The maid let me in and showed me to the living room, where Frau Železný greeted me. She was tall and thin, a faded version of her daughter, with the same long hands and graceful neck. I handed her the bouquet and immediately felt purposeless and naked without it. Frau Železný busied herself with the flowers, which allowed her to surreptitiously observe me with little darts of her sympathetic eyes; I wondered if Anja had forewarned her family about my deformity. Frau Železný talked inconsequentially about varieties of flowers and the difficulty of raising this or that strain in the climate of Prague. I perched on a tightly upholstered chair opposite her and worried about what to do with my hands now that the bouquet had been taken from me. I folded them in my lap, and they lay heavy there, sweating like bony hams.
Herr Železný now entered the room together with the maid, who was pushing a trolley on which the afternoon coffee was arranged. In her father I could see nothing of Anja. He was dark and stern, with a bald spot on the very top of his head that was wreathed around by wiry hair. He shook my hand, keeping his eyes trained on mine as though he had been told not to stare, but at the same time not to avoid looking at me. My eyes were the first to fall. He lowered himself into a large armchair by the fire and seemed to get straight down to business, asking me about my position at the post office and my writing, some of which, to my surprise, he had read.
I balanced as upright as I could in my hard chair. I had to concentrate very hard on holding my cup and plate balanced so as not to disgrace myself by dropping anything on the carpet. I managed to get my coffee down, but the cake crumbs stuck unpleasantly to the walls of my dry throat. Eating and drinking and then also talking at the same time suddenly seemed an immensely complicated task, requiring great dexterity and skill. Sweat prickled under my collar.
After a short while, Anja appeared, wearing a blue dress that rustled like tissue paper. I stopped talking and looked at her as she stood, framed in the dark doorway, light falling on her hair, her fingers resting lightly on the door handle. It was like when one sees a deer step out of a wooded area into a clearing and time stops for a moment. We looked at each other. Then she came into the room and sat down on the little sofa next to her mother. Herr Železný was now explaining the content of my first novel to Frau Železný as though I were not in the room, so I was free to let Anja take my attention. She reminded me of a bird with her quick, darting movements, her head turning from side to side. Her slender hands were like fluttering leaves and the shapes they described in the air awakened a tinkling tune in my head.
I must have satisfied Herr Železný, because after he had finished his coffee and risen from his chair to leave the room he turned first to me and then to Anja, with a little bow, and asked us if we might like to go out on a walk together. Then he gave one sharp nod and left the room.
Walking down the stairs, I was finally able to relax. The soft sounds of Anja walking behind me—the rustle of her dress, her gentle footfalls and the hiss of her palm over the bannister—caused a pleasant tingling in my scalp and ears.
Out in the street she took my arm. I let my fingers brush the back of her hand as it nestled in the crook of my elbow, and it was so soft and yielding that when I brushed my fingers over it they seemed to pass through the skin.
Walking with Anja was a completely difference experience to walking alone. Over the years I had become used to people looking at me wherever I went and I had learned to ignore their rigid faces and round eyes. With Anja beside me I was surprised to find that people looked at us even more, but with a completely different gaze. At first it was as though my happiness had transformed either myself or the world, and I was met by only smiling faces, but then I slowly realised that the eyes that would usually be hooked by my outlandish form now slid past me, without taking me in, to light instead on Anja. Women, especially older ones, smiled at her with a kind of nostalgia, men’s eyes snapped over to her apparently of their own volition, and children looked with upturned faces as though they were watching a fireworks display. I walked like a ghost beside her, invisible but happy, seeing my joy reflected in the faces of those we passed.
We went to the Laurenziberg and wandered for a long time through the gardens that covered the eastern slopes. I was aware of the beauty of the gardens and the views of Prague without really seeing them. But the sky I took notice of. I can still recall precisely how it looked that day as we stood and gazed down on the city. It ranged over us in a broad sweep, the blue deep and full directly over our heads but stretched thin and pale at the horizon. There were some insignificant clouds, like wreaths of smoke, and Prague too was nestled in a hazy smudge of dust and sun, shot through with flecks of white as light glinted from the windowpanes and the surface of the river. Faint sounds of the city drifted up to us, the shouts of children and the whistle of a distant train. Looking back now, this afternoon seemed to have been suspended in a golden mist, held out of time like a leaf in amber.
We wandered to a seat and sat together. Anja looked around at the view, and exclaimed at the sun and the colour of the leaves and grass. I could only see these things in relation to her: how the sun gilded the skin of her face with a layer of iridescence, or how the greenery saturated the colour of her hair and eyes.
And Anja talked, or chattered rather, telling me tales about her parents and friends, her teachers at the university. She began on a long and complicated story about a Herr Liška, a lawyer that Herr Železný was acquainted with through his work. It seemed that Herr Železný thought this Liška would be a good match for her; it appeared that he was to her what Uta was to me.
I was relieved to be able to explain to her about Uta in such a natural way. From our very first meeting I had been worried that Anja would come to hear about Uta, perhaps even from Uta herself, and form the idea that I was romantically involved with her. Now I was able to explain the truth of my feelings for Uta. I even managed to be kind about the poor girl; sitting there on a bench with Anja, I could afford to be generous.
‘Oh, Max,’ Anja said, ‘it’s so good to have you to talk to.’
To hear her speak my name was the most exquisite pleasure. She took my hand in hers and I thought that I might die.
Only when it was getting dark did we make our way back to the Old Town, and only after I returned Anja to her door did I become aware of the tiredness of my body. I gave in to the aching and took the tram home, instead of walking.[8]
It was not until I had reached my house that Liška occurred to me again, and now he appeared in a more sinister light. I knew that Uta’s advances had no effect on me, even with echoing chorus provided by my family, however the eligible Herr Liška’s powers of attraction were unknown to me. I sat in my study a long time that evening, writing the day’s experiences in my diary and then, later in the night, brooding over Herr Liška. I tortured myself with images of wealthy, muscular, straight-backed men with faces like stone carvings and voices like booming drums. I tried to reassure myself that Anja would not spend her afternoons with me if she did not wish to; she was perfectly free to take Herr Liška to the Laurenziberg instead of me. Still my doubts raged. I enumerated my strengths to myself, counting them on my fingers and then even going so far as to write them down in my diary.[9] It occurred to me then that she must have shared her story about him to awaken my jealousy and spur me to pursue her. Tired and relieved, I seized on this explanation and went to bed.
8
These facing pages are stained with the imprint of a pressed flower. The flower has not been retained.