Far to Go - By Alison Pick Page 0,5

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.

Pavel wasn’t home until eight o’clock that evening. Marta heard him say thank you to Sophie the cook as he passed her his felt hat. He came into the parlour, his jacket thrown over his shoulder and a copy of Lidové noviny tucked under his arm. Whistling. He was off-key but she recognized the first few notes of Smetana’s patriotic “Má Vlast.”

“Where is your train headed?” he asked his son. “Is it off to fight the Germans?”

Pepik was in his blue flannel nightcap. He nodded mutely, pleased with his father’s attention and suspicious of it at the same time. Marta could tell he knew something strange was astir. He sensed his environment, she thought, in the same way an animal could sense rain. She remembered the farm where she had grown up, how the chickens would fuss on a hot July evening. As the air thickened there was an increasing sense of panic. Or maybe that was just how she’d felt; hot weather meant her father would be restless.

“How’s the Crown Prince?” Pavel asked his son, trying again to engage him. But Pepik was allowed only a few more minutes of play before bed, and he ignored his father, focused on his train. He was fiddling with