From the Balcony
A moment with Otakar and Oli
Little Oli looked out the window of the second-floor balcony on the moat side of the castle. The slice of sight of a stone Madonna with three kings bent at her feet was visible.
Sitting across from her at the breakfast table, Oli’s father, the Baron Von Herrenritt, had just lit his handsomely carved stag hornpipe and was now gesturing at Oli’s unfinished breakfast of scrambled eggs with cheese.
Why don’t you eat? What’s the matter with you Olinka? You will waste away.”
Skinny Oli shrugged and smirked, her huge blue eyes beamed love. Mimicking a cupie doll she cocked her pretty head and balanced a grin upon her thin nine-year-old frame. Seated uncomfortably in a white taffeta dress with frills and black buckle shoes, she recomposed, flattened her hand against her chest and then looking around the floor, pointed under the table.
“My shoes are black papa.”
Comically, her father jolted upright and lifting the lace table cloth, looked under the table and gasped. “Ohhh?! I see Olinka! White dress and black shoes! What are you going to do?!”
Oli watched her father raise his head from under the table and when his smile met hers she shrugged and shook her head. “I don’t know papa, I don’t know.”
“Do you think little girls with black shoes shouldn’t eat their breakfasts?”
Oli? Oli?
Oli listened to her father call her, but couldn’t answer. Her ears rang and the balcony took a bright blue cast; the walls narrowed around Oli and she saw a woman, grinning, dressed in medieval clothes appear next to her father, and place a slender hand along his shoulders.
“Papa, she’s here again. The princess is standing to your right. She is resting her hand on your shoulders, and she’s smiling, ” Oli said.
The ghost smiled at Oli and Oli nodded and winked.
Oli, my mother, remembers as a little girl, watching my grandmother sit at a mirror and seeing in its reflection, my grandfather hugging and kissing Bozena. My mother didn’t understand until 2002, that my grandfather had been in love with someone else.
The place is the castle Kosatky, about 45 minutes north of Prague, Czech Republic- this is my mother’s birthplace and home to my grandparents, mother, my two aunts, the maids, dogs, horses, and the ghost mother searching for her child.
The castle or Stamek Kosatky was built in the 14th century by the Weitmuhl royalty.
It was the retreat for the pre and post World War Two Czech Psychic and Intellectual Circle formed by my grandfather Baron Otakar Capek, author, and publisher of the journal Psyche and his business partner and spiritual teacher, Jewish mystic Karel Weinfurter, author of the Burning Bush or the Mystical Way.
Weinfurter’s wife, Bozena, was my grandfather’s life love and soul mate. It seems, while married to Weinfurter, Bozena was also my grandfather’s lover and this relationship was condoned by all adults affected. My grandfather Otakar later married Bosena after Weinfurter’s death in 1942, near WWII’s ending.
My mother upon returning to the castle in 2002, two years before her death, was bluntly pained by the truths I just described. She had idolized my grandfather but knew little of him. Her hope to return to him after being separated by the Nazi invasion is what kept her alive.
My grandfather’s relationship with Bozena harmed the women of the family, and I, perhaps supporting his decision to live for love, cannot understand his neglect of his daughters, and lack of sensitivity for my grandmother.
I am sure my grandmother Maria Capkova was desperately hurt by what seemed to be a betrayal of love and marriage.
Oli’s family history- Olga Milada Rosalia Marie Capkova
Born January 6, 1927
Alphonse Zelinka baptized Oli February 27 at Kastle Kosatky
Oli’s Mother Marie Danda born July 21 1905
— — Marie’s father (Gotlub Danda of Austria)
Locovicz estate auber mehoniz on iser
— -Marie’s Mother Milada Danda nee’ Brochler
from Kotznavitz district Muschengrut Austria
Oli’s father Otakar Capek born March 26 1893
