Via Prague

Hana’s revolution

Hana peered at me closely when she answered the door.
“Are you OK?” she asked.
“Sure, everything’s fine. Just a rough week.”
I noticed her looking at my bags.
“New flat. Moving.” It was a little embarassing showing up for a lesson with my worldly possessions. I was moving in the new flat that afternoon. I didn’t want to talk about the May Day fiasco, but presently I found myself talking. Hana listened.
“Really?” she asked, when I finished.
“It’s terrible.”
She shook her head unbelievingly. Then she chuckled.
“What?” I asked.
She shrugged.
“Well, I suppose he was a Communist.”
We started the lesson. Homework was to write a letter to her future child. Hana had agreed to do it only on the condition that I write one too.
She read her letter first.

My Dear Baby,

Your father and I are very happy to have you at last. Your father says he cannot wait to clean you and change you and teach you to ride bicycle. We also hope to move to a better flat in the country soon. Right now we work very hard but we hope it is for your future. We are very excited that you are here. In the winter we will take you skiing in the mountains, and in the spring we will all go to the park. We hope to give you a good life.

Your loving mother

Hana looked up.
“Sorry it is so short,” she said. “I was quite busy and only wrote it last night.”
“No it’s fine. Did Honza help?”
“Yes, we talked about it.”
“It’s a good letter.”
“Thank you. Now yours – “
When I finished mine I felt a little embarrassed. It was longish and literary. As I read it aloud I cut half of it.
Hana smiled when I finished.
“Oh, you are writer.”
“I suppose.”
Somehow Hana’s was better – rooted in life – perhaps because she had the prospective father at hand and had held the idea within her for so long.
“So you are going to China ?” Hana asked. This was later.
“So when will you have the baby?”
She sighed.
“Probably next year. I told my boss that I will work for one more year, to give her time to find someone else. We hope to have our new flat by then.”

Hana was pregnant. The news came on one of those cloudy mornings in early August. When I arrived for the lessons I noticed her normally tremendous vital energy had fallen off, and one morning she actually was to her stomach. A visit to the doctor’s office later that week confirmed the news. sick
“How far along?’ I asked, after congratulating her.
‘Three months.’
‘So the baby will come – February? March? How do you feel?’
She was much more laid-back about the announcement than I would have expected, knowing that such an event had been in her and Honza’s plans for some time.
‘Oh, I am happy,’ she said, but everyone around me is unhappy. My director, she doesn’t want to lose me, and of course the girls – ‘
‘- And Honza?’
‘At first he was surprised, but now he’s happy.’ She sighed. ‘Poor Honza, it has been worst for him I think … All I do now is sleep when I am not at work. He gets two sentences maybe when I get home. I underlined some sentences in a book that explained to him what is happening with my body and he understands. He said, ‘Your body is having a revolution!’
‘A revolution.’ We laughed.
I was happy for Hana, but thinking ahead I got a little sad. She’d been one of my best students, and over the course of that year, a friend as well. But I pushed those thoughts out.
‘How long do you want to work?’ I asked.
‘Through Christmas. It’s our busiest time.’
After the baby came, Hana was planning on taking at least a year off. Czech laws allow women up to three years maternity leave, and their employer has to keep a position open for them. The first year women get their full salary, and afterwards a state pension.
‘Three years would be nice,’ Hana said. ‘But I think after the first year I’ll get some part-time work. Honza says he wants to help caring for the baby. He never got to see his two children from the first marriage because of his work. I told him after the first six months we would have a talk.’
‘Well, you’ve got your nanny experience from America ,’ I added.
She laughed.
‘Oh, I’ve always been the one who takes care of everyone. At home, my younger brother, my father after the divorce, all the girls at work.’
When I went to leave, Hana said she was taking a couple weeks holiday.
‘I know you need the money though, so if you want I know someone who can substitute.’

I found a room in Karlin, a neighborhood along the river just north of the center. It was Karlin that suffered the worst of the flooding in 2002. Photos in a pub called the Cerna Kocka (‘The Black Cat’) show residents in boats riding up the two main avenues as if they were in Venice. On the bright side, the flood damage forced a lot of reconstruction that had been long neglected. So what my students said was once a run-down industrial area primarily inhabited by Gypsies has become a draw for investors looking to escape the higher downtown costs.
The family I rented from had had the property seized by the Communists, and were in the process of doing their own long-overdue reconstruction. My room, though small, was clean, with new carpet and outfitted with Ikia furniture. The window offered a view of a courtyard, and since the window faced the north, the room was always cool and dark. Outside, the building faced a pleasant park and church, and further on lurked the high green hills, creating a horizon that also included the giant TV tower and the statue of General Zizkov overlooking the adjoining neighborhood which bears his name.
I lived with two Czechs, both in their early twenties and travel bent. One was Pavel, a tall, dreadlocked kid who was almost always off backpacking somewhere so I didn’t talk to him much. The other was Sonia, like Hana from Chep.
She played guitar, one she’d found at an expo in Zizkov for 3000 crowns. On it she composed intricate, plaintative songs, sung in her rich voice in the manner of Joni Mitchell, whom she admired. The walls of her room, which adjoined mine, were covered in posters. The imposing, ever-youthful gaze of Che Gevarra greeted you when you walked into the room, forcing you to look left, whereupon your eyes rested on a soft-focus image of two beautiful fashion models, clad in silky underwear, wrapped in a passionate embrace. On a desk near the window her laptop sat, the screensaver showing the cherubic faces of Los Bunkers, a Chilean pop group that was, along with Los Tres, her latest obsession.
That season I knew her Sonia was absorbed in Latin American culture. Her family lived in a village in west Bohemia , so I suppose you could call Sonia a country girl, but if so only in origin. Two shoeboxes on a shelf near the bed were stuffed with photos of her travels; a winter spent learning to surf in Australia ; backpacking excursions in Italy ; the year the Czech Republic joined the EU she immediately packed her bags and raced to England and Ireland , where she found work in restaurants and pubs.
You could say such travels are what imbued her with that incessant obsession with culture; or perhaps their roots trace back to some untroubled time and place long ago – a bad relationship, a harsh word uttered at the wrong time, a secret, lost disappointment – that I don’t know. But she had it, as well as an affectionate contempt for some aspects of Czech life – alcholohism, self-pity, laziness – forces that repelled her, that lacked the elusive magic of that unknown exotic world to which she was inevitably drawn.
You got the feeling she’d passed through a series of stages and, at 26, had arrived at the edge of some lonely passageway of young adult existence. She wanted to meet people, new people, go places, near and far, to learn everything she could, and hold on tightly to newly old remembered hours. Each stage was to her more magic and amazing than the last. Doubtless the romantic Celtic mists that had pervaded her dreams upon her arrival in Ireland had now surrendered to visions of majestic Chile , her next prospective conquest.
She’d taken to hanging out at La Casa Blu , a Latin restaurant in the center. There she’d cultivated a wide, varied set of friends and contacts; dapper Spaniards, laconic Venezuelans; one guy from Mexico , who’s name was Diego, she invited to share our flat. I didn’t mind, since Diego turned out to be a well-traveled, agreeable guy. When Sonia was out we’d sit over a bottle of wine and talk about the Mexican elections.
Sonia was practicing her Spanish with Diego – she spoke it well, self-taught. She seemed to absorb language like a sponge, fueled by that intense, inner longing. While not beautiful (her youthful face was spoiled by a somewhat bony, prominent Gypsy nose and crooked mouth), she dressed attractively in colorful, exotic dresses, jumpers, wraps and scarves, all of which were like an extension of her personality.
People took to her in different ways. Women generally approved of her because she was wide-open, sociable; men responded in varying degrees of wonder and contempt, the latter emotion I think, sometimes because dull men found her worldly chatter intimidating while more assertive, attractive men sensed, or felt they sensed, a certain desperation in her assertiveness.
I liked her because she was aggressive, but also considerate. If at a party a certain glittering personality loomed in the corner, she went right over, especially if the personality promised to hail from one of the geographic corners high in her esteem at the moment. ‘ Argentina ?’ she’d cry out. ‘Are you from Argentina ?’ careful to highlight the ‘h’ sound of the ‘g.’ ‘Hola! Como esta Ud? Always careful to use the proper level of formality.
I’m quibbling over details, so I’ll stop now presently, let Sonia just be herself, or reveal herself. The reader will forgive me, I hope, at this attempt at a portrait. In all fairness, Sonia would have plenty to say about me, particularly in my habit of eating goulash at nearly every meal, my annoying habit of missing the ashtray, and my lamentably elementary command of Czech.

One evening in early September we had a small argument. I’d finished teaching early in the afternoon, and spent a relatively dull evening at an Internet café sipping beer and flipping incessantly through wikipedia. When I got home, Sonia had finished eating dinner; signs of a pasta and vegetable dish (she didn’t eat meat) were scattered on the counter.
I was hungry, but didn’t feel like cooking anything.
‘Cau,’ Sonia wandered in from her room, her house sandals brushing the floor. ‘So have you got some new courses?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t want new courses.’
‘No?’
‘I mean, what am I doing? I’m a journalist, not an English teacher. I feel like I’m just a dish washer, a servant.’
‘So be a journalist then.’
I fumbled through a series of answers.
‘I don’t know what you expect,’ Sonia said. ‘Someone to kiss your feet? Maybe you should go to China like you keep talking. Maybe they will kiss your feet there. Maybe they would. When I was in Ireland it was the same for me. I was in a kitchen, doing shit jobs. But that’s how it is when you move to a new country. Why don’t you learn Czech?’
‘I don’t need it,’ I said, growing exasperated. ‘I mean, English – I’m paid to speak English, I spend all day speaking it. English is the international language. In ten years – ‘
‘—So come back in ten years,’ Sonia said. She’d already gotten up and was walking to her bedroom. Presently I heard her put on Los Bunkers. I sat smoking a cigarette for a few minutes, listening to the music. It had started to grow on me.
‘You’re just being lazy,’ Sonia said when she came out later. ‘I mean, you are arguing from laziness. That’s the way it is here though, or anywhere. You are not in America anymore.’

Kyle and the World Cup

Kyle Mulligan surprised me with a phone call on the eve of the World Cup.
He and a couple of buddies, including his boss at the pub from Donegal, were coming for a few days. I’d been hoping to get up to Berlin as Herb suggested, but with the summer my classload had dropped to the point where I just didn’t have the money. So I looked forward to seeing Kyle again, thinking at least we could at least fill the evenings of the tournament with some of the old adventure.
The Cup started on a Friday evening. Kyle and his mates arrived in the afternoon, and were staying at a flat they’d rented not far from Charles Square . When he called, they were at a casino off Wenceslas Square , playing in some poker tournament.
I spotted Kyle immediately. He looked exactly the same, his shaved head unnaturally bright in the gaudily lit room, his eyes focused on the dealer. Then he turned and saw me. ‘Grab a beer,’ he called. I went to the bar and grabbed a couple, gave him one and then sat down at an empty table neaby and watched the card game. There were about a half dozen guys playing. After a while, Kyle folded then leaned over and pointed out his boss, and another buddy, who were still in the game.
‘What time does the Cup start?’ I asked.
‘Bout four. Germany ’s playing.’
Later Kyle’s buddies came over and we introduced. Dave, who owned the bar in Donegal, was a pale, thin-faced man with a kind of sad expression in his eyes. Then there was Sean, a husky lad with that Irish musical expression in his features. We all headed out and walked across the square to a sports bar. It was already full with an anticipatory crowd.
It was a good game, with Germany , the host country, showing a determined effort to send a message, destroying its opponent with goals that were more like cannon shots, fired from as far as 40 meters out.
After the match it was still cool and light outside. We headed back to the square, passing some Nigerian guys working the doors in front of the strip clubs. I was ready to pass on (I wanted to take the guys to Herb’s), and saw the others, led by Sean, engaged in conversation with the Nigerians.
‘Ten pills – 1500,’ I heard Kyle say, negotiating.
‘Come on,’ Sean said, encouraging the Nigerians with a light, mischievous smile. ‘We just want to get high, enjoy the evening, smile and be happy. Happy! Happy!’ He lifted his smile up to the sunlight, an almost lunatic benediction on his face. Sean was a troublemaker, but a pleasant one, I could see that, full of the charming Celtic recklessness Kyle had told me about on long ago forgotten evenings.
Eventually, the sale completed, we headed on. Kyle put in a pill in my hand.
‘Sean acts like he’s lived here all his life,’ I said.
Kyle grinned.
‘I told you about him before. He’s the one who used to say, ‘We live on a rock that floats in the sky.’
On that note we headed to Herb’s.
Herb looked a lot better, rested from his trip to Italy . He greeted me enthusiastically, waving from a table and it felt like the old days, especially with Kyle in town.
‘How are things?’ Herb shook hands with the others.
‘The place is packed,’ I said.
Herb sighed.
‘Yeah, but they’re all drinking beer. No money in that.’
I ordered a soda, a nod to Herb’s warning a month before, and we went downstairs to the sports lounge. Kyle went to get beers, setting one down in front of me on his way back and waving away my protests.
‘You’ve committed enough sins, you might as well commit one more,’ he said.
We clinked glasses.
‘It’s not easy.’
‘It’s not.’
‘I met some guys from Serbia up at the bar,’ Kyle went on. ‘They said, ‘We’re from Serbia !’ and I said, ‘No, you’re not, you’re from Montenegro !’ They got angry. They kept saying ‘Fuck Montenegro ! Fuck Montenegro !’
Same old Kyle Mulligan. I was thinking this when Kyle launched into a Johnny Cash song.
‘I shot a man in Reno , just to watch him die …’ He looked over at me and grinned.
‘I missed this place,’ he said presently.
‘You ought to move back. I mean, what was the point of getting a TEFL certificate just to go back to the bar in Donegal?’
Kyle shrugged.
‘I’d probably die if I came back.’

The Czechs played America a few nights later. Virtually all my students sent messages cancelling lessons, all claiming sudden mysterious illness. I didn’t mind.
The game was on a warm Monday evening. The guys and I all migrated to riegrovy sady, which was unbelievably packed when we arrived, so packed that a second TV screen had been installed in the back, as well as two dozen more picnic tables, and three more beer stands opened up to handle the crowds.
When we arrived all the tables were taken, so we went to the back and sat down on the pebbled ground in front of the second TV, where dogs forgotten by their owners nudged here and there trying to get sips from our pints. As it turned out, it was a good place to sit though. We recognized some forgotten faces from the TEFL school, including this guy from North Carolina , Ruben I think his name was.
‘You rooting for America ?’ I asked as we sat down.
‘I’m in a strange place,’ Ruben said. ‘I wouldn’t mind seeing America win, but I really love this Czech team.’
‘Petr Cech is awesome,’ I said, referring to the goalee, who during the regular seasons played for Arsenal.
Truthfully that’s about all I knew offhand, except the Czechs had routed America during their last meeting at the World Cup in 1991. The Czechs hadn’t been back to the Cup since, but now were ranked No. 2 in the world behind the Brazillians, and the Americans had managed to reach the quarterfinals in 1998, so there was some reason to believe this meeting would be different.
We talked until the teams came out, a big roar erupting from the beer garden, and the national anthems were played. I was surprised at the number of Americans, or at least fans supporting America . A lot of ‘Yeahs!’ were shouted during the Star Spangled Banner and no boos. However, the park exploded into cheers during the Czech anthem. A few people even brought bull horns, which they sounded off when the Czech anthem finished.
‘I wish we’d get this excited about the Cup back home,’ I mused, speaking loudly over the din.
‘I know,’ Ruben said. ‘People just don’t know, I guess.’
‘We need a star,’ I offered. ‘ America likes stars, someone to put a face on the sport. Or winners.’
‘McBride plays over here,’ Ruben said. ‘And some other Americans.’
With the beer and anticipation we were all feeling expansive. By the time the match began, Ruben and I had mapped out a program to reform American football, a proposal that included an American Cup, as well as a farming system to give American players more exposure to the more developed game in Europe .
The Czechs won the match decisively, 3-0.
I was quite drunk by the time the game ended, but stayed to watch the late match.
‘I wish people’d get this excited back home,’ I repeated to Ruben. ‘Maybe it would make a difference.’
‘People just don’t know,’ Ruben said. ‘They just don’t know.’


I awoke in the morning with a sore head and a slightly worried feeling. But then I remembered I didn’t have any classes to teach that morning. Actually I did have one early class, but the student, probably in the same condition, had texted me and cancelled during the match.
I got up, showered and dressed. Kyle and the others had stayed out later and probably were back at their rented flat crashed. But I wanted to enjoy the morning alone anyway, so I went out. It was a sunny peaceful morning. In the streets people’s eyes were filled with that happy calm that comes after a night of good sex. A lot of people had taken the day off, I gathered. On the tram I looked out the window at the passing buildings and realized I didn’t feel too bad either. Actually I felt great.
At Bohemia Bagel I ordered a big breakfast, two eggs, bacon strips, hashbrowns and coffee. The cashier, a lanky guy named Jarda, recognized me.
‘What did you think of the match?’ he asked.
‘Great – for the Czechs.’
He winked.
‘Yes, it was a great game.’
I went into feeble laments for the American team’s shortcomings, while Jarda nodded in sympathy.
‘Yes, yes. Well, maybe in four, eight years for you. It is impossible to beat us now.’
‘Yes.’
‘Maybe we will win the Cup this year.’

Every evening during the month-long tournament the beer gardens and pubs were packed, and an electric, dreamy atmosphere seized the entire Continent. The days were hot and stuffy in the center, the streets crowded with tourists ad vehicles and trams lurched all over town and they too were hot and crowded. But by evening the sun quivered slightly downward, the light becoming clear and pleasant, and the beer gardens felt almost like living rooms, cool and shaded under swaying trees. At Herb’s the back patio, closed during the winter, was opened up, accommodating another hundred or so people, and at the twilight hour the faces sitting at the tables were colored in rose, melancholy light.
I fell into an absent-minded mood, partly owing to the heat and beery atmosphere, but also because of the constant revery surrounding the Cup. Berlin was just a couple hours’ away, close enough where you felt you could faintly hear the roars coming from the stadiums. With the Czech’s strong start against the Americans, there was added a nationalistic excitement in the city that I could see on the faces of my students. Sometimes there was tension between us, actual tension.
‘Face it, James,’ said Frantisek following the Czechs’ rout of the Americans. ‘ America sucks at football.’
But when evening came again and the beer gardens were full awaiting the start of the first match, I forgot those things, surrendered to an eerie, enchanted carnival atmosphere that only increased as we got deeper into the tournament.
‘I’ve never seen a place so densely packed with beautiful women!’ remarked a 24-year-old geography major in town from London for the week.
‘Truly amazing!’ echoed his companion.
‘Oh --!’ An eruption from the next table as everyone looks toward the screen. Then we’re all on our feet. England has scored.
I find myself shaking hands ecstatically with pleasant strangers.
‘You’re man Crouch!’
‘I can’t believe it!’
‘He came through! Un-fucking-believable!’
‘Crouch is a donkey!’ This from Kyle. The Irish as a matter of national character never root for England .
Yes, England had scored. They led Trinidad-Tobago 1-0, with less than 15 minutes to play. A couple minutes later the great Steve Gerrard from Liverpool put in another, and there were more ecstatic cries and brotherly hugs and handshakes.
‘Sighs of relief all across England ,’ declared the geography major.
Relief. Yes, it had been a worrisome first half, with the English missing several relatively easy shots. But then Wayne Rooney, endearingly known by his countryman as “Shrek,” and who had been nursing a foot injury, came off the bench and provided a lift.
‘Rooney made a difference,’ I remarked. ‘His presence, even though he’s not full speed yet, changed the tone of the game.’
‘I suppose so,’ geography major said. ‘Well, it wasn’t our best effort, but we’ll advance, and it looks as though Rooney’s healthy.’
‘You’ll need Rooney.’
‘Yes, he’s the only striker we’ve got this year who can really move around and create shots. Ah, Shrek! Shrek!’
There were cheers all around for Shrek.
And so went the evenings, the tables filled with running commentary and passionate debate by suddenly born experts on the game, all caught in the wave. What was with Ronaldo? Yes, he looks terrible. Did you see when he left early in the first match against Croatia ? Yes, terrible, all bloated. But then it’s only the opening round, most agreed. Brazil didn’t need to be at it’s best to win. Ronaldino – so fun to watch! So sexy! Of course he was playing out of position for Brazil , a bit too fancy sometimes, still … The toughest division? D definitely. Argentina . Have you seen them yet? Well, …
‘What about the Czechs?’ asked a couple of young Czechs sitting nearby. Yes, the Czechs were good, looked damned good against America , was the consensus. Too bad about Koller. But maybe he would be OK.
And on and on, and it was only the opening round. In those cool shaded evenings while the matches played and beer drunk, the rest of the world’s affairs seemed stifling, redundant. Another car bomb in Baghdad kills – was it 18? 25? Who cares. More violence in Afhghanistan, reports say Taliban possibly regrouping. Oil prices go up, and up. Ah, same old shit, depressing. Of course one didn’t usually discuss these things – too depressing – there would only be arguments. And there was plenty to argue about with the tournament.

On the tenth evening of the tournament a great summer storm fell over the city. We were all at riegrovy sady, Kyle, the guys and I, and the Ukraine-Saudi Arabia match had just ended. Not many people had watched that match, but the garden was starting to fill up in anticipation for Spain , which was playing at nine. Spain was one of the name’s everyone kept batting around as a favorite, it was Spain ’s year, some said, they’ve been denied too many times.
I sat with Ruben and a group of his friends from back in North Carolina , and we were talking when simultaneously the warm mellow air turned, the wind picked up, and flecks of rain began hitting our faces. Somewhere the thunder boomed like far-off bombs, and lightening streaked through the shade of the trees. The wind kept picking up, there was laughter and a certain determined amusement by everyone to stick it out. But then the reception on the TV abruptly went out, just as the rain, heavy rain, began to fall.
‘Look there,’ Kyle said. ‘Sheets.’
I turned and saw thick sheets of rain spilling from the tarp canopy covering the TV area onto the tables, most of which were now abandoned by people running and shrieking for cover under the bigger canopy up front. Others huddled in quick conferences, making quick plans to dash through the park and rendevous at some dry location. A good number of faithful, including the North Carolina group, huddled like refugees under the tarp until a medium-sized lake began to rise at our feet. We migrated to the tops of the picnic tables, huddled pitifully, our clothes wet, the last of the beer in our pint glasses getting splashed about with the rain.
I loitered around, leaping in big steps from the islands of picnic tables, streaking now through the downpour up to the beer stand. The bartenders, safely enscounced in their wooden shacks, with slightly crazed looks in their eyes, bravely went on filling glasses.
Back under the tarp a small show was in progress. Some young man, stranded on a plastic chair in the middle of the ‘lake’ was standing in the chair, and walking it back to a nearby table, where a group of friends shouted encouragement.
The storm lasted a half hour. Then the heavy rain stopped and the wind died down, the reception came back. But by then the majority of people had left, including the North Carolina group, as well as Kyle and the guys, who texted saying they’d gone to Chateau.
I ended up sitting for a while with some guys from Liverpool . Spain was down 0- 1 in the first half. I’d been hoping to see the great Torres, and the Spain everyone was talking about. But that half they didn’t show me anything, and I was wet and faded from the storm, so I ended up going home just before the end of the first half.
The next morning I found out Spain had come back in the second half to win 3-1, with Torres scoring two of the three in the final minutes.

The Cup wore on.
America, stung by its humiliation in the first game, played a determined and not-unimpressive game against Italy , the top seed in the division, fighting the favored Italians to a 1-1 draw. The Americans even scored a second goal, and the beer garden erupted momentarily, but it was called back because of an offsides call.
The Czechs, meanwhile, seemed to have peaked during the U.S. game. It lost to Italy , sending a deep depression throughout the country.
Eventually both the Czechs and Americans lost to Ghana , which advanced with Italy to the next round.
The deeper into the tournament riegrovy sady only grew more crowded, and began to feel like a living room. England fell to Portugal in the quarterfinals, as did the great Brazillians, losing to France in a repeat of the 1998 final. Henry provided the go-ahead goal in that match. The Germans played a strong and honorable tournament, falling finally to Italy in the semifinals, a game that was tied nil-nil all the way, the ball controlled well by the Italians, who poured on two goals in the final few minutes to slam the door. France did away with Portugal in the semis, setting up a France-Italy final.
The evening of the final the beer garden was packed with predominantly Italian fans. Cries and chants of ‘Italia! Italia! Italia!’ roared at regular intervals throughout the evening. I was rooting for the French, mostly because the group I was sitting with had cultivated an active dislike for the Italian style. It was alternately described as dishonest (a reference to a betting scandal that had rocked Italian football on the eve of the tournament) to overly conservative to good theater. The Italian fans, of course, would have a different assessment.
It was a good final, with French captain Zidane playing the final match of an illustrious career. Fittingly it was Zidane who put the French up 1-0 early on with a graceful, floating penalty kick. The Italians tied it in the 20th minute when Materazzi headed in a bullet past the French keeper Barthez.
By the second half the beer garden was loud, drunken, literally sotted. The cumulative impact of the month-long tournament, the warm nights, the intensity of feeling, the beer – everyone’s nerves were worn out. There were even screamed epithets by a few in the drunken multitude, screams of ‘Dagos!’ ‘Niggers!’ and so on but I think it was just the alcohol and the fever of the tournament.
The second half of the game started well for the French, with Henry making several aggressive attempts on the goal, but he was unable to convert. The match got sloppier as it wore on, exhaustion began to take its toll on the players, if not on the spectators as well. Then it all erupted during the extra time, when the replays showed Zidane headbutting Materazzi in the chest. Zidane was slapped with a red card. The French could have used him at the end, when the match came down to penalty kicks. Although even Zidane might not have been enough. The Italians were perfect, scoring all five. The French fell two short.
The beer garden exploded once more. ‘Italia! Italia! Italia!’
The Cup was over.

As disappointed as I felt, in a way I was relieved, for it restored a sense of equilibrium with my students.
‘Well, looks like both of us are going home,’ I said to Frantisek.
‘I was wrong to say that America sucked,’ he said. ‘Congratulations for the game against Italy .’The Czechs were better. It’s too bad they lost Koller.’
‘Yes, it’s a shame. But –‘
We looked at each other with shared dismay.
‘ Italy !’
‘ Italy!'

With the end of the Cup, a great lassitude descended on the city. Even the weather changed. The warm, sunny days disappeared behind a dreary gray sky and stayed gone for nearly a month. The city was empty, and one sensed that the same lassitude engulfed the other cities on the Continent. Messages were left on hidden answering machines, with glib voices saying ‘I’ll be out of the office …’ Trips to Croatia, to Tunisia, to Turkey, to the archipelagios of the Mediterranean.
A lot of my classes took summer breaks, which left me with a lot of time for a few weeks. Having nothing else to do, and feeling a sense of urgency aroused perhaps by the fact that everyone seemed to be going somewhere, I put in an email application to China in June, and was accepted at a school in Beijing , beginning in September. A response came, but then I just sat on it.
August came and with it rain that swept away the heat and brought that cool quickening that meant fall was coming early. Fall has always been my season, the gorgeous turning point on toward the end of the year. The city in the coming fall under the dreamy cool rain reminded me of the Prague I’d seen upon my arrival. Everything seemed new again, even the tourist places along the river I thought my senses had long ago exhausted. With this newness I felt ready to move on, where I didn’t know. Where do we go? I read and reread Invisible Man that Philadelphia Rhodes had given me. I followed the narrator from his unjust expulsion from a Southern Negro College up to 1950s New York , where he gets involved with the Brotherhood in Harlem , his involvement with and eventual disillusion with the Brotherhood, the terrifying race riots and his eventual chrystalline realization of his invisibility, a realization that releases him, where he finds his voice. ‘Perhaps on some lower frequency, I speak for you too,’ the narrator ends.
Yes, I hoped so. But you can’t compare yourself to that, I thought. It was a different time, different circumstances. Maybe I’ve had a little struggle, but certainly not that kind of struggle. Why had Philadelphia given the book to me? To teach me the meaning of true struggle, or to gain some perspective on my own invisibility? To put me in touch with a wider struggle, perhaps, one much bigger and deeper than me. Then again, Philadelphia ’s motivations were seldom mixed, and he had a direct style of communicating. Maybe he just thought I’d enjoy it, which I did.

The Peripheral World

One night in early August, I went into Herbs. It was the first time I’d been in since the May Day weekend. It was a mid-week night, and a guitarist was playing, but the place was quiet.
“Cao,” I said to Milan .
“You hear?” he asked. “Herb go home.”
I was stunned.
“Now?”
“No, two weeks. He is selling the cafe.”
While I was still absorbing this news Herb came out. He saw by my expression that I knew, and he laughed.
“Really?” I asked.
“I’m packing it in,” he said. “It’s time for me to put this place to bed.”
“Vera?” I asked.
“Vera.” Herb nodded. “Doctors say she’s slowing down. She needs to rest. I do too, to be honest. Never be a customer in your own bar, words of wisdom.”
We sat down. Milan brought me a cola, and a water for Herb.
“It’s funny,” Herb laughed again. “I always thought it would be me that broke down first.”
“How is she?” I asked.
“Oh, she’ll be all right,” Herb said. “At least, for the most part. But hell, she wants me to be there and I think I’m tired of being a restaurant owner. It’s time to give this place back to the Czechs. So what’s new?”
‘Not much.’
. He also introduced me to the soon-to-be new owner. No introductions were needed actually, for it was none other than Martin, the West African cook who produced the marvelous feta chicken dish. Turns out Martin had been holding out on us. Behind his pleasant, earnest smile lay a solid university education in economics. In addition to working at Herb’s, Martin had also saved money, made contacts with Czech Invest, and was able to secure a small business loan to buy the restaurant, with Herb providing a note of confidence.
I was beside myself, admiring Martin for his quiet, sure ambition.
‘So any changes?’ I asked.
Martin gave a sly grin.
‘Maybe some changes, but we will see. I may change it to ‘Martin’s Ostrava ,’ which in Czech mean’s Martin’s Island .
‘I can’t believe it, all this time, I’ve been coming in here and you never said anything.’
Martin shrugged, a faraway look in his eyes.
‘You want a beer?’

That was the last time I saw Herb Walker. I got an email from him shortly after he arrived back in America. Vera was fine, he said. “It’s good to be back,” he said. She made sure he stuck to his two glasses of wine a day, made him tuck her into bed before eleven. It was a slower life, but I think it was, for Herb, a suitable denoument. The tiredness, the greyness, I ‘d seen in his face so many times was probably gone now, and an old, incandescent world remerged, reintroduced itself to Herb and Vera on those autumn nights back in Virginia. The girl in the green dress ... the girl in the green dress. Yes, she was that girl again; there were no more of that kind to be found, no in Prague , not anywhere in all the glittering capitals of the world.

It was Friday evening. The unseasonably cool weather and rain lifted toward sunset, painting the city in gold-brown and red colors
I walked a couple blocks down to the river, passing the stone bridge near the national theater. On one of the islands you could hear a soft jazz ballad coming from unseen speakers. Attracted, I crossed the bridge, down a series of steps to the tree-shaded island.
There were only a few people there, students sitting on benches looking out at the water mostly. The river’s edge in the twilight was peaceful, the current regular and smooth, gently breaking into foam at a series of dams spread out at intervals to slow the river’s momentum. Here was the heart of the river, of the old continent itself. Smetana’s famous symphony was written before the city installed the dams; the intensity of the soaring melodies doesn’t quite match the reduced flow now, but no matter. As darkness came the yellow lights from the city center fell across the water in shimmering stripes, the water taking on a diaphanous, meridian blue color. Further along the jazz faded, replaced by sweeping Romantic period music from an outdoor beer garden. But I didn’t feel like beer. Instead I circled the island, passing beneath many trees, and then sat alone at the river bank. Summer was just about over, but the river boats were still out, catering to the late season tourists, but otherwise the river was quiet and intimate, as though I were miles out of the city on some Bohemian hillside. Another winter would be on the way before we knew it.
As though on cue, a pair of ducks paddled out from the grassy area near the edge, and together they paddled south – against the current – while the trees along the bank drooped low, brushed lower now and again by the wind. A little while later I looked again for the ducks but they were already gone, either on toward the south or perhaps sleeping for the night. Wonder why they went against the current. Do we always have to keep doing that? Why not follow the river instead? I guess it all depends on where you’re trying to go.
I sat a while longer, thinking again about that recurring dream I used to have when I arrived in Prague , the dream where I’m back at home, and everyone looking at me disappointed. But sitting by the river (and I thought about China too then, as well as Marja, and home) I began to see the dream differently. It seemed they belonged together, the dream and the moment when I woke up realizing I was still in Prague . The two currents merged, inseparable – the dream, and the awakening. That’s what we do, isn’t it? We go away for awhile, sometimes forever, but in the end we come back, to our dreams, ourselves – a departure, and a return. Neither is an end in itself; but merely reflections, currents along the river –
… and here we go, beyond the a.m. crowd, into the peripheral world.