The Lost Wife

  My first memory of Lucie is that she looked far younger than her eighteen years. Almost childlike, her body seemed lost in her long coat and dress. But when she first knelt down to greet me, I was immediately struck by the warmth flowing through her outstretched hand. Every morning when she arrived at our door, she brought with her the faint scent of cinnamon and nutmeg, as if she had been baked freshly that morning and delivered warm and fragrant—a delectable package that was impossible to turn away.

  Lucie was no great beauty. She was like an architect’s straight edge, all lines and angles. Her hard cheekbones looked as though they had been hammered with a chisel; her eyes were large and black, her lips tiny and thin. But like a dark forest nymph stolen from the pages of an old-fashioned fairy tale, Lucie possessed her own unique magic. After only a few days of working for my family, we all became enchanted by her. When she told a story, her fingers worked the air, like a harpist plucking imaginary strings. When there were chores to be done, she hummed songs that she had heard her own mother sing.

  Lucie was treated not as a servant by my parents, but as a member of our extended family. She took all her meals with us, sitting around the large dining-room table that always had too much food. And although we did not keep kosher, we still never drank milk when we ate a dish that had meat. Lucie made the mistake her first week of work of pouring me a glass of milk with my beef goulash, and Mother must have told her afterward that we didn’t mix the two, for I never remember her making the mistake again.

  My world became less sheltered and certainly more fun after Lucie’s arrival. She taught me things like how to trap a tree frog or how to fish from one of the bridges off the Vltava. She was a master storyteller, creating a cast of characters from the various people we’d meet during our day. The man who sold us ice cream by the clock in Old Town Square might appear that night at bedtime as a wizard. A woman, from whom we bought apples at the market, might later emerge as an aging princess who had never recovered from a broken heart.

  I have often wondered if it was Lucie or my mother who first discovered that I had a talent for drawing. In my memory, it is Mother handing me my first set of colored pencils and it is Lucie, later on, who buys me my first set of paints.

  I know it was Lucie who first began taking me to the park with my sketchpad and tin of pencils. She would stretch out a blanket near the little pond where boys sailed their paper boats, and lie on her back and watch the clouds as I drew page after page.

  In the beginning, I drew little animals. Rabbits. Squirrels. A redbreasted bird. But soon I was attempting to draw Lucie, then a man reading a newspaper. Later on I began more ambitious subjects, like a mother pushing a pram. None of these first sketches were any good. But just like any young child who is first learning to draw, I taught myself by doing it over and over again. My observations eventually began to connect with my hand.

  After hours outside of drawing, Lucie would roll up my sketches and bring them home to our apartment. Mother would ask how we had spent our day and Lucie would take the sketches she loved best and tack them up on the kitchen wall. My mother would carefully look at my work and then wrap me in her arms. I must have been close to six the first time I heard her say: “Lenka, you know I was the same way at your age—I always had a pencil and piece of paper in my hands.” That was the first time I ever heard my mother draw a comparison between us, and I can tell you, as a child, whose dark hair and pale eyes resembled more her father then her elegant mother, the thrill of the two of us sharing something struck me straight to my heart.

  That first winter Lucie was with us, Mother wanted to come up with a gift that showed her gratitude. I remember her discussing it with Father. “Do what you think is best, Milačku,” he had said absentmindedly while reading the newspaper. He always gave her free rein when giving gifts, but she always felt she needed to ask permission before she did anything. In the end, she had a beautiful capelet made for Lucie in blue wool with velvet trim. I can still see Lucie’s face when she first opened the package—she was hesitant to accept it at first—almost embarrassed by the extravagance.

  “Lenka has one coming, too,” Mother said gently. “What a handsome pair you’ll make skating on the Vltava.”

  That evening, Mother caught me watching Lucie from my window as she walked off in the direction of the tram.

  “I suppose I will have to order a cape for you tomorrow,” she said, touching my shoulder.

  We both smiled, watching Lucie, her body seeming inches taller, as she stepped elegantly into the night.

  Although our home was always filled with the melody of clinking glasses and the colors of my drawings, there was also a quiet but palpable sadness within our walls. When Lucie left each evening, and the cook packed up her bag, our spacious apartment seemed too large for our little threesome. The extra room next to mine became filled with packages, baskets, and stacks of old books. Even my old crib and pram were silently pushed into a corner, draped with a long white sheet, like two old ghosts, forgotten and misplaced.

  There were stretches of days, whole patches of time, when I remember seeing only Lucie. My mother would take almost all of her meals in her bedroom and, when she did appear, she would look bloated and puffy. Her face showed clear signs that she’d been crying. My father would come home and quietly ask the maid about her. He would glance at the tray outside of her room with the plate of untouched food—the cup and saucer with the tea that had grown cold—and look desperate to bring the light back into his darkened house.

  I remember Lucie instructing me not to question these episodes. She’d arrive earlier than usual in the morning and would try to distract me with a few things she had brought from home. Some days she’d pull from her basket a photograph of herself when she was six years old, beside a pony. Other times she’d bring a string of glass beads and braid it into my hair like a garland of twisted ivy. She’d tie a sash of blue silk around my dress and we’d imagine I was a princess who ruled over a kingdom where everyone had to whisper. The only sound we allowed ourselves was the rustle of our skirts as we twirled around the room.

  At night, there would be visits from the family doctor, who’d gently close the door of Mother’s room and rest his hand on Father’s shoulder, talking to him in hushed tones. I would watch them, failing to discern what ailment my mother could possibly have that would prevent her from appearing during the day.

  As I grew older, it became clearer that these shadows in my childhood were my parents’ difficulties in conceiving another child. We tiptoed around conversations of families where there were many children and I learned not to ask for a brother or sister, for on those few times I did, it had only brought my mother to tears.

  Something in our household changed after my seventh birthday. Mother spent weeks with what seemed like a touch of a stomach ailment and then, suddenly, the color in her cheeks returned. In the weeks that followed, she stopped wearing the slim-fitting skirts and jackets that were in vogue, opting for ones that were more loose and flowing. She grew peaceful and her movements became slower and more cautious. But it wasn’t until her belly became gently rounder that she and Papa announced they were to have another baby.

  One would have thought that Mother and Father would, after all these years, have celebrated at the announcement that I was to have a baby brother or sister. But they treaded upon the subject with great caution, fearing that any display of excitement or joy could undermine the health of the pregnancy.

  This, of course, was a Jewish custom, the fear of bringing a curse on one’s good fortune. Lucie was confused by this at first. Every time she tried to bring up the subject of the pregnancy, my mother would not answer her directly.

  “How beautiful and healthy you look,” she’d say to Mother.

  To which Mother would just smile and nod her head.

  “They say if you crave cheese, you’re having a girl,” said Lucie. “And if you crave meat, it will be a boy.”

  Again, only a smile and a nod fr
om Mother.

  Lucie even offered to help prepare the nursery in advance, to which my mother finally had to explain her hesitation to do anything until the baby actually arrived.

  “We appreciate all your good wishes and offers to help,” Mother explained, gently. “But we don’t want to bring any attention to the baby’s birth, just yet.”

  Lucie’s face seemed to immediately register what Mother was saying.

  “There are people who believe the same thing in the countryside,” she said, as if suddenly Mother’s behavior finally made sense.

  Still, Lucie tried ways to express her joy at my parents’ good news without directly mentioning it. When the lilacs were in bloom that spring, she’d arrive with fistfuls of the fragrant branches, the stems carefully wrapped in strips of wet muslin, and arrange them in vases around the apartment. I remember watching Mother, with her increasingly rounded stomach, walking between each room smiling, as if their perfume had put her into a trance.

  Sometimes Lucie would come with a basketful of dark bread that her mother had baked and leave it on the kitchen counter with a jar of homemade honey.

  But it wasn’t until the baby was born that her most beautiful gift appeared.

  My sister Marta was born at sundown. The doctor came into the living room where Father and I sat on the sofa, and Lucie on one of the red velvet tufted chairs.

  “You have another beautiful daughter,” he said to my father.

  Father clasped his hands and rushed toward the bedroom. Lucie took his place on the sofa and took my hand.

  “So you have a sister now,” she said quietly. “What a gift.”

  We waited until Papa said I could come in and see them.

  He came back a few minutes later and told us we could both come and see the two of them.

  “Lenka, come meet your baby sister.”

  Lucie gave me a little push, an unnecessary gesture, as I could have leaped from my chair. All I wanted to do was run into my mother’s room and kiss both her and the new baby.

  “Lenka”—my mother looked up from the bundle in her arms and smiled at me in the doorway—“come.” She patted her hand on the bed with one free hand while holding the tightly swaddled baby in her other arm.

  I was in awe of the sight of them, but I remember a little pang of jealousy striking my heart when I leaned in and saw the tufts of red hair on my sister’s infant head.

  “Congratulations!” Lucie said as she came in and kissed Mother on both her cheeks.

  A few minutes later she returned, carrying a stack of embroidered linens. The edges were trimmed in a scallop of looping pink thread.

  “I had hidden them in the closet,” Lucie said. “I embroidered one set in pink, and one in blue, just in case.”

  My mother laughed. “You think of everything, Lucie,” she said as Lucie set the linens on the night table.

  “I’ll let you and Lenka have a few moments with the baby.” She smiled and gave me a pat on my head.

  I gazed at my new sister. She was Mother in miniature form. The small rounded chin, the milky green eyes, and the same hair.

  My reaction, however, was not what I had anticipated. Tears filled my eyes. I felt a tightening in my throat. Even my heart felt as though someone had thrust their hand inside my chest and was gripping it with all their strength. All I could think of was that I was to be replaced—forgotten—and that all of my parents’ attention would now be directed at this little creature with its angelic face and tiny, reaching hands.

  Of course this was not the reality, but the fear still gripped me. And I suppose that is why in the first few months of Marta’s life, I clung so closely to Lucie.

  Slowly, I grew to see that Marta’s arrival did not mean I would be replaced. I was soon holding her in my arms. I read her my favorite books and sang her the same songs that had lulled me to sleep.

  I also discovered my new sister was the perfect model for my ambitious attempts at portraiture. I used Marta’s first milestones as my inspiration. I started with her sleeping in her pram, and then moved on to her crawling at the beach during summertime. I loved to draw her in pastel. The soft blending of the pigments made it easy to create the roundness of her cheeks, and the length of her growing limbs.

  I loved to paint her as well. Marta’s skin was the opaque white of heavy cream, and her hair the deep red of paprika. Those features, which had presented themselves at birth, grew even more pronounced as her baby fat melted away. Marta had the same high forehead as Mother—along with her small straight nose and upturned mouth. As I watched Marta grow before me, it was almost as if I was able to witness my mother’s own transformation from infancy into girlhood.

  Marta became more independent with each passing day. Lucie no longer had to get on bended knee to help her with her shoes or constantly change her because she had stained her dress. Her once-chubby body grew long, and her desire to express her own opinion grew as well.

  But as Marta grew older, our relationship began to change. She was no longer a little doll that I could dress and pretend to be in charge of. We were rivals not just for my parents’ attention, but also for Lucie’s. And even though there were more than seven years between us, we still would bicker and Marta would often throw tantrums when she did not get her own way.

  Still, once Marta turned eight, there was one thing that we had in common that we both loved to discuss more than anything else: Lucie’s love life. After we returned from school, we could spend hours trying to find out if she had a boyfriend. I would pry into who had given her the small gold necklace that suddenly appeared around her neck, or the new silk scarf she tucked underneath the collar of her capelet. And Marta would ask if he was handsome and rich, before bursting into tears and begging Lucie to promise that no matter what—she’d never leave us.

  CHAPTER 3

  LENKA

  In the autumn of 1934, Lucie announced that she was getting married to a young man by the name of Petr whom she had known since childhood and who now had a job as a clerk at a pharmacy near her parents’ house in Kalin. Mother took the news as if it was her own daughter announcing her engagement.

  When Lucie arrived for work the next day, Mother and the seamstress, Gizela, were already waiting for her with a dozen bolts of white silk propped against the walls.

  “We’re making you a wedding dress,” Mother announced. “I will hear no words of refusal.”

  “Get undressed, down to your slip and corset,” Gizela ordered.

  She withdrew three pins from her pincushion and began wrapping the measuring tape, first around Lucie’s bustline, then her waist, and finally her hips.

  Lucie trembled as she stood silently in her underclothes.

  “Really, this isn’t necessary at all. I’ll wear the dress my sisters wore. Petr doesn’t care if it’s worn or stained!”

  “We will not hear of such a thing!” my mother said, shaking her head. She walked over to Lucie, who was quickly getting dressed. Her kiss reminded me of the way she kissed Marta and me.

  Lucie wore her family’s lace veil, a simple covering that fell just to her collarbone. Her garland was made from daisies and wild roses. Her bouquet was a mixture of asters and yellow leaves. She walked down the aisle on her father’s arm, the black ringlets of her hair artfully arranged beneath her headpiece, her gaze looking firmly ahead.

  We all wept when they exchanged their vows. Petr was as young as Lucie, no more than twenty-five, and I felt giddy for both of them. There was a beauty in how physically opposite they were. He was so much taller than she, with broad, flat features and a head full of blond hair. I noticed how large his hands were when they reached out to lift Lucie’s veil, and how tiny her face was when he lifted her chin. His kiss was light and thoughtful, so quiet and gentle. I saw Mother take Papa’s hand in hers and smile at him as if remembering their wedding day.

  They left the church for the reception at her parents’ home. It was a rustic farmhouse with exposed beams and a red tile roof. Ther
e were crooked apple trees and fragrant pear trees already in bloom in the garden. A white tent had been erected, the poles wrapped with thick yellow ribbon. On a small, makeshift stand, four men sat playing the polka.

  It was the first time I had been to Lucie’s childhood home. She had been with my family for years, yet I knew little of her life outside of the one she shared with us. We were united as tightly as a family, but it was always within our apartment or the city of Prague as the backdrop. Now, for the first time, we were seeing Lucie in her surroundings, with her family and her friends. From the corner of the garden, I gazed at the faces of her sisters and saw how they resembled each other. The small features, the narrow chin, and the high, straight bones in their cheeks and jaw. Lucie and her father were the only ones with black hair, as the rest of the family was fair and blond. They were a loud, noisy bunch compared to us. There were large pitchers of Moravian beer and slivovice—a homemade plum spirit. There were platters of rustic farm food like sauerkraut and sausages, and the traditional dumpling stew.

  Marta and I were clapping and laughing with everyone as a circle formed around Lucie and Petr. We could hear the cheers for the ceremonial plate to be smashed. It was a Czech tradition, not so different from the Jewish one of the groom’s breaking a glass. Unlike the Jewish ritual, though, which symbolized our people’s years of sadness, the Czech one was meant to show the unity of the newly wedded couple. After the plate was broken, Petr was given a broom and Lucie a dustpan, and together they cleaned it up to show their future together.

  Lucie only stayed with us a year after she got married. She became pregnant in March, and the daily trip to Prague became too exhausting for her. By this time, Marta was nine years old and I was sending out applications to art school. But we missed her greatly. She would still come to visit at least once a month, her belly popping through the blue velvet cape from Mother that she still dutifully wore. She was round like a little dumpling, her cheeks rosy and her hair glossier than ever.