Caleb Crain - Necessary Errors

“But why did he keep me out? Does he not like Americans?”

“Well, he likes Germans,” Ota answered, before translating the exchange for his friends, who appreciated it. Jacob glanced around and saw that there were indeed several men who looked German or Scandinavian in the room, in suits with their ties loosened, and that he seemed to be the only American.

“Is Ivan gay?”

“Definitely not. Horror, Jacob, horror.”

“Well, it seems wrong,” Jacob concluded.

Ota laid two fingers on Jacob’s forearm and made a moue as he summoned up the English for what he wanted to say. “In Czech, the name short for Jakub is Kuba.”

“Cuba?” Jacob interrupted.

“Yes,” Ota nodded, “and you are truly Kuba, because you are pretty, New Worldly, warm, and still Communist.” As he finished his speech he drew back abruptly, as if he had lit a small firecracker, and when he translated it for his friends, or rather, when he gave them the witticism in the original, for it was clearly the English version that was the translation, they obliged him by laughing. Although Jacob knew he had been flirted with, he couldn’t find the part of the joke that was at his expense — the part that made it funny — other than, obscurely, the implication that in his resentment of Ivan there was a resistance to political change.

“I don’t understand. Why am I warm?”

“ Teplý ; warm,” Ota glossed. “Like T-Club.”

Jacob shook his head.

“T for teplý . Maybe I have wrong word. Not hot, not cold,” he explained, wavering a hand in midair.

“Yes, that’s warm.”

“In Czech, warm is gay. Not in English?”

“No,” Jacob answered. “I thought T-Club had to do with tea, as in.”

“ ?” Ota purred, at the prospect of a piece of Western gay lore he did not yet know. “Why? Is tea gay in America?”

“Kind of.”

“You must explain. I know, that it is hard work, translation, but is rewarding.”

* * *

For the next hour Ota bantered with Jacob, sometimes in Czech but mostly in English, which he continuously interpreted for his audience, shifting as continuously in his chair, so that each comment flew into the face of one of the boys, each comment to a different boy in an unpredictable sequence, fixing them with his attention and binding them together, through him, in a radiant pattern. As he shifted, too, he seemed to take glances at Jacob from every conceivable angle.

The youngest Czechs in the bar, including the ones Jacob was sitting with, chattered freely, but among the rest, conversation was rare, and they stood apart from one another. Jacob wondered how acquaintances happened among these men, if they ever did, or whether they all knew one another already. Perhaps a shift of attitude had come with the Velvet Revolution, and the grown men were not yet accustomed to it.

“Do you think it’s easier to be gay here since last year?” Jacob asked.

“Since last year?”

“Since November.”

“Ah. We hope, that it is easier. Yes, it is easier. Everything is easier.” Ota seemed to gain momentum as he answered. “But, you know, this is state socialist bar. State socialist gay bar.” He seemed anxious to be just to the old regime. He did not translate what he said into Czech, however, and his hold on his audience momentarily slackened.

“I’m going for a walk,” Jacob said, rising.

“A walk?” Ota repeated.

“A tour,” Jacob explained.

“Ah. ‘As you like it.’” He waved Jacob up and out of his chair, graciously.

From the bar, where he bought another beer from the polite, silent bartender, Jacob surveyed the crowd. There was only one really handsome man in the room. He was standing behind Jacob and to his left, near the door. Tall and fine-featured, the man looked a few years older than Jacob — twenty-six or twenty-seven, like Daniel. His smile seemed measured, and his eyes pensive, as if he weren’t entirely at ease. A courtier whom the republicans had forgotten to purge, and who was thinking through his next few steps. When he caught Jacob looking at him, he looked quickly away, but a delicate amusement slowly surfaced in his face, as if despite himself, and for a moment Jacob thought he saw in his eyes a wish for Jacob to approach him — in this climate Jacob figured he had an almost exotic appeal, and he meant to take advantage of it — before a subtle flutter passed over the man’s features, like the blades of an iris swiveling shut inside a camera’s lens, and whatever it was that Jacob had seen was gone, or at least obscured.

Pretending to want a better view of the dance floor, Jacob walked to an empty spot just past the man and stood there for a minute, taking nervous gulps of his beer. The man’s shoes were Czech, with thin, flat soles and a rubbery leather whose dye seemed to have worn off at the toes, but he wore a Western-made sweater, cream-colored, with a neat steel zipper.

“Ahoj,” Jacob said, nodding.

The man nodded back.

— Are you Czech? Jacob asked, stupidly but in Czech.

— Yes, the man said. — And you, you’re not Czech? He enunciated with a gentle precision.

— No, Jacob admitted.

The man play-acted surprise, and Jacob play-acted a bashful pride at having seemed so convincingly Czech as to have necessitated an explicit denial. They introduced themselves; the man’s name was Luboš.

— Why are you here? Luboš asked.

— I’m teaching English.

Luboš asked a further question, which Jacob couldn’t understand. Seeing Jacob’s difficulty, he repeated it, first in fluent German, which Jacob understood no better, and then in halting French.

— You speak French? Jacob asked in that language, with alacrity.

The question seemed to alarm Luboš, who leaned over and whispered his answer—“Je déteste le français”—in an accent so faulty that Jacob thought at first that he had said that he hated the French people, not their tongue.

English was no use, either, because Luboš knew only a few words, but in each of the failed attempts there had been a clue, and by now Jacob had pieced together the man’s objection: Jacob could teach English anywhere, and his answer had therefore failed to explain why he had chosen Czechoslovakia.

Jacob held up an index finger while he sorted through the Czech words he knew. — I want to write, he answered at last. It wasn’t what he would have said in English, but it was something he knew how to say.

— Like Havel.

— Yes, Jacob said. In English he would have said “I guess” or “Sure,” but he didn’t know how to in Czech.

— And that’s why you’re here. To write plays and to be president.

— Novels, Jacob specified.

— Ah, novels, the man said. His smile faded into a look of mild concern, as if he had just remembered something, and his eyes drifted to a plane beyond Jacob, who nervously checked over his shoulder for a rival, and felt ashamed of himself for doing so. He was afraid he must seem young to the man, that the man was indulging him, as Daniel had, and that he would therefore, like Daniel, turn inconsequently away when he was ready to find pleasure for himself.

— You’re very handsome, Jacob said, somewhat desperately.

The compliment brought the man’s eyes back into focus. — And what do you do in America? Are you a student?

— No, I work.

— Do you write?

— No, I work in an office. And you?

For a moment it seemed the man was not going to answer. — I work for my friend, he said at last, quietly, and with a small nod of his head indicated a man standing behind him.