The Silent Woman

by Monika Zgustova

  He took me by the elbow and led me into a small basement restaurant with a gothic arch. The place was full, I noticed with relief, but the restaurant’s owner seemed to know my companion and managed to fit a little table for two from somewhere, covered by a white tablecloth.

  “I’ll stay, but only for a little bit,” I said.

  The owner placed a bottle of red wine between us, followed by a huge portion of roasted meat and mountains of rice garnished with fresh parsley.

  I noticed that this good-looking man, so different from the glasses-wearing intellectuals with their pale, weak faces, ate in the most exquisite fashion.

  He held the ends of his cutlery in his long fingers; slowly, he cut away little pieces of meat, placing them in his mouth like a swallow feeding its young. When he raised his hands they seemed no more than the wings of a bird. He ate slowly, with pleasure, but his main concern was for my own comfort. He was aware of every move I made, he served me wine and water. He got up to help me sit more comfortably. He served me pieces of meat, and lettuce leaves, and did all this with the utmost discretion.

  “You are a Polish prince.”

  “No.”

  “A Hungarian duke, then.”

  “No.”

  “Then you must be a count.”

  “No.”

  “But you are an aristocrat.”

  “No.”

  “I have noble origins and I can detect them in others.”

  “In Russia, there has been a revolution.”

  He made his hands fly up then let them fall, sliding, down to his sides. Russia . . . the revolution . . . an explosion . . . chaos . . . many things destroyed. It was a simple, clear, eloquent gesture. And beautiful. An expressive watercolor sketched with only a couple of brushstrokes.

  “Your father was a prince, then?”

  By way of reply, his hands flew up again, only to fall straight back down again, like the broken wings of a swan. It occurred to me that I shouldn’t be asking this sort of thing.

  Should I never again ask then? Did I imagine there was supposed to be some kind of a future for us?

  “His name was Ivan,” said my companion, “So mine is Ivanovich.”

  “Ivanovich, that sounds like it came out of some Russian folktale.”

  “My childhood was a bit like a Russian folktale. My parents took me to the churches. To the Russian Orthodox churches.”

  “To pray there, I suppose. I know about all that! The saints, God!”

  “God, yes, expressed as beauty. And beauty expressed as God. My parents took me once a week. It was there that I discovered true beauty. Spiritual fathers with endless white beards in black tunics that reached all the way to the floor. They spoke the words of the mass in low, melodic voices. When I came out of the church, I found myself in the middle of a stunning white silence, the silence of endless Russian solitude, blinded as I was by the icy sun, by snow and ice.”

  I took large sips of the country wine from Mělník, my companion served me some more rice. After having spoken about the icy solitude of Russia, he fell into a long silence; he was clearly in a world of his own. Bit by bit, this enigmatic foreigner’s silence, his absence from my world, started to bother me.

  “Mr. Ivanovich, do you have no intention of asking me who I am?”

  “No. I know who you are. You are Venus, born out of silence.”

  His words affected me deeply. I’d never heard anyone speak like that. Perhaps words that were similar, but none said in this way. The men in the intellectual circles that I frequented, invented poetic metaphors and hurled them into women’s laps as if they were bouquets of violets. But they did so because they were enamored of their own cleverness. When they addressed a woman, deep down they were really only talking to themselves. Yet this man spoke in such a simple, frank manner, and his words were addressed directly to me.

  He excused himself and went over to the owner of the restaurant. They argued for quite a while. The owner shook his head obstinately: no, absolutely not. My companion pointed to the paintings on the walls; his eyes shone as he did so. I realized that those paintings were made by him.

  At first glance they seemed abstract. A chaos of colors and shapes. But looking more closely, I could see there was a hidden order and harmony to them. I could see the leaves and branches of a forest in them, in purple and violet and mauve and blue, and I could make out the roots of the trees, the moss and earth-colored stems. These paintings were not done merely by the painter’s hand, but by his inner self. An inner self that was, no doubt, chaotic and turbulent and tempestuous, but also, ultimately, idealistic and pensive, searching for its center. All this ran through my mind in a fraction of a second and I can’t say for sure that I was right. But those paintings transmitted strong anguish, and a need to find refuge in a world other than the real one.

  The restaurant’s owner, a young man, continued shaking his head. No, no, and again no. My companion lowered his eyes. On my way to the bathroom, I took a hundred crown note from my bag, and slipped it discreetly into the restauranteur’s hand. I gave him a look that indicated he shouldn’t let on. He gave me a look that meant OK, and patted my companion on the back, saying, “OK, Andrei! It’s a deal, you old rogue, but my restaurant will go to the dogs thanks to you!”

  When I returned from the bathroom—I’d been about to refresh the coral color on my lips, but this time the habit struck me as useless, unnecessary—Andrei was waiting for me with my black coat in his hand. He helped me to put it on.

  Outside, it was raining. The drops wet my face and filled me with joy. On Charles Bridge we broke into a run. It was raining cats and dogs. We stopped, breathless, halfway across the bridge. We were alone. We looked for our saints. I wanted mine to be serene and sensible. Andrei chose weirder, more eccentric saints, whose arms were pointing up at the sky.

  Suddenly, he got up onto the paving that lined the bridge and froze into the same position in which the saint he had chosen was twisted.

  I was dumbfounded.

  In the end, I said, inadvertently, “Get down, don’t do this to me!”

  “‘Don’t do this to me,’” he repeated enthusiastically as he got down, “It’s a beautiful language that allows one to express oneself so. Fantastic!”

  The rain had turned to a drizzle. I felt exhausted, as if I hadn’t slept for a week.

  “I’m going to bed.”

  We crossed the bridge, tired. We stopped to look at the reflection of the strange lights on Petřín Mountain in the Vltava River.

  “Where do you live?” I asked him.

  The man stood in front of the statue of a baroque saint, his fingers opened wide, his belly sticking out, and his head leaning coquettishly to one side.

  I was busy looking at a luminous dot on the waves of the flowing river. That’s my star, I thought.

  “Where do you live?” I repeated, insistently, weary, “I mean in Prague. You must live somewhere, surely?”

  He looked at me, suddenly silent.

  I got irritated.

  “Tell me where you live!”

  The man was trembling a little.

  “Do you want me to leave?” he said.

  “I want to know where you live, that’s all!”

  “A long, long way away.”

  “Where?”

  “Do you want me to leave?”

  “Shut up and follow me,” I said, sternly.

  He gave me a frightened look.

  Maybe he hadn’t understood. I turned my back to him and repeated the order. My tone sounded positively military.

  I don’t know what was happening to me. Was I enjoying playing games with this man’s evident fear?

  He watched me with his eyes wide open.

  I was enjoying this game more and more.

  The man was blinking fast, an anguished expression on his face. I felt like a general.

  “I’m a general,” I shouted at the man. I had entered completely into the spirit of the game.

 
He shut his eyes as if he were about to be hit. Even in the half-light, I could see he’d gone pale.

  “I am a harsh, cruel officer,” I was walking noisily along the bridge’s pavement.

  The man didn’t dare breathe. His fear spurred me on.

  “Let’s march,” I shouted at the top of my lungs, “March, and keep your mouth shut!”

  I marched a few steps ahead.

  I heard a muffled cry, like that of a wounded seagull.

  I turned around.

  The man was leaning on the edge of the bridge. He looked at me, his eyes filled with horror.

  A moment later, he turned and disappeared into the mist.

  Again, I heard that cry like a wounded seagull.

  I don’t know how long I stayed there, staring out at the night and trembling. After a long while, at the edge of the bridge I found the briefcase, left behind by that man who had just lost himself in the darkness.

  The following day I went to the Café Louvre. I found a friend there, who was celebrating a new role she’d just landed at the National Theater. She couldn’t stop exclaiming, “I’m going to play Nora!” and sent a glass of champagne over to my table.

  The day after, I put on a pink jersey and woolen skirt of the same color. To read, I brought poems by Nezval and Seifert to the Café Louvre, of course. I smoked an entire pack of cigarettes. When mine were finished, men at neighboring tables offered me theirs.

  On the fourth day I told myself that I wouldn’t go back to the Café Louvre for at least a week, and went to the theater to see my friend play Nora.

  On the fifth day, I attended a dinner thrown by a well-known journalist and translator. People there were talking about the short stories of a Czech writer in German, one by the name of František or Franz or Frank Kavka or Kafka. An actor read a few out loud, from the German original. It sank in: Odradek, that’s me all over.

  On the sixth day I couldn’t stand it any more and went to the Café Louvre for a drink. To avoid staring obsessively at the door, I read the text hanging on the wall in a red wood frame:

  Got problems that seem unbearable? Go to the café!

  He’s stood you up and you feel like hell? Go to the café!

  Shoes worn out? Go to the café!

  Always scrimping and saving and never treat yourself? Off to the café!

  None of the men you know cut the mustard? To the café!

  About to kill yourself? To the café!

  Hate and despise people, even though you can’t live without them? To the café!

  Got debts here, there, and everywhere? To the café!

  On the seventh day I thought: Do you long for something and not yet know what it is? To the café!

  On the eighth day Miluška and five other students turned up. In the afternoon, I was having tea with my mother and Mr. Singer, and I realized that the two of them saw each other every day.

  At midnight I couldn’t resist it anymore.

  The briefcase contained a few coins, a pencil, a white handkerchief, clean and ironed, and a little pad full of drawings and addresses and phone numbers. It also contained a train ticket to a far-off city in the mountains, and another to a village the name of which meant absolutely nothing to me. And one thing more: a small package wrapped in a white napkin and tied with light blue ribbon.

  You can’t do this! I said to myself, you’re sticking your nose into another person’s private life. I unwrapped the package: it contained a black piece of cloth. I spread the cloth out on the bed. Before me was a long, black lace glove; there were dark stains like clay on the fingers: dried blood.

  I stepped off the bus that brought me to the skirts of the high mountains, carrying that leather briefcase worn by time and use. Two elderly ladies with black scarves on their heads, after recovering from the distaste my presence had evidently caused them, gave me the directions I needed.

  The sky was very low, drops of humidity were forming pearls in the air.

  An ancient carriage was coming down the unpaved mountain path, heading straight for me. Next to it walked a Gypsy patriarch wearing a black hat, and behind him two elderly Gypsy women were swaying along. One of them wore a purple scarf around her head, the other one’s scarf was electric blue; they didn’t try to hide their curiosity as they stared at me. When they came close, the carriage stopped and they asked me in harsh, foreign Czech what I was up to in this area where many of the people born here had left because there was nothing left but hatred. The Czechs against Germans, the Germans against Czechs, or of both Czechs and Germans against the Gypsies. I mentioned Andrei’s name. They looked at each other. One of the women shrugged and pulled the blue scarf from her face, saying, “Oh! Oh!”

  I stared first at one and then the other, visibly perplexed. The Gypsy woman with the purple scarf said, “Do you really have to go there? Are you sure you can’t give it a miss? Had any children by him, have you maybe?”

  I blushed.

  The Gypsy man waved from the old carriage, full of boxes and bundles and sacks and paper cones. I noticed that on top of that pile of bundles, there sat a violin and a kind of puffed out mandolin.

  The blue Gypsy woman repeated her guttural “Oh! Oh!” again.

  The purple Gypsy woman gave me a long farewell wave and said, “He’s a good man.”

  And the Gypsy man hissed, “You be careful!”

  They left, following a turn in the road and waving and nodding goodbye. The carriage swayed and the Gypsy women headed down to the valley, moving like dancers.

  He’s a good man. Be careful. These words echoed in my head.

  Then three woodcutters passed by; they also looked askance at me, the intruder.

  Then a farmworker, whose trousers were covered in patches, overtook me on the path. He was leading a goat by a piece of string. He shot me a venomous look before disappearing around a bend.

  Next a tall, blonde man came down from the mountain. He suddenly abandoned his cart in the middle of the road and ran toward me.

  “Venus born out of silence!”

  He hugged me as if we’d known each other all our lives. In silence I handed him his briefcase; he made a gesture as if to say forget it, the same gesture the Gypsy patriarch had made a moment ago, as if to say that I shouldn’t have come such a long way to bring it to him. He took me by the elbow, the way he’d guided me through the streets of the Old Town that night in Prague.

  He showed me the bushes and trees of the area, and invented new names for each and every one of them.

  He showed me the tumbledown house where he lived.

  It started to rain. He thought it an ideal moment to take me for a walk in the surrounding countryside. The forest was steeped in the odor of that pouring icy rain. When the rain started to come down in thick curtains, we hid ourselves away in a cave that Andrei knew as well as he had known that underground restaurant in Prague. He spoke about the stones, he picked them up and showed them to me, and I could see clearly the paintings hanging on the walls of that Prague tavern. We sat down on a wide stone. My fingers slid over the wall of the cave as we looked out at the forest that the frozen rain had dressed in cut glass.

  Andrei, in a voice from another planet, said, “Let us think no more of the glory and shame of the world. We have everything!”

  Yes, we had everything we could have wished for then. We said nothing. In that silence, our closeness grew and grew.

  Andrei asked in a soft voice, “Perhaps you’re hungry?”

  Without waiting for a reply, he took out of his pocket a piece of bread wrapped in a handkerchief. With those long, fine, white fingers he broke it in half and gave me the bigger piece.

  His eyes sparkled when he saw how hungry I was. When I’d finished my piece of bread, he carefully put the crumbs that had fallen from his own piece into my mouth, slowly, one by one. He caressed my lips with the tips of his fingers as he did so. When we’d finished, we drank from the icy brook that came down from the high mountains. That sip of water filled my bo
dy with a deep cold, and my spirit, with peace and freedom.

  “Would you like to stay with me? Stay! Please, stay!” he repeated, like a child begging for a toy.

  I wanted to stay, he knew that.

  “I’m going to look for the bus,” I said as I watched a white cloud against the background of the darkened sky.

  Andrei followed my gaze.

  “That cloud is like human life, ever changing, fleeting, and free.”

  I forgot the whole world. I waited for Andrei to ask me to stay, again. I had the words “Yes, I’ll stay” on the tip of my tongue.

  “I’ll take you to the bus stop,” he said. His voice was full of sadness.

  After a short silence he said, “Time grips the curves of the mountains, deep and untameable.”

  Under the chains of rain we reached a wooden shack: the bus stop.

  “Goodbye.”

  Why was he saying goodbye to me? I wanted him to stay with me.

  “Goodbye,” he repeated, and we shook hands.

  No. Andrei, the mountain man who sometimes talked as if he lived in a world other than this one, didn’t understand that I didn’t mean what I had said; I wanted to stay.

  A moment passed. He said, in a low voice, “Look, the dark pools reflect the mountains, and above them floats the cloudy sky. You, the woman born in silence, are leaving, and everything will be the way it always has been. Yet there are so many things I would like to tell you. You are leaving, and if we meet again some other day, amid the darkness of the clouds, I know that you’ll listen to me. I know it.”

  And he walked slowly away through the pearly rain.

  He spoke and behaved differently than most people. But here in the middle of nature, I didn’t find it odd. The wind made the mountains and the forests echo, and the twilight air, lit by the shine of the rain, felt fresh against my cheeks and plunged me into a state of nostalgia.

  “Sylva,” Andrei said, standing in front of me once again, “why do people go to sleep just now? And why would you leave now when the rainy evening is full of such sad beauty?”

  “I’m glad you came back here, Andrei.”

  “There was something I forgot to tell you. Do you recognize this?” He started to recite something in Russian, softly, taking long pauses during which I had the feeling it was silence itself that was speaking the lines. I listened more to the melancholy of his Russian than to the actual meaning of the words. The poem was something about snow, prison, a bell.