Better You Go Home

by Scott Driscoll

  “View up there is amazing.” Unspoiled pine and birch woods, rolling slopes that seemed to go on forever. “When you are on top you fall in love with paradise. You forget that it is only oasis in hell.”

  At the top of Jehla was a metal box. “Inside is book to sign your name. My client, he is diabetic like you, he meet me at top.” He frowns. “This part of story is too sad.” I encourage him to go on. In a morbid sort of way, I welcome bad news these days. It makes my own situation look brighter. “My client’s arms are shaking. I say him, you sign first. I will wait.”

  “I bet he was having an insulin reaction.”

  “He said he was clipped. He was experienced climber. Still, I should have checked.” Josef takes a deep breath. “I try to catch, then I fall and my hand is wedged in crack. For I don’t know, few seconds, he is dangling.” He abruptly changes the subject. “What’s about you? You are lawyer, yes?”

  “City attorney. Let’s just say I’m taking a forced early retirement.” How in the world do you say to your Czech cousin, hey, but if I could have a kidney, and you have one to spare. “Kde je záchod?” I ask. “Where is the bathroom?”

  “Kam i císař pán musel chodit péšky.” He laughs. “Where even emperor has to go on foot.” He directs me past the bar into a corridor.

  The bathroom, an outhouse that was added belatedly, must be entered through an interior courtyard. Think how cold in the winter, I muse. My asking him to consider donating a kidney… if I put myself in his place, that would make me feel pretty uncomfortable, and that’s a risk if I want his help with Anežka. On the other hand, if I’m just going home to wait for dialysis, what do I have to lose? Heading back, still uncertain how to solve this dilemma, I find Josef bent over the table, his beloved Hrabal manuscript open before him. He has slipped thick-lensed glasses onto his nose, but gives up reading with a look of disgust and removes the glasses.

  “You still climbing?” I sense that something is wrong.

  He picks at the cheese and potatoes.

  “The accident?” I prompt.

  “I still have reputation.”

  “Can I get you more coffee?”

  “Oh, no.” His claw covers his glass. The sludge at the bottom is thick like a mudslide.

  “Someone told me Czechs believe you can read your future in the grounds.”

  “I don’t need coffee to read future.”

  I look at him questioningly. “Because of what happened?”

  “Ne, ne. I have multiple sclerosis. My mother did not say you this?”

  After a rough silence, after watching this thin hope piss away down the same hole every other hope has gone, I finally manage to come out with, “I’m sorry, Josef.” He accepts my condolences without comment. “How long have you had it?”

  “Doctors say maybe three, maybe four years already.”

  “How did you … what symptoms …?”

  “Reading bother my eyes.” Josef describes going to an ophthalmologist, who could find nothing wrong, but who had seen enough to do a series of X-rays. “ ‘Secondary progressive’ they call it. It march forward and leave me behind.” I force a polite laugh. “Is worse on left side. On bad days I know I have leg but I cannot move. My brain command, but my leftist leg is like student. It rebel.”

  Lesions attack the myelin, the protective sheathing around the nerve cords. The nerves degenerate. It weakens the heart. “There are injections. But very expensive and bad for heart. Drugs kill you faster than disease.”

  “What about surgery?”

  “There is no surgery that can fix.” He shakes his head. “My doctor push drugs. I say no. What do you think? You think is wrong that I say no?”

  “No, I get it, I totally understand.” Sensing the probably not so well hidden edge of despair in my tone, he looks at me quizzically. “I’m looking at renal failure. My doctor gives me a few months, tops. If my internist had his way I wouldn’t be here now. I’d be home on my couch preparing for dialysis. There’s a long wait for transplant organs. Even Milada wants me to go home. Halbrstat said some unkind things to her today. She’s going to do everything she can to help the mayor set up his human rights case. She wants me out of the way.”

  “Is better. You really don’t want to see inside Hotel Jungmann.”

  I study the logo from the brewery on my beer glass. A cloven-hooved creature standing on hind legs holds out a stein with a smug little smile. I avoid looking at Josef. “Know why I never had kids? I used to tell my wife, my ex-wife, all kinds of bullshit. But, the real reason? I didn’t want to pass this fucking disease on to my kids. I don’t know.” But now I do look at him and he rubs his eyes and I detect a slight tremor in that gnarled hand and remember his tottering when he walked. God knows, he’s got enough worry of his own. “Who knows?” I attempt a wan smile. “My father refused to talk to his father once they were in Iowa. Imagine you’re his father. For most of your adult life your son refuses to have anything to do with you?”

  “He had his reasons, I am certain.”

  I shake my head. “That’s partly why I’m here. To find out.”

  “Rosalie refuse to speak anymore with her daughter.”

  “Yeah, you were saying.”

  “That generation. Maybe we just need to forgive.”

  “Yeah. And I should just go home.”

  “Rosalie Kacalka, people say bad things to her, but she was kind to me. Without her protekce no client would hire me because of my time in prison. She made Jungmann put out word I am okay.”

  I explain that I have letters she wrote to my father a long time ago and ask if he knows why Jungmann is so keen on seeing them. His reaction is curiously like Halbrstat’s when I asked about the erased entry in the book.

  “Jungmann is telling some story. Even Rosalie would not say, even to me. Some story about Anežka. You must ask to him.”

  An uproar at a card table in the room behind us is followed by a trill of hysterical laughter that bobs like a cork on an undertow of grumbling.

  Before taking me back to see Jungmann, Josef has some advice to offer. “Be like Mariáš player. Do not expose what you are holding. Bluff.”

  * * *

  He’s wearing that same beret and bloused peasant shirt he had on when I met him this morning by the Labe River. Still smoking that pipe. Only after taking a long draw does he reach across the table and shake my hand. A farmer just won a sizeable pot. He pushes up from the table to take a break outside.

  “Sit down,” Jungmann says to me, indicating the vacated seat. “You like to play? Sure. We will take your money.” The others laugh uncomfortably.

  “I’m not familiar with the game. I’ll watch.”

  “It is simple. Anyone can learn. Well …” He makes a disgusted face, taps out a hot plug of ash from his pipe. “Anežka did not learn so well.”

  His gray piercing eyes fasten on mine. Remembering Josef’s advice, I wait to see what he has in mind. He has an aquiline nose and a sensitive mouth, lips etched like a doll’s, a feminine mouth. That coiffed goatee seems to be an attempt to distract from the mouth’s vulnerability. The cards are dealt. A hand is set out for me. “You visited with Pavel Halbrstat today,” he observes. “I know everything so don’t bother to deny.” He leans over the table toward me. “Not everything written in record book is accurate, you understand?”

  Standing behind me and looking over my shoulder, Josef gives me a crash course on how the game works. The Mariáš deck holds thirty-two cards, counting up from seven through ace. The goal is to make marriages, the more highly valued the better. If someone has high cards, he starts the betting by saying “Flek.” The next one, if he thinks his hand is better, says “Re,” then “Tuty,” and up through “Boty” to the final challenge, “Kalhoty.” With each bet, money is added to the pot. The play goes in rounds. In each round one of four colors is named trump. To play you have to follow suit. Friends shout advice, good-naturedly threaten to unmask an opponent’s hand.

  Josef rea
ches around me to play my hand. “My father’s name was penciled in as Anežka’s father, but someone erased it. You know anything about that?”

  “Villagers pass book from house to house. It could be anyone.”

  “Who would have an interest in erasing his name?”

  A drinking song erupts. Something about a general, and what kind of a general is he, and then it’s a woman, and what kind of a woman is she. Meaty arms embrace me. I play along. No way to know who’s working with Jungmann.

  He takes some time to restoke his pipe. “Your father is coward. If he want to know what is true he must come here.”

  Despite knowing better, I nibble at the bait. “Why did Rosalie keep writing those letters to my father?”

  “You stay in room 201, yes?” He busies himself dumping out the plug that won’t stay lit and scraping the crust in the bowl with a metal tool. When he looks up, he regards me with a faint smile. I cast a look to Josef. He nods. Play along.

  “Yes, why?”

  Noticing a hairline crack in the stem of his pipe—the crack gives him more distress than anything I’ve said—he gathers his pipe and pouch and tool and stuffs them in a pocket under the peasant shirt. “You have read these letters, of course?”

  “In translation.”

  “In translation, do Rosalie say precisely that Anežka is child from your father?”

  “She asks him to come home and take responsibility for his family.”

  “Just answer question.”

  “Not precisely, that I recall. But it’s certainly suggested.”

  “I should very much like to see these letters.” He stands. “I am bored with this game.” He folds his hand. “Tell your father Rosalie never loved him. She was using him.” He collects what’s left of his stake from the table. “I was her love, first and always. If he dare, he will come to hear what Rosalie will say.”

  “What about Anežka?”

  “She is not your concern.” He smiles that sardonic half-smile. “You think you know who she is, but you don’t know. What has your lovely escort told you? Of course, if maybe you are wondering, I know she will help Anton Zámečník. Ano?” The smile spreads. “I see I have guessed correctly. It doesn’t matter. Send your father here. I will make deal. If he comes here and Rosalie say to my face that Anežka is his daughter, I wash my hands. She will go free.”

  “Free? What do you mean?”

  “Never mind. Tell to him.” He leaves the table and soon is lost in the haze.

  Waiting for Milada, waiting for Josef to finish out my hand, joining in the singing when it hits the chorus, I decide that there is only one sensible thing to do and that’s to leave tomorrow. Who am I supposed to believe? My father won’t talk about it, I can’t talk to Anežka. And I’m tired. God, I’m tired. Tired of it all.

  It’s just before ten. I’m about to head upstairs and take a booster shot—with all this stress my blood sugar is taking a loopy swing—when Milada rushes in, parting the ocean like Moses at the Red Sea.

  She looks exquisite, as usual, shapely in tight jeans, hair swooped into a French bun, leather jacket catching neatly at her hips, stiletto heels beating a fast rhythm on the linoleum. But, pancake makeup? Once we’ve settled into a vacant booth, away from listening ears, she admits that she’s just come from meeting with Mr. Anton Zámečník.

  She scans the room. “I have persuaded Anton.”

  “Persuaded?”

  “I am Czech, remember? We find refuge in lies.” Don’t ask. “Poslouchej. He agree to do nothing until you have gone. But then he want me to find witnesses.” Her steely look convinces me she’s not going to back off on this.

  “Tell Mr. Zámečník he won’t have long to wait. I’m leaving soon as I can book a flight.” She gives me that patronizing look I can’t stand.

  “Would you like to meet Anežka before you go?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Anton have someone watching sirotčinec in Hnátnice. Anežka is there tonight.”

  “The orphanage? She know we’re trying to find her?”

  “She has spoken with contact. Anežka say she know she will be arrested soon so she wish to talk. She will trust if Josef will come. She trust Josef.”

  “Jungmann is suggesting Anežka could be his daughter.”

  “He will say anything to get what he want. Don’t be stupid.”

  “Why not go tonight?”

  “She want night with her cat before she is taken to prison.”

  “Cat? That’s crazy.”

  “That is her wish. Tonight you will have good night sleep. Tomorrow will be long day. You will meet Anežka. By tomorrow evening you will be in Prague, maybe even Anežka will go. Josef will help to make arrangements with airlines?” Josef nods. He’s willing.

  It’s decided that later tonight Josef will bring his bicycle up to my room along with a stocking cap and an old coat. Tomorrow morning I’m to ride the bicycle to the orphanage and I’m to make certain to not be wearing or carrying anything recognizable.

  “Stay with me tonight? You’ll have soft tissue for your bottom.”

  “I must not be seen in hotel or tomorrow you will be followed.”

  “Who’s going to see you?”

  “Your boopsy, of course.” She gives me a waxy lipstick kiss. “Tomorrow morning, Chico. Take care. It might be your only chance.”

  Disappearing into the haze, she pinches her shoulders and jams her hands into her jacket pockets, reminding me of clients who realize that winning damages will never repay them for what they’ve lost. Back up in my room, nervous about tomorrow, I do my booster shot, gobble a snack, slip between the sheets, and manage to forget entirely that I’ve scheduled an interview.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Interviewing Dana after Midnight

  After having those letters translated this past January and learning that I have a sister in Czechoslovakia, I came up from the basement to find my father sitting at the kitchen table a good hour after he should have driven off to a job site in his pickup with “Lenoch Custom Home-Building” stenciled on the side-panels. I was staying at the house on Fruitland Boulevard, in the basement, the only place where I could hack my way through a forest of emotions without him chewing toothpicks just down the hall. On his plate was his usual two crisp, dry slices of bacon, one fried egg sunny side up, smothered in pepper, a small glass of orange juice. Not a bite had been touched. He looks frail, I remember thinking. Through the chest. When did he turn frail? He sat with his shoulders ramrod straight, his arms folded in his lap. He’d never liked coffee, but kept a percolator on the counter. Mom had liked coffee and that’s where she kept it. After waiting for me to dump in the pre-ground Folgers that had to be at least two years old, Frank asked if I still intended to find Anežka. We had begun to talk about this the night before. I confirmed that I had not changed my mind. He greeted my answer with a simple question. What would I do if I found her? It occurred to me that until that moment I’d never quite understood his Czech pride as having been built on a foundation of humiliation, and of course what I was planning would only stretch his threadbare dignity further. What would I gain? I told him, I don’t know, it just seems to me the right thing to do. The honorable thing, I added. With that he looked away and I saw in his pained wince that he understood, but still could not help me for reasons he would not disclose.

  Hearing a knock, I remember suddenly that I’d asked Dana to come up. I slip on jeans and not a moment too soon. She lets herself in with a pass key, apologizing in case she has disturbed me. Not at all, I assure her, albeit nonplussed at the sight of that key. She’s changed into a black tee-shirt with a scooped neckline that displays a generous view of her plump breasts. An innocent flower she is not.

  She rushes past me to the French doors and throws them open. Hip-hop throbbing from a boom box down in the square invades the room along with the chill midnight air. Lifting onto her toes, she gives a tiny wave. She looks positively seraphic with that moon
face, those baroquely curved hips. I look across to the park, see no one paying us any attention, and decide that she might be harmless after all.

  Her black hair shimmers when she turns and smiles. A crooked finger beckons for me to follow her to the bed where we might comfortably conduct our interview. I close the French doors and follow.

  With Dana coiled like a panther beside me on the bed, I suffer self-consciousness over the edema in my belly and ankles and though I doubt very much it matters at all to her I feel compelled to tout the man I used to be, the man who jogged thirty miles a week, jumped rope, did daily push-ups, sit-ups, a doable regimen when you have no children and your wife consumes her weekends dabbling in real estate. It wasn’t about vanity, either—maybe a little, I wasn’t above admiring my cut abs in the mirror—so much as relentless blood sugar control.

  “I was sure I could beat the odds.” She gives me a distracted purr. My pride counts for nothing. Yet, she is here, she wants something. “Let’s get started. What was it like for you to be suddenly free?” She gives this some thought. I backtrack over standard profile questions. Turns out she is nineteen, needs one year to finish at a teachers college. Her dream is to study woodcarving at a Bavarian village famous for its religious icons. She’d settle for teasing uptight burghers by sunbathing nude in Munich’s English Gardens. Just kidding? Not at all. Parents divorced. Lives with mother.

  Suddenly remembering, she slips a folded envelope from a wafer-thin crevice in her back jeans pocket and flips it casually onto the bed. “Key for your bicycle.”

  The envelope contains a squarish metal spoke-lock key. I’d forgotten about that bicycle. Josef must have left it out in the corridor. Did he knock? Did I not wake up? Now we have trouble. What’s to stop her from reporting this to Jungmann? I’m surprised Josef wouldn’t have been more careful, but then, how would he know Dana was coming up to my room?

  Dana demands to know what I intend to do with my notes. “Maybe you will say some insult to Czech people?” She uses the German, Beleidigung, which carries heavier shades of snobbery than the American translation. I assure her this is strictly for personal use and not to be reprinted. She laughs and I feel her relax beside me and again I wonder what she’s after.