Bridge of Clay(23)

“Nie.”

“Have you ever bent the wrong nose out of shape, if you know what I mean?”

Now she shook her head.

“I didn’t think so.” He grinned, like he’d borrowed the teeth from the Austrian train conductor. “Okay, then, let me ask. It’s your parents?”

“My father.”

“And you’re sure now. You’ve caused no trouble?”

“I’m sure.”

“And him?”

“He’s an old tram driver,” she said, “who barely speaks.”

“Oh, well then, I think you’re okay. The Party’s in such a pitiful state right now, I don’t think they’ve got time to worry about an old Tramwaj man. It’s hard to be sure of anything these days, but of that, I’m totally certain.”

It was then, she’d said, that Tadek looked out through the pine trees, and corridors of light. “Was he a good father to you?”

    “Tak.”

“And he’ll be glad to hear from you?”

“Tak.”

“Well, here.” He turned and threw her some change. “Say hi from me,” and walked away.



* * *



—

Of the phone conversation, there were ten small words, in translation: “Hello?”

Nothing. Just static.

He repeated it.

That voice, like cement, like stone.

“Hello?”

She was lost in pine and mountainside, her knuckles bony white.

“Mistake Maker?” he asked. “Mistake Maker, is that you?”

And she imagined him in the kitchen, and the shelf of thirty-nine books—her head now against the window, somehow saying “Yes.”

Then hung the phone up lightly.

The mountains all gone sideways.



* * *



—

Now to the song, a few months in, in the evening, in the guesthouse.

The moon against the glass.

The date was her father’s birthday.

In the East, name days were given more significance back then, but out of country, you felt things harder. She’d let it slip, to one of the women.

They had no wódka, but there was always plenty of schnapps in that place, and a tray came out with glasses. When they were handed around, the owner held his own glass up, and looked at Penelope, in the parlor. A good dozen or so people were there, and when she heard the words, in her own language, “To your father,” she looked up, she smiled, and it was all to keep herself together.

At that moment, another man stood.

Of course it was Tadek, and he started, very sadly—and beautifully—to sing:

    “Sto lat, sto lat,

niech ?yje, ?yje nam.

Sto lat, sto lat,

niech ?yje, ?yje nam…”



It was all too much now.

Since the early days of her phone call it had been storing up, and she couldn’t hold it any longer. Penelope stood and sang, but inside her, something collapsed. She sang her country’s song of luck and companionship and wondered how she’d left him. The words came in great surges of love and self-loathing, and when it was over, many of them wept. They wondered if they’d see their families again; should they be grateful or condemned? The only thing they knew for sure was that now it was out of their hands. It was begun and had to end.

As a side note, the opening words from that song are these: A hundred years, a hundred years, May you live one hundred years.

As she sang, she knew, he wouldn’t.

She would never see him again.



* * *



—

For Penelope, it was hard not to relive that feeling, and become it, in all her remaining time there, especially living in such ease.

Everyone treated her so well.

They liked her—her quietness, her polite uncertainty—and they referred to her now as the Birthday Girl, mostly behind her, and at the sides. Every now and then, the men, especially, would say it directly, in various tongues, when she cleaned up, or did the laundry, or tightened the shoelace of a child.

“Dzi?ki, Jubilatko.”

“Vielen Dank, Geburtstagskind.”

“Děkuji, Oslavenkyně…”

Thank you, Birthday Girl.

A smile would struggle through her.



* * *



—

    In between, all there was was the waiting, and recollections of her father. Sometimes it felt like she was getting by in spite of him, but that was in her darker moments, when the rain slew in from the mountains.

On those days especially, she worked longer, and worked hard.

She cooked and cleaned.

She washed dishes and changed the sheets.

In the end it was nine months of regretful hope and no piano, when finally a country agreed. She sat at the side of her bunk bed, the envelope in her hand. She looked out the window at nothing; the glass was white and smoky.

Even now, I can’t help seeing her back there, in those alps I often imagine. I see her as she was, or as Clay had once described her: The future Penny Dunbar, joining one more line, to fly far and south, and somewhat straight, to the sun.