The Book of Dirt Read online

  Tobias Jakobovits leaned back and stroked his goatee. ‘I suppose you’d go to Palestine,’ he said with a wry grin. ‘On a ship of fools.’

  3

  Františka Roubíčková sat at the kitchen table and watched as her cigarette burned a mournful halo at the base of the mottled black filter. For eleven years now she had been one of them, eaten their food, partaken in their rituals, hidden from their God, but not once had she longed for their cursed embrace until the day Ludvík marched her and the girls to the new Jewish Community Council office to sign the local register. ‘Not you,’ he said, gently wresting the pen from her hand. She stepped back, watched the nib as it spilled out his name in black ink. When he had finished he held the pen over the page and looked up at the clerk. ‘The girls?’ Ludvík said. ‘Their mother is…’ The clerk glanced at Františka, then nodded his head. ‘Them too,’ he said. From behind: whispers. The indignity, the finality of that word, mischlinge, half-breed, an umbilical tether, fusing flesh and blood. Her flesh. Her blood. Františka trembled as Ludvík added their names. How she wished to see hers beside them. Yes, it was true. At last she knew what it meant to be singled out among the nations, what it meant to be chosen.

  And to think that good fortune had briefly touched upon her family. Two months before the Germans strutted in and set about choking the city, Ludvík had secured steady employment with Pan Durák, a distributor of women’s clothing. Finally he had a job that would allow him to return home to his family each night. Soon after they came, Jews were forbidden to leave Prague without a visa and Ludvík’s new employment proved an even greater stroke of luck. Had he not found Pan Durák when he did, had he not charmed the affable Sudeten with his half-truths of past business conquests, the girls would almost certainly have starved.

  Pan Durák, too, found fortune in the German occupation and was eager to share it with his employees. On a spring evening in April, they gathered at a tavern in Nové Město to hear the distributor lay out his plan. ‘Enough with the dowdy salons that take our stock on consignment,’ he said. A waiter swept by and left a plate of beer cheese on the table. ‘Enough with the long journeys, the late nights. Here in the city we now have an army of customers.’ The men leaned in closer. ‘I know their type. I’ve fought alongside them and I’ve fought against them. It’s always the same. They care only for conquest then go blind in the afterglow. So, too, in commerce. You must make them think they’ve won. Let them stab you in the heart. You’ll see.’ He spat a fleck of rind to the table. ‘We’ll bleed crowns!’

  Ludvík’s confidence grew with the warmth of spring and by the end of the first month he had sold more dresses than any of Pan Durák’s salesmen. Františka began to recognise in the man who shared her bed the boy who had once charmed her with his dreams and promises. Every night over dinner he regaled the girls with stories of danger and daring, so that they wanted nothing more than to see this brave knight in action. ‘Mama, please,’ said Irena on the first day of the summer holidays. What choice did she have? Excited children are like unexploded bombs. They must be defused or they will wreak havoc. She filled a hamper with dry biscuits and sliced meat and told the girls to get dressed. ‘Be sure to look smart,’ she said. ‘For Papa.’

  At the sight of his family, Ludvík stood tall in the square. He waved, smiled, danced a clumsy two-step before straightening himself and charging into battle. Františka and the girls found a quiet place beneath the awning of a corner café from where they looked on as he haggled with the passing soldiers in their stiff grey uniforms. With every sale Ludvík turned to his family and winked. They clapped and cheered. Františka marvelled at the way the soldiers parted with their money. ‘I’m telling you,’ said Ludvík when he joined them for a quick lunch. ‘Prague has become the Nazi clearance store!’ That night the girls looked upon their father with a new reverence. Františka also felt a certain warmth, perhaps even pride. She would write to her family in the morning, invite Emílie to visit.

  When it became apparent that the occupation was truly entrenched, that the world really had abandoned his little country, Pan Durák invited Ludvík and Františka to dinner at his apartment, to discuss a certain matter in private. ‘Please,’ he said as they entered. ‘No formalities. Here I am called Bedřich.’ The first two courses were devoured in good cheer. Paní Duráková—Františka never did catch her name—was a competent cook, skilled in technique if lacking in soul. Pan Durák talked of his time on the various fronts, and of the lessons he had learnt in war. ‘It is life,’ he said. ‘Only smaller.’ At her host’s instigation, Františka spoke of her millinery. He probed her about the source of her fabrics, her manufacturing process and likely yield. By dessert, Ludvík was all but a spectator to their exchange. Paní Duráková, too, had retreated to the kitchen to grate hard white cheese over a second batch of fruit dumplings. Františka was, she realised, cornered.

  ‘Consider a partnership,’ he said at last. ‘I’ll take whatever you can manage. Sixty–forty. In your favour, of course.’ He pointed across the room to a floral dress made of coarse fabric that was hanging from a doorhandle. ‘These soldiers, they are happy to buy whatever we show them. What do they know about materials when my salesmen speak with silver tongues? Think how much more we could make if your husband were to offer them a matching hat.’ Ludvík bit down on the silver cake fork. Františka pawed nervously at her napkin. ‘Pan Durák…’ she said. The Sudeten let his name linger in the sweetened air. The clink of plates and silverware chimed from behind the kitchen door. ‘Bedřich,’ he said when he saw she could not go on. ‘It is not something you must decide right now, though I can’t see what there is to think about. Your husband has made me good money. I owe him. Both of you. It is a fair offer.’ Františka blushed. ‘I know, yes. It’s just that… my hats…they…’ Pan Durák grunted and turned towards the kitchen. ‘It’s late,’ said Ludvík. ‘We should be going.’ The gentle strains of a Dvořák tune filled the room as Paní Duráková reappeared with the steaming balls of dough. ‘My husband’s mother claimed to be related to the composer,’ she said, before registering the change in mood. ‘Yes, yes,’ Pan Durák said. ‘A cousin.’ The dumplings were consumed in haste and the night ended with handshakes and kisses. Pan Durák helped Františka with her shawl and squeezed across her shoulders. She pulled herself free and hurried out the door.

  ‘Is he mad?’ Františka said as they made their way home. ‘Already he fills our house with his rags. And now this? He mocks me, Ludya. Right there in front of you. And what do you do?’ They walked on without speaking, the silence broken only by the rattle of passing tramcars.

  The idea was quickly abandoned and Františka’s rage subsided as money continued to tumble in faster even than Ludvík could drink or gamble it away. He had returned to his ways, she knew it, but each time she stood in the square, the girls by her side, and saw how they cheered and blew him kisses, how he stole moments to sneak across with a boiled sweet or pastry, she thought it enough that he was a good man, a good father. Pan Durák, too, was unfazed. Other than a return to formalities—he curtly corrected Ludvík the first time Ludvík tried the familiar Bedřich—the Sudeten seemed pleased with his continuing success. It was a blessing that these brutes who watched over their city appeared to know nothing of taste. That was until they began to approach Daša.

  Ludvík’s blood flowed weakly in Daša’s veins, much less so than in her sisters’. His dark, wavy hair, brown eyes and stooped gait were not evident in his eldest child. In the past, Františka had seen it as a cause for concern. There were whispers, she knew. Not just the girl’s looks, but her prospects. She had heard them. ‘Nonsense,’ Ludvík had said. ‘It will do good to bring some fairness to this community.’ She understood; it was an apology of sorts—she needn’t have been dragged into this mess. But what was done was done, and now the girl was being looked upon as a prize Czech artefact, another spoil of war.

  She is a child, Františka thought. Have they no shame? But they, t
oo, were children. And they spoke to her daughter with such reverence that it was hard for a mother’s heart not to be moved. ‘Frau,’ they would say, doffing their caps first in her direction before clumsily trying to engage Daša in her own language, never considering that she might be fluent in theirs. Watching these scenes, innocent teens giggling, reminded her of her own childhood, when she was courted by the boys at the lake, only to be scolded by her mother. ‘Františka!’ Paní Vrtišová would say. ‘You are destined for higher things.’ The city, that was her destiny. But fate had its own way and so, while her mother was right, she could not have known that, viewed from the wrong angle, Prague was just another Potemkin village; often behind the grand facades of high society lay empty plots. And Františka’s empty plot was called Žižkov.

  Two raps at the door, a pause, then another. Františka Roubíčková stubbed out what was left of her cigarette. From the next room, silence. ‘Sleep, little Handulka,’ she muttered. More knocks, the same pattern. Františka fastened her apron and headed to the door. It was Ottla B.

  ‘May I—’

  ‘Of course. Please.’

  Ottla B seemed only to exist in the reflected light of her son. Everything about her was muted: the matted brown hair that drooped from her small head, her eyes, which drifted from hazel to grey and back again, and her curved posture, as if she were in constant repose. Even her words curled back into her throat when she spoke.

  Františka didn’t intend to become her friend. Theirs was a bond born of necessity, conceived in a fit of Ludvík’s indignation. From the day Bohuš first arrived to escort the girls to their new school, Ludvík had taken to spending his evenings alone in the corner of the local tavern, drinking the cheapest beer and picking at a plate of limp pickles. Jiří B watched the sad performance for a week until he could bear it no longer. Snatching up his glass, he walked across the room, settled onto a stool beside his neighbour and offered to help.

  ‘Don’t be so proud, Ludya,’ he said. ‘We all make mistakes. So your fortune won’t be measured in crowns. You have something far more valuable.’ A sip, for effect. ‘Each child is a blessing for which the father pays dearly. Unfortunately, the greater the blessings, the poorer the house. It is God’s way of keeping balance. My wife and I have been spared, I suppose, though I can’t say whose fortune I’d rather. Ottla would trade all the honour Bohuš brings us to have just one more, but it isn’t to be. And so our pockets grow full while our house remains empty. Such is our lot.’ Jiří plucked a pickle from the bowl. ‘Look, Ludya, I can help. I want to help. What good can it do me while a friend suffers? Just take it and move on. Or consider it a loan. Pay me back if you like, whenever you can. I won’t come knocking.’

  Jiří went to put his hand on his neighbour’s shoulder but Ludvík shook it off, slammed his glass on the table and put his face right up to Jiří’s. ‘We don’t need you,’ he hissed in a rabid whisper. ‘We don’t need your son. And most of all we don’t need your charity.’ He stormed out of the tavern.

  The rage simmered inside him with every step and by the time he opened the front door he could no longer contain it. The girls cowered behind the gauze curtain as Ludvík thundered at his wife. ‘Who does he think he is? Such a big man, taking pity on us. That bastard so much as looks at our family and God help me—’ Ludvík grabbed a saucer from the counter and threw it against the wall. ‘Do we starve here? Are we not content?’ Františka went to sweep up the ceramic shards but Ludvík seized her shoulder and spun her back around. ‘What does he have, anyway? That mouse of a wife? A son who has grown so large his fall will be heard in Moscow? Let the girls take themselves to school. They are not babies.’

  If Ludvík was too proud to accept money from his neighbours, Františka had no such qualms. Back in Miličín, when she was a girl, the townsfolk always rallied to help one another. That was, according to her father, the very essence of community. Mother Nature was erratic; she would test each farmer in turn, destroying this one’s crop one year, causing pestilence in that one’s cattle the next. If it weren’t for his neighbours, each one would be left destitute when his time came. ‘Take this to Pan Sedlaček,’ her mother would say, handing her a pot of their freshest honey. ‘Wish him a sweet harvest. Now go.’

  Why should it be any different in the city?

  And so, the following afternoon, when Ludvík went out to search for yet another job or maybe just to drown his sorrows in a faraway bar, Františka Roubíčková tucked Hana into bed, kissed her forehead and walked proudly into the entrance hall of the nearby building.

  ‘Františka!’ Ottla could hardly contain her excitement when she saw who had been knocking. She beckoned her neighbour inside and pointed her towards the sitting room. ‘Tea?’ she said. Františka smiled and shook her head. The two women sat for a while and spoke of their children, then of their families, the street, fashion, current affairs, the rising price of fresh produce, music, millinery, theatre; in other words, everything except what they both knew had to be said. At last Františka came out with it. ‘This business with the car…it has made a shell of him. He tried. I know he did. If only he prayed to a god more generous than luck. Maybe now…Look, Ottla, we appreciate Jiří’s offer. Ludvík appreciates it. He just doesn’t know how to say yes.’

  ‘What of his parents?’

  ‘I haven’t the heart to ask. He has brought disappointment enough.’

  Ottla was relieved. When Jiří had recounted the events of the previous night, how he had been afraid Ludvík would punch him or, worse, harm himself, she feared a great feud. But now here was Františka, in Ottla’s apartment, not in the corner store, not at the tram stop, not making idle chatter on the street. ‘It is still on Jiří’s dresser,’ Ottla said. ‘Wait a moment.’

  She returned, holding an envelope with the monogram J.B., Proprietor printed in the top corner. It occurred to Františka as she read those words that she didn’t know what Jiří did, how he came by his money. Ludvík had never spoken of it. But this was not the time to ask. Františka took the envelope. ‘It is only temporary,’ she said. ‘I will pay you back, I swear. Not only in crowns, but something more. A token of our friendship.’

  For three months Františka toiled at her machine until she had saved enough to repay the loan. She regretted her promise of a token, but more so of friendship, and waited before rifling through her cupboards for something she could spare. Nothing too fancy, but enough to satisfy the hope in her neighbour’s heart. She found it underneath a bolt of linen in the corner cupboard: the hat—grey felt, with a red bow—that had stood on her dresser table, watching over her as she nursed baby Hana, taunting her with its tangle of thread, board and cloth. Once the child had left her breast, she had finished it after all and immediately hid it away. Now she held it up to the light. Yes, with a brush to remove the dust, it would make the perfect gift.

  Ottla gasped when she saw it and immediately placed it on her head. Františka feigned pride in her work. To the untrained eye it was a beautiful object, but beneath the band lay the signs of professional neglect—missed stitches, slight overcuts, spilled glue. Františka saw in it a map of time, innumerable separate periods etched as clearly as the rings on a felled oak. That it had come together, she thought, was a credit to her perseverance, not her talent. To that, it was an insult.

  Ottla donned the hat like a crown through the streets of Žižkov. She began to speak of Františka as her dearest friend, and would try to be seen in her company. Františka, on the other hand, hid away, waiting anxiously by the window until Ottla disappeared back into her home or onto a tram, before heading outside. To her, the business was done. Then, one morning, she opened the biscuit tin to find her money gone. Ludvík was nowhere to be seen. Františka set off across the street. They would be friends after all.

  ‘Quickly,’ said Františka, stepping aside so Ottla could shuffle past. Františka pressed her eye against the crack in the door, peering out to make sure nobody was watching.

&n
bsp; With the occupation had come a shift in the atmosphere of Biskupcova Street. Eyes no longer met, trust was undermined. Františka could not help but notice the way Jáchym Nemec from number nine would stand a little too close to conversations that didn’t concern him, or how Štěpánka Tičková from number twenty-two was quick to spread outlandish rumours, or Žofie Sláviková watched over every purchase made by the customers in her corner store, sometimes noting them in a pad she kept in her shirt pocket, separate from the business ledger. Even Marie Moravcová from number seven, the volunteer sister of the Czech Red Cross, lovingly dubbed Auntie by most of her neighbours, had become secretive and aloof. The disappearance of one of her sons was the subject of persistent scuttlebutt. Štěpánka Tičková had it, on good authority, of course, that he had fled to join the army and, although she could not be certain, she suspected it was that of their oppressors. Auntie Marie, insisted Štěpánka, was now hiding in shame.

  The darkness had also enveloped the entrance hall of number thirteen. Františka was convinced that those in her own apartment block were watching her through their peepholes. And while the visits from Ottla B were nothing more than the meeting of two friends in troubled times, to a more fanciful imagination they might be taken for conspiracy.

  Františka Roubíčková let the door click shut. For now she was safe.

  ‘Smoke?’

  ‘Please.’

  Ottla had grown into their friendship but, even more, she had grown into the occupation. There was a new confidence about her, a brashness, even pride, as if all she had ever needed in order to be noticed was a diminution in those around her. Františka’s kitchen had become her staging ground. It was the unspoken interest on loans long since repaid, a chance to extend beyond who she had once been. Františka, for her part, had come to delight in her neighbour’s peculiarities.