Far to Go - By Alison Pick Page 0,50

look at her husband.

“And what did the Queen of Sheba have to say for herself?”

“Eight thousand crowns will buy passage to Uruguay.”

“‘Oh, gazelle, her eyes have captured my heart’!” Pavel sang a line of the popular song.

“They’re thinking of going. She and Vaclav.”

“Are there margarine factories in Uruguay?”

“Maybe they’ll open one. It isn’t the point. The point is to get out.” Anneliese pumped the bellows for emphasis.

Marta moved a chiselled glass candy dish aside, along with a china bell—the kind used to summon a maid—and dusted beneath them. She had noticed over the past weeks that Anneliese’s infatuation with Prague was wearing off, like the novelty of a younger lover. And why wouldn’t it? The beautiful opera house had been closed. Almost nobody wanted to meet her for cakes at the Louvre Café: everyone had left or else was busy trying to. And now this news about Max. Arrested. For no reason. Where was he being held?

Pavel stayed seated, his elbows on his knees and his fingers steepled in front of him. “I did hear . . .” he said to his wife. “There’s something I heard.”

Anneliese put the bellows down. She smoothed down her skirt.

“There’s a man,” Pavel said. “A stockbroker. British.”

“Winton?”

“Poor bugger. The markets can’t be good.”

“I mentioned him months ago. Don’t you remember? Vaclav and Mathilde got their girls on his list.”

“What about Uruguay?”

Anneliese sighed. “They’re exploring every option, Pavel. That’s what people are doing.”

“I was thinking of contacting him. Winton,” Pavel said, his forehead resting on the heels of his hands. “To see if we can’t put Pepik on the list as well.”

Marta set the bell back down on the buffet; it made a tinkling sound. “It might be a good idea,” she said without thinking. Where she had got the notion that her opinion mattered she didn’t know, but it felt almost natural, somehow, to voice it. Pepik was her responsibility, after all. Shouldn’t she have some say in the decision? “It might be a good idea to put Pepik on the list,” she said again.

Pavel was looking at her, surprised, Marta thought, but not disapproving. In fact, if she wasn’t mistaken, he seemed almost impressed.

“Do you think?” he asked. His eyebrows were lifted, his face relaxed. But Anneliese had turned away from both of them, frowning out the window as though she’d noticed something unfolding below that required her full attention, and Marta grew suddenly self-conscious. She nodded once at Pavel, and moved back to the buffet to dust beneath Alžběta’s houseplants.

Anneliese fished her cigarette out of the ashtray and took a slow pull. “Why don’t we go together?” she asked Pavel, as though Marta hadn’t spoken.

Pavel turned back to his wife, the muscles along his jawline tightening discernably. “It’s not so simple, Liesel,” he said. “You need an exit visa. You need proof of citizenship. The lineups at the embassies are from here to Vienna. You need an entry permit for another country.” His eyes darted briefly back to Marta.

“Not for Britain,” Anneliese said. “Not until the first of April.” And she was right, Marta knew. In the wake of the Munich Agreement, legislation had been passed that allowed entrance into England without a permit. A little window; an apology for the betrayal.

You still needed an exit permit from Czechoslovakia, however.

The Bauers talked this over quietly. Pavel thought he could get hold of one.

“With a bribe?” Anneliese asked.

Pavel touched the sofa. “This needs to be reupholstered.”

“Not to be crass.”

“With money,” he said. “Yes.”

“Even without the Ariernachweis?”

“That’s hard for anyone these days. So many families have a grandmother born out of wedlock.”

In the mirror over the buffet Marta saw Pavel get up. He took his pipe and tobacco pouch from the credenza and hunched over the table, filling the little bowl and tamping it down. When the pipe was lit, he went back towards the phone to give it another try. The operator said there was a line through České Budějovice, the famous beer town, right away. The earpiece was at the end of a long cord, and Pavel fidgeted with it, waiting. He was put through and explained to Ernst immediately about the letter from his brother-in-law Max. There was a long pause while he listened to Ernst speak.

“Trieste?” Pavel said finally. “Hostage?” He held his pipe away from his face. There was another long pause. Marta could well imagine the voice Ernst would be using—patient, as though speaking to a child.

“You really think I could be taken hostage?” Pavel asked.

He waited for