Read Online The Twelve Little Cakes by Dominika Dery - Free Book Online Page B

the house before winter, but maybe we can find you a nice baby-sitter who could read to you during the daytime. Would you like that?”
    â€œMaybe,” I said. “But I like it most when you read to me.”
    â€œI know,” my mother sighed.
    JUST BEFORE THE COURT APPEAL, my mother had come to an arrangement with her bosses at the Economic Institute: she was allowed to write her books at home as a small compensation for them taking credit for her work. My mother hated writing these books. There was a great deal of pressure to alter her statistics and make the Soviet economy look better than it was. But she refused to do this. Instead, she presented the statistics and her analysis in such a way that if you weren’t reading closely, you might think that the numbers were favorable, but upon careful inspection, you would see the statistics for what they really were. (In April 1985, an American journal called Soviet Studies quoted several of her books, referring to them as some of the most reliable sources of information about the Soviet economy on record.) Writing these books was very hard work, and whenever a deadline loomed, my mother would become too busy to look after me. Klara was at school, and the local kindergartens were overflowing with baby-boom children, so my parents started looking around for someone to babysit me. They eventually found an old Austrian woman who agreed to take care of me for not much money.
    The old woman’s name was Mrs. Habova, and I was very excited when she first appeared at our house, because she looked a little bit like Auntie Mary. She was tiny and wrinkled, with gray hair, thick glasses, and an even thicker accent, and she seemed as enthusiastic about having me in her life as I was about having her in mine. Her husband had recently died and her children had all grown up, so she was delighted to have a little girl to look after. The problem was, she was terribly strict. I had to call her Oma, which means “Granny” in German, and she would turn up at nine o’clock every morning and cook me a runny egg for breakfast. I didn’t like runny eggs and I didn’t like speaking German, but Oma Habova seemed determined to try and raise me the same way she had raised her own children, which was with an emphasis on discipline and timing. Every day was carefully planned, and every mouthful I ate and every breath I took seemed to be incorporated into Oma’s schedule.
    â€œMein Zwergelchen, es is zu spät!” she would fret while I poked my egg with a spoon. “Los los, du musst schneller essen!” (“My little dwarf, it is too late. . . . Hurry up—you must eat faster.”)
    I would screw up my face and force myself to eat the egg, and then we would go outside for a walk. I loved going for walks, especially in the spring and especially when I could persuade Oma to take me into the forest. Our street ended in a cul-de-sac at the very edge of the forest, and there was a lovely walking track that Oma would sometimes take me down. The forest was completely untouched, so, along with the owls and badgers and pine martens, there were also deer and foxes. The smell of rotten oak leaves and pine sap was wonderful, and we could walk for about a kilometer before the track curved around the side of the mountain and there was a steep ravine on one side. Whenever we came to the ravine, Oma would take my hand and lead me back to the street.
    â€œBut can’t we keep going?” I would protest. “I like it up here. I’ll be careful, Oma, I promise!”
    â€œI know you will, Zwergelchen ,” she would say. “But we can’t go any farther because of the wolf.”
    â€œThe wolf?” I would ask.
    â€œThe wolf who lives in the ravine,” Oma would tell me. “He’s very hungry, and he likes nothing more than to eat little girls and boys who disobey their grandmothers.”
    â€œIs he the same wolf as the wolf