Via Prague

Beyond the A.M. Crowd

Chapter 1

... what time is it?
There was no way of knowing inside the cell. The guards the night before had left the light on inside the cell. 'So we can watch you,' one of the guards said, in Czech and in gestures for my benefit.
I'd fallen asleep. The bed was a cement block, augmented by a thin plastic cushion, and a scratchy wool blanket. There was a hole, a kind of air lock, in the ceiling but it didn't lead outside, so it was impossible to tell if it was morning yet. I lay back, let a half sleep take over. The events of the previous day had still an air of unreality, arriving at the airport, when the security took me into custody. The woman behind the glass at passport control had lingered over the passport after scanning it, a darkness crossed her brow, and I'd' felt something drop inside me. 'What is it?' I asked, trying to sound casual. The other passengers were in line behind me and people were beginning to stare. The woman in back of me yelled something about the delay. Then the woman behind the glass put up a 'Closed' sign in the window and told the people to get in another line. She still had my passport. Then another security guy came, the young guy. He looked at my ticket with a puzzled expression. 'You were on holiday?' he asked.
'Yes.'
'Where?'
'Paris.'
'And you're living in Prague?'
'Yes. Is there some problem?'
'I don't know.' He left, first motioning to another guard to watch me. It was another young woman, with a wry, insulent manner. She kept looking at me and shrugging her shoulders, as though she found the whole business amusing.
A couple of hours went by. The young man returned several times, but still with only vague answers. 'You have some problem with the law,' he said. 'Some papers?'
Of course I knew what he was referring to. Everything I'd been hiding away for the past several months came flooding back.
That was yesterday. They'd eventually taken me to a small room, strip-searched me, made a search of my bags, carefully inventorying everything, so that nothing would be lost or stolen. Then they'd put me in a small cell. The cops were young guys and not bad. They even let me have a couple of cigarettes from my bag. I smoked them in the cell, putting them out in the toilet. One cop even brought me a bottle of water and a packet of paper towels to use as a pillow. I slept for awhile, awaking at one point to hear one of the cops tell me they would come for me at 730. 'You must go downtown,' he said. 'Tomorrow you will have court.'
'Court? But it is only a misunderstanding,' I said. 'The papers --'
'I cannot help you,' the young cop said. 'Tomorrow --'
So now it was tomorrow, or was it still yesterday? Some plain-dressed cops had come to the airport and taken me downtown. They were not bad guys either. They were very interested that I was from America. 'So if I visit,' one of them asked. 'Which place should I go first? New York? They say if you want to see America, visit New York.'
'Sure,' I'd said. 'Or Chicago.'
'Chicago? Yes. And you are from San Francisco?'
'Yes, it's nice too.'
There was some concern when, having done the inventory of my things again, they discovered two cigarettes missing.
'You smoke some?' the one who appeared to be senior asked.
'Yes, they let me,' I said.
There was hurried discussion in Czech. Finally the senior one, with a shrug, pulled two cigarettes out from his own pack, and put them in my pack.
'Sorry, we must handcuff you,' they said, when we rose to go.
With consideration, the senior guy stuffed my jacket over the cuffs, and when we walked through the airport lobby they all spread out to make us look casual. A van was outside at the curb. They put me in the back seat. Then there was the long, dispirited ride through the Prague night. It had snowed since I'd been gone. In Paris it had been like spring. Paris ... already it seemed far away and long ago, as though it had never happened. All of it seemed that way. Herb. He'd sent an email just a few days ago, said Vera was fine. And Marja. You'd sent her an email from Paris and she'd said she wished she was there. And Martin and Philadelphia ... Karel, Hana. Wonder what they're doing now, what they would say if they knew. And the sad thing is it didn't have to happen this way, not at all. One night, one stupid moment. But it wasn't just that.
I went to the door and rang the buzzer. A cop appeared presently.
'Kolik je hodin?'
The officer looked at his watch.
'Sest.' Six o'clock.
'Jak dhoulo budu tady?'
He shrugged.
'Moment.'
He shut the metal door. A few minutes later he came back.
'Nine thirty,' he said. 'You will see the judge.'
A little later the small window on the door opened and a woman brought breakfast. A sandwich -- two lumpy pieces of dry bread with some white stuff smeared in between, and hot tea served in a plastic cup. I ate the sandwich, washed it down with the tea and then lay back down. It was easy to just sleep, that was the best way to make the time pass. Remember writing a piece for the newspaper back in California once, about life in the city jail. It was called, 'Where time stands still.' I remember thinking I was writing from an 'insiders perspective.' Ha! It was impossible to have an insiders perspective on jail unless you are in it against your will, to be deprived of freedom, the feeling cannot be communicated. It can only be felt.
But you did this to yourself, remember. Don't feel tragic or poetic about it. Maybe in three hours it will be all over. I lay back and slept again.

“... It cannot be that it has gone, the yearning that made our blood unquiet, the unknown, the perplexing, the oncoming things, the thousand faces of the future, the melodies from dreams and from books, the whispers and divinations of women; it cannot be that this has vanished in bombardment, in despair, and in brothels ...
“... The life that has borne me through these years is still in my hands and my eyes. Whether I have subdued it, I know not. But so long as it is there it will seek its own way out, heedless of the will that is within me.”
-- All Quiet on the Western Front

“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.”
-- A. Einstein


When I first met Herb Walker he must have been in his early sixties. He’d lived in Prague before, around the time of the 89 revolution, which he covered for UPI. After the revolution he went on to Baghdad to report on the first Gulf War, and eventually returned to DC. The news service folded a few years later. So he took a chance, investing his retirement savings in a cafe in Prague .
The place was called, simply enough, Herb’s, perhaps in self-conscious imitation of Rick’s from Casablanca . It doesn’t matter, for it was a fabulously warm and intimate place, the kind with dark wood-paneled walls on which Herb hung framed photos of people he’d met over the years. There was a picture of a very young Herb standing next to the actress Kim Novak. The picture was taken in the early Sixties at her ranch when Herb was working as a cub reporter at a small Northern California daily. Another picture, taken a decade later, shows him standing with Henry Kissinger, and the photo is signed. My favorite though was a paper napkin in a frame that hung over the entrance, bearing a simple line portrait of Herb, drawn by Pablo Picasso, signed and dated, August 68.
One might assume that Herb would be an imposing and pompous figure, having brushed with such famous people. But I assure you he was not. A beefy, garrulous many he was, with a raspy voice and a big laugh. If I had to paint a portrait of a classic old school newspaperman I think I would pass up Ben Bradley and go with Herb Walker.
He loved food - rich hot spicy and fatty foods. His kitchen was staffed with a handful of easygoing but great cooks, all young guys if I remember. One was a quiet, shy fellow from West Africa . Martin was his name.
Then there was another guy from Fiji . He cooked a feta chicken dish that knocked your socks off. When he came by and saw your astonished face, savoring the sauce with delight, he’d just grin in a modest way like it was an accident, as though he couldn’t help but make such good food.
Downstairs there was a TV with a satellite hookup to watch Chelsea-Man U games, and during the NFL playoffs and Superbowl Herb kept the place open all night, since because of the time difference the games didn’t come on til the wee hours of the morning. During Christmas and New Year’s he threw big parties by invitation only. It was a great feeling to be invited to these parties, for Herb went all out. For the price of about $20 you had a complete five-course dinner with all the trimmings, and free drinks all night and champagne on New Year’s Eve. After the dinner Herb opened the doors to the public and the general all-night party began.
“People need a place to go, all you Prague orphans,” he said to me once. “I don’t mind most of the time. I’d be out anyway if I wasn’t here.”
A great many people passed through the place. Weary travelers, bored pleasure seekers returning from an evening at Nebe or La Clan , English teachers on the bum, lonely writers, and everyone speaking in accents from every corner of the globe. Often they would come in early in the evening for dinner and a starter, then return sometime long after midnight for a last one before bed, and of course end up staying until seven or eight in the morning, which is often when the place closed.
I knew some of the faces and remembered a few names, but most of them I forgot or met again. Herb remembered them all. It was a way he had. My work sometimes forced me to be away for long periods, but when I came back Herb always greeted me as though we’d just finished talking five minutes ago.
At that time I was trying to kick start a freelancing career in Prague, and of course teaching English to pay the bills . Herb always asked how I was getting on, offered advice and encouragement. Occasionally he even poked me in the direction of a story, and if I followed up on it in his casual offhand way he gave it a read, brushed it up a bit and made sure it was put in the proper hands. He still had a few contacts in the Prague English press corps, which even today is a small and rather incestuous lot. The reporters knew him and frequently stopped by for drinks.
But it was not for these favors that I kept coming back. I enjoyed most of all sitting and listening to him as he puffed on a big cigar and sipped a glass of red wine. He allowed himself two glasses in the evening, a concession to Prague ’s imbibed spirit, but other than that he’d stopped drinking ten years ago. I never tired of hearing his stories, the great quotes, the old recollections of personalities, the events he’d witnessed, the places he’d seen.
“Who was the one person you would have liked to interview but didn’t?” I asked him once.
“Charlie Chaplin,” he said. “Without a doubt. A wonderful man, a brilliant artist. A sad story too. Remember Rodney Dangerfield? ‘No respect! No respect!’ I interviewed him many years ago, must have been late Seventies. It was before he started making movies.
“He was a deeply depressed, lonely man. But also an incredibly generous one.”
“He died a while back,” I said, remembering.
“Yes, last year. I met him at a hotel when he was passing through DC on the nightclub circuit. The interview went well and at the end he gave me a card and said if I was ever in New York to look him up. He owned a nightclub in New York then.
“A year or so later I did move to New York . On a whim I called him, thinking he’d never remember me. He answered the phone personally, said ‘Yeah, I remember you. Why don’t you come on down to the club?’ And get this - he sends a car for me, picks me up at my hotel. I’ll never forget it, my first week in New York . Anyway, we get to the nightclub and he’s there and he comes over to the bar, tells the bartender to bring us two Beefeaters. Man, he knew a good drink.”
I can still see Herb laughing as he told the story, and follow the crinkles around the eyes as they transported back to that vanished evening.
I don’t think he missed it - journalism, I mean. Prague , with its warm smoky atmosphere, the cafe, the friendly transience of the people, the good food and the assuring proximity of the past hanging on the walls, seemed to be enough for him. He’d had enough of traveling, and said at his age he didn’t have the digestion or the temperament to keep a night desk editor’s chair warm.
“I can keep this chair warm,” he said. “I come here, meet people. I still like that, meeting people. You have to enjoy that and if you do you don’t lose that. So here I can talk to people without a notebook or tape recorder. No deadlines - and I eat better.”
“Of course I do miss it sometimes,” he said. “Some wonderful people at UPI. But we keep in touch with email. The newsroom. Back when I started, back before computers and health laws, news rooms were these great noisy barnyards. You walk in and the room is covered with a haze of smoke, and there’s the noise of the typewriters and phones ringing off the hook, editors coming out and cussing at the copy desk. It was stressful but exciting too.
“These days I walk into a newsroom and it’s different. Too quiet. Too polite for my taste. The computers are great of course and the Internet. The editors give you a pat on the ass when you screw up instead of fire and brimstone. And everyone’s a lot more sober of course nowadays. I suppose it’s healthier and in a lot of ways the reporting has improved. But to me something’s missing.”
“Would you go back into it if you had to start over now?” I asked once.
Herb shook his head.
“ I’d probably go into business.”

That sounds cynical perhaps. But I don’t think he was bitter or cynical at all. Rather Herb struck me as a romantic. I don’t know how else he could have kept on running the cafe. Living abroad can become lonely and tiresome, even to the youngest and most adventurous. But except for occasional lapses, Herb kept his bearings. How else could he go on, remembering names of sometimes disinterested, jaded tourists, indulgently ignoring the bartenders he knew were overcharging people and splitting it with the cooks, or when the bartenders shamelessly encouraged him to have another drink when they knew it wasn’t good for him? You could admit to yourself that the life he led often strayed from the sentimental vision he was good at conveying most of the time. He got tired sometimes. I suppose you could say, to use the worn-out expression, the world was too much with him.
But I think he was happy.
I never asked much about his wife. They had been married forty years and were still married. She kept their house going back in Virginia until Herb eventually got tired of maintaining the old dream, gave in to old age, and returned home. I do know Herb faithfully flew home to see her a couple weeks out of the year. It was far from my business to pry any further into their relationship, and if I occasionally saw him sitting rather comfortably with some girl, it was no business of mine to think of it as anything more than an aging man’s appreciation of a young woman’s company.
I gathered he and his wife and come to an amicable agreement, and from what he said, I gathered Herb knew too that his time in Prague had to sunset at some point, but for the time being he was entitled to live out the experience for as long as he could fully enjoy it and feel on good terms with himself, and with that breathless, exuberant world that drifted in and out of the cafe.
“The secret to a successful marriage,” he once said. “Is to be a little deaf and dumb - and have frequent periods of long absence.”
He smiled when he said it. I smiled with him.

That year was the Russian winter. In Siberia the Arctic wind dropped temperatures to minus 55. Many died from exposure. I rememember reading that in Moscow the homeless were allowed to sleep in train stations overnight.
It wasn’t quite so drastic in Prague , but the force of the Russian winter made itself known, especially early in the morning and late at night. A thick, hard mantle of ice covered the streets, and a dreary mist hung over the river. The mayor ordered a couple of heated Army tents put up in Letna Park for the homeless.
“Je zima jeko Vrusku,” the Czechs said. Cold like in Russia .
One evening I finished teaching and decided to drop by Herbs. It was quiet when I went in, but it was only just after eight. The Buena Vista Social Club soundtrack was playing from the speakers. Herb sat at a booth with three young women. He looked over and waved.
“Mind if James joins us?” he asked the women.
It was another thing I liked about him; the natural fluid consideration he had for others. In his position I could see myself being clumsy about it.
The girls were from Norway , in town on holiday for a few days. Herb quizzed them politely on the various places they’d visited in Prague . After a little while, they rose, saying they were meeting some friends at a club across town.
“Be sure to stop back by,” Herb said. “We’ll have some live music later. You like jazz?”
“Of course,” said one of the girls, whose name was Teena I think.
“Well, we’re open all night.”
“Maybe we will come.”
“I hope so.”
They exchanged kisses on the cheeks, and with a swishing sound of their heavy coats, the girls were gone.
Herb lit a cigar.
“So what’s happening?” he asked, turning to me.
“Same old.”
“Any luck with stories?”
Not much.” I smiled ruefully.
“You hear the Jewish Museum is gearing up for its 250th anniversary.”
I had heard, or at least seen the posters in the metro stations.
“You might be able to sell it in the States. Try the arts and culture desks. They’ll pay a lot better than what you’ll make here.”
“I think the wire already got it.”
“Did they? Well. Havel ’s heading to the States for a spell, I hear. Some sort of fellowship.”
I was behind the curve as always.
“You know, so many reporters, especially young ones,” Herblooked at me over his cigar. “They walk into a room and the story - the real story, the one they want - is sitting in the corner, or hanging on the wall, or standing nearby. And they miss it. They walk right past it. Do you see that building?”
He pointed over my shoulder and to a building across the street. It was dilapidated, some of the windows were broken.
“You know they’re putting in a hotel over there.”
“Really?”
“That means I’ll be getting more business. May even have to open for breakfast.”
“How did you know about the hotel?” I asked.
“I know the neighbors pretty well. It’s in my interest to know.”
I saw his point.
“Want some advice?” Herb asked. “Get out more. Stay away from the Internet cafes as much as you can. Go to other places. Meet people. And I don’t mean the center either. Leave that to the tourists. No travel editor in the States is interested in Prague stories anymore, unless you have a fresh angle. The Nineties are over. The media have moved on to the next darling. Every week the New York Times spots “the next Prague .” Budapest . Bratislava . Warsaw . You see?”
“So you’re saying Prague ’s a tough sell.”
“Tough. The revolution’s over. It’s an EU nation. A stable, Central European democracy. From a news point of view, it’s about as exciting as Cinncinati. Unless there’s another flood or they get another prime minister. What, have they had two? No, no three. Three the past year. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. It just means you have to be more enterprising. That means getting out and stretching your legs.”
“The elections are this year,” I mused.
“Yeah the Prague press will be all over that.”
“They say the Social Democrats could face a tough battle.”
“Could be. But to be honest, who cares? I think you’d be better off staying away from the politics. People back home don’t want to read about Czech politics. Most Czechs don’t want to read about it, I suspect. Most Americans can’t even find the Czech Republic on a map. But they do know Prague , they know Bohemia . Get out there and learn about the culture, the arts, society. That’s want people want to read about when they think of Prague . But don’t waste your time on some profile piece of, say, Ceske Krumlov. It’s been done to death. Look for new things, surprises, the unexpected. Be curious.”
A handful of tourists came in then, well-groomed, fashionable Israelis.
“I’m going to go say hello,” Herb said. “You’re welcome to join.”
I wanted to, but then remembered I was supposed to meet Mika.
“Be sure to stop back by,” Herb said, waving with his cigar.
Outside the wind seemed to go right through me. It was much colder then than my first winter.

I walked to the National Theater and caught a tram to a pub in Old Town . Mika Habr was already waiting.
“How is Tamara?” I asked, taking a seat.
“Fine, fine, thanks. She is getting really big.” A waitress brought over a pint of Gambrinus.
“And work?”
“The same. Lots of overtime.” Mika worked as a translator for Toyota . We met each week for conversation.
“I hate to ask, but could you loan me 600 crowns? It would be an advance. Sorry, got rent coming up soon.“
Mika reached into his wallet, pulled out three 200 crown notes,and handed them across the table.
“No problem, anytime. I understand. When I lived in Tokyo it was the same for me. By the way, the karate tournament in Rotterdam last week. Everyone there was speaking English and I understood them. So thank you.”
“No, you did it. Tamara must be happy. Every time you meet me for an English lesson you arrive home at midnight.”
“-And drunk!” Mika laughed and lit a cigarette. “Ah, you are lucky. Not married. You can do what you want.”
“How did you know Tamara was the right one?”
“How? Because when I see her for the first time, I said, ‚Oh, shit!‘” Really. When you find the right one, you know your life is finished. So you say, no, no, no! I am free! I want to be free! Not this. You know - Oh, shit!“
“Oh shit?”
“Oh shit.”
We clinked glasses. I always enjoyed talking to Mika because we’re about the same age. In addition to speaking Japanese, English and Czech, he holds a black belt in karate and is well read in politics and history.
“Ah, it’s a good time to be Czech!” Mika said. “Yes, a good time to be Czech. I lived in Tokyo for three years. Before I left Prague , I thought Czech people are so stupid, there is nothing in Czech Republic . But then I went to Japan , too crowded, expensive, people working all the time. I come back to Prague , drink a beer, relax, no problems, no communists, no terrorists.”
“ Prague isn’t exactly a terrorist target.”
Mika laughed.
“Oh course not! No one knows we are here. The terrorists say, ‘ Prague ? Where is that?’”
“So it’s better now,” I said.
“Yes, it is much better.”
“I keep thinking I should go somewhere. China maybe. I could make some money, maybe come back. What do you think, should I go?
“I think you should go,” Mika said. “I think for you Prague is like a starting point. You should go to Japan or China , see more of the world and not just Czech.”

Come over to Chateau, Kyle later that evening.
The Chateau is a really nasty pub, good usually if you want to hang out with busloads of drunken British stags, or else to get a hold of cocaine or Ecstasy from some Algerians who hung out in the bathrooms. There was a basement club downstairs that got really full on the weekends and stayed open all night. We met there usually to rendevous somewhere else because it was easy to find.
Technically Kyle Mulligan came to Prague a fugitive of justice. We’d gone to the same teacher school, and during that time he was on trial back in Donegal on a bogus charge of assaulting a policeman. I remember during our break times at the course he’d be on his mobile to Ireland , getting the latest update from his father. Fortunately, Kyle had hired the best attorney in Donegal. The lawyer promptly accused the cops of corruption and dishonesty, painting Kyle as a well-meaning young man who’d been unfairly targeted. “This young man is in Prague becoming an English teacher,” he reportedly told the court. “He’s not a criminal.” The attorney, after winning sympathy from the court, went on to call for a sweeping investigation into the police department. Kyle was exonerated on all charges, and even the judge was reported to have said endearingly, “He’s doing what a young man should be doing - opening doors for himself.”
Kyle had convinced his boss at the pub in Donegal to say he’d been laid off, so was living ‘off the dole’ while in Prague - a tidy 200 euros a week, courtesy of the Irish taxpayers.
That’s what I liked about Kyle. He had a way about him. While he was only 21, nearly 15 years younger than me, he had an air of someone wise - or savvy - beyond his years. And I enjoyed hearing him relate these stories in his thick, musical Donegal accent. Whenever I got down and depressed, he had a way of looking at me and saying, “It’s not easy” and I’d lighten up.
Then there was Duncan Weaver. If ever there was a poster boy for America ’s Iron Youth, it was Duncan . Straw-haired, apple-pie cheek handsome. He’d taken a year off his studies at USC to teach English in Prague . He and Kyle were flatmates - the street smart fugitive from Donegal and the All-American from USC - and an unlikely business partnership and true friendship had sprung up between them. Kyle, in his unerring way, had made friends with a Russian ecstasy dealer named Pavel, and he had Duncan within a couple months had built up a fast, regular business selling ecstasy in the clubs.
Barney Hunter, a stocky Scotsman closer to my age, had also gone to our school. But after graduation he’d moved back to London and was teaching at an international school there. I liked him for his deep knowledge of British literature (he introduced me to Hardy and Marlowe), and his wicked sense of humor. He was in town for a few days on holiday.
Then there was Tanner, a big-chested, heavy chinned Texan recently graduated from university. We’d stumbled across each other somewhere in one of the pubs in our early days in Prague and he’d stuck around ever since.

“Did you hear?” Kyle asked. “We sold 90 pills last weekend.”
“Where?” I looked at Duncan .
“The usual places. We cleaned Pavel out. I think he’s starting to get nervous.”
“You’re gonna get shot by the Russian mafia if you don’t watch it.”
“Oh, no more of it,” Kyle said. “Besides we just broke even. Duncan was selling most of them for a discount. That Swedish guy we met at La Clan , he bought ten. Tanner here still owes us from last week.”
“No, sir!” broke in Tanner. “No, no no. You owe me from that time at Batallion when I floated the beers. Payback. All evens out.”
“Shut up, Tanner,” Kyle broke in. “Nobody can understand you.”
“Speak for yourself,” Tanner said. “You Irish were just shit out of England anyway.”
‘You’re nothing but a Mexican - living off what you stole from Mexico.’
They both rose simultaneously and tossed their pints in each others’ faces.
“Relax guys,” Barney said. He was always the peacemaker. I went up to get some paper towels from the bartender and we wiped up the mess. Tanner and Kyle were still talking at each other, but the rest of us were laughing by then.
“You want to head over to Marquis?” Duncan asked. “This place is lame as always.”

Panalaky is Czech for prefabricated housing, those dense, colorless rows of projects built by the Communists in the Seventies. Despite two decades of foreign investment, which has transformed much of Prague’s inner belly and outskirts into steel-and-glass offices, shopping malls and sprawling suburban housing lots, some two-thirds of Czechs continue to reside in panalaky.
The interior of the buildings are as dour and unpromising as the outside. The narrow corridors are deliberately undecorative and anonymous, with the Communist thrust on functionality. A creaking, ancient lift takes you up to dim floors. Occasionally a thoughtful soul has placed a couple pots of flowers, or perhaps a welcome mat, now and then you bump into a resident with the inevitable dog on the leash, but usually there resides an empty cleanliness.
Hana lived in a panalak on the southern outskirts of the city, not far from the Kacerov metro station. She shared the flat with her boyfriend, Honza. I suppose the interior of her flat was typical - clean, small, but suffused with a hospitable warmth. A single room served as both the common area and the master bedroom, and there was a small kitchen and bathroom. The view from the windows showed the next door panalak.
‘We call them them rabbit houses,’ Hana joked once. ‘They are flats only suitable for rabbits.’

We got on well. Usually we had our lessons at the kitchen table, which rested next to the windows, and when I arrived Hana had coffee or a bottle of Mattoni ready. She was a quick study and conscientious student. She seldom cancelled lessons, even when her job demanded she put in sixteen hour days, sometimes three or four at a stretch. She worked as manager of a cosmetics shop in the center.
“I like it,” she said. “I like when I help people become beautiful. It’s like helping people with their dreams. Of course now I don’t have as much time to do it. I’m doing the paperwork or trying to motivate the staff. One girl, she is pregnant, spent the day yesterday crying. She would start crying for no reason. We had to put her in the back office so she wouldn’t distress the customers. Finally I told her, maybe it would be better if she stayed home until she had the baby.”
She was straightforward. If you asked her a question she usually gave you a simple, direct answer. That’s not to say she thought simply; she understood how complicated things were first, but then cut through it in a way that made things seem simple.
She’d spent a year in America when she was out of school. She worked as an au pair for a military couple in Virginia , I think it was.
“I spent most of the time on the military base,” she said. “But I did manage to visit New York. That was wonderful.”
I like to picture her there, venturing down the long sidewalk bordering the Upper West Side and the Park.
“The military couple were quite young and it was their first baby, “she said. “The mother didn’t like her baby. She would say, ‘I am fat because of the baby. I am old and ugly now because of the baby. I never have time now because of the baby.’ I didn’t understand this attitude, that it was the baby’s fault when the baby is only a baby. So they depended on me to take care of the baby from all the day until the night.
She smiled at the memory.
“I remember the day I had to leave, the baby wouldn’t stop screaming.”
Hana’s parents were divorced, had been for a dozen or so years. During the Communist years her father had worked as a bureaucrat for the government. Then came the revolution, and suddenly he was forced to hit the pavement.
The mobile, go-and-get world of capitalism proved too much him to take.
“He became very sad,” Hana said. “He couldn’t understand. During the Communism he had many friends he helped through his position. After the revolution he asked his friends for help and they said, ‘Sorry we are busy now.’”
“So what does he do now?” I asked.
“He does nothing.” Hana laughed. “He had some job for a while in an office. But he lost it. He asked us for money. I used to feel sorry for him, but he’s really a big baby I think.”
Her mother still lived in the village house where Hana was born, working for a small firm as a receptionist.
One time, after returning from a holiday in Slovakia , Hana said something interesting. She and friends had toured some mountain villages to the south. The villages have hardly changed at all since the time of Communism.
“It’s funny, but my friends, we became really sentimental,” she said, smiling at the irony. “Maybe it’s because we thought of our childhood. But also, I think, that during Communism we had better relationships. I had nothing. You had nothing. So we were the same. It’s better now but also different because we are always so busy.”

That morning Hana listened to my tale from the night before - it was customary - lighting up occasionally. She even offered coffee when hearing what time I got home.
“So you like her?”
“She’s nice.”
“And she spoke English?” I nodded.
Later, we listened to a tape recording from one of the Headway books comparing life in New York to London .
“I think the biggest difference between the Americans and British,” an American girl on the tape said, “is that for Americans the most important thing in our lives is work. The British care more about their private lives, their gardens, their dogs.”
“I think it’s true in Czech also,” Hana said, afterward.
“So work isn’t the most important thing?”
“No, our private lives are important too.”
I was thinking about the tape, when I remembered an interview with David Lynch I’d downloaded a few days before. I fetched it from my bag and we read it together.
“You know him?” I asked.
Hana squinted at the photo, shaking her head.
“Maybe you’ve seen ‘Blue Velvet,’” I said helpfully.
“Oh yes, ‘Blue Velvet.’ An old movie.”
It was a good interview, but a bit dated, having come out the year of Mulhulland Drive . “The important thing is to fall in the love with the idea,” Lynch said, talking about his work. “Because ideas lead to other things.”
The interviewer asked Lynch if he had time these days for relaxing and swimming.
“Good God, no!” Lynch said. “For me the most important thing is the work. It allows me to have my set-up.”
“What do you think of that?” I asked Hana.
She looked a little doubtful.
“Is he married?” she asked.
The interview didn’t say, and I wasn’t sure.
“But what do you think he says about work?” I asked.
“For him work is everything.”
“But why?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Hana shook her head.
“See what he says about the work gives him his set up. It means it allows him to do what he wants.”
“Yes, I understand. But it seems like he lives only for himself. It doesn’t seem to make room for family.”
“Sacrifice,” I said, agreeing. “But I suppose it’s true for all artists. I mean, Picasso was married four times. For them, the work is always the most important thing.”
Hana smiled a little sadly.
“I could not imagine it. For me, family is very important. But I guess my work is not meaningful enough for it to be so important.”
Later when we finished she walked me to the door.
“Any plans for the weekend?” I asked.
Hana sighed.
“Work.”

Hana met Honza when she came to rent the flat two years before. ‘He was just getting divorced,’ she remembered. ‘ I called about the flat, and we made an appointment, and when I arrived, we just looked at each other and something happened. He came several times after I moved in, to ‘see if I needed anything.’ And then suddenly we were falling in love.’
‘Lucky guy.’
She laughed in her modest way.
‘You think so? I don’t know sometimes if he is so lucky. I asked him, ‘Are you sure? You have been married once already. You don’t want to be free? And he said, ‘Yes, I am sure.’
‘But no marriage?’
‘No, I think for him once was enough.’
Honza had two children, Dania and Lukas, from his first marriage. Every other weekend they came to stay at the flat. They’d accepted Hana as a second mother more or less, and together they went to the parks, or else to visit relatives and friends.
‘Well, I think Honza made the right choice,’ I said.
Hana laughed again.
‘On the weekend we put in a new floor in the bathroom. And next weekend I want him to start on the bathroom. During the week we are both up at 430 and home at 11. We speak two sentences to each other and then we are sleeping.. Sometimes I think, ‘We are working so hard all the time, saving money. And why? Just to pay for this rabbit house.’
She said it without bitterness though, more within the vein of her resigned good nature. I couldn’t help but contrast Hana with other young women I taught, many of whom were every week at the tanning salon, or else at the hairdressers, talking of their recent trip to Italy or else planning their next holiday in Croatia. I couldn’t help but think they seemed somewhat silly and grasping in comparison.
I regret not ever meeting Honza. He was always at work during our lessons. The only image I had of him, apart from Hana’s anecdotes, was a single portrait of the two of them placed above the TV. He was large, well-built man, and you gained a feeling of sturdiness from him.
‘I’m hoping to have a baby soon,’ Hana said one afternoon.
‘Really?’
‘I think it’s time, and I think I’m ready.’
‘And Honza?’
‘He says he wants to also. But we will see.’

It was at the Aj Movka where I realized there are still places in the Czech Republic where they aren’t used to seeing many Americans or other foreigners. The Aj Movka, in the village of Roztoky just north of the city, was a dirty, dark neighborhood pub.
Karel screened me a little from the stares and we found an empty table in the back corner.
“So you were a journalist in America ?” Karel asked.
Before I could answer the bartender, a plump woman with a sweet face, arrived at the table.
“Pivo?” she asked. Karel ordered two beers.
“That’s Zuzanna,” he said. “We call her Zuzka.”
“She seems nice,” I said politely.
“Oh, yes. She and her husband, Petr, own the pub. He is the cook.”
The beer was excellent, a local brand called Decicky.
“Your English is good, by the way,” I remarked. “Why do you want lessons?”
“Well, it is more translations I want.”
“Of what?”
“I will show you.” Karel reached into his backpack.
“These.” He slapped down a looseleaf notebook.
I flipped it open and was greeted with an intimidating block of hand-written text, all in Czech.
“What are they?” I asked. “Something for school?”
“No, they are stories. My stories.” Karel smiled modestly.
“”Actually they aren’t even stories. They are more like jokes. Sad jokes.”
“Sad jokes?”
“Yes, what is the word in English? In Czech we say black humor.”
“We say the same.”
“Can you read one?”
“I can try.”

“A man goes to a doctor,” one joke began. “He asks the doctor for a complete health exam. The doctor examines him and concludes that he has six months to live. But doctor, the man asks, why? Have I some health problems? No, the doctor says. Then from what am I dying?
Fear of death, the doctor says.

Another one:

A man dies and his soul ascends to heaven. At the gates he sees God. “You cannot enter,” God says. “But why?” the man begs. “I lived a good life. I worked hard. I never drank or did drugs. I have been honest and fair to my fellow man. I have never cheated on my wife. I have a good job and a nice home. Why can I not enter?”
“Because,” God says. “It was I who created sin.”

“I was really stoned when I wrote them,” Karel said bashfully. “I’m not really sure what they mean.
“Do you think God is saying he decides who enters heaven, not anyone else?”
“To me - I think it means God sins too. Or the man missed out on many things in life. That he did not truly live.”
Later a few of Karel’s friends arrived. They were all students and spoke polite English. The one that stood out was a slim, attractive girl, who was introduced as Misha. Karel excused himself and joined in on small talk in Czech. Then they broke out a deck of cards.
“Do you know this game?” Karel asked. I’d been asked to join but declined, not being a card player.
“The point of the game is we try to kill each other,” Karel explained.
“Who’s winning?” I asked a little later.
“Misha.”
The game went on. I ordered another beer and watched, while the chatter went on in Czech. Around ten I remembered I had an early class in the morning, so I paid and rose.
“I’ll go with you,” Karel said.
“You don’t have to. I can find my way back.”
“It’s OK. I just got killed anyway.”

I fell into the habit of visiting the village regularly, and when by chance a room became available in the neighborhood, I took a chance and moved in. I shared the flat with a Canadian guy and a Czech girl. But we all had busy schedules so I didn’t see them very much.
Through Karel I got to know the other young people at the Aj Movka. I got the impression they’d all grown up together. There was Lucas, a long-haired bespectacled guy who studied at an agricultural college on the city’s edge; Tesara, a quick-witted fellow who always greeted me with “What’s up, bro?” and a soul handshake, and Tomas, a big guy who told me he was going to England soon to be an au pair.
“So you can get out and see the world,” I said.
“Like you,” he said, a slight twinkle in the eyes.


The following Sunday Karel and I went to a poetry reading at a pub, the Villa Incognito. It was a bitterly cold night. We hurried from the metro to the pub, a basement-type place that was already packed when we arrived. A woman was on stage reading, and all eyes were focused on her. Karel and I moved discreetly to the back and ordered beers.
There was a long list of readers that night, but we managed to get on. I wished Marja was there. She and Suvi had already planned to meet some friends for drinks. I tried getting Kyle to come. “Sorry, man, poetry isn’t my thing.”
There were about a dozen people ahead of us. We sipped Gambrinus and sat nervously in a corner. An Irish woman plucked a few Celtic ballads on a lute. An American undergrad girl sat on the floor of the stage cross-legged and read her work in a low voice.
The readings were mixed, but the crowd was quite easygoing and supportive. I remember one woman, who must have been in her fifties, sang a Groucho Marx tune, “ Lydia ,” and she sang it wearing a baggy dress and gaudy painted face. I recognized Marika from Provokator magazine. She swaggered to the stage and sang a country song, a capello, that she’d written about washing the dishes with her tears.
Karel went on. I can still see him. He sat down, brushed the long hair out of his face. He looked a little small sitting there, the bright light hitting the stage. But then he began to speak and the words came out confidently.
“I am Czech,” he began. “I may be the only Czech here tonight.” The crowd was decidedly English-speaking.
Karel went on to explain the notion of the sad joke, and then read the jokes I have already related. He read them first in Czech, then switched to English.
They went over marvelously. The Czech barmaid, perhaps the only other Czech in attendance, flashed me a radiant smile, as though I’d made a brilliant discovery.

“A man and his wife are having dinner at a fine restaurant (Karel read). The man holds the door for the wife when they go in. He holds the chair for her before she sits down. He sees she is warm, so he quickly gets up and opens the window to let in some air. She licks her lips, so he barks at the waiter to bring a bottle of the finest wine. Suddenly at a nearby table a fat woman begins to laugh at something in a shrill, high-pitched laugh. The man sees his wife’s discomfort at this annoyance. The man rises, goes to the next table, takes hold of the fat woman and yanks her outside. Outside he proceeds to beat the woman. He finishes and grabs the expensive necklace from the woman’s neck. He returns to the table and presents it to his wife. Why did you do that?” the startled wife asks.
“For you darling,” the man says. “It was in your eyes.”
“But why did you act so violently?”
“It was in your eyes. Everything I do it is in your eyes.”

“I delivered the last one badly,” he told me later, when we sat down in back for a smoke.
At least a half dozen people came over with compliments, and presently a well-dressed young man came over and sat down.
“Yes, I have a feeling for the Czech humor,” he said, introducing himself as Simon. He said he lived in Denmark . “You jokes are good Czech humor. And your English was very simple and clear. Most of the others, they speak in very slangy English.”
The young man from Denmark invited us for a drink at Acropolis. It was fairly quiet at Acropolis, since it was Sunday night. We stood in the gallery, looking at the remains of the last week’s exhibition and talking with an attractive young Czech woman and her American boyfriend, who introduced themselves as leaders of the group Color Factory. The American guy, a gray-haired hippy with a bushy beard, hovered protectively around the girl, as though he thought we would take her away from him.
Around 2 or so, I was sitting in the bar half dozing. Karel came in and sat down.
“I think we missed the last bus back to the village,” Karel said.
“No problem. Guess that means we stay out all night.” I was feeling good.
He looked at me with mock astonishment.
“All night? Now you sound Czech. ”

On weekends I stayed at the village, where you could swill Decicky for 15 crowns and stumble home later without having to wait around shivering for the bus.
The benefit was I got to know Karel better, as well as the tight circle of young Czechs who drifted regularly into the pub in the evenings. He had a spare bedroom in his flat, and tentatively we made plans for me to move in. It would be cheaper, and we imagined being able to stay up late and map out our future as dynamic poets.
In the evenings at the Aj Movka they’d keep on with the Death game. I tried fruitlessly to figure it out. It was explained to me several times. All I can say is there were Old West figures on the cards, and that one player was assigned the Sheriff and another a Fugitive, and that, for reasons unclear to me, players at some point turned to me or the air with resignation, and said “Shit! I’m dead.”
Overall things were going well, until one Sunday afternoon I got too drunk. It had already been a long, beer-drenched weekend and I was tired. Instead, I stayed and got tanked. I was loud and arrogant, insulting.
“Who is that?” I demanded at one point, indicating a man on a beer advertisement.
Everyone shrugged.
“You don’t even know your own his’ory,” I slurred angrily. “Don’t even’ know yer’ own his’ory.”
I even hurled abuse at Misha. Karel showed up. He cuffed me. I remember that.
I woke the next morning mortified and hollow and sent a text to Karel apologizing. I swore I’d stay sober and clear of the Aj Movka for a few days.
“I think that is a good idea,” he responded. “I was disappointed with you and ashamed that you are my friend.”

COMING IN THE NEXT INSTALLMENT: Meeting Philadelphia; Mika readies for fatherhood; checking in with Herb; Hana and 'The Little Prince.'