Via Prague

Beyond

the

a.m.

crowd


James Tressler

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 napkin, a simple napkin in a frame that hung over the entrance. On the napkin there’s a simple line portrait of Herb. The picture was drawn by Pablo Picasso, signed and dated, August 68.
One might assume that Herb would be an imposing and pompous figure. 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.
You could also order a chicken burrito that easily covered the length of a large dinner plate, or pork ribs served with horse radish and a delicious mustard sauce that when you mixed with the horse radish and dipped the ribs into it, there produced a taste that was nothing short of heavenly, especially on a cold winter night.
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 four-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 . 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 were married forty years and were still married. She kept their house going back in Virginia until Herb would eventually get tired of maintaining the old dream, give in to old age, and return 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, and I smiled with him. After all, I’d never been married, so how would I know?


II


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 big heated Army tents put up in Letna Park for the homeless.
“Je zima jeko Vrusku,” the Czechs said. Cold like 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. For a little while we talked about politics.
“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,” I said.
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. A good time.”
“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 always enjoy 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.
“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.”

I got a text message from Kyle Mulligan as I was leaving Mika. Come over to Chateau, he said. Barney and Tanner here too.
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.
The guys were downstairs. It was a slow midweek night, deserted except for a gorgeous Asiatic bartender and a handful of solemn-looking Brits who sat staring at pints of beer and waiting for something to happen.
Kyle waved me over.
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. Whatever the tactics, it worked. Kyle was exonerated on all charges, and even the judge was reported to have said endearingly of Kyle, “He’s doing what a young man should be doing – opening doors for himself,” and whenever the case was called, affectionately referred to Kyle as “The Prague Boy.”
Of course, it should be mentioned that “The Prague Boy,” while perhaps innocent of assaulting a cop, had managed to get unemployment while living in Prague . So he was living in Prague at 200 euros a week, courtesy of the Irish taxpayers. Somehow the prosecutors missed that one.
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, James,” 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 Pol, 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. Tanner Larson. He’s one of those guys everyone professes to dislike – even hate – and really do and yet he always seems to be about and everyone tolerates him. Recently graduated from the University of Texas with a geography degree, Tanner had gone to a different Prague school. 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.
The guys were all downstairs when I arrived.
“Did you hear?” Kyle asked. “We sold 90 pills last weekend.”
“Where?” I looked at Duncan .
“The usual places. We cleaned Pol 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.”
It was one of Tanner’s annoying characteristics. If you let him, he’d smoke all your cigarettes over the course of an evening, then the next time not only deny it, but insist that it was he who on some remote evening had allowed you to smoke his cigarettes. It was petty, but annoying nevertheless.
Tanner went on, protesting his innocence.
“Shut up, Tanner,” Kyle broke in. “Nobody can understand you.”
“Speak for yourself,” Tanner said. “You Irish were just shit out of England anyway.”
“Fuck off you ignorant Texan.”
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.”
The Marquis de Sade in those days still lived up to its name, a cozy, dirty dive with wooden floors and high, red-painted ceilings. There were pictures of naked prostitutes from the 19th Century on the walls and the bathrooms were puke-stained, ill-smelling holes. The owner, “JB,” was a pudgy, seldom sober American, who had an inexplicable habit of firing his entire bar staff at random every six months or so. Still the place was often busy, a generally international crowd with live music almost every night. Eventually JB sold the place to an attractive Slovakian girl who renovated the place – took away its decadent charm – and now nobody goes there.
It was an average crowd that night. By then it was nearly twelve.
We sat next to a table of students, mostly German and Scandanavian. One thing about Tanner is he’s not afraid to address strangers with casual remarks. Within a few minutes we were being introduced to the table.
“Sven,” said the one nearest to us. He was a German law student.
Tanner got everyone embroiled in a discussion on the EU. This was a few months before France and Denmark voted down the Constitution. I’d had a few by then and don’t recall the exact twists and turns of the discussion. Sven was stauchly EU, I remember that, but only because Marja and I joked about it later.
Marja. She was sitting on the other side of the table, squeezed in between a quiet German guy and a pretty girl she introduced as Suvi.
I might not have noticed them except for I blundered into the stiff argument Sven and Tanner were having.
“I think we should have a world government,” I said idiotically.
This announcement was met with a chorus of voices, adding to the general din.
“Tell us more about your ‘idealistic vision.’” Marja – she introduced herself later – made quote marks with her hands. She had a friendly, accented voice.
A little later we sat together.
“Sven is so boring,” she said.
“He is very serious.”
“He is always talking about boring things. Like should Turkey join the EU. The EU is his favorite topic.”
“What should we talk about?” I asked.
“I am Finnish,” she said, laughing. “We don’t talk very much.”
But she did talk though. She was 23, her parents ran an appliance store in a small town, she was studying sociology and economics, and was in Prague on a six-month program at Charles University . I told her about my old job at the newspaper in California , how I’d come to Prague , etc.
A little later the bar was closing up. The guys wanted to head to Batallion, but I had an early class. Marja’s friends had already left too, leaving the two of us talking.
Outside a fresh, light snow was falling. It’s always a little warmer when it snows but it was still cold. We caught a night tram, which was nearly empty except for a couple of drunks slumped over in their seats.
We sat facing each other, and as the tram rolled through the street she was suddenly quite familiar. I kissed her, and she responded.
“Herb was right,” I said.
“What?”
“Herb, a friend of mine. He said I needed to get out more.”
She smiled.
“You’re going to miss your tram.”
The tram stopped at Lepanska, where all the night trams intersect. We’d already exchanged mobile numbers, so with a quick last kiss and promises to meet soon I hopped out and caught the cross-town tram home. It was nearly four, three hours before my first class.

III


Marquis de Sade was a great place to hide away in the afternoons. Usually then it was dark and slow, before happy hour, good to squeeze a pint in between classes.
That afternoon when I arrived there was a man sleeping on one of the red sofas near the stairs. Sleeping – well, he appeared to be passed out. At first I didn’t give him much notice, not until the bartender came round and shook him on the shoulder.
„Come on, let’s go. You can’t sleep here.“
The bartender, an American, didn’t say it rudely, and I think he only said it because the manager, a dour, middle-aged woman, told him to.
The man rose slowly to a sitting position. I didn’t notice until he was sitting up how massively built he was. He seemed to rise higher and expand, first languidly and then quickly, like a freight train approaching from the distance.
He had been lying on his jacket, or it had somehow ended up beneath him during his sleep. With a disoriented tint his eyes drifted out into the darkened bar as he lifted and pulled the jacket out from underneath and set it on his lap.
I took him in casually, focusing more on my beer and cigarette. He looked to be in his mid-forties, with skin that was like charcoal, a deep but porous ebony.
„What time is it?“ He asked.
„Three-thirty,‘ I said. „Been at it early?“
„I’ve been at it since last night. I was with some British guys but I lost them. Shit! Now my phone’s up and left too.“
While he talked, he’d been fishing through the pockets of his jacket.
„That’s the second phone I bought this year,“ he said, holding the jacket up again and checking both inside pockets. „Lost another one over Christmas to some Russian guy up in Žižkov. Another two thousand crowns gone.“
„You can use mine if you want,“ I said.
„Thanks but I don’t have the number. It was on the phone. Damn but if I won’t have to get them all over again. And some will just be gone.
He was sort of philosophizing and lamenting aloud, a habit I possess and tend to like in other people.
The bartender came back.
„So you’re OK. No sleeping?“
„Tak dobøe amigo! I’ll take a pivo if it’s alright.“
„One?“
After the beer was brought, the man seemed to resign himself to the loss of the phone. He straightened up and took a drink.
On impulse I introduced myself.
„Philadelphia Rhodes,“ he said, with a thick booming voice. „You from the States?“
„California,“ I said, a little shyly.
„North or South?“
„North. Eureka. It’s a little town north of San Francisco.“
He nodded.
„I know Eureka. Humboldt County. Oh yes, Humboldt County. I passed through it a few years ago on my way up to Vancouver. Very good weed in Humboldt.“
„World famous,“ I said, grinning. Whenever people said it I felt some need to pump it up like a Chamber of Commerce guy. „Where are you from? Philadelphia?“
“Jersey actually. But south Jersey’s pretty much a suburb of Philly and New York. I come from Camden, just over the river.“
Like most English-speaking foreigners, I was teaching English in the city. Usually I assume the same when I encounter fellow countrymen, but after a flash it occurred to me that my new acquaintenance wasn’t.
„I’m not really doing anything at the moment,“ he said, chuckling. „You teach? That’s good. I made a few movies a while back.
„Really?“ I asked.
„Yeah, there’s this guy I met at a bar in Andel who likes to have English speakers in his movies. It was good money – five thousand crowns for a day’s work.“
„That’s not bad,“ I said.
„Yeah, not bad. So anyway, I did that for a while and I made enough to kick back for a couple months.“
„What did you do in the States? Philadelphia Rhodes sounds like a boxer or musician.“ I bucked a little at saying this, but I couldn’t help saying it.
„Drums,“ he said, rewarding me with a nod and beam.
„No shit?“
„No shit. Played pretty much everywhere, New York mostly. Got a place up in Harlem called St. Nicks where there’s good people. Used to spend a lot of time there.“
„Ever play at Yoshi’s?“ I like jazz and so I was listening to him.
„In Oakland? Nah, but I know it. Sushi bar.“
„Have you played with anyone I’d know?“
„I did some session work with David Bowie a while back, but that was a one-off. And I’ve worked with Jackie McLean and a few old cats like that.“
Of course it would be easy to suspect he was merely name-dropping or full of shit. But something in his tone and bearing told me he wasn’t. Even in the quiet tone of pride in his voice something was tuned to the right level.
It’s easy to imbue people with stereotypes, faulty bridges to our own perceptions, especially when it comes to older black jazz musicians. I’m trying now to remember Philadelphia Rhodes exactly, the sense of him, but it’s also true I may be reading my own expectations into the man. Nevertheless, I was struck immediately by the sense of warmth and power, qualities that seemed to lurk at the back of the phrasing.
I caught Jackie McLean on a memorable evening in New York one time. So I told him about it.
„At the Irridium?“ Philadelphia asked, lighting a Gauloises „Yes, good club. And you been up to St. Nicks? How about that? The man says he’s been to St. Nicks.“
He smiled and turned the cigarette in his fingers and looked at it.
„So what brought you here?“ I asked.
„I got tired of the scene in New York. Here the pace is slower and cheaper. Plus there’s a little more work. In New York there’s a lot of work for horn players. For drummers it’s harder.“
Somehow his answer, though it sounded plausible enough, didn’t satisfy me. I sensed there was something else, why I don’t know.
As I said he had a powerful build – a drummer’s big heavy hands and deep chest. As he shifted on the sofa, there was a substance to his movements. It was a build that suggested a familiarity with travel or heated nights in clubs. I could almost see him at that moment, behind his kit, catching the change from a swaying three-four to a surging straight four with a slight nod of the head and dip of the shoulder. I remember once seeing Elvin Jones play and he moved the same. I wondered if they all moved that way, jazz drummers. Maybe just the good ones, I thought, or maybe it’s a harmless pose tracing back to who knows when.
Yes, I thought, there was mystery in those movements and heavy hands, a dip that made you look up and catch the sliver of light radiating off the roughened forehead and chin.
I ordered a round, hoping he’d stick around. He accepted and we drank and smoked a while. A couple of Czech girls came in and sat down on one of the other sofas. They ordered Irish coffees, then sat together looking a little gloomy or bored. One of them was quite pretty, but she just stared at the floor with serious eyes while her friend flipped desultorily through a fashion magazine.
„Ciao-Ciao! Jak se mas?“ Philadelpia turned and addressed the girls. His Czech was hearty and confident.
The girls smiled shyly and looked at each other quizzically. Philadelphia grinned and chatted for a moment or two in Czech that was much better than mine. When he spoke to the girls he had a habit of beating the side of the sofa with his left hand.
The girls were still shy but they warmed to him and responded in phrases I didn’t understand.
„Jo jo,“ my new acquaintenance said, still beating the side of the sofa and laughing. Presently he turned back around, tipping the girls a small salute.
„Your Czech is pretty good,“ I said.
„I pick it up by watching TV. And I had a girlfriend for awhile.“ he said. „It was the same with French. And Japanese, I speak a bit of that too.“
„I can never do that,“ I said. „Just listen and pick it up.“
„You don’t know how to listen maybe,“ Philadelphia said. „It’s the same with music, too. Listening is a big part of it.“
„When I studied Spanish I was always good with speaking but to listen – „
„That’s true with a lot of people. They can talk but they can’t listen.“
With that, Philadelphia laughed.
„My Momma used to say that,“ he added after a moment. „Learn to listen. Let other people talk. There’s enough talkin‘ in the world.“
I changed the subject.
„A lot of black musicians do it,“ I mused aloud, hoping I didn’t sound too stupid. „I mean, come to Europe to live. Sidney Bechet, Dexter Gordon. They said they felt more welcome here than at home.“
„Well there’s more work,“ Philadelphia said. „I mean, folks here are just as bad as folks back home. Some can be worse. But they like us too so they’re real polite. The French are mostly good, and the Scandanavians and Dutch too. Here in Czech I think they’re still a little afraid, so they make up for it by being nice. When I first got here some little kids would walk up and touch my face.“
„I suppose they just aren’t used to it,“ I said. „Prague’s a pretty white city, except for the Vietnamese.“
„There’s diversity but a different kind,“ Philadelphia said. „You just have to look a little for it. Gypsies, Chinese here and there. And the Slavic folks have different keys. You can see it in the way they look at each other. Czechs tend to be standoffish at first, at least to foreigners. Us foreign folks add something too, except we tend to come and go until after a while they stop looking at us and we all look the same.“
„How do you find it?“ I asked.
„Easy. The trick is to blend. Just step back a bit, wait your turn to add something. Pick your moments.“
„I find myself feeling too passive, too nice, one moment, then too angry the next. I can’t seem to find the right mix.“
„No different here than back home: just be,“ Philadelpia said.
He let his beer sit at his elbow, drawing from it now and again. I finished mine and ordered a third.
„Let me get it,“ Philadelphia said.
We sat and talked for several hours. Around seven the place began to fill up. The atmosphere became lively and people lined up at the bar, and later I walked with Philadelphia Rhodes across Old Town Square. It was a windy, snowy night. My train arrived first, so we shook hands and bid goodnight.


IV

Herb had said to be curious about everything, and so I tried to be. In the mornings I ran to catch the metro to my first class, and made a point of grabbing one of the free dailies from the distributors. Even though I couldn’t understand the text, I enjoyed browsing, picking out words here and there, and from time to time gathering understanding from pictures and context. In transit between classes, the city flickered by from the tram or the back of the bus, the nebulous districts south of Vysehrad near the prison, the rows of panalaky, and the omnipresent billboards that, as in America , screamed for the attention of the subconscious.
The faces of the Czechs themselves, braced inward against the winter and the workday, remained as inscrutable as the language itself. I searched their faces for some key to their hidden aspirations and grievances – as though I had some claim to understanding based on the simple fact that we all had to get out of bed and face the day together.
From time to time, say, when I noticed a ragged flier hanging in a shop window, a story idea would whisper, but more often than not I did nothing, simply “pocketed” the idea with the intention of following up later. Inevitably I’d rush along to the next class, and what whatever whispers had collected would soon die away, scattered by the forces of grammar and pronunciation.
I got a new student through the school. He lived in Roztoky, a little village north of the city. The student, Karel, asked if I could come to Roztoky. He apologized for the distance, but said if I was up to the inconvenience he would stand me a few beers.
We met at the bus stop, then walked a few minutes down quiet streets. All the houses were well-kept, hidden behind brick-walled fences, behind which dogs barked as we passed.
The pub was called Aj Movka. Outside there were picnic tables with umbrellas, but since it was winter they sat wet and miserable-looking.
A few insulent stares greeted me as we walked in. 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, I gathered, was the neighborhood pub for the town’s residents, and many of them had been going to the same pub all their lives, a place where they knew everyone and didn’t often come in contact with foreigners.
But with Karel it was OK. He 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 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.”
He read the first two or three. They were all short, the way most jokes are. His English was good enough to get the basic point across. Occasionally he pointed to a certain word and, by way of description and suggestion, elicited from me the correct word in English.

“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.”

“What does the second joke mean?” I asked.
“I was really stoned when I wrote them,” he 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 Misa. 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.
“Misa.”
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.


Marja and I spent a lot of time together. It was much easier in her company to get around the city, and enjoy things.
We spent many late nights out at the pubs, drifting in and among her friends and mine. She shared a flat in Smichov, a neighborhood on the southeast end of the city, with six other students. Her room was in a loft on the top floor. It was a small room, sparcely furnished. The ceiling slanted sharply at a diagonal angle, and there was a window there that if you opened it you could stick your head out the roof and look out at the city.
Usually it was snowing when we awoke, so we rolled over and pulled the blankets tight and went back to sleep, or else in semi-consciousness talked to each other, made love and went back to sleep.
“I used to have these dreams of planes crashing,” she said one morning.
“What do you think it meant?”
“I don’t know. The planes would just crash.” She laughed, illustrating it with her hands.
“But I haven’t had that dream in a long time,” she added.
“Another time I dreamed I was pulling Sven’s hair and then there was a car crash.”
“Maybe you’re in love with Sven.”
“No, I hate him. Besides, he is gay, I think.”
“What’s with all the crashes?”
“I don’t know what it says about my unconcious mind. What do you dream about?”
“I never remember.”
“Oh, you are an old man,” Marja said.
“Does it bother you?”
“No, I like it. You are my old man.”
“Let’s go back to sleep.”
“OK.”
“What is it like in Finland ?”
“It’s boring.” It was about two and we were still in bed.
“Would I like it?”
“Oh, you must come.”
“I will. Maybe in spring.” She was leaving in May. “What do you do there?”
“I just go to school. And in the evenings I have folk dancing, and of course we go to the sauna later.”
“I would like to try folk dancing – and the sauna.”
“Yes it would be nice. I could get you the traditional costume.”
“What does it look like?”
“It’s nothing special. A white shirt, dark pants and a vest.”
“I’d like it.”
“I’m hungry.” Marja rolled over and looked at me.
I got dressed and headed out. The McDonald’s was just down the street. I came back with four cheeseburgers and the Fanta. We ate in bed. With the food, I started to come out of the drowsy world. I thought about Roztoky. It seemed very far away. Everything seemed far away. It was Sunday so there was no need to be anywhere.
“What are you thinking about?” Marja asked.
“About Sunday.”
“What about it?”
“It’s always been my favorite day.”
“We should get some pancakes later.”
“That sounds good.”
It was like that, warm and lazy, with the cold and snow outside in the city that was still strange and new to me. At these times, I didn’t think about Aj Movka, or about Herb or Kyle or La Clan or home. I didn’t think about anything really.

V

Obviously when I first came to Prague my romantic gauge was turned up a notch. OK, ten notches. I wanted and fully expected to meet all sorts of engaging and mysterious personalities upon my arrival, as though it were the Left Bank of 1920s Paris. So it is possible, at least at first, that I imbued him with qualities he himself wouldn t see himself as having, or distorted the context of things he said. I can only hope to clarify any misconceptions, or at least even the scales, in the end.
On the same note, I’ve learned to scale back those expectations quite a bit. Prague, though a vibrant and ever-shifting city, is home to more than its share of romantics, maniacs and bores. It also has its share of caring people with whom you feel intimate the moment you meet them. I suspect it has its share of geniuses too who will unveil themselves in time. The city is only now emerging from the blank stare of Communism, and the new voices could be still taking in the landscape, waiting for the spirit of the new age to whisper to them. Then again, it could be, as Philadelphia Rhodes implied, I am a little deaf.
Anyway, after that first night I spent the next few weeks hanging out with him. In the twilight, we’d meet Marja and her friends for drinks, at a pub in Žižkov, chatting late in the darkened atmosphere, the city spread out at the bottom of the hill.
Other evenings it would be just me and Philadelphia. We‘d meet early in the evening at a bar and discuss music, politics, women, literature, Prague and America. To my delight we had similar tastes, from Miles Davis to Mayakovsky.
I found out he had a wife – in Tokyo of all places. He visited her two months a year. He also had a 12-year-old son from a previous marriage who lived in Baltimore. I could tell he had tremendous affection for his wife, Tamara, as well as his son, Raymond, who he was teaching to play the drums.
Listening to him, my mind kept going back to that feeling I had when I first met him, that feeling that there was something more behind his decision to stay in Prague. My imagination itched to build a mysterious past behind him, that he was fleeing the law or some illicit love affair. Or I imagined that, feeling rejected or a failure as a musician, he’d sought refuge in Europe and travel.
But the better I got to know him, I rejected these fantasies. I came to the conclusion that, like myself, he was restless and needed the road to reassure him that the world was indeed mysterious. It was the only balm tht could soothe his ever-searching mind.
„Kerouac. Yeah I know him,“ he said one time during our literary discussions. „He had the rhythm, the timing. The story wasn’t as important as the style. Like Bird, it was the velocity, not the content, that stuck with you.“
Philadelphia Rhodes quizzed me on black writers, like Ellison and Hughes, which I shamefully confessed I’d heard of but scarcely read. To my surprise, he also was widely read in Czech literature. He could weave themes in ‚The Metamorphosis‘ and Svejk into The Watts riots and the Michael Jackson trial in unconventional and delightful ways.
„Svejk, he’s the classic nigger: Yessah boss man, nossa boss man,“ Philadelphia said, chuckling. „He knows the easiest way to get by is to just listen to the man, but he knew how to turn it too. He knew it worked both ways. There’s nothing more dangerous than a man who lets you believe he’s as stupid as you think he is.
„Some Czechs I talk to don’t like him,“ he continued. „They sort of see him as an Uncle Tom. Czechs and black folks are similar in that way: their history is of survival in the face of power. And they hate themselves sometimes, hate their history, so they go on with no knowledge of themselves. It’s something white folks, especially in America, the ones who come over here, don’t understand. They say „Czechs are so grumpy, these Czechs are stupid, these Czechs are so lazy,“ and so on, just like they say about us. It’s a layer of protection. The only thing that keeps people together, is to be misunderstood together, or at least to maintain the illusion of being misunderstood.“
This wasn’t a speech Philadelphia was making. He didn’t talk like he was trying to lecture. Instead, I got the impression he was feeling his way through, and merely sharing it. I didn’t mind at all. The more I got to know him, the more I appreciated the easygoing flight of Philadelphia Rhodes. His company, like his voice, was a glass of gin and tonic – clean, but with a bite that warmed you. With him, you didn’t miss home or regret mistakes because they weren’t mistakes at all, just the kicks and booms in an improvised set.
„Do you believe in any kind of hereafter?“ I asked him one evening.
„Absolutely,“ Philadelphia answered.
„What does it look like to you?“
„It’s a homecoming with music, pure music,“ he reflected. „Not harps and shit like that necessarily. Sometimes when I used to be at St. Nicks, playing with these guys Dave Wilson and Earl Johnson, guys from the neighborhood, we’d play til one, two in the morning. Then we might head downtown to the Village. Nights like that, especially when the place was full and it was hot, people dancin‘ and the place just movin‘, I would think, this must be heaven or something close. But that’s just personal. I think it’s what you make it, just like life.“
„It’s like the book East of Eden,“ I enjoined. „Timshel. Thou mayest.“
„We aint got a choice but to choose,“ Philadelphia said. „Living and dying. They really are the same thing when you get down to it. Like I said you got to learn to pick your spots. Sometimes you got to die to live, other times it’s the other way around. I remember this cat back in Harlem, Horace Bibbens. Everyone called him Bibs. Man, could that nigger play the piano. I remember one time he took Pathetique and played that over Alabama. It was the anniversary of the church bombing, I remember, sometime about 85. They’re not even in the same key but somehow brother made it fit. Anyway, we were coming out of the slow blues part and back to the head and when he went into the bass trill, Bibs with his right hand starts the Pathetique – you know, ‚bam, bum, bom, bum – shit! I looked over at Earl Johnson, who was wailing on the Coltrane bit and he stopped for a second, then just dropped his tone to a whisper and went with it. I’m up there crashing and booming but then I dropped it down too and for a moment it was just that Pathetique over the bass trill ringing out.“
Philadelphia cackled and sat back, a bemused look on his face.
„Ol‘ Horace never did say why he did it ,“ he continued. „ Or where it came from. The audience – there were only 10, 12 people in the house that night, just the old fellas at the bar and a few tourists and this old sweet girl Margaret was working. They clapped real loud but you could tell they were a little bewildered too. The tourists especially. I remember after I was happy. We all were, a sort of quiet too, thinking about those people who died in the church bombings. It was a moment and they were part of it too and the past was there, the history was in that moment too, all history. Then we just laughed, laughed even though we had tears too.
„It’s something that’s a part of life, my life anyway,“ he said, a little sadly. „The music.“
„Do you ever play anymore?“ I asked.
„Yeah, but I got some pains here,“ he said, rubbing his elbows and shoulders. „There’s some places in town though where they know me and let me play now and then.“
„I’d like to hear you sometime.“
„You bet. I’ll let you know. ‚Fact, I may be doing something next week.“


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.
I’d written something earlier that day. It worked well enough I suppose. People laughed in the expected places, and I was also able to get a few more laughs through little changes I made impromptu.
Karel went on next. 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 teh 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 Denmark guy presently handed me a flier. It was for an upcoming exhibition.
“My parents are putting it on,” he went on. “He’s American, she’d Russian. The show is aimed at restoring USA-Russian relations.”
“I’d like to go,” I said.
“My father is here if you want to meet him.” He got up and returned with a reddish complexioned man in his forties.
“Stephen,” he said, shaking my hand.
We talked for a few minutes about the exhibition. “I could do a write-up,” I said.
He gave me his mobile phone number.
“Call me tomorrow. We’ll set up a time to have you come over to the studio.”
The owner wanted to close up. So around eleven everyone, still chatting and lively, headed out to the frozen sidewalk.
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. ”

I was busy teaching through January, so I didn’t have time to get down to Herb’s. Tell the truth, I didn’t even bother going to the center that much. It was too cold and I didn’t have much money. 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 Misa. Karel showed up. He cuffed me. I remember that. It was ugly. I went home. I have to hand it to Misa. She never let it affect her. The game went on, and she kept the hands going.
I woke the next morning mortified and hollow.
The first thing I did was send 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.”
Nothing really happened after that except the idea of being roommates sort of drifted away.

VI


It was raining the morning I first met Hana. That was in the fall before the Russian winter.
She lived in a panalaky neighbourhood on the southern edge of the city. The school gave me the wrong directions, and by the time I got turned around, I was more than an hour late.
Hana was cool about it. She looked at the map with the directions the school had given me and saw that it truly was a mistake and then she was even nicer about it all.
“Well we can cancel today’s lesson,” she said laughing. “But come and I will show you my flat for next time.”
The passing cars made sleek sounds as the rain fell on the street. It was hard to tell what Hana looked like. She was wearing a slicker with the hood drawn tight so I could only see her face. She looked young and her features were good. Also her English was fairly clear, which was a relief. I hate teaching beginners.
When I showed up the following week, it wasn’t raining and when Hana answered the door her hair was down over her shoulder. It was a light auburn shade, not natural but close enough so that it looked natural enough. She had the Czech woman’s soft, clear skin and porcelain eyes. Later she told me she came from a village outside Prague .
I became fond of her almost instantly. Hana 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. I’ve been to New York a few times myself, and know the rhythms and lines of Manhattan never come together better than when one is young and seeing it for the first time. “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.”
“So what are your plans?” I asked.
“Someday soon I’d like to have a baby,” she said. “I think it’s about time.”
“Soon?”
“Well, in the next year I think. We are renovating a house now, and move in there and rent this flat out.”
“What about work?”
“I would stop. At least when the baby comes.”

One morning in late Janurary we listened to a tape recording 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," she said.

VII

“Come on down to Zizkov tonight,” Philadelphia texted. “I’ll meet you at the main train station at eight and we’ll head down to a place I know.“
After my last class finished, I dropped my bag off at my flat, then caught the metro to the main train station. Outside I saw Philadelphia, massive as always, waiting for me at the stop.
„It’s just down the way,“ he said, after I greeted him.
We’d invited Marja and the girls too but they were going to come around ten or so.
Philadelphia led me a few blocks to a no-name bar not far from the TV tower. It was one of those dark cellar places, really indistinguishable from the hundreds that blanket Prague. A white-haired Czech guy was behind the bar. He greeted us with a grave nod and „Dobøe vicher.“
Philadelphia ordered a round. The bartender scraped the foamy head off with a butter knife, a practice peculiar to Czechs, then served them up. It was good Pilsner, cold and clean.
Up on a tiny stage a quartet was playing. You could tell they’d just started because there was a cold draft in the music, a crampness in the musicians‘ attitude that would take a set to work out. With some groups it’s like that, or just some nights maybe. Other times it’s hot and loose right from the start. It just seems to work that way.
Even so, the cellar was full, a Czech crowd of mostly students but a few middle-aged folks as well.
„These guys take some time,“ Philadelphia said as we sat down. „They’re all good musicians and they know the music, but they’re always a little shy at first. But once they forget about it they’ll surprise you.“
„They do seem stiff,“ I said.
„Yeah, give ‚em time,“ Philadelphia said. „There you hear?“
The musicians had gone into „In Your Own Sweet Way,“ a dandy of a ballad. A stout man with a salt-and-pepper beard played the melody on a muted trumpet. At Philadelphia’s prompting I focused on the rhythm section. The bass and drums were manned by young Czechs, both pony-tailed and studious. At piano sat an older man with beautiful gold-colored skin. His comps, light and mellifluous, matched his complexion.
„That’s Stefan Morris,“ Philadelphia said. „He’s from New York too. Been over here bout five years.“
I listened and I could feel, faintly at first but then stronger, a warmth beginning to emanate from the stage. It’s that warmth you wait for, the warmth that will take you somewhere eventually, take the evening to a place where you feel remote and safe from the world. Outside now the streets are beginning to fade into late-evening colors, but you didn’t need to look outside to know this. People were in restaurants now and talking, drinking pints and eating pan v rohlik or smazeny hermelin. Soon it would be dark and then it would be much later and there would be a stirring of wind in the trees up at riegrove sady. Soon Marja would be sitting beside you and you would smell that faint scent of fruit in her hair when she kissed you, and the coppertone flavor of Suvi’s gay chatter announced the arrival and departure of another discarded, promising young suitor. But all of this you knew, too. It was all in the music, in that warmth that was now beginning to fill the cellar.
„Oooh, look out now!“ Philadelphia whistled. Stefan turned and saw him and they exchanged laughing nods.
I looked at Philadelphia and grinned. I couldn’t help it.
„Thanks, man. It’s nice.“
„It’s just getting going now. Wait a bit longer.”
The band took a break around nine-thirty. Stefan came down and slapped Philadelphia on the shoulder and shook hands.
„Thought I was going to have to organize a search party,“ he said. „Where you been, negro?“
“Thought I’d give our man Jiøi some time to practice,“ Philadelphia said. Jiøi was the young Czech drummer. He came up presently, greeting Philadelphia with a big, shy smile.
„Cao! We wait for you to come,“ Jiøi said. „You must play now.“ Like most young Czechs, he spoke English well, the Slavic tinge only bending the edges a little.
„Now, now,“ Philadelphia said, waving off the compliment. „These bones are just now starting to warm up. I’m a little more worried about damaging Stefan’s changes than my tendons. But yeah, in a minute. Have a pivo first.“
The next set started at ten. Philadelphia walked around the kit and he looked awkward for a minute, squeezing his powerful frame into the little space. He sat down. With two heavy paws he touched the cymbals, then made a few adjustments, moving the snare an inch or two forward, and the tom-toms as well, to make more room. It all took about two minutes. Then he sat back and seemed comfortable.
While Philadelphia was doing this, Stefan sat at the piano talking amiably with an older Czech couple. The man was pointing toward the keys and Stefan was nodding but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. The bassist, whose name I later learned was Petr, thumped a few anticipatory notes, looking over at the bar in a distracted way. The trumpeter was gone and a woman on violin taken his place. She was in her mid-thirties and wore what almost looked like an Amish dress, plain and with a white bonnet covering her brown hair.
There was that rattle of empty noise that always comes in the minutes leading up to the start of the next set. Then everyone looked at Philadelphia. He seemed not to notice, grinning now and again in the direction of the bar. With a good drummer you never quite see him start; you feel it, the feathery frrrt of the snare and boom! of the bass drum and he’s off. It was only after that you actually see him move, the bob of the shoulder, the hovering threat of the bass drum, the hands lapping the snare and crash-hiss coming from the cymbals.
With Philadelphia’s presence the whole atmosphere of the room changed. It seemed everything was shaded a tone darker, and the warmth was there instantly, emanating in large puffs, climbing up the walls and running along the smooth stone floor.
I was lost in it for a moment, but then my senses adjusted and I recognized the song, „Delilah“ by Clifford Brown. The violinist, Klara, gave the Arabic melody a distinctly rural flavor. Someone told me she was from a small village in South Bohemia. With her the melody became sweet and a little sad. But just when the melody threatened to get too sweet Philadelphia’s bass drum and snare would erupt like thunder and lightening, scattering the melody for a moment. He harrassed Klara, startled her sadness. Then he’d turn and look over at Stefan, whose gold, mellifluous comping was like the rain to Philadelphia’s thunder. The storm broke. Then he fell back into a false calm, the eye of the storm, a benign smile on his face and that sliver of light coming off his forehead.
Petr seemed affected by Philadelphia’s presence most of all. His studiousness shifted to another mood and you could see him let go a little bit. That opened up the music, his thick tones wrapping around Philadelphia’s mighty strokes and crystallizing the chords coming from the piano.
The set continued. A smoking version of „Impressions,“ on which Stefan’s playing took on a percussive tone, and into songs I hadn’t heard before or only faintly recognized. It was better that way sometimes. Free of the familiar melodies, I was able to focus purely on the warmth that kept increasing. You could see it on Philadelphia’s face, which was perspiring freely by now. Even the ever-cool Stefan Morris courteously allowed a trickle of sweat to travel down his brow.
Klara’s playing was beautiful, and Petr surprised me with his adaptability. But really from the start it was all about the play between Philadelphia and Stefan, their lines meeting and continuing past, pulling the evening on into a vanished time, an hourless era measured in pine tar and lemon juice, an age recorded by oleo and firecrackers. It went on like that, and after a while I lost the form and just sat, leaning forward in my chair.
„Ahoj,“
I looked up and it was Marja, looking smart in a red jacket and white scarf. The other girls were there too. They all turned and waved to Philadelphia, who saw and winked. The bartender brought over some extra chairs and they sat down. Then I kissed Marja and after that it was all glimpses and flashes, the evening that is. I remember we sat listening and the bartender bringing Gimles for the girls and beer for the rest of us.
The set ended around eleven. Philadelphia came over and exchanged kisses and hugs with the girls. It was hot in the cellar now so we followed a crowd people up the steps and onto the sidewalk for cigarettes. Outside it was cool and dark. Most of the shops were closed, except for an all-night potraviny and a Gambrinus pub two doors down.
„How’s Sven?“ I teased.
„Oh, he’s out tonight with some other people from Holland,“ Marja said.
„You look really good.“
„Oh, you like the scarf? I found it at a market with Tereza this afternoon. 25 crowns.“
„It’s good to see you. You like the music?“
„Of course. It’s beautiful. I mean, I’d heard jazz before in France. But not like this. He’s really amazing. And the other one, Stefan. He’s really beautiful.“
The break lasted for about a half hour. We joined Philadelphia and Stefan’s circle and listened to them as they talked shop: fellow musicians back in New York, how so-and-so was getting along, this-and-that about the Prague nightlife, the echo of their laughter rattling down the block.
Then Jiøi rolled a joint and passed it around. A few of Jiøi’s friends walked up then, greeting everyone with cries of „Nazdar!,“ the old Czech patriot way.
Someone began singing a Czech song and the others joined in. Their voices got louder and then when it was over everyone laughed and clinked glasses.
Around midnight everyone went back in and the next set began. I noticed Jiøi, looking much more comfortable than he had earlier, perhaps thanks to the marijuana, was back on drums. Philadelphia was sitting with the girls at the bar.
„He wanted to play so I let him play,“ he said.

VIII

A false spring set in the first week of February. The snow melted and the sun came out, spreading the frozen city with benevolent light. It felt much better to be out walking around.
So when the weekend came around, I headed down to the cafe. It was noisy and smoky inside.
“Going pretty good tonight,” I shouted to the bartender Milan , by way of greeting.
“Yes, busy,” he said.
As always, Herb was planted comfortably in a booth, this time with two tawny-colored Brazilian girls in party dresses hanging from each elbow. The girls were talking energetically to each other, and when they nodded to each other and showed their perfect teeth.
Herb saw me and waved. I could see him asking the girls if they’d mind if I joined.
“Hello!” they said, flashing bright smiles.
After the atrocious Sunday meltdown at the Aj Movka, I’d buckled down and finished the story about the Russian and American painter and filed it that morning. Nothing special – but still, it was at least an enterprise story. At least I hadn’t forgotten how to get a story on my own.
I was anxious to share the news, but held off until the girls left in search of Prague ’s underground disco world.
Herb nodded congratulations, lighting a cigar.
“Might consider rewording it a bit, then send it to the Out & About editor at the Post. What else you got going?”
“Not much. My Czech’s improving a bit. Got drunk and made an ass out of myself at a pub in the village.”
“It happens. Just take a break from it.”
“I am.”
“It’ll do it to you if you don’t watch it.Try soda now and again. Beer, beer, soda. Not just beer, beer, beer.”
Something was wrong with the stereo, the music kept coming in and out. The bartender couldn’t fix it, so finally with a sigh Herb hauled himself out of the seat to take care of it. A few minutes later the static cleared and Frank Sinatra’s voice bounced around the bar. Herb disappeared for a while to the kitchen. I ordered a soda, then sat for a while thinking absently and smoking cigarettes.
At the next table sat a handful of young Americans. I couldn’t tell if they were on holiday or if they were living in Prague . Sometimes you can tell by the small talk. They talked of general things, each phrase garnished generously with “Like,” as in, “So I was, like, waiting for John to call and, like, I’m really tired and, so like ...” and so on. I’m guilty of it myself, except I tend to overuse the phrase, “Y’ know?”
Herb came back and settled in, Milan immediately came over.
“Ready for your wine, Herb?”
“Sure. But not that dry stuff from last night. Give me the Spanish red.”
“OK.”
The incident on Sunday at the Aj Movka was kicking around in my gut.
“What do you think ...?” I started.
“What’s that?” Herb looked at me.
“About Prague .” I settled for vaguaries.
The bartender brought the wine, then asked if I wanted anything. I shook my head.
“What about Prague ?” Herb asked, after he took a sip.
I wrestled with telling about the Aj Movka, but settled for vagaries. You can only go to the well so often, after all.
“You strike me as the kind of guy who needs to keep his options open,” Herb said.


When I left Herb’s it was about ten. A baby was crying, or wailing, somewhere in one of the lighted windows high above the street.
I walked several blocks, across Wenceslas Square . Maybe I should get some dinner. Not hungry. Pass a salon. It was actually open, but empty except for a pretty girl sitting in one of the chairs. I went in.
“Haircut?” she asks.
“Yes, please.”
She was from from Ukraine , she said. Dyed blonde hair, heavy make-up. Been in Prague for five years.
And you are from England ? No, America . California . California ? I thought you were English. No, not English. It’s cold out, yes? Yes, terrible. Like Russia ? Jeko vrusku? She laughs, ano, jeko vrusku.
So you have some Czech girlfriend? No, no. They are quite beautiful, yes? Oh, yes, very beautiful. Think of Misa for a moment. The Ukraine girl is friendly, but too much make-up. What’s her name? Snezhana? Snezhana, yes. Well, beggars can’t be choosers. No ... Feel tired. Heavy.
The haircut feels good, close and fresh. Feel lighter now. But still tired. Snez – what was it? She hands you a card. I’ll write my email, she says. Call me, she says.
Thanks, cau.
Outside the wind has picked up. It sends a chill across the back of the freshly shorn neck. It’s dark and the street lights are gauzy, the trams lurch by, full of shoppers and young people pumped up for an evening at the theater or the discos ...
... And then I’m in a pub. The interior resembles catacombs, with long, low corridors made of old stone. Descending down a curving staircase. The Czechs of old must have been really short, I think. Nearly bash my head on the ceiling half a dozen times going down the stairs. But the tight space and gloom have a thrilling intimacy. You wonder what secrets lurk behind the walls. Back in Communist days bugging was ubiquitous. They say even now they still haven’t found them all. Maybe a tap is still there behind the walls, still going, recording words and scenes that no one cares to listen to anymore. Or maybe they never stop listening, only they call it voyeurism now instead of surveillance. Big Brother is now entertainment, a reality TV show.
…Further down the staircase into the labrythine belly of the city. How old are these cellars? Passing a barmaid. She’s well-shaped, her navel pierced and tattooed, and she’s busy doing her make-up, she doesn’t look up. Further down. Kafka’s ghost, a sea of faces with hideous grins, a nude woman, her belly mishapen and waxen, images that flicker in the dark . Keep descending. The staircase must go on forever.
A fear slices through my gut. I’m afraid to go any further. I check my mobile phone for messages. It would be nice to have one. But there’s no reception down here. The fear sharpens, the emptiness. I don’t like this nether world of images and shadows. Time to turn back, back up to where the streets are noisy, wet and cold. Back to where the babies are screaming and the voice is singing of flowers. Up the stairs again – watch your head.
It’s not far now. With a last lunge up I’m back. The bartender is watching “Romancing the Stone,” and I recognize the scene where the crocodile bites off the hand of the nasty Columbian policeman. Michael Douglas wrestling the crocodile for the stone. Way to go, Mike …
It’s already past midnight. Probably missed the last bus to the village. Could take a taxi. The thought of going home suddenly made me very tired. Then I remembered I was supposed to meet Mika in the morning. Was it 10? I checked his text message. No, noon. I checked the time. Only 12 hours to kill. Might as well head over to La Clan …

La Clan is the kind of club that doesn’t even get going until six in the morning. When I arrived it was just past midnight, so the place was nearly deserted.
Kyle and Duncan were there though, sitting in the back lounge with a couple of Russians.
“How’s the village?” Kyle asked.
“Don’t ask.”
“What did you do, get drunk?” It was typical of Kyle to be right on the nose.
He looked at me.
“You drink too fast that’s why you get so fucked up.” Before coming to Prague , Kyle had worked in a pub in Donegal. “We got some MDMA if you want.”
“Sure.” It was going to be a long night, might as well make it interesting.
The three of us retired to the bathroom. La Clan is very accommodating to substance abusers. They even have mirrors installed over the toilets.
Kyle laid out the lines, then took one, followed by Duncan, then me.
“It’s not easy,” he said, grinning.
“It’s not.”
“Everybody dies but not everybody lives.”
The next few hours disappeared in a visceral blur. Duncan went off with a couple of Czech girls. Kyle and I sat talking with the Russians.
“Did I tell you I had to go home last week?” Kyle asked. It was near six and we’d come around a little. The club was full now.
“Why’s that?”
“The unemployment office wanted me to come in for a routine check up. I told them I was looking for work in the IT industry, but was having a slow go of it seeing as there’s not much IT in Northern Ireland . Anyway, the clerk said she couldn’t find my file and was about to cut me off. So I turns to her and says, real angry, ‘I’ll not be denied my benefit because of your incompetence. Then she looked around some more and found it.”
“So your OK?”
“I’ll have the benefit for a few more months at least, maybe longer.”
“Lucky bastard.”
“Why do we come here?” It was Duncan . He’d come up unexpectedly from the bar. He repeated the question.
“I mean, I never meet anybody here, never have a good time.”
We looked at each other.
“Should we head to Studio?” Kyle asked.
“Definitely,” Duncan said. They looked at me.
“Sure, Studio,” I said.
They were right. It was always a lot more fun at Studio. It doesn’t even open until six in the morning, and closes at five in the afternoon. We knew a couple guys who’d actually stayed the whole time.
“One of these days we’ll have to go home, go to bed early,” Kyle said. “Then get up early and go to Studio.”
“Breakfast at Studio,” I said.
We were always talking about that plan. I don’t remember if we ever did it.


Saturday morning I actually didn’t feel too bad. I’d left Studio about nine, then went over to a coffee shop for breakfast.
“New haircut?” Mika asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “New look.”
“No, it’s perfect.”
“Let’s see if Herb’s is open,” I said. “I think you’ll like it.”
We waited to cross at the Tesco while the tram came up from the National Theater, then when it rolled past went on through the network of narrow back streets.
“So how is the wife?” I asked.
“Fine, fine, thank you.”
“It must be coming any day now.”
“Yes, any day.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Yes, very crazy.”
Mika lowered his gaze as he said it and shook his head.
“I think you’ll like this place,” I said. “Lots of English-speaking people go there. It will be good practice.”
We walked quickly to get out of the cold. Up the street we noticed a couple college guys, Brits judging by their accents. They were wearing plastic gold helmets, Roman gladiator helmets and long red tunics. Suddenly a dozen more, similarly attired, materialized from a basement pub – they all appeared reasonably sober, this incongruous legion. I was tempted to cry “Hail, Caesar!” as we passed.
“How’s work?” I asked Mika instead.
“Busy. Always busy.”
We arrived at Herb’s. It was deserted.
“Not open yet.” I looked in at the darkened interior. “I know another place up the street.”
The Globe was open and humming with activity. People sat drinking espresso, thumbing through copies of The Guardian or Herald Tribune, or else checked email.
“You know this place?” I asked.
“No, I don’t know it,” Mika said. “But it looks fine.”
We sat down.
“Coffee?”I asked. “ Or should we have one.”
“Coffee.” Mika smiled ruefully. “Sorry. I must meet my wife in one hour.”
“No, no. It’s OK.”
The same smile again.
“Sorry.”
“No, no.”
His smile widened for a minute, then reached a crescendo, before a bit of greyness colored the edges.
“It’s over,” he said.
I didn’t say anything.
“It’s over,” he repeated. “For a while, until the baby comes.”
The waiter came over and we ordered coffee, two black.
“Yes, of course,” I said.“So you must call when it comes.”
“Yes, yes. Oh – before I forget. Here.”
He handed me three crisp, folded 100 crown notes.
“Thanks. But I still owe you the 600.”
“Don’t worry. In a few months, we have the lessons again. Go out get some beer.”
“No, no. I’m not worried. So how do you feel?” I put the money in my pocket and shifted in the chair.
“Oh, shit!” he whispered.
“Oh, shit?”
“—oh, shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!”
A while later the waiter came by and refilled our coffees.
“Mmm ... Perfect,” Mika said, kissing his fingers. “Yes, regular black coffee. Perfect.”
“Yes. Still teaching karate?”
“Yes, yes. Three nights a week.”
“Any more international tournaments coming up?”
“No, no,” he laughed. “That’s over for a while too. Oh – do you notice?”
Mika spread his hands out and shrugged.
“No smoking.”
“You quit?” I was puffing on my third.
“The patch.” He pulled up a sleeve and showed me. “I bought the strongest prescription.”
“Does it work?”
“Oh, perfect.” He smiled.
“At least until after the baby,” he added.
We talked a while longer, drifting into light political issues. Usually the beer loosened our tongues, worked the topics into a froth. It was too early to talk about politics. It was too early to talk about anything really.
“More coffee?” the waiter asked.
“Ne, zaplatim.” Mika fished a couple bills out of this wallet and handed them to the waiter.
Outside the streets were still quiet. The would-be gladiators had disappeared, presumably to their hotel to rest up before another night of rape and pillage.
Herb’s was open when we passed. I looked in the window. It was empty except for the West African cook, Martin. I waved.
“Wanna go in for a bit?”
“No, no.” Mika shook his head. “I’m meeting my wife at Tesco now.”
“That’s right. So – good luck.”
“Yes, thank you. You too. I will call you.”
“Yes, when she has the baby.”
“Ok, see you.
“See you.”
I watched him head up the street for a moment, then walked into Herbs.


Herb was already there, seated in one of the booths, reading a copy of the International Herald Tribune.
“Oh, hey James.” Herb looked up. “Nice haircut.”
“Thanks. Crazy night?”
“Crazy. Hey Milan , what time did you get out of here?”
“Eight.”
“Eight?”
“Sounds like I missed a good party,” I said.
“Hey Milan , bring me a burrito, will ya? And bring me some coffee. And where’s the music?”
Presently the music came on. Frank Sinatra belted out “Come Fly With Me.”
“How’s your wife?” I asked.
“Vera? She’s fine. Talked to her last night. Hey, Milan where’s my burrito? Christ, we got one person in the place.”
“One minute.”
The burrito arrived, stretching the length of the plate, with a salad garnish. I was hungry and it looked good.
“Oh, we got the best burrito in town, don’t we Milan ,” Herb said. “We finally got it right. Ours is better than Jama’s now.”
“You want cola?” Milan asked.
“Voda.” Water.
“Voda. OK.”
When Milan brought out the water I paid.
“Stop back by tonight,” Herb said, between bites. “The women in here last night – off the fuckin’ charts. Hey, Milan . The women last night? That’s right, the girls. American, Czech –
”—German, Russian, ... ” Milan added.
Actually I wanted to come back by, but didn’t. The fatigue had set in. I was dead on my feet. Plus, it was a hassle to come into town from the village on the weekends, during the winter anyway. I went back to the village and slept.


Monday morning.
Hana was tired. I could see it in her face when she answered the door. She hadn’t put on any make-up. With a sigh she blew her bangs out of her eyes.
“Here, this is for you,” I said, handing her a plastic bag.
“What is it? Oh!” She exclaimed, pulling a big chocolate bar out of the bag.
“I saw them at the metro station.”
“Thank you.” She gave me a kiss on the cheek. It felt good to make her happy.
“So how was your weekend?” She put the chocolate on the mantelplace.
“Too many beers.”
“Too many?” She laughed. “Sometimes I wish I could have many beers. You want some coffee?”
“Thanks, no.”
It was shaping up to be a good morning, even for a Monday. Getting the chocolate had been a good thought. It lifted Hana out of her tiredness and made me feel good too.
“Did you and Honza go out?” Honza was her boyfriend. He worked for a floral distributor.
“We worked on the bathroom on Saturday. Then we took his children out on Sunday.”
“That sounds good – where?”
“Just to the park. It was sunny then.”
We slipped into the lesson. Homework. Hana opened her black notebook, filled with her loopy, neat cursive. The assignment had been to write a fairy tale. It was a good way to practice past tense verbs.
I had her read it.
“Ok,” she said shyly. “So – Once upon a time there was a young man who was very angry. He did not like his parents. One day they had a terrible fight and the young man left home. He moved far away. He led a fast life and enjoyed his freedom. Then one day he received a letter that his parents had died. And soon after this he lost his job and the bank took his home. He became very sad.
“Fortunately he got help from some charities who gave him money and food until he could find new work. The man thought about his life and how he had lived. He realized he had never thought about what was important to him. So he lived with a new point of view. He made friends and worked hard. It was a slower life, but also a richer life.”
She finished and looked up.
“Very nice,” I said.
“Thank you.”
It was startling really. A very good story.
“I have another story if you want,” she said..“It isn’t mine, but I bought it at the bookstore. Do you know this one?”
She handed me a book. It was “The Little Prince.”
”You don’t know it?” she looked surprised. “It’s perfect.”
So we read, stopping now and again so Hana could look up certain words in the dictionary. We followed the little prince on his marvelous, bittersweet journey across the universe, heartsick over his great and only love, the single rose that grew on his tiny planet. Hana read the part where the prince travels to the planet where the only inhabitant is a drunk man.
“Why do you drink?” the little prince asks.
“To forget,” the drunkard says.
“Forget what?”
“That I am ashamed.
“Ashamed of what?”
“ – of drinking!” the man says.
“Grown-ups are most odd,” the little prince muses as he leaves.
I took over the part when the little prince travels to Earth. He comes across a huge grove of well-kept roses that look exactly like his rose. Seeing all the roses – realizing that his rose is not unique – breaks his heart. Until he meets a fox.
Hana took over the part where the little prince meets the fox.
“Tame me,” the fox says.
At first the little prince resists. He’s not even sure what the word ‘tame’ means. The fox explains the meaning, then says if the little prince will tame him, he will tell him a great secret.
So the prince agrees. “Just sit over there and each day I will move a little closer to you,” the fox says.” Each day the fox moves closer until one day he is sitting right next to the little prince. Thus tamed, the fox reveals his secret.
“When you tame something, it becomes close to you and it is unique,” the fox says. “Your flower is not like other flowers because you have watered it every day and protected it from the wind.”
It was a wonderful story, and I was glad Hana had chosen it. But it also made me think of her story about the young man, and gave me a strange feeling of emptiness.
“Don’t forget I’m going on holiday next week,” Hana said, after we finished. She and Honza were going to spend a week at her mother’s cottage.
I felt glad for her, happy that she was finally getting a break from work.
“Get some rest,” I said.
“Yes, it will be nice. My mother will probably have some tasks for Honza. She always does. Last time we spent two days fixing a window. I told him he must restrain himself, at least a little. You get some rest too. Don’t have too many beers with Karel.”
“Of course,” I said.

IX

There were more than a dozen deaths in the city that winter from the cold. That was nothing compared to Ukraine , Poland and Russia , all of which had lost far more. My students joked that it wasn’t the cold.
“It is the vodka,” one woman said, and I don’t think she was joking. “They all drink the vodka there and they sleep outside and freeze.”
The Post reported that the Prague City Zoo was keeping the penguins indoors.
Of course you couldn’t blame the cold for everything. The Czech papers reported that one of the country’s richest men was gunned down in front of his offices. Apparently a sniper plugged him right in the chest. The news reports indicated the deceased billionaire had apparently been connected with organized crime back in the gay Nineties.
More relevant to me was the death of a young journalist. The Post reported that the 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. He’d put in a stint at the Post as a reporter before moving on to Radio Free Europe working at the copy desk.
One evening, a few days after reading about it in the Post, I got a text from Herb. Can you come by this evening, so after my last class I headed over. Herb wasn’t there when I arrived. I was halfway through it when Herb called.
“I’m at a dinner party,” he said. “Been there long? Well, have another beer and enjoy yourself. I’ll be there in about half an hour.”
The cafe was nearly empty. A couple good-looking Czech couples, the late-twenty-something married set. I felt strange sitting there by myself. By then it was almost eleven. Wearily I thought of having to make the haul back to the village.
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 even though most agreed the Czechs didn’t stand much chance of winning. Tickets of course 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 it. Plus we still had a few months.

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. And there was so much to do in the meantime.


X

The false spring ended. 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. I 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.

Marja was going back to Finland at the end of February. As the day of her departure drew closer we spent more time together. We even went dancing a couple times at a club called Futurim with Suvi and her other flatmates. Everyone got drunk and danced, and afterward we walked back through the streets to the flat, then sit in the kitchen and eat sandwiches and talk until everyone gradually drifted off to bed. Usually we both had to get up early and head to class, but if it was the weekend we’d just lay in bed until the afternoon and watched the snow fall outside, then I’d head out and return with breakfast.
Often Suvi would already be awake and making coffee in the kitchen when we finally got up. I’d smoke and have coffee while they chatted in Finnish about their plans for the day. They had a lot in common, and were very close, even though before they’d signed up for the study abroad program they hadn’t ever met. One thing they had in common was a humorous contempt for a book called “Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus.”
“So James,” Suvi would say. “It says in the book if the woman is tired, you are supposed to offer to build a fire, or sharpen her knives.”
“Would you like me to sharpen your knives?” I’d ask, turning to Marja.
“Oh, yes please,” Marja said. “Acutally the only knives we have are Sven’s. You’ll have to sharpen Sven’s knives.”
“No thanks. So what does the book say about men?”
“Well it says that all men naturally like to be in their cave,” Suvi said. “It goes back to prehistoric times. So a woman must know when a man wants to be in his cave. She should leave him there.”
“Yes, that is why I didn’t call you last week,” Marja said. “I thought you wanted to be in your cave.”
“Thanks, I did.”
“And James,” Suvi continued. “It says you must compliment a woman often on her sense of humor.” She turned to Marja. “So I suppose that means even if she is not funny you are supposed to just laugh anyway.”
We had many discussions at the expense of Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus, which I’m sure is a fine, helpful book. We got a lot of laughs from it.
The last evening Marja and I went to dinner. We went to a little cafe in Malostrana we both liked. It had good potato pancakes.
The evening was a little strained and quiet at first, a heavy melancholy hanging in the air.
“You’re quiet,” I remarked.
“I’m Finnish.”
After we finished eating I got up and moved my chair over to her side of the table. She let me put an arm around her shoulder.
“You should come to Finland ,” Marja said.
“I will. Maybe in spring. I must try the folk dancing.”
“That would be nice.”
After dinner we walked across the Charles Bridge , which everybody does on their last day in Prague . Marja had brought her camera. We stopped a passerby, who took our picture.
“We’re so boring – like regular tourists,” Marja said.
“Do you mind?”
“No, I actually like it, isn’t that scary?”
The next morning we went to the airport. I couldn’t follow her out to the gate because of the security. So we had drinks in the lounge until it was time for her to leave. She turned and waved before disappearing behind the security wall.
It felt bad, sitting on the bus back to the center. But I had a class to teach, and that took my mind off Marja for a while.


XI

I dropped by Herb’s a few nights later.
Seth Chambers from one of the British news services 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. I’d met him with Herb before, and once he told me a story about watching an American businessman and a former high-ranking Czech official conduct a privatization deal on a tram, the deal concluding with the American handing the official a briefcase supposedly full of cash.
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.
“Decin,” 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.

Herb was seeing Lucie for a little while, at least a few weeks. I don’t think it was serious, or at least it didn’t appear possible. She was forty years younger, for one thing. Anyway, I never made it my business to pry. And I enjoyed her company. She’d be there often in the evenings, sometimes with Zdana, or just herself with Herb.
I remember that 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, but also something similar Hana had said at the last lesson. I’m no expert on relationships, but it struck me the singular difference between a good relationship, or at least, a lasting one, and the other extreme was this one thing, an unwillingness to fight.
Lucie was polite to me. 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 Marja. She’d started a new job that week. “It’s boring but the people are nice,” she wrote. 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.”


XII

Karel gradually came around. I’d apologized for my behavior that terrible afternoon at the Aj Movka. He accepted the apology. “Don’t drink if you can’t take it,” was all he said.
A few evenings later and we were back at the Aj Movka. It felt good to be back. Zuzka eyed me a little pensively as she brought the beer. I smiled and said hello, trying to show by my ____expression that I had no intention of making any trouble. She seemed to understand because she relaxed and smiled.
“You know there are three Czech lies,” Karel said, as we clinked glasses.
“Lies?” I asked.
“Yes. The first is jdeme na jedno. We go for one. The second is posledni. I leave after this one.”
Misa, Tomas and a few of the others came in from the fiji ball room 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. I felt nervous, mostly because it was Misa and Tomas who had borne the brunt of my rude drunken behavior a few weeks before. Misa didn’t look in my direction. 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.”
Hoping to change the subject, I asked how things were going with his job search in England .
“I’ve got work with a family in London ,” he said, beaming.
He was leaving in early April. “Congratulations,” I said.
“Thank you.”
A little later, the others went back into the fuji 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’d heard this before, especially back in the States when I was covering peace demonstrations. While I suppose anything is possible, to be honest I never thought much of the story – I tend to lean away from conspiracy theories. At any rate, the topic annoyed me. I hadn’t come to the Aj Movka to discuss 9/11.
“I had this idea myself before,” Karel continued. “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!”
I knew what he meant. It was a response I’d heard many times. 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.”
Oh hell, now here we go with the black boxes. I hadn’t the faintest idea whether this was true or not, if any black boxes had been found. Perhaps they were buried in the grassy knoll along with Jimmy Hoffa and watched carefully by an elderly security guard previously known as Elvis Aaron Preseley. Yes, it would be wonderful to have the black boxes. Let us produce them at once! We could have the truth about everything, including why all wars have been fought and every man, woman and child who ever died in them and why Hollywood had ever seen fit to release miserable drek like “Armageddon” or “Jaws: The Revenge.”
“Yes, it is interesting,” was all 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.”
By then it was well past eleven and Zuzka was starting to close down. We paid and left, agreeing to meet up on Sunday.

That Sunday I met him 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.


XIII

“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, stopping at the third, still unrevealed one that he’d left me to learn on my own.
“They sound quite true,” Hana said, with unintentional irony. “Sometimes I wish I had time to sit in the pubs. So you are going to Aj Movka tonight?”
I said I didn’t know.
“Maybe that is the third Czech lie,” Hana said. “’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.”
Such cynicism was pretty typical, I found.
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. So I think the fairy tale was not like human nature.”
The lesson was over. We embraced and agreed to meet the next week.
As always, I told her to relax, and she warned me against drinking too many beers. It had become almost a ritual.
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.”

One night a few weeks later, I was sitting in Aj Movka with Karel, along with a pretty, sensible-eyed girl, Jitka, and their friend Votya. The Aj Movka was closing for the night, and they invited me over to Votya’s to watch Pink Floyd’s The Wall.
I’d already tanked up a bit, and we had Zuzka fill two huge containers full of beer for the road.
It was late by the time the movie ended. Jitka had already gone home.
“What do you think of the movie?” Votya asked.
To be honest, I’ve never been that impressed by Pink Floyd. We’re all bricks in the wall, yeah, yeah. Had I been sober, I probably would have been cautious, and said something polite. But I wasn’t sober, and said what I really thought.
Votya seemed dismayed. I could tell he really liked the film, and Karel did as well.
“But don’t you see?” Karel pressed, going over some of the implications of the film.
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.”
You can see the damage to a rational human mind eleven beers will do. 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 said. “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.”

XIV

April was a wet month. With the warmth quickly returning the snow in the mountains that had piled up over the long winter melted. The Vltava swelled its banks, and certain parts of the city flooded. It wasn’t nearly as bad as in 2002, my friends said, a year when the water spilled into Old Town and even the metro was shut down for a few weeks.
I took a beer rest, staying away from the pubs in the evenings, so for a long time I lost sight of Karel, although I did drop by for Tomas’ going away party. Instead I got more classes and even dashed off a couple freelance pieces for a DIY zine, Provakator.
It was beginning to be lighter and warmer in the evenings, so after work I took to going for long walks in the vast, gentle farmlands at the top of th e hill above the village. The fields were bright green from the rain and in other places the soil had already been plowed, and the soil was rich and moist.
The solitude was good for me, I think. Drinking heavily almost every night for a year had nearly turned me into a basket case. I took to reading, ambitiously diving into books I’d always wanted to read, like Ulysses and Thomas’ Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge.
Marja stayed in touch (“It would be nice to see you”).
It was quiet on the homefront.
Grandma’s letter finally 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.”
At 75, 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.”
My uncle John was getting remarried, to a girl named Lisa whom I’d never met. Dad was going to be best man, and my brother was one of the ushers.
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, of course, she found time to write to me.
She’d had a rich, fulfilling life, seldom venturing outside of Apollo except on the occasional holiday or when work demanded it. Someday when she was gone, people would remember her and miss her.
Looking over the letter, I was reminded of the story Hana wrote about the young man, how he’d lived far away from home and lived a fast life until one day his family was gone.
I felt worthless, ashamed. Past generations had faced and overcome world war, Depression, famine, political oppression, racial injustice. What had I faced? An excess of options, of free time, of permissiveness and opportunity. Karel was right. I’d done nothing.
At the end of the first World War, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote of his generation waking up, “to find all gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in men shaken.” A gloriously pithy statement, except he was wrong. Even as I wrote a great war toils on interminably – rightly or wrongly – in Iraq , where the shots are fired in the name of gods and faiths, and in the wider world, even here in Prague , where the costs are counted. A trench of ideas, opinions, shifting alliances and blurred perceptions. A world where anything is possible – thrillingly, terrifyingly, tragically, lyrically so.
It was this world I eagerly sought. Back in California at the news desk, I’d only dimly sensed it, saw it in shadows and glimpses, or all at once like the day the towers fell, and in the time since, when I’d spent those quiet, lovely hours with Marja. There was a feeling of running forward, hands outstretched, and at the same time a desire to flee in the opposite direction and hide away in a dark place. The future, or its scattered reflection blinding in the form of the present, and even the past, seemed to be falling from the sky like snow, and you could grab bits of it in your hand, but only a little of it, when really you wanted all of it at once, suspecting that it was all or nothing.
But I hadn’t given thought to what I owed, what I should give in return, or the heavy price of that future that was piling up daily in the bloody and futile corners of the world, how millions of people would give everything to trade places with me while I squandered time and money and friendships in the pubs, surrendering to the pull of Prague’s incessant a.m. crowd.

XV

The spring drifted in marvelously. Walking along the Vltava in the afternoons, the sun shining over the murky green water, it felt as though the river were carrying all the vitality up from some rich lode in the south and was spreading it generously over the countryside.
With the spring a great change came over the city. Once again the benches along the river were filled with people, who sat and gazed languidly out at the water and the castle on the far side, while a trumpet from a jazz band sounded from the Charles Bridge . Once in a while a great “hurrah!” arose from one of the big open boats passing under the bridge, carrying loads of British stags, back in force with the warm weather. Even the bears at the zoo had come out of hibernation.
It felt like time to look ahead. I felt as though I’d come out of a long, disturbed sleep myself, and vowed quietly to use the reenergized forces to good advantage.
First I want to go back and tell about how Herb first met Vera, his wife. I remember it because he told it to me right about this time, on one of the last evenings of the winter. 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.
“What about Vera?”
“I told you before – secret of a good marriage.”
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. I remember one evening not too long after the dance a British-Indian gentleman came into the bar. He’d just opened a new curry bar in the center. Herb introduced us, and after the gentleman left, he handed me a business card and a couple dinner coupons.
“Like Indian food?” Herb asked. “He says he’ll treat you and a friend like royalty if you’d be so good as to give him a write up. Give it to the Post.”
By then I’d managed to make a few contacts of my own, so I wasn’t leaning on Herb as much. I thanked him as always.










XV

Easter weekend. Kyle Mulligan was going home.
“Crazy times,” he said, looking at me and grinning. We were sitting at Bohemia Bagel.
“Crazy,” I said.
“It will be good to get away for a while. If I stay here I’ll go nuts,” Kyle lit a cigarette.. “I have a pill left at the flat. You can have it. And half a bottle of Beckerovka, you can drink that as well.”
Evidently there had been inquiries made. Kyle’d already had to fly home twice in the past month because the unemployment office called his folks and asked him to report. That very afternoon his mother had texted him saying another meeting was scheduled, and word was an inspector might be coming round. So this time Kyle decided to pack it in.
Kyle got up for a moment and came back with a glass of Fanta. His phone beeped.
“It’s Duncan – says we have to do something tonight. Meet at Café Louvre at nine.”
One of the servers barked out a number and Kyle got up again, returning this time with a club sandwich bagel, served with macaroni salad.
“You should move to Finland , James,” he said. “Then you guys come over to Ireland and visit in August. That’s when we have the festival. You can sleep at my folks place.”
“What are you going to tell the government if you can’t get back in time for the meeting tomorrow?” I asked.
“I’ll call and tell them I’m in Belfast until the morning,” Kyle said.
“How far is it from Belfast to Donegal?”
“ 200 miles .”
A little later we paid and left. Outside a drizzly rain was falling.
“It’s so funny, thinking about it now,” I said. “You had that trial earlier this year and all that time your lawyer was arguing your case, you were over here living off the government.”
Kyle laughed ruefully.
“I may need him again.”
We hurried along close to the buildings. The sidewalks were still crowded with tourists coming from the square. We passed a young women, a student probably, tanned and shapely. Kyle whistled.
“Well, I guess I won’t have those back in Rathmullen,” he said, staring after the girl.
We walked quickly across the square. The big clock was a dark silouhette against the grey sky.
“So you think they’ll arrest you when you get back?” I asked.
“No, I don’t think so. I think they just have some job for me to take or else they’ll cut me off. It’ll be some shit job picking fucking strawberries or something. Oh, well six months in Prague . It had to end sometime.”
Barnie Hunter came for a visit in time for Kyle’s last weekend.
He arrived on a Saturday afternoon. Kyle, Duncan and I picked him up at the airport and we caught a taxi to his hotel in Zizkov.
“Tanner? He’s still round is he?”
“Yes,” Kyle said. “We’re hoping he’ll get deported, we’re trying to convince him to take a teaching job in Outer Mongolia .”
As the taxi steered through the center, we laughed and sent Tanner a message. Party tonight in Skalka. Skalka is at the end of the metro line, out in the boondocks. But the joke was wasted. In his strange, almost telepathic way, Tanner figured out where we were and tracked us down at a pub just after eight.
Actually Tanner had changed in the months since I’d last seen him. From what he told me, I gathered he’d had a really lean winter, not many classes and the late nights had finally caught up with him. He looked a little thinner, and some of the hard-dust Texas swagger had been shaken out of him. Lately though he’d picked up some classes, improved his Czech, and had even joined a local rugby team.
“Coach called me at six o’clock yesterday morning,” Tanner said, as he sat down. “He says, ‘Tanner – get your ass over here in ten minutes! This was to a match we had in Pardobice. Oh, these are for you, Kyle, I believe I owed you.” He handed Kyle a new pack of Gauloises.
“Hey, Tanner finally makes good,” Duncan said.
“Good Christ,” added Barnie.
Kyle smiled sideways.
“You still owe me for the pills.”
“No, no! I said we’d work that out.”
Yes, he was a lot better to be around. Even Kyle loosened up. Funny, I’ve noticed a lot of people go through a similar evolution. I suspect it’s more of a uniquely American, or English-speaking, phenonmenon. Certainly there are far more other immigrants in the city – Russians, Poles, Ukrainians, Chinese, even some Africans – but they seem to absorb into the culture with somewhat less noise, a lot less noticeably. The rest of us seem to need to get the piss knocked out of us a few times.
It was a rowdy night. We hit Marquis briefly, then wound down to Nebe, where we ingested the last of the ecstasy pills.
“Nebe is the perfect mid-evening club,” Duncan reflected.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“You start at Marquis for the early going. Then Nebe, from 11 to, say, four. Then it’s La Clan , then Studio for the wrap.”
That’s pretty much the route Kyle’s last night followed, except at Barnie’s urgent request we substituted La Clan for the Paradise Club.
The Paradise Club is a strip bar-brothel just off the main square. Every time Barnie was in town he made it a point to stop by. He was a classic sex tourist, one of many who each weekend make their way to Prague , thanks to EasyJet.com.
When we got there it must have been about four-thirty. A “live sex show” was in progress on the main stage, featuring a gorgeous blonde girl and a guy engaged in a variety of no-holds-barred sex while the crowd roared encouragement. The club was full. The girls were a mixture of mostly Czech, Russian and Ukranian, and most of them far more beautiful than I would have expected. In fact when one of them sat down I remember she said she was a student, and I was inclined to believe her – she looked perhaps 21. Most of the women we talked to that night said they were students. Surely it was good money. Kyle reported back that the girls made 60 percent on private dances, and even more for more intimate requests.
We were sitting there about an hour before Kyle and Barnie rose, both of them with girls on their arms.
“We’re going upstairs,” Kyle yelled over the music. “You guys watch our coats.”
He meant Duncan and me. Tanner had regressed a little from his improved self, and at that moment was engaged in a three-way argument with some of the girls. The details of the argument eluded me, but I could only imagine. Later Tanner claimed that one of the girls, a haughty-mannered Russian, had tried to take his wallet.
Duncan got up to use the toilet, so for a few minutes I sat by myself.
Presently I looked up. A tall, elegant looking young woman in a bright blue evening dress was walking to the table. She asked if I wanted to go upstairs. The ectasy had long since worn off, and I was tired. It was nice just to look at her; I had that sudden awful loneliness that comes with clarity after a night of partying. But I did want to go, so we went upstairs, and I could see she was a little surprised, like she'd expected me to refuse, but she took my hand and we weaved through the crowd to a cash register at the bar. It cost 2,000 crowns; I paid and was handed a receipt.
We went up a circular staircase, at the top of which was a dark corridor. A short line of people stood, apparently waiting for rooms. I passed Kyle and Barnie, who were with their girls. We all laughed and waved hysterically to each other, as if we were a couple housewives running into each other at the supermarket on a Sunday afternoon.
“What’s your name?” I asked the girl.
“Lenka,” she said. Lenka must have had some pull, because she marched us past the line. An old woman handed her a plastic bag, which Lenka then passed to me. Inside was a towel, some soap and a condom. She then beckoned me to follow her to a back room.
The room was much bigger and more impressive-looking than I would have imagined. A king-sized bed, with freshly pressed sheets, sat in the middle of the room, and light club music played softly from unseen speakers.
“So first – shower,” Lenka said. I guessed she meant me. I went into the bathroom and quickly undressed. The water was piping hot, it felt good after a long night at the bars. I started to get excited, thinking about Lenka, so I hurried through the rest of the shower, then got out, toweled off and headed back into the bedroom.
She’d just finished taking her clothes off and was laying the dress neatly over a chair near the bed. Her body was a little less perfect than I imagined it when she was wearing the evening dress, but still fresh and taut.
Her manner had undergone a change too. Downstairs she’d approached me with a polite, demure air. Now as we got onto the bed, not bothering to get under the sheets, she tightened into a harsh professionalism.
“Do not touch my condom!” She barked that out, then put on the condom.
It was an abrupt change, although I probably should have expected it. Still, as we went on the rigid manner stayed, even increased. After a couple minutes, I stopped, rolled over and looked at the ceiling.
“What’s the matter?” Lenka got up. The manner had changed again. Now she looked a little nervous or worried.
“Nothing.”
“You don’t want?”
“No.” I was losing a lot of money, but suddenly I was tired again and didn’t care.
I think Lenka maybe thought I was going to complain to the management or something, because she got real nice then.
“Is there something I could do for you?” She was really gentle then. “I’m sorry, it’s just, I work here five years. I don’t want to do the sex anymore. I just want to dance.”
“Where are you from?” I asked.
“Here. Czech.”
“Are you a student?”
“Yes. Five years.”
“What do you study?”
“Art and photography. And you? You are British?”
“American.”
“American? And you are on holiday?”
“No, teaching.”
“Teaching – what?”
“English.”
“English, of course.” She was sort of massaging me now in a kind of conciliatory way. “You know, I meet a lot of Americans here. Most of them are quite arrogant. But you – you are not like them. You talk to me like I am a real person. You want my advice? Don’t do this.” She made a gesture around the room. “Don’t look. Just wait. The right one, she will come.”
When the time was up I went into the bathroom, showered quickly again and got dressed. Lenka was already dressed when I came out, and her manner had shifted back to formality. We went downstairs, and she disappeared into the crowd with a little wave.
Duncan and Tanner were sitting at the table.
“How was it?” they both said, big grins on their faces.
“Great,” I lied.
Duncan was laughing.
“You should have seen it. They almost threw Tanner out. All the girls refused to go upstairs with him.”
“Fuck off,” Tanner said. “That’s not what happened at all! That’s not it. I’ll tell you later.”
We kept an eye on the stairs and presently Kyle and Barnie came down. Then one of the girls, the one who’d been with Barnie, came rushing up behind. She said something to him and he blew her a kiss, waved and she went back upstairs.
“Ah, Prague days!” Barnie said, returning to the table.
“You did better than I did,” Kyle said. “Mine farted!”
We were all laughing then.
“But get this,” Kyle said. “Then she grabs me by the back of the neck and cries out, ‘Fuck me Irish!”
It was nearly six then and we were winding down. But Kyle had to be at the airport at eleven, so there was no use going to bed.
“We could head over to Studio for a bit, then back to my place,” Kyle suggested.
“We could take to the airport!” I had this random idea. Everyone liked that idea.
Studio was, well, Studio. Most of the dancers, DJs, waiters, prostitutes – the city’s nightlife industry – all goes to Studio because it’s open when all the other clubs close. Kyle got us some more pills, which we chopped up in the bathroom. That got everyone going again. I sat with Kyle and Barnie on one of the sofas in the lounge, with nebulous set of characters, including the Russian drug dealer Pol, while Duncan danced with this Czech girl he’d met a few times before, and Tanner stood chatting somnabulantly with a couple other English teachers we knew.
“Going to miss it?” I asked Kyle.
”Sure I’ll miss it.” Kyle looked at me. “But I can’t keep doing it, I need a rest, for my sanity.”
“It will be good.”
“It’s not easy, James.”
“No, it’s not,” I laughed.
“You should think about going to Finland .”
“I know.”
“Well, either way you can get up to see me. I’ll take you around Donegal and over to Belfast . Duncan ’s already coming over, next month.”
“I’ll try.” I could already feel the loss of the two thousand crowns blown on Lenka.
The sun was already up when we left. A rain had fallen during the night, and the streets were cool and quiet.
“Is it Saturday?” I asked, as we passed the national museum.
“No, Sunday,” Barnie said. “It’s Easter. Happy Easter!”
“That’s right,” Kyle said. “Old Jesus was being resurrected right about now.”
Later that morning we all went up to the airport and saw Kyle off. We all shook hands when it was time and he grinned a little sideways at us as he disappeared behind the security wall.
“He’ll probably be arrested, the bastard,” Barnie remarked. We all looked like hell.
“They’ll think he’s a terrorist for sure,” Tanner said. “They’ll pull him out for the random search.”
Tanner and Duncan went home when we got on the bus back to town. Barnie and I went for a walk up to the castle. It was a clear, beautiful day. We climbed the long stone staircase, ascending to the top where the city spread out below. After a few minutes we continued on toward the castle entrance, before we heard a voice speaking in Czech on a megaphone.
We looked. A small crowd had gathered around a young, bearded man, who appeared to be a student. Several other students stood behind him, carrying signs like “Bush is a terrorist” and “Stop US Imperialism.”
We headed into St. Vitus Cathedral. It was always cool and dark in there.


XVII

One evening not long after that I sat with Philadelphia at Riegrove sady, the park up at the top of the hill in Zizkov.
I„What would you do if you went back?“ he asked.
„I don’t know. Maybe try to get my old job back at the paper. Or go to Pittsburgh, spend time with my family. They’ve helped me a lot since I’ve been here. It would be good to know them better.“
„Do they want you to come back?“ he asked.
„Sure, at least they say that I can always come home. But I think they’re proud too. They like telling people I’m in Prague.“
„Is that why you came here, just to tell people you’re in Prague. Let me guess, a beautiful, bad woman broke your heart and you just couldn’t stand it so you got up out of there.“
„Good call,“ I said. „But I always wanted to do it anyway, ever since I read all those great books. I was at a point in my job where it was, OK, what now? Move on to a bigger paper? Try something different? I thought I wanted or needed something but I was too afraid or lazy to do it. So in that sense I owe her something. She was a catalyst, I guess.“
„And now you feel stuck again,“ Philadelphia said.
„Yeah, something like that. I get these job offers on my email every day from China. They need lots of teachers. They even pay your airfare to and from. I keep that idea on the burner, say to myself, ‚There’s always China‘ as though it were some kind of ace in the hole. But other days I’m perfectly happy here, or convince myself that I should have every reason to be. But then I get drunk and wake up feeling empty and self-betrayed, and something happens like today when I see the people in New Orleans, and think I’m just jerking myself off here and should go home and put my shoulder to the wheel, help people out.“
„Well, maybe you should go home.“ Philadelphia shrugged.
„See, now I don’t know, when you put it straight at me like that. There’s something unsatisfied, unfinished. I used to have this dream, a recurring dream, when I first arrrived in Prague. I’d be back home, no explanation how or why. I’d be back in my old situation in Eureka, and everyone would say, So you’re back. Why? And I’d just nod a little sheepishly. It was a really frightening dream. Then I’d wake up and realize I was still in Prague and feel this enormous relief.“
„Maybe what you’re really afraid of is what other people think,“ Philadelphia said. „You want approval and praise more than any actual goals or accomplishments. You need recognition and fear losing face in the eyes of your peers.“
„I’ve thought about that,“ I said. „And it just depresses me. I mean, I gave up a good career, sold my car, threw my TV in the trash, the works. At the time it felt so gloriously brave and romantic. Like one of those guys I used to read about. But when you put it that way it feels like a short-sighted pose. For so long I always tried to look ahead and make good decisions. That’s the way I felt going into it. I said to myself, James, you’ve spent the past seven or eight years making good decisions. You owe it to yourself to make a bad one.“
Philadelphia laughed.
„What?“ I asked.
„I think you might have already used it up when you got with that girl, whoever she was.“
„Maybe. I did have a vague premonition going into that that it would turn out bad, but I told myself it was like a roller coaster. She’s beautiful but she may not stick around, so just try to enjoy the ride, I told myself. But later I forgot that. That was the problem.“
„Maybe you should do that now,“ Philadelphia said. „Forget it and just enjoy the ride.“
„Did you serve in Vietnam?“ I asked.
„No, I was drafted but I burned my card. My brother did though. Came back alright, except he didn’t like to talk about it.“
„Where is he now?“
„He’s in Philly. Works in the city for a printing company.“
„Do you ever regret not going? Did you feel guilty at the time, like you weren’t helping?“
„To Vietnam? No. I was one of those guys, there were a lot of us then, who listened to Ali. No Viet Cong ever called me nigger. You have to understand we really believed in the struggle and that we were progressing together. I was doing my part, that’s the way I felt about it. And that’s the way I feel about it now. So no, I don’t feel bad, not one bit.“
„I remember being in the newsroom on 9/11,“ I said. „We spent the whole day crowded around the TV, watching CNN. I wanted to do something, but felt totally inadequate.“
Philadelphia smiled indulgently.
„And I remember my best friend gave serious thought to joining the Army,“ I continued. I was on a roll. „It something he’d always swore he’d never do. Actually, in the end he didn’t do it . I never asked him why. Maybe it was his wife and kids, or else he just forgot over time. Anyway, since that day I had the same feeling – no, not to enlist – but that I had to do something, not just stand around frozen. It’s hard to explain. It was like, history was happening, the world was changing. I sensed this and wanted to be a part of it.“
„Did you ever think about using your journalism?“ Philadelphia asked.
„I did, especially when the war started. But then I saw that there were tons of journalists embedded with the troops and it all became this reality TV show, or a football match. And then it sort of turned me off.“
„Not original enough?“
„Exactly.“
„So you decided to go to Europe, thinking you’d teach English while writing the Great American Novel. That’s not exactly original either.“ Philadelphia chuckled again. He had a habit of drawing me out of the hole so easily, leading me to my own errors, that at times I got irritated with him, as I did then.
„Well, what of it?“ I asked. „What was the other choice? Stay at the newspaper and cover the same goddamn city council meetings for the next 30 years? I mean, I sometimes go onto the Internet and check out my old paper. They’re still writing about the same crap I wrote about for four years. California’s budget is a mess, the county doesn’t have any money, should marijuana be legal, so-and-so is suing so-and-so (again!).“
„Same shit, different day,“ Philadelphia said. „Well, you could try to just be happy.“
We sat and drank our beer, and I thought about what Mika, my student, had said about Prague life.
„I guess maybe Mika’s right,“ I thought aloud. „It is a good time to be Czech. We could be in New Orleans – or Baghdad.“
„Not bad," Philadelphia said. „What about Marja?“
I didn't say anything.
„Well, maybe you should move to Finland. Why not?“
„I don’t know if I could get work. It’s not as easy to live there as it is here.“
„You’re making excuses. Did you know how it would be before you came to Prague? You got to remember that, how you made that choice and how you felt when you went through with it. It felt good, right?“
When he asked, my mind vaguely traced back to my first week in Prague. It had been November and a light snow was falling on the city. It had looked especially beautiful, even if it was cold, walking along the Vltava. Yes, it had felt good. It had felt very good.
„Yeah, look at you smiling,“ Philadelphia said. „Shit, are we suffering now? Sitting here drinking a beer and talking a lot of philosophical shit? The only thing you got to worry about is boredom, but that can be worse than anything.“
„Are you bored?“
„Just got the feeling, always get it this time of year. Time to get moving soon. Want to get over to Japan to see Tamara in November and to Baltimore to see Jayson for Christmas. Probably do it then.“

I got some freelance work later that spring, plus some new classes, so I was busy. I lost sight of Philadelphia, and since I was trying to avoid the late-night scene for a while I didn’t hear from Tanner or Duncan either.
Herb went on holiday to Italy in mid-April. I spoke to him briefly before he left. That evening his tone seemed different, cooler, more detached and I wondered if my passing on the RFE job had disappointed him more than he let on.
“Everything OK?” I asked.
“Sure. This place is driving me nuts. After this winter I need to get away, somewhere warm and sunny. Got anything going?”
Actually I’d applied for a position at a business weekly in the city earlier that day. But since it was premature I didn’t say anything. Otherwise I was just teaching.
“Seen the latest on Mrazek?” I ventured.
“Yeah,” Herb said. “You know there was another shooting about a month ago. This owner of a security agency, shot dead. Seems police think he was a friend of Mrazek. Czech papers had it. Said Mrazek was probably killed because he hand his hands in some big deals. Biofuel, talking billions of crowns.”
“I heard that,” I said. “So this security guy ...”
“—Kubin. Jiri Kubin,” Herb broke in, remembering. “Yeah, he secured houses of some of the big wigs from wiretaps. Police think Kubin passed on some confidential information to Mrazek, information somebody didn’t want passed on. Anyway, so that’s the latest.”
“You see Berlesconi lost in Italy ?”
“Well, appears to have lost. He’s contesting it.” Herb lit a cigar. “He ought to just go away. Him and Kohl in Germany . Yeah, busy. Bombing in Pakistan , Iran pumping up its uranium program – that’s going to be quite a standoff. Oh, and it’s Vera’s birthday!”
I shook my head.
“How do you keep up with it? I mean, you’re here all the time.”
“Old habit. It’s like a work-related injury. Can’t turn off the antenna. You’ll see what I mean one of these days. Stayin’ curious?”
I laughed. “Staying sober. At least for the moment.”
“Good. Just do that for a while, the rest will come.”
I left that evening, after wishing him a good holiday.
Overall things were starting to even out. I saw Karel once, the night of Tomas’ going away party. He said he wasn’t feeling good, and confined himself to tea and Coke. “I just think you shouldn’t drink so much,” was what he’d said, after forgiving me the pushing epsisode.
“It’s harder to talk to you now,” he added.
“Yeah?” I was worried.
“Well, I cannot relax totally.”
I understood what he meant, and, after offering Tomas a final congratulations, had left quietly a while later.
Dad emailed. Everyone was busy but fine. The company’s sale was still up in the air, might mean a move to central Penn. He was trying to quit smoking again.
“I’d like to maybe get into some menial work,” he wrote. “Do something I enjoy for a change, kind of like you.”
Mom had just returned from a working trip in Florida . My brother got a partial scholarship to a college, sister falling behind in classes “but at least still going.” Her baby Colin getting bigger and bigger. I got a new motorcycle, Dad wrote, took him out with me and he was hilarious, honking the horn the whole time.
It was good to hear from home, even if it all sounded so remote. I kept the reply short and general. Nice to hear everyone’s doing well. Will send some pictures soon.


XVIII

Just north of Prague the Vltava River intersects with the Elba. At this confluence the Vltava is lazier and cleaner than down in the city, and attended on its banks by a procession of tall, proud trees. The surrounding Bohemian countryside is gentle and rolling, like the bottom of an imperfectly glazed ceramic bowl.
The town of Melnik is distinguished from the landscape by the spire of a castle on the main hill overlooking the diverging rivers. A railroad runs along the banks of the Elba, connecting good- and people-carrying trains with the bustling German and Dutch capitals to the north and with the emerging markets in the East.
That spring I got a handful of new classes once a week at a seafood company in Melnik, and so each Wednesday morning took the hour-long bus trip up from Prague. Sometimes the trip was a hastle, consuming most of my day as it did, but the pay was very good and it felt good to get out of the city.
Often on the trip I enjoyed just looking out the window at the passing countryside. In the new season the vineyards and corn and potato fields, hard-packed and frozen just a month before, were freshly tilled and soft. Looking out at them, and sensing the proximity of the rivers you dimly heard the last, fading echoes of Smetana’s folk melodies on the damp, early morning air as the bus rolled on down narrow country roads.
Other times I brought along a copy of The Economist or The Herald-Tribune, and spent a fussy hour catching up with the latest news. With grim irony, I noted in April that one of the black boxes on one of the Sept. 11 planes was found and being played at the trial of a suspected Al Queda operative. I thought of my conversation with Karel.
Pundits meanwhile took turns declaring civil war in Iraq, while hastily qualifying that declaration. Millions of immigrants in America demonstrated for citizenship. The president saw his approval ratings continue to sink, as the confused nation grew increasingly distrustful and worried about the future direction of the Empire. Iran stubbornly insisted on going ahead with developing a nuclear program despite opposition from the UN, America and Europe. A rumor even circulated the U.S. planned a nuclear strike, which the White House immediately denied.
And of course, the sun continued to rise on that emerging Empire to the East - every week there was something new from China, efforts to acquire this or that major oil firm, clashes with the States and Europe over trade issues.
Czechs have historically been somewhat isolated from this great stream of world affairs, with some notable exceptions, such as when Hitler “annexed” the country at the outset of the second World War. Nevertheless, geographically Czech is the Kansas of Europe, smack in the center, and insulated by mountains along its borders.
During the Communist era travel to the West was strictly forbidden. These days the borders are open, but although international travel is becoming more popular, most Czechs still prefer to spend most of their time away from work at their country cottages. Internet and mobiles are omnipresent as elsewhere, yet there remains a peculiar sense of isolation, of “Czechness,” which you could describe as a sort of lazy mutually acknowledged disconnect between Czechs and the citizens of the greater world. Karel, and other Czechs doubtless, would disagree, and to a certain extent there is a rising collective consciousness to look outward rather than inward. My job teaching English in companies is proof.
But outside the city, the sense of urgency recedes as the countryside takes the foreground, and it’s easy for the clashing, desperate world of Empires to gradually slip away.

I had four lessons each Wednesday in Melnik. The first was with a blousy, cherubic woman who worked in logistics, but she canceled most weeks so I hardly ever saw her. It was the same with the next lesson, two goofy mechanics in their early twenties who, when they did show up, enjoyed telling me about their frequent hilarious excursions to Amsterdam’s “Green Light” district. Then there were three young woman, all cheerful and conscientious, who did arrive punctually each week and were a joy to teach.
Last there was Frantisek. He was the company’s supply manager, a clever-eyed, worldly fellow a shade over thirty. When we first started the lessons he was abrupt and formal, but as he saw that I was laid back he gradually relaxed. After that he’d frequently invite me over to his office, ostensibly to “do some translations,” but really to watch “Saturday Night Live” or Conan O’Brian that he’d downloaded on his desktop. After the hour, we’d step out for a smoke and he’d give me a ride to the bus stop.
Occasionally we’d both get conscience-striken - the company was paying for the lessons - so we’d resolve “the next time” to crack open the grammar book. “You must give me homework,” Frantisek would insist. So I’d give him homework and he’d thank me and when the next lesson came he’d look at me with a pained look and insist he’d been too busy at work, that he’d forgotten, and then he’d invite me over to his office.
Frantisek took a shine to me, for whatever reason, and we got on well. He showed concern that I was nearly always broke and for a long time I showed up with busted shoes and in need of a haircut.
“Remember, you are not a tourist,” he’d say. “You are a poor man in the Czech Republic. Be careful.”
A few years before, Frantisek worked as a bartender in Prague, so he had few illusions of what my life was like there. Far from being critical or disaproving, Frantisek gave me tips on what to do and not do, and places to try and places to avoid. He even gave me his mobile number and urged me to call “if there’s ever any problems.”
He was like Mika, or Karel, in that way, and with such support you felt like a protective shoulder of the country was at hand, and the country felt less reserved and foreign.
One afternoon just after Easter we were sitting in his office, talk turned to history.
“Here I will show you something.” Frantisek urged me toward the window. Outside the Elba drifted by, and the trees on the far bank were just beginning to bloom. Frantisek pointed through the bright window at a mountain in the distance.
“We call it Czech mountain,” he said.
I supplied the expected curious ___expression.
“They say many years ago, Granfather Czech was walking in the countryside. A gypsy was with him, and a German. After walking many, many days, they reached this mountain. Grandfather Czech looked out at the land and said, ‘I am home!’”
“What about the gypsy?” I asked.
Frantisek laughed. “He stayed, too. But the German went to Germany.”
“What’s there now?” I asked.
“Cesky hora? Oh, many people go skiing there in the wintertime. Sometime I will take you, it’s not far.”
“I’d like that.”
“Come, we will have a smoke.”


Lukos Dolezal, a clerk in the Finance Minister’s Office, was sitting with Herb at the bar.
“So who you think’s going to win the elections?” Herb was asking.
Dolezal indicated he leaned toward ODS.
“They’re more capitalist over here, right?” Herb asked, getting a nod Lukos. “Good. Taxes over here are killing me. Back in the States twelve percent is considered high. Here it’s thirty-five percent. Good Christ!”
The clerk, an earnest-faced young fellow, nodded in sympathy.
“But of course over here we have the benefits,” Lukos said. “Health care is free, the university is free to all Czech people.”
“Who are you voting for?” Herb asked.
“The Green Party.”
“Green? Have they got any chance?”
“No, but for me it is a protest vote, like with Nader in your country. The others CSSD, ODS, even the communists – they really are the same people, they just change seats every few years.”
Herb laughed. “They put on different ties.”
Lukos leaned forward, seizing Herb’s arm.
“We need reform,” he urged. “Too many people – do you ever notice the street workers? They finish each day at three and at three thirty they are in pub.”
“What would you know about that? Oh, hey James.” Herb noticed me. I exchanged a nod with Lukos.
“No, but seriously,” the clerk continued. “There must be a way to give people more of the drive, to do more than what they are doing, to want better things. We must find a way to say, ‘Look, OK, going to the pub is fine, but now we must work, we must get this task done. Is it not like this in America , Herb?”
Herb and I looked at each other.
“I’d say it depends, wouldn’t you?”
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s a little more laid back in the West. The go-getters are in New York .”
“Yes, this is a good word – what is it? ‘Go getter.’” Lukos pumped his head up and dow. “Yes, we need more go-getters. Too many Czechs are lazy, they don’t like to work.”
Herb winked at me. “How’s the drinking?” he asked.
I’d had Milan bring me a non-partisan cup of coffee.
“A little better,” I lied.
Herb introduced me to Lukos, even though we’d seen each other there before.
“James here is your man,” Herb turned back to Lukos.
“What do you mean?”
“He’s a go-getter, aren’t you, James?”
“Ah, shit.”
“He can deliver a scorching expose on sloth and waste in the public sector. ‘To protect and slur, or swerve,’ or something like that.”
A handful of young people came in, led by a straw-haired American wearing a Baltimore Orioles shirt.
“Hey, Herb. Got the Sox game on?”
“Oh, hey Pete. Yeah, downstairs. I didn’t know you were a Sox fan.”
“I’m not. I just need to watch some baseball- any baseball.”
The group descended down the stairs.
“Anything new on that hotel across the street?” I asked. I’d seen signs of construction on my way in.
“At least a year,” Herb said. “But hey, you missed a big party last week. My fifth year anniversary party.”
I’d heard about it, but for whatever reason hadn’t shown up.
“Off the charts,” Herb said. “Hey, Milan ? The other night. Off the charts.”
Milan agreed that the party had exceeded projected levels of enjoyment.
Herb seemed to be in better spirits than the last time I’d seen him, and I wondered if I’d been wrong about his state. Presently though I looked at him again, and noticed something in his __expression was gray again.
“Been getting any time away?” I asked.
“You kidding? A Sunday here and there.”
He looked vaguely around the bar.
“Sometimes I wished I’d waited a little longer before buying the place. I’ve hardly set foot outside Prague in five years, except of course to see Vera. I wouldn’t mind a few days in Italy . Milan , remember that couple here a few weeks ago. The Fanuccis. Gino and Teresa. They invited us to visit. Where was it? Near Turin .”
“You should go,” I prompted.
“I might. Maybe after the Cup. I’m training Milan here to be an assistant manager. He might be ready about then.”
The thought of Milan running the cafe seemed a bit absurd, but I didn’t say anything.
“Heard from Marja?” he asked. “She’s a good girl. I notice when you’re with her you’re not drinking much and you’re not breaking anything. You ought to get up and see her.”
“I know.”
A little later that same evening I got a text from Karel. “Want to get stoned and have a drum session?” So I left Herb witha promise to stop by in a few days.

Outside it was twilight. Gold-colored light blew off the river and rolled along the faces of couples, in town for the weekend, and who stopped periodically to snap photos and enjoy one last glance at the castle in anticipation for their parting the next day.
I was surprised and happy to get Karel’s message.. Passing the Smetana statue, I threw a salute to the river’s lyrical partriarch, and hurried along to catch the metro.
The session was already well in progress when I arrived an hour later. I could hear the rumble of the drums from outside. Karel had an open-door policy so I let myself in. There were about a half-dozen or so familar faces – guys from the Aj Movka – all sitting in a circle playing drums of various sizes and timbres. A joint was passed and someone handed me a pair of leather bongos.
It was easier to follow along than I expected. I remembered Philadelphia Grove’s advice about blending, so I found a simple, off-beat rhythm and stuck with it, only varying it now and again to add to the already thick, pounding polyrhythmic flavor. The effect produced was an unbroken song, occasionally building and then changing to a different feeling when one or more of the drummers introduced a a slight variation, which was quickly enjoined or countered by the others. Or there was “call and response,” perhaps the world’s earliest form of human communication.
Karel’s flat was small and cluttered, adding to the intimacy of the jam. Gradually that warmth, similar to that evening in Zizkov with Philadelphia , began to fill the little room. Outside it was already dark, and in the village the streets were full of a Sunday evening calm, but you didn’t have to look outside to know it. Soon the jam would end, and the circle would put away their drums and migrate to the Aj Movka, “for just one,” but you knew that too. It was all there, in that warmth, in the shades and echoes collapsing on the waves of polyrhythm.
“Jdeme na jedno?” Karel asked when we finished.
“Only one,” I said.
The pub was fairly quiet, populated mostly by the older regulars, who were scattered around the tables and gazing at half-finished pints.
“Do you still have contact with Provokator?” Kare asked. We’d been there for a half-hour or so.
I told him I was, and gave him a contact number and email address.
“Yes, you said they liked my sad jokes. I would like to contribute.”
“You should,” I said.
“It’s hard sometimes for people to understand,” Karel said. “Here in Czech we are not supposed to say, ‘I am good at something.’ Because if you do it suggests you are arrogant, or better than everyone else.”
“I understand,” I said.
“But I think the sad jokes are good,” Karel continued. “I want to believe in myself.”
“You should,” I said. “And they are good.”
It was perhaps the only favor I ever did for Karel, so it felt good, especially coming on the heels of our last meeting.
“We must watch the rest of ‘Closely Observed Trains,’” I said presently.
“Of course,” Karel looked at Votya, who had joined us. “What do you think? Can we find one with English subtitles?” Votya nodded.
We set an informal date for the following weekend.
On my way home later, I thought about the conversation I’d had with Duncan and Tanner the night Kyle left.
“It’s funny, when I first moved here I was meeting people,” Duncan had said. “I don’t know. It just all feels so transient.” He looked around, as though expecting the damp shadows of the club to concur. We’d rattled off the names of people we knew.
Maybe something in us had changed. Back when we arrived, we’d come surcharged with a belief in the beauty and possiblities of Prague , the world, even in architecture, at least until we got used to it and took it for granted. Somehow we’d gotten sidetracked, blindsided – by what? – late nights, drugs, alcohol – intoxicated by the fever of new friendships and aware of the distance we’d put between ourselves and the past ... we were ready to expire into the present, until even that was not enough, no, especially inadequate –


XIX

So you think you can manage it?” Seth Chambers asked.
“Sure,” I said. “When do you need it?”
“I’d say Tuesday morning, the second.”
It was Friday, the start of May Day weekend. Seth was spending the weekend at his girlfriend’s cottage in Sumova. He needed someone to cover the Communist demonstrations that were expected to take place at the exhibition grounds in Letna. Through Herb, he’d decided to give me a shot.
Vaguely, quickly, my mind traced a portrait of the weekend.
“No problem,” I said.
“Any questions?”
We parted a few minutes later. Outside it was midmorning, a bright, sweet-aired day just before the three-day weekend. Anticipatory traffic lurched along by the Jewish cemetery, and there was a coolness in the air fast evaporating as the sun rose higher.
My phone rang just as I got on the tram.
“Seth again – just one more thing, if you want. The National Party is also expecting to hold a rally – something against the EU, also on Monday. Try to find where that’s going to be held. You can just have a couple lines on it.”

State a problem simply, and it becomes more manageable. My problem that weekend was two-fold. My lease in Roztoky was coming up at the end of the weekend. Much as I’d come to like the village, I wanted to be back in the city. So I’d forgone extending the lease, but had dragged my feet on getting a new place. I think I’d counted on getting a friend to
let me crash for a couple days. So far hadn’t had any luck. “I’ll have to think about it,” was all Karel said. I couldn’t reach Philadelphia,
and Tanner was playing cat-and-mouse, probably exacting revenge for all our insults back in the old days.
So I was basically homeless at the moment, and now had a deadline hanging over my head. If I had more cash it wouldn’t be a problem – I’d just crash at a hostel or pension. So many problems are compounded by the lack of money.
The tram was crowded, mostly with a hilarious, energetic set of Italian girls, in town for the weekend. A sweaty-faced, stout middle-aged woman dragging two shopping bags stood fussily in the aisle. “Foreigners sit and Czechs stand!” I overheard her muttering.
I was carrying two big bags that held all my worldly possessions. They were getting heavy, especially as the day got warmer. I got off the tram at the Massarykovo train station and headed to a cheap pension.
“We’re booked through the weekend,” the receptionist said. “But let’s see – oh, here’s a shared room. We can let you have it for one night.” Twenty minutes later I was back out on the street, my bags tucked away for the night. I was down to my last three thousand crowns. Enough for a few nights at the pension.

That evening after my last class, the air had turned a fragrant, honey tone, so I headed to riegrovy sady, a park at the top of a big hill in Zizkov. The beer garden was full. I’d barely gotten my beer and sat down when I heard someone call my name.
“James from California!”
A ghost from last fall. The ghost approached, split into two and in a bizarre recognition I remembered. The twins – Teddy and Jonas. We’d spent a memorable, stimulated weekend together at a warehouse party so many months before.
“What happened to you?” Jonas asked, as he guided me over to a table filled with young Czechs. “Last time we see this guy – “ Jonas turned to the table. “He was crazy at the party and then we never see him again!”
Everyone laughed politely.
“So what is new with you? You need a place to stay? You are in
pension. Oh, you stay with us. We are two minutes away, in Lipanska.”
So many times in life we wonder how things might have been different. That chance run-in with the twins set off what turned out to be more than a memorable weekend – where, at the end of another dizzy, lost weekend -- I ended up nearly being arrested on suspicion of beating a prominent member of the Communist Party.


Sorry Tuesday.
Herb slapped a copy of Mlhada Dnes fronta on the table.
“You’re news,” he said grimly.
There was a story on the front page. “Communist Party leader beaten on May Day” the story ran. There was a photo of a man named Jiri Panenko, his left eye swollen to the size of an apple, with cuts and bruises on his forehead.

“Police said Panenko was in the midst of giving his speech, ‘Life
without work is not possible and life with out love is not life,” when a
group of unidentified young people yelling unprintable things, burst
into the group and began beating the Communist leader.
An estimated 8,000 party members and supporters attended the rally
in Letna.

I read all this in a daze. My first thought – bizarrely – was of Karel. It all seemed like a sad joke. What interested me more was a smaller photo, taken by one of the Czech photographers. It showed, among other things, a young man with a strong resemblance to me assisting in the
beating.
I glanced at the rest of the story. Panenko had been taken to the hospital, where he was being treated for the cuts and bruises. He was being held overnight in case of concussion, but doctors seemed confident he would be alright.
Herb was eyeing me.
“So wanna tell me what happened?”
It was strange; I felt detached from the crime, as though someone else had done it. The twins had dropped me off at Herb’s. They and some others were going to their cottage in Moravia for a few days. They’d invited me to come but I – absurdly feeling I still needed to file the
story – had insisted on staying in town.
“I don’t think you need to worry about the story,” Herb corrected me a few minutes later. “Seth came in on emergency and filed it this morning.”
“I could write an eyewitness account,” I said joking..
“You’re lucky, you know.” Herb was eyeing me again.
“I know.”
“You’re lucky no one else knew who you were. I spoke with Seth about it. Fortunately for you, the Social Democrats and ODS and trying to make it a political thing. Nobody really expects to find who did it. Luckily for you, most Czechs aren’t very sympathetic to this Panenko. Back in the States you’d probably be looking at an assault charge, maybe a
lot more. These Czechs, for better or worse, will probably grumble a bit and just let it go.”
I nodded.
“You’re not making it easy for yourself – or for others who may come after you.” Herb lit a cigar. “I’m sorry but I gotta cut you off. I can’t help you on any more stories, you understand that. And you’re welcome to stop by, but I’m not letting Milan serve you anything harder than
Coca Cola. And if I find out you’re in here drinking I’ll have you 86’d.”
I didn’t say anything. Instead I glanced unconsciously at Milan, who had that muted _expression of someone who is trying not to listen.
After a minute, Herb’s gaze softened.
“So you gonna be OK?”
“I’m fine.”
“Need any money?”
I shook my head.
Herb was looking out the window. A couple fresh-faced young girls
walked by, they peered through the window and waved. Herb waved back.
I rose to go, lifting a short nod to Milan.
“Come on, I’ll walk with you,” Herb said.
Outside it was bright outside again.
“This place – it’ll get to you if you don’t watch it,” Herb said reflectively.
“I know – you said.” I was ready to go.
“Well, try to lay low for a while. Everything will be fine, I think.”

At the pension a few hours later. No word from Karel, or Tanner, or anybody. It felt awful and surreal, being homeless and a virtual fugitive, even if it was a fugitive nobody really wanted. A thought crossed my mind of calling Kyle in Ireland. He’d symphathize, maybe offer a hideout in Donegal. Maybe he could get me a job working in the bar, washing
dishes or bussing. I could earn euros for a change – with the exchange rate I could even return home a little bit ahead. ... Home ... Yeah, could always go there ... where the creditors were waiting ...
... But I didn’t want to go home. Not yet anyway.
Herb was right. I was lucky. No one had seen me, it was too fast and confusing. How had it happened
... The party with the twins Friday ... the ecstasy, then speed, and who knows how much alcohol. A smoky, hazy
weekend that suddenly resolved sharply into Monday morning, the day of
the May Day parades.
It had been Jonas’ hilarious idea that we all go to the Communist
demonstration together. “We will help with your coverage,” he said,
laughing. I’d laughed too. It had seemed like a great idea. They could help
translate. We did a couple more lines, and drank off a bottle of
absinthe before parting.
I really don’t remember much about the demonstration ... lots of
people, a ridiculous memory of the sunshine bouncing off the heads of the
speakers. Someone near me was shouting, and it was then I had the
realization that I hadn’t bothered to bring a notebook or pen. Must have
left it at the twins’ flat. More shouting, and suddenly figures where
thrusting and pushing, and someone was coming at me. I shoved, and a shove
came back and there was Jonas – no Teddy – Christ they both look alike,
it’s so spooky and it was funny too. Where were the police? I
remembered seeing a bunch of them at the tram stops. Where were they now? They
were coming! “James, we go!” Jonas or Teddy was saying to me and we
were scrambling over the hill and through the park and tumbling down a
path and to the river ...
... then we were on a tram heading back to Zizkov and someone was
sick ...

The door knocked. I jumped. Reception girl.
“Would you like some dinner brought up?”
“No, thanks.” I shut the door.
I went and lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Well, at least the guy’s all right. Stupid. Stupid. I was drunk. A sad joke. Hori ma panenko! Fire my darling!Yes, you were drunk. Always drunk. He’s alright. But what about next time? Say a quiet prayer. No
more ... got to change.
My phone beeped. A text from Marja. “How are you? I’m at my parent’s house and have been eating the whole day. I miss you.”
“I’m OK,” I replied. “Just relaxing. Miss you too.”
Finland. Should go there. With what? Can’t just show up at her doorstep, like some begging, half-assed Raskolnikov. You’re not her responsibility.

After a while, I fell asleep. I don’t usually remember my dreams.
But that night I dreamed the one dream that’s come persistently since I’d
come to Prague. In the dream I’m back home, at the newspaper, on the
beat. Everyone comes up to me, surprised looks on their faces. So you’re
back? They ask. Yes, I say. And on and on it goes, the same gauntlet of
let-down and shame.
When I awoke the room was pitch black. I rose, disoriented,
frightened. Three a.m. Hungry, afraid to go out though. I think I half
suspected a couple patrol cars were sitting at the curb. I went into the
bathroom. “He looks young,” I thought, looking at the reflection in the
mirror. “Yes, he’s in Europe, doing what a young man should be doing,
opening doors for himself ...
“—and beating up the local population,” I finished the thought aloud.
I thought of the newspaper again. At least there I had been somebody
– in a small way – useful, lucky, not insignificant. Where had it all
gone? All those things that were once important. Family – who were they
now? You can always come home, they said. Really – how? What story
would I tell them? Oh, there were plenty of easy stories. They’d believe
them too. They always believed in me, the favorite, the prodigal.
Jsem rozbity jak cert. I am broken like a devil. Who told you that?
Lucie. Duncan’s old girlfriend. That was back when you first came to
Prague, full of possibilities and your own fresh willingness to give.
Only you didn’t have anything to give, or didn’t know how to give, or
felt people didn’t want any longer what you had to give.

Noon. Cancelled classes again. Couldn’t face anyone. Your teacher is
a drunken bum who beat a man senseless over the weekend and who is now
homeless and hiding from the police. No homework.
A text. I jump again. It’s Philadelphia Groves. “Leaving next week.
We should have a drink.”
I met Philadephia that evening, after spending a cautious, harrowed
day in the room. He was at riegrovy sady.
“Brother James!” Philadelphia offered his big hand to shake.
Something in his voice – that old booming voice, full of the world – nearly
moved me to tears.
“What’s up?” Philadelphia asked, seeing me shaken.
“Prague.”
“What about it?”
“I’m just tired.”
“Need a holiday maybe. It’s good to get out of the city sometimes.
Got to.”
Slowly I gave him a highly edited and rewritten account of the
weekend, casting myself as the sympathetic foreigner unwittingly thrust into
fateful circumstances.
I don’t know how much of it Philadelphia believed. But he listened.
“No shit?” he said, when I finished. “You was in a fight?”
I mumbled some strange language about the price of the inebriated.
“Oh, you were drunk? Well ... What did you think? You were back in
college in Humboldt? I never could figure that one out. Young kids come
over here, have a few beers and suddenly they think they can do whatever
they want. What would you have done it that was me?”
I didn’t say anything.
“Remember what I said before,” Philadelphia. “The trick is to blend,
pick your spots.”
“I picked badly, I guess.”
“I guess.”
I looked around. The tables were crowded.
“OK. Stop it. You’re embarrassing me.”
“I’m what?” Philadelphia’s voice rose. “I’m embarrassing you? I’m
just trying to tell you what it takes to make it in the world, prepare you
so that you don’t get up there and embarrass yourself. You do that in
some places – take China, for example – and you wouldn’t be getting off
so easy. Believe me.”
We were quiet for a few minutes. After a while, I murmured an
apology.
“You’re probably a hell of a writer,” Philadelphia said, continuing
more gently. “But you got to decide now what it is you want. You got to
do it every day. Every day. It’s like music. It has to become a part of
your life. Otherwise it don’t mean nothing. And if you decide that what
you want is to drink everyday, then that’s what you’ll become. You are
what you do every day. Don’t forget that. Otherwise you’re just left in
the dark, waiting for something to happen, waiting like all these other
poor sorry assholes, waiting for someone to do something for you. I
know you’re better than that, otherwise I wouldn’t bother.”
I felt something in me restored by Philadelphia’s words – not the
words, but something behind the phrasing, the feeling that of kicks and
booms in an improvised set.
Philadelphia reached into his bag and slapped a book down.
“That’s for you,” he said. “Been meaning to give it to you.”
It was Ellison’s The Invisible Man.
“It takes a bit to get into at first, but stay with it.”
“I didn’t get you anything though.” I felt ashamed. Philadelphia
laughed.
“I didn’t expect you to,” he said. “But maybe you will someday.”
We stayed until the sun went down and it started to get too cool to
sit outside. When it was dark we strolled through the park one last
time. From an opening in the trees at the top of the hill we could see the
castle, lit up in blue light.
“Ah, Prague magic,” Philadelphia said to himself.
“So are you coming back?” I was already starting to miss him.
“Oh, maybe in the fall,” he said. “Got to head over to see Tamara and
the kids.”
At the bottom of the hill we shook hands.
“Allright then, take care of yourself,” he said. “I’m gonna miss
talkin’ philosophical shit with you, man.”
“Goodbye,” I said. “I’ll miss you too."

XX

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.
I nodded.
“Really?” She brightened.
“You don’t have to sound so excited,” I said.
“No, I will miss you. But for you – “
We were still sitting in the kitchen. Instinctively we both looked out the window at the dense rows of grey panalaky.
“I will miss our lessons,” I said.
“Yes, but it is good for you, I think.”
“I like Prague though.”
“You know Prague . You don’t know China . Just go. Like your friend Mika says. See more of the world, not just Czech.”
“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.”


The spring passed quickly. In the center the sidewalks in front of the cafe were crowded again with tables, blooming like flowers on the bright pavements with the sandy, rusted beauty of the buildings in the background. I passed by the tables quickly, past the inevitable waiters rushing back and forth pints of overpriced Pilsner to the tourists. Sometimes I overheard bits of conversation.
“Oh, you are from America ?” came a voice with a Central Europe timbre.
“Yes, Chicago .”
“But you are not fat? I thought all Americans were fat.”
“Well, we’re not.” A woman’s tense, gay voice.
“And you are not at McDonald’s,” another voice, an arrogant German, pitched in.
“No, no,” came the gay wife diplomatically.
“But I thought all Americans ate at McDonald’s. Have you seen this film, ‘Supersize Me –“
“Oh, no, no.”
“And so what do you think of the war?”
“Well – “
And it went on, while the waiter brought plates of “real Czech cuisine,” which consisted invariably of doubtless low fat, nutritious servings of sausage, gulas, dumplings and cabbage.
It made no difference to me. After many painful lessons, I was finally learning to modulate my attitudes – and drinking habits – to a broader climate. I’d given up trying to justify American habits on a dilatory, ever-shifting world that for decades had embraced those same habits. It felt better to look ahead to China .
Still, the city in those last months, as the colors in the trees shifted from wet spring to bored summer, it seemed the city never looked lovelier to me. It was a city that had seen much of what was worst in me, and yet time and again embraced me. Now that I was leaving it, I longed to leave behind something of my best. But it was all going by too fast, and I knew that whatever it was I secretly feared that the only thing I would eventually come to leave behind were only lost hopes – and regrets.
The World Cup came to Germany in June. I got up for a couple days to Berlin . I tried inviting Karel, but he said he was working. Tanner, well, who knows. Kyle got tied up with work, and never did make it over, but Barnie made it for a couple of days, and we went up together. We had a good time.

I put in an email application to China in June, and was accepted at a school in Beijing , beginning in September.
I continued my lessons in Prague right up to the last week. In early August, I got a surprise text from Mika. I hadn’t heard from him since Tamara had had her baby. “Good luck to you,” he said. “But remember – it’s a good time to be Czech!”
“A good time?” I asked.
“Yes, no terrorists, no problems. No one knows we are here.”
“Oh, but you missed the news,” I said, only half joking. “ Iran announced last week it has missles capable of hitting Central Europe .”
“Oh shit!” Mika cried in mock alarm. “So that means we are next!”
“Oh shit?”
“Oh, shit.”
I wished him good luck with Tamara and the baby. It was a boy, who they named Leonardo, of all things. I kind of liked the name.

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 her heart’s not strong these days. She needs to rest.”
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?”
I told my news.
“ China ?” Herb slapped me on the back. “Well, give em hell. But be careful.”
“I will – and curious.”
“What about that Finnish girl, what was her name?”
“Marja?” I shrugged.
“Well, maybe it’s all for the best. Maybe you’ll get lucky at both ends.”
“Like you,” I said.
“Yeah, like me. Secret of a good marriage – knowing when you have to go home.”
That was the last time I saw Herb Walker. I got an email from him shortly after I arrived in China . 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.

I sent emails home. Dad wired me some cash, always with the helpful ‘I wish it could be more’ tag. I accepted the money with growing sense of guilt, knowing the hours he and mom had put in at the office to sustain my career change from journalist to international bum.
And I stay in touch with Marja. She’s not sure about China , but she wants me to come and visit, as always, to go folk dancing and to sit in the sauna.

Herb and Vera, Hana, Karel, Philadelphia , even Kyle and Frantisek and of course Mika.I envied them as well. They too seemed to have looked about the world and found a measure of peace, or at least a sense of function. Thinking again of Hana’s letter to her as yet unborn child, I was reminded of grandmother, and also the story she wrote about the young man, how he’d lived far away from home and lived a fast life until one day his family was gone.
Karel and his sad jokes, his admonitions and ironies. Philadelphia ’s power and wonderful sense of timing, and good taste in books.
And Herb, who told me to get out more.
Past generations have faced and overcome world war, Depression, famine, political oppression, racial injustice. What have I faced? An excess of beer? Of options, of free time, of permissiveness and opportunity. Karel was right. I’ve done nothing.
At the end of the first World War, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote of his generation waking up, “to find all gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in men shaken.” A gloriously dramatic statement, right about his generation, wrong about ours. The peripheral has disappeared from our vision; the peripheral is front and center, rotating on an unseeable access, turning faster until we’ve forgotten who started it going, wars fought in the name of gods and faiths, and in the wider world, even here in Prague, where the costs are counted. A trench of ideas, opinions, shifting alliances and blurred perceptions. A world where anything is possible – thrillingly, terrifyingly, tragically, lyrically so.
It was this world I eagerly sought. Back in California at the news desk, I’d only dimly sensed it, saw it in shadows and glimpses, or all at once like the day the towers fell, and in the time since, when I’d spent those quiet, lovely hours with Marja. There was a feeling of running forward, hands outstretched, and at the same time a desire to flee in the opposite direction and hide away in a dark place. The future, or its scattered reflection blinding in the form of the present, and even the past, seemed to be falling from the sky like snow, and you could grab bits of it in your hand, but only a little of it, when really you wanted all of it at once, suspecting that it was all or nothing.
But I hadn’t given thought to what I owed, what I should give in return, or the heavy price of that future that was piling up daily in the bloody and futile corners of the world, how millions of people would give everything to trade places with me while I squandered time and money and friendships in the pubs, surrendering to the pull of the city's incessant a.m. crowd.
… beyond the a.m. crowd, into the peripheral world.