The Lost Wife by Alyson Richman

no mirror. The only familiar sound was the clink of her old locket falling into the drawer.
    She unbuttoned her housedress without ever speaking. Her naked body ever childlike, even though she had birthed two of her own. Slender, pale limbs, two tiny nipples on a chest that always beat quietly.
    I held her and dreamed of others.
    She let go of me and did the same.

CHAPTER 9
     

LENKA
     
    In Karlovy Vary we packed our bags like mourners dressing for a funeral. None of us wanted to return to the city. Pavla packed us a basket full of sandwiches and small tea cakes along with a thermos of tea.
    The night before, I could not eat a single morsel of dinner. I felt changed by that first swim, the sensation of Josef’s kiss. The memory of his skin, wet and slippery next to mine. How would I ever bear the train ride home with him, with Věruška in the same compartment? I worried as I descended the stairs to find them waiting for me in the hallway and nearly tripped over my feet.
    Věruška giggled. “You can be so clumsy, Lenka, but somehow you always manage to look beautiful.”
    I considered it a strange comment because Věruška was the one who always looked beautiful. Her cheeks were always flushed from some sort of mischief and she was never plagued by shyness. No one could light up a room like Věruška, especially when she was wearing one of her favorite red dresses.
    When I looked at Josef, I could feel the weight of his concern. It would be difficult not to look at each other. Not to touch.
    Once in the car, he pulled out his book, though I never saw him turning more then a few pages. Every few moments I felt his eyes sneaking a glance at me. I attempted weakly to draw, though I failed. I tried to steady my hand as my pencil wobbled from the wheels of the train.
    Both of us welcomed Věruška’s chatter. We listened to her rattle on about the various boys in our class. Tomáš, who was loud and boorish but had a face that could melt stone, or Karl, the quietest boy, who still seemed intelligent and sincere. I had no such archives in my head. There was Josef and no one else.

     
    I had only been gone for two weeks, but when I returned home, everything seemed changed. I walked into a silent apartment. My mother sat on one of the red velvet chairs, her powdered face streaked with tears. My father, hands to his forehead, pressed his elbows against the mantel.
    My sister whispered to me that there had been an incident at Father’s warehouse. A bottle of alcohol with a wick soaked in petrol had been thrown through the glass window, setting the place ablaze. Everything was destroyed. Papa, she whispered, had found everything in ashes. Only one wall remained, and on it, someone had scrawled ŽID. Jew.
    I ran to my mother and embraced her. She held on to me so tightly I thought her nails might tear the cloth from my back.
    “I am so frightened, Lenka,” she cried. I had never heard her voice so full of fear before. That terrified me.
    My father’s hands were now thrust into his hair. His knuckles white as marble, the striations in his neck pulsing blue.
    “We are Czech.” He cried out with anger. “Whoever calls me Žid and not Czech is a liar.”
    “What did the police say?” I asked them. My suitcase was still at the front door and my head was a blaze of images and thoughts I couldn’t sort out.
    “Police?” My father turned, his face turning in a blind rage. “The police, Lenka?”
    And then, just as my mother had surprised me, my father did the same. But this time it was by the insanity of his laugh.

CHAPTER 10
     

JOSEF
     
    I bought a television for Amalia in January of 1956 as a gift for our tenth anniversary. The man at the appliance store had tied it with a large red ribbon and I was so pleased to have found the perfect gift. When I walked through the door that evening, Rebekkah burst out, “Oh, Daddy!” and rushed toward me with such emotion that I was afraid I might drop the darn thing before I even