The Twelve Little Cakes

by Dominika Dery

  I wished that I fit in more easily with the other children. I wished my mother didn’t work at the Economic Institute and was more like the other mothers in Cernosice, who had permed hair and didn’t think drinking milk from plastic bags was bad. Mrs. Rabbit and Mrs. Thatcher didn’t give their daughters lectures about vitamins, and they went to the beauty salon once a week, where all the local mothers gossiped. My mother refused to set foot in the place, even though she had the nicest hair in town.

  One day, during a particularly boring mathematics lesson, I told Comrade Humlova that I had to go to the bathroom. I tiptoed past Mrs. Vincentova’s door, smelling the meat and onions she was cooking for lunch, and as I walked past the wattle-fence cages, I saw her snack box sitting on a bench. A couple of leftover milk bags were in the box. The door was open, but Mrs. Vincentova was nowhere to be seen, so I grabbed a bag of milk and a straw, and I dashed upstairs to the toilet and locked myself in a stall. I sat down on the toilet seat, eagerly tearing the corner off the bag. I put the straw in the milk and took a long sip. It tasted very different from the fresh milk we bought from Mrs. Backyard’s farm. It wasn’t sweet and it had an industrial aftertaste, but I liked the straw, which had a joint in the middle, and I could bend it into different shapes. I was sipping the milk and playing with the straw, when I suddenly heard heavy steps. The bathroom door swung open, and beneath the gap at the foot of my stall, I saw two feet and a broom.

  “Open the door!” Mrs. Vincentova bellowed. “I know you’re in there!”

  She started to bang on the door with her broomstick. I was terrified. My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears. I unlocked the door with trembling hands, and Mrs. Vincentova wrenched it open. When she saw it was me, her anger tripled.

  “Furmanova!” She hissed. “I might have known!”

  She grabbed me by the ear and hauled me out into the corridor, pointing furiously at the floor with her broom. A long trail of milk dribbled all the way downstairs from the bathroom to the cage. With a sinking feeling, I realized that the milk had been left over because the plastic bags were leaking.

  “And who do you suppose is going to mop up this milk?” Mrs. Vincentova exploded.

  “I’m very sorry,” I stammered. “I’ll clean it up! I will! I promise!”

  “No, you won’t,” she said grimly. “You’re off to see the headmistress! We have a way of dealing with thieves at this school!”

  Mrs. Vincentova dragged me up the hall and knocked on the headmistress’s door. I had never even seen the headmistress before, but I imagined her to be a tough Communist bureaucrat inclined to deal harshly with criminals and dissidents. Her office door was big and imposing. After a while, Mrs. Vincentova knocked again and then opened the door without waiting for a response. She pulled me into the office and closed the door behind her. The headmistress turned out to be an attractive woman wearing a smart white suit, glamorous earrings, and bright red lipstick. She was sitting at her desk and speaking on the phone. Her eyes were friendly, and she looked at me and smiled.

  “Yes, this is Comrade Richmanova,” she said into the phone. “Can I please speak to the regional school committee inspector?”

  She cupped her hand over the mouthpiece.

  “What is it now?” she asked Mrs. Vincentova.

  Mrs. Vincentova opened her mouth to explain, but Comrade Richmanova was back on the phone.

  “Yes, I am still waiting,” she said. “Please tell the inspector I need to speak to him urgently!”

  She returned to Mrs. Vincentova with an impatient look on her face. “I’m listening. Go on,” she said.

  Mrs. Vincentova started to explain how I had stolen the milk, but she had hardly begun when the bell rang announcing the end of class. A loud roar erupted from the classrooms. Doors banged open and the corridor was quickly flooded with children who wiped the milk off the floor with their school slippers, destroying Mrs. Vincentova’s evidence. Comrade Richmanova looked up from the phone and sniffed.

  “Comrade Vincentova, do I smell something burning in your kitchen?”

  Mrs. Vincentova stiffened. She looked at Comrade Richmanova and she looked at me, and then wordlessly dragged me out of the office. In the corridor, she shot a despairing look at the now clean floor.

  “You had better watch out!” she snapped. “I know about your family. I know about you!”

  And then she ran downstairs to her room like a witch, sweeping everyone out of her way with her broom.

  EVERY DAY AFTER THAT, Mrs. Vincentova made a point of carefully inspecting my muddy sandals, but she wasn’t able to get me into too much trouble, because I turned out to have two powerful allies. The best of them was the third-grade teacher, Marinka Novotna, who had once taught my sister and had known me since I was a baby. She was a little old lady who looked like a doll and was almost as tiny as I was. On a few occasions, she had even visited our house, and loved the fact that my mother called me “Little Trumpet.”

  My other ally was Comrade Humlova, who had also taught my sister but was very scrupulous about keeping her political records up to date and was always asking Klara to supply information about my father’s work. Regardless of this, I thought Comrade Humlova was nice. I had been a favorite of hers ever since I became a member of her poetry group. It all began one day when she asked me to read a poem called “The Great October Revolution.”

  The Revolution calls her children to war!

  We march in the streets and say: No more!

  We roll our sleeves and shake our fists . . .

  To hell with the capitalists!

  I had read aloud with great feeling, and as I said, “To hell with the capitalists!” I shook my fist at Comrade Humlova. She was so impressed, she asked me to become a member of her poetry group. This meant I was able to move from my seat next to Romanka and sit on the front bench next to Andula Thatcher, one of the quiet girls with pigtails. Comrade Humlova gave me a book of her favorite poetry, marking the poems she wanted me to memorize. She told me to turn up for a rehearsal the following afternoon wearing a blue Pioneer uniform, because immediately after the rehearsal we were scheduled to perform at a Red Cross reunion.

  I excitedly broke the news to my parents over dinner.

  “Where can I get a Pioneer uniform, Dad?” I asked, causing my father to choke on his soup. “I’m going to recite poetry for the Red Cross tomorrow, and Comrade Humlova says I need to wear a blue shirt with a red neckerchief tied around my neck.”

  My parents looked at me with shocked expressions while my sister burst into laughter.

  “You can’t wear a Pioneer uniform,” my father roared. “We’re dissidents! Do you have any idea what being a Pioneer means? I used to beat up Pioneers in the streets of Ostrava! I would rather die than see my daughter wearing that stupid costume!”

  I showed my parents Comrade Humlova’s book of poetry and the poems she had marked for me to learn, and my mother was very concerned about the violence in the passages. The poems, of course, were written in the language of Revolution. Lots of smashing and killing for the good of the state. With the same seriousness she used to explain the vitamin content of my lunchtime oranges, my mother quietly pointed out that any kind of violence is wrong, even violence advocated by the government. In the background, my dad smoked furiously and nodded in agreement.

  “But I want to recite at the Red Cross reunion,” I told them. “I’m the best at reciting. I have the loudest voice!”

  “We don’t have a problem with you reciting poetry,” my mother said. “We just don’t think it’s a good idea for you to recite violent poetry.”

  “And there’s no way you’re wearing that uniform,” my father growled. “If anyone tries to make you, I will strangle him!”

  Later that evening, my sister came to my room and told me that Comrade Humlova was a bitch and the Pioneers were stupid and there was nothing more ridiculous than reciting poetry in public. She was in an oddly good mood and smelled faintly of cigarettes, and
, completely out of the blue, she told me a political joke she had heard at the Rotten pub. Klara had taken to spending her late afternoons at the pub with a group of similarly disaffected young people called “maniczky.” Maniczky were basically Czech hippies. The name came from a character in a popular puppet show (and later TV series), who, in sharp contrast to the cleanly scrubbed youths depicted in the Socialist art of the time, had long hair and round John Lennon glasses. After the Russians crushed the Prague Spring uprising, a lot of young people expressed their disillusionment by imitating the protest generation of seventies America. Blue jeans, long hair, acoustic guitars. This kind of protest was passive enough to spare them the harsh treatment dealt out to men like my father. The children of both dissidents and party officials achieved common ground in the image of Maniczka. Everywhere you looked, there were long-haired young people in old sweaters and jeans, smoking and talking in the back rooms of pubs, ridiculing the stern doctrine of socialism. Hence the joke my sister told me.

  “Okay. You have to swear you won’t repeat this to anyone,” she said. “This joke is dangerous. If someone denounced us to the secret police, we would have to go to jail, and it all would be your fault. So swear, okay?”

  “Okay,” I promised. “I swear!””

  “Shhh.” My sister scanned the room furtively and then lowered her voice. “The day before the May Day parade, the mayor of Cernosice gave two posters to a Gypsy to put up in his window,” she said. “One was a picture of Lenin and the other was a picture of Stalin. The mayor says to the Gypsy, ‘I want to see these posters in your window, otherwise you’re in serious trouble. Understand?’

  “‘I understand,’ says the Gypsy. But of course, he sleeps in and misses the beginning of the parade. Suddenly, he hears the parade going past his house. In a panic, he jumps out of bed stark naked, grabs the posters, and holds them up in the window. Everyone in the parade can see his little bird. Finally, the mayor walks past. He sees the Gypsy, starts waving frantically, and yells, ‘Put that prick away!’ ‘Which one?’ the Gypsy asks. ‘The bald one in the suit, or the one with the mustache? ’”

  My sister burst into laughter. She laughed and laughed and laughed.

  “How come the Gypsy wasn’t wearing any clothes?” I asked.

  My sister stopped laughing. A familiar look of exasperation appeared on her face.

  “That’s not the point,” she snapped.

  “Wouldn’t he have been embarrassed standing there with no clothes on?”

  “Jezis Marja!” My sister rolled her eyes. “I can’t tell you anything! It’s a very funny joke, and if you weren’t so busy sucking up to the Communists, you might actually understand it. Sometimes I don’t know why I bother. Go ahead and read your stupid poetry then. Wear your stupid Pioneer uniform! See if I care!”

  She marched out of the room, switching out the light as she left. I lay in the darkness and tried to work out what had happened. I was used to my parents reacting strongly to things, but my sister rarely became angry. Her usual style was to burst into tears. I felt ashamed that I didn’t understand her joke, and worried that my decision to read poetry had caused so much trouble in our house. I didn’t want to be a collaborator, but I had already said yes to Comrade Humlova.

  I wasn’t sure what I should do.

  The next morning, I arrived at school at a quarter to eight, just as Mrs. Vincentova had opened the front door. I made myself very small and tried to sneak past her as usual, but she grabbed my satchel and pulled me back.

  “Your shoes are dirty,” she said. “You’re going to have to go home and clean them.”

  I looked up and saw a malicious expression on her face. There wasn’t any more mud on my shoes than usual, but Mrs. Vincentova had obviously decided to make trouble for me today. She towered above me and tapped my shoes with her broom.

  “Can’t I clean my shoes here?” I asked.

  “No,” she replied. “You’ll have to go home and clean them, and afterward I’m going to write you up as being late for class.”

  “But that’s not fair!” I protested.

  “Oh, so you’re talking back to me now?” Mrs. Vincentova said. “That’s a detention right there! I’ll have a word with Comrade Humlova and you can stay behind after school. Now get going! The later you return, the worse it will be for you.”

  I opened my mouth to argue, but then thought better of it. My sister had often complained about Mrs. Vincentova’s deliberately making things difficult for her, and I really didn’t want to have to stay behind after school and write sentences on the blackboard. I walked halfway up the hill and found a patch of dewy grass, which I used to clean my sandals. Then I ran back to school with a change of heart. I had planned to tell Comrade Humlova that I wouldn’t be able to recite at the Red Cross reunion, but I realized that the poetry group would save me from detention. I was sure that Comrade Humlova would prefer me to leave school early with the rest of her group rather than stay behind for talking back to the caretaker. I ran up the steps, showed Mrs. Vincentova my clean shoes, and dashed into the classroom.

  “Does anybody know where I can borrow a Pioneer uniform?” I whispered, walking from one bench to the other. “Can anyone lend me a blue shirt and a red neckerchief ?”

  At lunchtime, Comrade Humlova and Mrs. Vincentova had a talk in the hallway. From a distance I could tell that Mrs. Vincentova was not very happy about Comrade Humlova’s decision. When the bell rang at two fifteen, I joined the other girls in the poetry group, and we walked across town to the National Committee Building. The National Committee had requisitioned the nicest villa in Cernosice for its headquarters, and while I had often admired this lovely old villa, I had never actually been inside. I looked up and down the street, terrified that I would see my dad’s yellow Skoda, and then dashed up the driveway and into the bathroom to change into Romanka’s old Pioneer uniform. The other girls wore white stockings and crisply ironed uniforms, while Romanka’s blue shirt was several sizes too big and made me look like a scarecrow. Comrade Humlova had bought herself a new dress, and her hair was freshly permed. She took us through a quick rehearsal, waving a wooden ruler like an orchestra conductor’s baton, and then she sent us behind the stage as the guests started to fill the main room. After a few minutes, the head of the Cernosice Red Cross Unit introduced us:

  “Comrades men and women, it is a great pleasure for me to present to you Comrade Teacher Humlova and her poetry reciting group!” he said.

  Comrade Humlova pushed us onto the stage and we formed a half circle around the microphone. The room was full of flags and old people wearing Red Cross armbands. They sat at their tables as if they were at a pub, and drank lemonade and ate little cakes and sandwiches. It was obvious that they were more interested in the food than they were in our poetry, but they applauded politely after every poem. When it was my turn, I stood on the tips of my toes but was still too small to reach the microphone. I filled my lungs with air and recited loudly:

  Across our withered land!

  an eastern wind has blown!

  in blood red soil, the seeds

  of Revolution have been sown!

  The Working Class victorious!

  its traitors strung up high!

  in Leningrad, the fire still burns,

  its flame will never die!

  A wave of applause almost swept me from the stage. The head of the Cernosice Red Cross Unit was so moved by my performance that he got up and pinned a Red Cross badge to my Pioneer shirt. He complimented Comrade Humlova on being an excellent teacher and invited us to join him at his table while the reunion continued with a demonstration of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Two nurses climbed up on the stage carrying a stretcher with a plastic doll, and for the next hour they invited people to blow air into the doll’s mouth, making her balloonlike breasts go up and down. Comrade Humlova reached across the table and patted me on the head.

  “You made me very proud today,” she smiled. “I’d like you to recite at the Gr
eat October Socialist Revolution parade.”

  After my success at the Red Cross reunion, Comrade Humlova invited me to represent the school by reciting poetry at firemen’s balls, antifascist conferences, and people’s militia reunions. She bought me a Pioneer shirt with her own money, and Comrade Richmanova decorated me with a Pioneer badge (a pin shaped like an open book on fire) in front of the whole class. I was something of a celebrity at school and Mrs. Vincentova had to endure my dirty shoes without comment. But I wasn’t too proud of myself. November 7 was approaching, and my father had always said that the people who carried lampions in the Great October Socialist Revolution parade were cowards and collaborators. I didn’t want to be a collaborator. I only wore Comrade Humlova’s Pioneer uniform to stop Mrs. Vincentova from making me stay behind after class, and I was torn by the conflicting emotions every collaborator must have felt. I liked being a celebrity at school, but I didn’t like having to lie to my parents. I hid my Pioneer uniform at school and always asked to read first so that I could leave the recital early and not arouse my parents’ suspicions. I made up Pioneer jokes and told them to my sister, and agreed loudly with my dad whenever he complained about the National Committee.