Joseph Kanon - The Prodigal Spy

“Can I ask you something?” Nick said impulsively. “Why did you? In the first place?”

“What, become a Red?” He looked back at his beer. “You think we have horns? Let me tell you, we didn’t. Who else was there? You think anybody cared about the working man? Anti-Semites playing golf. That’s what it was then. Anti-Semites playing golf.” He stared at the glass, then caught himself. “It’s the beer talking,” he said, trying an apologetic smile that stopped midway. “You ask me, you know what I’d have to say? Who else was there? That’s it.” He picked up the glass. “Anyway, here I am talking — it’s good, you know, the English-and you’ve got a pretty girl to go to. What are you doing here, anyway?”

“Just seeing the sights,” Nick said easily. The man nodded. “Not so many come now. Unless they have family. You have family here?”

“No.” He shook his head. “My grandmother was Polish, though,” he said, improvising. Molly was right. You could learn to do it fast, part of the other game.

“And that’s close enough,” Bielak said, laughing to himself. “You’d have to be American. They’re the only ones who think it’s the same thing.” He paused, then looked up at Nick. “Let me ask you, could you use a guide? I know this town inside out. I could use a little cash.” His voice, the brash sound of the Polo Grounds, had dropped an octave, suddenly older. Nick caught the embarrassed pleading in his eyes, still shiny with beer. “Dollars, if you have them. My sister, she still sends, but these days-I have the time.”

Nick looked at him. Not an index card. “I don’t think so. We’re only here a little while. Thanks, though.”

“Just see the castle and on your way. Okay. Don’t miss the Jewish cemetery-it’s the best thing. Sounds crazy, but it is. Well, think about it.” He reached for a pen, wrote a number on the coaster, and handed it to Nick. “If you change your mind, I can show you the stuff the tourists don’t see.” Nick heard his voice begin to slur. “A special tour. You want to see all the old Reds? That might be interesting,” he said, his voice suddenly sarcastic.

Nick stood up, putting the coaster in his pocket. “Night,” he said, almost a mumble. He threw some crowns on the bar, not bothering to count them. “Good luck.”

“Luck.” Marty Bielak winked. “We don’t need luck here. We have socialism.”

When he got to the room, Molly was still up, reading by one of the two dim bedside lamps. The flannel nightgown was back and her face glistened with cold cream, an almost comic body armor. The heavy drapes, drawn tight by the maid, still sealed the room, and he crossed to open them, hungry for air.

“What happened to you?” she said. “I was about to give up.” She closed the book and snapped off her light, leaving only the small glow by his side of the bed.

“You were wrong about that guy,” Nick said, opening the windows. “He’s an American. He lives here. It was your English.” He began unbuttoning his shirt, looking down at the street lamps.

“Lives here? You didn’t tell him anything, did you?”

“No. Why?”

“Oh, Nick,” she said in mock exasperation. “Who do you think hangs around the Alcron bar talking to foreigners?”

He stopped, his hand still on the button. “You think?” he said quietly.

“Who else could afford it?” When he didn’t answer, she turned over. “Goodnight.”

He continued staring out the window, not wanting to turn around. What if she was right? What was that like? He saw Marty Bielak writing up reports on tourist conversations, taking another step for the working man. Do you have family here? Did that make it easier? Maybe cadging dollars for a tour was worse, a seduction without even the self-respect of betrayal.

The protesters had gone, just as the desk clerk had predicted, leaving behind their candles. Now the police were clearing them away, tipping over the lights until the space under the good king was empty again, a patch of dark. He’d set himself on fire. How many ways are there to take away your life? A lost family, as irretrievable as childhood. A careless exile, eavesdropping in bars. At least Jan Palach had only done it to himself. But you always take somebody with you. There must have been parents, left with a martyrdom and an empty house. And sometimes somebody did it for you, flinging you out the window before you had a chance to hold on.

Molly moved in bed, and the sound carried to him, a disturbance in the air. It pricked at him, not letting him drift, and as he raised his hand to draw on the cigarette he suddenly saw her at the window in Bern, a reverse image. Maybe she had felt it then, the same disturbance, something right here, not some feint with ghosts. Now it was his turn. He thought about her in Durnstein, then down in the bar, and he saw that they kept colliding and moving on, like electrons. What if he made the same mistake as the others? Losing everything for an idea. He stood still. In the courtyard with his father, he had felt that his life had come back to him, but it was only a piece of the past that had come back. It was the side street that had been alive with an adrenalin touch. Maybe there was no idea. Maybe it was as simple as a rustling of bedclothes that wouldn’t leave you alone, a disturbance.

No more than that. So that if you didn’t hear, it came and then, like the luck Marty Bielak didn’t need, slipped away for good.

The day began with sun, but by the time he’d finished coffee the clouds of middle Europe had rolled in, a lead weight pressing down on the city, turning everything gray. They crossed the Vltava over a different bridge, downriver from the Mala Strana.

“Is this the right way?” Nick said. “I don’t remember this.”

“Just keep going to the end. Soviet Tank Square.”

“They call it that?”

“Mm. Namesti sovetskych tankistu,” she said, the accurate pronunciation its own joke. “Of course in those days they were liberating, not invading.”

“How do you know all this?”

“All what? It’s just tourist stuff. I had a lot of time to get to know the city.”

“Are you going to see him, your friend?” Maybe the split hadn’t been as casual as she had said.

“Jiri?” She was looking out the window. “No, not this trip. One reunion’s enough, don’t you think?”

There was no one near the tank and they drove around the traffic circle once, then parked near the corner and pulled out a map, pretending to plot the trip. The place names, brimming with consonants and accent marks, might have been Chinese.

“Let’s hope he doesn’t drive too fast,” Nick said. “I could never follow this.”

But his father had thought of everything. When the Skoda pulled alongside, he got out to switch cars. In the daylight he looked less drawn, more like himself, and Nick felt a jolt again, as if a photograph had come alive.

The woman in the passenger seat was handsome but full-faced, and when she stepped out to change sides he saw that her body was thick, rounded by time and gravity. To his surprise, she was shy and nervous, brushing a stray hair back in to place with the automatic gesture of a girl wanting to look her best, and Nick realized that she was apprehensive about meeting him. She smiled hesitantly, glancing into his eyes.

“Anicka, this is my son,” his father said. “Nick, my wife, Anna.” So easy. The whole tangled mess reduced to a simple introduction. She held out her hand.

“How do you do,” she said, a formality from a phrasebook, but her eyes were warm, scanning his face now, tracing her husband’s features. “You are very like,” she said pleasantly.

“Miss Chisholm, would you go with Anna? Then no one gets lost.”