The Garden’s Footprints
A long short story
Coming out of the dark feels like it should be the name of this novel I’ve been reading the past few nights, stretched out half-asleep on my oatmeal-colored chaise lounge, alternating between feelings of lackadaisical anxiety and outright hysteria, all because of my unwarranted anticipation of today. I tell myself today isn’t anything special; it’s just a train ride back home to Prague, and we’ve only emerged from another vast and black tunnel. It will be another forty-five minutes still before we cross into the Czech border, but already can I recognize the land transforming outside my window. The countryside between Germany and Bohemia form the greenest of landscapes in my eyes, glistening still with dew from the morning’s mist. There are outlines of mountains in the distance. Hillocks and ridges sprout up like inconspicuous anthills; it isn’t surprising to see a cottage rested atop one in the distance, steadfast, devoted to resisting change.
The train drags on eastward. We passed near Dresden a little ways back, though I managed to see very little of the city itself. I saw nothing but the residential outskirts, Germanic slums really, because my window faces the north. At least the sky is pretty. I can’t see the sun from where I’m sitting, but I know it’s out there, manipulating the firmament, whisking away the blue-gray storm clouds of a few hours ago. Now the sky looks like one huge, incomprehensible robin egg, and I wish I could crack through the shell. Would I see yolk or a chick? And so this is how I entertain myself, philosophizing about the mundane, waiting, waiting.
I do wish I had had a slightly larger breakfast this morning because my tummy is beginning to rumble. Why didn’t I pack away something light, a granola bar or something? A coffee, a cigarette, and a bagel, even with a heaping amount of cream cheese, will never last nearly five hours onboard a train.
Oh, and mother, I wonder how she is doing? I haven’t seen her for five years now. She scolded me, then a twenty-three year old woman, about wanting to move to Belgium.
Why, she asked, what could there be in Belgium for a lovely little girl like you? A boy who is from Brussels? You met this boy at the University? But you don’t even speak French or Flemish! I think . . . I think you’re making a mistake.
We’ve spoken since then, mother and I, but relations have remained distinctly chilled ever since. I speculate it’s because I ended up marrying that boy in question, Erik Mallieux, though nothing can be for certain when it comes to her and her opinions. Maybe she just resents me for moving far away to another country, a country she’ll never come to visit. I don’t know. She’ll die in Prague before she ever visits me.
And now, five years, some eighteen hundred or so days later, I’ll be seeing her again. My hair is shorter than it’s ever been, and I’m a blonde now too. She’s bound to tell me, Oh my, Jana, what ever did you do to your wonderfully long brown hair? Did that boy of yours make you do it? Have the Soviets invaded Belgium too? While mother is a little crazy in the head, a bit bipolar perhaps, I doubt she’ll say such things. Well, she did live through the Prague Spring with father, so her grumbling about Communism now is her way of making up for some twenty odd years of enforced silence.
Oh, how I have missed autumn in Prague, watching the fallen white and peach petals from a black locust float along the banks of the Vltava. And leaning against the railing of the Charles Bridge, feeling like a teenage tourist, looking out upon the sometimes clear, sometimes murky olive hued waters. I can remember blushing while I tried quickly and desperately to push down the rising fringes of my skirt, muttering curses to the wind. A passerby would snap a picture, perhaps of the river, perhaps of me, perhaps of some luminous building hovering in the background. It wouldn’t have mattered to me to feel so exposed, but at least allow me to first apply a bit of mascara and a moment to put on a smile.
Long train rides like this always make me feel lonely. I can’t enjoy the calm of solitude while the engine rumbles and the steel wheels beat down the tracks. Of course, nowadays, the journeys are almost smooth and imperceptible. Sometimes the cabin rumbles a soft “clap-clap,” and that only inflames my growing discomfort with this elaborate illusion of peace. I find being a passenger to be the gloomiest of situations. Just sitting there, head pressed against the glass, watching the world go by a millimeter at a time. It’s moments like these where I wish time would freeze upon a whisper. The sun would be stopped in the middle of its approach to the apex of the sky. Golden orioles paralyzed, floating perilously in the air. Nearby, the season’s final batch of butterflies hang inverted in their chrysalis, luminescent, withering. In another ten seconds or so, the first sign of life, the tentative extension of a wing breaking through the hardened shell will occur. Reborn, the metamorphosis will be complete.
Water from the nearby rivers and the distance oceans will temporarily cease to sway and flux. Sonorous music hangs motionless, caught somewhere between origin and echo. Under the spell of infinity’s indiscretion, notions of the beginning and end are laughable, a mere time traveler’s folly. Could I step outside this train for a moment to see what time has done or would I too be frozen? Would life appear listlessly fixed in place or would the world’s soul still show through? I would like to believe in the latter, a nostalgic girl’s dream. I sometimes feel I am perpetually guided by an unwavering light that shines everywhere and yet nowhere, from within and yet without; given answers that have no discernable questions, and yet maybe . . . maybe that’s a good thing.
If Erik were sitting beside me right now, I feel assured my mind would be consumed thinking about other things. The filters would be changed, Erik in place of solitary. What thoughts would percolate through? Oh Erik, why couldn’t you come back to Prague with me? I’m hesitant to come to conclusions about anything right now.
This young man sitting next to me hasn’t stopped snoring since we passed through Soest. His chest heaves emphatically every few minutes and his fingers clutch a well-worn copy of Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther. It looks like it’s been read dozens of times before. I would like very much to be able to slip the book out of his grasp and thumb through those pages, to read where he’s currently marked, to explore the many dog-eared pages and maybe figure out whatever words or phrases or perhaps declarations of love and despair ring true and somehow symbolize what this sleeping man thinks and believes.
Nothing wakes him. He sits with his legs sprawled out, his cheek cradled in the palm of his hand. He looks so young still; he can’t be much beyond the age of eighteen. He’s cute in his sleeping boyish way, even if he does happen to snore. I must say, his curly hair is to die for, if nothing else! And such a curious wardrobe; I’ve never seen someone so young wear a felt trilby before. What might he do for a living? Is he an actor? Could he be an aspiring writer or just another wandering romantic? Underneath his pea coat is a maroon and black argyle patterned sweater, fashion forward with a gray silk cravat. He wears shiny boots too! Why, he could pass for a tap dancer, heel clicking up the street and down the stairs! Why is he traveling to Prague? Coming and going, coming and going. It is possible this is his first time traveling alone: and yet, he’s seems so relaxed; complacent, as if riding forever on this train is his circumscribed fate. But instead of displaying a sense of resignation, he sleeps! I wait for him to stir.
I could ask him a thousand and one questions right now about the silliest things. Do you step with your left foot first or right? Do shadows begin to dance when you are tired? Have you ever pretended to conduct an orchestra standing alone in a music store? Do you prefer to drink hot tea or cold? What do you think about Marlon Brando tangoing in Paris for the last time? What gives you the goosebumps? Where in the world do you imagine is the most romantic place to make love?
But we would never discuss such things, no, no, for intimacy amongst strangers is surely unwritten taboo. Honesty seems to be lacking everywhere, but sadly, not just amongst strangers. Partners together for a decade can’t decide to tell one another about the affairs they’ve each been having for the last ten months. A child can’t tell his father he cheated on his mathematics test. A teenage daughter can’t tell her mother she had sex for the first time ever last week. Mother and father can’t tell their children they might lose the mortgage on their house. The government can’t tell its citizens the state of the economy. Best friend can’t tell best friend she French kissed her friend’s long-term lover last night. And so the lies envelop and infuse, becoming one with our being.
Yet for some inexplicable reason, I have this doubt that my sleeping friend and I would lie to one another. It is likely we would just speak in generalities about the most ordinary of topics. Where are you from? Oh, you don’t speak Czech? Parlez-vous français? How do you make a living? And so such a conversation would unfurl. The banal thought of it depresses me, though perhaps this fellow is the dozing reincarnation of Oscar Wilde? One can hope and dream.
He smells nice. His scent is such that I fancy he sleeps in a fruit garden! Oh my, I speak of him as if I’ve fallen in love with him: is my obsession rooted in boredom or curiosity? In only five minutes of thought, we have lived five lifetimes together, traveling the world around by means of trains. Though I can’t seem to settle on his name. In my waking dreams I call him Marian, sometimes Georges. My instincts assure me his name is Blake. Could he be gay? My girlfriends and I back at University would laugh at that situation often. Zofia Lovitzski, an old roommate, loved to complain about always meeting attractive gay men everywhere she went. Where are the beautiful heterosexuals? she’d ask. But, of course, what kind of answer could I give her? Until I met Erik, I felt the same way.
We’re coming up on the border and my unwitting companion has just stirred due to the commotion. The train will be stopping soon and I must be prepared. Soon, I will be in Prague. Soon, I will be back home.
It has rained all day and night. Truly though, I could not have asked for better weather upon our exodus from the train. The drizzle caused the streets to shimmer like olive oil poured upon glass. The glow of mid-afternoon city lights brought back memories of physical and emotional sensation, startling tings that could have been the sign of expectation or antiquity. Miloš, the sleeping beauty, exited the train with me. He told me he was a freelance photographer from Brno, returning to Prague from a shoot he just had in Paris. Apparently, Miloš takes delight in photographing people as a backdrop to architecture and art. Most of his time was spent near the great pyramid in the courtyard of the Louvre, where he snapped pairs of couples embracing one another, representing what he called Le Meilleur Bisou du Monde. I chuckled at the suggestion, wondering if one of his photos might truly show “the greatest kiss in the world.”
Miloš was taller than I expected. His slouch onboard the train masked his size and mannerisms, which were far less dainty than I originally presumed them to be. His voice was melodic tenor. Tt reminded me a lot of my husband’s when he speaks halting Czech. As it turns out, he and I are the same age, mere months apart. When we walked onto the platform of the station, he asked me if I had plans for lunch. I felt as if I had blushed when he asked me, though I’m not quite sure why. “Yes, unfortunately I do,” I told him. “I’m meeting a friend.”
“That’s too bad,” he said. “Well then, Jana? Could you hold on for one second?”
He reached into his black leather messenger bag while I stood against a wall. I suppose I hoped he would give me a business card, or perhaps a phone number. I must stress I have no desire to be unfaithful to my husband. My meeting with Miloš transcended the boundaries of business and pleasure, and instead snuggled up against the rare category of the blissful chance meeting of friends; old souls that had only known each other for little less than an hour.
Miloš withdrew a camera and asked me to stay standing where I was, against the red brick wall of the stationhouse. In moments such as those, I become self-conscious about my appearance, almost borderline shy. I crossed my legs and pressed my purse against my tummy, more aware than ever of its stark emptiness. He snapped a rapid series of photos silently, not goading me on as if I were a model, or even asking me to smile. Photography to him, he told me, was a declaration of subtleties that the absentminded eye will often miss. Once he had slipped the camera back into his bag, he wrote down his electronic mail address on his ticket stub and asked me to write him in exchange for the pictures. He said he wanted to meet me for lunch some day somewhere. And then, Miloš and I parted ways.
After making a brief phone call to Vilém, I took the tram to the Café Louvre. The name of the café and Milos’ most recent destination was a complete coincidence. Vilém and I had decided upon that spot the weekend before and made reservations.
I was fortunate to pack an umbrella in my suitcase. I’ve learned to never travel without one. There’s nothing worse than roaming around a city far away from home, stranded on some street, soaked and bemoaning having only two more blouses, a skirt, and a pair of blue jeans to wear. The lesson I learned is: don’t pack more unnecessary clothes! Just take an umbrella. When I stepped off the tram, I spotted Vilém standing outside the café smoking a cigarette even though they still allow smoking within. I’ve always thought he holds cigarettes strangely because I have always held them between my middle and forefinger, but he grasps his cigarettes between his forefinger and thumb. I tease him by saying he looks like he’s always smoking marijuana cigarettes and in constant need of that one last puff.
Vilém is my older cousin, the son of mother’s brother. We’ve been close ever since childhood when we would pretend to be airplane pilots, placing wood carved figurines in our empty teacups and racing around the dining room until we were exhausted. Vilém loved to climb trees even though he was terribly afraid of heights. His neighbors when we were young, Mr. and Mrs. Vetvička, had a hearty rowan tree in their backyard. We would climb it, resting our legs over an extended branch, and eat nearby berries by the handful. And though they always tasted bitter, we pretended they were cherries and tasted sweet.
As I approached the entrance to the café, Vilém flipped his cigarette into a puddle. While crossing Národní 22, I looked up and saw the lighted red sign hung above the second floor of the building. The ivory shaded facade momentarily looked like a miniature rendition of the Roman Coliseum. Then, as my eyes adjusted to the sight blurred by the sprinkling of rain, it resembled an apartment building that had been renovated into a modern palace. When I glanced back down towards Vilém, he was smiling. We embraced and kissed each other on the cheek.
He asked: “Was your journey comfortable? Did you get any rest onboard the train?”
“Mmm, Vilém, how I’ve missed you so! The ride was a joy. I didn’t sleep, no, but I did happen to chance upon sitting next to the most wonderful person.”
“Oh really? And what does this person do?”
“Let’s go inside, my dear. I will tell you all inside.”
For nearly two hours we sat within the red and cream-colored walls of the café. I sipped on several cups of Viennese coffee and ate a decent gulaš that doesn’t hold a candle to mother’s own recipe. After we finished eating, we played a few games of chess, but unfortunately, I lost both times.
Vilém had plenty to talk about while we sat in our booth. I learned that his six-year-old son, Jakub, (named after my father) had recently begun his first year of primary school. His wife, Karoliná, is doing well with her career and, in fact, has taken up sculpting as a hobby. They rent an apartment near St. Vitus and it’s apparently quite a fashionable building. I would hope so for the money he claims to be paying for it! At least he is financially well off now. Success has always followed him like a puppy.
While I was in a temporary state of wonderment from his flurry of remarkably good news, he did, however hit me with a very sad fact: the dog he had owned since he left home at the age of twenty, Karel, passed away. Over night, it seems, he developed a brain tumor and had to be put down. Vilém said he was initially going to shoot the poor pup, a German Shepard with the biggest tongue on an animal I have ever seen, but Karoliná talked him into getting him euthanized. Afterwards, Vilém took Karel’s remains and buried him in the countryside somewhere outside of Prague, figuring that’s what he would have wanted most.
Vilém had his car, a blue Volvo, parked a few blocks away, so we each lit up cigarettes and walked.
“I feel foolish,” he said as we drifted down the sidewalk. “And I am very selfish. For two hours, I talk, talk, talk about the most trivial of things and yet you hardly opened your mouth the entire time! I apologize, Jana. I must ask you: is Prague as you had remembered it?”
“Oh, I don’t know how it could change,” I said. “Many of the buildings are still the same; the Vltava still flows through the city; the leaves turn the same colors, and rush hour traffic still honks their horns in alternating moods of boredom and impatience. No, nothing has changed and everything remains beautiful.”
“And you still remain beautiful, my dear cousin.” We had reached his car. He stood in front of the passenger door, preparing to open it for me like the old-fashioned gentleman he is. “I must say though, you look so different with such blonde hair!”
I frowned. “Do you not like it?”
“Oh, no, no, no, no, no! I just wonder . . . why did you do it?”
“Ah Vilém . . . because I needed to change.”
For the first time since I was eighteen, nearly ten years ago now, I am lying in the bed of my childhood. I can’t help but reflect upon how much has changed since I wrapped myself in these sheets. Everything gives off the initial appearance of staying the same, but how can the workings of change be denied? I was once here and then I was gone and now I have since returned. That alone is three separate branches of change and of history; and in multiples does change steadily increase. I think back between then and now and back again to my many years as a child spent lying at the foot of my bed in this room writing in a loose-leaf paper journal, much like what I’m doing now just past the hour of midnight.
Approaching my mother’s home was more emotional than I expected it to be. I first saw the wooden fence surrounding the backyard. Since father died, I don’t think the wood has ever been cleaned or treated; it looked beyond repair, yet there it still stands. The smoothed white stucco walls of the house were splotched with scatterings of moss stains and elongated strands of ivy. The red ceramic tile of the roof appeared faded to a shade somewhere between maroon and brown. Beyond the disfiguration of weathering and time the house has endured over the last several years, it still remains sturdy.
Fallen leaves were strewn about the front lawn and branches of the white birch trees swayed in the wind. Vilém dropped me off on the outskirts of town; he said he would love to see my mother again (as he hadn’t seen her in nearly six months himself), but said he had to pick up Jakub from school shortly. He promised we would all have dinner together tomorrow.
So I exited the car and walked down the cobblestone walkway towards the overhang of the front porch. I shook my umbrella free of rain. Peering through the front window of the house, I noticed that none of the overhead lights were on within, and began to wonder if anyone was home. My ride was at least a mile away by now, my husband several countries away, my mother God knows where, and me, stuck outside standing on the front porch of the house where I was raised. I knocked on the door several times and waited for a response. Mother knew I would be coming in this weekend; there was no reason why she wouldn’t be home to answer. It took another round of knocking and waiting before she finally answered. But then there she was, pulling open the door with her fragile, arthritic hands. “Hello!” she exclaimed.
We both made motions to hug at the threshold of the entrance, though it was awkward because I had the screen door propped open against elbow. Mother placed her hand against my cheek and kissed my forehead.
“My pumpkin has finally returned! Come in! Come in!” She motioned with her hand. “You’ll catch a cold if you stay outside too long.”
Her enthusiasm overwhelmed me and I think I managed to whisper out a hello, I’m fine. Once inside, I removed the scarf I had wrapped over my head and looked around. Mother, who had been bolting the door behind me, turned around and gasped.
“Oh Jana! Where did your all your beautiful hair go!? Is that a wig you’re wearing?”
“Mother, don’t be ridiculous! This is still my hair. I’ve just done something different with it is all.”
“It’s just so shocking,” she said. “I would have never had you cut off that much hair in a million years, and yet you managed to do it in a single day! Did your husband put you up to it? Have you had this hairstyle for some time now?”
“No, no, no, mother. This was wholly my doing. Erik had nothing to do with it.” I thought she might have momentarily winced at the mention of my husband’s name, but I didn’t call her out on it. “Actually, I just recently had this done about a month ago.”
“Oh.” She stood silent and began to hobble backwards towards the kitchen. “Make yourself at home, dear. Would you like some tea?”
“Of course,” I said. “Is your hip feeling any better?”
“What’s that?” she shouted from the kitchen. I could hear her pouring water into the kettle.
I walked into the kitchen and repeated, “I asked if your hip was feeling better.”
She laughed and said, “It’s as good as it it’s going to get at this age. The pain — it comes and it goes.”
“I saw that you’re limping. Did the doctor give you a cane?”
“He did, but I never use it.”
Her response was an example of the classic stubbornness I remembered growing up and the mix of the memory and its current display made me smile. She hadn’t changed one iota from the day I left her.
For an hour we sat in the kitchen catching up, drinking cup after cup of Earl Grey. She looked relatively the same since I had last seen her, though her face appeared softer and paler. Her hair, which always used to be pulled back into a ponytail, now roams free. Mother was never one to cake herself in makeup and today was no different. Rouge compound brightened her cheeks and sometimes I thought she looked like an abandoned porcelain doll, left alone to fend for herself in this large barren house.
Dusk settled upon the house and mother went about lighting candles, she said, to save on electricity bills. The high ceiling of the living room seemed to collapse upon us as mother sat down in her knitting chair and slowly kicked her feet up onto the ottoman. Father’s chair had remained in the same place; though it is now covered with a wool quilt that she began to make soon after he passed.
Ever since she shattered her hip on the ice seven years before, while I was away at University, mother has encountered one malady after another. Rheumatism has nearly crippled her and I think she lives in more pain than she lets on. While we sat in rainy half-silence, she began to doze off, becoming drowsy from the medication the doctor prescribes her.
“Would you put on a record, dear?” She yawned. “Something classical, perhaps? I do believe I need to take a nap.”
I got up from the sofa and opened the door to father’s study. While the exterior of the house had fallen into relative disrepair, the interior remained immaculate. The wood finish of the walls, desk, and bookshelves were dusted, lacquered, and polished as if still new. I caught minute traces of father’s favorite pipe tobacco, forever engrained into the atmosphere. Against the wall, beneath the large oval window that looked out towards the stone birdbath placed in middle of the backyard rested the gramophone, a family heirloom preserved throughout the war. I thumbed through the extensive catalogue mother and father and collected over the years. My fingers rested on a Rubinstein concert of Chopin. The stylus touched the vinyl and Nocturne in E Minor played.
Seeing how it was my father’s favorite song, the selection seemed fitting. I sat in his chair and looked out the window. Two mockingbirds endured the rain and stood upon the circular stone tablet of the birdbath. I can’t remember when was the last time I sat in that room, but as I listened to the soft tones of the piano slip out and sink within my ears, I started to cry again. The truth is: I’m afraid of telling mother the news that must be said. That is, after all, half my reason for coming back here, because such news cannot be expressed over the telephone or even in a handwritten note. The blood of emotion has to be seen with living eyes. Oh God, what will she think, what will she say? I have to go to bed. It’s getting late.
When I was younger, my father once asked me what I wanted to do with my life. “It means nothing to be virtuous, rich, or respected in this world,” he told me, “if you cannot come home at the end of the day, look in the mirror and crack a smile.”
That day I could give him no practical answer. I was ten years old. The thought of a career bewildered me and so I drifted into adulthood with no set plans, like a seed in the wind, waiting to land somewhere fertile and inviting. When I went away to University, I had not declared a path of study. I worked at the campus library for money and found a modicum of happiness, not so much with the form of employment itself, but because of a weekly paycheck to help pay my way through school. I met Erik at the library near the end of my third year. He had no reason to be in the library that day, February twenty-fifth, because he was studying to become a musical composer. Once a month, however, he would come into the library to check out the same book, a collection of short stories by Jorge Luis Borges.
His favorite story is “The Garden of Forking Paths,” and after we started dating, I bought a copy of the collection, Ficciones, and read the story for myself. Erik has always been fascinated with layers and labyrinths and the notion of infinity and how it spreads and applies to everything in this world. When I confided him in my fear of choosing a career path, not for my father, not for my mother, but for myself, he offered his interpretation of his favorite story as his answer: “Jana, in this universe you do at once everything and nothing. You are you regardless of your occupation or appearance. In this garden where we currently stand, you walk down one path and I walk down another. In another reality that may or may not exist, you walk down a different path and I walk down a different path. The differences are negligible, trivial, opinions of perception.”
I put my hands around my waist in frustration of his philosophical babble.
“You see!” he said. “In another reality, you may or may not have looked at me like I’m crazy. You might have kissed me instead! Or perhaps I wouldn’t have said any of what I’ve already said. Maybe our forking paths in this other reality have never crossed!”
“So what are you saying then?” I asked. “That our choices make no difference whatsoever?”
“No, no, Jana. I’m merely saying that across the infinite number of dimensions this universe might contain, you have or will do everything that is possible for you to do in the context of your life and the time in which you live it.”
I tapped my foot in expectation. “So?”
“So listen to your father! There’s no reason for you not to be happy!”
“I hate circular logic,” I said. “I really do.”
“But I love you,” he told me.
I imagined or perhaps hoped in all the possible realities in which I knew Erik Mallieux, I hugged and kissed him and said I love you too.
So, from that moment, I only tried to do that which made me happy. I began writing. Every free moment I had, I spent writing. I began work on a novel and told my father that yes; I am truly happy and can’t imagine anything eclipsing this feeling of bliss. He told me he was proud of me, that I had finally come into my own world and that nothing could now ever possibly tear my world apart. I wondered if he was being ironical when he said that because four months later he died.
But today was a good day. I woke up early to cook mother breakfast, but alas, she was already awake and limping around the kitchen. From what I could tell, she had been at it for a little while. Sausages were on a plate near the sink and she was removing a tray of strawberry-filled kolaches from the oven. I stood within the frame of the entrance leading into the kitchen and watched my mother cook.
I considered at that moment, as I leaned against the wall, asking her when was the last time she felt as happy as she looked to be right then. Before I could muster the courage or at least form the words in my mouth, she looked up towards the ceiling and yelled, “Janinčka! Breakfast!”
I put my hand to my mouth and forced out a muted cough. She turned towards me and had a look of temporary puzzlement on her face until she squinted and I came into clearer focus. “Oh,” she said. Her voice seemed inexplicably weary and her spirit, which seemed to permeate through the room just moments before, became subdued, dare I say squashed, all because of the sight of me. “I’ve made you breakfast, dear, some of your favorites. Do you remember?”
“Ah, mama, how could I forget?”
Later that evening, Vilém came by with his wife and son and we all went out to dinner. The weather, at once so somber and brilliant the day before, was bright and overwhelming today. It was as if summer’s cruel intemperance poked through autumn’s veil for one final practical joke, one that ceased to be amusing many seasons before. It felt as if the humidity were leeching on my pores in an attempt to somehow escape with my soul.
Jakub looked beautiful with his mother’s straight black hair and hazel eyes. He’s still so young, but already I can see Vilém’s square chin and the formation of dimples on his innocent face. I hope he grows tall and confident like his father. I hope his smile will melt women’s hearts when he gets older and that the paths available in his garden are as delightful as any child deserves. It’s a bittersweet thought on a number of levels, believing the only way I can positively affect Jakub’s life is through a fruitless series of hopes.
My train leaves in the morning and I still haven’t broken the news to mother. I couldn’t tell her yesterday and let the thought fester like an untreated wound. I couldn’t tell her this morning either. That wouldn’t have been fair. I dread breaking our unspoken truce when I’ve felt nothing but good things since I walked back into her life yesterday. But how fair would it be for me to say: “Mama, you were going to be a grandmother” moments before I hop in a cab and leave her in stunned silence?
The purple sky this morning reminded me of the day of father’s funeral service and I’m not really sure why. My memory of the day is a haze of moods, alternating impressions of nostalgic joy flipped suddenly like a light switch to severe melancholic gloom. The worst part of the funeral for me though was not enduring my own feelings of loss and guilt, but watching the broken jigsaw puzzle of my mother sitting in the front row of the service on the cemetery lawn with her face collapsed upon her shaking hands, sobbing without pause. I sat beside her and rested my hand upon her leg, as if that would provide her any sense of consolation. I remember my knees trembling as I sat there; Erik rubbed my shoulder as the priest spoke. Looking back, I have always seen our chain of actions and reactions as genuine and sincere, but was each gesture an act of sympathy or a futile attempt to reconnect in the midst of shadowy despair?
I cannot say for sure. That was the moment I feel I first entered the darkened tunnel, this soundless realm where my emotions were spilled out onto the black floor, but my screams went unanswered. That day, no one could hear me, and so I receded within myself, unable to speak about the things in my life that have caused me pain.
And that’s the real reason I traveled to Prague this week: I am tired of feeling numb. The happiness that has followed my father’s death came in handfuls, but each handful leaves a stain of jade that no amount of therapy, tears, sex, or sleep can wash away. I didn’t come to apologize, but to finally share my loss with my mother.
She came into my bedroom before the sun truly rose to say good morning. I don’t know if she expected me to be awake or asleep as she peeked her head through the door and tiptoed towards my bed. My head was turned towards the empty sky outside my window, but I heard the creak of footsteps against the wooden floor, and saw her standing by my side. I sat up and leaned against my headboard. My throat awkwardly croaked out, “Hello.”
“Hello,” she sang back.
Hello, the most evocative phrase in the world.
“May I sit?” she asked.
I nodded and she sat next to me on the bed. Her feet still rested on the floor; she twisted her torso to face me and rested her hand on my tummy.
“I couldn’t help but notice you’ve put on some weight, dear,” she said. “Is that why you came to visit me, my dear Janinčka?” She paused and bit her upper lip. “Did you come to tell me you’re expecting?”
I placed my hands over my face and pretended to rub the sleepiness away from my eyes. Time froze again for a moment and it seemed as if I could simultaneously feel the individual molecules of tears forming in my tear ducts, the smell of coffee brewing downstairs, the sound of birds chirping outside; and somehow, through the double shading of my closed eyes and hands placed over them, I could see my mother sitting there, her face a composite of happiness and expectation while her fingers cradled and rubbed my hollow stomach. A bitter taste consumed my tongue as the moment unfroze and I lowered my hands and placed them upon my mother’s.
“I did come here to tell you about my pregnancy, mama.”
“Oh, I’m ah, I’m at a loss for words!” she said. “I’m so happy for you! When are you due?”
Never for a moment truly composed, I broke down then and there and the tears began to stream down my face.
“Why, what’s wrong, dear?”
“I had little Eva a little over a month ago . . .”
My words felt sterile and unreal. I could sense my vocal cords vibrating, but could hear no sound touch my lips, like I was reentering my tunnel and leaving my mother far behind.
“Jana?” She grabbed my hand and squeezed. I thought back to father’s funeral.
“Eva was born stillborn, mama.” I sobbed. “Eva was born stillborn. It’s all my fault, mama. It’s . . .”
I can’t describe how I saw her face through the cascading of tears, unable to finish a thought, much less a sentence. I lifted my chin to catch her eyes and she kissed me on the forehead and hugged me, resting my head on her shoulders as I cried away years worth of stockpiled tears.
We sat there together on the bed of my youth for several more minutes until a form of tranquility fell upon us with the gleam of the rising sun. My arms, which had hung useless at my side this entire time, regained their energy and I hugged my mother back. I had spoken so little about my loss, but even with the tiniest, most poignant of phrases, she understood everything and wanted no more. No longer can I say a chill remains between us; she provided me with the warmth I needed that sometimes not even light can provide.
After breakfast, we sat on the front porch together and regarded the morning with revitalized eyes. I saw the garden of forking paths that my husband often spoke about sitting in the rocking chair, communicating with my mother without words. I saw infinity on the horizon and within, childless but not hopeless. I left behind my mother this morning, but saw her looking stronger, making me feel stronger.
The taxi dropped me off at the railway station and for the first time all weekend I picked up a telephone and made a collect call. The phone rang twice before Erik picked up. “Hello?”
“Hello darling.”
“Jana! Is everything okay? Is your mom well? Are you feeling better? You know, despite all that’s happened recently . . . Jana? Are you there?”
“I’m here. I love you, Erik.”
“Well, I love you too!”
“Don’t worry for me. I’ll be home in a bit.”
The End.
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