Viewing the sketch by Marta Pavelcova which was given to us as a present by Jana Holla (wife of Jan Holly, Tekla’s son, Janko’s father Viktor’s favourite sister) one can feel the poverty-stricken house under the straw roof.
1964. It was the year when Jana and Marta were 15, went to the same school in Bratislava, visited the same class.
The girls were good friends, both inquisitive and adventurous. One of them was after drawing, taking lessons in painting in Germany, the other one was more interested in history and grammar. They were teenagers, Marta and Jana.
The incredibly luminous Bratislava summer was in 1964, unruly in its generosity, brightened the sky, the land, and the river Danube. The bodies of two half-naked little boys, running beside them, were dark like chocolate. The lucky little boys! They did not know yet how difficult to study and help their families to work earning some money for living after school. The boys could run bare-footed and splash in the river.
And then two young girls, walking under one multi-coloured umbrella, rushed toward them, both blond and wearing light flowered dresses.
Marta could not really see the properly. Her impaired eye, affected by the bright sun, already ceased to distinguish the details and was watering. With a furtive, so as not to attract attention, she knocked off the tears. So be it! Some enjoy summer swimming, some need to study and work at the present time. For each is its own.
Marta opened her sketch book and started to draw. Jana was fond of Marta’s aketches. One dat her friend gave her as a gift this one “The Slovak Village” to be presented to us 45 years later during our first visit to Male Levare in 2009.
Memory takes us back that time when we were sitting on the bench as, perhaps, those two girls, Marta and Jana, near the Bratislava fortress castle, watching from above the Danube river flowing calmly and graciously.
The city pigeons were in abundance. We began to search in our empty pockets. I shook out some bread crumbs, onto the palm of my right hand; and then I began to throw them onto the asphalt, tempting pigeons who were strolling on the square.
A bold rock pigeon, with a sparrow’s energy, fluttered over to the bench, and stealing up sideways right up to my legs, began to peck at the crumbs.
The shadow which unexpectedly fell on the bird had frightened it. Madly beating its wings, the rock pigeon went up with a creaking sound, spinning away from us…
The small cute drawing by Marta Pavelcova, Jana’s school mate from Bratislava, found its new dignified home at our Mucha salon.
Listen to: MISTRINANKA, Mamko vam