The Lost Wife Read Online Free Page A

they were. He was so much taller than she, with broad, flat features and a head full of blond hair. I noticed how large his hands were when they reached out to lift Lucie’s veil, and how tiny her face was when he lifted her chin. His kiss was light and thoughtful, so quiet and gentle. I saw Mother take Papa’s hand in hers and smile at him as if remembering their wedding day.
    They left the church for the reception at her parents’ home. It was a rustic farmhouse with exposed beams and a red tile roof. There were crooked apple trees and fragrant pear trees already in bloom in the garden. A white tent had been erected, the poles wrapped with thick yellow ribbon. On a small, makeshift stand, four men sat playing the polka.
    It was the first time I had been to Lucie’s childhood home. She had been with my family for years, yet I knew little of her life outside of the one she shared with us. We were united as tightly as a family, but it was always within our apartment or the city of Prague as the backdrop. Now, for the first time, we were seeing Lucie in her surroundings, with her family and her friends. From the corner of the garden, I gazed at the faces of her sisters and saw how they resembled each other. The small features, the narrow chin, and the high, straight bones in their cheeks and jaw. Lucie and her father were the only ones with black hair, as the rest of the family was fair and blond. They were a loud, noisy bunch compared to us. There were large pitchers of Moravian beer and slivovice —a homemade plum spirit. There were platters of rustic farm food like sauerkraut and sausages, and the traditional dumpling stew.
    Marta and I were clapping and laughing with everyone as a circle formed around Lucie and Petr. We could hear the cheers for the ceremonial plate to be smashed. It was a Czech tradition, not so different from the Jewish one of the groom’s breaking a glass. Unlike the Jewish ritual, though, which symbolized our people’s years of sadness, the Czech one was meant to show the unity of the newly wedded couple. After the plate was broken, Petr was given a broom and Lucie a dustpan, and together they cleaned it up to show their future together.

     
    Lucie only stayed with us a year after she got married. She became pregnant in March, and the daily trip to Prague became too exhausting for her. By this time, Marta was nine years old and I was sending out applications to art school. But we missed her greatly. She would still come to visit at least once a month, her belly popping through the blue velvet cape from Mother that she still dutifully wore. She was round like a little dumpling, her cheeks rosy and her hair glossier than ever.
    “If I have a girl, I will call her Eliška, after you,” she told my mother. The two of them were now united in that secret sisterhood of mothers, with Marta and me looking on from the outside.
    As Lucie’s body changed from her pregnancy, mine finally began changing as well. I had been holding my breath for some time waiting for my body to catch up with the other girls in school—all who seemed to develop before me. That autumn I spent increasingly more time in front of the mirror. I stared at my reflection; the image of the little girl was receding, while a woman’s face and body were coming to the surface. My face, once cushioned with baby fat, was now thinner and more angular, while my body was softer and more curvaceous. In what seemed like a final coup d’état over my body, my breasts seemed to grow several inches overnight and I soon discovered I could no longer close the buttons on some of my blouses.
    Part of me wanted to give in to all these changes, overhauling my appearance completely. I came home one day with a fashion magazine and pointed to a photograph of Greta Garbo. “Please, Mama,” I begged. “Let me bob my hair!” I was rushing to be grown up, my head filled with the idea that I could transform into an American movie star overnight. Mother