Via Prague

When I left Prague last fall, I didn't think I'd ever see it again. The city then was still ripe from a wet summer, the Vltava a threshing, viscuous green and it felt as though the whole of Prague were having a steambath.
So it was quite a shock, stepping off the bus from Sofia, into a dark city buried under heavy snowfall, the hardest winter in 17 years, I was to read later. It was like arriving in a vanished dream city, a subterranean city. My new life, in Turkey, with Ozlem, was suddenly very far away and I was thrust abruptly back into my old life.
On the bus ride from Sofia, across the wintery, grey landscapes of Serbia and Hungary, meeting the first snow in Bratislava at midnight, I'd looked foward anxiously to arrival in Prague. But now that I was back, five a.m., nearly broke, tired and very cold, I wanted very much to be back on the bus. Ninety days. It was looking to be a long wait.
I got a metro ticket and went from Florenc to IP Pavlova. It felt strange to hear Czech again, after four months of Turkish, and it felt even stranger to speak the language again; it drove deeper the point that I was back, as though I were giving voice to forgotten dreams (I know that sounds ridiculous, but I can't think of another way of expressing it).
At IP Pavlova I got the tram to Krymska and was back in my old neighborhood. Nothing had changed, except that now it was winter. I went to the Czech Inn and had breakfast (it was still too early to call anyone) and caught up with Pat, the manager there, and then decided to book a bed for the night. I went upstairs after breakfast, laid in bed and fell asleep instantly. At noon I awoke and had a shower, then went downstairs.
Outside the Prague I remembered had began to pick up. The trams were rolling up the hill and some kids were standing in the park at the top of the hill throwing snowballs down at the trams and passing cars. One man in a van pulled over and began cursing at the kids, but the kids just flipped him the bird and taunted him, even when he threatened to go up the hill.
Johan was already in at his bar on Donska. His face registered shock when he saw me waving through the glass, and he got up and let me in. "What are you doing here?" he asked. It was a question I was to hear many times over the next few days, and I answered the same way I was to answer many times. Back for ninety days, visa problem, yes, Turkey's great, nice to be back in Prague. Vite doma! Vite doma! I heard that later in the evening from Vlasta, one of the guys that DJs sometimes at the Rozjeta Zaba.
It was nice to see the Zaba crowd again: the owner Jirka, Bolek and Adela behind the bar, Kuba and Lenka, who were still together, Ondrej (who'd moved to Hradcany and only occasionally visited the neighborhood now), Bara, Honza (he came in wearing a suit and tie, he's got a better job, I think).
"How is Turkey?" everyone asked. "Ah, you must have missed Czech beer." "Ah, yes." "Nazdravi." "Cau!"
The next night Johan said I could crash at his place, and I've been there now going on two weeks. Two weeks, going on three. I hate to say I'm counting the days but I am. So is Johan. The days have been very cold. If it were spring or summer or fall you would feel more tempted to revisit some of Prague's old haunts, even the tourist places like the castle and Charles Bridge. Ozlem and I talk on Facebook every day. She asked me to make her a snowman, and when it started snowing in Turkey she sent pictures of the snowman she and her friends had made.
I had lunch with some old students, and they were very happy to see me. They didn't like their new teacher, said he was too quiet, and when they found I needed lessons they said "Perfect!"
But really that's all there is right now: a few old friends, a few old students, a few beers, and the winter. Hard to believe after five years that there isn't more than that. Well, there's Daniel. He's an attorney for the government, I used to teach him, and he wants to meet up. And Misa, another student, she now loves in a small city outside Prague, but she wants to meet and hear about my adventures in Turkey. And Nikola, another old student, she wants to have coffee and introduce me to her new boyfriend; I never much cared for the old one.
And there is this morning. The other night temperatures dropped to minus 30, the coldest so far, the kind of kind of cold that makes your ears and fingers burn. But this morning it's sunny and much warmer, warm enough to go for a good walk. I walked all the way from Krymska up to Namesti Miru and down past IP Pavlova to the National Museum to Vaclavski Namesti, and feeling good, walked all the way back. I don't claim to know Prague like the back of my hand, but it is a city that I feel very comfortable in; there is a feeling that nothing too bad could happen to you, not in Prague. I know that's not true, that bad things can happen to you here, or Turkey, or California or Pittsburgh, or anywhere. But even though this sounds strange there are some places where, if something bad is to happen, you'd rather have it happen there than somewhere else. For example, if something bad happened to me in Belgrade, or Indianapolis, or Wheeling West Virginia, it would be truly very bad. I'd be absolutely lost ifanything bad happened to me in Oakland.
Anyway I can't help but feel an irony in the fact that I feel somewhat disappointed being back in Prague. After all it was the city of dreams for me when I left California. It was here I was going to settle down in Europe and write great novels and live the good and great life, whatever that means. For me it turned out to be sitting in cafes too much and drinking and causing trouble, at least a lot of the time. Istanbul turned out to be a kind of narrow escape; meaning I felt lucky to have escaped Prague (that's how I felt when I arrived in Turkey) somewhat intact, with something left to live and dream on. And now, there's a feeling of being thrust back, as I said before, into a winter landscape. Ozlem says we must be patient. "So you'll arrive with the spring," she wrote the other day. I hope so. But between now and then, perhaps it's a good time to do some thinking. I have a lot of free time, that's for sure. And maybe I can rediscover some of the old Prague, it's better faces -- there are many, I know -- and try not to bullshit myself or anyone else too much about the fact that I'm not sure exactly where I'm going at the moment. There is time -- not much -- but there is. "Use your time there well," says Begum, one of my friends in Istanbul. "Be careful and be good," says Ozlem. That's not a bad start.