Silver Wattle (8 page)

I climbed out of bed and opened the door. The hall was dark and quiet. I did not need a lamp to guide me because the bathroom was at the other end and I knew the route there by heart. But I would need light to negotiate the attic stairs. I searched about for a candle, found one in the dresser drawer and lit the wick.

There were no ghosts in the hall and I crept towards the attic stairs. I passed Milosh’s bedroom and heard him sigh. A glimmer of light flickered beneath the door. He must be reading in bed, I thought. I held my breath and prayed that no creaking floorboards would betray me.

The room felt closed when I entered it. My candle gave only a small circle of light but I dared not turn on the switch as the new electric globe was twice as bright as those downstairs and Milosh might notice it if he left his room to go to the bathroom.

The chest was still there but where was the key? I searched the drawers of Father’s desk and under the rug but had no luck finding it. I heard the door to Milosh’s room open then shut. I froze to the spot, listening for further sounds. But then I heard his feet on the floorboards and realised he had not left his room. I felt under the chest and found only cobwebs, then around the inkstand. My fingers touched the thin metal barrel of a key and I grasped it with triumph. I tried it in the lock. It fitted.

I lifted the lid gently so it would not make any noise. The smell of wool rose up from the chest and then a sweet smell too. I recognised it as rosemary. Father used to drink an infusion of it every morning. He believed it improved his memory. He also laid a sprig of it on Mother’s pillow on their anniversary each year, as a symbol of his fidelity. Mother had tucked sachets of the herb around the sides of the chest. I held up the candle so I could see better, careful not to drop wax onto Father’s uniform. I saw an envelope addressed to Aunt Josephine lying on top of Father’s coat. The handwriting was Mother’s. I picked up the envelope and found another one for Uncle Ota beneath it.

The sound of footsteps on the attic stairs jolted me. I tucked the letter in my hand into my nightdress, closed the chest and blew out the candle. I had just slid behind the armoire when the door opened and Milosh crept in, holding a lamp.

I wondered if he had been disturbed by sounds in the attic and if he would smell the lingering scent of wax from the candle. Fortunately, the room held such a mixture of odours—dust, wood, musty cloth—they must have masked the wax for Milosh seemed unaware of my presence. I had closed the chest but had left the key in the lock, and the letter for Uncle Ota was still lying on top of Father’s uniform. For a moment, I had an urge to reveal myself and make up some excuse for being in the attic, but something in the set of Milosh’s face stopped me. I was not sure if it was a trick of the light but the contours of his cheeks and chin looked sharper than usual.

He did not turn on the electric light, but placed the lamp on Father’s desk and began searching through the drawers. I realised that he had not come because he had heard a noise but rather to look for something when he thought we were all asleep.

When Milosh did not find what he was searching for in the desk, he turned to the shelf and leafed through the books. After the bookshelf yielded nothing of interest, he looked at the chest. My heart skipped a beat when he opened the lid, then picked up the lamp so that he might see more clearly into it. He discovered the letter and ripped open the envelope.

Milosh showed no emotion while reading the letter. I was surprised that he could read correspondence from his late wife to the brother of her first husband so impassively. I understood little of men and women then, but knew enough to realise that men could be jealous. Milosh studied the letter like someone committing facts to memory for an examination. Every so often he would look up, his lips moving as if he were taking particular note of a place or name. When he had finished reading, I hoped he would discard the letter, but he rolled it into a tube and lit it with the wick of his lamp. The paper flared brightly and I thought he was intent on burning the house down. But before the flame reached his fingers, he extinguished it. He dropped the remains to the floor and stomped on them before taking up his lamp again and leaving.

I remained in my hiding place for half an hour after I heard the door to Milosh’s room close and quiet descended on the house. As dawn broke in the sky, shedding silvery light through the dormer window, I crept out and picked up the blackened remains of the letter. There was one piece that had been unharmed by the flame. I gently unfolded it, afraid it would crumble in my hand, and read the words my mother had written:

I recognised the lines—they were from the famous love poem ‘May’. It was about a young man with an unfaithful lover. He kills his rival and later learns that it was his own father.

I wondered why my mother would have included the poem in a letter to Uncle Ota. I leaned forward and the letter Mother had addressed to Aunt Josephine jabbed me in the chest. Perhaps the answers would lie there.

Aunt Josephine sat in the courtyard garden and read the letter from Mother. I chased Frip around the fountain. I did it to keep warm, but also to stop myself from interrupting Aunt Josephine before she had finished. I thought she would call when she had read the letter and was surprised when I turned around and saw her with the letter on her lap, staring out in front of her. One look at the grim expression on her face and I understood it had revealed something terrible.

‘Aunt Josephine?’ I sat down beside her. Frip sensed the gravity of the moment and sat still.

Aunt Josephine did not move. Whatever she had read in Mother’s letter had come as a blow.

‘What is it?’ I said, gripping her arm and feeling the tremor there. ‘Read it to me.’

She shook her head. ‘I can’t. You must read it for yourself,’ and she handed me the letter.

I was so afraid, I had to inhale a few times before I could focus on the words.

Dear Josephine,

I am writing to you because I know that you do not like to visit us when Milosh is at home—and, as you know, he is at home more often than not these days! At first I thought this change was due to a recovery of his devotion to me, or perhaps because he had given up the ‘thorn in my side’. For that immoral woman has ceased to appear at social functions, so I am free from her stares, and no longer reserves seats at the theatre so near to us that I can feel her breathing down my neck. Lída tells me that she has been seen folding bandages at the veterans’ hospital—an occupation much more suited to a widow of her position than pursuing other women’s husbands.

But it appears my husband’s attention is not so endearing. He watches me with an interest that suffocates me. I cannot leave the house or make contact with a friend without a dozen of his questions. I do not flatter myself that this watchfulness is a sign of jealousy. No, he is studying me, but for what reason I do not know. I have these spasms of anxiety in my stomach that the doctor cannot cure, although I know the cause: the daily state of being in fear.

What is worse is that this watchfulness now extends to my daughters. He teaches Klarinka to play chess and Adelka to dance, but not from fatherly tenderness, as I had once hoped. I am sure he has some other purpose in mind. I have seen Emilie in my dreams. She stands on the other side of a river and calls out to me, warning me of something, but I cannot hear what she is saying.

My dear friend, I almost smile as I imagine you shaking your practical head, wondering if I am reaching the troublesome stage of motherhood when the children are growing up and one sees danger in every corner as a result of their increasing independence. But when I tell you what has provoked my anxieties, I am sure you will understand.

Yesterday morning I awoke as dawn was breaking, having suffered another dream about Emilie. The room was stifling and I went to open the window. I looked down to the street and thought I must be hallucinating. There was that woman sitting in her car with her driver. At first I thought she might be preying on Milosh, but then I realised she was staring at the house. She was not regarding it as might a jealous mistress who has been shut out of her lover’s domestic life, but rather as a woman admiring property that will soon be her own.

Josephine, you know that if anything should happen to me you will be the guardian of my daughters. An income, which I hope will be considered generous by you, has been set aside for this purpose. But I fear for my children’s safety should they stay in Prague. Ota is a good man, and so far away that I feel they will be out of danger with him and his wife. If you fear for their safety too, I beg you to send them to him.

There is a matter between Ota and myself that has never been settled and which I have never discussed with you. But in his latest letter he enquired after me so kindly that I cannot but hope he has forgiven me. In any case, he seems to have a keen interest in the welfare of his brother’s daughters. I have written to him expressing my hopes. I will explain all when I see you next.

I will ask Adelka to take these letters to you as, for obvious reasons, I do not wish my husband to have knowledge of this correspondence. Please come and see me as soon as possible, and please let Doctor Holub know that I would like to see him too. There are clauses in my will that I must amend immediately.

All my love,
Marta

I covered my mouth with my hand and leaned over. I retched but could bring nothing up. Aunt Josephine gripped my arm.

‘Marta knew he was going to kill her,’ she said. ‘She only did not expect it to happen that day.’

I pressed my head into my hands, struggling to breathe. ‘He must have given her something to make her collapse. Then they overdosed her with morphine.’

What we had found too terrifying to believe was real. The appearance of paní Benova in events explained everything.

A
unt Josephine and I showed Doctor Holub the letter. But his news threw us into confusion again.

‘Doctor Hoffmann has a perfect medical record,’ he informed us. ‘He was decorated for his services during the war, and his nurse has been with him for ten years. He has a beautiful wife and lives in a house in Vinohrady with glass ceilings and Italian barocco-style furniture. He is not a candidate for being bribed into murdering for money.’

Aunt Josephine shook her head. ‘Then what about Doctor Soucek’s claim that he had already removed Marta’s appendix?’

Doctor Holub shrugged. ‘He is still insistent on that fact and says that if paní Dolezalova had died of a ruptured appendix, as Doctor Hoffmann suggests, then the time from the onset of her symptoms to her death would have been a few days, not months. But when I asked him to show me the records, the operation was not entered. He said it may not have been included because at the time his wife was pregnant with their second child and was not feeling well enough to keep account of all his operations.’

‘How can he be certain then?’ I asked. ‘He is getting old. Surely he does not expect us to trust his memory?’

Outside the window behind Doctor Holub, the leaves of the cherry trees had turned gold. The light flickered through them as the leaves were stirred by the breeze. Appendectomies were not common in Mother’s day, so Doctor Soucek may well be right that he remembered the operation even if there were no records. It occurred to me that if he had not come to our house with his story about Mother’s appendix, then we would be mourning her loss with peace and not suspicion.

‘Doctor Soucek says he remembers it well because he operated on paní Dolezalova the same night the German emperor died.’

I leaned back and sighed. Doctor Soucek sounded senile. I had been sure of a conspiracy between Milosh and paní Benova, but that belief suddenly seemed not only unfounded but ridiculous. Had Mother truly thought that Milosh was going to kill her? Or did she only fear that he and paní Benova would find a way to get us out of the house? Pain gripped my stomach and I winced. I was suffering the same anxiety spasms that had afflicted Mother.

‘I fear this is too much for you,’ said Doctor Holub.

I shook my head. ‘I want to know the truth.’

‘What do we do now?’ Aunt Josephine asked. ‘My nieces’ lives may be in danger.’

Doctor Holub scratched his head. ‘There is nothing to be done for now,’ he said. ‘There is no evidence that paní Dolezalova was murdered, despite her frightened letter. Only a confession would change things and that is not likely to happen. You must watch pan Dolezal carefully. He may give something away.’

The day that Mother’s will was read, I studied Milosh’s reaction. I noticed that Doctor Holub glanced at him when he read the part about Milosh being given an allowance. My stepfather did not bat an eyelid.

‘Your mother was a most generous woman,’ Milosh told me afterwards, when we shared tea and cakes in Doctor Holub’s office. ‘I shall always be grateful to her. Our marriage was short but she brought me much joy.’

I winced. I resented being unable to speak my mind, but I had to tread carefully with Milosh. Aunt Josephine was our guardian until both Klara and I came of age, but the allowance to be paid to her for our care had to be signed off by Milosh as well as Doctor Holub at the bank each month. I understood why Mother had originally organised things that way: she did not think a woman should be troubled by money matters and had wanted to put Milosh in a fatherly position. But her good intentions had left us in a difficult situation. We were dependent on Milosh for our financial welfare until we came into our fortune.

Later, Milosh asked Aunt Josephine about Klara’s musical education and whether she would send us to finishing school abroad. Anyone listening to him would have thought him a devoted stepfather. I tried to read his mind but could see nothing beyond his handsome face. But is that not what they say about cold-blooded killers? You can never tell them from ordinary human beings. On the surface, at least. If Milosh murdered us, how would he do it, I wondered. Would he use Doctor Hoffmann again? Or would he simply strangle us in our sleep?