The Twelve Little Cakes

by Dominika Dery

  “But we’re not allowed to travel to the West,” I reminded him.

  “Says who?” my father demanded. “With Gorbachev in power, the Iron Curtain has got to fall. I bet all my money we’ll be seeing some serious changes in the future!”

  “You don’t have any money to bet,” my mother smiled.

  “Not yet, I don’t,” he growled. “But just you wait!”

  WE ARRIVED AT THE BORDER at nine in the evening. I woke up as my father jammed on his brakes. He really had managed to drive the whole way without stopping. I sat up and pressed my nose to the window, and recognized the red-and-white-striped tank barrel blocking our path. The Polish border guards waved us through, and then a Czech policeman in a green uniform came out of his office.

  “Your passports!” he said harshly.

  My father rolled down his window and gave the policeman our passports. He kept his engine running and the man waved his flashlight over the documents. Then he shone his light inside the car.

  “Engineer Jaroslav Furman and Engineer Jana Furmanova!” he said in the sneering tone Communists often used to address white-collar workers. “And what are two university-educated people like yourselves doing in Poland? Studying their agriculture?” He snorted and swept his light across my face. “Open your trunk!” he ordered.

  “Excuse me, comrade.” My dad stuck his head through the window. “We have a problem with our car. The mechanics in Gdansk have fixed it so that we can get back to Prague, but they told us not to switch off the engine. I can’t open the trunk unless I pull the key out of the ignition.”

  The policeman shrugged.

  “Open your trunk!” he repeated.

  “Comrade, please,” my father said humbly. “If I stop the car, it’s not going to start again. I assure you, we have nothing in our trunk except dirty clothes and an empty ice chest.”

  The policeman shook his head in disgust and walked back inside his office. A moment later, he reappeared with two Czech soldiers who pointed their rifles at my dad.

  “Open your trunk, comrade engineer,” the policeman said quietly. “I’m not going to ask you again.”

  My father sighed and switched off the ignition. The engine shuddered to a halt. He climbed out of the car and opened the trunk, and the policeman shone his flashlight over the empty beer bottles. He knocked the lid off the ice chest and halfheartedly unzipped our suitcases, and then he stepped away from the car and stamped our papers. Guessing from his expression, he was both satisfied and disappointed.

  “Welcome to Czechoslovakia,” he said, handing my father our passports. He waved at the soldier who was in charge of the gate, and the tank barrel rotated to the side. The policeman disappeared inside his office.

  The soldiers lowered their rifles and watched my father repack the suitcases. He shut the trunk and climbed inside the car, but when he turned on the ignition, the engine let out an ugly wheeze. My mother squeezed his hand and told him to try again. He switched the ignition off and on, and the engine kept coughing until the battery was out of juice.

  We climbed out of the Skoda and looked at the soldiers.

  “You want to give us a hand?” my father asked.

  The soldiers looked at each other and retreated to the office. The windows were made of one-way mirror glass, but we could see the soldiers and the policeman watching us from inside.

  My dad put his shoulder to the door frame and my mother and I took our positions at the trunk. Then we counted, “One, two, three!” and pushed the car into our country.

  It was a mild summer night. The sky had cleared and the air smelled faintly of hay and fresh rain. We push-started the car and drove across the countryside all the way back to Prague. Poplar trees lined the roads, and the towers of the baroque churches slanted up from the hills. We were too tired to talk, too hungry to sleep. I pressed my face to the window and watched the world go by. The crumbling facades and peeling paint on the houses, the potholes and dirt and barbed-wire fences, and the Communist posters were now hidden in the dark. All I could see was the outline of a poor and generous soil that was my home.

  This was the country of little cakes and sausages. This is the memory of my childhood. Driving back home in our old, rusty Skoda; my father’s big hands steering us safely through the night; the soft touch of my mother’s hand on my head. This was the happiest time in my life. The time when we had no money, no choice, and no chance.

  It would take me another eighteen years to realize that what we had back then was as much as anyone on earth would ever need.

  We had each other, and plenty of love in our hearts.

  ADDITIONAL

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am very grateful to my little god for sending many nice people my way. I would never have been able to complete this book without their help. Elvira Schejbalova, Vaclav Jakubec, Petra Stypova, Eva Splichalova, Romana Krenkova, Martina Matouskova, Petra Langerova, Christine Williams, Brett Cheney, and Tanya Wolfe read my pages, comforted me when I was sad, and helped me in every way. My parents held their thumbs for me and provided me with a roof, bread, and butter. Dominic Buchta gave me love and hope when I needed it the most. Susanne Harrer, Pavel Konecny, and Martin Tucek scanned many photos and pictures and printed out numerous copies of the manuscript. Shannon O’Keefe and Julie Barer from Sandford J. Greenburger went out of their way to help me. Wendy Carlton from Riverhead did a great and thorough job editing the manuscript. Stephanie Huntwork designed the interior, Honi Werner is responsible for the beautiful book jacket, and Beth Krommes for the illustrations of the little cakes. Alexandria Morris was very lovely and worked hard to accommodate my needs and wishes. I really was fortunate to have had such great friends and collaborators.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  DOMINIKA DERY was born in Prague in 1975. As a young girl, she studied at the State Conservatory in Prague, and danced and performed in the National Theater Ballet Company and later performed in the National Theater as an actor. In 1994, she was awarded a French government scholarship to study theater at the Ecole Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq. She is the author of four collections of Czech poetry and a play. The Twelve Little Cakes is her first book in English.