The Lost Wife (5 page)
Authors: Alyson Richman
Věruška’s father also seemed to wholly contrast with mine. Whereas my father’s eyes emanated warmth, Dr. Jacob Kohn’s were clinical. When he first looked up from his book, it was clear he was surveying whoever stood before him.
“Lenka Maizel,” I introduced myself. My eyes fell to Dr. Kohn’s two perfectly white hands, the nails meticulously filed and clean, as they unclasped and he stood up to greet me.
“Thank you for joining us this evening,” he said, his voice tight with restraint. I knew from my mother that Dr. Kohn was a distinguished obstetrician in the community. “My wife, Anna . . .” He touched her shoulder gently with his hand.
Věruška’s mother smiled and extended her hand to me. “We’re happy to share Shabbat with you, Lenka.” Her voice was formal and exact.
“Thank you. Thank you for inviting me.”
Dr. Kohn nodded and gestured for me to sit down.
Věruška was her bubbly self and plopped down on one of the deep, red sofas. Quietly smoothing my dress over my legs, I sat down beside her.
“So you are studying art with our Ruška,” her mother said.
“I am. And I am in good company. Your Věruška is the great talent of our class.”
Both Dr. and Mrs. Kohn smiled.
“I’m sure you’re being too modest, Lenka,” I heard a soft, low voice say from behind me. It was Josef, who had walked in and was now standing behind his sister and me.
“It is a noble trait, modesty,” Dr. Kohn added. He folded his hands.
“No, it’s true. Věruška has the best eye in our class.” I patted her on her leg. “We’re all jealous of her.”
“How can that be?” Josef asked bemused.
“Oh, make him stop, Mama,” Věruška protested. “He’s twenty years old and still taunting me!”
Josef and I locked eyes. He smiled. My face reddened. And suddenly for the first time in my life, I felt I could barely breathe.
That night over dinner, I could hardly eat a morsel. My appetite had completely vanished and I felt terribly self-conscious with every movement I made at the table. Josef sat to the left of his father, his large shoulders extending past the back of his chair. I am too shy to meet his gaze. My eyes focus on his hands. My own mother’s hands were smooth but strong. Father’s were large and covered in a thin veil of hair. Josef’s hands were unlike the small white hands of Dr. Kohn. They had the musculature one sees in a statue—the wide dorsal, the ribbon of pronounced veins, and the thick strong fingers.
I watched the hands of the Kohn family closely, as if each pair reflected the emotions running through the room. There was a tension during the dinner that was unmistakable. When Dr. Kohn asked his son about his classes, Josef gripped his knife and fork even tighter. His knuckles stiffened, the veins grew even more pronounced. He answered his father succinctly, without any detail, never once taking his gaze off his plate.
Věruška was the only animated one at the table. She threw her hands about like a lithe dancer. She peppered the conversation with little bits of gossip: the neighbor’s daughter who had grown so fat she looked like a cream puff; the postman who was caught having an affair with the maid. Unlike her more reserved parents, she took great relish in her every detail. There were great swirls and flourishes in her descriptions. When Věruška spoke, you couldn’t help but think of a rococo painting—all her subjects engaging in clandestine acts of love, their affairs painted in large voluminous brushstrokes of vibrant color.
I sat there, an observer of their household, all the contrasts in high relief to me. The elegant white cloth set with the Sabbath candles, the platters filled with meat and potatoes, the asparagus arranged like piano keys on a long, porcelain tray. Dr. Kohn, serious with his spectacles; his carefully, measured voice. His hands that never gestured, but remained at the edge of the table. Josef, the quietly bemused giant whose eyes looked alight with fire and mischief whenever he looked my way; his sister bubbly and effervescent as a tall flute of champagne. And Mrs. Kohn, who sat silently at the opposite end of the table with her hands folded, round and plump like a stuffed capon.
Eventually, dessert was served. Dry apple cake with a faint taste of honey. I thought of Mother and Father at home, how they loved their whipped cream. Chocolate cake, raspberry torte, palačinka. Anything was an excuse to have an extra spoonful.
“You don’t have much of an appetite, Lenka,” Dr. Kohn commented as he looked at my barely touched plate.
I took my fork and tried to force down another bite.
“I think I had too much lunch,” I said with a nervous laugh.
“And are you enjoying the Academy as much as my daughter?” He looked at Věruška and smiled. It was the first time I saw him smile all evening.
“Yes. It is challenging. I don’t have Věruška’s talent, so I must work harder to keep up.”
“I hope Věruška isn’t too much of a distraction in class. As you can see, it’s hard for my daughter to keep still—”
“Papa!” Věruška interrupted.
He smiled again. “She’s full of life, my daughter. I don’t know what our household would be like without her and her stories . . .”
“It certainly would be much quieter . . .” Josef murmured, smiling.
I smiled, too.
Josef saw this and seemed to be amused by my affection for his sister. “We should have a drink to Věruška!” He looked over at me then lifted his glass. “And to her friend, who is clearly too modest.”
Everyone lifted their glasses and looked in my direction. I felt my face redden with embarrassment.
And of course, it was Věruška who took great pleasure in pointing it out.
The dessert plates were cleared. Behind the kitchen door, there was the sound of porcelain and cutlery being rinsed and stacked away.
Dr. Kohn stood up. We all followed. He walked over to a pedestal with a gramophone. “Mozart?” he asked with a raised eyebrow. He was holding a record in one perfectly white hand. “Yes. A little Mozart, I think.”
He took the record from its sheath and placed the needle down. And the room was filled with a rain of notes.
I drank one small glass of sherry. Věruška had two.
Afterward, when the music faded and the decanter was taken away by the maid, Josef excused himself from our company. Moments later he was standing in the hallway like a summoned guardian. It was clear he would be the one to escort me home.
I insisted that I would be fine. But neither Josef nor his parents would hear otherwise. My coat was slipped over my shoulders, Věruška kissed my two cheeks. I closed my eyes, momentarily distracted by the smell of sherry mixing with her perfume. “I’ll see you Monday in class,” she said, before squeezing my hand.
I turned to leave and walked into the iron-caged elevator with Josef. He was wearing a dark green coat, his mouth and nose covered by a thick wool muffler. His eyes, the same color as his coat, peered at me like a curious child.
We walked for a few minutes without speaking. The night was black. The sky like velvet, studded with only a few bright stars.
We felt the cold. It was the cold one feels just before a snow. A dampness that slices through cloth, skin, and bone.
On Prokopská Street, he finally breaks the silence. He asks me about my studies. What subjects do I like? Have I always loved to draw?
I tell him I struggle in anatomy class, and at this he laughs. I tell him I love to paint most of all.
He tells me he is in his first year in medical school. That he has been told he will be a doctor since the day he was born.
“Do you have an interest in something else?” I ask him. The question is bold, but the wine and sherry have made me more confident.
He ponders the question briefly, before stopping to think about it further. We are steps away from Charles Bridge now. Long branches of light come from the gas lanterns. Our faces are half gold, half shadow.
“I love medicine,” he says. “The human body is part science, part art.”
I nod. I tell him I agree.
“But part of it can’t be learned in books, and that’s the part that’s the most daunting to me.”
“It’s the same way with painting,” I tell him. “I often wonder how I can be so insecure at times with something I love so much.”
Josef smiles. He turns away for a moment before returning his gaze to me.
“I have this memory from my childhood. My sister and I found a wounded bird. We placed it carefully in a handkerchief and brought it to our father.
“ ‘What’s this?’ he asked us, when we placed it down on his desk.
“ ‘He’s sick, Papa,’ I remember Věruška saying. Her voice was so small and pleading. We had brought our father something we were so confident he could fix.”
I was looking at Josef now. His eyes were full of memory.
“My father took the kerchief with the trembling bird and cupped it in his hands. I could see the small creature’s body soften from the warmth of my father’s palms. He held it for what seemed like several minutes before the bird’s movements stopped.”
Josef took a breath.
“The bird had died in his hands.”
“Oh, how terrible,” I said, bringing my hand to my mouth. “You and Věruška must have been devastated.”
“You probably thought I was going to tell you I wanted to be a doctor because I saw my father resurrect something so frail and wounded, didn’t you?” He was shaking his head.
“But you see, Lenka, I return to that incident over and over again. My father must have realized he couldn’t have saved the bird. So he gently held it in his hands until its life flowed out from it.”
“But how painful for you and Věruška to see . . .”
“It was,” he said. “It was the first time I realized that my father couldn’t heal every broken thing. That, sometimes, even he could fail.”
He looked at me again. “I try to remember that when I feel I disappoint him.”
I wanted to reach out to him as he said this, but my hands remained at my side.
“What is it about you, Lenka, that I want to tell you every story from my childhood?” He turned to me, and his face transformed into a grin. He gave a little laugh and I could tell he was trying to lighten the mood.
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