Magda found herself taking Eliška outdoors as often as possible. They played games of Pesek or hide-and-seek. Sometimes she created a treasure hunt and hid messages in a hollowed-out knot in one of the cedars. Eliška would discover pictures or just shapes and colors with instructions to find things around the grounds that matched them best: flower petals, leaves, plants, sticks of wood, pinecones, or rocks. Magda planted the hints while Eliška slept. It was also usually at that time that Aleš and Walter cooled off by the pool. Magda had learned that Walter was a competitive swimmer and regional champion.
During her time with the Taubers, Magda had paid little attention to what went on in the deer park. The animals were a curiosity, but the wildlife management itself was a mystery to her. It was really something the very wealthy or avid sportsmen did. But the Taubers were not interested in hunting, though once a year they organized a party for their friends and political connections.
Sporadically, Magda asked Renata or Jana questions about it, but not much escaped the housekeeper. Renata had all the fodder she needed. As soon as Walter and Aleš stopped working and came in for a meal, Renata listed out Magda’s questions: Magda wanted to know how you get the deer into the pen come winter. Magda wanted to know why we keep them at all. Magda wanted to know if you wanted her to come out and help you prune the vines. Magda wanted to know…
Magda found a reason to flee the room as soon as Renata started.
“Why ask at all if you don’t want to hear the boy talk?” Jana chided Magda later.
“I think he would much prefer talking to you than to me,” Renata said.
Magda’s neck felt hot. She was not like Renata. The groundskeeper and Renata were no secret affair, and if it was supposed to be a secret, they certainly were no good at hiding it. Once in a while, on the third floor where Magda shared a room with Jana, she heard Renata’s deep chuckling through the bedroom wall and knew that Aleš had popped in.
Whereas the two were solidly proportionate to one another in character, Aleš and Renata were wholly mismatched in physical features. Renata was a tall, big-boned twenty-six-year-old Slovakian with a head of dark curly hair. Aleš, half a foot shorter than Renata, had a receded hairline. He was a compact Czech, rooted to nature, and had fourteen years of experience over Renata. He was the kind of man, Renata once laughed, about whom fairy tales were never written and, therefore, a man she could depend on.
“Aleš”—she had winked—“gets things done.”
Only later did Magda learn that Aleš had been a commander in the Czechoslovakian army. He’d been posted across the river at Theresienstadt when the Wehrmacht arrived to demobilize the local guard. His youngest brother, Gabriel, was in the seminary, another thing Renata teased him about—how could such a devilish man be related to such a humble sibling?
Magda slowly gathered the stories about the others in the house. Jana, whose Prussian husband had died in the Great War, left her home in Berlin to take care of her dying mother and never left again. Renata was more mysterious. Magda imagined she was running away from a dark secret she’d left behind back east. Sometimes she would catch Renata daydreaming, a sheen of sadness draped around her. But if she caught Magda watching her, she became brusque and used her feather duster to swat Magda’s subtle queries away. It seemed, Magda decided, the Taubers’ help were all taking refuge in this house on the hill.
One drizzling day, the temperatures dropped to an unseasonable low. Jana sent Magda to fetch wood, saying she would heat the main rooms before Dr. Tauber returned from his shift at the hospital.
The pile was outside the service door, and Magda caught sight of Aleš and Walter returning from the stable. She hurried back into the kitchen, quickly gathering up a plate of biscuits to make it look as if she’d at least had a reason to leave when they appeared.
Jana came out of the pantry. “What do you think you’re doing with those?” She playfully smacked Magda’s hand and almost made the biscuits slide off the plate. “Those are for Frau Tauber’s coffee guests this afternoon.”
Magda reddened. “I thought I’d bring some to Eliška.”
“Bring some to Eliška,” Jana tutted. “Bring some to Eliška, I bet. Look at you. Since you came to work here, you’ve put on weight. Be careful, or you’ll be round and fat like an old farmer’s wife.”
Magda replaced the plate onto the table. She understood Jana was teasing, but it still stung. When Walter and Aleš appeared, Magda quickly hid her face in the palm of her hand.
“Are you harassing the staff again?” Aleš said to Jana. “Look, Walter. Jana’s baked for us. How sweet.”
He swiped three from the plate and offered one each to Walter and to Magda before popping the third one into his mouth. “Very sweet,” he said through his mouthful. He took the wood out of Jana’s arms, and Jana chased after him with a diatribe on how she’d have to bake all day to keep up with their pilfering.
Magda stood alone in the kitchen with Walter.
“Aren’t you going to eat that?” he asked.
She ducked her head and weighed the biscuit in her hand.
“You may as well. You’ve already touched it.” He took a bite of his. “These are good. Where did Jana get anis?”
Magda sniffed hers. Anis. That was what the scent was. “She has her connections.”
“Is that right?” Walter looked amused. His eyes were a pale green. “So you do speak.”
She bit into the biscuit.
“Renata says you’re interested in the deer management,” Walter said matter of factly. “It’s mostly Aleš’s doing. His father used to work here before the Taubers moved in. Dr. Tauber decided to keep doing it because it helps the deer through the winter, but also because Frau
