The Twelve Little Cakes

by Dominika Dery

  “Why not?” Mirka whispered.

  “They won the war,” I told her. “When you win a war, everyone has to speak your language.”

  “That makes sense,” Gejza nodded approvingly.

  A few minutes later, there was a loud clattering in the corridor and we all rushed over to the window and peeked under the blinds in time to see the young nurse with glasses pushing a bed into the room. A boy was lying on the bed, and a very well-dressed man and a woman walked in behind him. Dr. Kopecky and a team of doctors and nurses followed.

  “Nice sweater,” Gejza whistled. “These people must be rich!”

  “Is that Mickey Mouse?” Mirka wanted to know.

  “No, it’s not Mickey, it’s Yerry,” I told her, pronouncing the J the Czech way. “The cat is called Tom and the mouse is called Yerry.”

  A huge doctor with a sausagelike mustache entered the room. He smiled politely at the boy’s parents and laid a thin metal suitcase on the table.

  “Kurva fix, I knew it!” Zoltan swore under his breath.“It’s Dr. Horvath! They’re going to give the kid a spinal tap!”

  Zoltan shuddered. “See that suitcase?” he said. “There’s a huge needle inside it, and Dr. Horvath is going to stick it all the way in the boy’s spine!”

  “You’re just saying that to scare us!” I cried.

  “No, I’m not. I’ve seen him do it to three kids already. They bring in a special chair and make you sit backward, and then he sticks you with the needle!”

  I thought Zoltan was making this up until Nurse Magda brought in a big silver chair. Dr. Horvath opened his suitcase and pulled out a syringe with the longest needle I had ever seen. The blood drained from the American woman’s face as she stood behind the chair and stroked her son’s hand. Then Dr. Horvath stuck the tip of the needle into the boy’s spine. The American kid screamed so loudly, the doctor jumped away. When he tried again, the boy squealed like a pig being slaughtered. This went on for five minutes, until Nurse Magda whispered a few words to Dr. Horvath and then led the boy’s parents out of the room.

  Once they were gone, three nurses pounced on the boy and held him down while Dr. Horvath drove the needle into his spine. The kid screamed even louder than before, but all of the doctors and nurses ignored him. Finally, Dr. Horvath removed the needle, and the nurses laid the boy on his belly and then his parents were allowed to return. The father thanked the doctors and nurses, and the mother rushed over to her son. She stroked his hand, but he furiously pushed her away; then she opened a big cardboard box and started to pull out an assortment of toys.

  The Gypsy kids and I watched in amazement. She was like a magician pulling rabbits out of a hat. There was a toothbrush with Mickey Mouse on the handle (I pointed him out to Mirka), and a little music box that played “Silent Night,” but the best toy by far was a miniature BMW that the woman put on the floor. She picked up a remote control and made the little car drive all by itself. When it crashed against the side of the bed, she handed the control to her son, but he threw it across the room. In desperation, the woman pulled out a plastic bag filled with candy. There were Kinder Eggs and Swiss chocolate, as well as pralines and nougat and Mars bars. The American woman offered the sweets to her son, but he angrily pushed the bag away.

  The sight of the sweets made me sick with hunger. Saliva flooded my mouth and I pressed my lips to the window, trying to taste a bit of sweetness on the glass.

  “You know,” I said miserably, “I would have a spinal tap if they gave me a bag of chocolate at the end.”

  Lucie’s eyes widened. “Is that true?” she asked. “Will they let you?”

  “Probably not,” I sighed.

  “Aren’t you frightened of needles?” Gejza asked. “I am!”

  “I am, too,” I said. “But I’ve always wanted a Kinder Egg.”

  “You have biscuits!” Gejza said accusingly. “At least you have something. We have nothing!”

  I was about to point out that I had offered to share my biscuits in the morning, when the door crashed open and Nurse Magda walked in. The young nurse with glasses followed, pushing a trolley with our dry rolls. She handed them around while Nurse Magda distributed charcoal pills and thermometers. Then she collected our pill cups and loaded them onto the trolley, and would have left had Lucie not stopped her.

  “Can I please have some chocolate?” she asked.

  “What was that?” Nurse Magda turned in the doorway.

  “Can I please have some chocolate!” Lucie whined. “Dominika said we could have chocolate if we let the doctors spine our taps!”

  “I didn’t say that,” I said.

  “Yes, you did!” Gejza cried. “And you have biscuits under your pillow!”

  Nurse Magda’s eyes narrowed. She strode across the room and whipped the pillow off my bed. There was a very long pause when she saw the biscuits lying there.

  “Who gave these to you?” she demanded. “Who gave you these biscuits?”

  I looked up at her, too terrified to answer.

  “Where did these biscuits come from?” Nurse Magda roared.

  “Nurse Zdena brought them,” Zoltan said. “She told Dominika to hide them in her drawer.”

  “Did she?” Nurse Magda snapped. “We’ll see about that. You’re supposed to be on a diet! You Gypsy kids are more trouble than you’re worth!”

  She snatched up my packet of biscuits, and as I listened to the sound of her storming down the hallway, I realized that the real source of her anger was Nurse Zdena, not us.

  The young nurse shook her head unsympathetically.

  “Well, I guess that’s the last time Zdena sneaks food to you kids,” she said. “Magda will make so much trouble for her, she’ll be lucky if she ends up working in one of the cancer wards.”

  She ignored our crestfallen faces and left the room, leaving us to grapple with our hunger and the consequences of Gejza’s and Zoltan’s denouncement.

  “Now we all lose,” I said miserably. “Now we all go hungry.”

  “Serves you right,” Zoltan muttered.

  “If you had waited, I would have given you the biscuits!” I cried. “I would have! Really!”

  “No, you wouldn’t,” Zoltan sneered. “You would have eaten them yourself! You Gadze are all the same!”

  Suddenly we weren’t partisans working against a common enemy anymore. It was me versus the Gypsy kids, and the babies howled as their nappies went unchanged. Our tummies rumbled with hunger for the rest of the day, until Nurse Zdena came in with our dinner. She had survived Nurse Magda’s attack, but I could tell that she was very upset, and she didn’t say a word to us. We had not only turned against each other, we had managed to turn our allies against us as well.

  Fortunately, Dr. Kopecky pronounced me fit to leave the hospital the very next day. Dr. Polakova had had a word with him on the phone, and he was happy enough to sign me out. Nurse Zdena sent my pajamas and clogs away to be burned, then handed me some new clothes and led me out into the garden where my parents were waiting. My father gave her a bunch of flowers and thanked her profusely for taking such good care of me, and I threw my arms around my mother’s neck, fighting back the tears. As we walked to the car, I looked back at the pavilion and could see the Gypsy kids pressing their faces to the window.

  When we arrived home, my father made me close my eyes and led me upstairs. When I opened them again, I was standing in the middle of my brand-new bedroom that he had finished while I was away. He had made a chest of drawers and a little bookshelf out of fiberboard, and painted them red and white, which were my favorite colors. A new pair of green clogs stood beside the bed, and the smell of roast chicken wafted up from the kitchen.

  “This is your own bedroom now,” my father told me. “After lunch, we’ll carry your books in from Klara’s room.”

  “Lunch is ready!” I heard my mother call.

  I was so hungry I could have eaten the whole chicken, but I had to be careful as my stomach had shrunk after two weeks
in the hospital. My mother served me a small portion of chicken and a tiny piece of the chocolate cake she had made in celebration of my recovery.

  My sister nudged me in the ribs.

  “The house was quiet without you,” she smiled. “It took me about a week to get used to it.”

  After lunch, I looked in the large mirror that stood in our hallway and it took me a few seconds to realize who was the incredibly skinny girl I saw. My head seemed too large for my body, and my arm and leg joints seemed huge. I tried to stand on the tips of my toes, but I couldn’t manage it. I was very weak, and would have to work tremendously hard to catch up to the other girls at ballet school. In spite of this, I was secretly glad that I had lost so much weight. Losing weight is an important part of dancing.

  After I had rested and seen Dr. Polakova, my father drove my mother and me to the preparatory school to have a chat with Mrs. Saturday. I weighed fifteen kilos, the average weight of someone half my age, and Dr. Polakova had urged my mother to help me try to gain five kilograms as quickly as possible.

  “Five kilograms?” my mother frowned. “That seems a bit much. Wouldn’t three be more appropriate?”

  “Whatever you think is best,” Dr. Polakova replied.

  But Mrs. Saturday had a different opinion. She put me on the scale and told me to stand on the tips of my toes. Then she got me to do a set of kicking and stretching exercises. She narrowed her eyes and told my mother that my build was still a little heavy for her liking.

  “If she’s serious about ballet, she could still afford to lose half a kilo,” she said briskly. “You might want to think about reducing her dinners.”

  eight

  THE LITTLE BANANA

  AS SOON AS SHE WAS SURE I had fully recovered, my mother put ribbons in my hair, a new satchel on my back, and sent me down into the valley for my first day of school. Falling leaves and gossamer floated in the breeze, and swallows perched on the telephone wires, chirping along with the excited chatter of children. The first thing I noticed when I arrived at the schoolyard was that everyone was standing in a group. I didn’t have a group to stand in, because I had missed the start of school and all the first-grade kids had formed their friendships without me. I saw Mary Hairy surrounded by a bunch of girls I didn’t recognize, and caught a glimpse of Petr Acorn standing in the yard with a couple of older boys. I waved at him and was sure that he saw me, but he didn’t wave back. I couldn’t see anyone else from my street, and I realized that the only way to preserve my dignity would be to stand in my own group alone and pretend I didn’t envy the children who had friends.

  When the bell finally rang at a quarter to eight, the school caretaker, Mrs. Vincentova, unlocked the front doors. Mrs. Vincentova reminded me of a sheep. Her eyes were filled with suspicion and her blond hair looked like fleece. She stood on the steps and took careful note of who did and didn’t wipe their shoes on the doormat. As I tried to walk past, she blocked my way with her broom.

  “I haven’t seen you before,” she said.

  “That’s because I’ve had dysentery,” I replied. “I’ve been in the hospital.”

  Mrs. Vincentova regarded me with horror. “Last name?” she demanded.

  “Furmanova,” I said. “I’m Klara Furmanova’s sister.”

  Mrs. Vincentova’s eyes narrowed. “Look at your shoes!” She tapped my sandals with her broom.

  The soles of my sandals were covered with mud from the construction site.

  “This is a school and not a pigsty!” Mrs. Vincentova snapped. “Take your shoes off and wash them in the bathroom. Next time, make sure they are clean or I’ll send you back home!”

  The ground floor of the Cernosice elementary school was divided between Mrs. Vincentova’s apartment and the two first-grade classrooms. Grades two and up were located on the first floor, along with the toilets and the headmistress’s office. There was a miniature gymnasium in the attic, although we usually went out to the garden. Instead of lockers, we had large communal changing rooms, which were cages made of wattle fencing. Each was furnished with benches and coatracks, and everyone had to leave their shoes and coats inside before the bell rang at the beginning of class. If you forgot your homework or left a textbook in the cage, you were in big trouble, because you would have to ask Mrs. Vincentova to unlock the cage, which would result in a lot of sighing and grumbling. She was very obsessive about the state of your shoes, and took great pleasure in pointing out that mine were always dirty. Years later, I would learn that she was not only a friend of the Nedbals but also part of the information network the Red Countess used to keep tabs on my father. Running into her on my first day of school was unfortunate, because I didn’t yet know where my classroom was. I had hoped to follow some of the younger children inside, but by the time Mrs. Vincentova had finished with me, they had disappeared. I had to find the room all by myself.

  I was very nervous when I walked into the classroom. I held on to my satchel, trying to avoid the pieces of paper, chalk, and school slippers my classmates threw at each other. Boys and girls ran around the room shrieking like monkeys. A few quiet girls were gathered at the front bench, but after looking me over quickly, they went back to braiding pigtails in one another’s hair. The bell rang and the class continued to make noise until a fat boy in a denim jacket who was stationed by the door whispered, “Okay! Shut up! Comrade Humlova is coming!”

  Everyone quickly returned to their seats as Comrade Humlova strode into the room. She shut the door behind her, and the class immediately fell silent. Comrade Humlova was a big woman who wore green trousers with a broken zipper. Her belly stretched the fabric of her pants, and I caught a glimpse of white bloomers through her fly. Her face was round and friendly, but she had the unfortunate habit of standing too close and spraying her students with saliva when she spoke. She surveyed the classroom and noticed me standing near the window.

  “You must be Dominika,” she said.

  “Hello,” I said nervously.

  Comrade Humlova gave me a friendly smile and patted me on the head.

  “Dominika has been sick for the past two weeks,” she told the class. “She’s behind with her studies, but I’m sure she’ll catch up quickly. Everyone say hello to Dominika.”

  “Hello, Dominika,” the class droned.

  “Now. Where will we seat you, my dear?” Comrade Humlova grabbed me by the hand and led me around the classroom. It was a bright room divided into three rows of benches. Each bench had two seats, and most of them were occupied by other children.

  “How about here?” Comrade Humlova said, pointing to an empty bench where a big girl, obviously a few years older than everyone else, was sitting by herself. The girl looked at me with big sleepy eyes.

  “This is Romanka,” Comrade Humlova said. “She’s a little slow, but I’m sure you’ll get along very well.”

  “Hello, Romanka,” I said, offering her my hand. “I’m very happy to be sitting next to you.”

  Romanka stared at me blankly.

  The class giggled.

  Comrade Humlova patted me on the head again and then moved to the front of the classroom to start the lesson. I had to squeeze into my seat, because Romanka took up three quarters of the space. I opened my writing pad and tried to follow what Comrade Humlova was saying, but Romanka continued to stare at me with her mouth slightly open and it was very hard to concentrate. The other kids kept looking at us and trying not to laugh, and I started to feel very uncomfortable.

  The class was halfway through the alphabet, so Comrade Humlova was writing very easy sentences on the blackboard and getting everyone to read along with her.

  “M-y . . . m-other . . . m-akes . . . m-ustard,” she would say.

  “M-y . . . m-other . . . m-akes . . . m-ustard,” the class would repeat.

  This went on for an hour, and my nervous discomfort gave way to boredom. I already knew the alphabet. The walls of our house were covered with my writing. My father had not yet discovered that the wax pencil
s the Baby Jesus gave me for Christmas could not be painted over, so he and my mother encouraged me to use the walls of our house as a canvas. Many years would pass before they realized the enormity of this mistake, by which time the walls would be completely covered with my indelible, childish scribble. In the end my father put up hideous wallpaper, vowing to remove it the second he made some serious money, which of course would not be for many years.

  As the weeks progressed, I got to know all the kids in my class. The fat boy in the denim jacket was nicknamed “The Steamroller,” and the most popular girls were twins Monika and Alice Rabbit, who had an aunt in Austria and access to Western clothes. Terezka Jandova and Andula Thatcher were the teacher’s pets, and sat in the front row. The tough girls from the bottom of the valley occupied the second and third rows in the middle of the class. They rarely paid attention to the lessons, and drew pictures of horses in their exercise books instead. The back of the room was reserved for the troublemaking boys. A malicious kid called Honza Tucek was the ringleader. He tormented his friend Petr Halbich mercilessly, making bullets out of chewing gum and spitting them at him through a straw. He gave Petr such a hard time, in fact, that the rest of the class joined in, and poor Petr went from being a troublemaker to a victim overnight. By the end of the year, he would be sitting in the front row with the quiet girls.

  As we worked our way through the rest of the alphabet, I amused myself by reading the posters on the walls: THE COMMUNIST PARTY IS THE GUARANTOR OF WORLD PEACE! announced a picture of workers harvesting wheat in a field. THE SOVIET UNION FOREVER AND EVER! exclaimed a group of American soldiers playing balalaikas to a crowd of young women. I read the notices on the bulletin board and the graffiti carved into the neighboring benches, including the one on the back of Romanka’s seat, which said, “Don’t learn, the life will teach you.”

  I told Romanka what was written on her seat, but she wasn’t impressed. She sat motionless and silent like a big, breathing log, and the only time she became animated was during the snack break, when Mrs. Vincentova burst into the classroom with a box of bread rolls and plastic bags filled with milk. For some reason, Romanka was one of Mrs. Vincentova’s favorite students and she was always given two bread rolls instead of one. She slurped her milk and took big bites of her roll, while I peeled the hard and bitter Cuban orange my mother had given me, along with her weekly lecture about vitamins. Every kid in my class had milk and a bread roll, but my mother didn’t have enough money to pay for a school lunch, and she also thought it was unhealthy to drink milk out of plastic instead of glass. Eating my orange and watching the other kids play with their straws, I felt sad and different yet again. I realized I was sitting next to Romanka because no one else wanted to, and that even Romanka had a bag of milk and a straw.