Alice to Prague

by Tanya Heaslip

  ‘Ano, and what about them?’ Karel stared at me, perplexed.

  I couldn’t believe I was the only one who saw a problem.

  ‘There are no walls! Or doors! You can see the toilet and the bathroom from everywhere in the apartment!’

  Karel started to sound agitated. ‘Ano? And what is wrong with that?’

  ‘Well, privacy, you know!’ I burst out, equally agitated. ‘There are three of us who live in this tiny space . . . and visitors come here . . . and . . .’ I trailed off.

  Karel looked exasperated. He climbed out of the bath and walked towards me.

  ‘You Australian girl! When I was in army as young man, we were lined up once a day and had to squat together over ditch latrine that we built with our own hands.’

  I shuddered.

  He shook his head. ‘If some sort of privacy is important to you, next time you want to use WC, you tell me and I will go and stand on balcony for as long as you need. Now, I must get on with this. I have very little time and much work to do.’

  The fractured apartment, crumbling around us, was a metaphor for our lives.

  Worst of all was the toilet and bath set-up. Every morning became a frenzied dash to get to the toilet before Radka opened her bedroom door or Karel wanted to use it. I huddled down, trying not to be seen, trying to feel normal (which proved to be almost impossible). During the evening, I would ask Karel to go out onto the balcony, but given how cold it now was, he was usually back after a perilously short time, ignoring my feeble protests and grinning as he marched past to carry on with his next project: ‘Just pretend I am still out there!’

  In every spare moment I had, I did what I could to help. I thought it might mend things between us. Since my return, our conversations had been limited to all things logistical, and Karel mostly slept on the couch because he worked through the night. But eventually, I’d had enough. A helpful friend from Australia faxed me with advice.

  ‘My dear, he’s in his cave and there’s nothing you can do about it until it’s over. Isn’t there a nice hotel you can go to?’

  Huh. At A$200 per night, only tourists could afford to stay in hotels in this country.

  After a week Radka sensibly moved out into Šárka’s apartment. For the sake of my sanity and my blood pressure, I decided I also had to go. But where?

  The wonderful Irena Brichta, Upmarket Headhunter and Hash House Harrier Extraordinaire, came to my rescue. After hearing my traumatic tale, she said briskly, ‘You can come and stay with me for a few days.’

  ‘Really? Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!’ I repeated inanely.

  Irena lived in a quaint village that was once miles from Prague but now part of the outskirts. And she lived in a real ‘family home’ (the first I’d seen in my time here), with a private garden (unheard of in panelák suburbs), on a quiet street of other family houses, flanked by a forest. Oh joy!

  The house itself was two-storeyed, spacious and beautifully appointed. Every room featured high ceilings, elegant fittings and furnishings, and fresh flowers in vases. Glossy magazines—in English—were piled on the oak table in the living room. Gold frames and stunning artwork covered the walls. Stylish curtains hung from wide windows. Comfortable, squashy chairs filled the house. The kitchen was modern, equipped with the first microwave I’d seen in this country. By Czech standards, it was a mansion.

  On arrival, I plonked down my backpack and collapsed with relief into the gin and tonic Irena offered me. It was the first one of these I’d seen since arriving in this country as well.

  ‘Drink it,’ Irena said dryly. ‘Then straight to the bath with you.’ Irena’s home opened up another world to me. I had my own bedroom, clean linen and access to a beautiful, gleaming private bathroom. I luxuriated in the bubbles and felt dazed by my good fortune. The chaos of Karel’s life drained away with the warm soapy water. For the first few days, I didn’t even miss him. In fact, I didn’t even want to think about him. I felt like a Westerner again and revelled in it.

  Every evening I asked Irena about her life. How had she become so successful? What could I learn from her? I couldn’t believe my luck at being here with a real female success story. I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to learn what I could. Even if I had to leave the country later, I was sure I could apply her wisdom back home.

  Irena’s responses were straightforward. Simply, one must work and network. ‘Out every night’, she said firmly. Really? It sounded exhausting. But Irena had enough drive to power ten Czech electricity stations. Her entertainment included Rotary International (a non-paying gig that gave her great networking opportunities), and she exercised by hashing (a further networking opportunity) and galloping horses through Czech fields. She zoomed around Prague in a groovy English sports car and never took the metro. She lived alone, happily.

  Irena’s life struck me as terrifying. While I’d always shied away from commitment, I’d also gravitated towards community, family, people. I loved living with others—the more the merrier—and I’d happily shared large, rambunctious houses throughout my university and working years. No doubt it was why I had missed family so much when living alone in Sedlčany, and why I had been drawn to Karel’s life.

  After talking with Irena, however, I learnt that she was rarely alone because she hosted endless visitors from all around the world and her house was usually overflowing. But I wasn’t sure I had even a pinch of her toughness or focus. Irena realised that. ‘You must work on your shyness,’ she said, briskly. ‘And practise meeting new people.’

  Against the backdrop of these opportunities available to me, it didn’t take long for guilt to emerge. I realised that while I was luxuriating in this mansion, Karel was single-handedly trying to upgrade the only place he could ever afford. Irena had told me that the monthly rent on her house was approximately the average annual Czech wage. It was rented for her by her company, and its value and luxury were beyond the comprehension of the average Czech.

  After a few gin and tonics on about my fourth night, it dawned on me that Karel was creating his own version of a ‘family home’ within the confines of what he had. Even though he was not a builder, he was doing it alone. He was his own draftsman, builder, concreter, tiler, plumber. He had no backyard shed to store things in or tray-top ute to collect things in or hardware stores to buy things from (as we did back home). He was ‘crisscrossing all over the Prague’ by foot and public transport to find his materials, after which he had to haul them up and down stairs and stack them wherever he could in the apartment.

  Grudging respect replaced my frustration.

  The anger started to dissipate in the waters of my many baths. I acknowledged Karel hadn’t ended our liaison—in fact he’d said I could stay forever if I wanted. He wasn’t a cad like some of those I’d dallied with in the past; he was kind, generous and hospitable. It wasn’t his fault we wanted different things. He was scarred by love and had said he wanted to protect us both from future scarring. Perhaps I’d overreacted, wanted too much too soon. After all, this was the man who hadn’t had a woman living in his apartment for fourteen years. Change was unlikely to come overnight.

  The thought of leaving Karel now was too painful anyway. Maybe I had to take things a little more easily, relax, have more fun. My new strategy, born in the bath, would be to ignore Karel’s dismal predictions, and continue to work hard—just as Irena did, but in a different way. If I was successful in finding more work, perhaps Karel would come around. If I could help him believe in love again, he might decide he could love me after all. No marriage or children were necessary—simply love. Surely that was possible?

  By the end of the next week, Irena would have friends arriving for a visit from London. I had to leave. Thanking Irena with all my heart, I hoicked up my backpack and trudged back to Panelák Hiroshima (as his friends had taken to referring to the apartment).

  I’d left a phone message telling Karel I was returning, but I still hesitated outside, unsure what awaited me.

/>   Eventually, I took a big breath and turned the key. And came face to face with half a door propped up against the pipes and the bath. Lo and behold, it obscured the toilet! The living room dresser had been dragged in front of the bath. Although, anyone sitting on the throne or in the bath could be seen from both bedrooms and from the corridor, there was no doubt about it: the area was partially enclosed.

  ‘Yes, I made some improvements. It was for some strange Australian girl who seems to think we need a wall or door around WC.’

  Throwing down my backpack, the suppressed emotions of the last month welled up inside me in a rising tide. Karel walked towards me, his blue eyes alight, and I rushed into his arms, tears brimming. Soon I was covered in dust but it didn’t matter. I didn’t care.

  ‘Tak, můj miláčku,’ he murmured, casting his eyes around at the chaos and kissing me absent-mindedly. ‘It is very good you are back. Have you seen my glasses anywhere?’

  Dickie arrived in Prague and Anne was delirious with excitement. We all met at the Obnoxious Pub for celebratory beers. When Dickie enquired how I was going, I told him I’d been living in a building site for some weeks.

  ‘Really? I’m a bit of a renovator myself,’ he enthused. ‘I’d love to have a look at how the Czechs do it.’

  ‘No, Dickie!’ I immediately regretted my revelation. ‘It’s horrible out there.’

  ‘I like horrible!’ Dickie was unfazed. ‘Anne, when can we go?’

  Anne looked at me and shrugged helplessly. It was on.

  As we left I whispered to Anne that Karel and I were back together although my future remained a muddle. She gave me a squeeze and said she’d support me no matter what. I hugged her back.

  When I told Karel about the impending visit, he was delighted. ‘Tak! Some special English renovator will come and look at my work? We can share the ideas!’

  I was not at all delighted. The apartment no longer looked like Panelák Hiroshima but it was still a way off completion. I also felt nervous. It would be Anne’s first visit to the panelák, it wasn’t my home, and I was unsure of the Czech rules of entertaining.

  Karel was oblivious to my anxiety. With several hours up his sleeve on the afternoon of their visit, he decided to slap a new coat of paint on the living room walls. It was on his list of things to do for that day and he saw no point in delaying because of guests. Besides, he told me, Dickie was a renovator too, and would understand perfectly.

  Anne and Dickie arrived, holding hands. We exchanged hugs and kisses. There were gasps of admiration all round at Karel’s handiwork. In celebration Karel pulled a bottle of Bohemian Sekt from the fridge with a flourish. He wiped away the afternoon’s dust from the champagne glasses and bowed deeply to Dickie.

  ‘Please, Mr Dickie, I would like you to open the bottle. It is in honour of your return to our beautiful Prague.’

  ‘Well,’ grinned Dickie, ‘let’s pop the cork and get on with it, shall we?’ In his exuberance, he inserted his fingers under the cork and let it rip.

  Like a homing missile under instructions, the cork headed directly towards Karel’s new paint job. Bubbles sprayed from one end of the wall to the other. A long silence ensued. Karel seemed paralysed, as did Dickie. Anne’s ears turned crimson. I was undone by the tension and stifled giggles.

  Dickie was the first to break the tableau. He rushed forward and tried to wipe away the mess of bubbles now dripping onto the floor. It didn’t work. Anne put her head in her hands.

  A few agonising moments later, Karel recovered his equilibrium. Being the consummate Czech host, he suggested we forget about it and drink the champagne. The wall could always be repainted.

  Several bottles later, Karel was feeling no pain, and nor were we. He had taken to calling Anne’s beau ‘Dickie Pickie’, taking pleasure in the rhyme, and feeling affection and amusement towards his English Renovator Colleague. Dickie in turn regaled us with the best of British humour.

  As the night wore on, the effect of so much champagne meant Anne needed to use the toilet. I had warned her what to expect, but even she was not prepared for the intimacy of perching on the throne in such circumstances. With only a makeshift door propped up against it, barely two metres from the table around which we were all gathered, it was too much for my Scottish rose.

  She crossed her legs and held on, her face growing redder as the evening progressed.

  As they left, she managed to whisper, ‘He’s a really nice man, Tanya. Really nice. You two do seem happy together. Perhaps it will work for you.’

  Her words filled me with some strange sort of hope.

  A week or so later, piles of bricks started to grow next to the bath. Karel mixed cement in an old orange bucket and, brick by brick, laboriously built a wall between the bath and the toilet, until he was standing on a ladder and had nearly reached the ceiling. Radka assisted, having courageously returned to the fold from Šárka’s sanctuary. The entire apartment was filled with the overpowering smell of wet cement, grey grit and bits of brick, but I was past caring.

  Privacy was on its way!

  Finally, and not a month too soon, the new kitchen and bathroom took some shape. And eventually, we had three walls around the toilet.

  ‘What about a door?’ I pleaded with Karel.

  ‘I give you three walls. What now is your problem?’

  ‘But a door . . . it can’t be too hard to put a door on? Surely . . .’

  ‘Time is not yet right. That is obvious, yes?’ Karel the engineer looked at me pityingly, shaking his head.

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Tak, Táničko, this is how it goes. We order all doors for new bathroom and new toilet and new kitchen at same time. Then I have to go by bus and metro and by Šárka’s car to collect them and bring them back and install them. This is long difficult process.’

  He drew a long, weary breath.

  ‘I told you, můj miláčku, it is not easy to renovate apartment in Prague.’

  Finally, the apartment was finished.

  We now had a brand-new bathroom complete with tiled walls in muted grey and pink tones. There were enormous mirrors on two of its walls, flanked by stage lights that made it look like a professional backstage dressing room. Best of all, there was a brand spanking new bath and basin with shining gold taps and handrail. For a tiny space that was really not big enough to swing a cat in, the bathroom now looked and felt large and luxurious.

  The living room had new furniture, including a soft, comfortable couch in bright tones and a freshly painted wall. The kitchen was fitted with new wooden cupboards, built and installed by Karel, and smart wooden benches.

  In a very small area, Karel had created the effect of an upmarket, spacious and airy apartment.

  But best of all, the toilet now boasted a brand-new door.

  Having achieved his long-held dream, Karel returned to his normal self, heading off to his real day job in his strangely endearing purple suits, changing into blue denim shirt and jeans at night. The dust-and-plaster-caked clothes were packed away and friends invited back in. Radka presided over proceedings and Šárka and Princess joined the fray. The apartment had a new lease of life and so had Karel.

  And so had I.

  A decision about the March ticket could be made closer to the time.

  28

  Carp and Christmas

  I’m dreaming of a white Christmas . . .

  Growing up in the bush, I had thought the true setting for Christmas was snow. The pictures on Christmas cards depicted idyllic villages coated in white, nestling in snowy mountainous valleys; merry families decorating real Christmas trees, with stockings hanging over roaring log fires; rosy-cheeked children bombarding each other with snowballs; forests glittering with ice-capped pines. I’d always longed to see it and experience it myself.

  Christmas Down Under was a second-rate experience, I’d decided—certainly not the real thing. How could it be? In the red heart of Central Australia we sweltered through December droughts and bushfires
and flies, without a speck of snow or flash of reindeer or drop of mulled wine to be seen. I always thought it amazing that Father Christmas made it so far down to the bottom of the globe without melting.

  So I was incredibly excited as my first Northern Hemisphere winter approached. There were sparkling decorations all over the city and shops stuffed with Christmas cards promising a season of magic. My bubble burst, however, when the irrepressible Mrs Wurstová told me that white Christmases were a thing of the past.

  ‘We have not had snow at Christmas in the Prague for some time,’ she said. ‘To je škoda. It’s a pity. No snow. It is from—how you say—global warming.’

  My jaw dropped. Global warming here? She nodded, but added, ‘Snow will come. In the new year, in the countryside, in the mountains especially. Everyone will go to ski. So just now we must pretend with our cards and decorations . . .’

  She waved expansively around at her office, which was brightly decorated with gold and silver mistletoe, dried apples, fresh pine cones, holly, traditional Christmas biscuits and candles.

  The rest of the Ministry had likewise been transformed. There was even a real fir tree in the foyer, festooned with sparkling lights and colourful presents, and propped incongruously next to the grim, silent guards with their protruding guns who examined my pass with the same sceptical and distrustful gaze every day.

  The Prague judiciary had also got into the decorating swing. In the High Court grounds across the river, a 100-year-old fir tree stood ablaze with lights and colour. It looked exactly like a Christmas tree should, complete with those perfectly proportioned triangular rows of green pine needles that we’d drawn and painted from our storybooks as children. In most Australian cities, people erected plastic artificial Christmas trees; in the outback, we dug up straggly mulga bushes or tired gum trees and decorated them with tinsel and a handmade star on the homestead verandah.

  So Mrs Wurstová’s news came as a terrible shock.