THE GARNET NECKLACE
“‘A dangerous woman.’ That’s how the Vienna prefecture described her in their report: ‘Dangerous. A flirt. A bad mother.’ That’s literally what they put in their police report. It goes on: ‘She indulges in literary activity and is a firm defender of the Czech national cause; she mixes with influential people, not only in Bohemia but also in Moravia and Northern Hungary. The police should keep an eye on her, albeit discreetly.’ Here’s another item, also concerning Madam Božena Němcová. Listen to this, Fräulein Zaleski: ‘The friendships she cultivates make her highly suspicious; she should be obliged to return to Prague. I beg of you to see that this is done.’ Do you see what I mean, Fräulein Zaleski? I have just been quoting from a coded telegram from the chief of the prefecture of the Civil and Military Administration of Northern Hungary. Do take off your coat, there’s a hanger over there. Please be seated.”
“Thank you. What do you wish me to do?”
“Have you found out the current address of the person we are tailing?”
“I’ve been trying to find—”
“Fräulein Zaleski, please don’t give me any talk about ‘trying’! You have pledged yourself to work for the secret service of the Prague Prefecture. Are you aware of the importance of your mission?”
“Herr von Päumann, the authoress Božena Němcová currently resides in Slovakia, excuse me, I mean Northern Hungary, in a mountain village called Brezno. She visits various hamlets scattered at the feet of Dumbier Mountain.”
“With whom does she stay?”
“The Slovakian poet Samo Chalupka. He and his wife have taken her in.”
“What does she do?”
“She studies the local scene, collects Slovakian folktales, and writes them.”
“How do you know that?”
“She told me so in a letter. At this stage she has complete confidence in me. Her husband tells me that in every letter she writes to him, she sends me her warm regards and asks after my health, which is rather poor, as you know.”
“Your health is none of my concern. You had better tell me what this writer’s husband, Josef Němec, told you about her in privacy.”
“Němec wrote to her that since she can allow herself the luxury of dedicating herself to literature and strolling through the countryside with a bunch of poets, it would be nice if she could send him some money to pay the rent. She wrote back and told him how to obtain some funds. She was furious, however, that her husband had thought that she should swindle her patron, Count Kolowrat-Krakovsky.”
“What else?”
“Němcová went on to tell her husband that as she has been ill for years, she would stay and continue to live in the country, and that she would never get better if she returned to their miserable Prague surroundings.”
“A few days ago, General Kempen, chief of the Imperial Prefecture, told me that Němcová’s journey to Northern Hungary would have cost more than the allowance she receives from Count Kolowrat-Krakovsky. By this, he was insinuating that some sort of organization financed the endeavor and that her move was, without a doubt, politically motivated.”
“Herr von Päumann, heaven knows I have no wish to defend her, but I am convinced that this is just a cultural trip.”
“Please be silent! General Kempen has spoken openly about this as a nationalist, pan-Slav undertaking, and has severely reprimanded me for issuing a three-month passport to the author.”
“It is not for me to question that judgement, sir.”
“What other information do you have as regards the suspect, Fräulein? Please do not waste my time.”
“She calls herself an emancipated woman with liberal opinions, and a dedicated nationalist, both intellectually and politically. What is more, Němcová supports the unity of all Slav peoples. Yes, she is certainly involved in revolutionary politics, but I have not been able to discover much in this regard, because the arrival of her husband from Hungary, where he was held prisoner, put an end to any such investigation on my part. It is quite impossible to talk to her husband about Němcová’s politics. Indeed, it’s quite impossible to talk to him about anything.”
The woman, still young, accompanied the doctor to her bedroom. His eyes were shy but glinting, and gave the room a once-over.
“I’m just a medical student, but I hope that—”
“Everyone has had to learn sometime, even Purkyně.”
She smiled. She knew that a medical student working on his degree was legally allowed to work as a doctor, and decided that that was how she would address him.
“Yes, even Purkyně, you’re quite right. I’m fairly well acquainted with Central European medical methods and procedures. I’ve also travelled in the Orient, where I learned many things.”
She knew of the Orient only through a few of the tales from A Thousand and One Nights. She wasn’t at all sure if that was the kind of Orient he was referring to. Who knew why she imagined Bengal lights, the smell of sulfur, and a man playing a penetratingly loud flute in the middle of the brightness. She saw that the people around him were enraptured and watched him with crazed eyes while they all danced to the rhythm of the shrill, tremulous flute.
“Would you mind if I opened the curtains? In order to examine you, I need as much light as possible.”
She didn’t care for that very much. Why was she so averse to light? she asked herself. She wasn’t one of those women who were in the habit of kidding themselves and she told herself that the medical student was much younger than she, by eight or ten years at the very least. Light knew no mercy, she thought, and would lay bare all her wrinkles, even the least pronounced ones, and the ones she hid under her clothes, the worst ones. But there was nothing else to be done. She stood, touched the curtain, and watched the smooth movement of the rings on the curtain rod as the day was revealed.
The young man also got up and brusquely opened the other half of the curtain. The day burst violently into the room. He was surprised for a moment by the view of the Vltava River and the Smíchov Mountains on its far side. He stretched his arms lazily in the golden light of the afternoon. Like a leopard, like one of the Orientals, she thought.
“Show me your tongue, please.”
He studied it carefully and jotted something down in a notebook.
“Don’t blink.”
She looked up at the ceiling. The doctor’s breath smelled of coffee.
“Make a fist. Stay still.”
The woman heard blood pulse. Whose was it? Hers or his? It was banging away like a fire bell. Does a doctor really need whole minutes, which feel like hours, to find her heart rate? He stared at her with penetrating eyes.
“Kindly take off your blouse,” he said.
As if on purpose, the buttons refused to leave their button-holes. He looked at her with imperturbable calm. Only one left to go, at waist level. Her vest, too? Remember he’s a doctor!
She had never felt as demure as when the young man listened to her lungs. He’s a doctor, she told herself time and again. His mustache tickled. In that instant the whole world was in that mustache. She lost interest in everything but the movement of that gentle paintbrush against her body. He’s a doctor! Nonetheless, the mixture of modesty and sweet pain didn’t go away.
While she buttoned herself up, he never so much as looked at her.
The doctor left. But during the day she felt the gentle touch of his mustache against the different parts of her body. In the evening, when she sat under the yellow lampshade with a cup of tea in one hand and a book open on her knees, she had the feeling that a Bengal light burned in the room, and that something moved in the corner.
“This is the dossier on Betty Niemetz, an Austro-Hungarian subject who uses the pseudonym Božena Němcová. In your report, you have written the following: ‘It is quite impossible to talk to her husband about the political activities in which Mrs. Němcová is involved.’ Do you wish to add anything? At this point I would like to remind you, Fräulein Zaleski, that you entered the secret service voluntarily, and that if we pay you, we do not do so in exchange for nothing.”
“Once I managed to get her talking about women who’d become famous during revolutions. Because I have made myself out to be a revolutionary, Božena felt comfortable confessing all of her most secret thoughts. She told me the following. I shall read it to you: ‘As far as politics are concerned, women will achieve more than men, and I mean women from all social classes, from the proletarian to the most culturally refined. Because who could be more sensitive to the misery around her, be it material or intellectual, than a woman? She is the one who bears children, and so she is the one who foresees the future.’ She then added, ‘Who would dare to persecute or punish a woman? Especially a brilliant, cultured woman who has influenced so many people?’”
“Mrs. Němcová is making a big mistake by considering us to be so benevolent. What else does she say with regards to the state of affairs for women today?”
“I managed to look at her notes. I know where she keeps them hidden and was even able to take them home to make copies. At one point, she says, ‘We women have a heart of wax; any image which interests us is easily impressed upon it. Nonetheless, everything strikes me as being cold and pale and barren, and now having written this, I feel as if I had ice water running through my veins. When I look at myself, I feel an urge to cry, yet I know that within me burn the most violent passions. Sometimes I want to open my arms and hug the whole world to my breast, but I know it’s far too late for such idealism—’”
“Such useless moaning, so typical of women, is of no interest to me, Fräulein Zaleski. Concentrate on the information that I ask of you. We will only pay you for your work if it turns out to be useful to us.”
“Pardon me, I thought—”
“What relationship does this emancipated woman have with her husband, and with men in general?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Němec have completely different characters. He is tough, soldierly—”
“What I require is proofs in writing if possible.”
“Of course. Here, for example, she writes to her husband:
‘It often happens that when I go out for a stroll on my own, I feel very lonely and wish you were with me, but I have learned to do without many things and this, too, is one of them. On the other hand, I think that if you were here, everything would be as before, we wouldn’t get on, and then I would relish being my own woman again.’ Would you like me to go on?”
“Go ahead.”
“Very well. ‘Few women have had so much respect for the institution of marriage as I had, but I soon lost my faith in it. How could I have done otherwise? All I see around me are lies, adultery, gilded servitude, obligations, that is to say, vulgarity. I had very much longed to be loved. I needed love as a flower needs the morning dew, but I have only found overbearing men who wanted to become my masters. This cooled my passion, and bitterness and rancour took its place. They took my body, but my desires flew off far away. I don’t know where.’”
“Fräulein Zaleski, isn’t this all rather farcical? Němcová is a writer and she knows how to deceive people with words.”
“As I told you, I have delved into her heart. With me she is sincere, which is why I know her well. In these notes she has given voice to her soul. Shall I go on?”
“All right. But please do spare me expressions such as ‘delved into her heart’ and ‘given voice to her soul.’
“I beg your pardon, sir. She writes: ‘My children are my only joy yet their instinctive love does not satisfy me.’”
“Look, skip these sentimental outpourings and read only those passages that could be significant to our investigation.”
“Very well. What about this excerpt: ‘I have become a fervent adherent to the national cause, believing that it would satisfy my yearning. But no. It is true that over time this cause has become a firm conviction and the achievement to which I have dedicated great efforts, but . . . I have known the world, I have learned that there is no such thing as perfection in the world. The longings of my own heart have often disappointed me. What I thought to be gold turned out, in the end, to be nothing but mud.”
“Gut, Fräulein. But in these notes of hers is there anything that might be of interest to the police? Our next visitor is now in the waiting room.”
“This strikes me as of interest: ‘What I long for is love, a true love, not for one single person, but rather for everybody, for all humanity, a love that asks for nothing in return, a love that would improve me, that would bring me closer to truth. This is my objective. This gives me strength. What would I be without this love? Yet the world will not flatter me for this; the world would see me damned for that which I consider to be my finest and most beautiful quality; that which is natural is held to be sinful. Those who do not run with the herd to the feeding trough are crucified; sooner or later they become martyrs. But it is better to be a martyr than a good-for-nothing who doesn’t even know why she’s alive.’”
“Before we finish, Fräulein Zaleski, is there anything this dangerous, emancipated woman has written that represents a threat to our Austrian fatherland?”
“I believe so . . . just a moment . . . yes, here. She writes the following to her husband: ‘What I really desire for both you and me is to do with pleasure everything that has to be done with pleasure, and not simply because we are obliged to do it. Goethe says, Wat ist Pflicht? What is an obligation? An obligation is that which one imposes on oneself as a duty. But one can’t do everything to order! Men ought to forget their conviction that they are the masters and to treat the women they respect as if they were their lovers. They should show their feelings more and behave with less vulgarity.’ Do you not think these are most dangerous opinions, sir?”
“You will have to carry out a far more detailed investigation into this woman. Write me a report on Němcová’s entire life. We need to know who has been such a bad influence on her, which other people we need to go after. I want a thoroughly detailed biography of Mrs. Němcová. Is that clear, Fräulein Zaleski? Keep in touch with her. Don’t let her out of your sight for a second. Auf Wiedersehen, Fräulein.”
Unnerved, she slept fitfully that night. Her dreams were flooded with the purple of a Bengal light, snake charmers, rat catchers, and legendary paladins with the heads of dragons under their arms, appeared then vanished. She woke up feeling hot, until she got undressed so as to feel the pleasure of the sheets against her naked body.
The following day she would begin the medical treatment. She got up early in the morning to write. The words didn’t flow from her pen; she was distracted and allowed herself to be carried away by the confusion of images that each disappeared as soon as it appeared before her eyes. Then she decided she’d do some shopping. What a strange shape the bread has today, like a river stone, as if you have only to wet it for it to shine. And while the druggist filled a paper cone with a pound of sugar, she watched the fine sand and felt like sinking deep into that sweet white dune.
“No, don’t send in the next one, not yet. I’ll tell you when, Fritz. Inform this visitor that the prefect is busy carrying out some unexpected, important tasks.”
I had realized that to get Němcová, we needed a female informer. I told this to my superior, Kempen, but at the time he couldn’t make his mind up whether to do so. But he changed his attitude when I explained the matter to him in detail.
To the attention of the head of the Vienna Prefecture, Johann Kempen, from the head of the Prague Prefecture, Anton von Päumann.
Subject: Vítězka Paul, informer
December 31, 1954
Your Excellency,
As women since time immemorial have had a considerable influence in political matters, I consider it a serious failure on the part of the Secret Service of the Prague Prefecture not to have an informer reporting on the circles of Czech woman intellectuals, especially those of Amerling, Staňková, Zapová, etc. When you, Excellency, ordered me to keep an eye on the writer Božena Němcová, it seemed to me clearer than ever that an informer was needed. I have managed to find a person I consider suitable. Vítězka Paul is the daughter of the chemist František Paul, who works as an informer for our service under the code name of Fidel. Vítězka Paul studied at Mrs. Amerling’s school and now works as a teacher; she has made a few less-than-impressive stabs at writing, has connections with the aforementioned ladies, and could make the necessary contacts. In the years 1848 and 1849, she herself was a militant Czech nationalist, but a series of misfortunes—the death of her mother, her father’s long years in prison, her concerns for the welfare of her numerous siblings—have acted as a considerable brake on her enthusiasm, to the extent that she has now agreed to serve the Austro-Hungarian government.
No, I most definitely had not made a mistake. We urgently needed a female informer, and this one was no fool. It is true that she has allowed herself to be swayed by the woman who we have her investigating. Clearly, she envies her subject. That suits us just fine. Vítězka Paul, which is to say Fraülein Zaleski, cultivates certain literary ambitions, but has no talent for them herself. She is one of those ladies who scribble verses along the lines of “Aus meinen grossen Schmerzen mach’ ich die kleine Lieder.” She lacks any defined personality, not only because “out of her little pain she makes little songs,” but also because she is too unsure of herself and doesn’t know what it is she wants. She has eccentric friends, and above all that crank František Skuhravý who fills her head with his Oriental nonsense. But let us allow the girl to dream, because dreams are all she will ever have. She must be twenty-something, but seems older; seems, indeed, prematurely old, worn out, gaunt, curve backed, with bags under her eyes. She is not at all attractive, poor creature. I would bet anything that she also has tuberculosis. Better for us that she does! She will need money for her treatment and so she will work with greater zeal. Mr. Sacher-Masoch, who was prefect of Prague before me, complained more than once of the difficulty of obtaining an informer who could penetrate right to the heart of the conspiracies against the state. That was, until he found the father of this Vítězka, František Paul, who had been sentenced to years and years in prison for speaking out passionately as a Czech nationalist during the 1848 revolution. When he came home, he found that his wife had been buried, his house was in ruins, and he had five children to feed. It didn’t take him long to get in touch with us. When he did, Sacher-Masoch licked his lips and said, “His close ties with the Czech Nationalist Party—which, by the way, regards him as a great martyr for their cause—will make him invaluable as an informer.” Soon his eldest daughter was here too, asking for a job with our secret service. We’ll get that Czech nationalism out of their heads, even if we have to beat it out of them! This is how Vítězka Paul has become Antonia Zaleski the spy.
In his last letter, sent by special courier to Vienna, Herr Kempen tells me to search Němcová’s house as soon as possible in order to investigate her writing and correspondence in particular. Very well, that is what we shall do. Němcová is a dangerous nationalist, as well as a feminist and . . . Is she really so dangerous? Is it possible that her writings could be a threat to our empire? “The world will not flatter you for this; the world will see you damned for that which you consider to be your finest and most beautiful quality; that which is natural is held to be sinful. He who does not run with the herd to the feeding trough, is crucified. Sooner or later he becomes a martyr. But it is better to be a martyr than a good-for-nothing who doesn’t even know why he’s alive.” Or that quote from Goethe, which I didn’t know. “Wat ist Pflicht?” What is an obligation? An obligation is that which one imposes on oneself as a duty.” Exactly. I have made this quote my own. My obligation is that which I impose on myself. Němcová says that one cannot be ordered to do absolutely anything. I, on the contrary, am convinced that absolutely any order may be filled, as long as one is convinced one is serving a just cause. And I am certainly convinced of the importance of my cause.
The enemies of Austria-Hungary never rest and one must be forever on the alert. Society is full of conspirators. The other day at a reception, the former ambassador of France told me that the Austro-Hungarian government makes the same mistake as similar regimes by thinking that revolutions are prepared by groups of secret conspirators. He said, “Revolutions emerge from unbearable social conditions, but you, my friend, like the rest of the Austro-Hungarian police, have shut your eyes to this obvious fact!” It is rather the French who have shut their eyes to the network of conspiracy that is being woven across our empire! As a police representative, I am the best defense against the conspirators: with a good nexus of informers, control over the mail, and other such tactics, I will create a state of permanent fear within society. I will be unpredictable, mysterious. Taken to extremes, this strategy will make the people tremble. Yes, I wish to keep the Czechs in a state of terror. May they tremble before making any decisions on their own. In Austria-Hungary we have no need of a few geniuses, but rather of a mass of happy subjects.
In other words, there can be no compromise. I shall write a letter to Herr Kempen about this woman writer.
Božena Němcová belongs to certain circles of so-called ‘emancipated’ women. She is an educated, well-informed person. At all events, she is an outstanding personality, capable of exercising considerable influence.
A rather special woman, this Němcová. Why is she complicating things for herself? She has now started to publish her novel, The Grandmother, in monthly installments. I forgot to ask Fraülein Zaleski about the book and above all, about the coded political programs and revolutionary messages that might be found within. I’ll have her brought here at once.
The student of medicine came in with a heavy suitcase and headed for the patient’s room with eyes fixed to the floor. From the suitcase, he took out various glass cups, cylinders, small bottles, needles and scissors . . . A thousand years’ worth of knowledge transformed into objects, she thought. As if he’d overheard her thoughts, he glanced at her, a slight smile on his lips, and asked her to undress and lie down on the sofa that they now used as an examining table. Meanwhile, he went on blowing into his flasks in order to clean them, before placing them on the chair next to the bed.
“Please lie face down.”
He undid her corset, leaving her back exposed. He rubbed the palms of his hands together; ssssssh . . . and the fragrance of a beech forest filled the room. He started to massage her back with his palms, fingers, fists, the backs of his hands, and his forearms. The touch of his hands was firm and tender at the same time, and produced tickles, then caresses that stretched out over her skin and penetrated beneath the epidermis, deep into her body. He then proceeded to take the glass cups, one by one, and she felt the circular objects cover her back, sticking to it like suckers.
He took the cups off her body. A new smell of wood filled the air, probably pine, this time, and his palms spread that perfume over her skin, up to her shoulders, then down, until he was putting pressure on her waist, then he continued on to her buttocks and thighs.
He laced up her corset.
“Turn over, please. And try to relax.”
Eyes fixed on the ceiling, she made an effort to slacken her tensed muscles and make herself comfortable. The doctor, or rather the trainee, placed a chair behind her head and sat down. Having rubbed his fingers with an oil that smelled like a jungle after the passing of a monsoon, he rubbed her nostrils and, like some mad painter, used the tips of his fingers to draw all kinds of doodles and scrawls on her cheeks, chin and forehead.
Now his fingers slid down her neck, over her collarbone, to her shoulders. They followed the shape of the bone from which the ribs emerge. Through her silk underclothes, they traced the outer circle of her breasts. Then, briefly, he put pressure on the breasts themselves. Half dead from the shock, she couldn’t so much as ask herself if this formed part of the treatment.
But the upper part of her body was already wrapped in a blanket, and the doctor’s fingers were now playing with her belly. They prodded its muscles, and, in a way that revealed they were experienced, put pressure there where the belly ends. At that moment she felt a wave of desire that spread rapidly to the tips of her fingers and the ends of her hair, and showed no sign of going away. The patient lay there with her eyes firmly closed, half maddened. The doctor’s soothing voice simply intensified her feeling of pleasure.
“I’ll be giving you this treatment every day for a week. What I’m doing is touching certain nerve endings in order to give your body energy, strength so that it will be able to cure itself.”
Then he picked up several folded paper envelopes, tied with different colored ribbons. He gave her instructions regarding the medicines she had to prepare for herself using the herbs in the envelopes which she had to drink in the form of infusions, and place on her body as poultices, especially on her chest, stomach, and kidneys.
“After this week,” he added, “I will let you rest for ten days. We will then go ahead with a further week of intensive treatment. At that point we’ll take stock of the situation. Perhaps you will already be feeling better and will not require any further care from me.”
As he spoke, he put his objects back into his case. Only now and again did he run his eyes over the face, neck, and shoulders of his patient, as if involuntarily, like a shy child. She suddenly felt that he wasn’t a doctor at all, but rather a little boy who in his innocence had caused some irreparable harm but was unaware of it and continued to go on happily.
“You may get dressed. See you tomorrow!”
These words, spoken from the half-shadow of the hall, cut through her dreaminess like a sword through a bridal veil. She wanted to run after him to make him stay, but she was half-naked. The sound of the front door as it banged shut went through her like an icy gust of wind.
That good-looking young man, with his broad shoulders and butterfly waist, has been visiting the Němecs’ apartment since Božena came back to Prague, in order to cure her. They say he is a real doctor. If he isn’t one, who cares, he’s so attractive. The kind of man I would describe as Oriental, at least that’s how I imagine Oriental people to look from the descriptions of František Skuhravý. Yesterday I dreamed of that young doctor. I was Božena and he came to cure me. But what was I thinking of just now? Oh, yes: if he’s a doctor, maybe he could show me some kind of exercise for my back, which I just can’t keep as straight as I should. I have the feeling that everybody laughs at it. Yes, people, even when they’re being serious, are forever staring at me, their mouths like open drawers.
My woman friends make fun of me too. When they told me that František had left me, they laughed. I will always remember their wide-open mouths, so happy were they that František got engaged to another woman. Never again will František share with me his enthusiasm for the ideas, colors, and perfumes of the Orient, never again will he tell me I look like an Indian girl. Later I saw them together at the theater. The golden hair of his fiancée had so stunned me that I preferred to look at her fan. I do believe it was painted by Hellich himself. At that very moment the brilliance of her engagement ring stung my eyes. When they went to take their seats, my woman friends laughed their heads off.
But now it’s me who’s laughing. I’m the one who’s got this woman writer—the one everyone’s talking about—whom everyone reads—by the scruff of the neck. All by myself, I can liquidate her, invalidate her, neutralize her, how and when I wish. Afterward, I will show everybody who the real writer is and what writing is really about. I wouldn’t bore my readers with legends and folktales the way Božena does, nor would I write stories about workers and peasants. I’m going to write about the kind of life I myself would like to live, which is like the one Božena has had for herself. She has her husband and her children, she publishes one book after another, people read her and worship her, and on top of all that she has dozens of male admirers, maybe even dozens of lovers! They adore her. Božena writes to one of them in a letter: “What you have written to me, about having a right to feel proud because people honor and respect me, you yourself cannot have really believed this even when you wrote it, and now I myself can do nothing but smile as I read it.”
That’s how she replies to her lover’s praises, playing at being a foolish little girl, the goody two-shoes, and delicate flower, to whom success means nothing. And the things she writes next! “A sincere heart, the endeavor to achieve perfection, the striving to help my people to the utmost limit of my capability—these are the only things at which I am superior to normal women, who do no good in the world.”
I will tell the police exactly what I know of you: that you are an illegitimate child, that the people you think of as your parents are not your real ones; that you married an imperial civil servant on purpose to cling to as you pave your way to Vienna, but in Prague, among Czech patriots, you also want to stand out, which is why you won’t stop boring the pants off us with your verses and stories and pretty words about the unity of the Slav peoples. In my police report, I will also include the fact that when only newly wedded you couldn’t bear to be with your husband, that you went in search of male friends and lovers, always in such a way that they helped your literary career; that you used the same criteria when choosing your female friends, who always had to be wealthy girls from good families, like Johanna and Sophie; that your friends are influential, well-known, and respected people, people such as Čelakovský, Purkyně, Erben, and Havlíček; and how you flirted your head off with all of them so they would contribute flattering reviews of your writing in the newspapers. I will not forget to add that you are a heartless mother, your children do not get enough to eat, while you just go on writing, even though you know that if you write you will hurt your family because the imperial police are after you. But above all, I will tell them that you have a lover. I do not know for certain, nor do I care. The police, and eventually society in general, will know that you are a fallen woman. From then on, no one will give you a helping hand, no one! What more is there to be said? I will fill in the details myself. I have a rich imagination and my dreams are in full bloom. Yes, you are a depraved woman who pursues relationships outside wedlock.
But no matter how much this may be the case, if, in the future, people remember ideas from this time, they will be yours. For they are easy to listen to. When you say: “What I long for is love, a true love, but not for one single person, but rather for everybody, for all humanity, a love that asks nothing in return, a love that would improve me, that would bring me closer to truth,” that sounds pretty, very much so, and when seen in an album of memorabilia, next to your phrase “it is better to be a martyr than a good-for-nothing who doesn’t even know why she’s alive,” people will be stunned and they’ll believe it as if it were gospel. They will always read your work, both today and ten years from now and probably a hundred years later as well, they will read your writing and marvel at your ideas and your style, and they will remember your physical appearance. It is far more romantic for a woman writer to be beautiful than disagreeable to look at, even though the latter might have written volume after volume and suffered more.
And what will become of me? What will remain after me? A few reports written for the police, with which I will simply help turn you into a martyr, whereas I will always be a parasite for the coming generations, a shameless woman gnawed by envy. You will always be the superior one, even though you will die of hunger, even though everyone will abandon you.
It does not matter! If a parasite is what I must be, I might as well be a genuine one!
Božena Němcová is the illegitimate daughter of Duchess Katerina von Sagan. As to the identity of the aforementioned person’s father, we have only rumors to go on.”
No, no I can’t go on like this if I don’t want them to think I’m full of envy. First I will have to get everything straight in my own head and will then enforce upon all my thoughts a style and form that will suit the police. But do I really believe the Duchess von Sagan is Božena’s mother?
The other day, when she was flat broke, I gave Božena a little loose change so that she could buy milk for her children. I needed to search her apartment. In the cupboard I discovered an engraving with this curious inscription: “The artist dedicates this print to his daughter.” The artist was none other than the Spanish painter Francisco Goya. Perhaps a future historian or relative will try to prove that Božena is Goya’s daughter, to add a little extra charm to her history.
What is the relationship between Božena and the duchess? She told me how, in the park of Ratibořice castle, where she grew up, from time to time a beautiful Amazon woman would emerge from the trees and vanish in an instant: the duchess, out riding with her admirers. I am sure that more than one of the wonderful princesses and good witches in Božena’s stories have been based on this duchess.
Now they have summoned me to the prefecture. What a pity I can’t finish what I’m writing. What does that bore von Päumann want from me this time?
On the second day she realized she had to rein in her feelings and, when welcoming the doctor in and when bidding him farewell, she gave him her hand in a gesture that could only be interpreted as forthright and friendly.
In the evening, when thinking everything over, she jotted in her notebook: “What powerful and unfathomable charm, I ask myself, can be hidden within a person who with a simple look, a simple handshake, can strip me of all strength, whose tone of voice can make me flutter like a reed in the wind? Why does the heart remain calm when a friend presses my hand, while the handshake of another man injects fire into my veins? Today I have experienced the power of such magic.”
No matter what the cost, the prefect wants to uncover the conspiracy that he believes Božena is hatching, or at least, participating in. Von Päumann doesn’t strike me as feeble minded, but a conspiracy? Božena, a conspirator? For the lousy handful of pennies they pay me now I have to invent a detective novel, preferably one with a mysterious murder in it. Oh, I’m getting fed up with old man von Päumann.
Right away, Herr von Päumann. Let me catch my breath, I tired myself out climbing the prefecture stairs. All right, let us begin. Forgive this cough of mine, you see, I . . . The other day I visited Božena at her home near Emmaus church and it was raining a little. The lamplighter was lighting the blue flames of the streetlamps and on the far side of the Vltava numerous yellow lights flickered like dozens of illuminated cat eyes. Not all cat eyes flicker though, do they? You don’t know either? Excuse me, I am dithering on so. The Němec family was sitting in the kitchen, which they also use as a dining room and lounge. They had just finished dinner. Božena’s husband was reading the newspaper and puffing on his pipe, comfortably ensconced in a chair; her daughter was playing Schubert’s Impromptus on the piano (an old upright piano which the previous tenant had left behind); and the boys were looking for certain places on a map of the world. Božena was sitting at the table with her back to the others, her head bent a little to the left, and she was writing. Now and again, she turned to the boys to tell them where to find such and such a place on the map. It was one of those evenings that conjure up an idyllic image of an old, old world that has now ceased to exist.
“I was sitting on the sofa, reading the manuscript of Božena’s latest short story. Suddenly I noticed that Němec puffed on his pipe ever faster and more violently. I watched him out of the corner of my eye; he held up his newspaper not with calm hands but with clenched fists. He was hiding behind the Daily Prague, but I thought I could see how his pale face concealed an inner fury. His daughter, Dora, was playing something by Haydn, then fumbled and had to start again. I glanced sideways at her; she was biting her lower lip, hard, looking first at her father with fear and then at her mother with eyes of silk, as if she wished to protect her. The boys plied their mother with questions about Duchess von Sagan; Karel was to go to Germany, to the castle of the duchess, as a gardener’s apprentice. Božena answered them impatiently, because they kept on interrupting her work. In the end, she recommended they put such questions to their father, who could tell them not only where the Sagan family estate was, but also all the different places in Hungary where he’d worked during his years of forced exile. The brothers turned to their father and looked at him timidly; one shrugged his shoulders, the other signalled that they should drop the matter. They went silent. The newspaper in Němec’s hands trembled visibly. Dora lost her concentration altogether and stopped playing. Her mother sat up, glanced at the wall, and began to put her books and papers in order. She stood up. One of the boys went to her and the other followed like a shadow. I realized that there was no point in staying and got ready to leave. Němec’s slippers were so worn out that his bare feet must have been touching the floor.
“Whack! I nearly fell over. What a blow! By the time I’d recovered, Němec had left, slamming the door. The first bang had been a slam of his fist on the table where Božena sat tidying up her notes. Still frightened, I looked at the others. Dora appeared relieved, the boys smiled. Božena got up and headed out of the room. I followed her.”
“So Mrs. Němcová’s marriage is an unhappy one is it not, Fraülein Zaleski?”
“I have simply described her married life. That conclusion is your own, Herr von Päumann.”
During the next curative session, the doctor seemed cold and reserved. She thought he was afraid that someone might interrupt their session, her husband or the children. Everybody had been warned not to enter the apartment so as not to interrupt the cure. But it dawned on her that the doctor’s expression was one of fear, of concern. The doctor opened the curtains with a brusque movement, as he’d done on their first day. A milky light filled the room and she had the feeling she was sitting on a block of ice, in nothing but her underwear, drifting off toward the unknown. She tried to make the cold go away, putting all her energy into inventing questions for the doctor about the purpose of his instruments, about the countries he’d visited, but he answered only in a brief, clipped fashion. He left some of her questions unanswered.
“When that outburst was over, Herr von Päumann, Božena and I sat together in the half-shadow of her room. It was cold. But that smell of decomposing leaves, or of undergrowth after the rain, mmmm! Božena sighed with relief. She let herself go, and complained about her publisher, Mr. Pospíšil, a greedy man, a real stuffed shirt, who had released Božena’s novel, The Grandmother, in installments instead of turning it into an attractive book; and the fee he paid her, she said, was so little she couldn’t even buy winter clothes for the children. To change the subject and get the information I wanted out of her, I asked which of her jewels were the most beautiful.
“She opened a small box. Against the sky blue velvet, a pair of long earrings glimmered—Božena’s wedding present from Duchess von Sagan. Then Božena removed the inner layer to reveal the bottom section, in which lay a smaller box made of wood. When she opened it, a necklace glittered before my eyes: five rows of garnet stones, linked by a silver coin with the portraits of the Emperor Josef and the Empress Marie Therese. Božena told me that in the little apartment in Ratibořice far from Prague where she lived with her parents, brothers, and sisters, they were accompanied for a few years by their grandmother. This elderly lady possessed just a single dress for all the days of the week and one other for Sundays. Her only treasure was a painted trunk. Betty—this was Božena’s name back then, Betty; she did not adopt Božena, her nom de plume, until she arrived in Prague many years later—liked to look at the trunk with the red flowers painted on it. Her grandmother kept papers and dried medicinal herbs in it, and right at the bottom was this little wooden box, and inside this, a garnet necklace.
“‘Grandmother, why don’t you ever put this necklace on?’ Betty asked.
“‘I wore it while Jiří, your grandfather, was alive. Do you like it? Well then, do you know what, little girl? When I die, the garnet necklace will be yours. Yes, I want you, my eldest granddaughter, to wear it. My garnet stones will protect you from all sorts of evil. If you ever get rid of it, you’ll regret it. Remember, pretty one, if you want to make something of your life, always make sure you keep these garnet stones.’
“Božena remembered it clearly. She said that once at Christmas she didn’t have anything to give her children to eat, and was obliged to pawn a gold chain and a ring in order to buy a few apples, eggs to make a sponge cake, walnuts, and a little tea. But she would never part with her grandmother’s necklace, no matter what.
“Božena confessed to me then that as a young girl she used to laugh at her grandmother’s hopelessly old-fashioned clothes, her opinions, and her habit of speaking pure Czech, without a trace of German in it. Her grandmother taught her the names of the trees and plants in Czech, told her folktales. Betty asked her grandmother to tell her these stories at bedtime. The more often Betty heard a tale, the more she would like it.”
Her next medical treatment continued to be as cold and mechanical as that of the day before. Although the palms of his hands woke up previously unknown desires in her, while his fingers made her delirious with pleasure, the doctor’s expression remained abstracted, distant. He touched her belly and she wanted to look him in the eye. She half-opened her eyes: he wasn’t looking at her. As his fingers stroked her body, his eyes focused on something far away, searching for the white light of day, staring at the far side of the river.
Fräulein Zaleski, do you know anything about . . . No! I’m not talking about the novel The Grandmother. You’ve written us a whole epic poem about this grandmother of hers and I’m fed up with that subject. Do me the favor of not interrupting me from now on. All right? I believe I’ve been too patient with you. Do you know Václav Frič personally?”
“Nein, Herr von Päumann, not personally.”
“What do you mean, no! That is a great mistake! Frič is one of the worst enemies of our monarchy, of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and of our institutions. He is one of the great revolutionaries who set off the 1848 revolution! Němcová invites him to her home almost every day.”
“Yes, Herr von Päumann! At Božena Němcová’s I read some of his writings, all of them full of revolutionary fervor.”
“This man has been released from prison and has had the impertinence to start up a magazine to which the most ardent revolutionary leaders of the Czech movement are supposed to contribute. What do you know about this?”
“I have been able to find out that, indeed, Němcová is preparing her contribution to this publication. Frič and his group are all good friends of hers. She told me once that she shares her frugal teas with them and laughed, saying that, while they converse, she darns their worn-out underwear.”
“Prague society cannot accept such insolence.”
“Mrs Božena is so shameless that the bad things people say are of no importance to her.”
“What about her husband?”
“I don’t know.”
“Find out if that impudent man Frič is a frequent visitor even when Mrs. Božena is not at home. He may be plotting something with her husband. Auf Wiedersehen, Fräulein.”
“Herr von Päumann . . .”
“Bitte? Do you have some information for me?”
“I have started to work on . . .”
“On what?”
“You once broached the subject of Božena’s lovers. So I . . . I’ve started to work on . . .”
“Then by all means get on with it. But please do leave right now, for heaven’s sake!”
“Do you know,” the doctor said unexpectedly in a changed voice, as he put his medical instruments in his case and she buttoned up her blouse. “You once asked me about my travels. Deep down, I don’t really believe in travel as a way of discovering things. A certain someone has written words that show I am not mistaken: ‘You can know the whole world without leaving your own home. This is why the wise man knows without having travelled, understands without having seen.’ Do you follow me?”
“Perfectly. What is more, I am in complete agreement. In the evening, when I sit down under the yellow light of this oil lamp, there appear worlds I have never seen. Then I do no more than describe that which I imagine, and from this, novels, stories and, above all, folktales are born. People ask me how I know those immense seas, those cliffs, and sweet fruits from the garden of delights. I cannot answer them because I have not seen these things; or rather I have, but here, in my room. It is under this oil lamp that the branches of the most unusual-looking trees sway and let fall multicolored flowers.”
“Yes, I understand you. The wise man whose words I have just quoted, also said: ‘If you wish to possess the whole world, own nothing. If you are always busy, you will not take pleasure in the world.’”
“I feel that way, too. I own only the things you see around me, those books on the shelf, the table, and the oil lamp, and I take most pleasure in the world when I am inventing it.” She broke off, and then added: “Who was the wise man that wrote those magnificent sentences, or rather those marvellous verses?”
“Legend has it that he was a librarian, whose name in his mother tongue means ‘old master.’ At the end of his life, he reached the conclusion that mankind was a lost cause. So he took his yak—”
“Yak? Is that an animal?”
“Yes, it’s a kind of mountain bison. And with it he headed off into the wild and savage world of nature, where reason and logic reign. At the peak of a mountain gorge he decided to record his thoughts on a piece of paper. He lived roughly five centuries before Christ.”
“What about you? Why are you not a philosopher; why are you a doctor?”
“For me, both callings are identical. As a philosopher I would help people; as a doctor I can do so in a more direct fashion. I believe that the more one gives to others, the more one acquires personally. I find this to be the case every day.”
I was received by Božena’s husband. He looked downcast, as was his wont, but when he saw me turn the corner of the staircase, his face expressed the absolute repugnance of someone who has just woken up to find an insect on the pillow. Reluctantly, he invited me in, and without offering me a seat, sat down himself on an old, gutted armchair and lit his pipe. He puffed away in silence and looked at the white wall, just as if I weren’t there. I didn’t even take off my coat; it was so chilly I could have caught my death of cold.
Božena wasn’t in; her husband was ignoring me; only from time to time did he turn to look at the window from which you could see the building’s interior balconies. I went over to the window and saw a man outside. He spotted me and waved. Then I recognized him: he was Božena’s new friend, or I should say, her doctor. I answered his wave with a nod of the head. Němec, noticing this, leapt over to the window, elbowed me out of the way, looked down, and banged on the window frame so hard he made the glass shake. He was red faced and frightened me. I slipped away to the outside staircase and I leaned on the wall to catch my breath. When I was back home I realized the back of the dark brown coat I’d been wearing was completely covered in white from leaning on the wall.
I will send Herr von Päumann the notes I have written here. Let him make what he will of it. What does he expect me to write if there are plenty of days when nothing happens? I am halfway through the text that will destroy Božena. Now I must write her biography. Von Päumann has been going on to me about it. It’s as if his life depended on it.
Yes, I shall destroy Božena. Materially, she is so badly off that things couldn’t get much worse for her. I will ensure that she loses what is left of her reputation. I remember what she said of my lost friend, František: “What is left of an enemy may come back to life, as happens with the remnants of diseases and fires. Which is why they must be exterminated altogether. One must never ignore an enemy, no matter how weak he might be. He can be dangerous at any given moment, like a spark in a haystack.”
Yes, I’d been wearing my dark brown coat with its back all covered in white. Božena lives precariously; she is even poorer than I am. Her husband’s madness has led her to this point. Is it worth having a husband like Božena’s? Whose solitude is more desolate: mine, living among five younger siblings who need to be fed; or hers, living in the company of someone with whom she has nothing in common?