Via Prague

'James, you have three days ...'
Don't ask me what he meant by this. I'm not sure either. Our conversation was like so many I have these days, a mixture of something like English and Czech, and another language I still don't undertstand.
What did Tweedy say? Do you always have to understand me?
Right. That's what I tried to say. This was this evening, and it suddenly hit me, a headline I'd caught on the BBC just before leaving the flat for Pavels. 'Pakistan ex-president Bhutto assasinated.'
We were just watching a few James Bond films, talking about each others' Christmases. Islam, the cook, is from Bangladesh. He made me a special variation on the Czechs' traditional Yuletide meal, carp, in that he added curry to the wonderfully sweet river fish. Islam is about my age, but has a wife and daughter living in Bangladesh. He's a really cool guy, and is working here to save enough money to go back home and open a granite mining business. Islam reckons he needs one more year and he'll have the money, but this Christmas was particularly painful for him, since he misses his wife and daughter terribly.
He doesn't drink, part of his faith, but when he's not busy, Islam comes out and sits with me. Sometimes we're the only two foreigners in the place. 'I don't like Bush,' he once told me. 'But American people, I think are good.'
One evening we sat and talked.
'You must come to India,' he said.
'India?'
'Yes, you must come.'
'Where in India?' I asked.
He smiled.
'Anywhere.'
Tonight Pavels was really slow. Most people are still away with family for the holidays. But Pavel greeted me warmly and I recognized a few other people from the neighborhood. Then Islam came out from the kitchen and sat down for a while and we had our talk. We usually don't talk much, but we don't have to. That's what we like about each other I think. We just sit together, me with my beer and cigarette and Islam just relaxed, and a movie showing on the TV (it's a kinokavarna or movie cafe, after all). And after some time, Islam gets up, pats me on the shoulder and says he'll be back.
Sometimes, especially after he's done me up with an especially tasty meal, I go back to the kitchen and see Islam. He's back there by himself (I think he has a day job, so Pavels I suspect is a time to relax but I'm not sure) on the computer, waiting until Pavel comes back with an order.
Well, tonight I was sitting with some people when I suddenly remembered the BBC story about Bhutto's assasination.
'Pakistan -- ex-president Bhutto,' I said to a drinking companion, in my excrable Czech.
The Czech guy, who said his name was Jeremy (translated), was dazed by my comment, but then half-comprehended and shrugged.
'Moment,' I said. I went up to the bar and repeated the announcement to Pavel. He didn't know about it.
'Really?' he answered, in English. 'And who did it?'
Pavel told me to ask Islam.
So I went back to the kitchen, remembering to knock first. Islam, who was at the computer, waved me in.
'Did you hear about Bhutto?' I cried. I don't know why suddenly I was so moved.
Islam met my eyes.
'I know,' he said.
We sat down together at the computer. He was looking at a news website, the news in a language I couldn't understand, but I guessed by the symbols, to be Eastern.
Islam clicked on an English news website, and we looked at the terrible headline together.
'She was shot in the neck and chest,' Islam said.
' -- and then a bomb! I enjoined.
We recounted the story together in a whirl of desperate and confused words.
'Who do you think did it?' I asked.
'Taliban, Al Queda,' Islam said. He looked at me with commiseration.
'We are not all this way,' he said.
'Extremists?'
He didn't understand at first. I repeated and he sort of nodded.
Pavel came back to place an order. We showed him the news. He leaned forward, talked with Islam. I thought it might be better to show it in Czech, so I told Islam to go to ceskenoviny.cz. He didn't know it, so I typed it in. Pavel had to get back to the bar.
'I will show you,' I said.
'I will be back,' Pavel said.
Later Pavel did go back, but I was already at my seat in the bar again so I don't know if he read about it. We all settled in and watched a second James Bond film, The Living Daylights, with Timonthy Dalton. Somebody passed me a joint, and more beers were ordered. Then suddenly it was nearly 11 and I was tired. A Czech guy, whose face was familiar, was at the next table. He was pony-tailed, with a chiseled face and withdrawn manner. I only met him because the people at the next table passed me a joint and on principle I had passed it on to him.
We got entangled in some obscure remote discussion, and I found myself being confronted by the stranger on the question of existence, or God, or eomething grandiose. And I said something, in gestures, like, I don't think, I know.
'So you believe?' he said.
I said yes. That day I'd been re-reading some Maugham and mentioned Brahma and Siva and Visnu (hope I got those remotely right), the Creator, Preserver and Destroyer, the eternal distractions from the Self. I don't want to be one with the absolute, said Larry, I will risk any privation, hardship or sorrow, to go on to the next life, to keep on living. And I suddenly agreed.
'So you believe?' my bar acquaintence repeated.
'I don't believe, I know,' I said, thumping my chest for effect.
To my surprise, he relented. You see, Czechs, because of Communism, are by vast majority atheistic, and I was expecting that the guy was just baiting me (you get that sometimes). I was waiting for him to laugh and proclaim to everyone in the bar what a typical American idiot he was sitting next to.
But he didn't do that. He sort of bent his head down, relented.
'Ah, you are a real man,' he said. And he repeated it.
I was surprised and flattered, and of course a bit drunk. I think he asked how long I'd been here. Three years, I said at any rate. I told him of my upcoming trip to Paris.
'Paris?' he asked. 'I think you shoudl be here.'
'I am here,' I returned. 'I've been here three years.'
'Three years.'
We talked of some other things but I've forgotten. Suddenly he turned and proclaimed:
'You have three days.'
'What?'
'You have three days.'
'Three days?'
I paid my bill and left.
What does all this have to do with the murder of Bhutto? I have no fucking idea. But there is something happening, a seismic trembling or manuever, a flutter of wings, an unexpected sigh from a beautiful girl. Will it get worse? A bude hur, as Czechs would ask? Don't ask me. But at the moment, I have a feeling things are bad. Bhutto -- shot in the neck and chest, and then a bomb exploded. Somebody really wants to stop what she has to say evidently. Evidently somebody wanted her dead really bad. Why?
Maybe she was saying something worth hearing.