Dan Fesperman - The Double Game

He burst into laughter.

“She is married again, you know. Three times now!”

“And who was this lucky girl?” Litzi was enjoying our nostalgia.

“Karel’s sister. She was sixteen.”

“You were punching above your weight, old man. But she was willing, very willing.”

“It was in that little courtyard near Maltese Square, the one with the funny statue of Saint George.”

“The one you used to call Saint Lecher.”

“Because of the creepy look on his face, like he was about to molest the dragon.”

His sister wanted nothing more to do with me afterward. It turned out she’d only wanted to satisfy her curiosity about what it felt like to kiss a boy from the land of Elvis, Hemingway, and Radio Free Europe. The answer: Nothing special. I swallowed the last of the Becherovka, and couldn’t help but shudder.

“Remember our first night of drinking this stuff?” Karel held up the green bottle, offering more as I held up my hand in refusal.

“What I remember better is the hangover.”

From the street below, a chorus of singing Scotsmen carried up through an open window. Karel stepped over for a look, smiling down toward the cobbles.

“They’re everywhere,” I said. “Grown men with hairy legs.”

“By dawn there won’t be a drop of single malt to be found in the city.”

“In the square they were all drinking Pils.”

“That’s just to get their courage up. After the final whistle they’ll need the real stuff.”

“The square is a shambles,” Litzi said. “Cans and bottles everywhere.”

“Better than shell casings,” Karel said. “Although not nearly as much fun to dodge.”

Another glimmer of his old self. He gestured toward the door.

“Let us go and eat sausages and pig’s knuckles! Unless you’d rather have pizza like the Tartans?”

“Pig’s knuckles it is.”

As we walked to dinner we caught up on each other’s lives. Karel was teaching mathematics at a second-tier university and still listening to any new music from the West, now on an iPod. There was a Mrs. Vitova, but she had left the premises four years ago, when the last of their three children moved out on his own.

He took us to a cozy restaurant where most of the diners spoke Czech. But when Litzi insisted on a nonsmoking table, they ushered us to an empty room in the back, where the hostess had to switch on a light. They must have concluded we were tourists, even with Karel along, because the waiter brought us sweet red wine in shot glasses nestled on beds of dry ice in goblets. He poured water over the ice to make the goblets steam like cauldrons, then grandly announced in English, “Our special cocktail, on the house!”

We waited until he left, then burst out laughing.

“And to think when I was fourteen I could pass for local,” I said.

“Because your Czech was perfect! By the time you left you didn’t even have an accent.”

“All gone now, I’m afraid.”

“My parents were always very impressed by the way you tried to fit in.”

“Tried? Locals used to ask me for directions. Same in Budapest, Vienna, and Berlin. Now, of course, even the cabdrivers can spot me a mile away. I’m thoroughly Americanized.”

“Like half of Prague,” he said, clinking his glass to mine.

Up to then I’d given little thought to how I might broach the subject of finding Karel’s old address in a KGB report. I suppose I was counting on some sort of natural opening to occur. I was right, as it turned out, although I never would’ve guessed the nature of the opening.

“How are your parents?” I asked.

“My mother is very fine. She lives in the country with her dog and a vegetable garden, bad knees and all.”

“And your father?”

“Dead. Eleven years. No, twelve. His lungs. Probably from all that dust in his factory. And the smoking, of course.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. He was always very kind to me.”

Karel smiled like a wolf.

“Your visits made him very happy. You were like an extra income for him.”

“What do you mean?”

“He informed on you! To someone in the Interior Ministry. He would always do it the very next day, and tell them whatever you said.”

I set down my drink, incredulous.

“Jesus. Did everybody inform on me when I was a boy? Why didn’t you say something?”

“I never knew. He told me after you moved away. Being the son of a diplomat made you very interesting to them.”

I shook my head. So much for all those fond memories.

“He did ask me lots of questions.”

“Especially about your father. That was his assignment.”

“Great.”

“Each time he reported they gave him an American twenty-dollar bill. He would exchange it for a hundred and sixty Tuzex crowns, equal to eight hundred regular crowns, except you could spend them at those special shops for party officials. Remember when we saw him coming out of there once, with that bag full of soap and chocolate bars? You were so impressed.”

“Yes. I do remember.”

“It was as much money as a shop clerk would make in a month. He told me later that whenever you came through our door it was like a visit from Father Christmas.”

Karel laughed heartily, although I found it a bit hard to swallow. Litzi smiled sympathetically, the other family spy from my past. Well, I had my secrets, too, and now was the time to unveil them.

“Did your dad ever mention any code names?”

“ Code names?” Karel laughed. “Hey, I don’t think it was that official. He was just a metalworker with a big mouth.”

“So you never heard him mention the name ‘Fishwife’?”

Karel began to grow uncomfortable.

“Bill, why do you ask me this? What do you know?”

Litzi looked down at her drink.

“Well, I found your address in an old KGB report a few days ago. Along with the code name Fishwife, which they must have assigned to your dad. As a regular visitor to the Interior Ministry, it was probably routine.”

Now it was Karel’s turn to look shocked and deflated, and I felt a twinge of guilt for striking back so heedlessly.

“Relax, it was ages ago, the seventies.” The words seemed to bounce right off.

“A KGB report? You’re sure?”

Karel’s tone was grave. I suppose that even now, the idea of showing up on some ancient Soviet watchlist could pack a punch. He drained the last of the novelty cocktail, then peered into the empty glass as if deeply troubled.

“I’m going to need something stronger than this. Is that why you got in touch with me, just to ask me this?”

“No. Not the only reason. But that was part of it, yes. I saw the address on an old list of contacts, and it made me curious. It’s part of some research I’ve been doing, following up on old stuff from my dad’s life.”

“Ah. I see. You are revisiting all of your old haunts, then?”

“Yes. Like Antikvariat Drebitko. Remember all those bookstores my father went to?”

“How could I not? Bookstores were dangerous places for Czechs, especially if they were known to sell Western newspapers on the sly. My father always told me to stay away unless I wanted to get a bad name with the police. Of course now all the old secret policemen run security firms for bankers and businessmen. But I remember nothing of any KGB people at our house. My father would have been too scared. These were small things he was doing, to help us get by.”

“I’m in no position to judge him. That’s not what I’m trying to do.”

He nodded, but it was clear he wanted to move on to a more comfortable topic.

So we did, stiffly at first, and with the aid of a bottle of Frankovka-”a true Czech red,” as Karel said. The mood eased, but we carefully avoided any further mention of our fathers.