His father, seeing Nick’s face, smiled. “Don’t worry, Beria’s dead.” He got up and went over to the window, peering through the curtain. “Frantisek,” he said. Then, to Nick, “A friend. It’s all right.”
“What does he want?” Anna said, still uneasy.
“A drink. What else?” his father said lightly, opening the door.
But Frantisek had already had one. He was a bear of a man, tall and bearded, and when he entered the cottage, stooping to get through the door, his eyes had the wild, shiny look of drink. He stopped for a minute, weaving slightly, disoriented by the unexpected strangers and the formal table, then spoke to Nick’s father in rapid Czech. Without language, Nick watched them as a silent movie, forced to follow the story through gestures. He didn’t mean to break up the party. No, no, it was all right, come sit. Was something wrong? More Czech. Anna’s hand flew to her mouth in dismay, like Lillian Gish. No, his father said, then more Czech, placing his hand on Frantisek’s shoulder. At this, the tall man leaned into him, a sentimental embrace. Anna got up, then went over and led him to her chair, as if he were too upset to find it by himself. He looked at Nick and Molly and Nick saw his father introduce them. “Friends from America,” he said in English, at once a courtesy and a signal to Nick. The man nodded, too preoccupied to be curious, and the Czech began again, a volley of questions, Anna shaking her head. His father slumped into his chair, placing his hand on Frantisek’s. Anna brought out a bottle, some kind of brandy, and put it before him with a glass. Then, noticing Nick and Molly, she said, “I’m sorry. His brother has died.”
“No telephone,” the man said to them in accented English, waving his hand to take in the cottage, apparently apologizing for having come.
Nick’s father poured him a glass, then some for himself.
“A suicide,” he explained to Nick, but the man understood the word and covered his forehead with his hand, and Nick saw his eyes moisten. When he spoke, in Czech, his voice was deliberate, almost without inflection, so that again only the gestures meant anything.
Molly got up and began to clear, motioning to Anna to sit down, and Nick, excluded from the low murmur of Czech, retreated into the solemn politeness of funerals, his eyes fixed on the emptying table, the painted china removed piece by piece until there was nothing between them but white cloth and the amber bottle. The drink made Frantisek moody, and finally silent, until he sat staring at the table too.
“I’ll make some coffee,” Anna said.
Frantisek answered, but Nick’s father said to him, “In English,” nodding toward Nick.
“English, yes. Excuse me. You don’t speak Czech?”
Nick shook his head.
“It’s better, Czech, for bad news. Very expressive. The Eskimos have the words for ice. But we-” He poured two more glasses. “What do you say, Valter? We have the words for bad news, yes?” A look of disgust. He took a drink.
His father turned to Nick. “His brother was a writer.”
“A writer. Under Dubcek, a writer. Then, poof, a tram driver, for Husak.”
“He was fired from the Writers’ Union,” his father explained, “so he had to work on the trams. That’s the kind of job they give you. An embarrassment, so people see.”
“They make you eat their shit,” Frantisek said. “To fill your mouth. No more words.” He glanced at his glass. “Then you’re quiet. So there is his brotherhood of Slavs. You remember that? He believed in that. We’re Slavs. They’re Slavs. Who else is there, the Germans? Now look at him.”
“A writers’ movement,” his father said to Nick, a text gloss.
“You like Prague?” Frantisek said suddenly. The opening, hopeless question.
“It’s beautiful,” Nick said, the expected answer.
“Yes, beautiful. For tourists. The Germans used to come. Not so many now.”
But what was he supposed to answer? That it was sad and dingy? That the crabbed, suspicious life inside the lovely architecture depressed him? A judgment no guest was allowed to make.
“America.” Frantisek took another drink and looked up at Nick. “You were in Vietnam?”
“Yes,” Nick said, embarrassed, expecting the usual arguments, the usual averted eyes, silent accusations. Aren’t you ashamed? Yes.
“Good,” Frantisek said, slamming down the glass. “Kill the bastards. All the Communists.”
Nick said nothing, too surprised to answer. Was that really how they saw the war here, a world away from America, turned now on itself? Maybe their suffering had brought them, finally, a simple myopia. There were no other politics but theirs.
“Franku, please,” Anna said anxiously, putting down a coffee cup. “Here, drink.”
But he had already turned from Nick, back in his grief. They took Milos‘s book,“ he said to Nick’s father. The notes, everything. Do you know what they said? It must have affected his mind. Now he’s a suicide too. Just like Masaryk. The pigs. That’s what they said to me.”
“There must be a copy,” his father said.
“How? Something like that.”
“On film,” his father said simply. “It’s easy to hide on film.”
