The Twelve Little Cakes (41 page)

This was our usual ritual, but we had never cut it as close as this before.

“What have you been doing?” I asked. “You know how much trouble I get in when I'm late!”

“I've spent the afternoon with Dr. Ulbert,” my dad replied. “He has a new invention. It's a device for measuring electricity in the air. I just know we're going to make a lot of money with it!”

Dr. Ulbert was a physicist my father had worked with briefly at an agricultural cooperative. They had formed an immediate friendship, which had survived my dad's dismissal. The doctor had stayed in touch, largely because my father was very impressed by his many disastrous theories about electromagnetic energy. Dr. Ulbert had tufty white hair, like Albert Einstein, and an endless stream of ideas for inventions which my father attempted (and failed) to turn into patents. His last invention had been a crop-watering machine that was designed to fly above the fields on an electromagnetic current. My father had assembled a team of engineers and paid them out of his own pocket to build a prototype in our garage, but the device had steadfastly refused to fly. When it became obvious that the problem was in the design, not the engineering, my father had a long talk with Dr. Ulbert, in which the inventor grudgingly admitted that he had underestimated the force of gravity in his calculations. The amount of energy required to keep the device in the air turned out to be many times greater than the cost of watering crops by conventional means, and the project was ultimately scrapped. Strangely enough, despite having lost a lot of hard-earned money in Dr. Ulbert's inventions, my dad continued to have faith in his friend, while my mother privately referred to the physicist as “Dr. Stein-Ein.”

“This new invention is an absolute winner!” my father said enthusiastically. “We'll sell it to the Germans and make a pile of deutsche marks; then we'll throw this rotten Skoda onto the trash pile and buy ourselves a brand-new Mercedes!”

“A Mercedes?” I protested. “You said we were going to buy a BMW.”

“I've looked into it,” my dad replied. “It turns out that a Mercedes has a much better engine than a BMW.”

“Last month, you said BMWs were better.”

“Well, that was last month! I've just read an interesting article on the subject. Medveds have better engines, end of story.” (
Medved,
the Czech word for “bear,” is the widely used Czech nickname for a Mercedes-Benz). My father and I loved to discuss the merits of Western cars, despite the fact that we hardly ever saw one, and my dad's biggest ambition was to one day buy himself a really nice German car. In a funny kind of way, he deserved it. He frightened my mother to death on a regular basis, but he really was an excellent driver.

“How long have we got?” he asked.

I looked at the dashboard. “We haven't!” I said desperately. “We're three minutes late!”

The traffic lights changed, and my father drove up the tram tracks to overtake a row of cars. This was completely illegal and was the kind of thing that would have his fellow drivers writing down his license plate and denouncing him. We zipped around the yellow barricade and back out onto the road.

“You still want me to drop you off around the corner?” my dad grinned.

“No time!” I cried. “Let me out right here!”

I opened the door and leaped out onto the sidewalk. Another part of our Monday afternoon ritual was my dad dropping me off around the corner from school, because I had somehow tangled myself up in a huge lie wherein my father actually owned all the cars we liked to talk about. At the last count, we had a white Mercedes, a blue BMW, and a red Volvo in our garage. None of the girls believed me, of course, and catching me out had become a major pastime at the school. I just prayed that Mrs. Saturday had started the lesson already. The trouble I would get into for being late was nothing compared to the embarrassment and shame of being seen climbing out of a rusty Skoda.

I crossed the street and pushed my way through the big revolving doors. The glamorous mothers were already in the cafeteria, smoking foreign cigarettes, and I ran up the stairs to the junior studio, where I found my classmates shivering in the unheated dressing room. They wore white or pink leotards that their mothers had bought from Tuzex, along with thick woolen socks that had been cut into leg warmers. Their shoulder blades jutted out from their backs and their arms and legs were as thin as broomsticks.

“Hello, Bara!” I called out to a fragile girl in an expensive leotard who was standing by herself. “How was your holiday?”

“Boring,” Bara sighed. “Mum dragged me to Italy and I spent two weeks lying on the beach.”

“Really?” I said, as though I couldn't imagine anything more boring than going to Italy.

Bara Fisherova was my only friend at school. Her father was a successful painter who had a private agent and sold his paintings in the West, and her mother wore extravagant outfits and drove around Prague in a brand-new Fiat Uno, which was the only Fiat Uno in the country. But Bara was struggling in class as much as I was. She had never wanted to be a dancer. Her body was wrong for ballet, but her mother had pulled a lot of strings to get Mrs. Saturday to accept her, and the other girls teased her mercilessly. I was a good but unpopular dancer, so we usually stood next to each other. Whenever the class picked on Bara, I would try to stand up for her. Whenever the class picked on me, Bara would usually join in.

“It's the first class of the year and you're late,” Bara whispered.

“I couldn't help it,” I whispered back. “My father was busy inventing a device to detect electricity in the air, and he forgot to pick me up.”

Renata and Ilona Walnut were stretching near the window, and they moved in closer to disrupt our conversation.

“Your father drives a yellow Skoda, admit it,” sneered Renata, whose eyes were slightly crossed.

“No, he doesn't,” I said coolly. “He drives a blue BMW.”

The younger Ilona put her hand in front of her mouth to hide her braces. “We saw you out of the window!” she cried. “We saw you! You ran across the street!”

I smiled as though I wasn't concerned. “That's because our car is at the garage,” I said. “The mechanics lent us the Skoda to drive while they're fixing the BMW.”

“I thought you said you would never be caught dead in a Skoda,” Bara laughed. “Why didn't your dad take one of his other cars?”

I glared at her.

“Yeah, why didn't you take the Mercedes?” Renata grinned.

“I don't know,” I blushed. “Ask my dad.”

Ilona and Renata shook their heads in disbelief and went back to their stretching exercises. Like most of the other girls, they were from a rich Communist family that lived in beautiful Old Town Prague. They wore new leotards every year, and also owned a lot of
sedgeka,
which were little plastic letters you could connect on a chain and wrap around your waist like a belt. In 1984,
sedgeka
were the big craze in Czechoslovakia, and you could really buy them only in Tuzex or on the black market. I had five
sedgeka
letters, which I had found at school the previous summer, and my ballet costume was the ugliest in the class. My mother had made it out of an old tank top and it was sewn together with big, irregular stitches. As I hurriedly put it on, I heard Mrs. Saturday bellowing my name. I stuffed the wooden tips of my ballet shoes with pieces of cotton wool, tied the laces around my ankles, and hurried out of the dressing room.

In the studio, the girls were already kicking out from the bar and Mrs. Saturday was pacing around them. She wore an orange-and-blue dress that looked like an apron.

“Furmanova!” she said as I entered. “You're late!”

When I opened my mouth to explain, she silenced me with a wave of her hand. “No excuses!” she snapped. “While we all admire your vivid imagination, you're not here at this school to tell stories. You're here to dance! And dance you will!”

The class drew in a collective breath. Mrs. Saturday's temper was legendary.

“Move to the bar!” she ordered.

I trotted to the wall and squeezed in beside Linda Linkova, who was the daughter of a popular country music singer. I drew my legs together, set my feet into fifth position, and started to kick my right leg in the air. Bohunka, the fat piano player, continued with her regular waltz, while Mrs. Saturday stalked around the room clapping her hands.
“Un, deux, trois!”
she cried.
“Grand battement! Piqué! Grand battement! Piqué!”

I swung my leg up and down, tapping the floor with the tip of my toe. It hurt, but I gritted my teeth and swung as high as I could.

“See, now here's how you do it.” Mrs. Saturday grabbed Klara Kutilova's leg and lifted it so high it touched her ear. She looked like a marionette in Mrs. Saturday's hands, and smiled beatifically throughout the demonstration.

This went on for two hours. The minute hand traveled slowly around the clock on the wall until class was almost over. Finally, Bohunka pulled a packet of biscuits out of her bag, and Mrs. Saturday put a disc on the ancient record player. The needle scratched across the vinyl, and the “Song of the Dying Swan” crackled out from the speakers.

“Five minutes of improvisation!” Mrs. Saturday ordered, and everyone hesitantly stepped away from the bar. Without instruction, they didn't know what to do. All the girls were tremendously afraid of making a mistake, so they turned, as they always did, and waited for me to start dancing. I listened to the music, and the dying swan's melody filled my heart with sadness. I experienced a strange sense of tranquility when I was allowed to move freely. I didn't see the studio with bars and mirrors, I moved and was moved in a different space. I was a swan and not an ugly duckling, and as the moonlight glittered on the surface of the lake, I spread my wings and began to fly.

The next thing I knew, Mrs. Saturday was clapping her hands.

“Very good,” she said. “Girls rehearsing for
The Nutcracker,
please stay in the room. Everybody else is excused. See you all on Wednesday.”

A group of older girls who were dancing in
The Nutcracker
were standing at the door. They remained silent until I had taken my last steps, then they burst into the room, filling it with chatter. I took off my ballet shoes and walked alone into the dressing room. I was the only girl in my class who wasn't in
The Nutcracker.
Mrs. Saturday hadn't given me a role on the grounds that I was too small for the costumes.

I changed into my street clothes and walked up the empty corridor, wishing that there was some kind of magic potion that would make me taller. My big dream was to dance Odette in
Swan Lake,
but I was willing to settle for the tiniest role in
The Nutcracker.
I could do a much better job than Bara Fisherova, who hated dancing and couldn't even do the splits, but I knew she was given roles because her mother bought Mrs. Saturday presents whenever they traveled to the West. My dad couldn't do this. His papers were bad and he drove a rusty Skoda. Once again, I was having trouble fitting in.

I was so depressed, I almost collided with a small woman who had just walked out of the main studio where the National Theater Ballet Company was rehearsing
Sleeping Beauty.
A young ballerina rushed out of the room behind her.

“Hold your thumbs for me tonight, Mrs. Paskova!” she begged, which is the Czech way of asking someone to cross their fingers.

The small woman smiled and put her arms around the girl. “Ptui, ptui, ptui!” she said, pretending to spit on the floor, which is a more intimate way of wishing someone good luck.

“Break a leg, my dear. I'm sure you'll be wonderful,” she said.

The ballerina blushed and disappeared inside the room, and Mrs. Paskova continued up the hallway. I wandered along behind her, and as I did, I suddenly realized that this was the woman Vendula Backyard had told me to say hello to. She was obviously a very important person at the school, and I picked up my pace and trotted up behind her.

“Hello, Comrade Paskova!” I called out. “Comrade Paskova! Hello!”

The woman stopped and turned to face me.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“Vendula Backyard told me to say
ahoj!
” I exclaimed. “Do you remember Vendula? She is my friend and she said you used to be her ballet teacher. She said that you would remember her, but in case you didn't, I should mention her father, Doctor Backyard, who is a very famous surgeon.”

Mrs. Paskova looked down at me and smiled. “Of course I remember Vendula. How is she?”

“I think she's very happy,” I replied. “Whenever I see her, she's sunbathing in the orchard and eating chocolates, and she has two horses and a pony and a goat!”

“I see.” Mrs. Paskova looked vaguely amused. “And who are you and what are you doing in the hallway by yourself? Shouldn't you be rehearsing for
The Nutcracker
?”

I smiled and tried to make up an excuse, but my eyes filled with tears. Before I knew it, I was pouring my heart out to Mrs. Paskova. I told her that I didn't have a role in
The Nutcracker
because I was too small, and that I never got any roles. I was afraid that I would never get to dance in any of the big productions. Mrs. Paskova put her arms around me and gave my shoulders a friendly squeeze.

“Well, that's no good,” she said. “As is happens, I'm looking for a little girl to carry a candleholder across the stage in
Rigoletto.
Do you think this is something you might like to do?”

I nodded so hard I nearly sprained my neck.

“Very well,” she said decisively. “If you come to the lobby at seven o'clock tomorrow evening, I'll have a word with the casting director and we'll try you out for the role. Bring your parents with you. If it all works out, you can alternate with one of our junior cast regulars.”