cool damask is all ready to soak up Jakub’s and my intermingled sweat, the mighty pillows to stifle the moans, and by the door the new slippers with the white fur lining to warm my feet over those couple of steps to my husband.
The worst time is after dinner, when Jakub looks at me beseechingly with his sincere blue eyes.
“I’d like to go work somewhere,” I try to engage him in conversation, “I could do just about anything…”
“First you should finish gymnasium and then apply to the teachers institute. We’ve got friends there who could help you get in.”
“But I don’t want to be a teacher, I want to be something practical … a nurse, a telephone operator, a salesperson … Doesn’t the Usti Cottex have a drying room like the one in Hrusov? That’s where I’d most like—”
“My wife must go to a school of higher education.”
“I like children very much and that’s exactly why I don’t want to order them around … and they’d soon find that out, they’d play all the time and not learn a thing.”
“The teachers institute is the only school of higher education in Usti,” Jakub said drily, and then he showed me the family gold. Chains, rings, old coins, gold teeth. “… it all adds up to nearly ten ounces,” he said.
I like gold, but I spent a great deal more time poking through it than my liking dictated … all so I wouldn’t have to look into Jakub’s blue eyes.
“So we’ve got everything for the wedding,” he said. “I’d just like to speak to you about one more thing. Do you feel healthy?”
“Yes … of course…”
“You know, I’m just… Whenever I knock at your door during the night … why don’t you open it? After all, we could now, already… Just tell me quite calmly whether you still might be experiencing some sort of psychological trauma … You understand, an inhibition like this can have a cause that’s mental or emotional or physiological or—”
“I’m healthy as a turnip!”
“Great. Dad’s letting me have the van Saturday and Sunday. I’ll show you beautiful places along the river and in the woods. Lubos is lending us his cottage by the Elbe for the weekend … communing with nature, you’ll soon get over your psychological block. We’ll be there all weekend long, together.”
“That would be nice … But now I’d like to go to sleep, my head aches so terribly again…”
“You’re working too hard, in the cottage by the Elbe you’ll make a fine recovery.”
“You’re very kind. Good night.”
“Good night, darling. I love you.”
“Jakub … Promise me you’ll never be angry with me.”
“I love you.”
I kissed him on the forehead so I wouldn’t have to look into his eyes.
The next day, after breakfast, I assigned the kitchen tasks, put on the green dress Manek had given me, the dress I was wearing when they brought me here, into my handbag I put my toothbrush, my short white nightgown, a comb, and a hundred crowns (I might well have earned that working here), called into the kitchen to say I was going for a pedicure, crossed Valley Street (not even once did I look back), and on red bus No. 5 I rode through the pre-fab high-rises of the development to the main station and then on the express train to Liberec.
Behind the curtains of the second-floor window of the Orts’ yellow villa Kamila Ortova sat at a table reading her lecture notes from Psychology III (in a few days I’ll be starting my last year at the teachers institute) and smoking a cigarette from her Dad’s golden pack of Peers, and every so often she looked out at the white villa opposite, Jakub’s house—
—stolen from me and Jakub by that tramp. I’ll never understand how my sober and rational Jakub—we’re both exactly the same—could slip into such madness … shouldn’t a man be put under guardianship in a case like this? Because his madness does not have tragic consequences just for him, but destroys the happiness and lives of the rest of us as well.
Men are stupid animals. How can I rescue my Jakub against his own will? Ridding him of this madness means ridding him of the tramp—but she keeps installing herself more and more firmly in his house.
Poison her? Zlatunka would gladly do it, and so would I. But, unfortunately, our motives would be quite clear: Zlatunka, to keep the room on the second floor for herself and Lubos Bily (who would vanish nice and quickly without the second floor). And me, to rescue my husband.
If only we could kill her so that no one would know … for a very long time … Because her wedding would wipe out the motives of us both—
On the much traveled clay of Valley Street, Jakub’s figure was growing taller. He was coming home from the plant. The first time he came home from there, he ran upstairs and told me excitedly all about Cottex and the people there—all our lives we two shared everything—and during those years his daily accounts of the goings-on at Cottex meant as much to me as me and my psychology meant to him.
Jakub is coming through the gate and through the garden. I want that gate and that garden to belong to us both. He no longer looks at my window, from which I’ve been watching him since I was little. I want to look right into his blue eyes again. And now he disappears into his white house. I want the house and I want Jakub, too. MY HUSBAND FOREVER AND EVER, I WILL RESCUE YOU—
When a yellow watering can appeared in a ground-floor window of the Jagrs’ white house, Kamila set a precisely identical watering can in the window next to the ficus in the majolica pot.
Then without haste, determined and methodical, she placed in her handbag a tube of Bromargyl (not too toxic, but its bromide and mercury accumulate in the body), a golden pack of Peer cigarettes and a silver lighter, a silver pencil, and a tiny pocket calendar.
I hurry out of the gray Liberec station and run down the street, red streetcars clamber up the hill and go clanging down it. Out of breath I burst into the door of the Hotel Imperial.
“Is Mr. Mansfeld here?” I ask the clerk at the reception desk, a man I still remember.
“Mr. Mansfeld is traveling,” he tells me (he obviously doesn’t remember me).
“I stayed with him here two days in late August — I was in Room No. 522 — And I remember you very well—”
“Would you tell me your name, Miss?”
“Sonya Cechova.”
“Then I have a letter for you from Mr. Mansfeld.”
SONYA CECHOVA was written on the envelope, followed by to be given to her in person, inside was Manek’s photo and on the back of the photo:
I want you to be great. Will you trust me?
Your Manek
“I need Mr. Mansfeld’s address right away.”
“That’s entirely out of the question,” said the clerk.
“But I’ve come all the way from Usti just to see him—”
“Mr. Mansfeld expressly asked that his address not be given to you.”
“He told you that?”
“He told me that categorically.”
“Every one of them was forwarded to him immediately.”
“The first was quite thick—thirty-two pages. And then every day another, ordinary one—”
“Every one of them was forwarded to him immediately.”
“If I wrote a letter now — could you send it to him?”
“I would post it tomorrow morning.”
“And a telegram?”
“A telegram could be sent over the telephone at once.”
“Could you give me his telephone number, at least?”
“That would be against Mr. Mansfeld’s categorical wishes.”
“So then I’ll send the telegram—”
The clerk offered me a pad of paper. With the pen that was attached to the desk I wrote quickly:
I am waiting at the Hotel Imperial.
Your Sonya
The clerk promised to send the telegram at once, refused to take any money and, without argument, gave me room No. 411—even without my citizen’s I.D.! Manek can do anything, even from a distance.
I passed through the gleaming mahogany lobby and took the elevator up to the fifth floor, I lay down on the couch in my room with Manek’s photo in my hand, I WANT YOU TO BE GREAT, I want it too if it’s what you want, and I will be great if that’s what you make me. WILL YOU TRUST ME? Absolutely, if you are my husband.
I took the elevator down to the gleaming mahogany lobby and at the reception desk I asked the clerk whether he had sent the telegram yet — he said that he had — and when Manek would receive it — he said, in two hours. So I would see my husband today.
I had an urge to jump on the first red streetcar and ride up and down the line until evening, to go right up to the front and ask the motorman to clang a great deal more, I love Liberec — but first I went into the quiet little shop near the station (how long ago it was that I bought a green nightgown here and, for a crown, needle and white thread) and bought from the old lady a dark-red handkerchief for my husband and a white ribbon for my hair, so that he would like me this evening, for the fifth time I am getting ready for my wedding—
I walked around Liberec until dark, looked into the Gastronome Restaurant, where I had dined with Manek, stood at the Grapevine Bar, where we had first called each other by our first names and where we had first kissed on the dancefloor… At the Imperial’s reception desk, the clerk I knew had been replaced by the night clerk, who told me that Mr. Mansfeld had not yet arrived.
I went up the street to the station, on the timetable I found the arrival time of the next express train from Prague and I waited about an hour for it. Manek did not come. But he might have come by car and be waiting for me at the hotel—
The night clerk told me again that Mr. Mansfeld had not yet arrived. I stood in front of the hotel, my husband has to come any minute — Manek did not appear, but two other gentlemen did address me (the first invited me for some veeno, the second offered me a hundred-note — and when I laughed in his face he offered a hundred and fifty). A lone girl can hardly stand very long in front of a hotel (especially without her citizen’s I.D.—) and so I went to see Angelica for the second time.
The fair Angelica kept losing and finding her wonderful husband, Geoffrey Peyrac. Geoffrey had fallen into disgrace with King Louis, had hidden from him and had fought against him as a captain of pirates (what does Manek do?), and with mysterious messages and unexpected assistance had kept rescuing Angelica again and again — and even from a distance served her constantly as husband and protector.
The night clerk told me again that Mr. Mansfeld had not yet arrived. I sat in the gleaming mahogany lobby, the guests kept coming in and taking the elevator up to their rooms, at midnight the restaurant closed, I took the elevator to my room, No. 411, and again reread the message on the back of Manek’s photo I WANT YOU TO BE GREAT, a great woman doesn’t whimper in a hotel lobby, Angelica was carried off by pirates, they sold her into slavery, and still she waited patiently for her Geoffrey: WILL YOU TRUST ME? Always and in every way.
I phoned down to the reception desk (Mr. Mansfeld had not yet arrived) to say that I was waiting for Mr. Mansfeld in room 411 and that he was welcome to come to my room anytime. Then I bathed, combed my hair, tied the white ribbon into it, placed Manek’s photo in such a way that I could see it from the bed, lay down on my back, and gazed at his photo…
That’s how I was when I woke up in the morning. Manek hadn’t arrived.
The reception clerk (again the one I knew) told me that Mr. Mansfeld had not checked in yet, but that a telegram had arrived for me late at night.
Once I’d read it, I had to sit down.
I WANT YOU TO BE GREAT STOP IF YOU WISH I WILL TAKE YOUR FATE IN MY HANDS STOP YOU MUST HAVE ABSOLUTE TRUST IN ME STOP GO BACK TO JAKUB AND WIN BACK HIS LOVE STOP I WILL SEND FURTHER MESSAGES TO USTI
M.M.
Out of the hotel, all four Sonyas roaring inside me, up the street to the station and down to the square, by streetcar to the last stop and then another streetcar to the last stop at the other end of the line, on foot to some sort of forest and then back again to the last stop, by streetcar across the entire city to the last stop, where I’ve been already… When I got there, things began to get clear and then, suddenly calm, I rode back to the Hotel Imperial.
My husband wants me to go back to Jakub Jagr…
That’s terrible, of course, but: Manek does not demand that I marry Jakub, only win back his love … which I had lost by running away. I think that’s it. Manek knows everything AND HE WANTS TO TAKE MY FATE IN HIS HANDS. Why else had I come here to find him?!
All in all, it was stupid for me to have come here for him, maybe it wasn’t time yet for us to be together (Manek would have invited me himself, or he would have taken me away from those hellish Jagrs just like he took me away from those hellish Volrabs), maybe Manek’s in hiding, maybe he’s in grave danger—and I came here to the hotel and went wild when he didn’t immediately send a helicopter for me—if that had been necessary, Manek would have done it.
Without any hesitation I will HAVE ABSOLUTE TRUST in you. AND FOR YOU I WILL BE GREAT.
“I’m checking out right away and I’d like to send a telegram to Mr. Mansfeld,” I told the clerk I knew. He offered me a writing pad and with the pen that was attached to the desk I quickly wrote:
I am yours wholeheartedly stop
I will await your further messages in Usti
Your Sonya
I paid for the room and and walked quickly up the hill to the station, calm and at peace: I will no longer rush off aimlessly, I will go where my husband sends me.
To win back Jakub’s love will not be very difficult, but I always fulfill my tasks one hundred percent: on the way I stopped in the quiet little shop by the station and bought a white handkerchief from the old lady (I had left the dark-red one at the reception desk for Manek) as a gift for Jakub … this is my new job and my vocation as long as I live.
I winked at the gigantic Angelica on the gigantic poster (in the background a fiery battle) as if she were a friend: we’ve got our troubles, girl…
The whole trip by express train to Usti I stood out in the corridor, I was too full of everything to sit down in my compartment… From the station I took red bus No. 5 to the development and walked through the pre-fab high-rises to Valley Street.
For the first time, as I stood in front of the blue gate of No. 4, I was happy to look at the Jagrs’ villa, suddenly their big white house seemed as tiny as a midgets’ cottage. That wonderful feeling that from now on I am on top of the world—
Today, Manek had given it to me.
“Hm!” said Staff Sergeant Jagr, his hands behind his back and his high-booted legs wide apart. “Is this what you call digging up a flower bed? Hmm! Once more! Hmm! Hmm!”
Sonya (right after her return, she changed into Jakub’s dirtiest overalls, she had to wash all the floors, stairs, and toilets in the entire house, all she
slept was two hours in a locked shed in the yard) rubbed her pale, sweaty forehead with the sweaty ridge of her hand and smiled prettily at the staff sergeant.
“But you can’t dig up a bed a second time, Mr. Jagr. All I can do is rake it over and—”
“For you it’s Staff Sergeant, sir, understand? Hm!”
“Yes, Staff Sergeant, sir.”
“Repeat the command!”
“The command, Staff Sergeant, sir! Most obediently: dig up the dug up garden, Staff Sergeant, sir!”
“Right and proper—ha!”
“Dad, don’t you see she’s laughing right in your face!” Mother Jagrova cried out in anger and disgust.
Sunday afternoon went well. The guests in the living room of the white villa drank two pots of coffee with whipped cream, ate a plate of hazelnut slices and two blenders full of vanilla ice cream, topped off by a bottle of homemade cherry wine — Sonya ran her feet off (she’d soon lose that laugh of hers!) to serve everything just right.
“I’m so glad we got together again,” said Kamila Ortova.
“Ha! After all, we are neighbors—ha!” Father Jagr said merrily.
“And do come again soon, Kamila,” Mother Jagr bade her, and then she gave a command: “Sonya, run and wrap up a bottle of that cherry wine for Miss Kamila!”
“See you again soon,” said Kamila, and she got up to leave.
“Wait, I’ll go with you—” Jakub blurted out, and he accompanied Kamila all the way to her silver-gray garden gate where, out of breath, Sonya caught up with them, handed over the bottle of homemade cherry wine, and again ran back to the abusive staff sergeant.
“Don’t you want to come any further?” Kamila smiled at Jakub.
“I’ve still got work to do.”
“Come any time, maybe after dinner, when you’re done with everything … I’m always glad to see you.”
“Thanks, goodbye. And don’t be angry at me anymore…”