The Silent Woman

by Monika Zgustova

  Katya was trembling from the cold. I was already unbuttoning my jean jacket to give it to her, but Il Mammone had also started to pull off his yellow sweater. Katya took it, with a gesture that was almost solemn, as if, for her, it was a matter of life or death. In silence, building up expectation, she took off her T-shirt, pulling it over her white, voluminous breasts, voluptuous to an extent that was almost absurd. She gave me a fleeting look to check if I, too, was seeing it all. Yes, I saw it, but just like the others I concentrated on her face to avoid staring at those huge naked breasts with their bluish veins. Then slowly, one centimeter at a time, Katya pulled on that yellow sweater, which ended up hanging off her frame ridiculously. Only Il Mammone didn’t notice any of this, he was too busy choosing the largest piece of meat of the three or four still left on the platter. But Katya was watching him with a penetrating stare. Katya said, again with solemnity, imposingly, “If only this sweater were a tighter fit!” Il Mammone looked at her absent-mindedly and then, finally realizing what was going on, started to grin, though it was more of a grimace, and then sat his daughter on his lap. The other Italian, Tommaso, red as a beet, quickly changed the subject.

  “Not long ago I was thinking about how we Westerners, though we don’t even like the place at all, are always focused on what’s going on in America. Is that the situation in Russia, too?”

  “No,” Katya said, without thinking, as if she’d been ready to answer this question for years, “We don’t. We’ve always been different. Russia isn’t Europe, but neither does it want to be America. It follows its own path.”

  Katya said this like a spoiled child calling attention to herself. But all the Russians enthusiastically agreed.

  Katya stood up and started to spin herself around across the beach, the yellow sweater down to her knees; she spun on her axis for so long that she lost her balance and fell over, laughing her head off. As I watched her, I noticed that behind her, in the west, the part of the sky that was closest to the sea varied in color from pomegranate-red to violet. Turquoise clouds were chasing each other directly above me.

  Il Mammone—his nickname because he was a momma’s boy, passing from his mother’s tender care into the equally tender arms of his wife—was teaching his daughter to count to ten in Russian. His accent hurt the ears.

  “Shall we make a move?” I asked.

  “What’s that!” Katya exclaimed, concerned, “What, go home to sleep at only half past twelve, when the night is just beginning? First we’re going to have tea in Komarovo, but we’ll take a detour via the cemetery and visit Anna Akhmatova’s grave. Then we’re going off to Saint Petersburg to see the bridges being lowered at daybreak,” she said, decisively.

  So I left and went off on my own.

  I adjusted the rearview mirror. The traffic light had changed twice and was now back to red. The woman in the apron, meanwhile, had reached the crossroads, had stopped in front of a mailbox and had taken a letter out of her pocket. After checking both addresses, she put the letter to her lips and only then did she pop it into the slit of the mailbox. I suddenly felt a desire, a strong one, for someone to send me a letter as she had just done.

  I crossed the Moyka Canal, lined with neoclassical palaces, and then I crossed the Griboyedov Canal. I parked by the Fontanka Canal; I wanted to walk in the Summer Garden, but it was closed. It’s half past one at night, I thought, of course everything’s closed. Everything lay under a muffled light. I went into a nearby park, entering through a hole in the railings, and wandered through the twilight toward the Church of Our Saviour. The golden domes of the towers were shining brighter now under the sky the color of fresh violets than they would have done under a summer sun. I thought of our evenings of Russian liturgical music, Mama, those evenings full of memories of Father. I didn’t like being in this park; couples were sitting on the grass and on the benches, strolling, hugging, kissing. They looked theatrical. I didn’t want to see them, they were distracting.

  As I was thinking about my father, I turned down Gagarin Street and walked to the Neva docks, reaching the Hermitage. My father is, or was, from this city, I thought; and I don’t even know where he lived. I spent a long while gazing at the transparent waves on the river: Whatever happened to my father? The river flowed solemnly, majestically, carrying away, day after day, all the questions that would never be answered, and with them, all the troubles of the inhabitants of this city, delivering them to the sea that would make silvery fish of them, and shiny seaweed and underwater plants that nobody would ever see.

  VIII

  SYLVA

  We walked through the city in the wartime blackout. Not a single light pierced the darkness of Nazi-occupied Prague. Malá Strana, where I knew every street and wall and stone, had grown unfamiliar. We walked, lost in the darkened streets, houses were languishing in the shadows . . . houses that came and went, like ocean waves. Andrei had come to see me, from the occupied Sudets all the way to occupied Prague; he had made that dangerous, forbidden journey, just to see me; I couldn’t help but think of that, as we walked.

  “Have you noticed, Andrei, how intensely one lives in the dark?”

  Andrei was silent, immersed in his own world. I explained, “What I mean is, in the dark we experience everything in a deeper way. Maybe that’s how blind people live.”

  Andrei didn’t reply. But I needed to hear his voice! So I asked him another question, “They’ve taken our country away from us. Do you think there’ll be a war?”

  He remained silent. Hadn’t he heard me? After a while he repeated my words as if they were a question.

  “Have they taken our country away from us?”

  “Yes. It belongs to them by day. And at night they forbid us from seeing it.”

  Andrei answered in a somewhat illogical fashion, “Can you see that? That miracle? The starry sky above us, here in this capital city?”

  To bring Andrei back to earth, I repeated what I’d said, having held the thought. Andrei answered, “The country and the land have grown bigger.”

  It struck me that today, as on so many other days, Andrei didn’t have both feet on the ground. I just said, “What do you mean, Andrei?”

  “The land is reaching upward, look. It is heading upward to the stars!”

  We were going up a tree-lined road, Jan Neruda Street, I think it must have been. I couldn’t see the passersby, although I knew they were there. We had all turned into shadows. But I heard their voices, which sounded more intimate to me than on other occasions. They were human voices.

  We made out a distant echo of thunder. A far-away, continuous thundering, which bode no good. The muffled noise was drawing closer. Soldiers on the march. Soon this strident thunder of military boots started to hurt our ears. The soldiers were marching down the middle of the street, and they too had been turned into shadows. But I did not feel close to these shadows, human though they were.

  To the rhythm of their deafening steps, Andrei whispered words of consolation.

  Once more we lost ourselves in the winding, dark streets of Malá Strana. But the charm of that night had vanished; at least for me. Andrei solemnly let his eyes wander over the starry firmament. As if something special was about to happen, that he had been expecting for a long time. As if he were about to make a major discovery of some kind.

  I walked faster, dragging Andrei after me. We reached the top of the mountain. We were at the castle. Under the starlight I could just make out the Loreto church. We went down a few steps, surrounded by dark shadows that were pointing at the sky. I knew perfectly well that they were little baroque angels. Andrei had stumbled against one of the steps and if he hadn’t fallen over it was because he had grabbed one of those stone angels for support.

  It was then. Then it happened . . . For the first time I was witness to . . .

  “Look, over there!” Andrei said, “He’s coming to me through the sunlight, walking along a pathway of white sand under a hanging garden. The path has a border of white lilies, white Ny
mphaea are floating in an artificial lake.”

  “Sunlight?” I exclaimed.

  “Easy, girl, don’t frighten off Gudea. The fact that this great Sumerian should come to me is a very special honor. I wish to prepare myself properly so as to receive his visit.”

  His whole face had begun to shine beatifically.

  I noticed that, in effect, Andrei was bathed in sunlight, and was now walking as if on a summer’s day, although it was a cold, wet December night. Only in the summer do we move with such freedom and ease. I saw that Andrei had no doubts, he knew exactly what was going on. No, that wasn’t quite it. I saw that Andrei was looking into the very heart of truth and of all that he found correct and good and beautiful. His lips moved and gave out little sounds, without a doubt he was conversing with someone. He was gesturing broadly, his hands flew hither and thither like a butterfly that knows it has to seek the light. He smiled at the other person, he was getting on like a house on fire with him. He took off his coat and jacket, as he felt so hot on that muggy summer afternoon. I went on watching him: it was clear that that conversation had given Andrei something new, perhaps even essential; some revelation, probably a profound and longed-for truth.

  The conversation had lasted an hour, perhaps longer. But it’s possible that it had seemed to me to last longer than it really was because I had seen something supernatural, incredible. I was a little afraid.

  When Andrei came back from his journey among the ancient Sumerians, he seemed happy and at peace. We were walking slowly over the mountain of Petřín. As dawn broke, I plucked up the courage to ask him, “What did he actually tell you, the Sumerian ruler? Did he give you any personal advice?”

  Andrei looked at me, bright-eyed, “Gudea linked my life, my attitudes and my work to his ideals. Everyone must enrich and beautify the world as best he can, and artists more than anyone.”

  We had breakfast at the Café Louvre; at that hour we were the only customers. We ordered thick coffee with croissants and raspberry jam. Andrei couldn’t stop smiling, his mouth open and his eyes sparkling.

  Afterward we went home to sleep, or, to be precise, I at least needed a few hours rest. Andrei opened a bottle of wine, and, ensconced in an armchair, sang and whistled and drew the trees and peeling paintwork of the houses he could see from the window.

  When I woke up, around midday, I realized at once that Andrei had left. On the bedside table, next to his chair, I noticed the bottle of red wine, half-empty, and an empty cut-glass goblet. The goblet was supporting a sheet of yellow paper covered with a drawing.

  I discovered a portrait in the drawing: a man with large, expressive eyes, and an alert, wise face, dressed in a black tunic. His face radiated willpower. He had lucid, almost clairvoyant eyes, prominent cheekbones and a jutting chin, characteristics that marked him as an intense, powerful and spiritually vigorous man. The only accessory worn by this serene figure was a strip of cloth, bound about his head like a turban, and marked with cuneiform inscriptions.

  Andrei had never done portraits before. I was absolutely sure of that.

  Under the bottle I found a piece of paper. A note addressed to me, I thought. I read:

  The name which can be pronounced is no longer a name.

  In the absence of the name is the start of heaven and earth,

  and the presence of the name is the mother of all things.

  If we do not desire to do so, we will become familiar with its secret,

  whereas if we look for it,

  we will only find its surface.

  This is the door that leads to all enigmas.

  Who wrote this? Where was Andrei?

  How would he get home? A sick man like him? How would he find his house in the mountains? How would he manage to get there, he who didn’t live on the earth but in some place beyond? How would he travel if it was forbidden to come from and go to the border areas? I couldn’t stop asking myself these and many other questions.

  I picked up the newspaper, to give myself a break from these unpleasant thoughts. On the front page of this Czech newspaper I read: “Let us follow the Führer over the Christmas period! Let us follow him through this era which is so important for Germany and the future of our Reich!”

  I was overwhelmed by a feeling of loneliness. I too felt abandoned by everything and everybody.

  Not long afterward, they presented themselves at the door. Both had smooth, fair hair, combed to one side. They were thin. They looked like brothers. They were a few years older than me. One wore a gray suit, the other was dressed in brown. They spoke to me in German. I invited them into the living room. They were courteous, well-mannered, polite. With expert looks they examined the sheet music on the piano, my German-language leather-bound collection of Greek philosophers. One of them started to talk about Socrates’ view of the Republic, the other admired—or adored, as he put it—Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. After this brief preliminary chat, my two visitors broke off their reflections in mid-sentence, and got down to their essential order of business.

  “Forgive our barging in on you like this unannounced, verehrteste Komtesse,” said the one in the brown suit.

  “We come in good faith, you belong to us,” said the gray one.

  “I belong to you? Me?” I said, alarmed, not understanding a word.

  “What I mean is that you are on our side,” the gray one said by way of clarification.

  I still didn’t understand a thing. I decided to wait.

  “You’re one of us, that is what we wish to let you know, and that is the reason we have come here,” the gray one repeated, rubbing his hands in satisfaction.

  “When it comes down to it, you are German,” the brown one said, smiling as if he could smell his favorite cut of meat roasting in the oven.

  “My father was German,” I answered cautiously, “My mother isn’t.”

  “We already know that,” the gray one said with a scornful grimace that I didn’t quite know how to interpret.

  “That’s good enough,” the brown one dryly cut in, “To be half German, as you are, is to be German as far as we are concerned. Your German father is quite enough to ensure that you can become . . . ”

  Both of them fell silent.

  “So that I can become . . . ?” I said.

  “A citizen of the Reich,” the gray one said.

  “Yes, a citizen of the Reich,” the brown one was smiling as if the roast was already carved and served at the table.

  “Citizen of the Reich?” I said, surprised.

  “Yes, a citizen of the Reich, which is to say officially German, verehrteste Komtesse. We are trying to bring the greatest number of Germans possible into our ranks,” the gray one explained, unsmiling now, serious, severe.

  I began to tremble.

  “Think it over, gnädige Frau. We do this for your own good. Yours and that of . . . the people who are close to you,” the brown one said, with a courteous smile on his lips, and a fake diamond gleam in his eyes.

  Andrei didn’t come. Christmas, and the New Year, and Epiphany had gone by. Winter was coming to an end. But the newspapers and the radio went on saying the same thing: “The president of the Böhmen und Mähren Protectorate has announced that it is now obligatory for all Germans, and, for obvious reasons, all Czechs, to salute the symbols of the Reich, the flag, the anthem, etc., with their hats off and a respectful demeanor. Although it is not obligatory, a raised-arm salute would be appreciated.”

  Andrei didn’t come.

  But those two men, the gray one and the brown one, came back.

  I sent them away saying that I didn’t feel very well that day. They promised they would be back soon.

  “I want you in a red dress, like a Gypsy girl. You haven’t got one? We’ll buy one. Let’s go!”

  He had come with an armful of daffodils, but he had arrived late, after a long time had gone by, as he always did, in fact.

  We were crossing the Charles Bridge. From the rainy, springtime sky the baroque statu
es greeted us with their heads and arms. Full of enthusiasm, Andrei told me that he had started to do portraits, something he’d never attempted before. He painted the Gypsies who lived in huts and dilapidated carriages at the foot of the mountains. He said he admired the way they communicated with each other by means of folktales. A Gypsy girl had caught his attention because of her fire-colored skirt.

  We bought a loose-fitting skirt, red as a sports car, which came down to my knees; black shoes with high, but comfortable, heels; a very wide, black leather belt, and a dark-colored jacket with a red velvet rose on the lapel. Andrei paid for everything. I didn’t have that kind of money; two of the three Jewish families who rented flats from me were paying me a lot less now than a couple of years ago. They couldn’t afford any more. Andrei laughed as he paid. Back on the street he said to me, “What use is money? I want your beauty to be well-framed, so that it stands out. From now on, we’ll buy something once a month. In the summer we’ll go to the Vltava baths together; I want to see you in a sky-blue swimsuit: you’ll look like one of those demoiselles that Ingres used to paint.”