CHAPTER THREE

STORY OF LENKA

The next day I woke late. Going downstairs I discovered Maminka had already left for her surgery. I made coffee, got dressed and decided to take my old bike out for a ride. In Paris, I didn’t own a bike so if I wanted to do any cycling, I had to borrow one, which wasn’t always easy. Besides, cycling there, in the heavy traffic, had none of the pleasure of riding through small muddy paths in the green forests of Kraslice. This was one of the things I loved most to do. Just me and my bike, surrounded by nature. I was hoping that getting out in the fresh air would help me shift the heavy feelings I had been carrying with me since leaving Paris.

Here in the Ore mountains, each season has its own charm. Winters are cold with temperatures reaching below zero. The mountains, glistening white with snow, are like a scene from a fairytale. The beauty of winter gives way to bleaker landscapes with the arrival of the first rains and drizzle in spring. Summers are mild, with brisk misty mornings scented with moist grass and wildflowers.

Cycling on the half empty road, I passed by the huge red-brick lace factory when a familiar voice called out to me from the other side. I turned to see Mrs Richter, Oma’s friend, who used to visit her when I was a child.

Still tall, her heavy figure was now bent forward with age. She leaned on a walking stick and with her free hand beckoned me over.

I crossed over to her side of the road. With a warm smile, she reached out to embrace me, struggling to keep her balance. Her wrinkled hand gripped the stick tightly, blue veins clearly showing through her tissue-paper skin, almost transparent with age. I was scared if she might actually lose her balance and fall on top of me. I wasn’t sure I would have the strength to stop her knocking me and my bike to the ground.

She leant in and gave me a kiss on the cheek smelling of mint bonbons and washing powder.

‘You’ve become a real young lady, Lenka. Paris must suit you,’ she said. Her voice was full of pride. One might almost have thought she was herself my grandmother, not just a family friend.

‘I don’t blame you for wanting to leaveKraslice! What is there for a clever girl like you here?’

I guessed she wasn’t expecting an answer and she went on without waiting for one. ‘When I was young this town was a different place, you’d never want to leave, everything you needed was right here. That factory over there used to be full of girls all making lace. We made the best lace here, everybody knew Graslitz lace. Now it’s half empty, and we buy lace imported from China. Imagine that!’ she said, using the old German name for the town. ‘And our musical instruments, we were famous for them too.’

‘Well they are still making trumpets at least,’ I said, trying to look for something positive to say.

‘And it’s doing very badly. Reinhard told me it’s only a matter of time before they go bankrupt. I bet you, that factory will close down soon, like the hospital of ours,’ she pointed her walking stick in the direction of the building where Oma had once worked.

‘What a disaster. Things go from bad to worse in this town…,’ she sighed.

I had the feeling that if she started talking about the past, I might be standing there all morning. Eager to get on my bike but not wanting to offend the old lady, I enquired about her health, hoping that the litany of complaints would not last too long. I knew from Maminka she suffered from diabetes and high blood pressure.

‘I’m getting old, you see… I’m nothing like I was in the old days, now I have to take this blasted stick with me everywhere I go,’ she shook the stick vigorously in front of my face, ‘otherwise, I might fall!’

I leant back, away from her stick, afraid she might hit me in the face with it.

‘But I keep walking every day. And your mother has been looking after me very well. I’m telling you, she is a good doctor, your mother…How long will you be staying here?’

‘I leave next Sunday.’

‘Excellent!’ her eyes twinkled. ‘You’ll still be here for our annual meeting of Sudeten Germans this Friday. Will you come?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, refusing to commit.

‘I have already sent an invitation to your mother. You must come with her,’ she said grasping my hand, ‘I would be so happy to see you both there.’ Without giving me a chance to reply, she added, ‘You youngsters barely know about your own history… There is so much you don’t know Lenka.’

With her last words, she was looking meaningfully into my eyes.

She was a nice lady but I would barely know anyone there. People at these gatherings were from the old generation.

She looked in the direction of her home.

‘I must go now. Reinhard is waiting for me. He is on his afternoon shift today and I must be home before he leaves. Otherwise, he will worry. He treats me like a child,’ she apologised, laughing. ‘I will see you at the meeting,’ she added.

I jumped on my bike, saying goodbye to the old lady. As I was leaving, I glanced back at the red brick factory, thinking it had been standing here as a silent witness of the passing time. I turned away and set off towards the edge of town heading for Rolava, leaving Mrs Richter behind.

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER ONE

STORY OF LENKA

For almost as long as I can remember I had wanted to leave Kraslice the small Czech town where I grew up. Tucked away in a valley in the Ore Mountains, close to the German border, surrounded by steep hills and green pine forests, Kraslice is a picturesque place. But to me it was a forgotten place, a town even most Czechs would struggle to find on a map. I was afraid if I stayed there, I would end up stuck, just like Maminka. Married to a local boy, someone I had gone to school with and known my whole life. Not because I particularly wanted to marry him, but because he was the best of the limited choices available. I longed to get away, to experience city life, to go to a place where I could wander the streets anonymously and where the possibilities were endless. So when the first opportunity presented itself, I left.

    When still a child, Maminka insisted that I learn French as my second language. She took me to Marie who was the only French teacher in the whole town. Marie was blind and old. She was probably the same age as Oma but somehow looked much older. She must have remembered a lot. I was well mannered and had never dared to ask her what caused her blindness. Maminka told me she was born like that. But Oma said, that Marie became blind while she was a prisoner during the war.

‘Prisoner…what war?’ I didn’t understand. 

Oma laughed at the seven years old child I was back then.

‘This was a long time ago. Her eyes got infected and she became blind. I believe she couldn’t find her way back home and had to stay. But Lenka, my little angel, you must swear to me, you won’t ever talk to Marie about anything I’ve just told you. No war, prison or eyes! It might still hurt her feelings. Do you understand?’

‘I promise I won’t.’

With the passing time, I realised Marie was the best teacher I’d ever had. I loved everything about her. The warmth of her small apartment, the sound of her calming voice, her delicious scent of camomile surrounding her body. When I was reading aloud from my French textbooks, stumping at every second word, she was patiently listening, her thin fingers sliding down the white pages of her own books, written in braille. Once I had enough of reading or conversation about the weather I pretended I needed to go to have a pee. Her toilet was outside, in the hallway. I always took at least five minutes before I came back!

Sometimes she offered me lemonade or freshly baked buchty sweet strawberry jam buns, which she got for herself at the nearby bakery.

When I entered high school, I had a proper French teacher. He was young and full of energy but also a real pedant. Impressed about my reading and conversational skills he decided I had to improve my writing too. Every Friday afternoon, he loaded me with additional grammatical assignments which I had to execute.

‘You do this over the weekend and no excuses!’ he always said as if I had ever dared to protest.

He was nothing like Marie. He was a proper teacher. I couldn’t lead him by the nose! I wouldn’t dare to argue about anything he asked me to do. And so, in spite of myself, my grammar improved to a great level. In my final year, he had the crazy idea I should enter the French Cultural Knowledge Contest. So I did.

On the day of the competition, the jury asked me what I knew about the French cinema. They surely expected me to talk about the Lumière brothers and their cinematograph invention. Instead, I spoke about Angélique, Marquise des Anges, a historical romance film from the sixties, I knew from the television. The jury looked amused but didn’t stop me and by a miracle, I was granted a third place. The prize came with a grant from the French government. Bingo! This was my ticket to escape the boring town of mine. I packed my stuff and moved to Paris to study French at the Sorbonne. Later, I enrolled for a degree in international relations at the Faculty of Economics and Political Science. 

That had been three years ago, I was now in my final year and about to start an internship at the International Organisation for Trade and Development.

Of course, Maminka still lived in Kraslice and every holiday I dutifully returned there. Divorced and alone, I knew she looked forward to my visits. Whenever we spoke on the phone, she never missed an opportunity to remind me I had promised to come back whenever I had the chance.

This time, though, it was different. For the first time since I had left Kraslice, I actually wanted to be there. I found myself longing for the safe familiarity of the town of my childhood.

She picked me up from a bus stop. As soon as she pulled up in her old reliable Skoda Fabia it felt like I had never been away. Once I was comfortably seated in the passenger’s seat, enveloped by the familiar fragrance of the interior upholstery – slightly musty – mingled with Maminka’s perfume – floral and sweet - I felt a wave of emotion and my eyes filled with tears. I was glad she kept her eyes focused on the road and didn’t seem to notice anything.

In Paris, I had been having an on-off relationship with Samir, a Moroccan guy I had met and fallen hopelessly in love with. It was obvious to everyone but me that it was not going to work out and when I discovered I was pregnant it came to an abrupt end. There really was no chance I could have had the child. Samir didn’t want to know and I was in the middle of my studies, so I made the difficult decision to have an abortion. By this time it was obvious the relationship was over. I knew he was seeing other women but I had hoped at least that he would come with me to the clinic and he assured me he would be there. But when the day of the appointment arrived, he gave me an excuse. I had to do it on my own…

I returned to my small Paris flat with a feeling of emptiness inside me that no matter what I did I could not seem to shift.

I stared out the window as we passed rows of square concrete buildings, the cultural centre, the well-kept police station and the crumbling White Swan hotel, dating back to the era of the Habsburg monarchy. Though many things have changed in my life, Kraslice seemed the same as it has always been. If I could, I would turn back the time. I wished to feel the lightness of being a child once again, walking these streets, having nothing to worry about, except not being late for school and having good grades.

I looked at Maminka sitting next to me, behind the wheel of the Skoda Fabia. I haven’t even told her about Samir, or any other guys for that matter. She was a pragmatic woman, a doctor, and I knew her opinions about unwanted pregnancies. I remembered when a local girl, one of her patients, had become pregnant at sixteen Maminka had shown little sympathy. There was simply no excuse for it in today’s society, she said, with contraception readily available. The girl must have been careless or stupid, or both. Imagine what she would say if she knew that I, her own daughter had made the same mistake.

I never wanted to be like her. Growing up, my head was full of dreams and ideas. I never planned anything. If things went wrong I didn’t stress about it, what was the point, anyway. Unlike Maminka and most people in Kraslice, I didn’t judge people because they were different or did things differently. On the contrary, I have always been attracted to people and experiences that were different. My imagination and curiosity seemed totally incomprehensible to her. She would often tell me to stop fantasising. But it was partly this sense of adventure that led me to stay in Paris. I sometimes wondered if there was a tinge of envy within that incomprehension. At times like this though, I wished I could be just a little bit more like her.

Finally, we arrived home, a white three-story house with a neat garden close to the banks of the river Svatava. Once inside, sitting at the table, I gave Maminka the present I had bought for her. A cheap bottle of perfume (though highly expensive for my limited means). I wished I could have afforded something better but was touched to see real gratitude in her eyes. She sprinkled herself with its pink-coloured contents, even letting out a little ‘woooh’ as the sweet, heavy scent reached her nostrils. 

CHAPTER TWO