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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781619023895 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Catapult |
| Publication date: | 07/21/2014 |
| Sold by: | Penguin Random House Publisher Services |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 288 |
| File size: | 629 KB |
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CHAPTER 1
Selma Al-Khateeb is coming to stay with us in Prague.
"I should have asked you first, I know," Stephanie says, exaggerating the I know, zooming her words in a way that's supposed to make me laugh. It's my wife's idea of being charming. "You don't mind, do you?"
"No," I say, "your friend needs you."
Three twentysomethings wearing nothing but jockstraps and curly neon-green wigs have walked with a large posse of followers onto Masarykovo nábrezí and are blocking traffic. They are swaying in circles and barking laughter at each other. The limousine driver fumes silently, but his hands betray his frustration, the fingers curling and jerking in angry gestures above the wheel of the Mercedes.
"Still, we have to try to act as normal as possible," Stephanie says. "She's not sick, no one has died."
"Not yet," I say, to which Stephanie gives me The Look.
Out the window I can see two Policie running with one hand on their caps to keep them from flying away. They pass a beggar, almost unnoticed, who has set himself up on the sidewalk. I have a deep sympathy for the beggars of Prague. They are so unlike the cup-jingling hustlers you see in New York or Washington. No, this man has a decorum, a gravitas, that never fails to impress me. His hair is buzzed short, and his clothes, though shabby, are neat and worn smartly. But what has never quite stopped surprising me is his posture: The man crouches nearly prostrate on the ground, almost like a Muslim at prayer, his forehead resting on the pavement, his hands out before him in supplication. He speaks to no one, silent, his needs absolutely clear.
I turn to Stephanie in order to point him out to her, to say for the fiftieth time how moved I am by these beggars, but I can see immediately that she is too engrossed with the subject of Selma's arrival to pay any real attention.
"What are her plans?" I say to be polite. Even though we've been married for ten years, or maybe because we've been married for so long, I find it increasingly satisfying to be as polite as possible to my wife.
"I don't think she has any — not yet." Stephanie smiles. I am forgiven.
All of my wife's close friends, a tight circle — a witch's coven, I joke — are worried about Selma and her husband. She's smiling now, but even a quick glance at Stephanie's fingers reveals the damage of her anxiety. I'd love to change the subject. Today is my wife's birthday, it's late June in the most beautiful city in the world, and I want her to have a good time.
Nevertheless, I say, "Maybe we should find something for her to do?"
She loops her arm with mine and leans across me to get a better look out the window. The crowds of tourists around the Charles Bridge are tightly packed. It's a sight we've seen a million times, as normal as breathing. I return to Stephanie. She is pale skinned and dark haired. Crow's-feet have begun to establish themselves around her eyes. I have just given her a diamond necklace that I paid more money for than I have for anything in my life except cars and apartments. Not even my first edition of The Sheltering Sky cost quite as much. I smile because she can't stop touching it, afraid that somehow the necklace will have disappeared between one moment and the next. A sweet aroma rises from her long hair, and I wonder if she realizes how attracted to her I continue to be.
After enjoying her for a moment, I try to follow her gaze out the window. The absolute lack of movement in the traffic seems to have everyone on edge. In the car beside us, a long and stately '90-sera Mercedes, a man who is just beginning to be old is having a heated argument with his wife. I think he looks like a classical musician, his white hair deeply receding but thick and full on the sides like lush wings. He, too, is gesturing toward the green-wigged crowd, explaining to his wife, who is very thin and fussy-looking, that there is no way to have anticipated this kind of delay. I pretend they are headed to the National Theatre where I know Othello is playing. Beside me, Stephanie sighs. She has seen them, too.
We used to play this game together all the time, imagining the lives of strangers. It was a kind of competition, mildly serious but mostly fun. We could do it now, I think, but again decide to let it go. Some deep domestic instinct keeps me quiet. Instead, I smile to encourage her to answer my question.
"She can't work," Stephanie says. "It would take forever to arrange the paperwork. Besides, I don't think that's what she has in mind."
"I thought you said you didn't know her plans."
"Well," she says, "I don't. Not really."
Finally, the driver can't take it any longer. He opens his window and sticks out his head and shoulders. He swears at the young people in the streets, at the police, no doubt at life. His Czech is so fast I can't make out all of it. Something like, "Sons of a diseased pig!" I'm not sure, but it makes Stephanie laugh.
She turns to me, still smiling. "Let's just see what happens."
"Who are these lunatics?" I say.
"Stag!" the driver bellows. "Stag! Stag!" He gestures, palms up in exasperation, and I laugh. To me he is also a part of the wonderful circus that is Prague with his graying bowl cut and bristly sideburns and cigarette smell. A Czech George Harrison. If he were a cabdriver, I'd be wondering if I would have to wrangle with him over the fare.
"Staying with us is meant to be an escape for Selma."
"We're going to be good to her and kind to her," I say. "That's something we can do. But she's not likely to forget her husband's been arrested by the FBI."
"Of course she's not going to forget," Stephanie says. She squeezes her eyes shut and massages her temples. "But Mansour is innocent. I want her to be surrounded by people who believe that. Absolutely."
"I'm not sure I believe anything absolutely."
"Maybe I don't care what you believe," she says. "I just need your help."
Ah, my help. Selma has mentioned in at least one email that while she's here she wants to see literary Prague. This is about the only thing I've been allowed to know. She wants to see the house where Kafka lived; the Café Slavia, where all the '60s writers and intellectuals drank their coffee and slivovitz; and perhaps even make a foray or two into the contemporary scene. Selma's bachelor's degree was in English Literature, so as they say, she has an interest. And I suppose this is what I had in mind when I said that we should find something for her to do.
"We'll do everything we can for her," I say. "Full effort. A hundred percent."
"This is why you're my favorite husband," she says, and I get a little kiss on the cheek.
Quarrel averted. Peace restored.
"How long can it possibly take to round up a stag party?" she says.
"Sometimes I think the Czechs actually stage little moments like this."
"So we can have a good story to tell at the party?"
"Side benefit," I say, "but true."
"And people say History has ended in the Czech Republic."
Finally the police have restored some semblance of order and Masarykovo nábrezí is nearly cleared. There, just in front of a shop selling handcrafted wooden puppets, the stag party has been gathered and handcuffed. One young man's wig has gone terribly askew, covering his left eye. With his hands restrained, he cannot adjust it. He is wearing a pair of huge bug-eye sunglasses. His legs are thin and his skin is the palest shade of white. A clump of wiry black hair sprouts from the center of his chest. Beside him, one of his comrades has his back to traffic, his pathetic little dimpled butt hanging out for all to see. I am suddenly thrilled to be part of a generation that is mercifully not obsessed with photographing everything.
"Gross," Stephanie says.
Life in Prague, it seems, is 40 percent composed of living down embarrassment of your fellow countrymen. How does one explain to the locals green wigs and jockstraps? One does not.
"I've decided that stag parties are operating on the 'Don't shit where you live' philosophy," I say. "Save all your hooligan impulses for Prague."
"What happens in Prague stays in Prague," Stephanie says.
Whole vacations planned around the single premise of drunken insanity. Like Spring Break: Europe. I'm waiting for the reality show. No wonder the driver thinks we're pigs. Or sons of pigs. With a disease. Isn't it only monsters that have happily thrown away all sense of shame?
"If it makes you feel any better," I quip, "with butts like those, I'd say it's likely those particular boys are British."
"It's a consolation," Stephanie says. "But God, I'm imagining their hangovers."
"I'm imagining waking up in a Czech jail wearing nothing but a jockstrap."
And then we laugh, and the moment is a good one. This is what marriage is like when it's going well — a shared sense of absurdity. To laugh together until you cry. And then laugh again. Now I know that, barring something unforeseen, Stephanie will have a good time at the party and we will inch closer to Selma's arrival in a state of general simpatico.
"Idiots!" the driver says.
"Absolutely," we say together.
Secretly, though, I am glad the stag parties are here, part of Prague. Isn't this the kind of thing I came to find? The green wigs, the cab drivers, the bumbling and corrupt police, the throngs of humanity, the stink of traffic, the promise of a party, all played out on a stage so spectacular that it can absorb almost anything, like the ocean, and still preserve its beauty.
In a moment the street is clear and the traffic is moving. I can feel the thrum of the limo's engine. The whole episode is already becoming a memory. I catch a glimpse of the bridge towers and a statue on the north side of the entrance to Charles Bridge, The Madonna Attending to St. Bernard. Again, I think to point it out to Stephanie, but we are moving too swiftly and the moment is gone, and so are we, finally, into the summer night, ready to begin.
* * *
The door of the Globe Bookstore & Café is opened by a waiter in black, a Czech, and the elegant front room is revealed before us. Wooden shelving filled with English-language books, a couple of well-placed chairs, tables lined with the latest arrivals, and best of all, a spiral staircase leading up to a second-floor balcony with more shelving and more books. The space, however, is dominated by a tall counter where the cash register is placed and where there are stacks of fliers and brochures advertising everything from rooms for rent to guitar lessons to the monthly meeting of a local literary book club that calls itself The Inklings. I am a member.
The bookstore is closed; this is a private party hosted by the owners, Michael Leo and his wife, Anna Nemcova. They are the ones who ordered the limousine. Dekuji. Their lives, I have said to Stephanie, are the epicenter of the world. But I am biased. In moments, we are given drinks. Sangria served in champagne flutes. In her glass, a bit of orange.
"There is Maria Fuentes, the Venezuelan poet," our friend Anthony whispers.
She is blind, or nearly so. Apparently she can see shapes and gradations of light. When she's speaking to you her dead eyes are always just a little bit off the mark, like a woman who is already thinking beyond the conversation she's having with you to the next, clearly more engaging one. But I have heard her recite her poems and her voice is rich and honeyed. She closes her eyes as she's reciting and I imagine her seeing the lines, one by one, flashing along the white screen of her consciousness. She has wonderfully wide hips. When she moves, I have to stop myself from following her around the room.
Now Anthony is pointing out Kara Mullins, an American from Washington whose father is the CEO of an insurance company and who sold her apartment in the Watergate Building to open a restaurant in the Staré Mesto. We have eaten there. Not a single pork dish on the menu, not a potato dumpling in sight. There are musicians, writers, students from Charles University. Americans, Irish, Germans, Australians, Spanish, even a few Czechs. One can meet everybody here.
"There is Luke Nevin."
"Who is he?" Stephanie asks.
Nevin is an independent filmmaker. He is thin, his skinny jeans showing off the S-curve of his hips. Curly hair. Big, black-rimmed glasses, like the 1950s on steroids. His first short film was nominated for an Academy Award. He is as gay, Anthony says, as the day is long. Women surround him.
"Have you seen his film?"
Michael has joined us. "Endlessly," he says. "It's in black and white. Twenty-four minutes of Millennial Generation love. Anna says she contracted chlamydia just from watching."
We can hear Luke Nevin's voice. It is clear and sweet sounding but peppered with those signature "like, like, likes" that render all of life into the conditional.
"I talked to her last night and, like, she was so, like, pulling a diva snit on me ..." he says.
As fate would have it — or perhaps it was planned? — Nevin is standing in front of a shelf of books dedicated to gay and lesbian erotica. A Mapplethorpe coffee-table book is visible just behind the dark cloud of his hair.
"... Yes, yes, yes, she's going to do it. I don't care."
Out of nowhere, a cake materializes. It is chocolate with raspberry preserves baked into it, raspberry icing. On the sides are chocolate-dipped wafers, girded around with a red ribbon. On top of the cake it reads, Št'astné narozeniny, Stephanie! Everyone sings. She is both touched and embarrassed — perfect.
Michael and I arranged the cake together. He has been in Prague since the beginning — meaning since 1990. Graying hair that he still styles spiked up in the front like a frat boy. Expensive shirts. The weight of experience lending an authority that feels absolute. He is our Gertrude Stein but without the sexual politics or annoying repetitions. A drink is a drink is a drink. The first time I met him was during the European soccer championships. I was watching in the Globe's café, the broadcast projected from a laptop onto a wall that had been cleared of paintings and photographs. The room was filled with Italians and Spaniards and Germans. Michael's wife bought me my first Beton. Anna is spectacular, a body double for Paulina Porizkova. Long straight hair, a pert little ass, legs so long and thin the insides of her thighs have never touched. She is perhaps now forty-five. Some nights I imagine her at twenty but can't stay with it. The knowledge is too painful, a thing that burns the mind, like reading the First Language before Babel. She is from Brno, the hometown of Milan Kundera. Her one fault is that she tells this to every new person she meets.
Anthony has wandered over to talk to her. He is, for me, like a character out of a novel. Jake Barnes without the unfortunate injury. He writes for the Prague Post. There are nearly fifty thousand Americans in the city and everyone reads it. God knows what he might be saying to Anna. They like to pretend to be lascivious together, but it is just a game for them. In their private dialogues everyone is an adulterer, everyone's pussy smells, everyone fingerpaints on their lover's stomach in menstrual blood. My wife has to be very drunk to appreciate them.
To break away from these ideas I wander alone behind the bar of the café. I am attracted to the bottles of alcohol. The shape of the glass, the labels, the soft light reflecting from the surfaces. Johnnie Walker Red, Becherovka, Bombay Sapphire. On and on, row after row, like old friends waiting in line. On the end of the bar itself is the espresso machine. It's easy to imagine Michael and Anna here in the early morning, the smell of strong coffee in the air, the wordless comfort of their marriage. She is turning the pages of the newspaper. After a while he will switch on the radio to the classical music station. Half a grapefruit on each spouse's plate. Chocolate brioche. A cherished quietude before the staff arrives, before they must become Michael Leo and Anna Nemcova.
Anna has found me.
"Why are you all alone in here?" she says.
"I was admiring the bar."
"It's beautiful," she says. "We are alike, Henry. I have decided that this is the case. Like you, I find that in every party there is a moment when it's best to be alone. And so, we find ourselves together. Ironical, no?"
I smile.
One of the waitresses joins us at the bar with a tray full of dirty glasses. "Have you met, Holly? She is our latest hire. She is so beautiful. Don't you think she's beautiful?"
Holly is, indeed, lovely. She has an intelligent face and the most perfect posture I think I have ever seen. She is Australian and doing her travel year. Anna and I argue about what it's called. Roundabout. Walkabout. Holly doesn't bother to correct either of us. Astute.
From the bookstore, I can hear other guests arriving. Holly wants to hurry back to the action but Anna is determined to introduce us.
"Holly must know you," she says.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Prague Summer"
by .
Copyright © 2014 Jeffrey Condran.
Excerpted by permission of Counterpoint.
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