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Authors: Bruce Machart
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willing to wait," she said. "Catch your breath, dear. I'm afraid this is likely to pain you something terrible."
A T THE PARISH hall, during the two further hours of the old widow Vrana's ministrations, and an hour longer of Sophie's grunting and pushing to expel this thing that had so beset her, Karel Skala would unhinge himself with drink.
It had gone full dark by the time he'd gotten Sophie and the girls over to the Vrana house and settled the little ones into bed. He'd kissed Sophie on the forehead, and the old woman had ushered him out the door as if he were no more welcome there than would have been a common cur. On the path through the thicket, without a lantern, he'd been grateful for the emerging moon, swept clean of the day's clouds by the push of cold weather from the west. It was too cool out for tree frogs, and Karel felt their absence. He'd grown up with the throaty urgency of their chirping, and a walk through woods with only the sounds of nested birds and insects was a fresh reminder of all the little disappointments that conspired to set a man to thinking about greater ones. He stepped quickly, wishing to rid himself of this thicket, and his boots crunched in the brittle leaves and pine needles underfoot until he emerged into the unhindered moonlight.
He was grateful, too, for the sight of the cemetery at the end of the path, for the muted animal sounds within the parish stables, then for the gleam from the hall's lighted windows and the muffled, brassy half step of the music that could be heard as he approached, all of which brought him closer to the promise of soft skin and hard drink.
Just outside the hall doors, Bohumil Novotny stood laughing and passing a half-gallon jug with a pair of boys who, but for the work a blade had done to one of their cheeks, could have each passed for the other. Karel stopped behind the trunk of the giant live oak so he could study them awhile. Judging from their caked work boots and oilcloth coats, they hadn't come for church, and Karel would have bet a dollar against a dime that they weren't yet sixteen. Still, here they stood, running their hands through their dark, closely cropped curls and taking seasoned, deliberate pulls on the jug. They made a habit, these two, of hooking their thumbs in their trouser pockets when they laughed. Karel noticed that they held themselves in the same way, upright and rigid as if they'd been skewered with cedar posts, but when they moved they did so leisurely, with loose-jointed gestures.
As for their company, he was about as complicated as cornbread. Between his feedstore and rail interests, Novotny had amassed as much of a fortune as one could in a town so small as Praha, and he was as well dressed as he was red-faced and overfed. Beneath his tailored and unbuttoned black suitcoat, his shirtfront had been freed from his trousers by the protrusion of his belly, and when he took note of Karel approaching from the shadows, he fell silent and scratched the underside of his down-slung stomach while the young fellows beside him toed the dirt and nodded their greetings.
"Damnation," Karel said. "You men so scared of touching a woman that you'd hide outside in the cold rather than take a turn around the floor?"
Novotny raised his brows at the others and took his handkerchief from his vest pocket to clear his nose. Then he took a pull from the jug and held it up as if raising a toast to something no less impressive than the moonlit sky itself. "I'd let you a drink of this corn here, Karel, if I thought it might quiet you down. Thing is, given your communion-time proclamations, I don't believe the last few drops I give you had that effect."
Inside, the band held the last long note of a schottische, and then came the vigorous applause from the dancers. "A few drops just ain't enough to do the trick is all," Karel said, "but I see you found a bigger portion now that the sun's not out to lay light on it." He nodded at the hall door. "Orchestra
A T THE PARISH hall, during the two further hours of the old widow Vrana's ministrations, and an hour longer of Sophie's grunting and pushing to expel this thing that had so beset her, Karel Skala would unhinge himself with drink.
It had gone full dark by the time he'd gotten Sophie and the girls over to the Vrana house and settled the little ones into bed. He'd kissed Sophie on the forehead, and the old woman had ushered him out the door as if he were no more welcome there than would have been a common cur. On the path through the thicket, without a lantern, he'd been grateful for the emerging moon, swept clean of the day's clouds by the push of cold weather from the west. It was too cool out for tree frogs, and Karel felt their absence. He'd grown up with the throaty urgency of their chirping, and a walk through woods with only the sounds of nested birds and insects was a fresh reminder of all the little disappointments that conspired to set a man to thinking about greater ones. He stepped quickly, wishing to rid himself of this thicket, and his boots crunched in the brittle leaves and pine needles underfoot until he emerged into the unhindered moonlight.
He was grateful, too, for the sight of the cemetery at the end of the path, for the muted animal sounds within the parish stables, then for the gleam from the hall's lighted windows and the muffled, brassy half step of the music that could be heard as he approached, all of which brought him closer to the promise of soft skin and hard drink.
Just outside the hall doors, Bohumil Novotny stood laughing and passing a half-gallon jug with a pair of boys who, but for the work a blade had done to one of their cheeks, could have each passed for the other. Karel stopped behind the trunk of the giant live oak so he could study them awhile. Judging from their caked work boots and oilcloth coats, they hadn't come for church, and Karel would have bet a dollar against a dime that they weren't yet sixteen. Still, here they stood, running their hands through their dark, closely cropped curls and taking seasoned, deliberate pulls on the jug. They made a habit, these two, of hooking their thumbs in their trouser pockets when they laughed. Karel noticed that they held themselves in the same way, upright and rigid as if they'd been skewered with cedar posts, but when they moved they did so leisurely, with loose-jointed gestures.
As for their company, he was about as complicated as cornbread. Between his feedstore and rail interests, Novotny had amassed as much of a fortune as one could in a town so small as Praha, and he was as well dressed as he was red-faced and overfed. Beneath his tailored and unbuttoned black suitcoat, his shirtfront had been freed from his trousers by the protrusion of his belly, and when he took note of Karel approaching from the shadows, he fell silent and scratched the underside of his down-slung stomach while the young fellows beside him toed the dirt and nodded their greetings.
"Damnation," Karel said. "You men so scared of touching a woman that you'd hide outside in the cold rather than take a turn around the floor?"
Novotny raised his brows at the others and took his handkerchief from his vest pocket to clear his nose. Then he took a pull from the jug and held it up as if raising a toast to something no less impressive than the moonlit sky itself. "I'd let you a drink of this corn here, Karel, if I thought it might quiet you down. Thing is, given your communion-time proclamations, I don't believe the last few drops I give you had that effect."
Inside, the band held the last long note of a schottische, and then came the vigorous applause from the dancers. "A few drops just ain't enough to do the trick is all," Karel said, "but I see you found a bigger portion now that the sun's not out to lay light on it." He nodded at the hall door. "Orchestra
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