leaving the room. In the hall she passed Anneliese’s open valise, a set of silver hairbrushes slipped through the loops. The kitchen was already filling with the gamey smell of simmering soup. She skimmed off the fat and turned the heat up again. Fished out the limp vegetables and got a fresh cabbage to throw in. All the while going over it in her head. Why did Mrs. Bauer want to pack Pepik’s overnight bag herself? Had Marta done a bad job last time? When was it? The trip to Paris last winter to see the mechanical Père Noël—there hadn’t been any complaints.
And why the fuss about the diamond watch? Why had Anneliese suggested sewing it into the lining of a coat?
Marta turned her back and the cabbage rolled off the counter and thudded onto the floor. She picked it up, brushed it off, and laid it back on the board. Lifted the cleaver and hacked it in half. The pattern inside was intricate, the tight curls like two halves of a brain. Marta put the cleaver down on the cutting board, wiped her hands on her apron. She stood, not moving, next to the soup on the stove.
It began at that very moment to boil.
She knew where to look. There was a silver letter opener on Max Stein’s desk, and some creamy stationery with the factory’s address running across the top. Pavel’s Star of David lying next to the pot of ink. There were telegrams stacked under a paperweight: a round stone painted red with a ladybug’s black dots by Max’s daughter. Marta picked it up carefully, as though it might be hot. Under it were telegrams from Ernst and from someone named Rolf Unger. And beneath the telegrams, there they were—passports.
She opened one, saw the picture of Pepik staring out at her, and the exit permit stamped onto the following page. If it was fake, it was remarkably well crafted. Under Pepik’s name was a cursive C, for Christian. She let the little passport fold shut in her hands. There were three of them, she saw. One for each of the Bauers.
Marta took a slow breath. She covered her eyes with her hand, as she had once seen Pavel’s mother do while blessing the Sabbath candles. She told herself that finding the passports did not mean anything. The Bauers would need them to cross the border into Switzerland to buy flax. But somehow, seeing them there, a certainty made itself known. Pavel was not taking his family to Zürich; they were going somewhere else. She was sure of it. And they were going without her.
The Bauers were up early the following morning, and Marta was up along with them to make their breakfast while Pavel loaded the suitcases into the car. Pepik wanted to bring his Princess Elizabeth engine along, and he said so over and over, getting no response, until finally Anneliese shouted at him to be quiet, they were going on a real train, which would be much more dangerous and exciting. She was flitting around the flat, picking up things at random—a tennis racquet strung with catgut, the French translation of Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. She poured enough water into Alžběta’s wilted hydrangea that it leaked out the crack in the bottom of the pot and Marta had to go for a sponge.
Marta served the porridge, not taking any for herself, and went upstairs to her rooms in a haze. She would clean the dishes once the Bauers had left.
After a half-hour of shuffling and clattering down below Anneliese called up to her. “Marta?”
Marta didn’t answer. She heard Anneliese say, “We should at least go . . . We might not . . .” And Pavel said, “No, it would seem too . . .” He pitched his voice louder and called up. “We’re off, Marta! See you Saturday!”
There was a pause while he waited for her reply.
“Have a safe journey!” she called back finally, sounding shrill in her own ears. She had been crying, and she was afraid her cracking voice would betray her. She waited until she heard the door close and the key turn in the lock, then watched the car pull out onto Vinohradská Street. Pepik’s little face was pressed to the glass. His eyes blinking up at her in the window. She didn’t smile, didn’t wave—she couldn’t bring herself to. Instead she backed away from the window, a palm pressed over her heart. Marta waited until the Tatra was