The Lost Wife

  “Yes, Father.”

  “The practice of medicine is not something to be taken lightly.”

  As Dr. Kohn spoke sternly to Josef, I tried to picture the wounded bird in his palms. I wished that he could be as soft with Josef, allow himself to smile in his company, and not question him so relentlessly. This man, who had known exactly what to do with a fragile, injured bird, lacked those instincts with his own son.

  I could see Josef struggling under his father’s glare; his jaw was stiff and his face was now serious.

  When I looked over at Věruška, it was the first time I saw her resembling her mother. They were like two china dolls, their heads tucked downward, their eyes staring motionless at their plates.

  In the reflection of the silver pitcher, I saw my own face. A forced smile that belied a frown.

  CHAPTER 6

  JOSEF

  It used to bother Amalia that every evening after I returned home from the hospital, I would lock myself in my study for half an hour. She always had dinner on the table for me. The usual fare: a pot roast, a basket of rye bread, and an overboiled green vegetable. The only time I ate my dinner while it was still warm were nights when there were no deliveries, which was rare.

  There was no lock on the door to my study, but Amalia and the children knew not to disturb me there. My days at the hospital were long and hectic and I needed a few minutes of privacy in order to clear my head.

  I had become an obstetrician because I was tired of being haunted by death. There was something reassuring about my hands being the first ones to touch a new human being as it was born into this world. To usher life into this world is a gift, let me tell you, it’s a miracle every time it happens.

  I kept a list of each child I delivered, from the first one in 1946, to the last one I did before I retired. In a ledger bound in red leather, I had columns for the infant’s name, sex, and birth weight, and whether it was a vaginal or, less common, cesarean delivery.

  I wonder if after I die my children will find my ledger. I hope they will understand that it was not an act of vanity on my part. I had delivered 2,838 children by the time I retired. Every name I recorded was as meaningful to me as the first. Every time I placed the tip of my pen on the space in the lined paper, I paused to think of the million and a half children who perished in the Holocaust. I imagined that after so many years in the profession, my feelings of honoring the dead would lessen, but they never did. If anything, as I grew older, as I became a father and grandfather myself, those feelings only intensified. When I looked at my children, I now understood how my own father must have felt at the threat of extinction for his family. How many times did I cradle them when they were babies in my arms and wonder what evil could have wanted to extinguish this joy, this singularly most perfect creation?

  My love for my children was so intense that it occasionally triggered something approaching panic. I found myself obsessed with every aspect of their well-being. I rode Amalia’s waves of concern during their painful teething episodes and their first fever or flu. I looked at our children’s pediatrician with distrust. He had grown up in the comfort of Forest Hills, and had no experience with the threat of typhoid or diphtheria. Part of me realized I was behaving irrationally and another part of me thought such vigilance was something that just came with being a parent.

  There was a pain, a bittersweetness in my heart that my father had not lived to see me embrace my role as both a parent and a physician. Why was it now, years after my father’s death, that I could finally understand all those lines on his face? Had it taken me this long to recognize that I now looked just like him? Now, when I imagined his eyes, I could see the look he carried for a patient who might be in distress, or that quiet devastation—so personal that it defied words—that overcame him when he lost a child in delivery.

  I could finally peel away the layers of his formality, his rigidity, and see the human part hidden beneath. I could see how I wrestled with my own expectations that I held for my son—ones that probably would never be achieved—and understood how frustrated my father must have been with me.

  There were some nights I wished I could bring him back and have him sit across from me. I would tell him how I now understood what he was always trying to convey to me, that a sanctity existed within our profession. That I finally understood that my hands were blessed to hold something as sacred as a squirming, hollering newborn experiencing its first moments of life.

  But these are only a few of my many regrets. These thoughts, I tuck away among so many other things. Just as Amalia’s locket remained shut, my returned letters to Lenka were hidden among old shoe boxes from Alexander’s and Orbach’s. I find myself alone in my office with the door closed, seeing solace in a ledger of 2,838 names.

  CHAPTER 7

  LENKA

  Those two weeks in Karlovy Vary were magical. I awakened every morning to the scents of Pavla’s freshly baked bread and wet grass on the breeze. We took our breakfast outside to the sounds of birds and the sight of an occasional scampering rabbit. Pavla brought wild strawberries to the table, a bowl full of homemade preserves, baskets of warm rolls, and a pot of freshly brewed coffee on a silver tray. Věruška had no desire to sketch or paint while we were there, and made it clear to all who asked that she intended only to indulge herself in plenty of rest and good food.

  During breakfast, I usually tried to watch Josef out of the corner of my eye. He would typically arrive after me, his black hair tousled from sleep. He was quiet in the morning, concentrating on his food rather than on conversation. When Věruška arrived, her nightgown peeking from underneath her linen robe, I always felt somewhat relieved to hear her chatter.

  After breakfast, I’d pack a small knapsack with my sketchpad and a tin of oil pastels and venture outside to draw. I didn’t know when I’d have a chance to get to the countryside again, and wanted to draw from nature as much as I could.

  By the time I’d leave the villa each morning, Josef was usually reclining on one of the Kohns’ iron chaise chairs with a book on his lap. His feet would be stretched out and his ankles crossed. Sometimes he would look up from one of his books, but other times his gaze never ventured from the page.

  “You’re off to go sketching?” he asked that first afternoon. The second and third time I left he nodded to me without remark. After four days of this, he looked up from his medical book and asked if he could come along.

  I had imagined him asking me this question nearly every night. In my mind, I had always been bold and told him, “Certainly.” But now, with his question hanging in midair, I stood silently like an awkward child, my head racing.

  I looked down at my sundress as if it would answer for me. The cotton of my skirt was creased, my shoes scuffed from days of walking the terrain outside the garden.

  “If you prefer to be alone, I understand,” he said softly. “I wonder where you go every afternoon.”

  I finally managed to turn to him and smiled. “Every day it’s a little different. I’d be happy to have you come along.”

  We walked the first half of the way in silence, our footsteps on soft, quiet earth. Without a cleared path, I had learned not to be bothered by jutting branches or the thorns from the wild bushes. I could hear Josef’s breathing from behind, which grew more rapid as we walked uphill. I began to worry that I couldn’t find the place I had come to only the day before. But just as I began to lose hope, the small valley opened up before me and I turned to face Josef.

  “This is it,” I told him, and pointed down below. He walked closer, nearly grazing my shoulder as he came to take a better look. He was so close to me at this point, I could smell the faint scent of his soap coming off his skin.

  “I used to walk these woods with Věruška,” he said, turning to me. “We looked for strawberries in the summer and mushrooms in the fall.”

  “We would carry baskets and bring home everything we found to Pavla. She’d show us how to wash everything. With delicate things you ha
ve to be careful.”

  He smiled and looked at me. “I have never seen the valley from this angle, though. It’s amazing, but you’re showing me something new. I thought I knew every corner of this forest.”

  I laughed nervously. “I found it almost by accident . . . I was walking and I saw that fallen tree over there.” I pointed to an old hollow log. The brittle bark had intrigued me, and its dark center made an interesting composition with its bright green moss. “But after I finished my sketch of it, I walked further on and discovered this.”

  Josef pointed to the left of the valley, where the cupola of the town’s church seemed to pierce through the low-hanging clouds. “You have a bird’s-eye view here, don’t you?”

  “I wish I had the talent to do it justice.” I sighed as I dropped my satchel from my shoulders.

  He shook his head. “I’m sure your talent is as deep as your modesty.”

  He was staring at me and not moving. We were alone for the first time and I felt fear flooding through my body.

  My fingers gripped the handles of my satchel and I stiffened as we stood there awkwardly in the silence of the forest.

  His arm extended for a second, and I felt faint as it reached closer to me.

  “Can I see what you’ve done so far?” Josef reached not for me but for my satchel.

  I saw his hands gesturing at the sketchbook.

  I knelt down and pulled out my book. The heavy white parchment was full of sketches from the past week. Some were better than others, and my favorite was the one of the fallen tree.

  I turned to the page and showed it to him. I could feel his breath against my neck. I felt cold and my body shuddered as he moved closer. Still we were not touching.

  I whispered quietly, “It’s still not finished.”

  Josef took his finger to the smudges of green and brown on the base of the page and touched it lightly.

  “It’s beautiful. So delicate . . . It’s as though it’s almost moving.”

  “It’s flawed,” I said, pointing to the image of the tree. “The perspective is off.”

  “I think it’s perfect,” he said.

  I folded the sketchpad and put it on the ground. He reached for it again and I went to stop him.

  “Lenka,” he uttered as our hands grazed for the first time.

  That first touch. A feather against my skin.

  He finds the small birthmark on the inner part of my forearm and glides his finger over it. There is the slightest pull coming from him as if he were guiding me to turn to him.

  “Lenka.” He said my name again.

  Hearing it said, I lifted my face to him.

  We hesitated before I felt his hands travel from my arms to my shoulders. He took a deep breath, as if he were taking the air from my own lungs and swallowing it for himself.

  His palms brushing along my neck, before resting on my cheeks.

  His lips on mine.

  His kiss is like lightning in my chest. Firefly wings beating against a glass jar.

  I close my eyes. Josef Kohn touching me, his hands gently mapping those hidden surfaces of my body, his mouth traveling over my naked skin.

  That night we gaze at each other over candlelight, the serenade of his parents’ and Věruška’s voices are a muddled melody in our ears. Neither of us has much of an appetite for our food or our wine.

  The dining room is white. White walls. White curtains. A crystal chandelier hangs in the center of the round table, its light perfect and soft.

  But inside I am burning. Crimson. Scarlet. Ruby red. The heat of my body searing against my cotton dress.

  “Are you all right, Lenka?” Věruška whispers to me over dinner. “Your cheeks are flushed.”

  I tapped my finger to my glass and tried to smile. “It must be the wine . . .”

  “But you haven’t had a sip. I’ve been watching you.”

  I shook my head. “I’m fine.”

  She raises one of her eyebrows and casts me a puzzled look.

  I try not to lift my head. I know if I lock eyes with Josef, I will reveal myself to the others.

  So I keep my head bowed like a nun deep in prayer.

  But my thoughts are the furthest thing from pure.

  He comes to me in the middle of the night. He opens the door with a slow, careful movement of his hand.

  His black hair is unruly, his features full and ripe. He holds a candlestick and places it down.

  “Lenka,” he whispers, “are you asleep?”

  I raise myself to one elbow. Darkness envelops the room. A flicker of candlelight. A sheaf of moonlight. He pulls back my bedsheet and I curl forward, raising myself to my knees.

  I wrap my arms around his neck. He touches my nightdress, the pad of his finger like a match.

  Is this what a kiss from the man you love feels like? All fire and heat. The color of purple. Indigo. The blue red in our veins before it meets the air.

  I want to kiss him forever. My body, like sand beneath him, shifting to his shape, the pressure of his weight against mine.

  “Give me your hands,” he whispers.

  I raise my palms in front of me. He takes hold of them. His fingers interlace with mine.

  And then he falls against me. Kissing my neck, moving his hand up and down the length of my body, over my nightdress, then under it.

  He is both tender and curious at the same time, like a little boy who is finally given the chance to explore what has been forbidden. But there is also the strength of someone more grown. More attuned. Someone who knows exactly what he hungers for.

  The hunger. That desire to eat both the flesh and the core of the fruit. To want to lick every ounce of the juice from my fingers. To swallow every seed. To know a taste in its entirety.

  How have I grown this hungry?

  Josef moans softly, kissing me again. I feel his breath and heart racing against my chest.

  “I could kiss you forever, Lenka,” he says.

  I wrap my arms around him tighter.

  He pulls one of my hands against his chest.

  “I think I have to leave or I’m going to do something I’ll regret.”

  He kisses the pads of my fingers and then presses them to his heart.

  He rolls over and pulls his nightshirt on. I watch his legs walk across the floorboards, his reflection caught in the standing mirror. He reaches the door, touches the handle, and turns to look at me one more time.

  “Josef,” I whisper. “I miss you already.”

  How could it be that those two weeks slipped away so quickly? I awoke that next morning as if in a trance. I had slept maybe an hour at the most. The mirror in my room is no longer full of Josef’s reflection, but mine. My braids are half undone, my nightdress unbuttoned at the top. But my face is saturated with color and my eyes are bright even without sleep.

  I smelled Josef on me. I imagined that he had left a trail of fingerprints on my body, imprinted the path of his tongue as it had traveled along my neck, my cheeks, my collarbone, and my belly. I did not want to ponder the dreaded reality that the next day would be our last in Karlovy Vary. We would soon be in the compartment of the train. Our eyes averted, Věruška chattering on, and each of us bobbing our head to pretend that we were listening, when our thoughts were only of each other.

  The night before, we had agreed to leave separately early after breakfast and meet at the valley where we shared our first kiss. From there, he would take me to his favorite spot.

  I arrived before him and was wearing a sundress the color of the sky. I carried a basket full of strawberries I had gathered on the way.

  The strawberries seemed to be ripening with each minute that passed. I could smell their perfume and yet the smell made me hungry for something altogether different from the fruit. All I could think about was Josef in my arms. The weight of him pressing into me. The salt of his skin. The taste of peaches on his tongue.

  I glanced at my watch. He was late and my heart beat nervously. What if he didn’t
come? My head was racing with thoughts that were unbearable to me.

  “Lenka!” I finally heard his voice and the sound of it made my entire skin come alive.

  “I was beginning to worry,” I said, rushing to him.

  “It took me a while to get away from Pavla,” he said. “She kept trying to feed me more sausages!”

  I laughed and I must have sounded mad because my laughter was more of a release of all that I was keeping inside than a reflection of my amusement at Pavla’s doting.

  “Mother and Father decided at the last minute not to take a cure today but to rest at the house instead, and that delayed me as well.”

  “You are here now,” I said softly. His hands were now reaching for mine and I let him take the basket from me. “That is what matters.”

  He kissed me and this time there was no hint of hesitation.

  We walked until we were at a clearing with a beautiful natural lake. Secluded by rocks and large trees, it was an oasis in the middle of the forest.

  “I used to swim here as a child with Ruška. I taught her how one summer.”

  “You didn’t tell me that we were going to go swimming!” I said with concern. “I didn’t bring a bathing suit.”

  “That was my plan . . . It’s such a warm day, Lenka, it would be cruel not to suggest a dip!”

  I watched him as his fingers moved deftly to unbutton his shirt.

  “There is nothing indecent about swimming in our underclothes.” He grinned.

  I watched him strip down to his undershirt and underpants. The night before, I was like a blind person feeling the planes of his body, only able to see glimmers of it in the flashes of candlelight. But now I could see all the contours and details of his body.

  He was dark from having taken in the sun over the past few days. The musculature of his shoulders and back made them look as though they had been built up in clay.

  “Come on!” he said playfully with a gesture for me to join him. He ran over the thatched earth and jumped from one of the tall rocks.