Little Nothing Read Free

wet sheets and Václav’s undershirts in her muscular hands, and make the soap that she sells at themarket. Agáta heats the rendered cooking fat then mixes it with lye that she makes using ashes from the hearth. The blue glass bottle in which she stores the poison catches the sunlight and Pavla’s attention so that the very first object she attempts to grasp is this ephemeral cobalt sparkle. Then Agáta stirs and stirs and stirs, stripping off her sweater, then her apron, then her shirt, then her skirt, until she is down to her underclothes. Her skin drips with sweat, her arms and breasts and stomach shake with her exertions. Of course, Pavla knows nothing of rendered fat or lye or the laborious process of making soap, or that her mother drops chamomile flowers or rose petals into her molds because with this small, inexpensive effort, her soaps can fetch a few more coins at the market. But what she does understand is that her mother is a digger, yanker, wringer, twister, and an aggressive and sometimes angry stirrer, and so is somewhat relieved to be left alone. Pavla also observes her mother in the rare moments when the potatoes are boiling and the laundry is hung and there is no fault in the world of her home that she must immediately attack and remedy. Then Agáta will stand next to the open window without moving, barely breathing, as if the wind that charges her hours and days has unexpectedly died down and she has been left stranded in the incomprehensible sea of her life, suddenly aware that she has no purpose except to avoid the one that is staring at her though the bars of the crib. To counter her creeping terror, Agáta tells stories. She speaks not to her audience but to herself, the sound and memory of the old fairy tales as soothing as the bit of worn, soft chamois cloth she carried in her pocket when she was a girl and that she rubbedbetween her thumb and forefinger when her mother first told her these same stories, the bit of cloth she kept hidden for so many years in a small wooden box, intending to pass down the comfort to her own child. But now, this sentiment seems foolish. Maybe it is even the cause of her heartbreak, because everyone knows it is bad luck to second-guess fate.
    In the Land of Pranksters there reigned a king . . . There once lived a poor, penniless man, truly a pauper . . . A good many years back it must be since the goblin used to dwell on Crow Mountain . . .
and the story she tells again and again, the one that little Pavla, even though she cannot yet understand it, will remember all her life:
    Once there was an old grandfather who went to work in his field. When he got there, he saw that an enormous turnip was growing there. He pulled and pulled, but he could not yank the turnip out of the ground, so he called his old wife. The man held onto the turnip and his wife held onto him and they pulled and pulled, but still, they could not pull the turnip from the ground. So they called their little granddaughter. The grandpa held onto the turnip and the grandma held onto the grandpa and the granddaughter held onto the grandma and they pulled, but still no luck. And so they called their dog. And the dog held onto the granddaughter and the granddaughter held onto the grandmother and the grandmother held onto the grandfather, who pulled the turnip, but still nothing. And so they called their kitty, who got in the back of the line and pulled the dog, but the turnip wouldn’t budge. Suddenly, they heard a little voice coming from a hole in the ground. It was the voice of a mouse. The grandfather said, “Oh, little mouse, you do not have the strength to help us,” but the grandmother said, “Let her help us if she wants to.” So the grandfather heldonto the turnip and the grandmother held onto the grandfather and the granddaughter held onto the grandmother and the dog held onto the granddaughter and the kitty held onto the dog and the