Far To Go (2 page)

Marta still couldn’t reconcile the rallying gunfire with their sleepy Bohemian town. It could claim the tallest church spire in the region—fifty-five feet precisely—but there was nothing else remarkable about it. A Gentile butcher, a Jewish tailor, two hundred families grouped together on the east bank of a river with nowhere in particular to go. It was quiet and safe; she knew that’s why Pavel loved it. He loved a week in London, a month on the Adriatic coast in the summer, but beneath it he was a
vlastenecký
, a Czech nationalist. The thing he loved best was coming home.

Marta could see her reflection in the parlour window. Her hair was dark and curly; she had a dimple in the middle of her left cheek that seemed to drive her innocence home. Pavel got up from his chair, and he stood next to her for a moment, looking down at the town square. There was a woman trying to cram an enormous valise into the boot of a Tatra, and several more detachments of Czech soldiers. A young girl cried openly as she watched a uniformed back retreat across the square. Her man going off to fight. She held a single rose in her hand, the petals pointed towards the ground like a magic wand that had lost its power. And Marta felt suddenly the same helpless dread. The fog inside her lifted and the old familiar feeling came back. Things were about to happen, she knew. Things she would be powerless to stop.

That night she snuck out of the Bauer house. Crossed the cobbled square, passed the grocer’s and the tailor’s shop, her bare feet cold in her sandals. Mist lifted off the river in wisps. Little plumes of anticipation rose inside her as well. An hour ago she’d been soundly asleep, but now she felt alert, wide awake. She heard the quiet burble of water over rocks and, somewhere not far off, the sound of a window being opened. The keys to Mr. Bauer’s factory were clutched in her palm. He always left them hanging from a loop of leather on a hook by the back door; she had learned to pick them up by their long metal ends to avoid the sound of them jingling together.

There was a half-moon edging out from a length of grey cloud.
Mr. Goldstein’s beard
, she thought.

The moon rubbed the river’s back. She crossed the footbridge, her sandals clacking on the wood, taking the same path she’d taken for several weeks now. Her body moved unthinkingly. The factory was enclosed by heavy iron bars but the gate had been left open an inch. Ernst had arrived before her; he’d be waiting inside.

The rusted latch fell shut behind her like the end of a morality tale.

She went in through the front hall. The secretary’s desk had been cleared for the day, the typewriter covered with a thick canvas sheath. There was a framed swatch of lace on the wall from the textile factory’s first day of production. She had a brief uneasy feeling, remembering Pavel’s story: What had become of his brother Misha’s factory? And what of brother Misha himself? She pushed the thought away, anticipating instead what awaited her. Crossed the foyer and stood next to the elevator, a wooden platform that was operated by pulling a rope. Her nipples were stiff under her sweater. She moved towards the door to the factory floor and slowly twisted the handle.

Inside, everything was dark. An industrial-sized broom had been leaned up against the wall. The giant machines were like sleeping mammals, their silvery flanks fallen still.

She didn’t hear Ernst’s approach. He had her from behind before she saw his face. She laughed, trying to turn in his arms to see him, but he held her firmly, pulling her against his chest. A hand held loosely over her mouth.

“You’re my gas mask,” she said.

“I’m here to protect you,” Ernst whispered into her curls.

“To keep the filthy odours away?”

He hesitated; she felt his muscles tighten behind her. “Do you find . . .” he said.

“Do I find what?”

“The Jews. Do you find that they smell?”

Marta stiffened. “Of course not! What a thing to say.” She tried to pull away, to look Ernst in the face, but he held her firmly.

“I’m not the only one saying it.” He paused, as though suddenly aware of himself. “I’m
not
saying it,” he said quickly. “I’m not saying it at all.”

She could tell he was ashamed, and felt a rush of sympathy. He was only repeating what people on the streets were saying, after all. And who was she to judge whether these statements were true? The Jews she knew best—Mr. Bauer, for example—they weren’t really
Jewish
, at least not in the way she knew was meant by the word. She tried to think if she knew anyone Jewish who was actually practising. There was Mr. Goldstein, of course, but he was perhaps the only one.

“Mr. Bauer says we will need a gas mask,” she said.

Ernst’s thumb was tracing her jawline.

“Perhaps he’ll prove right.”

“Do you think so?” This surprised her, and part of her started to panic. “I have no family,” she said suddenly, although she’d told herself she would not, and pivoted in Ernst’s arms so that her face was directly in front of his: the square jaw, the pockmarks, the faint pebbling of stubble. The thought of war terrified her, and she clung to him tightly. “What will I do? If the fighting starts in earnest?”

“Pavel will protect you,” Ernst said mildly.

She lifted her chin to hold his eye. “He isn’t obliged.”

“But he will.” She could see Ernst wanted to give Pavel the benefit of the doubt, to paint his friend in the best possible light, as though in apology for his earlier comment.

“You have your wife,” Marta heard herself say in the petulant voice of a child.

Ernst’s gaze softened; he ran the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip. “And you have your beauty,” he said, as though that would solve anything. Marta had noticed this about the few men she interacted with on a daily basis; they thought a woman’s good looks could protect her, like some kind of shield.

He drew her to him, then kissed her softly, holding her bottom lip between his teeth ever so briefly. He cupped her breast lightly, and then more firmly, his touch getting rough. The hand was back over her mouth, but she yielded, her body giving in to his command. She was not about to scream. This was part of it, part of their game, and if she was honest, it was the part she most enjoyed.

She was caught now. He would not let her go.

From the kitchen came the sound of the cook chopping beets, the running of water followed by scrubbing, then the
thwack, thwack
of a knife against the board. It was the sound of Marta’s pulse, of the ache in her temples. It had been another night without any sleep.

“Dinner is at seven, Mr. Bauer,” she said.

Pavel, she saw, had moved to the hall and was pulling on a green wool cloak, the one he usually wore mushrooming. He held his pipe away from his face. “Off to enlist,” he grinned.

She squeezed her eyes closed for a moment; she could actually feel the tired pouches of flesh beneath them. “You can finally take action,” she said.

All summer Pavel had been enraged by the
Völkischer Beobachter
’s headlines: “Czech Police Burn Sudeten Farms”; “German Peddler Killed by Czech Mob.” Lies, he said, every word. For months Sudeten Germans had been under orders to provoke Czechs, and the Czechs were under orders not to be provoked. But now, finally, Pavel would have the chance to stand up for what he believed.

Marta paused and shut her eyes again briefly. She took a half-step towards Pavel and inhaled deeply. Did he smell? Like tobacco, certainly, but beneath that?

“What about the factory?” she asked. “If you enlist?” It was a bold question on her part, but Pavel didn’t seem to notice.

“We need men to fight,” Pavel said. “We need men, and we need boys!” He punctuated with his pipe, jabbing at the air with its stem. Pleased, she thought, to have her as an audience.

“And your workers?”

“The workers will fight.”

“Even Ernst?” She tasted the plant manager’s name.

“I’m halting production tomorrow,” Pavel said, not answering her question.

“Really? Are you certain?”

But who was she to ask? Mr. Bauer obviously had a vision: it had pulled him out of the depths of himself. She’d heard him speak more in the past day than in the thirty days before that combined.

“If Germany takes us, there will be nothing left for the workers at all,” Pavel said.

There was a sharp knock at the door. It was Ernst—she’d known it would be. He’d shaved since the night before, she saw, and his sweater had been replaced with an Austrian cloak like Pavel’s. An ostrich feather stuck out from the side of his cap. He seemed a different man from the one she’d just been with, remote and apart from her. To think of the intimacies they had so recently shared made her flush.

“We were just talking about you,” Pavel smiled, and clapped his friend on the shoulder.

“Good things?” Ernst looked at Marta.

“Of course!” Pavel said. “I was telling Marta how the whole factory will enlist . . .”

Ernst made a noise in the back of his throat that seemed, to Marta, noncommittal. But Pavel didn’t appear to notice. “We’re late,” he said. Then, “See you shortly, Marta.”

She lowered her eyes and fiddled with the string of her apron, then slipped out of the hallway. “It’s a great day,” she heard Pavel announce to Ernst. “A great day for us. A bad day for the Germans!”

Ernst’s voice was muffled; Marta couldn’t hear his reply.

When the men were gone, Marta walked slowly around the parlour, running a palm over the polished oak table, touching the throne-like wooden chairs with the hunting scenes carved into their backs. A crystal candy dish held a bag of Pepik’s chocolate-covered cherries.

Upstairs, the door to the master bedroom was open. There was an ornate Victorian sofa in the corner, the kind that would stay in the room forever because it was too heavy and awkward to move, and French doors that gave way to a little balcony with a wrought-iron table where nobody ever sat. Books were stacked up on Pavel’s side of the bed:
Talks with Tomáš Masaryk
by Karel Čapek, his favourite Czech author, a boy from his hometown of Hronov who had made good. And
Das Unbehagen in der Kultur
by Sigmund Freud, the famous doctor who had just died of cancer.

Marta went over to the bed and fluffed up the goose-down pillows. There was a silver boar’s-hair brush on the vanity, and the watch was beside it, left there casually, as though it was not worth a small fortune. Its case made a sound like a door that needed oil. She held the watch tentatively to her wrist; she imagined herself in a silk dress and elbow-length gloves, being twirled by Ernst across a glimmering ballroom floor. How glamorous she’d appear, how worldly. Pavel had brought the watch back from Paris; the band was made completely of diamonds, with a thin blue line of sapphires down the centre. He was trying, she knew, to convert his wealth into solid assets. If war broke out the currency would be useless.

Engraved on the underside of the band was a woman’s name: Anneliese.

Marta shut the watch case. She closed the bedroom door behind her.

Downstairs Pepik was on his stomach, splayed out in front of his train with his buckled shoes crossed behind him. Two clothespin people clutched in his fists. “All aboard!” she heard him whisper forcefully. A shy boy usually, but in charge of this domain.

She got down on her hands and knees and whispered in his ear: “
Pepik. Kolik je hodin
?”

He started as though waking from a long and feverish dream. The blush of pleasure on his face at seeing her never ceased to amaze her. That she gave someone such comfort. That she could be so needed. He squinted up at the grandfather clock in the corner of the room, taller than him by half, with its regal stature and chimes.

“Two o’clock.” He tugged at his suspender.

“Two o’clock minus . . . ?”

“Where’s my little man?” Pepik asked.

She passed him the clothespin doll. “Minus?”

“Some minutes!”

Marta laughed. “Minus
ten
minutes,” she said. “Look at the long hand.”

Pepik wiggled his fist, causing the tiny man to run away and hide behind the caboose.

“Would you like one of your chocolates?” she asked.

She knew he would say no: he was saving them to share with his friends. It was a magnanimous approach for such a small child, but she also knew where it came from—Pavel was equally generous.

Marta suddenly remembered Pepik’s first weeks home from the hospital, how hard he had cried in the evenings, and the thrill she felt as the cloudy newborn eyes slowly clarified to the same bright blue as hers. A stranger might see them together and remark on how the child took after his mother.

Was this what every governess secretly hoped for?

A sharp gust of wind squealed down the chimney. In the silence that followed another shot rang out; the soldiers across the square were hard at work at target practice. Pepik didn’t seem to notice but Marta shivered involuntarily; she kept expecting the whole situation would blow over, but instead it seemed to be escalating. She got back down beside Pepik and crossed her legs and looked at him closely. “
Miláčku
,” she said. “Did you hear that gun? Do you remember the big trucks yesterday?”

He looked at her blankly. Blinked his long lashes.

“That was the Czech army. They’re here to protect us.”

Pepik turned back to the train, focused on his goal. “All aboard,” he muttered again. But Marta took his face by the chin and turned it towards her. This was important.

“Your
tata
,” she said, “and all of his workers—everyone is ready to fight.”

She paused, wondering if this was really true.

Would Ernst fight? On which side?

And which side was she herself on?

“Come here, Pepik,” she whispered. She wanted, suddenly, to hold him. But Pepik seemed to have forgotten her entirely. He turned back to the scene in front of him, the Princess Elizabeth engine, the livestock cars loosely linked like the vertebrae of some long reptile’s spine.

Pepik flicked the switch.

The electric train seemed to hesitate for a moment. Then it sighed on its tracks, a traveller hoisting very heavy bags.