Far to Go - By Alison Pick Page 0,34

table before they did to start the dishes. The Bauers finished their cutlets leisurely and laid their knives and forks parallel on their plates. Then Pavel, who understood that no families would let their children play with the Jewish boy anymore, rolled up his sleeves and crawled under the table with his son.

Marta came back into the dining room to remove the serving dish from the marble-topped credenza. “What are you building under there?” she asked. Pepik’s train track snaked between the legs of the chairs; the clothespin people were grouped together at one end of the carpet and the lead soldiers at the other, protecting them.

“Only a kingdom,” Pavel said lightly. “We’ve already got the Crown Prince.” He gave Pepik’s bottom a little slap. “We’re looking for a princess. Do you know anyone?”

She moved the silver salt and pepper shakers back to the credenza.

“I don’t believe I do.”

“Are you certain? I think you yourself might—”

“What about me?” Anneliese called from the parlour, where she was leafing through the pages of a fashion magazine. She was warm towards her husband again now that her son was taken care of.

Pavel looked up, surprised and pleased by her tone. “Why, darling,” he said, “you’re already the Queen!”

Pepik was dinging the silver bell on the train’s engine over and over. He looked up and said, “Where’s that key?”

Marta paused, serving dish in hand. “What key, miláčku?” But right away she remembered the baptism and said, “Oh, that key. I swallowed it, of course.” She brought a finger to her lips to remind Pepik he was not to tell his father. Then she said quickly, “Your train has become so long! How did you make it so long?”

But Pepik was not diverted. “She swallowed the key,” he said to his father. He cupped a hand around his mouth and said, in a stage whisper, “The key to our secret.”

Pavel peered up at Marta from under the table, his eyebrows raised. “Secret? What’s the secret?”

Marta pretended she hadn’t heard his question; she squinted at the credenza, frowning, then picked an invisible bit of food off its surface with her fingernail. She heard Anneliese come into the room behind her.

“I’d like some port,” she said.

“Liesel? What secret?”

“Never mind. Don’t be foolish.”

“Liesel . . .” Pavel said, half warning, half teasing.

Anneliese crouched down so she was eye-level with her husband under the table; Marta saw her instep and the shine of her silk stocking where her heel lifted out of the back of her shoe. “It wouldn’t be a secret if we told you now, would it?”

Pavel paused. “I suppose not.” He smiled at his wife. “A queen has her secrets.”

“Now you’ve got it, darling.”

“You get a lot past me?”

“I’m sneaky with my king.”

“You’re sly.”

“I don’t deny it.”

She winked and Pavel blushed. Marta thought the moment had passed, that Anneliese had been successful in diverting Pavel’s attention. She picked up the serving dish in one hand and the salt and pepper shakers in the other, moving towards the kitchen, but she paused in the doorway when she heard Pavel ask, “What do you think about your mother’s secrets, buster?”

She turned in time to see Pepik make the motion of tying his lips together. He looked at his father meaningfully. “I can’t tell you.”

Pavel lunged and tickled his son again. “Tell me!”

Anneliese stood up, unsteady on her heel. “Careful with him,” she said lightly. There was a hint of panic in her voice. Marta knew this would egg Pavel on.

“Mamenka knows!” Pepik shrieked, gleeful. He was trying to squirm away from his father’s grasp.

“Does she?”

“Yes! Mamenka! And Nanny! And Pepik!” he shouted. He began to act out the baptismal scene, putting two fingers to his forehead and closing his eyes and muttering something unintelligible that nevertheless sounded to Marta quite a bit like Latin.

Anneliese was frozen in place; someone had to do something. “Pepik!” Marta shouted, as though about to scold him for some unspeakable transgression. He looked up, startled—she never, ever yelled. She couldn’t think what to say next, but before she was forced to speak a loud crash came from outside. Pavel jerked his head up, banging it on the bottom of the table. “Hovno,” he swore, rubbing his temple.

He crawled out from beneath the table, his son forgotten, went to the window and pulled back the drapes. It was as if he’d opened the curtain on a play, mid-act. They could all see, across the square, a group of Hitlerjugend crowded around the entrance to