EDA KRISEOVA
A Whirl of Witches
Somewhere in ZiZkov there is a square courtyard and in the center stands
a stately chestnut tree. Balconies line the insides of the buildings that
enclose the courtyard, leading straight into the kitchens of the flats.
The candlelike blossoms of the chestnut gave the air a bitter scent as
we walked up the winding stone staircase, and then along wooden stairs to
an attic. Sonya rang the bell at a low, dark door.
It
was quiet for a moment,
wi th only the smell of frying grease wafting under the door. And then it
opened so suddenly that I jumped. A tall, hefty woman stood there in the
dusk, surrounded by the thick smell of broiling fat and onions. Wi th a soft
hand she led me in and gave me a pair of crocheted slippers. I took off my
shoes and removed a bottle of wine from my bag.
"You shouldn't have," the woman said in a deep voice. Her breasts
nudged me as we squeezed past two wardrobes in the hallway and through
to the main room.
It was so smoky in the room that I had trouble distinguishing people
from furniture, and my eyes began to tear. Two women sat at a coffee table
and between them they had cards arranged in one of the basic tarot pat–
terns.
"She's good," Sonya said after she had introduced us. "But you'll see."
Beside the cards stood three upturned coffee cups, and beneath them
three little captured fates. The women drank the coffee, turned the cups
upside down, and tapped three times on the bottom of each cup with a
spoon in order to read the future in the grounds. Radio Star was playing
Moravian folk songs in the background.
"We're glad you came," the hostess welcomed me. "We girls are always
telling each other's fortunes, but it's just not quite the same anymore."
She had a square face and was built as solidly as an anvil. She smiled
broadly, maternally. Everything in the room was tiny: little porcelain dogs,
little vases, little blankets, and the hostess looked like Snow White in the
house of the Seven Dwarfs. Lonely women fuss over objects as they do over
memories. I noticed immediately that the two women sitting in front of
the cards held their pocketbooks on their laps, which is another sign of the
unmarried state.
"She'll tell your fortunes," said Sonya, who had brought me there,
"and you'll see for yourselves how good she is."
