Caleb Crain - Necessary Errors

“I don’t follow,” Rafe objected.

Kaspar spoke softly, perhaps a dissident’s habit, and Rafe and Jacob had to cock their ears toward him to hear. “You none of you have money, and forgive me, you will not make money, not you. You do not have such souls. I am speaking of all of you here, in this group, not you or you especially. This is a lovely thing about you. But it means you are dangerous. You are — what is the word — tempting, perhaps.”

“Seductive,” Rafe supplied.

“Yes, like a charming woman, or a charming boy.” He paused to chuckle over his evenhandedness. “You do not even seem to care about money, but you bring the anxiety with you, the anxiety you do not show.”

“The anxiety about money,” Rafe said.

“Yes, but it is a larger anxiety, too. It is an anxiety about place, about your place. We do not have it here. It was taken from us, you may say. We are not accustomed to it.”

“We’re like missionaries,” Jacob offered, thinking he saw Kaspar’s point.

“Yes, you do not know you are bringing it. You think you are bringing something else.”

“Like missionaries with smallpox,” Rafe joked.

“No, it is psychological, after all,” Kaspar insisted. “It is that you believe that you would never take anything from us. And we feel that in you, we know that it is true, and so we cannot resist you.”

“Wow,” Rafe said, raising his eyebrows. “How about that? That’s quite a compliment.”

“Well, no,” Jacob objected. “I think he’s saying the people of Eastern Europe should mince us up for the try-pots before it’s too late.”

“Oh, it is too late,” Kaspar assured them. “Since Kerensky, I think, it is too late.”

“Of course it could be that missionaries make nothing happen,” Rafe added, as an afterthought. “It could be that they arrive early but don’t actually do anything to further the imperialist cause.”

“I hope that’s it,” Jacob said. “I would rather not believe we’re making straight the way for McDonald’s.”

He finished his beer and ordered another; he wanted to catch up with his friends. A fine haze hung in the low room; at one table, four young Czechs played cards with a studied intensity, in poorly made, neatly ironed shirts, as conscious of their serious poses as college students in a film of the French New Wave. “Putnam!” shouted Michael, his cap turned backward, summoning Jacob to the pool table to make a fourth in a game with Henry and Thom. They played loudly and badly. When it was three games to one, Jacob and Thom losing, the four of them realized at the same time that they had to take a restroom break, and they all filed into the small lavatory together. There was only one toilet and one urinal. Michael, who came third, unbuttoned his fly and began to pee at once into the sink.

“Keep an eye on the door, there,” Michael told Jacob. “We don’t want any Czechs seeing this.”

“We don’t want to frighten them with your impressive manhood, is that it,” said Thom, from the urinal, which was adjacent. “Or is it your appalling disregard for personal hygiene?”

“We don’t want them to get the idea they needn’t wait in queues. It would be the collapse of all social order in Czechoslovakia.”

His dick was unself-consciously exposed. Jacob leaned against the door to keep it shut.

“Bloody poof, showing yourself like that,” Thom continued. “Have you no shame?”

“Keep your hands to yourself, now, and don’t worry your pretty head. It all goes to the same place in the end.”

“As the vicar said to the schoolgirl.”

“I don’t know as I’ve heard that one.”

“Me neither, as it happens.”

“You’re a stupid git, you know.”

“And I’ll miss you, too, once you’re gone,” Thom answered, and flushed for punctuation.

Henry said only, “I think I’ll take a pass on washing me hands.”

* * *

On Thursday night, there was a sharp knock at the door just as Jacob was putting away the last of his groceries. Though he imagined it would be at the door, it was her father, Vladimír. He was a tall, good-looking man with gray hair as thick as a metal-bristled brush and dark lips that outlined his mouth. He kept his eyes fixed on Jacob’s when he spoke, as if he were administering a test of character, challenging Jacob to return his gaze as steadily as he gave it. He insisted on speaking in English.

“Good evening, Mr. Jacob.” It sounded as if he had rehearsed, in order to be sure of himself in Jacob’s language. Though the form of address sounded humorous in English, it would have been correct in Czech, and perhaps a little more than correct. Such a form acknowledged the intimacy of people who had dealings with each other but established a certain air of respect between them. Jacob returned the civilities, and Mr. Stehlík then asked, “It is good here?”

Since Mr. Stehlík made no gesture as he spoke and did not glance away, it took Jacob a moment to understand that he was referring to the apartment Jacob was renting. “It’s great; it’s perfect,” Jacob replied.

“That is good.” Only now did Mr. Stehlík glance around him at the kitchen they were standing in, as if it would not have been proper for him to notice Jacob’s use and enjoyment of the premises until he had been given this reassurance. Jacob was suddenly conscious of the spatter on the stove from at least a month of pancakes. He should be a better housekeeper, he told himself; he was paying a low rent, a favor that the Stehlíks had granted to the school.

“Please, you have telephone,” Mr. Stehlík announced.

“Telephone? Upstairs?” Jacob answered, excitedly. He knew that Mr. Stehlík thought phone calls were expensive and should be brief, and it surprised him that Mr. Stehlík was so unhurried.

“Your friend Mr. Luboš say, that tomorrow he cannot.”

Nothing in Mr. Stehlík’s body language suggested a readiness to move from the spot, but Jacob asked, nonetheless, “Can I talk to him?”

“No. He call in the morning.”

“Oh.” Mr. Stehlík lacked the past tense, as Jacob had in Czech until recently. Luboš was not on the phone upstairs, and he was not going to meet Jacob under the clock tomorrow night for dinner. Probably Mr. Stehlík had made no effort to fetch Jacob when the call came through. Jacob wondered when Luboš had called; if Mr. Stehlík had not yet left the house, Jacob too had probably still been at home. It was as if Mr. Stehlík had robbed him of Luboš.

“Did he say anything else?”

“Please, I do not understand. Repeat?”

“Do you mind if I call him back?” Jacob asked, aware that in his anger he was speaking more colloquially and less intelligibly. But the finger he pointed toward the ceiling conveyed his wish.

“Mr. Jacob, can you telephone outside? There is telephone at the pub.”

“Oh,” Jacob said. He made a perfunctory smile to disguise his disappointment.

“Telephone upstairs is of me and of neighbor.” These lines, too, sounded carefully prepared, as if they were the real burden of the visit. “It is for business, but neighbor telephones all the time. Day and night. Is difficult.”

“I understand. Of course.” Jacob was not on the phone more than thirty minutes a month, but he was in reach and the neighbor wasn’t. Wishing not to lose all rights to the phone, he asked if he might still receive short messages, like the one just left by Luboš.

“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Stehlík, but Jacob doubted that he meant it. “And your family, when call from America, yes.”

“Thank you,” Jacob answered.

“Please,” he replied, and exited.