Via Prague

Interlude

Toward the tail end of February the days were still cold but the sun started to come out more often and there were cautious signs that the long Russian winter had finally worn itself out. Life was creeping back into the city. In the afternoons down near the river the air took on a musky scent that caught briefly in the nose, and you knew right away it was one of the first messengers riding in from the approaching spring. It was only a fleeting message, and in the next moment the air was cold again, but you still felt it, knew it had been there, and after a fresh vital energy swept into your veins.
The coming spring would prove to be Herb’s last in Prague. None of us knew that at the time, of course. Neither did Herb, I don’t think, at least not in any definite way. But looking back now on, for example, his feverish preparations for the World Cup party, it’s possible he had some premonition. Either that or he’d seen other signs. The acquired restraint regarding the wine and late nights had begun to crumble a little I think. Fatigue was setting in. He looked tired more often. Of course the charm and consideration, the delight in meeting people, his enjoyment of good food and drink, all remained intact. But there was a grayness around the eyes more often that you tried not to notice, and you winced inwardly a little when you saw him going out of his way to welcome a party of tourists fresh in from Latvia or Bellarus. Save it Herb, you wanted to say. Sit down a bit longer.
He was working with Martin and the other cooks on a special summer menu to coincide with the arrival of the tournament. He’d also tasked Milan to come up with a brand new cocktail that so far Milan hadn’t been able to produce. I got the feeling creativity wasn’t Milan ’s strong point. It took energy away from charming the girls and slipping a few extra drinks on tabs when he thought the customers wouldn’t notice, which they usually didn’t.
Anyway, in those last throes of the Russian winter, there suddenly seemed a great deal to look forward to, and a whole lot of work to be done so that what was being looked forward to could be enjoyed properly when the moment finally arrived. The cafe, and the city itself and everyone within it, were heading breathlessly onward into a curving sunrise, or sunset, depending on how you looked at it. Looking back now on how things went later, I wonder if it was a little of both for Herb. As I said at the beginning, he always knew that his time in Prague had to sunset at some point. Perhaps he knew that time was fast approaching, and so his preparations for the party took on the dimensions of a hero riding off into the sunset. But that’s impossible to know, and sentimental besides. Everybody was busy. And there was so much to do in the meantime.


The Post reported that a journalist was found dead in his apartment. Cause of death undetermined. The man had lived in Prague since the mid-Nineties, developed a reputation as a great guy within the expat community.
One evening, a few days after reading about it, I got a text from Herb asking me to drop by, so after my last class I headed over.
Herb arrived just as I was finishing my second beer.
“How was the party?”
“Very good.” He looked tired.
“Let’s talk,” he said, waving me over to a booth. Milan brought a beer. Herb’s tone had something different in it, and I was curious.
“As you might have heard, one of the editors at RFE was found dead in his apartment,” he began.
I said I’d read about it.
Herb lit a cigar.
“Anyway,” he waved smoke away. “The thing is, they’re going to be looking to fill the position. Haven’t advertised for it yet, of course.”
“It would be a graveyard shift most likely,” he said, looking at me.
“Doing what?”
“Rewrites, sounds like. You take everything off the wire, rework it, give attribution, slap a new lede on it. Probably 20 stories a night. Not very difficult or exciting. But it could lead to something.”
“Sounds pretty good.” It did.
Herb handed me a business card.
“That’s for a guy there working the night desk. Send your stuff over to him.”
I looked at the card tentatively.
“Just play up your experience a bit,” Herb said. “I can talk you up a bit with the people at Radio Free Europe.”
I slipped the card in my wallet.

The World Cup was going to be in Germany in the summer that year. The Czechs had qualified for the first time since 1991, so there was great excitement and anticipation especially since the Czechs were, as I learned later, ranked second in the world behind the great Brazillians. Tickets were scarce and very expensive.
Herb planned to go all out, I knew that. In addition to the satellite hook-up, he’d had the sports lounge built in the basement partly out of anticipation. He also planned to have a pool with prizes, and of course a grand all-night part on opening night.
It was still winter, but even then there were preparations. He’d been dealing with health inspectors, who came by periodically for visits. There wasn’t really anything to worry about. The staff generally kept the kitchen in good shape, and Herb was practical enough to hire only people who could legally work. He humored the health inspectors by saying he was planning to replace some antiquated refrigeration units that they made a small show of being concerned about. Fortunately bribery still makes a comfortable living in the Czech Republic . The health inspectors were slipped a thousand crown note and sent on their way.
“Cost of doing business,” Herb observed wryly. “It’s all about being a part of the community.”
“I could write something on it,” I ventured.
“What? And put me out of business?” He looked at me. “No, I don’t mind mind. Go ahead if you want.”
Herb needn’t have worried. Writing exposes on the sanitation of restaurants may be a worthwhile pursuit for some journalists, but it was far from mine. I’m too corruptible and lack the necessary outraged indignation to be a muckraker.
My story on the Russian-American exhibition appeared in Provokator, and I’d submitted a couple of commentaries for upcoming issues, all of which satisfied the craving to be published, at least for the moment. Besides, I was enjoying teaching. Much as I hated to admit it, teaching suited me. I had a habit or penchant for explaining things, and the flexible schedule left me lots of free time.
“You really should try to get up to Berlin for the World Cup this summer,” Herb said one afternoon. We were the only ones in the cafe, except for Milan and the cooks.
“It’s gonna be insane up there,” he continued, puffing on his cigar.
“What about you?” I asked.
“Me? Well, I’m gonna be here. If you’re in town drop by. We’re going to blow the ceiling off this place, aren’t we Milan ?”
Over at the bar, Milan looked up and nodded.
“I’d be there if I was 20 years younger, and didn’t have to be here,” Herb conceded restfully. “Biggest sporting event in the world, even bigger than the Olympics. What was the name of that paper you worked for in the States? You might try sending them some copy to the their sports desk.”
“They’d give me 25 bucks a story. No thanks.”
“25. That is shit. Who runs them?”
“ANG. Singleton’s chain out of Denver .”
“Dean Singleton,” Herb said the name with distaste. “Plays golf with Bush I understand. A one-man newspaper wrecking machine. Cuts newsroom staff, slaughters budgets so he can save money to buy more newspapers. Then he goes off to Russia to make speeches about the importance of a strong, vigorous free press.”
“He came into our newsroom once,” I said. “He shook my hand, didn’t even look me in the eye. Limp handshake.”
I did want to go to the World Cup though, at least for a day or two, find a pub somewhere in Berlin and soak in the atmosphere. A small party of good friends seemed the way to go. Make an excursion of it. There was always Tanner, who could be counted on to round up a merry band of exbrats. I’d have preferred Karel and some of the other Aj Movka folks. But I’d have to see about that.

The false spring ended abruptly. My students had warned me that the snow and cold would probably be back, but even with that warning it still felt like getting a swift kick in the stomach, waking up in the morning and seeing a foot of snow on the ground. One morning I awoke feeling ill, a sort of minor flu. I canceled my morning classes, then rolled over and slept a couple more hours. When I awoke I felt much better, strong enough to go into town. At Bohemia Bagel I grabbed a big American breakfast, eggs, bacon, hashbrowns and toasted bagel and ate watching the snow fall outside in the street.
I didn’t have any email from home. The only new messages were a couple sex ads, and a posting for a teaching job in China . A school near Ganghzou, not far from where they’re building the world’s biggest city. I didn’t read the email but didn’t delete it either. The posting reminded me that I hadn’t bothered to even apply for the Radio Free Europe job, and already a couple weeks had passed. All at once I knew that I wouldn’t.

Yahoo! News reported Iraq was on the brink of civil war following the bombing of a holy site by militants opposed to teh central government and occupation forces. The war, or whatever it was being called nowadays, always struck me as remote and irrelevant in Prague . Back in America it had felt closer, meaningful, even if it was ill conceived and mismanaged. I remembered covering the peace demonstrations while at the newspaper in Eureka . Yes, that had been real all right. Or when I had to call up the family of a serviceman killed in a helicopter crash just after the invasion. They weren’t home when I called. I remember being relieved they weren’t home.

Herb

Seth Chambers was sitting with Herb at the bar. At 32, Seth had been in Prague since the early days after the revolution. He was very much one of the original settlers, back in the days when Prague was considered the crowning jewel of the New Wild East and now he worked at one of the British news services. I’d met him with Herb before.
That evening Arsenal was playing Everton.
“Where’s Henry?” I asked, sitting down. It was early in the game.
“He’s not in,” Seth said.
“He’s the only one worth watching.”
“Henry? Yeah, he is the shit. Did you see him against Sparta last fall? Came in for a couple minutes in the second half, scored two goals inside two minutes, then sat back down.”
“That was right after the racism incident,” I said, remembering. “The stadium was only half full.”
“Yes, that was it.”
“Who’s Henry playing for in the Cup?” I asked.
“ France ,” Herb said. “Me, I like the Africans. They have better footwork, better fundamentals. The European style is too fast, power-driven. You end up just watching them kick the ball up and down the field.”
“I say, this is unusual, two Americans talking about football. You are American, right?” Seth turned to me. I nodded.
“So who’s going to win it all in Germany , Herb?”
“That I wouldn’t know.” Herb lit a cigar.
“I like Brazil ,” I said.
“That’s easy,” Seth said. “I have to root for mother England , of course. God and country and all. Aren’t you going to root for the Americans?”
“Big chance,” I said. “My German friend says the Germans will win it. He insists the home country always stands a great chance.”
“Bollocks,” Seth said. “The Germans won’t do anything.”
Henry came into the game, so we sat and watched. Midway through the second period Henry broke free and, with his uncanny lilting style, powered a high kick into the right corner of the net. Arsenal led 1-0.
“Henry is great,” I said.
“Here, here,” Seth said.
“Seen any deals on the trams lately?” I asked.
“Almost had my wallet picked on the 22 the other night. No, I haven’t been up to anything really. Been on holiday the past week in Croatia .”
“Anything new on the Mvravek murder?”
“No, and I doubt there will be either. Serves the bloke right, I suppose, swimming with the sharks. What do you say, Herb? Think they’ll catch the chap who shot him?”
“Not unless someone’s got a reason to,” Herb said.
“You think it was Rejvak who paid for it?”
“Who knows.”
A couple of Czech young women came into the bar. They smiled shyly and looked around. It was only a Wednesday so the place was nearly empty.
“Cau,” Herb said, using the informal greeting. “Sit anywhere you want.”
The girls found a corner booth and ordered hot wine.
“Where you girls from?” Herb called.
“Dečin,” one of them said. “But we’re studying here in Prague at the Goethe Institute.”
They introduced themselves as Lucie and Zdena.
“Here, here,” Set said, getting up. He was a pleasant-enough looking guy, with a fairly decent command of Czech. The girls giggled as he sat down and started rattling on.
“You speak Czech?” Zdena said. “Very good. But you don’t have to, we speak English.”
I sat a little while longer talking with Herb.
“So you ever hear from Radio Free Europe?”
It was then I told him I hadn’t applied, and didn’t plan to. I felt a little bad, since he’d gone out of his way to tell me about it.
Herb shrugged.
“It’s all right. You’d probably go crazy sitting in a desk all night anyway. And it’d be graveyard, which sucks all the more.”
“I am trying to get out more,” I said. “Keep my options open.”
“Good. I’d say that’s the best thing to do. You’ve got a tremendous opportunity. Just remember that.”
I had an early class the next morning so I left soon after. When I waved goodbye to Seth he was trying to lean closer to Zdena, but she kept laughing and pushing him away. Outside it was cold and the cafe through the window looked, as always, warm and familiar. Looking in, I noticed Herb had got up to join Seth and the girls. Through the window I waved, and they waved back.

I remember the evening when Herb danced with Lucie. We were sitting together downstairs. Lucie was shy in that way some Czechs are toward foreigners. Her English wasn’t as strong as her friend. She’d studied German mostly.
“So how do you communicate with her?” I asked.
“We don’t.” Herb laughed. “No, we use some English and I know a little Czech. My Czech’s terrible. I’m too old to start learning it now. But we manage. You know the best thing? We don’t fight. We don’t have enough words or energy to fight.”
I laughed, quietly remembering even then his advice on successful marriages.
Lucie was polite. She was tall, with a thick mane of black hair which she couldn’t make up her mind what to do with. She would pull it back, then a few minutes later, let it back down to fall over her shoulders, only to pull it back again. I wouldn’t say she was beautiful, not in that shimmering way some Czech girls are, but she was young and healthy. It was obvious she was a little intimidated by Herb, despite his unfailing courtesy, and yet she was also attracted to him in puzzled way, as though she were reading a book that everyone says is really great if you can get past the first fifty pages. She hadn’t gotten that far yet, I supposed.
Still, I enjoyed watching them together. Outside the streets were wet and windblown, giving the cafe a stable warmth. Yet, somewhere far away, across an ocean on another continent – it would be early morning there – I knew of another woman, the one who knew Herb best. Perhaps she would still be asleep, or maybe up early, putting on coffee and reading the newspaper out of old habit, scanning bylines she didn’t recognize. Or maybe she too had someone, some fresh, engaging guy she couldn’t communicate with and not fight with either.
I thought of my grandmother, and wondered if my last letter had gotten lost in the mail. She usually returns letters quickly. And Dad, who popped an email over every few days, “just to make sure everything’s OK.” A handful of scattered, diffuse friendships back in California that had slowly lost any feeling or relevance. Perhaps that’s why I sought Herb’s company. I felt a vague gloomy connection, a creeping sadness that was gathering outside, working its way in.
That’s when they danced. It was just a silly random moment. The TV was tuned to VH-1, an 80s hits show and some awful song, “Broken Wings,” by Mister Mister was playing. It’s one of those songs you can’t help knowing even if you try to avoid it.
And suddenly Herb pulled Lucie out of the booth. She protested, and Herb laughed, and for a few lazy, awkward seconds they stood in each others arms, circling around the lounge. A handful of surprised patrons looked on and shouted encouragement. Then Lucie shook her head and said she had to go to the toilet.
“What are you going to do?” Herb said, sitting down. He looked at me, his face beaming. “Well, I guess I should stick to Sinatra.”

Three Czech Lies

"You know there are three Czech lies,” Karel said, as we clinked glasses. It was my first night back at the Aj Movka.
“Lies?” I asked.
“Yes. The first is jdeme na jedno. We go for one. The second is poslední. I leave after this one.”
Misha, Tomas and a few of the others came in and sat down.
“—and the third?” I asked, just as he turned to greet them.
“You will have to learn that one on your own,” he said.
They talked for a while in Czech. Tomas sat down next to me, which gave me a chance to apologize. He shrugged.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “I know you were drunk. That’s why I didn’t do anything.”
„How goes the job search?“
“I’ve got work with a family in London ,” he said, beaming.
He was leaving in early April.
A little later, the others went back into the fuz ball room.
“There’s another reading Sunday,” I told Karel. “You want to go?”
“Sure why not? The beer tonight. It does not taste good. There is a hell in my mouth.” Karel looked at his glass.
“Is everything OK?” I asked.
“Fine. I drank tea today. I think maybe that was it.”
“How’s Agatha?”
“We had a row today but we are OK now.”
“Maybe that’s it.”
“No, she is fine. We were talking about Muslims and Czech xenophobia. She doesn’t like Muslims and I try to explain her that it is only the extremists who cause the violence.”
“It’s too bad about the beer,” I said, uncomfortable with the subject.
Karel looked at me.
“Yesterday I found an article on Google that said it is possible the US government planed the World Trade Center attacks,” Karel said. “What do you think of this? I had this idea myself before.You know, Stalin once said if you want to find who is reponsible for a crime, always look for the one who profits the most from it. I think George Bush is the one who has gained the most. What have the terrorists gained?”
They had nothing to lose, I thought, but said nothing.
“Of course, I also don’t really think it’s true,” Karel said. “But certainly George Bush has capitalized on the fear to go to war and take away the American people’s freedom. He says, ‘Now we will go to war! And we will tap your phones.’”
“It’s a shitty deal,” I agreed. “But I wonder if Americans really were afraid, or just angry. Or shock. I remember being in the newsroom that day and even in California people just walked around in a daze all day. It wasn’t that different from when a big earthquake came along.”
“A daze?” It was a new word for Karel.
“Yes, the feeling like when someone strikes you in the face.” I mimed the expression.
“Yes, a daze. Here in Czech Republic we were also in a daze. I remember leaving Aj Movka and my mobile rang. It was my friend telling me the World Trade Center was attacked. I thought, it must be a joke. Very funny.”
“It didn’t feel that way at home,” I said.
“Of course. I don’t mean funny in that way. But I thought, you can’t be serious!”
Some friends from Ireland told me they were on holiday in Morocco and were checking their email in an internet cafe when they saw a message alert.“We thought it was just spam,” they said. “We thought, ‘No, fuckin’ way.’ But of course it was true. But we couldn’t help thinking also about American foreign policies the past few years, and that it was inevitable.”
Thinking this, I excused myself and went to the bathroom. I was beginning to really hate these conversations. Either that, or I was just plain tired of talking about it. Like when JFK was shot. Sooner or later people must have gotten tired talking about it.
“But you don’t think it’s important to know?” Karel asked when I came back. “The other night – the night you were drunk and crazy here – you said Czechs don’t know about their own history. Remember? Pan Decicky? You said – “
“ – I know,” I winced. “ I was drunk and crazy.”
“But this is what I mean. 9/11 is not even history yet. Is it not important to know who was responsible?”
Not to me, I wanted to say.
“Look,” I said instead. “Who shot JFK? The CIA? Or was it the Mafia? The Cubans? The Russians?”
Karel grinned. I was making a speech, I know, but I was tired and I just wanted to drink a beer.
“I could give you a document,” I went on, “Imagine I had a document that said, ‘this is it – the real final story, the truth about JFK. Or 9/11. Absolute truth. Would you believe it? Would anyone else in the room believe it? To me it doesn’t matter. You can’t control what other people believe.”
My speech was over. It didn’t feel marvelous or anything. I could see my friend Margot saying, “You’re taking this all very personally, James.” I probably was.
Karel listened.
“Of course,” he said, when I finished. “If something like that happened here in Czech Republic , in one year we would be the same. We would say, ‘That is finished, let us talk about something else.’ But I think it does matter. It’s too bad we cannot find the real truth. Did you know, this Google report said none of the black boxes had been found in the four planes. That is extremely rare I think. They almost always find the black boxes.”
“Yes, it is interesting,” I said.
“I’m writing a new story,” Karel said.
This was a little later. We’d put aside 9/11.
“It will be about two villages. In the villages there is talk there are vampires. Each village thinks the vampires are in the other village. And so they must hire a man who will find and kill the witches.”
“You should set it in Roztoky,” I joked.
“No, no,” Karel said. “It will be in Romania , like the dracula legend. The two villages will be exactly alike, almost like looking into a mirror. A hill will separate them. But I must write it in a way to show how it is the fear that is the problem. Oh and the anger. Yes, I must put the anger in there too.”
“Sounds good,” I said. “I can help you translate if you want.”
“Yes, of course.”

Hana and the Communists' Fairy Tale

“And how was your holiday?”
Hana laughed. She looked good but a little tired.
“It feels now like I didn’t even have one. We got back Sunday and since then I’ve been working 12 hours every day.”
They spent a restful fortnight at her grandmother’s cottage in Chep, a village in east Bohemia .“We felt like normal people,” Hana said. “In the morning we woke up at eight, or nine, then went for breakfast, and after went walking or shopping, and in the evening we relaxed and went to bed.
“Usually we are up at five, sometimes four-thirty, and we go to work. The only time we see each other is at night. We get home, go to bed.”
She laughed again.
“We joke that at least we never fight. We are always too tired to fight.”
It was good to see her again. I realized in the two weeks how much I’d missed our lessons, and the resigned goodness with which Hana seemed to face the world.
“And how have you been?” she asked.
“The usual. Too many beers.”
“With Karel?”
“Of course. He tells me there are three Czech lies.”
“Lies?”
“Yes.” I repeated what Karel had said.
“They sound quite true,” Hana said, with unintentional irony. “So you are going to Aj Movka tonight?”
„I don’t know.“
“Maybe that is the third Czech lie – ‘Tonight I don’t go to the pub.’”

We settled into the lesson. That week I’d been recycling a Prague Post article about a retired Czech couple, the Kolomazniks, who were losing the home they’d lived in the past forty years. A court had recently ruled the house should be given back to the original owners, the Janousek family, who’d been jailed on a trumped up charge during the Communist era. The charges, along with many others leveled against innocent people, were dropped after the revolution. There were many such property disputes still in the books.
The Kolomazniks, according to the article, bought the house from the state for 6,000 crowns, or $250, a ridiculously low amount even for 1963, and my students said such outlandish deals were commonplace during the Communist era. The houses were given as perks to high-ranking party officials or those who helped the party.
“This Kolomaznik could have been a Communist for all we know,” said one student. “He might have – for all we know – been the one who ratted on the Janouseks so he could have the house to himself.”
Hana said she agreed with the judge, that the house should be returned to the original owners, but said she also felt the Kolomazniks should be compensated for maintaining the home the past forty years.
“Communism, it was like a fairy tale,” Hana said. This was a little later.
“Under the Communism, the fairy tale was we wouldn’t need money. Everyone would go to the market and take only what they need – for free. But of course no one takes just what they need. They always want more.”
On the bus back to the center, I sent a text to Karel.
“I think I know the third Czech lie,” I wrote, typing what Hana had said.
A few minutes later my phone beeped. It was Karel.
“Actually the third lie is: I will never drink again. But you were close.”


‘My home, not yours’

-- “But don’t you see?” Karel pressed.
We had just finished watching Pink Floyd’s The Wall at a guy named Votya’s house.
I was drunk and didn’t see.
“But you cannot be indifferent,” Karel went on. “That is the problem in America perhaps. People are indifferent to what is happening to them.”
“Would they care about it on Mars?” I asked randomly. “Or the stars, what do they care what we do? ”
“What do you care about then?”
“I care about the sun,” I said fatuously. “The moon. The stars.”
Enraptured by my universal-ism, I waved away the rest of the conversation.
“So millions of people are dying, people are dying in Iraq ,” Karel flared. “And all you can say is, ‘Ah, the sun, the moon, the stars.”
It was like that. We were leaving and Votya waved goodnight. We walked the short distance to Karel’s flat, still talking along the same lines.
“Of course we care,” I rambled. “Americans. We saved Europe .”
“You did nothing.”.
Suddenly I flared up into a drunken rage and shoved Karel.
“Motherfuckers’!” I yelled into the darkness.. “You motherfuckers! We gave it to you.”
Looking back, I’m not really sure what ‘it’ I, in my impassioned drunken gibberish, was referring to. Perhaps I saw myself single-handedly leading the Allied Invasion at Normandy , or something like that.
Karel had fallen. He picked himself up quietly and continued walking. I’d stopped shouting, and started to follow, but he stopped me.
“No, no, James. This is my home, not yours. Goodnight.”

Grandma’s letter arrived, a few days before Easter. There was a card and $10 enclosed with the letter. No matter how old I get, Grandma will always send me cards on holidays, along with a little cash, just like when I was a kid.
“Sounds like you’re settling in to Prague ,” she wrote. “As for me, my life is so deeply rooted in Penna., the Apollo area, my friends and of course the family, I could never think about living anywhere else.”
She was still working for the local congressman in Apollo, handling constituent calls. “He’s up for re-election in November, but he shouldn’t have any problems so I should have a job the next two years. We’re going to D.C. for a few days next month.”
I read the letter three times, realizing I hadn’t been home for the better part of two years. Grandma’s handwriting was as clear as always. She’ll probably live to 100, still meeting “the girls” for coffee at the Central every Wednesday, volunteering at the same church she’s attended for more than half a century.
I envied her more than a little. She’d been born and raised in Apollo, married and raised three children, and buried Grandpa and one of the sons, my uncle Jim. She herself would be buried alongside them one day. She’d didn’t use the Internet or email, and still obstinately refused to drive a car or even operate a VCR. She still erad the newspaper every day (“For the crossword and the obituaries”). Every summer she organized the family reunion in Apollo community park.. She knew everyone in Apollo by name – and their parents and grandparents, as well as who was getting divorced or married or having a second baby.
And she found time to write.

One Sunday in late April I met Karel at the bus stop.
“Are you coming to the reading tonight?” I asked. I’d written a new poem and was heading to the Incognito.
“I don’t know,” Karel said. “It’s been an exhausting week, and I haven’t written anything new. And you?”
I had something and was planning to read it.
It was a sunny, but cold day and from the bus, on the road next to the river, the approaching city looked good. You could see Zizkov tower and the communist-style hotel.
As I said, I tried getting Karel on the road trip idea. Amsterdam , then maybe up to Denmark . Our Danish friend, Simon had given us the address to his studio and said we were welcome anytime.
Karel nodded, but without any show of enthusiasm.
“And there’s the World Cup this summer in Germany ,” I went on. “It might be nice to get up to Berlin , just for the atmosphere.”
“World Cup?”
“Football. Soccer.”
“Oh, the World Cup.”
“Just ideas.”
He grinned.“So you are already planning your holidays.”
“Yeah.”
Karel was meeting his girlfriend for a game of squash, so at the station we parted.

Herb: ‘The Girl in the Green Dress’

I want to go back and tell about how Herb first met Vera, his wife. The story stands out in my mind too because it came on the heels of his break-up with the Czech girl. I think he told the story because he was feeling despondent – the Czech girl had rather abruptly announced that she had a boyfriend and had ceased coming to the cafe or even answering his texts. As ridiculous as it all may sound to more refined sensibilities, this feeling “despondent” over some girl young enough to be his granddaughter, I think it bothered Herb more deeply than he let on.
“What are you gonna do?” he would say. “Well, I guess I figured it would turn out that way. But you’re never too old to make a fool out of yourself.”
“No,” I said sympathetically.
“I ever tell you about how I met Vera?” Herb looked at me.
“It was in Berkeley in 62. We were both in our last year at ‘ Cal ’ as we called Berkeley then, and I was already putting in evenings as a cub at the Tribune. You would have been amazed at the Bay area then. This was a few years before the peace marches, LSD, Vietnam . It was a quieter campus. Hell, it was a different country. People still called the president “Mr. Kennedy.”
In this “different America,” a twilight world of tree-shaded neighborhoods and shining motor cars playing Miles Davis’ version of ‘Round Midnight,’ its sentimental chords almost drowning out the nuclear menace blanketing the outside world, a world where thousands of high-minded college students yearned to rush out and answer “Mr. Kennedy’s” call to serve in the Peace Corps, where the Marilyn Monroe look was passing in favor of the Jackie look, where turmoil of the next few years was already gathering, but it was still possible, at certain solitary hours, to find an innocence whispering beneath a shaded tree.
“I remember the first time I saw her,” Herb reflected. “It was at a friend’s party. Jack Simmons – he went on to work at KGO for many years. Anyway, I walk in, the place is packed, and everyone’s dancing. Except this one girl sitting all by herself on the couch. She was wearing a green dress, a funny green one with the shoulder straps. I didn’t know what to think – she was the prettiest girl in the room in my opinion – and sitting all by herself.”
“So you danced with her,” I put in.
“First time she said no,” Herb answered. “She was shy. So I just sat down next to her, introduced myself. She told me her name, Vera Johnson. She was just 21, her family from Modesto and she was studying to be a teacher.
“... Of course I told her I was working at the Trib, thinking that would impress her. But it didn’t – Vera’s never been impressed by what people do – one of the things I like about her. After talking for an hour or so I finally convinced her to dance. It was great, you shoulda seen her face light up. Like a lot of shy people she really was happy when she finally got to join in. We danced for a while until finally she said she had to find her friends. Back then we didn’t have mobiles or email. She didn’t even have a phone except at her dorm. ‘How can I see you again?’ I asked. She said she worked the box office at the campus theater on weekends. I left thinking ‘The girl in the green dress.’ ‘The girl in the green dress.’ I spent the next week thinking about her unil the next weekend.”
“So then you asked her out?” I asked.
“Well I went to the box office all dressed up. At first I thought she didn’t recognize me, but she did. But she she wouldn’t go anywere except right there, to the movies. She still didn’t trust me, you see. Thought I was a fast boy, a fast talker, You have to understand there were still some of the old rules and modesties there – not like now where most women just come right out and say let’s go to bed just as much as a guy will. Girls still had a bit of mystery, I guess you’d say. So it took time. Finally after six weeks she started to warm up to me enough to take her to dinner.”
It was slow-going for the next few months, or so he said. From Herb’s description I could almost see the young couple – the quiet girl with auburn hair, usually pulled back to allow the dark, downward-cast eyes to take prominence over a nervously pretty face, and beside her a younger Herb gabbing on and on but his natural courtesy always on hand to open a door or pull an umbrella over them if it started raining.
As Herb talked, I couldn’t help but think of his abortive dance with the Czech girl a few weeks before. It occurred to me that he wasn’t motivated by some sloppy, Lolita instinct, but rather because he saw in the girl a shadow of the other he’d met and courted all those years before, and that he wanted to retrace the steps along a path that had long become overgrown or forgotten.
Herb Walker and Vera Johnson were married in spring 63, in a small ceremony attended by family and close friends. By then Herb had been farmed out to the daily in Vacaville . “She wouldn’t marry me unless I had a full-time job.” Vera found work at the local elementary school, and they stayed in Vacaville for two years. It wasn’t a bad life. Herb churned out plenty of copy. One story, examining a series of sordid land deals in the Central Valley , won a state award, and it was around this time that he got to interview Kim Novak, the picture which hangs in the cafe.
After Vacaville , Herb was hired back full time by the Tribune, and they returned to the Bay area, where they stayed until Herb was hired by UPI in 1966 and the Walkers packed up again, this time for Washington , D.C.
“So you never had children,” I said.
“I wanted to, or at least thought we should,” Herb said. “But Vera didn’t. Never really would say why. She could be obstininate about some things, and children was one of them. Funny, I know, because she taught children for nearly thirty years. But maybe that was why.
“... And hell I was busy. The newsroom was crazy in the early days. Kennedy’s assasination, I’ll never forget that day. Round the clock we were there for a whole week it seemed, and it just never stopped from there on out, on through Vietnam , and later Watergate, Carter, Reagan, the Gulf War, Clinton and Monica, so on and so on.”
“What about 9/11?” I asked.
“I was out of the game by then,” Herb said. “In a way, I wish I had been covering the story. It would have been just like the old days. But I just had to get away.”
“Is that what brought you here?” I asked.
“No. I suppose I thought of it as a way of staying in it. Of not stopping.”
Milan came by to offer Herb a glass of wine. He shook his head, then looked at me.
“How’s the drinking these days?” he asked, looking at me closely.
“A little better,” I said. I repeated Karel’s joke about the three Czech lies.
He laughed.
“I can the truth in that,” he said. “But remember: You’re not Czech.”
I nodded.
“You’re gonna go a lot of places in this world. A lot of those places won’t like you that much, seeing as you’re an American. It’s not the best time to be an American. But just think of it as when you were a reporter back in Eureka . Did the whole room break out into happy smiles when you walked in, pen and notebook in hand? No, most of em were suspicious and some even hated your guts. Did you give it up and go get drunk? No, you went and got the story.
”... Yeah, you’re gonna go a lot of places, but really in the end they’ll all remind you of one.”
It was a curious statement, so I asked him to go on.
“They’ll all remind you of the last place,” he said, laughing. “No seriously. They’ll remind you of the place you first came into your own. For me it was Berkeley , that fall working at the Trib, meeting Vera, the girl in the green dress. I’ve seen a lot since, gone a lot of places, hell, maybe even got to witness a little history. But when I look back, all the way back, it was that time that means the most.”
“So why don’t you go back,” I said.
“Because you can’t,” he said.
He still liked to sit and talk when he was free, and as I said, from time to time prodded me in the direction of a story, which sometimes I followed up on. More often I didn’t. The wider world was a network of stray, disconnected lines -- events great ghosts that streamed by in procession, unrelated, marginal, diffuse. I reflected how at the newspaper everything had had this constant urgency, and at times you felt at the helm of a great vessel. I wanted to ask Herb if he ever had felt that way, but was afraid of sounding stupid. I admired how with Herb he took an interest in everything, the ceaseless energy he devoted to even the most indifferent news item. He missed nothing, and yet didn't dwell on things either. There was, you felt, a curious mixture of detachment and powered concentration. Around him, you sensed that there was a significance to all these things, and I envied this quality in him. At times, my own life seemed to have lapsed into a mass of apathy, a lethargy of spirit that was alarming and I tried not to think about it, but instead to head out on walks through Old Town, or hid out in the village reading Thomas Hardy's dense, but atmospheric pastoral scenes. At times his 19th Century villages and the struggles of the simple people in his stories, to be more alive to me than the current age. That too was depressing when I thought about it. And meanwhile, the hard Russian winter went on.

IN THE NEXT INSTALLMENT: Kyle goes home, encounter with anti-US protesters, Olga and the Paradise Club; more with Philadelphia; spring finally arrives