Silver Wattle (7 page)

Klara snatched another jar from the shelf and raised her arm, intending to throw it to the floor.

‘Don’t,’ I pleaded. I had not had time to put on slippers and I stepped gingerly towards her through the broken glass.

She stared at me, her mouth twisted into a muted cry of rage. Tears filled her eyes and she began to sob. ‘Why?’ she cried. ‘Why?’

Her voice had such a beseeching tone that it snapped my heart. I reached her without cutting myself and threw my arms around her. Her thin frame trembled in my grasp.

‘I don’t know,’ I said, burying my face in her neck. ‘I don’t know.’

Even more disturbing than Klara’s violent outpouring of grief was the arrival of Doctor Soucek the day after Mother’s funeral. Marie had no idea what to make of his request to see Mother, so she asked him to wait in the drawing room and called me.

‘I came as soon as I heard,’ he said, rising from his chair, still wheezing from having run up the stairs to our front door. ‘I was away visiting my daughter.’

‘We buried Mother yesterday,’ I told him, bewildered by his presence. I asked Marie to call Aunt Josephine, who was still staying with us. I could not understand why Doctor Soucek had come. He had misdiagnosed Mother’s appendicitis as anxiety pains. If he had recognised the true cause of her discomfort, she would have gone to hospital in plenty of time and she would be sitting in the room with us now.

Doctor Soucek’s face fell and he lowered himself into the chair again. ‘No chance of an autopsy then,’ he said.

His words hit me with such force that I was on the verge of being sick. Of course there would be no autopsy on Mother. We knew why she died.

Doctor Soucek rushed towards Aunt Josephine when she entered the room. ‘Paní Valentova was a robust woman,’ he said, using Mother’s maiden name. ‘She should have outlived all of us. What sort of infection was she supposed to have died of?’

Aunt Josephine glanced at me. I had managed to compose myself enough that morning to start some sewing, and now Doctor Soucek had arrived and was saying terrible things. The tears I had tried to hold back flowed down my cheeks. Aunt Josephine drew herself up as if preparing for battle.

‘She died of appendicitis, Doctor Soucek. When the doctor operated he saw that the infection had spread to her other organs. There was nothing he could do.’

Aunt Josephine said the words matter-of-factly but the undertone of blame was there. Doctor Soucek studied her with his rheumy eyes.

‘You had better get her exhumed,’ he said quietly.

I reeled back in horror at the suggestion. Mother? Exhumed after we had just buried her in holy ground?

‘Let the dead have their peace,’ I said, my voice rising in agitation.

‘Doctor Soucek,’ said Aunt Josephine. ‘You are not making any sense and you are upsetting my niece who has already had a terrible shock.’

Milosh passed the drawing room and saw Doctor Soucek with us. He frowned. ‘What brings you here?’

Doctor Soucek’s lips pinched together as if he had nothing to say to Milosh.

‘If you do not have anything to offer us, Doctor Soucek, I think you had better leave,’ Milosh said, his lip curling the same way Frip’s did when he saw a menacing dog.

Doctor Soucek glanced from me to Aunt Josephine. There was a tremble in his hands and I felt sorry for him. He had been good to our family over the years. I was not angry at him for misdiagnosing Mother, only sad. She had thought so highly of him. She had been a breech birth and, as a younger man, he had saved her and her mother. But this time round, he had been negligent.

Doctor Soucek turned to me as though he wanted to say something else, but another hostile glance from Milosh made him think better of it. He picked up his coat and hat. ‘I will be going,’ he said.

I accompanied him to the hall and helped him with his coat. ‘Goodbye, Doctor Soucek,’ I said, opening the door. He looked over his shoulder to check we were alone then grabbed my arm. ‘You dressed her for the funeral, didn’t you?’ he asked. ‘You saw the scars?’

The pity I felt for him turned to revulsion again. I remembered the stitched scar that had twisted across Mother’s belly like a braided roll. I tried to push Doctor Soucek away but he gripped me more firmly. I thought he must have gone mad.

‘Did you see the scar under it? The fine white one?’

‘I’ll call my stepfather,’ I warned him, looking back into the house.

Doctor Soucek loosened his grip and I stumbled. He rushed down the front stairs and raised his arm to hail a cab. One arrived and he was about to step into it when he turned around. ‘Appendicitis!’ he snorted. ‘Find out what really happened, will you? I removed your mother’s appendix myself when she was eighteen years old.’

It took minutes before Aunt Josephine could bring herself to speak after I reported what Doctor Soucek had said. The news knocked the wind out of her as it had from me. She leaned on the table where Mother’s coffin had rested and shook her head.

‘We must be careful not to jump to conclusions,’ she said. ‘Doctor Soucek is old and even your mother said he was sometimes forgetful. Perhaps he is confused. Perhaps it was Emilie’s appendix that he removed. I don’t recall your mother ever mentioning it and that would have been not long before I met her.’

I sat back, overtaken by another wave of nausea. I wondered, with all that had happened in the last few days, if I would ever feel the vitality of my age again. But what if Doctor Soucek was right? What did that mean? Doctor Hoffmann’s face floated up before me. He had been professional in his manner and did not appear to be someone who would misdiagnose an illness and then try to cover it up.

I told Aunt Josephine what I was thinking.

‘No, I don’t understand what it means either,’ she said. ‘We must speak to paní Milotova. After all, she was there.’

We were surprised to find paní Milotova wearing her mourning dress when we arrived at her apartment. Only immediate members of the family were expected to dress in black after the deceased’s funeral.

‘Marta was my dear friend,’ she explained. ‘I can’t forget her.’

We sat down at paní Milotova’s dining table and watched while she served tea from a samovar. She had left Russia before the Revolution and I had always been fascinated by her collection of lacquered boxes, Faberge eggs and bear figurines.

When the tea was served, Aunt Josephine related Doctor Soucek’s words to paní Milotova, whose face turned as green as the jade handles on the teaspoons. The pitch of her voice, an octave higher than normal, conveyed her shock.

‘I arrived at the house at eleven o’clock to give Klara her lesson,’ she said. ‘Marta had collapsed and Marie was leaving to fetch Doctor Soucek. Milosh stopped her and scribbled down the address of Doctor Hoffmann. When the doctor arrived I was impressed at how he took control of the crisis.’

Paní Milotova paused, as if she were seeing the scene unfold in front of her. Then she continued. ‘He examined Marta and told us that emergency surgery was needed. Marie was despatched to fetch Doctor Hoffmann’s nurse. “I have medical training,” I told him. “I was a volunteer nurse during the war.” He stared at me as if considering the proposition. “Then you know how to sterilise instruments?” he asked. I told him that I did and that I would help in any way I could. Marta was anaesthetised. I don’t believe she felt a thing.’

Paní Milotova hesitated. A troubled look furrowed her brow. ‘At the time everything seemed professional…but I was struck by how little the doctor said to the nurse. I was with doctors during the war to clean wounds and they were always giving me instructions. But Doctor Hoffmann asked nothing of his nurse.’

The three of us fell quiet, wondering about this observation. Perhaps Doctor Hoffmann and his nurse, having performed many operations together, did not need to speak.

‘Where was Milosh?’ Aunt Josephine asked.

Paní Milotova considered the question, then said, ‘He was pacing outside the door most of the time, but every so often he looked into the room. It was only when Doctor Hoffmann had sewed Marta back up and she was starting to come to that he told us there was no hope.’

It was terrible to hear all these things about Mother’s death, but I was compelled to find out the truth. After paní Milotova had told us all she could, Aunt Josephine and I decided we would visit Doctor Soucek and ask to see his medical records. Before we went to see the doctor, however, Aunt Josephine suggested we seek the advice of our family lawyer, Doctor Holub. Mother’s final testament was not due to be read until the following week, so he was surprised when he saw us waiting in his office.

‘God be with you at this time,’ he said, leaving aside formality and embracing us. Doctor Holub had been Father’s best friend and had a soft spot for our family. ‘What can I do for you?’

Aunt Josephine related the story about Mother’s appendix. Doctor Holub listened carefully, rubbing his bald patch with one hand and taking notes with the other. When Aunt Josephine finished speaking, he folded his hands under his chin, deep in thought.

‘It’s possible the doctor misdiagnosed,’ he said. ‘Then tried to cover his mistake. I will make some enquiries into his character and medical record. I will also see Doctor Soucek myself.’

Doctor Holub re-read his notes and his face turned dark. He looked at me. ‘Your mother and stepfather…they were happy?’ he ventured.

Everyone knew that Mother and Milosh were far from happy so I was taken aback by the chill the question sent through me. A thought that had not occurred to me until that moment gripped me like a vice. My breath caught in my throat when I tried to speak. I turned hopelessly to Aunt Josephine, who gave a better considered answer than I could.

‘The marriage was not a success. Marta hoped for a companion to relieve her loneliness and to be a father figure to her daughters, but pan Dolezal did not fulfil those longings. He is simply too vain and too selfish. But if you are suggesting he plotted with Doctor Hoffmann to kill Marta…especially in such a heinous way…I could not accuse him of that. Milosh is an overgrown child, not a murderer.’

Aunt Josephine’s logic calmed my mind and I began to breathe more easily. She was right: Milosh was a conceited fool but not a villain.

‘Paní Dolezalova’s will is to be formally read out next week,’ Doctor Holub said to Aunt Josephine. ‘In the event of her death, she appointed you as the guardian of her children until the youngest of her daughters, Klara, comes of age. At that time the fortunes of the Ruzicka and Valenta families will transfer to the young ladies. Pan Dolezal is to receive an allowance until this time, with the expectation that his business will eventually make him self-sufficient.’

‘I wonder if he knows that?’ asked Aunt Josephine. ‘I think he was expecting to be “kept” in the event of Marta’s death.’

Doctor Holub’s eyes did not move from Aunt Josephine’s face. He was trying to tell her something he did not want to say in front of me. But I could guess what it was. If my mother’s will had not been altered since the time of her marriage to Milosh, then my stepfather would be the beneficiary should Klara and I both die before she reached twenty-one.

I found it difficult to sleep that night. My dreams were haunted by images of Mother dying, her grave covered in lilies, and Milosh. I felt no love for my stepfather but his grief at Mother’s death seemed sincere. Now Doctor Holub had put terrible ideas in my head and, despite Aunt Josephine’s assurances, I could not forget them.

Aunt Josephine looked as tired as I did the following day. Neither of us spoke over breakfast, which left the conversation up to Klara and Milosh and they did not have much to say. Aunt Josephine had stayed with us since Mother’s death, and I wondered, as she was to be our guardian, whether we would continue to live in our house or move to hers. Later in the morning, when I was in the courtyard garden, the question was answered. I heard Aunt Josephine talking with Milosh through the library window.

‘I understand that you are grieved by Marta’s death,’ Aunt Josephine said, ‘but the funeral was a few days ago and it is unseemly for you to continue to live under the same roof as your stepdaughters.’

Aunt Josephine was being tactful and treading carefully. Milosh answered immediately.

‘Yes, I have prepared for that. I have taken an apartment. But I hope that I will have your permission to call on the girls? I have grown fond of them.’

Milosh had never been fond of us. But perhaps he regretted his behaviour towards Mother and wanted to make up for it. I did not hear Aunt Josephine’s reply. But what could she have said? As unseemly as it would appear if Milosh continued to live under the same roof as us, it would be just as unseemly if all relations were suddenly cut off.

‘I will move my things tomorrow,’ Milosh promised.

That night, I tossed and turned and had nightmares again. Although paní Milotova had assured me that Mother had been given sufficient morphine, I dreamt that she had been cut across the belly and was screaming. I woke with a start.

What if Milosh
had
hired Doctor Hoffmann to kill Mother? It was far less suspicious to die of a medical condition in the presence of a doctor than to be poisoned or stabbed. If Mother had been murdered in those conventional ways, the suspicion would have immediately fallen on Milosh. I thought about whether the police could do anything, and decided they probably could not with only accusations and no evidence. Doctor Soucek’s demand for an autopsy would also be fruitless. The violation of Mother’s body would not prove anything: she would not have an appendix either way. Doctor Soucek would claim that he removed it years ago, and Doctor Hoffmann would say he’d had the diseased organ incinerated. My head swam with the appalling possibilities, but in the end I kept coming back to one thing. Milosh was arrogant, self-seeking and unpleasant, but was he capable of such an evil plan to get rid of Mother?

I thought about Mother’s last day and how she had seemed well when I wished her goodbye in the morning. A few hours later she died in her bed.

‘Look in the chest.’

Goose bumps prickled my arms. Those had been Mother’s last words to me. I had thought she was delirious and talking about a pain in her chest. Now I remembered the night she gave me Father’s camera from his chest in the attic.