The Silent Woman
320
The Silent Woman
320Paperback
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Overview
From the “outstanding” Czech writer Monika Zgustova, The Silent Woman depicts a twentieth-century woman’s life against a backdrop of war and political turmoil (Vaclav Havel).
Sylva, half Czech and half German, is born into an aristocratic family and lives in a castle outside Prague. She marries a man she doesn’t love and is seduced by the joyful madness of Paris in the 1920s as an ambassador’s wife. When the Nazis force her to state her loyalty, she capitulates, not realizing how this decision will inform and haunt the rest of her life.
Sylva’s story is interwoven with that of her son Jan, a world-renowned mathematician and Russian emigre living in the United States, who exudes the restlessness of a man without a country. With insight and candor, Zgustova weaves a multigenerational narrative of the consequences of moral choices and how individuals come to terms with their own forms of exile.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781558618411 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Feminist Press at CUNY, The |
| Publication date: | 03/18/2014 |
| Pages: | 320 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
SYLVA
At seventy, your life is over. Or a new one begins. That's what I thought not long after hitting seventy, which is when I got his letter. I had never received a single letter from him before. Not even back then, years ago. Twenty-five years ago, or more.
The very idea of a quarter of a century suddenly makes me smile. A young mother passing by with a pram looks at me where I'm sitting, and, not seeing anything worth smiling about, acts as if I don't exist.
Through the steam filling the station I can make out a glass door. A woman is reflected in it. The skin on her face resembles fine cobweb, a tangle of slim snakes covers her hands. This woman is not the old Sylva, the one who lived in Paris, where they called her Madame l'Ambassadrice. No, she isn't the muse of the surrealists, not anymore, she is no longer Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory; this seventy-year-old Sylva, whose age coincides approximately with the year of the century, is somebody else. Who is that solitary woman who wears a bunch of white narcissi on her head, with a lace veil woven so thick that it seems to have been engraved on her face? It is she, Sylva, and it isn't her. We swim in the same rivers and we do not, we are and we are not.
Rather than feeling old, I feel immortal, and I feel like laughing.
Some elderly people can offer no more proof of their having lived than their own death. That is not my case. But I have often envied that kind of person.
Yes, my new life started half a year ago, when I received his letter. How I had waited for that letter back then — a thousand years ago. Yet it arrived much later, long after I had stopped expecting it. When I turned the envelope over to see who the sender was, I paused upon reading the name. I thought: at last! He took his time. Holding that letter I felt as young as when I wore my hair long — sunset colored as it then was — when I had my life ahead of me. A life in which he would be a part. A new life is about to begin, I thought.
He had taken twenty-five, no, thirty years to get in touch with me. Meanwhile, imperceptibly and unexpectedly, as silently as a ballerina advancing on tiptoes, old age had slipped inside of me.
"Wait, don't rattle the door like that; I'll give you a hand," I say to that young mother. The train is rusty and the platform, deserted.
A railway employee came out of an office door and, as soon as he sees two women making futile attempts to open a train door, he slips straight back into his office. At that precise moment, a male voice, sounding like it's coming from a better world than the one the station belongs to, can be heard: "Attention, please! Train number one four two from Benesov, Cercany, Ricany will soon be arriving at platform three, line twenty-two. This train line terminates here."
"You know what we could do?" I suggest to the young mother, "We could each try to open one panel of the door. If you pull on the one on the left, I'll pull the one on the right. One, two, three!"
She thanks me profusely as I help her get the pram and the baby into the train, and I detect a flicker of guilt on her face. Just a moment ago, she was probably thinking, that old woman is completely gaga, smiling to herself for no reason at all. Now she is waving to me from the other side of the dirty glass and I would bet anything that she thinks I am a kindly grandmother. She's wrong. Nothing is as we imagine it. I am neither kind nor gaga. I'm only old. Old age is a sickness and it has to be fought. She knows nothing about that yet. She doesn't know why I behave as I do. I only helped her because I'm waiting. Do you know how a person feels when she is waiting? When she's waiting and she doesn't really know what she is waiting for? When she doesn't know what the awaited one will be like? Have you ever had to wait for a lover you thought you'd lost ages ago?
At seventy, can one start a new life? And what if doing so depends on another, unpredictable person?
* * *
Last night I got the shivers. I lit the stove and cozied up to it with a glass that I'd poured a couple of fingers of beer into. They say it soothes the soul. Behind the books on the shelf, I'd hidden the typed pages of a samizdat novel; tomorrow I must pass it on to the next reader, I told myself. But I dwelled on the clothes that I would put on tomorrow. I only had a few items to choose from. In such wet weather I'd put on a raincoat, of course, and a light brown scarf. I have a pair of shoes the same color, though they are badly worn out. I took a pair of earrings from the lacquered Japanese cabinet. They were a gift from him. With the sale of his paintings, I imagine, he had bought me real pearls. I haven't put them on in thirty years. I never had occasion to do so. No, come to think of it, I did put them on once! Yes, one single time, some seven or eight years ago.
They match the color of my hair, I told myself. Before they stood out, but now they melt into it. I gathered my hair right up to the nape of my neck: perfect, an elegant, modern style. The raincoat is the same color as the earrings; it is old and battered, but those pearls shine and gleam.
A new life, isn't that too much to expect?
It was when I began feeling weak yesterday evening that I remembered I hadn't any supper. I placed a couple slices of bread on a side plate, having cut off the crusts; the glass, with what was left of the beer, stood next to it. My supper was lit by a small lamp, and I suddenly lost my appetite, so busy was I gazing at that still life with a painter's eyes. Even after thirty years, once again I was looking at the world with an artist's eyes. Two slices of bread and a glass of beer, lit by a feeble bulb hidden behind a coffee-colored cloth.
Such is the world. My world, my world entirely. Two slices of crustless bread, a half-finished glass of flat beer. I require nothing else.
I live as I see fit, which is the reason I am not poor. When I lived surrounded by luxury, fitting myself into other people's scheme of things, I was not rich.
Every day bears me gifts. Today, it has offered me this still life. Now, at seventy, I have my little pleasures and no longer expect any grander ones.
Yesterday the plumber came, and could hardly squeeze past my large upholstered cupboards, the helmets, lances, and suits of armor that decorate my little living room and hall. Lady, he said, "you live in a tiny apartment on the outskirts and you've got it bursting with furniture that's fit for a king. I answered, in all honesty, Do help yourself if you like anything. I don't need them anymore. He didn't want anything — the items wouldn't fit into his place either, he told me.
No, I don't need them. They are mementos of what was. Right now I want a couple of slices of bread and a glass of beer. And that's it. Nothing else, nobody else. But is this enough to be starting a new life with?
This morning, at the crack of dawn, I don't know if it was the light or the birdsong that woke me. I placed the crumbs of the leftover crust on a saucer on the windowsill and offered it to the sparrows, taking care to make sure the saucer was out of the wind and sheltered from the rain. The geranium was soaked. I closed the window and drank my morning tea with the bread left over from supper.
Finally, when I left for the day, the prefabricated walls of buildings — usually so threatening, like a row of armed, gray warriors — were hidden behind a gray veil of dampness. It started to drizzle as soon as I sat down on my bench, the red one. Immediately, a sparrow flew over to me. I threw it a few crumbs and that little sparrow walked right up to the toe of my shoe. Then I realized that I'd put a stocking of a slightly different shade on each leg. And that my hands were shaking.
On the way to the metro, I grinned at my stockings. People turned to look ill-humoredly at me. And that made me laugh all the more.
One day, it must have been half a year ago, I received a letter. Someone was looking for me. I answered coolly; I didn't want him to understand how I felt inside. And I got a reply:
Dear Sylva,
I am so pleased that you answered my letter! Your answer has given me reason to believe you also remember me and the happiness that we shared such a long time ago. "Dear," this standard term of endearment, strikes me as so wonderful when coming from you, or rather, from your pen. When I read the word, I felt a kind of physical warmth.
You mentioned memories. For my part, I assure you that the times I spent with you were the most beautiful I have ever experienced in my life. Back then, I thought I would always feel as good as I did during those moments.
Do you remember the present you offered me? You don't? I'll tell you about it: One evening, in a café, the Café Louvre in Prague's city center, I was admiring your black lace glove, and you, too, as you toyed with it. For many years I have kept that glove, which was my only possession; over many decades, whenever I felt like it, I took out your long, black lace glove with its bloodstained fingers, and laid it out before me. Whenever I see that bloodstained black lace, I hear you, Sylva, I see you and feel your presence.
I would like to know about your life in more detail, and, of course, I hope to see you again. I would meet you anywhere, no matter how far I had to travel.
Please do not get lost again. I beseech you with all my heart.
Yours, The Old Tree
P.S. The old tree no longer has any leaves or branches, and yet the spring winds have shaken its roots and it has flowered. Both the red flowers and the yellow ones will soon disappear without a trace.
When I read these words, in the royal garden of my old age, a white flower budded.
The train isn't here yet. The only thing I can hear is a young man's voice over the PA: "Attention, attention! A freight train will be arriving shortly at platform nineteen!" Its locomotive breathes and whispers and snores. What time is it, in fact? One doesn't want to miss the train, after all. That new, square-shaped clock hanging over platform one must be slow. It says half past eleven. It's stopped. It's new and yet it's stopped. I need to ask the time and look for the platform where his train will be arriving.
The mother with the pram waves to me from the train and signals me to come over.
"There's something I have to ask you. I really have to!" "Look, no, I really can't. Any moment now the train I'm expecting will ..."
"Please, I'm begging you ..."
On that train he will arrive, the one who is coming to see me. At seventy I've started my new life, I wouldn't miss that train for anything in the world, I am about to say, but the mother has managed to sit me down next to her.
"I want to ask you," she says breathlessly, "it's my grandmother, my grandmother's making my life impossible." As soon as a new announcement has been made over the PA:
"Attention please, a warning for the driver of the locomotive," I answer her, "Tell your grandmother that young people need to be with those their own age. And give her a piece of advice: every day she should feed the birds and water her flowers. And no matter what, spring will come. And ..."
Then I realize that the railway worker has signaled with his little red flag and I hear his whistle blow. I jump out of the train, which had slowly been getting underway. I land unsteadily. I'm dizzy and feel I'm about to fall under the train: Anna Karenina. The wheels turn, huge, threatening. I'm falling, but an inner voice orders me: You mustn't fall! You have to get your balance back, you have no choice! You must go over to meet the other train! Maybe it is entering the station right now — right this instant! Everything is hanging on a thread, you must do this if you don't want to lose everything at once!
Then the railway worker runs over and helps me back to my feet. He takes a large, brown check handkerchief out of his pocket and wipes the sweat from my forehead.
"If I were you I'd go have a stiff drink to get your strength back!" He tells me and taps his forehead as if to say, crazy old woman, jumping off a train like that!
But I had to jump, I absolutely had to jump because a train is coming, bringing someone. Outwardly, I simply smile with a mixture of gratitude and guilt.
I feel dizzy. I remember that I haven't had anything to eat all day except a couple slices of bread and a few sips of tea.
I am sitting at a table, drinking hot chocolate. The warmth spreads through my body, right down to the tips of my toes. For a long time now, I have learned to ignore cigarette and cigar smoke, and the reek of piled-up ashtrays in the Prague cafés. But noise is quite another matter. I can't escape seated men with their glasses of beer in their hands, shouting. The only soft voices here in the café are those of lovers saying goodbye to each other. The noise is so deafening that I can't even recognize music they're playing. I can only hear mad, pounding music. Again, I savor my warm, comforting potion.
My hair! I am flustered. My bun must have come apart when I jumped from the train. I pat it, everything seems to be in place. Now I run my fingers over the pearls adorning my ears and my body fills with joy. I adjust the raincoat collar, caressing the fabric, which has grown old with me. It is too light for this April weather, but I don't care. It's so elegant! I run my fingers over it once again: the pearls and the hair and the raincoat, my beloved things ...
The café is as jam packed as my own head. Snippets of sentences and smatterings of sensations and some piecemeal images swarm, all taken from my life, which has lasted a thousand years. Two young girls sit at my table and whisper into each other's ears. I keep smiling: they are pretty, they must be exchanging secrets about men, and I could surely compare their experiences with my own memories of the time when I was as young as they are now.
But my train! What if I were to miss the train I'm waiting for? I am horrified. But the possibility that I might overhear the girls' conversation is so tempting! Just a second and then I'll be off, I promise myself.
The girls talk in whispers and I can't catch a word of what they say. They murmur into each other's ears, then burst out laughing. From time to time, they look at me. I do not attempt to read their lips; they would notice that.
This art deco café is as old as I am. Maybe I'm older, even. It's covered in huge mosaics from the period of independence, representing flowers and girls. This girl over here is spring. And that one? No, she's not summer; she's Phaedra, the enigmatic one, like these two young ladies, like I had once been, and as I perhaps still am for the man who — while I savor hot chocolate in a café and listen to the romantic secrets of two girls — is racing toward Prague in an express train, combing his hair, if he still has any, who at all events is standing up and sitting down again and standing up once more. Oh, how restless he is! I smile.
All men used to get a little nervous in my presence. They're dead now.
We lose, and then we are lost to our loved ones. My loved ones have died. As someone once said, the dead live only in the memory of the living if, when they were alive, they proved themselves worthy of being remembered. Is that true? No. I don't think so. Their memory will live as long as I do, no matter what kind of people they were.
They have died, the women and men in my life: my mother and grandmother, my husband and my father, and the elegant Bruno Singer. Did they think of me before they died? Maybe they did. Or perhaps not. Does it matter at all? The only thing worth knowing is that in my own memory they have remained intact. The lives of the dead live on in the memory of the living.
And the living? There are only a few left to me. The man in the express train is racing toward the sign that reads, Prague Central Station, which I can see through the window. The man is perhaps entering Prague right now. It is time to go and see if his train has arrived. It is due at platform six which is quite a walk from the station café. With all this noise I can't hear the loudspeakers.
What's happened? Has the sun come out?
A velvety baritone voice has made its presence felt and is now spreading through the café. It expelled the reek and noise and bad language. This male voice is dancing a mazurka on tiptoes. It descends all of a sudden to a low register, then floats up again like summer clouds over a meadow, only to descend once more to melancholy depths.
"Your hot chocolate, madam," a waiter is smiling at me.
I don't remember having ordered another one.
"Where did it come from ... the music?"
"Schubert, do you mean?" the waiter says, so softly I have trouble making out his words, "I put it on just for a little while. It's 'An Sylvia,' which I like a lot," and he smiles apologetically, or so it seems, and I have a feeling he's blushing.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Silent Woman"
by .
Copyright © 2014 Feminist Press.
Excerpted by permission of Feminist Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Front Cover,
Title page,
Copyright page,
Table of Contents,
Foreword,
I. Sylva,
II. Sylva,
III. Jan,
IV. Sylva,
V. Jan,
VI. Sylva,
VII. Jan,
VIII. Sylva,
IX. Jan,
X. Sylva,
XI. Jan,
XII. Sylva,
XIII. Jan,
XIV. Sylva,
About the Author,
About the Feminist Press,
Also Available from the Feminist Press,