Danuše Ulmannová

“My husband and I went on trips, and when there was dancing in the evening, the trip leader asked my if my husband was a dance master. I stared at her in amazement and said: ‘He’s a farmer! A farmer who ploughs with horses.’ He danced like a god, except I didn’t get to enjoy dancing with him much. The women squabbled over him on the dance floor. Oh, the moves he could do! But whenever someone came to ask me to dance, they just trod on my feet... We always quarrelled on the way home. I danced two numbers with him over the course of the night, while he was on his feet the whole time long, and then he asked me to wish him the dances. I did. As long as he knew where he belonged.”

“We weren’t among the first. Five or six farmers joined the co-op about a year before us. But we didn’t hold out in the end anyway. My husband was often taken away right from the thresher, they questioned him, and there was no one to do the work. He’d return in the night, looking all green... His oldest brother advised: ‘Breťa, be reasonable. You can’t stop it from happening. Your boys won’t even get to study. Sign it and be done with it.’ So he signed it. And joined the Party too. He paid the membership fees, occasionally attended the meetings, but his opinions were different. We fought for a long time, but we couldn’t do it any more. When they took him for questioning twice a week, the work didn’t get done, the horses stood idle... So I said: ‘Do it. But you won’t prevent me from going to church.’”

“I had a daughter. She died of a congenital heart disease, and the head doctor told me straight up: ‘You weren’t able to take it easy. You didn’t pay enough attention to the fact you were expecting a child.’ I don’t know how he recognised it, but he was right. I hadn’t given it any thought. Was there time for that on a farm...? And do you know how I gave birth to Breťa? The midwife had already arrived, and my husband said: ‘Come and milk cows. There’s no point you whimpering here.’ I milked them on Saturday evening, and Sunday at noon I gave birth to my son.”