Matthew Salesses - The Hundred-Year Flood

Rockefeller went across the hall to warn Tee.

Rockefeller could imagine the flood washing Tee out of Prague, the affair ended, Pavel saved from that pain — but then he would have no café.

When the door opened, Rockefeller stepped in ready to shake hands. In a few hours the sun would rise and Karlín would be underwater. Tee probably had no idea. Other expats had called earlier, seeking translation. They could go to the café together, revisit the blueprint Rockefeller had lost, make the best of things. He had Pavel’s art, Tee’s investment.

But there was Katka, soaking wet, at night and not with Pavel.

Rockefeller’s hand drew up as if reaching for a balloon that suddenly floated away. Katka stepped behind Tee. Rockefeller’s mind raced: she must have left Pavel. She stared at the floor, twisting her rain-dark hair over her ears with both hands. Her fingers netted at the back of her neck so her elbows stuck out like wings.

“We all must go,” Rockefeller said when he could speak. “The flood is coming. Karlín soon will underwater.”

“Flood?” Tee said. “What are you talking about?”

“Get out,” Rockefeller said. “You must go now.” He pushed other words back down into his lungs, and then he was whispering in Czech: Aren’t you ashamed? He straightened to his entire height.

Katka’s eyes flashed as blue as if the ground had blinked open to an underground river. Rockefeller turned, for a moment embarrassed. When he looked back, she had disappeared into another room.

His hands squeezed into fists, the balloon back in his grasp. “Forget it,” he called in Czech. “I didn’t see you.”

Tee glanced around. Rockefeller had to get the money now — before it could be withdrawn, the affair out in the open. His palm itched. An old proverb predicted violence. But as his breaths quickened, shallowed, he stepped back and closed the door behind him.

Outside, he imagined them in there. Those dark hands on that light face. Sweat beading on Tee’s forehead, Katka’s fingers in his black hair. Rockefeller sent Tee a text: Send her to husband. He hefted the phone like a rock meant for a window. Hours later, in Old Town, he would receive Tee’s reply: She has left him for good.

Rockefeller returned to his apartment to pack. He found the old camping bag he’d taken on kayak trips downriver from Česky Krumlov, with Pavel and Katka and their other friends from the old days, since lost. Pavel and Katka had once seemed an ideal. At their wedding reception, Pavel had stolen his wife away from their party, and when they returned, all the guests had gotten him to bend down and propose again, as if they could have the day twice. The morning after, Rockefeller had even proposed to the bridesmaid beside him.

Into the bag Rockefeller put his father’s collection of beer steins, the box of photos he’d long stopped adding to, the deed to The Heavenly Café. The radio repeated the evacuation orders. Rockefeller gripped his father’s favorite stein, made by a glassblower who’d turned out to be Secret Police, turning the glass over in his hand. He wondered where his parents were, in a cabin in the Alps perhaps, his father learning to ski, coming home from the mountains to his mother’s cooking. He imagined they thought of themselves as retired, too proud to work or to write to him, too proud to forgive their son for sending them away instead of trying to get them pardoned. Rockefeller had hoarded his connections, writing the names of people who owed him favors in a tiny brown notebook, only to lose those favors over time. At least he’d made his parents leave before they were arrested.

When he opened the box of photos to a picture of Pavel and Katka and him, on top, Rockefeller emptied the bag and packed survival gear instead. Tins of food, the bottles of water lying around in case of hangovers, extra pairs of shoes, clothing, a towel, bandages, first aid equipment. Out there, people would need help.

Then Rockefeller realized that with Katka gone, Pavel would need him, too, would need his last good friend to make him less alone. Maybe need Rockefeller enough to forgive. Rockefeller slung the bag over his shoulder and took an umbrella from the closet. He felt certain he would see Pavel before the flood ended. At the last moment, he repacked the deed to The Heavenly Café. Just in case. A streak of dark blue light loped along the sky’s border. He imagined Katka inside Tee’s apartment: saying, “I do not care about Pavel anymore,” saying, “Pavel does not care about me, only art,” in English, while Tee touched her greedily. But she had fallen for Pavel’s paintings and ideas, things Tee could never give her.

In the morning, the rain still pelting down, Katka still gone, Pavel stood before his latest painting. He dripped on the hardwood floor. He listened to the slaps of the rain, and then he bent to the modeling clay, and with his teeth, worked the clay into the space between his casts and his wrists. The sour taste made him gag. He stepped onto the chair in front of the canvas, then dipped his arm into a bucket of yellow paint. He raised that cast above the curves of Katka’s body, the speckles made by the rough texture of the plaster, intimating dust — but he couldn’t destroy it. In that moment, he didn’t believe their marriage was over. He got out of that room, where Katka had lain naked, on the bed, in the dust, and he collapsed on their sofa, numb. With the point of his elbow, he switched on the TV, for the sound, any sound.

What he found was the flood. Immediately he hoped Tee would protect her and get her home. Then he banged his cheeks with his casts. He couldn’t even wipe his tears. There was no way he could let Tee get away with this. But how to stop the boy? Become like the Secret Police, drag him away in the night? On the TV, helicopters followed the river washing over sandbags into lower-lying streets. A cyclist sped out, water splashing his waist. The news said the flood carried sewage — Pavel would remember that, later. He fumbled the phone off its hook and, with a fingertip, dialed Katka. He bent his ear to the receiver. She’d turned off her mobile.

The news showed workers evacuating animals from the zoo on Císařský Island, in the north of Prague; a hippo dangled from a crane, black rubber wrapped around its belly. A zoo worker discussed where the animals would go, how they might handle the stress. The news showed water full of debris, furniture smashing bridges, wood paneling splintering into dangerous shards. An architect and a former construction worker talked about faulty bricks.

Pavel bit the clay out of his casts and dialed a taxi. He was crossing the city, from one image of his wife to another. He had to show her he could save her. Once, she’d believed he could save the country.

When the taxi pulled up, he was struggling with his clothes. He shouted for the driver to wait. He inched his sweatpants up his thighs, using the friction of his casts. The cab honked, twice. Pavel knocked his wallet over, squeezed some money between his wrists, and left the house as the car pulled away.

After calling another taxi company, he waited outside, wet and cursing. When the second car came, he knocked a cast against the handle until the driver understood. Though how was he to rescue anyone when he couldn’t open a door?

They drove north through Malešice toward the river valley. As they drew closer, the smell of dirty water made Pavel cough. He tried to remember what the news had said about the evacuation, but then the police blocked them off from Karlín. “That’s it,” the driver said. “We can’t go any farther.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Pavel said. “What are you getting paid for?”