The Drowning Of A Goldfish Read Free Page A

self-esteem, when I was subjected to the howling of thick-boned Valkyries, outfitted in the loathsome brown uniforms of “Bund Deutscher Mädel” (the Nazi organization for young girls), especially brought in to present to us, the “slawischen Unterrasse” (Slavic degenerates), the Aryan ideal in its absolute form.
    I still hear the stridence of cloth ripped apart, and I still shiver at the memory of the touch of their sharpened claws tearing up my gymnastic shirt as they reached out to crush me.
    Yet, I could have avoided this affront to my dignity, this trauma, this wound forever opened, if I had been able to overcome my repulsion and the panic which engulfed me at each contact with the world of my grandmother. I could have accepted my father’s proposal to enroll me in the Vyšší dívčí, a private school for Daddy’s little girls, a breeding ground for distinguished and elegant spouses, if I had had more confidence in him, if I had been able to understand that it was a way out, not a trap.
    Vyšší dívčí was established in the second half of the 19th century as the first secondary school for girls by EliÅ¡ka Krásnohorská, writer and librettist of the composer Bedřich Smetana.
    Krásnohorská knew only too well what it means to be an intelligent woman in a society which excluded her from any serious education. To make her project happen, she needed all her energy and all her courage. Labelled as a blue-stocking by these gentlemen and ladies of years gone by (the ladies and gentlemen of our time would call her “this high-flown bitch in dire need to be laid”) she was vilified as a suffragette. Grandmother, who had a very vague idea of the significance of this frightening word, explained to me that it referred to a woman who had degraded herself to such an extent that she no longer wished to care for her husband and children and having nothing better to do, would roam at night, sometimes even with men of questionable reputation. Poor as a church mouse, suffering from rheumatism which inhibited her from holding a pen in her deformed hands, EliÅ¡ka Krásnohorská nevertheless succeeded in gathering around her the best minds of the nation.
    The “crème de la crème” of the Czech intelligentsia made it a point of honor to teach at her school. She knew how to win over musicians, poets, and scientists. The students were worthy of these teachers, proving as knowledgeable as men. This led to demands for equal access to education for women.
    In 1918, when equality of education had been passed as a law, Vyšší dívčí lost its raison d’être. It only offered education up to the 6th grade and thus their students were excluded from entering universities, which required eight grades.
    With time, Vyšší dívčí became a sort of finishing school, where young ladies of the well-to-do bourgeoisie received a wordly education that taught them how to entertain the distinguished and successful in their salons. I suspect that Father wanted to enroll me there because he harbored the ambition of eventually finding a son-in-law who could later become a partner in his banking business for which his daughter showed so little inclination. I am certain that my will was as strong as his though, and I would be the one to decide on a spouse.
    Vyšší dívčí, as a private school, was not directly controlled by the state, and the state, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, meant the Nazis.
    The entrance requirements were, as far as I was concerned, acceptable: I needed to have completed five grades of primary school and to pass an examination, proving that I was capable of logical thinking.
    Father needed to pay the annual fee. After my ordeal and rejection at the high school, I found this arrangement acceptable.
    In spite of myself, I became one of “them”—a student! To prefer a little