Caleb Crain - Necessary Errors

— Just that, I think, Milo said, speaking softly, but not so low that he would seem to be hiding their conversation from the ticket seller. — If ever it’s more practical for us to be in Strašnice than Žižkov.

— That is kindhearted of him, said Jacob.

— He’s like that. He’s courteous.

— But he doesn’t know.

Milo shrugged. — He invites you, as a friend of mine.

— I don’t know, if I can, admitted Jacob.

— I know, said Milo. — If you were staying, maybe one day it would in fact have been more practical for some reason to stay there. Accidentally more practical.

One of the photos was awry, and Milo absentmindedly adjusted it.

— Your photos are great, Jacob said.

— But no.

— Yes. They’re witty, and that isn’t common in photos.

— You ox.

If Jacob had been forced to explain, he might have said that he was declining out of a sense of proportion. To accept would have started a new story that he didn’t have time to finish.

— Don’t you want to continue as a photographer? Jacob asked. — As for a career?

— What would I photograph? We no longer have a revolution.

— I don’t know. There’s a war in Bosnia.

— I’m fond of my skin.

— Then elsewhere.

— Someday I will, maybe, he said, and shrugged again. — There’s an old song about the time, when Czechs had to serve in the Austrian army. ‘I’ll no longer fight to conquer Herzegovina.’

Za Pána, a jeho rodinu,

Já už nechci vybojovat Hercegovinu

Milo half whispered, half sang. The song had a waltz rhythm, and it was a little melancholy. The ticket seller looked over at them and smiled awkwardly, uncertain whether she was supposed to have taken notice.

* * *

As Kaspar had hinted, it was a little difficult to get hold of Rafe, but Jacob felt that he ought to make an effort to say good-bye to him. It was after all Jacob’s idea now that the risk of a love’s ending — the inevitability of it, really — was something an adult had to accept, and if Jacob were consciously to keep away from Rafe, he would be giving in to a less rigorous conception, an idea of love as a struggle that it was possible to win if one chose the right side. It wasn’t possible to win; one had to side with the idea that love couldn’t always be held onto.

“You want to see me ?” Rafe asked, from the doorway of his Havelská apartment building, when on the fourth or fifth try Jacob at last found him at home one evening. “What an honor.” Instead of inviting Jacob upstairs, he arranged on the spot for them to meet the next afternoon in a café on .

The café was located in the piano nobile of an eighteenth-century palace that had recently been restored to the family from whom the Communists had nationalized it. The Communists must have appreciated the beauty of the rooms, because they had left intact the height of the ceilings and the generosity of the windows. The walls were now painted a delicate shade of lime, with white trim; in the windows were boxes of daisies.

The café was one of the new, fully private enterprises. The d’ was reluctant to let Jacob wander among the tables in search of Rafe; he understood it to be within his authority to escort Jacob to a table of his — the d’s — choosing. He trailed Jacob skeptically; only after Rafe had accepted Jacob’s presence with a welcoming nod did he retreat. Moments later, a waiter brought Jacob a menu, unprompted.

“It’s awfully professional here,” said Jacob, admiring the menu, which wasn’t a mimeograph.

“Isn’t it great?” Rafe replied.

Jacob studied the menu; he was wary of meeting Rafe’s eye, though Rafe seemed at ease — composed, beneath a surface animation.

“So what can I do for you?” Rafe asked, as soon as Jacob had ordered an espresso.

“I’m leaving next week.”

“Back to the home front, eh.”

It was the middle of the afternoon on a weekday, and only a fraction of the tables were occupied. At one of them sat three businessmen in Western suits and ties, their table cluttered with American-style memo pads and thick pens. Most of the other patrons were young people, writing postcards alone or chatting in small groups. Their cheeks were sunburnt, and they had tucked their unwashed hair under bandannas. Tall nylon backpacks sagged on the floor beside their chairs.

“They’re ruining the city, aren’t they,” remarked Rafe. “The backpackers. Though I suppose it’s hypocritical of me to regret the Americanization.”

“Why?”

“Why indeed. I can’t tell sometimes, Jacob — are you really or do you put it on?”

“I think I really am.”

“You almost convince me.”

“I try to be polite,” Jacob said.

“Oh, that’s different. That could be quite dangerous even,” he said with approval. “Have you seen Kaspar lately? Did he tell you how Goethe murdered Schiller? He’s figured it out.”

“He didn’t mention it.”

“Because, who wrote Faust ? It couldn’t have been Goethe, who never had a dramatic idea in his life. Schiller wrote it, Kaspar says, and then the devil convinced Goethe to murder him and steal his manuscript. So a little bit of it is by Goethe, actually. The part about being tempted to kill Schiller. He’s made a list of parallel passages.”

“He said he hadn’t seen so much of you lately.”

“This was about a month ago. Maybe he’s moved on. Heard from Melinda? Does she write to you?”

“Not much, but she doesn’t have as much reason to write to me as she does to you.”

“And she doesn’t have as much reason not to write to you as she does to me.”

“She wrote me once,” Jacob admitted.

“And me once, too. She must be going down her list.”

Rafe noticed that his own teacup was empty and tried to pour himself more, but he was out. He summoned a waiter and lifted the lid of his pot to ask for a refill of hot water. There was a trace of impatience in his manner, a hint that it might be considered gracious of him not to mind having to ask. No one would have dared reveal impatience to a waiter in the fall, before the latest changes. It was like Rafe to have discovered that one could now take such a liberty.

“What are you going to do in America, tell me again?” Rafe asked.

“I’m going to school.”

“But what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“The life of the mind,” Rafe conjectured.

“I guess.”

“I wonder if it’ll be enough for you. You’ve learned a lot here. Not everyone picks up Czech.”

“I only picked up a little . I was dating Czechs and I had to be able to get by.”

“But that’s something, too. I bet you learned a lot about that, and I bet it’s not like it is in America. This’ll interest you, I think. I had a friend, another ‘Harv,’ as Annie calls us, who interviewed with the ‘State Department’ around the time we were graduating, which is what they tell you to say when you’re interviewing for one of the intelligence agencies, as you probably know. They gave him these puzzles to solve, sort of like the kind that the consulting firms give at their interviews. They told him, for instance, to imagine you’re with an ‘asset,’ someone you hope will bring in information. Imagine you’re with an asset who’s gay. He’s nervous. He’s suspicious. What do you say to put him at ease?”