Far to Go - By Alison Pick Page 0,56

imagined what would have happened if she hadn’t found Anneliese in the bathtub in time. If Mrs. Bauer hadn’t . . . made it. Could she—Marta—have been the new Mrs. Bauer? She ripped the one remaining drumstick off the goose and used the carving fork to lower the carcass into the pot. Pepik would accept her as his mother—God knows she loved him as one. But what about Pavel? She was a country bumpkin, unschooled in the ways of the world. It wouldn’t do for him to have someone like her for his wife. And yet she could have sworn, when he’d cupped her face in his hands, pulling her mouth towards his . . .

Marta lit the stove and left the pot to simmer. She would come back before bed and skim the fat off the surface. By morning the whole house would be filled with the smell of soup, and the Bauers would be gone on their mission to Zürich. She needed to go upstairs and pack Pepik’s bag.

Pavel and Anneliese had disappeared, which meant they must be in the bedroom with the door closed. There were two things they might be doing in there; she chose to assume they were fighting. Sure enough, at the top of the stair their argument came into focus. Something about jewellery, about Anneliese’s watch. “I want to bring it,” Marta heard Anneliese say.

“And where are you going to wear it?” Pavel asked. “In Zürich, where we are going for only three days?” He emphasized the brevity of the trip, but there was something else in his voice, some kind of resentment, or reproach.

“In the lining of the coat, then.”

“I told you, I was wrong. The market isn’t good. We can’t risk it.”

They wanted to sell the watch? Were things so bad? Pavel, she knew, had Canadian railway stocks, investments in a bauxite mine and in his friend Vaclav’s margarine factories. But Marta had caught only the tail end of the discussion, and the silence now meant that Anneliese had started to cry.

Marta moved down the hall to Pepik’s room. He was cross-legged on the floor, staring at the train, trying to divine some secret from the boxcars. She had a sudden urge to hold him tightly. “Come here, miláčku,” she said.

Pepik got up and came to her obediently, like one of Karel Čapek’s robots, programmed to do as it was told. He needed a haircut and his fingernails needed to be clipped. He was wearing, she saw, the same shirt he’d worn yesterday. She was overcome with remorse—she had let her mind wander, thinking of the father when the son was the one in need of her devotion.

She couldn’t imagine what it would have been like if the other child had lived and she always had to divide her attention. She sat down in the rocking chair and pulled Pepik onto her lap. “Já amor tebe,” she whispered in his ear.

His expression remained blank.

“Show me your Dopey face,” she tried.

It took him a moment to understand what she was asking. “My Dopey face,” he said, thinking. Then he rolled his eyes up and scratched his temple.

“Bravo!” Marta clapped. “How about your Happy face?”

He beamed. Just briefly—but it was enough to remind her of simpler times.

He ended with Sleepy, resting his head on her shoulder. Marta held him there, drowsing against her chest. She cradled him as if he were a baby and sang Hou, hou, krávy dou, about the cows dragging their heavy udders down to the river. Pepik was almost asleep when Anneliese came into the room, her eyes red. There was a streak of mascara below her left eye. “We’re leaving first thing in the morning,” she said.

Marta felt Pepik stir and awaken against her. “Up you get,” she said, patting his backside. “You’re a big boy.”

Pepik blinked and rubbed his eyes. “Will you measure me?”

“Not now, darling.”

“Why don’t you go make yourself a cup of tea,” Anneliese said to Marta. “I’ll get him packed.”

“Measure me,” Pepik whined.

“I’m fine, Mrs. Bauer,” Marta said. “I was just getting up. I’ll pack his suit, and the brown knickerbockers . . .”

Anneliese touched her pearls. “No,” she said. “You go on downstairs.” She fluttered her hand as though shooing away a stray dog.

Pepik pulled on Marta’s arm. She stood up, uncertain. “His nightshirt is in the bottom drawer,” she said, unable to restrain herself. Anneliese had never in her life packed a travel bag for Pepik.

Marta almost bumped into the door frame