The Silent Woman

by Monika Zgustova

  But now, in the evening, my husband made me sit in a corner of the room. When he came to see me, to bring me a platter with some canapés, he didn’t find me there. I decided that on my own and of my own volition, I would do what everybody did: move from one group to the next. All by myself, I chose the canapés that I found most to my taste and from silver trays borne by waiters in evening tails, I took my own glasses of champagne.

  Nobody knew me. Nobody asked me any questions. Nobody paid any attention to me.

  At one point, as I walked away from one of the little groups, I heard two men ask each other who I was.

  “She’s an actress,” said the lanky blonde one, “I saw her perform at the National Theater.”

  “Now I know who she is, she’s Pandora!” said the other man, who was short and bald.

  “Of course! With that hairdo and Pandora’s box under her arm. The box is full of diseases; let’s move away from that woman, let’s go!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said the short bald one in a serious tone, “she might be dressed up like a Greek priestess, but that woman’s no actress.”

  I would never become an actress. It is not dignified for an aristocrat to work, my parents had always told me, and they had forbidden me to accept any paid work whatsoever.

  And then I saw him.

  His tall, slim figure, his white hair radiating light. Did others too see the aura that gleamed around our president? I shared my impressions with a lady who happened to be close by. She smiled and nodded, but then shot me a furtive look, as if to see whether I was really and truly mad.

  I looked around for my husband. He was watching me. He invited me over to where he stood with a smile. I did no such thing. When I saw that he was heading toward me, I moved away in silence.

  The president of the republic was greeting guests, shaking hands with some, exchanging a few words with others, chuckling now and again.

  When he came to where I stood, he was about to greet someone who was just behind me. Then I gathered all my strength and introduced myself, “I am Mrs. von Stamitz, the wife of Mr. von Stamitz, ex-ambassador, an important civil servant in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

  “Excuse me, Mr. President,” I added, “but I recently read that sentence of yours, ‘Freedom is as difficult to cope with as obligation.’ I can’t get it out of my head. Do you really believe that to be true?”

  “Yes,” he answered, seriously. “Have you read Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov? Freedom? It is a burden,” he said, essaying an apologetic smile.

  I didn’t really understand. Next to me a lady in a black lace dress fluttered her fan in my face, even though it wasn’t hot. That fan came between me and the president with the force of a windmill. The president introduced me to her.

  “Mrs. Olvido, the wife of the Spanish ambassador.”

  “Excuse me, but is Olvido a surname?”

  “Olvido is the lady’s Christian name. It means ‘oblivion.’”

  Olvido . . . oblivion. Wouldn’t it be nicer if she were called Memory? I thought. But the president interrupted my thoughts.

  “Do you have a profession or are you still studying?” he asked me.

  Blushing, I shook my head.

  “You could teach something, perhaps,” and quickly said his goodbyes. He waved with that expression of his that was so typical, so distant.

  Soon afterward, I heard the president in conversation with the Spanish woman, “It is necessary to understand the state and politics, and everything else in life, sub specie aeternitatis.”

  He was leaving. At that moment I felt as if I’d been stung: I urgently needed him to answer all of the questions that were piling up inside me!

  Sub specie aeternitatis, I repeated to myself as our Hispano-Suiza took us home along the dark and winding streets. From somewhere, some very distant place, I heard my husband asking me for details of my conversation with the president. But all I could do was to go on repeating to myself, as if hypnotized: sub specie aeternitatis.

  The day after the reception I woke up asking myself: A Trojan woman or Phaedra? Or Pandora, perhaps, or a drunken reveller? I looked at myself in the mirror, and gave a violent shake of my head, “No!”

  My hair fell down to my waist.

  As I stepped into the Hispano-Suiza I asked the chauffeur to drive me to the center of Prague, to Na Příkopě Avenue. I got out of the car and told him not to come back for me until the evening.

  I headed for a fashionable hairdresser. The hairstylist, Giuseppe, whose real name was Josef Svoboda, put my parasol away in a cupboard and removed the needles from my chignon. My hair spread out over the chair like a waterfall.

  “Shall I wash and dry it as usual, dear madam?”

  With a hand as straight as a ruler I made a rudimentary gesture across my neck, as if to say: cut off my head!

  “Mikado!”

  Giuseppe’s teeth shone.

  As he got to work, I entertained myself by reading a poster in a frame on the wall:

  Ours is the era of youth, par excellence. Whatever one’s age, one must seem young. Nowadays there are no old ladies. A woman does not consider herself old even when she reaches sixty. The world finds this idea acceptable and admires women who struggle valiantly against the implacable march of time. To keep themselves young is the obligation of today’s women!

  Therefore, to dye one’s graying hair is comparable to the work of a modern painter who reinterprets the canvas of an Old Master.

  I left the hairdresser with my hair cut to just below the ears and with a straight fringe at eyebrow level, but also with a few locks of hair dyed bright blonde. Giuseppe even gave me some final touches: he darkened the brows and lashes, and pressed coral-colored lipstick against my lips.

  At the door, he brushed my dress and handed me my parasol.

  “Madam is quite dazzling now, fascinating!”

  I smiled.

  Giuseppe quietly added, for my ears only, “You look as tasty as a bonbon, Sylva . . .Yum!”

  I was already on my way out, ready to get rid of my long dress.

  In a modern boutique selling prêt-à-porter clothing imported directly from Paris, I chose only the most up-to-date items, which were also the most comfortable, a skirt that reached down to just below the knee, a boy’s shirt, and a jacket made of Scottish velvet, also cut in a masculine style. And shoes with not-too-high heels and a bag that hung from a strap. With a decisive, final gesture, I threw all my old clothes away, together with the parasol.

  When it was time to pay, at the silvery till that made a ringing sound like a horse’s bell, some thick, lilac-colored lettering on a large, framed poster hanging on the wall caught my attention. The lilac letters said: GIRLS TRANSFORMED INTO BOYS. I ran my eyes over the text signed by one Milena Jesenská:

  A dress mustn’t hamper me when I move. I want to breathe deeply, I wish to live without limits and I ask of my clothing that it allow me to do so. The feverish activity of modern man, a direct result of the modernity, in which neither women nor men have time to sit still in the same place for very long, in a period in which we dedicate every minute we have to open air sports . . .

  Before I had finished reading it, I, too, was already throwing myself into feverish activity. I walked up Václavské Square, my short hair flying. With one hand I swung the bag on its long strap. My new, comfortable shoes made my waist and hips sway with each step I took. My short skirt fluttered, caressing my legs.

  During my long walk, I realized something I’d never had reason to notice before. I was the center of attention for most of the other pedestrians. The men gave me brief looks, some smiled flirtatiously, others glanced at me involuntarily, their eyes drawn to me instantly. Women gave me looks of admiration and curiosity and, of course, they observed me carefully. I glimpsed myself in a shop window: yes, I looked different from the other Czech girls from well-to-do families, locked up in their traditional world, dressed in long skirts of dark blue, wearing a blouse of the
same color, embellished with a white embroidered or lace collar. Nor did I look anything like the stout Jewish ladies, covered in gold bracelets and necklaces, walking along Na Příkopě Avenue. In a sports shop, I bought some skates, a racket, and six tennis balls, and comfortable clothing so that I could practice both of these sports. I had the packages delivered to the palazzo in Malá Strana.

  Once I was back on Na Příkopě Avenue, in a shop specializing in telephones, I ordered my own private telephone line for my chambers and my personal use only. I also ordered two of the latest models of telephone, black and rounded, shiny. I made myself comfortable in a chair at the Arco Café and ordered a Viennese coffee and a chocolate cake, all in German; in fact, I had come to this German-speaking café because I felt like hearing my own pure, German accent. Most of the customers who were having a cup of coffee and a glass of brandy were Jewish, elegant, and bohemian, but their German was the kind spoken in Prague; I winced with distaste because my German was better, of a higher category than theirs, and, after I’d eaten my cake, I left.

  On the way to our Hispano-Suiza I made time to drop by the House of the People, that magnificent Art Deco building, where a huge exhibition of contemporary photography was on. I spent so much time looking at those Cubist compositions that I arrived late at the appointment I’d made with my chauffeur; I ran to the car as fast as my legs could carry me and my new skirt flew up until it covered my back. From a distance, I signaled to the driver of the Hispano-Suiza; he didn’t respond. He hadn’t recognized me. At home, my husband looked at me, speechless.

  A dark veil hid my mother’s eyes, making her gaze seem noble and mysterious. Some time had passed since my father’s death, but my mother had still not removed her black lace veil.

  On the days that my mother left her home for Prague and decided to see me, we usually dined together in the French restaurant at the Rococo Savarin Palazzo. That’s how we celebrated the advent of spring, but also of autumn and winter. In the summer we preferred to have supper on the romantic terrace of the restaurant on Sophia’s Island, the breeze off the Vltava caressing our bare shoulders.

  During one of our lunches at the Savarin, a tall, slim man dressed in black came up to me and greeted me in Prague German. “Herr Singer,” he said. I introduced him to Maman. For a fraction of a second, Herr Singer looked straight into my mother’s eyes; he then immediately wished us an enjoyable lunch and took his leave. His elegance had impressed my mother. I understood as much when she asked me, “Who is he?” in a voice more detached than usual.

  I didn’t answer her at once; I went on talking about the film I’d seen the previous day.

  “Who is he?” she interrupted me in the same tone.

  I didn’t break off my description of the film, as if I hadn’t heard her question.

  “Who is he?” she asked for the third time.

  “He is the father of one of my pupils.”

  “Pupils?”

  “That’s right, pupils.”

  And I shrugged, as if I had said nothing untoward.

  “You . . . teach something?” she said with infinite horror and disdain.

  I was savoring the chicken à l’orange, washing it down with a Burgundy, a Mercurey La Framboisière from 1919. I was so engrossed in it that again I didn’t answer at once. Only after a while did I say, nonchalantly,

  “Yes, I teach. Why do you ask?”

  “Might I know what you teach?”

  I wiped my lips with the napkin, busying myself. I didn’t like her judgemental tone, the tone in which she ordered me to do some things and forbade me to do others. By now I was used to it, my husband also used it when he talked to me. But the president, that day we had spoken, addressed me in a very different fashion. And if he hadn’t ordered me about, who was anyone else to do so?

  “I teach piano. Why?”

  “Ever since you were little I have tried to drum it into you that a woman of our social standing does not work. Must not work. Cannot work. You must let it drop, at once. Do you understand me?”

  I felt anxious, just like when I was young, as if I were guilty of something. I became the silent little girl of my childhood days.

  I met her cold stare, her icy, haughty eyes.

  Her lack of understanding did wonders for my lost self-esteem.

  I remembered the pretty, naughty girl in the film I’d seen the day before.

  “Maman, tell me, what is Monsieur Beauvisage up to?” I asked in honeyed tones.

  Now it was my mother’s turn to busy herself with her plate. She didn’t answer my question, but she held forth on two of her historical favorites, Madame de Sévigné and Madame du Châtelet. I didn’t hear her comments; they bored me. I wanted to tell her: you’re not even an aristocrat by birth, you’re nothing but a plebeian! But I remembered that I had to obey orders: Abraham, take your child, your only son, Isaac, who you love, and go and offer him in sacrifice! So I didn’t say a word.

  We left the restaurant, and the avenue was shining in the rain. My mother then told me off. “I never want to hear about any job of yours, or anything else you might do for money. Nothing at all, is that clear?”

  I said goodbye to my mother as she was waiting for a taxi. I myself was staying in the city center because I had a driving lesson scheduled. Maman, light as the lace veil, which covered half her face, half-shut her eyes and said, “Monsieur Beauvisage is in Prague. Your old teacher has becomew a high-ranking civil servant in the Ministry of Culture. And he has already published two books of poems.”

  She winked at me, conspiratorially, and was off in her taxi.

  That evening my husband had invited a few important civil servants from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and their wives over for supper. According to his exact words, this was to be only a little homely celebration, during which he would present a surprise. Aside from our usual servants, we hired four waiters to serve us. After supper, we went on to sample a wide assortment of wines and cheeses. The bottles of Chambelle Musigny and Aloxe-Corton were finished in no time.

  This was when my husband revealed the reason for his little party: “I raise a toast to the health of my friends present here today, who have helped me aspire to and eventually achieve the great honor which I have just received. To your health, my good friends. And above all I would like to raise a toast to the health of my wife, Sylva, whose beauty will soon be radiating divinely amid the luxurious elegance of Paris.”

  Paris? The first thoughts that went through my mind were about the tickets I had gotten to see Voskovec and Werich next week, that with considerable effort I had managed to set up my music school, and that in the winter, I had planned on skiing in the mountains of Krkonoše.

  On top of which, in Prague there was . . .

  “Are we going on a trip?” I was making an effort to show that I was pleased.

  “A trip? No, Sylva.”

  My husband took a long sip of a very special Burgundy that he had just uncorked, a La Romanée Grand Cru, 1915. He gave a smirk of satisfaction, and then he, whose entire life had been spent in diplomatic circles, disregarded etiquette and served me first. Only then did he pour a few drops of wine into the glasses of the ladies and gentlemen present.

  As he did, he said, slowly and precisely, stressing each word, like a teacher of foreign languages, “You will be the wife of the Czech ambassador to Paris, my dear.”

  I pretended to look enthusiastic. It didn’t come off, I know. When I caught a glimpse of myself in the huge cut-glass mirror hanging on the wall in its baroque frame, I noticed that my effort had twisted my lips into a completely unexpected type of smile, laden as it was with disappointment, disdain, and vanity.

  My husband had finished eating the fondant au chocolat. On his lap, he was crumpling his napkin with his left hand. Not long afterward, the guests stood up from the table. He too stood up. The crumpled napkin in his left hand.

  When the guests left, he hugged me.

  “Come to the bathroom, my love. There’s
something I want to talk to you about.”

  “Let’s talk about it here.”

  My husband looked guilty and dispirited. With bent back and bowed head, he said, “I do not wish to insist, Sylva, I have achieved this long-dreamed-of position thanks to you. Your presence in my life has inspired me in such a way that I am receiving more and more recognition for my work.”

  I poured myself a soupçon of Charmes Chambertin into a cut-glass goblet. As I drank, I heard him say, “Come to the bathroom, my love.”

  I savored the wine, not deeming my husband worthy of a single look, much less a reply.

  Timidly, he put his arm around my waist.

  “Are you not pleased, my love?”

  I remained silent.

  “You never tell me anything, but now you don’t answer when I ask you something. You are a silent women, an enigmatic woman.”

  By way of an answer I stayed silent without turning toward him.

  “Are you pleased, my love?” my husband repeated, placing a hand on my hip.

  I looked at myself again in that huge mirror with its baroque frame. A silent, enigmatic woman?

  The following evening, when I came back from a concert, gently and with care, my husband made me sit down on the sofa next to him. He told me that since he had married me, he had changed a great deal: he was active, sociable, enterprising.

  “We will be leaving for Paris next week. Start getting your things ready, Sylva.”