Read Online The Glass Room by Simon Mawer - Free Book Online Page B

responsibilities.’
    ‘As long as she is also conscious of her irresponsibilities.’
    The ceremony — a small, private event limited to family members and the godparents — took place in the Church of the Minorites on Jánská, with Ottilie all in white silk and her godmother Hana Hanáková all in black. They made a beautiful pair at the font, the one small and round, innocent and soft, the other tall and sharp, worldly wise and hard. Viktor stood in the background with Hana’s husband. ‘She’s beautiful, isn’t she?’ Oskar whispered in his ear, but it was unclear whether he was talking about the baby or about his own wife. The priest mumbled Latin words and leaned down towards the baby as though to take a bite from her breast. He was, so Oskar explained, breathing on her to drive the devil out. Hana had explained the whole ceremony to him.
    ‘Is the devil
in
her then? That seems ridiculous. She’s just a baby. Barely capable of focusing her eyes on anyone, never mind harbouring the devil.’ The absurd ceremony reminded Viktor of his own childhood, of being dragged to synagogue at Passover and Yom Kippur, of the impenetrable ritual and incomprehensible language. His father had always remained aloof from such things, while his mother had been the driving force behind the family’s religion. Now, perhaps, Liesel was doing the same with his new family. ‘It’s pure nonsense,’ he whispered to Oskar. ‘Surely mankind is intrinsically good, not intrinsically bad.’
    Oskar could barely suppress a laugh. ‘Mankind intrinsically good? Where were you during the war, Viktor?’
    After the ceremony a small reception was held in a hotel nearby. The women crowded round the baby. Cousins and aunts exclaimed at the wonders of babyhood and how the daughter resembled her mother and how good she was, while Viktor and Oskar talked of things that occupied the minds of men, matters of the stock market, questions of economics and business. Hana came over, momentarily relieved of her duties as godmother. ‘I must congratulate you on my lovely goddaughter, Viktor,’ she said. ‘Never was there a more beautiful baby.’
    ‘My contribution was minimal.’
    ‘But vital.’
    She put her arm through her husband’s and bent and kissed him on his bald head. ‘You couldn’t go and find my cigarettes could you, darling?’ she asked. ‘I left my bag somewhere …’
    He went off obediently, leaving Viktor and Hana together. ‘I know you don’t like me, Viktor,’ she said.
    ‘Don’t be absurd. Why should you think something like that?’
    She laughed his protest away. Perhaps the champagne had loosened her tongue. ‘Don’t
you
be absurd. I know you don’t like me. You even stopped Liesel naming the baby after me. And truth to tell, I don’t much like you. But let me assure you, there are two things that I love above all. One is your wife and the other is your daughter. I will do all in my power to cherish and protect them both.’
    Viktor sipped champagne. Ottilie’s patience, already strained by oil and water and being breathed on by the priest, had finally snapped at the unwarranted attentions of the photographer. She began to cry. Women gathered round to coo and cluck. ‘Cherishing is fine,’ Viktor said to Hana. ‘I hope that protection won’t be necessary.’
     
Onyx
     
    The house grew, the baby grew. The latter was a strange and rapid metamorphosis, punctuated by events of moment: the grasp of her hands, the focus of her eyes, her first smile, her recognition of Liesel and then Viktor, the first time she raised herself on her hands, the first laugh. The growth of the house was more measured: the laying of steel beams, the pouring of concrete, the encapsulating of space. And then delay, problems with materials and the workforce, argument and frustration stretching over the summer and the autumn before things were resolved.
    ‘It happens,’ Viktor said in an unusual display of fatalism. ‘These things