Prologue
Once upon a time there was a girl who lived in a nice house at the edge of a village with her aging mother. When she grew up, she married the handsomest man around and brought him home to live with her and her mother. The first few weeks they all got along fine, but then her husband began to complain.
“We have our whole lives ahead of us, and we’re going to start a family someday. For that we need a place of our own. Why is your mother living with us?”
“Well, it is her house,” said the young woman shrugging in bewilderment. “And she doesn’t take up that much space.”
But the man refused to back down: “As long as she’s around, we have to cut back on expenses. And the ones who are going to suffer most because of it are our children, who no doubt will be born any day now.”
Overwhelmed with joy at the thought of having offspring, the woman lovingly threw her arms around her husband’s neck. But he stepped away, slipping out of her embrace.
“If you really loved me, you would deal with it.”
“I can’t believe you would even doubt me,” the woman snapped back at him.
The man just made a face. “All right, then prove it.”
The number of squabbles between the newlyweds continued to grow until one day the young woman could no longer stand it.
That night she crept into her mother’s bedroom and pushed a pillow down on her face. Her mother thrashed back and forth, gasping for breath, but the young woman stayed the course, holding the pillow over her mother’s face until she stopped moving. All of a sudden her mother’s body looked so small and fragile, it was like time had rolled back and the old woman had turned into a child. Helpless. Innocent. The young woman’s throat clenched with emotion, but it was too late for regrets.
“Great,” said the man when his wife told him what she had done. “Now what will you do with the body?”
“Bury it in the graveyard.”
“Absolutely not!” cried the man. “It would bring us bad luck to have her that close.”
“So what should I do?”
“Chop her up. You have to chop her up and bury her in the woods.”
The young woman went to the barn for the axe. When she came back, she noticed there was a run in the stocking on her mother’s left leg, and the scaly purplish skin showing through the hole looked like it belonged to some exotic tropical creature. She could have afforded new stockings, of course, but she always said she was saving up for her daughter and son-in-law, since after all they needed the money more than her.
The young woman turned her eyes away. Then, standing over her mother, she lifted the axe in the air and brought it down with all her strength. As the sharp edge tore into her mother’s neck, there was an unpleasant gurgling sound and the young woman’s head spun so badly she nearly fainted. She began furiously hacking away at the body—she had to get it over with as quickly as possible, otherwise she would go out of her mind!
She chopped and chopped, tears flowing down her cheeks, dripping into the bloody pool that had formed at her feet. When the young woman was finally through, she stuffed the pieces of her mother’s body into a burlap sack. Only the head wouldn’t fit, so she tucked that under her arm, threw the sack over her shoulder, and set out into the woods.
The night was dimly lit, only a few hesitant moonbeams illuminating the countryside. When the woman entered the woods, she could see almost nothing at all. The light hardly shone through the thick canopy of trees. Even treading carefully, she still staggered and tripped several times. It was a wonder she managed to stay on her feet.
When the mother’s head saw what was going on, it took pity on her daughter and said: “Follow my directions and I will make sure that you don’t get hurt.”
On hearing her mother’s voice, the young woman shrieked in horror. Her sudden outcry frightened the creatures of the night and shook the leaves on the trees. Who had the audacity to disturb the forest quiet?
“You needn’t be afraid,” said the head. “I’m right here at your side.”
The young woman, feeling reassured, tightened her grip on the head. It kept a close watch on the ground beneath the young woman’s feet and guided her safely to a glade where the ground was dry and light. There the daughter began to dig a grave.
Once the hole was deep enough, she laid her mother’s body inside. Throughout it all, the head just looked at her affectionately, and it kept looking at her until the daughter scooped dirt over its eyes.
“You did an excellent job, dear daughter,” the head whispered just before its mouth was filled with dirt.
Stiff from digging, the young woman stood up straight and stretched. Then she glanced up and noticed the branches on the trees starting to turn a pinkish color in the rosy morning light. Everything around her was clean and unsullied, free of guilt, free of memory.
The young woman set out on her way home. She felt light in a way she had never felt before, bouncing along the pillowy moss as if she weighed nothing at all. Just one little push and she would have lifted off into the air, sailing over the treetops like a bird. There was nothing at all to hold her back.
One
Old women’s bodies don’t really exist—there is an age limit, a border imprecisely defined yet rigid, on the other side of which a woman becomes invisible. If you were to line up old women side by side and tell them to strip, there would be nothing to see underneath their clothes; only an emptiness beginning at their neck and ending at their knees, then from there down their legs continuing in plain sight. No one cares about this mass disappearance, newspapers don’t report on it, you won’t find out about it on the internet, or even from books, despite their propensity for devoting attention to the curiosities of our world. Tons of bones and muscle matter, barrels of blood, poof, up in smoke! The police don’t bother with it, it isn’t debated in parliament, no one holds any protests about it. The only reaction this unprecedented loss of matter evokes is at best a patronizing smile.
As Marie attempted to button up her dress in back, she accidentally pinched off a piece of dry crinkled skin. It hurt—and startled—her. How long had her back looked like that? Since when had her normally supple skin begun to turn to a crusty plaque, creeping across her body like an inexorable rash? Why hadn’t she noticed it before? Why hadn’t she done something to prevent it? She helplessly dropped her hands to her sides. If she wore a blazer over the dress, then no one would notice, and if she took off the blazer, then hopefully no one would comment on the unbuttoned inch or two. After all, it wasn’t like someone was going to walk up and say: My God, how did you get in here dressed like that? Gather up your things and get out, but use the back door, so nobody will see you. Still, Róza wouldn’t be happy about it, she’d probably tell her off, in that quiet, hissing, insufferable voice of hers, standing nice and close so Marie wouldn’t miss so much as a syllable of her rebuke. On the other hand, Marie was certain that Róza would lash out at her no matter what she did; she always found something to ruin her mood that she could blame on her mother. Mom, please . . . – Mom, how could you do that? – Mom, what were you thinking? – Mom, how in the world did you come up with that?
Everything could fit into the rubric of Mom; it was broad and solid enough to bear every conceivable complaint.
Marie left her dress unbuttoned. The dry, deadened patch of skin on her back made her sick to her stomach, and she wanted to forget about it as soon as possible, set it aside like a piece of old junk that had long outlived its usefulness and no one needed anymore. Unfortunately there was no way to do that, she had no choice but to wear her skin, no choice but to wear her punishment.
It had been a very long time since she had really touched herself. She only did so when absolutely essential and for the most part tried not to touch her body with her bare hands. When dying her hair, she wore a single-use glove; when washing her face, she used a washcloth. There was usually some convenient way to avoid direct contact. She did use her thumb and finger when spreading the lips of her vulva, though she always used the smallest finger surface possible. The care she provided herself was thorough, but never exceeded the bare minimum: acts of courtesy based on some vague concept of self-care, nothing more. Like she was caring for someone else she was responsible for and couldn’t get rid of, no matter how badly she wanted to.
She had once read a story about a woman who used a pillow to suffocate her husband who was suffering from dementia. The woman had been caring for him the last three years of his life. In court she told the judge that she couldn’t stand to look at him anymore, she just couldn’t. Marie had a deep understanding for the woman, though she would never have said so out loud, instead acting as outraged as everybody else. Isn’t that awful? Absolutely dreadful the things some people come up with.
She put on a blazer and brushed her hair, a few more hairs were left behind in her brush than usual. Marie was afraid she would end up like a doll in a few years, rotting away in an attic; anyone who stroked her head would come away with a clump of hair in their hand. She noticed a strip of gray peeking through at her roots. She had been planning to get to the hairdresser before the holidays to cover up the worst of the blatant signs of old age, which luckily it wasn’t too late to do something about—unlike her eyelids, whose sagging skin weighed down so heavily on her eyes it had been giving her headaches, or her slack cheeks, which pleated around her jaw, giving her the look of a sad bulldog, or the backs of her hands, which were as wrinkled and dry as a pile of leaves. Luckily it was easy to take care of her hair: one trip to the hairdresser was all it took to make the gray hairs disappear for several weeks. But she hadn’t been able to fit it in.
Marie’s hairdresser, a loud woman who was constantly chewing and smacking her lips, had shifted her schedule so she could leave work and go home in the early afternoon, and the times she had that worked for Marie were already taken.
“Are you sure you can’t squeeze me in? My daughter is getting married,” Marie pleaded.
“I’m sure,” said the hairdresser sternly. Marie had half a mind to chew her out for her pompous rejection, but instead she politely said goodbye and started to hang up the phone. But just before she pressed the button, the hairdresser suddenly launched into an explanation of why it was that she was going home so early: she had been getting concerned about her son, who was staying out late with his friends and refusing to tell his parents where they were going. He often smelled of cigarettes and alcohol, and she was worried, really worried, what it might lead to, so she had been spending more time at home to keep an eye on her son after school.
Marie had zero interest in this outpouring of honesty, and spent the whole time quietly hoping the hairdresser would pick up on her lack of concern. But the hairdresser wasn’t looking for any response. Marie held the phone away from her ear, feeling the anger building inside her. She was dying to shut the hairdresser up, cut off the torrent of self-pity, but there was something holding her back; a part of her weary mind realized it was something that all of us do—we all need to reassure ourselves that other people are listening, that what we say is actually reaching them, so we wrap around them with words and squeeze them like a snake: Can you hear me now? How about now? You can definitely hear me now, that’s right—you can hardly even breathe, so you’re going to listen nice and closely.
“Whenever he’s in the shower or asleep, I search through his clothes and his bag, just to be safe,” the hairdresser said. “Nothing wrong with that. I’m his mom! I need to know what’s going on!”
Marie had no doubt the hairdresser spilled her guts to all her clients, women and men alike. Each one got their fair share of the woman’s tribulations, because you can always trust a stranger, right, your secrets are safe with them, especially when you catch them off guard with unsolicited intimacy. What can they do but nod and listen, which anyway is often the most two humans can do for each other.
Still, Marie would never have dreamed of confiding in the hairdresser the problems she had with Róza. Partly because it felt silly and inappropriate to her to talk about with a stranger, and partly because she was convinced that with the two of them there was something else going on; buried beneath all the testiness, the accusations and arguments, was a vibrant, sustainable core. Yes, there were times when it was difficult to believe in, but they only had to scrape away all the fleeting disagreements and miscommunications, and it was there beneath the surface—unbroken, strong, beautiful. Still, at the same time, Marie was aware—though she didn’t like to dwell on it—that these layers were heavy. They had weighed on the core with so much pressure and for such a long time that the core might yet begin to crack, and one day it might irrevocably burst: phut, and the end.
She polished her shoes and placed a few necessities in her handbag: lipstick, compact, tissues. Róza firmly insisted that she wasn’t going to cry, but Marie knew that even the most matter-of-fact bride could be overcome by emotion, and she fervently wanted to be there for her daughter. It wasn’t just that she liked the idea, but as mother of the bride, after all, she was fully entitled. No one else had the right to play that role.
She closed the apartment door behind her, carefully locked it, and took the elevator down. There was a trampled piece of rohlík on the floor. It upset her to see people leaving behind such a mess and others just stepping on top of it, without so much as a second thought, without a pang of conscience. But what should I expect, she thought bitterly, we only share this space for a while, then we go shut ourselves up in our little apartments, our own little cages, which we keep tidy and neat, each on our own, regardless of what takes place outside our doors. Who cares? That’s got nothing to do with me, not a thing at all!
Lately, when she was out in the street, Marie had been taking pictures of litter with her phone: cigarette butts, chewing gum, tissues. The increase was obvious. A few times she even saw dead birds lying around on the pavement like some creepy forgotten toy; it always disturbed her so much, though, that she couldn’t bring herself to get close, never mind take a picture. She imagined all the people being washed away by trash someday, a tidal wave of litter, rising as high as the windows, then breaking through and streaming into all the fancy apartments.
A few months ago, she had even emailed photos to the local officials, saying there was no way to breathe in such a filthy environment, but no one had written back. Most likely they had suffocated on all the rubbish and were now lying limp at their computers, heads slumped over their keyboards.
In some strange way she found the image appealing.
As Marie stepped out of the building, a bright, tenacious light shone into her eyes. The sun’s rays fell on her back, then liquefied, sliding down her spine, leaving behind a soothing warmth, like someone had rubbed a precious ointment into her back.
Her body, untouched by anyone for weeks and, with each passing day, hour, minute, collapsing in on itself like an old rotting building, was suddenly plunged whole into a beneficent light and warmth—at long last loved, at long last cared for.
*
The air was heavy inside the car; even the ancient air conditioning wasn’t enough to keep it fresh. Marie had the feeling her carefully made-up face was slowly dissolving, blush, powder, and lipstick sliding down her sagging skin, leaving behind nothing but a faint sad smudge. She knew it would have been easier to go unmade-up, but that would have been signaling that she had already given up; that she had renounced that aspect of feminine ornamentation, which may have been useless, and in her case even to her detriment, but it made a woman comprehensible, legible, acceptable. A woman didn’t mask herself in colors only to set herself apart, after all, but to blend in to her surroundings as naturally as possible. Marie wiped what was left of the powder off her forehead and made a mental note to fix her makeup before she got out of the car.
Ever since she had retired, she had to count every crown. If it hadn’t been for the extra income from babysitting, she doubted she would have been able to cover her monthly expenses. She preferred not to think about how many years she would still be able to work. She pictured herself as a machine that couldn’t afford to seize up.
Every winter the rent increased that much more. The sum on the lease Marie had to re-sign each year looked good from the landlord’s point of view. Sometimes he would blame the increase on inflation, wielding it like a sharp-edged sword; other times the reason he gave was the standard market rate; and sometimes he would cleverly combine the two arguments. Every now and then Marie caught herself wondering what she might sell in the event of an emergency
—the jewelry she had inherited from her mother, of course. Then there was the car. Though it wasn’t as if she would get more than a couple thousand for it. And the main thing was she didn’t want to give up the feeling of being able to leave whenever she wanted to. It didn’t matter where to or why; the existence of the possibility was what was important. She had options, yes, she still had a choice.
Marie turned on the radio. One of the stations that wasn’t too big on music was airing an interview with some know-it-all Marie had never heard of. To judge from her voice, the woman couldn’t have been a day over thirty, yet she was talking about the disappearance and wholesale extinction of species, the increasing risk of environmental collapse and the major, unforeseeable changes likely to accompany it, including previously undiscovered diseases. Marie found it both remarkable and a tad bit suspicious that a woman could speak with such authority on matters so complex with no hesitation or doubt. Her presentation was so fluid it sounded like she had it all written down and was reading it off of a piece of paper. How could a woman as young as her be so self-assured? How did she actually know all that? How on earth was she not paralyzed like Marie with the permanent feeling that her words couldn’t possibly be of interest to anyone, and that if someone actually did appear engaged, it was just a skillful act? Marie felt sad hearing the woman’s confident voice on the radio, it opened in her an abyss she had no desire to gaze into. Fortunately, the interview soon came to an end, followed by the news. The lead story was about a man who had set himself on fire in an act of protest, but Marie didn’t catch who or what he was against—the announcer spoke in an odd mumbling way and swallowed the end of the sentence as if she wasn’t entirely sure of it or maybe even intentionally wanted to keep it a secret. Marie’s mind immediately went to whether the protester had left anyone behind. Wife? Children? Siblings? Maybe even parents? He could have chosen a way to protest that didn’t hurt anyone. As usual for the media, they spent most of their time talking about the fact that he had killed himself, rather than why he was protesting—no matter how serious a cause it was. After all, a person can’t just disappear without feeling responsible for those they left behind.
Marie turned off the news. She was getting a splitting headache. Besides, she wasn’t involved in anything important that was going on, and didn’t agree with any of it.
She turned off the highway and onto a road that passed between a field and a forest. Rolling down the window to inhale the spruces’ fragrance, she noticed the soft light streaming through the branches and rippling in ponds of gold across their trunks and needles. Her throat clenched up as an unexpected feeling of happiness slammed into her with all the force of a freight truck. The anxiety of moments before was gone without a trace.
For one brief moment she felt connected to everything—her fingers were the branches flowing thick with sap, her hair fluttered in tune with the spiderwebs and yellowy fluff, her feet sank deep into the earth, intermingling with the roots. Marie felt nothing bad could touch her—in that moment, there was no one who could do her any harm. But as unexpectedly as it arrived, the intoxicating feeling departed again, spilling over into another and another, until all that remained of it was a few faint strokes. Once again it was just her by herself, her and the car, the car and her.
As she approached her destination, even from a distance she could see the line of parked vehicles. She brought her car to a stop at the end of the line. She quickly fixed her makeup, taking care to look only at the individual parts of her face, dispassionately carved into sections by the rearview mirror; the sight of the inadequate whole might have disappointed her and made her too upset.
When she stepped out of the car, she saw it was still a good distance to the pond. Róza’s requirements had been clear in this regard; she wanted the guests parked far away from the ceremony site, to make sure the cars didn’t intrude on the photographs.
“It’s just a little ways, it shouldn’t cause anybody problems,” she had written in an email sent to all the guests the week before. Marie was offended at first to be part of a mass update—just another recipient, like anybody else—but then she reminded herself that her daughter was carrying a heavy burden of responsibilities and didn’t have time to write everyone individually. Furthermore, when she looked through the list of addresses, she discovered that Štěpán’s parents were on there as well. Seeing that she and the groom’s family received the same treatment, she realized it was petty of her to even think about something like that.
Marie set out along the gently sloping path. The sky was so blue and clear it almost looked like it had been specially scrubbed for this day. It was exactly the way her little girl’s wedding day was supposed to look, just what she deserved.
She gazed around her, but didn’t recognize anyone. On Róza’s side, she was the only one who was able to attend. Marie’s husband—Róza’s father—had died three years earlier, and her parents had passed away when her daughter was still little. The relatives on her husband’s side lived for the most part on the other side of the country, and though initially they had intended to make it, they each had various circumstances get in the way: one cousin had a risky pregnancy, another had gotten a job abroad and couldn’t come back to Czechia while he was still in his trial period. Štěpán’s aunt who Róza adored was in the hospital waiting for a hip replacement. Marie greatly admired the fact that Róza took it all in stride, with total understanding. She just wrote them back to say that it was no big deal and they could celebrate the wedding together some other time.
In an effort to make up for the lack of relatives at the wedding, Róza had invited a whole host of friends, many of whom Marie knew: the maid of honor Šárka and her classmates from high school. Róza’s friends from college, on the other hand, she only barely recognized.
Some she had met at her daughter’s birthday party a few years back and others she knew from pictures, but that chapter of Róza’s life was one she hadn’t been part of, and for that matter her daughter had never invited her into it; Marie could only cautiously inquire about it, doing her best not to irritate Róza by being too nosy. Still, she had managed to pick up some valuable information—she knew there were five or six people, a close circle of friends, who spent weekends and some holidays together, and occasionally went on day trips or short, cheap vacations.
Marie was glad her daughter was happy and living a life that worked for her. Still, there was one thing that bothered her, though she was embarrassed for feeling that way and never said so to anyone. When Róza went to college, she acquired a patronizing, slightly disparaging tone, which she used whenever she and her mother talked about anything more complicated than the latest news from their relatives. Marie had the feeling that her opinions made her daughter angry and that it took all her self-control to tolerate spending time with her. Marie made a serious effort to keep up with news and current events, but whenever she tried to expound on some new piece of wisdom in front of Róza, her daughter would start impatiently nodding her head and an unnaturally stiff smile would settle onto her face, like it had been tattooed on. It was obvious she wished her mother would get it over with, an urgent plea shooting from her eyes: Will you please please please just stop, have some common sense. In the face of this degrading treatment, Marie tried to act like she didn’t notice, but her daughter’s blatantly humiliating reaction seared itself into her retina time and time again.
Soon she stopped bringing up new subjects whenever she spoke with Róza, instead just patiently waiting to see what her daughter would talk about. She tread the ground of conversation with maximum prudence. The slightest ill-considered step and she might come down on a landmine that blew the whole carefully crafted truce sky-high.
She wasn’t sure if Róza had even registered this change in communication.
Marie strained to see a familiar face, but there was no sign of Róza or anyone else she knew. Young people stepped out of the cars around her, greeting each other with kisses on the cheek, all of them strikingly good-looking, sparkling with a silver sheen all the more impressive for the fact that its bearers clearly had no inkling of it. It emanated from them incidentally, as if they had nothing to do with it; the young women and men were so dazzlingly alive that they just couldn’t help it.
Marie felt like she was intruding on an event where she didn’t belong. No one said hello, no one acknowledged her presence. She fluffed up her soggy hair and smoothed her crumpled dress, but the effort was so laughably futile, it only made it all the more clear how out of place she was here.
“Mrs. Dostálová, Mrs. Dostálová!”
Her heart leaped in her chest.
“Oh, there you are!”
Šárka, Róza’s maid of honor, came rushing toward her. She was in charge of the guests and the run of show. Marie had known her for years and was very fond of her. Šárka was polite and cheerful, had always been nice to Róza, and Marie had no doubt she acted the same with her own mother and father, who were surely proud of her and didn’t feel like dunces whenever they opened their mouths in front of her.
“Róza was asking for you,” Šárka said breathlessly. In that moment, Marie felt herself becoming visible amid the flood of strangers. Of course she belonged here, of course her presence was important—her daughter needed her!
“Where is she?”
“Inside, in the restaurant,” said Šárka, waving her hand somewhere behind her.
“Is there anything wrong?”
Šárka shrugged. “I don’t think so. She just said she’d called a couple of times and asked if you would be so kind as to stop by.”
Róza had definitely not used the expression if you would be so kind, but Marie appreciated that Šárka had been so tactful as to append it to her message. She groped around in her handbag, dug out her cellphone, and froze. Five missed calls. Of course she had been on the road and unable to answer the phone—for that matter she hadn’t even heard it ring—but Róza had shown her more than once how simple, incredibly simple, it was to use handsfree.
“You just press here—and you talk like a normal phone call. See? Does that make sense?”
Marie nodded, but she knew there was no way she was ever going to use it. Now she felt guilty, though, for missing her daughter’s calls. What if something had happened to her? She told Šárka thanks and dashed off toward the restaurant. A few people wheeled around in surprise and whispered something among themselves, but Marie didn’t give a damn, not a damn, she had to get to Róza and help her out ASAP!
As she burst into the restaurant, she didn’t see her anywhere. Štěpán was standing with his parents and an older man, probably his grandfather. Despite being in a hurry, Marie nodded hello and headed toward them. She didn’t want to be impolite, after all. Stefan’s parents and the older man shook hands with her, while she and Štěpán kissed on the cheek. He had initiated this greeting himself and she didn’t object, though she had never been too fond of him. Their cheeks touching made her think of two slugs stuck together, but she had never had the courage to ask Štěpán to stop and suggest they just greet each other some regular way, like shaking hands.
Štěpán’s parents launched right in with questions about how her trip was, and his mother invited Marie to drink a toast with them. But Štěpán interrupted her before she could finish her sentence. His mother shot him a sidelong glance of disapproval, which only Marie noticed, feeling a strong pang of sympathy.
“There’ll be time for that later,” said Štěpán. “Róza’s in the bathroom in back.” His tone of voice was both matter-of-fact and kind, yet at the same time firm, like someone who’s used to telling others what to do and doesn’t doubt for a moment that they will do as he says.
“She said you would know how to deal with it,” added Štěpán’s mother. “It’s a good thing you’re here.”
“Last-minute rescue,” added the older man with a smile.
Marie realized it couldn’t be anything dire—if it were, Štěpán would have been with Róza instead of standing around here gabbing with his family. She glanced over at him and he automatically, almost boyishly, smiled. His smooth round face, reminiscent of a wheel of cheese, irritated her; there was a look of permanent satisfaction to it, as if out of all the shapes, sizes and colors in the world, he couldn’t have asked for a better face than this one. Marie quickly looked away and hastened off to the ladies’ room. Once inside, though, she didn’t see Róza anywhere. One of the stalls was locked, so Marie knocked on the door.
“Are you all right, sweetie?”
It was quiet a moment, then she heard: “I’m fine, yeah. How are you?”
“Pardon me,” blurted Marie. “I was looking for my daughter, and she—”
“Mom!” said a voice from behind her. Marie turned and saw Róza standing there. She looked absolutely gorgeous, in a long, bright-pink gown, with a garland of flowers in her hair. Like she had just stepped out of a picture book, a specter in the mist who would vanish at any minute.
“I was next door in the men’s room,” said Róza with a frown. The image was suddenly gone.
“There wasn’t anyone there,” Róza explained. “And as soon as they saw I was in there, they just went somewhere else.”
“What happened?” asked Marie. “Is everything all right?”
Róza shrugged. The corners of her mouth turned down and her chin began to quiver. It was exactly the same expression she used when she was little and something unfair happened to her. Marie hadn’t seen it in years; she thought it was gone, along with the fine body hairs and the milk teeth of her childhood. But meanwhile the little girl in Róza, who wanted to be hugged and sob into her mommy’s hair when something frightened her, was there the whole time—stuffed deep down under the weight of all that serious grown-up flesh, but still alive.
Róza silently pointed to her lower belly. Initially failing to grasp the gesture, the first thought that crossed Marie’s mind was that her daughter was announcing she was pregnant. But then she spotted a small red stain. She was aghast. Was that blood? Why hadn’t someone taken care of that? But then she noticed the stain was too small and bright red to be what she thought. She leaned in closer.
“I spilled some ketchup on me and it won’t come off,” Róza sighed. “I called to see if maybe you could pick up some of that special bile soap on the way, but you didn’t answer.”
Marie was relieved Róza was all right, but instead of saying that she said: “You should know by now, if you eat in a wedding dress, you put a napkin in your neckline and a napkin on your lap. Or else you’re just asking for trouble.”
Marie couldn’t believe it; the oft-repeated advice had just sailed out of her mouth out of the blue like a gob of spit. She would much rather have said something soothing but decisive, so Róza would know what to do, yet feel calmed by her motherly presence. Those words lay hidden somewhere out of view, though; she could only catch sight of their vague outlines. She couldn’t put her finger on them, no matter how hard she tried.
The stain on Róza’s dress was fairly small, luckily. You only noticed it if you focused in on the spot and examined it carefully. In a way it looked intentional, almost like an alert from the conscientious seamstress, announcing the location of the bride’s reproductive organs. No need to worry, dear groom, everything is in working order and right where it’s supposed to be! The thought of it amused Marie, causing her to smile.
Róza noticed and got annoyed: “If you’re going to laugh about it, then you can leave right now!” she said. “I was hoping you might have advice, but you’re just making fun of me.”
Marie pleadingly reached out her hand. “Róza, honey, I didn’t mean it. It wasn’t directed at you.”
Róza jerked her head away and turned to the wall.
“Did you try using dish soap?”
“Just regular soap and water. But I feel like that made it worse.”
“Let’s try with some dish soap, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll try vinegar.”
“Should I go ask in the kitchen?”
“You stay here, I’ll deal with it. Don’t worry,” said Marie. “It’ll all work out fine. The main thing is not to stress, honeybun.”
She leaned over and gave her daughter a kiss on the forehead. Róza didn’t resist; her whole body radiated a sense of surrender, as if the wedding was over and done with and she could finally give in to all the built-up exhaustion.
Marie hurried through the restaurant to the kitchen. When she opened the door, she was momentarily blinded by a dense wall of steam, stinging her eyes.
“You aren’t allowed in here, ma’am,” a man’s voice barked. “If you’re hungry, you’ll just have to wait like everybody else. We’ll start serving refreshments in a few minutes.”
Once Marie managed to focus again, she saw the voice belonged to a tall, spindly chef with a short ginger beard and a bald head. He looked like a wildcat that through some oversight had been let loose in the kitchen.
“I just need some dish soap and specter vinegar,” said Marie.
“And I need a hot babe and a manager’s salary!” the chef shouted back. A few of his male colleagues burst out laughing. Marie regarded the rows of gleaming teeth, clacking against one another like the parts of a huge, terrifying machine whose gears she had suddenly fallen into. She stepped toward the chef until she was so close she could smell his body odor, a mixture of sweat and something fresh and oddly invigorating, as if he had rubbed himself in herbs.
“I’m sorry but I’m in a terrible rush,” said Marie, raising her voice. “So once again: may I ask you for some dish soap and vinegar?”
The man’s eyes bulged in surprise. But he didn’t say a word, just waving to one of his colleagues, who hastily handed the requested items to her.
“Thank you very much,” said Marie, smiling. She wanted to make a quick exit, but something held her back; she wondered if she had been needlessly brusque and unpleasant. The last thing she wanted was for someone to complain about a bossy old lady who had burst into the kitchen and started ordering everyone around.
“We need to quickly get rid of a stain,” she explained apologetically. “There’s always some boo-boo at every wedding. It wouldn’t be a real wedding otherwise.”
Nobody answered her. They all had their heads bent over their work, chopping, slicing, and stirring. She had briefly captured their attention, and now it was time for her to withdraw once more into the background. Marie offered a grateful nod, but no one returned the gesture.
She returned to the toilets to find Róza trying to cover up the dirty spot with her hand while practicing various nonchalant poses in front of the mirror like a child hoping no one would notice its offense. The moment she noticed her mother she stopped.
“Did you manage to find anything?”
“Yes,” said Marie, proudly shaking the bottles in her hand. “You’d better take off the whole dress. It’ll be easier that way.”
“But what if someone comes in?”
“We’ll throw them out!”
Marie leaned her back against the door while Róza unbuttoned her dress. It suddenly occurred to Marie she hadn’t seen her daughter take off her clothes for several years. Whenever she came for the weekend, she only got undressed in her room or the bathroom, and she always went out in full armor, everything strapped down and buttoned up to the neck, like she didn’t want to give her mother even a fleeting glance of her body.
Now, though, Marie could see how light and supple Róza’s skin was; like a thin coating so precious it could only be touched by human fingers with the utmost of precaution, so as not to make a tear in it. Marie found it hard to imagine that hardening, wrinkling, and drying, patient and malevolent, awaited her daughter too at some point in the future.
Róza took off her dress and carefully handed it to her mother, who draped it over her shoulder, then indicated to Róza to step up to the door in her place. Marie located the spot and carefully rubbed the dish soap into the fabric to avoid getting any more of it on the dress than was absolutely necessary. Then she rinsed it out with water. She repeated this procedure several times, following the same steps with the vinegar. The stain began to shrink, vanishing from sight, until after several rounds there was no longer even a trace of it. Marie then dried the wet spot under the hand dryer, doing her best to keep the fabric stretched taut the whole time, so as not to leave any creases. Though performing each action with quick precision, she treated the dress with the reverence of a sacred canvas. Soon it would be seen by throngs of believers, who had undertaken a long, arduous journey to lay eyes on it, and didn’t deserve to have the illusion ruined for them by someone revealing the mishaps from behind the scenes.
Once it was finally ready, Róza put on the dress. Marie buttoned it up for her and straightened it at the shoulders. Róza examined herself in the mirror. Her appearance suggested nothing, neither relief nor joy, and suddenly Marie caught a fleeting glimpse of her daughter as the woman she would be decades from now—her body graceful yet twisted, like a leaf deprived of moisture. She shook her head to drive the image away. Róza, noticing the gesture, leaned into her mother and whispered:
“Thank you very much. I’m really glad you’re here.”
And from that moment on, Marie truly belonged at the wedding.
Two
The ceremony was brief. The wedding party stood on a dock by the pond, whose surface shined with a light so brilliant and sparkling it appeared to be coming from some other, realer, world, concealed within its depths. The officiant gave a simple, almost businesslike speech, then the newlyweds kissed and along with the witnesses signed the certificate housed in a blue folder. Marie noticed a few guests sniffling and some even openly wiping away tears. She too found the whole situation moving, but wasn’t able to cry. Ever since she had been widowed, Marie had felt insecure and out of place at large social gatherings—suddenly she was on her own, with nobody next to her to cover up her conversational gaps and missteps. She had to be constantly vigilant, assessing herself from the outside, wondering whether she was sufficiently dignified, calm, and cogent. Only now did she fully appreciate that subtle yet crucial function of marriage which up until her husband died she had taken wholly for granted.
Living together for decades, a couple grew so closely together they ceased to be sure where one ended and the other one began. The moment that connection was interrupted by death,
it wasn’t clear for some time what exactly remained of the one who was left behind. Into what shape had they been so abruptly, unexpectedly cast? Some people never figured it out.
Still, Marie wasn’t so sentimental not to see that there was something unnatural, even risky, about living your whole life with one other person. No one could possibly know what their partner would change into over the years, or they themselves for that matter. Nevertheless people continued to avidly enter into unions, pledging faithfulness, understanding, respect. Assuming they took these vows seriously, though, they really should have made them to several potential individuals: some of them would remain unknown for years before they materialized; others had only rough outlines, etching themselves into space bit by bit over the years, then dissolving in a few days, leaving behind nothing at all. Only all of these figures together, real and imagined, created the person the other one imagined they wanted to be with. It was like writing a blank check signed in a haze of loving lies.
I will stay with you.
I will care for you.
I will love you.
In reality this meant stepping out into the void—and hoping the fall would last long enough to call it a lifelong relationship. Marie had depended on her husband so much that she didn’t try to brake or steer the fall in any way. But while at the beginning of the marriage she knew at least they were falling together, now she was in the impenetrable dark alone; the space above and below her had merged, so she couldn’t tell where she was coming from or where she was going, or in fact whether she’d come to a stop ages ago, trapped like a fly with no idea the end was drawing near.
After the ceremony the newlyweds received congratulations next to the dock. Some laughed and made jokes, others went with the usual stock phrases. In the past, expressions like “Good luck” or “All the best in your years together” seemed insincere and depressing to Marie. But the older she got, the more she realized those oft-repeated phrases were the ones that carried the purest meaning, filtered through the countless mouths repeating them over the years.
“Good luck, honey,” she told Róza, giving her a hug. An impatient line formed behind her as she continued to hold on. Her daughter’s grip soon weakened, with Róza exerting a weak but noticeable resistance. Marie, however, insisted; she wasn’t about to let her take those few extra seconds away. But then she had to let Róza go. She no longer belonged to her.
At lunch, Marie wanted to get drunk, but decided she’d better not. Her face might get red and she might laugh too loudly or stagger while walking away from the table. Instead she just discreetly sipped from her glass of wine, not daring more alcohol than that. After a while, a young man approached her at the table.
“Would you care to dance?”
Marie laughed and waved him off. “No, no. Thank you. Absolutely not.”
“Not even just for a while? If I step on your foot, you can tell me to go to hell!”
“Oh, no, it’s not that,” said Marie, feeling her cheeks blush. The young man stood facing her, patiently waiting for her to decline one more time. All of a sudden Marie had no idea why—why she so insisted on remaining firmly in place the whole time, like some bulky piece of furniture that everyone else had to walk around.
“All right then,” she said. “We can try.”
They stepped onto the dance floor and leaned clumsily into each other. Marie thought they must look ridiculous, tragically so. But then she noticed Štěpán’s mother also on the dance floor, with a partner even younger than hers. The two of them exchanged guilty grins.
Marie danced slowly, her movement more an intention from within than anything visible from the outside. But the young man didn’t comment on it, complimenting her dress and talking about what a beautiful day it was. Marie was grateful for his small but large acts of kindness.
“You know, I don’t even know what you do,” he said. “I never asked Róza about it.”
Marie just shrugged.
“Do you . . . do you still work?”
“I am retired, if that’s what you’re asking.”
The young man blinked in a charmingly awkward way; he suddenly looked so gentle, fragile, and vulnerable, his gracefulness and adulthood withdrawing to the rear, as if they had not yet been properly tamed and trained.
“I didn’t mean it like that, I just . . . I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right,” said Marie reassuringly. “I do still work a little bit—there are some families I babysit for.”
“Is that something you enjoy?”
Marie couldn’t help but smile. How did people even think to ask a question like that? For years she had worked because she had to, period, so there was no point in asking whether or not she enjoyed it. Every day was like a pile of laundry that had to be sorted, washed, ironed, hung to dry, and folded—as long as you focused on one task at a time, it wasn’t hard at all. What good would it have done her if she’d suddenly plopped down on the pile and started to think about whether or not she enjoyed it?
“Yes,” she said finally. “I like being with children.”
The young man’s face lit up.
“That’s great then. I’m happy for you.”
They went on dancing in silence, until Marie’s feet started to swell. They felt monstrously big and heavy, and if she didn’t stop right away she wouldn’t even be able to move.
“I’m sorry, but I need to sit.”
“Is everything all right?”
“Yes, I just . . .” How on earth could she explain? She was sure he would find the thought of it disgusting. For a young man like him, women’s feet were tender, delicate things, not subject to any off-putting processes of nature. “I just need a little to drink.”
“Of course,” the young man said with a nod, and the two of them headed over to a table where a group of Róza and Štěpán’s friends were sitting.
“Would you like to sit with us awhile?”
“Gladly,” said Marie.
A couple of people stood from their seats to free a chair for her. Someone slid her a glass of water, someone else a plate of snacks. Marie felt like a house pet that her dance partner had pulled from his pocket and now everyone was offering treats.
“May I ask you something?” said a blonde woman sitting next to Marie.
“Absolutely.”
“I was wondering . . .” she began sheepishly, rolling the words around in her mouth. “What was Róza like as a little girl?”
“Yeah, tell us everything, especially the embarrassing parts!” someone shouted from the other end of the table. “We won’t remember tomorrow anyway!”
Marie shook her head. “I’m sorry to disappoint you . . .”
A few people comically sighed.
“. . . but Róza was an amazing child.”
“That’s what I was afraid of!” said one of the men.
“Really, that’s all you remember?” insisted the blonde. “If somebody asked my mom that, she could go on for hours.”
“All right, let me try to think of something,” said Marie.
“I probably shouldn’t ask on the day you’re giving your daughter away,” the blonde woman said, “but would you be my mom?”
Everyone burst out laughing and started clinking glasses.
“I think we might actually make it work!” cried the blonde, shouting over the noise.
Marie closed her eyes. The voices of the young people around her faded until she could no longer make out what they were saying; the sound was boiled down to a soft harmony, soft enough for Marie to lay down on it without a care and float away.
She felt good in a way she hadn’t in a long time. She breathed in the cooling air, the smell of cigarette smoke mixing with the aroma of roasting meat. It was one of those rare moments when everything was OK—when everything unhinged fell smoothly and quietly back into place, all the pointless, distracted movement came to a standstill, and she was flooded with the type of indescribable calm people yearn for all their lives. But then suddenly, inexplicably, the unity began to break down, and soon there was nothing left of it but a few dangling shreds, too thin to take shelter in. New, loud and disgruntled tones rose to the foreground.
“I mean you can’t just say that’s work too,” said one woman, objecting to another. “That’s an oversimplification.”
“And what’s wrong with simplifying?” said the other. “If we thought of it as just a normal thing, where people pay taxes and get health insurance, then women wouldn’t have to worry about getting beat up and humiliated.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” said a bright-eyed young man. “The guys that pimp girls would be, like, their official employers now, but they would still abuse them.”
Marie didn’t understand when the change had taken place. Where had all the joking gone? How much time had passed?
“It’s important to realize the reason that women do it is because they don’t have other options,” said the first woman. “There’s a huge percentage of single moms in this country who have to earn extra income by working as prostitutes.”
Marie squirmed uncomfortably at the phrase “extra income.”
“It’s not like any of them choose to do it because they enjoy it or it’s their dream,” the woman went on. “They’re pressured into the situation, and not only that but they have to watch out to make sure nobody knows. Since if word gets out, it’s not like people will ask what drove them to do it—they just treat it like a disgrace and a failure on the women’s part.”
“Exactly,” the young man agreed. “That’s why we need better laws to protect women: sexual violence, domestic violence—across the board.”
Marie looked around the table and saw everyone firmly nodding their heads.
“Yeah, domestic violence is awful too. Physical and mental.”
“And it happens to so many people!”
“It’s insane!”
“The poor victims.”
They were good kids and meant well. But Marie doubted they had any idea what they were talking about.
Years ago, when two businesses in the town where Marie lived had their assets siphoned off, hundreds of people had lost their jobs, mostly men. The husbands of Marie’s close friends, and other people she knew, were stuck at home with nowhere to go for weeks, even months. No one and nothing had prepared them for this miserable situation. Their whole lives, they had been convinced they were irreplaceable, sure of their place in the world. Now it felt like they had suddenly had the rug pulled out from under them, and they couldn’t get back on their feet. They sought to soften the sting of their uselessness with beer, and directed their rage at their wives and children, since no one else was at hand. And they went on in this vein even after they managed to find another job—often worse paid than the previous one. Once their anger was out of the bottle, they couldn’t stuff it back in.
Very few of the women married to those men left their husbands for good. Some moved out for a time, but ended up coming back. Leaving was never as simple as it may have seemed at first. There was the underlying issue of money, and housing of course, but also their own strong, stubborn pride, which didn’t want strangers interfering in domestic matters. Some of the women would have been angry to hear people calling them victims. Many of them mostly would have appreciated it not being so damn hard to find a decently paid steady job.
“I think it would help if we made it clear to people who do prostitution that nobody judges them. That we get what a tough situation they’re in,” the blonde woman said, winking at Marie as if seeking her agreement. Marie opened her mouth. Up until then she’d had no intention of speaking, but all of a sudden the words came out all by themselves.
“Nobody wants other people to feel sorry for them,” she said, her voice so loud and decisive it startled even her.
“We’re not talking about feeling sorry,” said the blonde. She smiled as if Marie had misheard an important piece of information and now she was magnanimously reminding her. “The issue here is understanding.”
“Yes, but almost no one is capable of that. It’s much easier just to act compassionate, like we’re doing now—that doesn’t cost a thing.”
“Do you think this is how it always ends up? A bunch of empty talk with nothing to show for it?” asked the woman who started the conversation.
“Not always, but . . .”
“But what?”
“But we’re all on our own in the end anyway.”
A hush fell over the group. Everyone stared uneasily straight ahead.
“What are you guys talking about?”
Róza appeared at the head of the table, rosy-cheeked and smiling. When no one opened their mouth, she suddenly turned serious.
“Should I go?” she asked. Her offended tone of voice was only partly feigned.
“No, no, not at all!” several people exclaimed at once. “Sit down with us, pull up a seat!”
Róza could tell something had happened that she wasn’t supposed to know about. Her gaze roamed from face to face, searching for a clue as to what it was, and in the end it settled sternly on her mother’s.
“You want to come have a look with me and see if the meat is done, Mom?”
Marie had no choice but to follow her. Róza walked toward the rotisserie, keeping one step ahead, until suddenly she wheeled around and stepped toward her mother so close their shoulders were touching. Anyone watching might easily have taken it for an expression of intimacy, but Marie knew Róza was doing it so nobody else could hear.
“What were you guys talking about back there?”
“Nothing,” said Marie through a smile. “Just a conversation about . . . women that make their living in ways other than the usual ones.”
“What kind of women?”
“You know . . . like prostitutes.”
“You didn’t say anything, did you?” Róza asked with a pleading look in her eyes.
“It just seemed to me, the way they were talking about understanding, it was . . . I don’t know . . . condescending?”
Róza took a deep breath, as if steeling herself for the inevitable disaster.
“So what did you say exactly?”
“I said that in the end we’re always all on our own.”
Róza closed her eyes in pain.
“Did you have to start feeling sorry for yourself again?”
“What?” said Marie.
“You might be surprised, Mom, but not every subject has to do with you personally.”
“But I didn’t do anything wrong!” said Marie. “I just gave my opinion.”
“I was hoping for a nice day,” said Róza in a soft, emphatic voice, “with everyone relaxed and enjoying themselves.”
“They are! Everyone’s having a good time! I certainly didn’t ruin it. Your friends are very nice, and if they think I’m old and stupid, it’s no reflection on you.”
Marie’s eyes burned as the tears began to spill.
“Oh no,” Róza groaned. “Today is not about you, Mom. Really. Please understand.”
Marie nodded.
“Can you handle it?”
“Yeah,” squeaked Marie. “I’ll be fine in a minute.”
Róza nodded and hurried off, leaving Marie standing by the slowly rotating piglet. It no longer looked like an animal that might disturb the guests, having become what was required of it: a docile piece of meat.
“Are you all right?” came a voice from behind Marie.
She turned around. Standing behind her was the older man she had seen a few hours earlier in the circle with Štěpán’s family: his grandfather. Blue eyes open wide, he gazed at her with a mix of curiosity and concern.
“Can I get you something to eat or drink?” he asked. “Your whole face just went pale. I couldn’t help but notice.”
Marie shook her head. “Thanks, I’m fine. It’s just . . .”
She tried to come up with some small fib to the effect that she’d gotten dizzy or saw spots before her eyes, but suddenly her throat choked with sobs. She was utterly at a loss for words, just soundlessly opening and closing her mouth. Štěpán’s grandfather gently took hold of her under the arm.
“Why don’t we go for a little walk around the pond?”
All Marie could do was nod.
“It’s a beautiful sight on an evening like this. Some of the trees bow all the way down to the surface. I haven’t seen anything like it in ages.”
END
Translated by Alex Zucker