by Thomas King
Sophia presses on the side of the case with her thumb, and the face comes loose and flips over, revealing a second face.
“Two faces,” she says. “In essence, two watches. One black face. One white face.”
“For day and night,” I say, not wanting to be left behind.
“Exactly,” says Sophia. “And only fifteen thousand euros.”
“What about the silver one?”
Sophia picks up a rather ordinary-looking watch. “This is not silver,” she says. “It’s platinum.”
“Another Jaeger?”
“Because of the rectangular case?” says Sophia. “No, this one is an A. Lange & Söhne.”
“A. Lange & Söhne,” I repeat, so I don’t forget how to pronounce the name.
“You have an excellent eye,” says Sophia.
“That’s my captain,” says Mimi.
“This is one of their Cabaret Tourbillons. A hand-wound masterpiece. 210,000 euros.”
I do a quick calculation of the cumulative value of the five watches lying in front of me on their velvet bed. Over 300,000 euros. Half a million Canadian.
“May I ask, is this watch for society or for psychology?”
I smile.
“Many of our customers are in business situations, where an expensive watch is part of the, how would you say, uniform?”
“Yes,” says Mimi, “I can picture Bird in a uniform.”
“While others buy watches for personal reasons.”
“To try to make themselves feel better about themselves?”
“There is nothing wrong with this,” says Sophia, “but it is seldom successful.”
“Hear that, Bird?” says Mimi. “Seldom successful.”
I hold my glass up to the light and marvel at the rich burgundy colour.
“And, of course, one can buy a prestigious timepiece simply because of the fine craftsmanship,” says Sophia. “If you have the money, the reasons are endless.”
The rest of the day, we wander Prague. We stroll through the small artistic neighbourhood of Novy Svet, have lunch at Café Louvre, where Einstein and Kafka had hung out. We find the Sigmund Freud sculpture hanging in space over the street, and we check out the memorial to the victims of Communism, a disturbing series of human figures coming down a set of steps, metal men who appear to have been ripped apart by an unexpected blast.
And we walk up to Letna Park. This is high ground above the river and the city. At one point, when the Soviets held Prague, there had been an enormous monument to Joseph Stalin on the site, which dominated the skyline. Shortly after Stalin’s death in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev, no great fan of Uncle Joe, ordered the seventeen-thousand-ton statue blown up. The site sat vacant until 1991, when Vratislav Novak designed and built a giant working metronome on the spot.
Today, Letna Park is a showcase for graffiti artists and skateboarders.
Mimi and I watch the kids slide their boards along the railings and bounce them off the stone walls and down the steps.
“Did you ever try skateboarding?”
I had been on a board once. It hadn’t been pretty. “Are those shoes?”
Hanging from a thick power cable that connects the metronome to a hydro pole are dozens of shoes, their laces tied together.
“Why would anyone do that?”
“Maybe it’s a protest.”
Mimi is unconvinced. “So, what are they protesting?”
“Or maybe it’s like that bridge in Paris.”
“The one with all the locks?”
A tour group has gathered around the metronome. About a dozen men and women clustered around a tall woman with a bright yellow umbrella. I can feel Mimi lean towards the sound of the tour guide’s voice.
“English,” Mimi says.
“Go ahead.”
“You sure?”
“I’m going to sit down.”
“Are you all right?” asks Mimi. “Not a problem with low blood sugar?”
I find a bench, and Mimi hurries off to do her dance with the tour. Chip pops out of a group of skateboarders. He’s practising ollies and kickflips.
Hey, old man, he shouts as he swings by, you should give this a try.
Kitty and the twins stand behind a light standard. Careful, they call out to Chip. You don’t have a helmet.
High-end watches? Eugene joins me on the bench. Jesus, Birdman. What kind of pathetic asshole pays that kind of money for a watch?
Mimi has joined the tour group and is doing her Ginger Rogers impersonation.
Chip tries a grind on the iron railing and crashes into a trash can.
Eugene shakes his head and starts to laugh. You really want to be Two-Cent Jim?
When they blew up the Stalin monument, says Kitty, was anyone killed in the blast?
Didi and Desi help Chip to his feet. He has scrapes on his elbow, and his pants are torn at the knees.
I ignore the demons and concentrate on the clouds hanging over the city. One of them looks like a bear, while another looks like a swarm of bees.
It’s an allegory, says Eugene. The greed of the wealthy and powerful. The impotence of the hoi polloi.
“I know that,” I tell Eugene.
All the Bees have is a stinger, and each time a Bee stings a Bear, the Bee dies.
Who dies? says Kitty.
There’s only one way that the Bees win. Only one way they can hold the Bears at bay. Eugene rocks off the bench. When you see your breakfast buddy, tell him he’s full of shit.
Anaphylactic shock, says Kitty. It’s terrible.
Tell him the Bears will always win, says Eugene. As long as Bees make honey, the Bears will come for it.
I leave Eugene on the bench and wander over to the wall. Mimi has left the tour and is heading towards me.
“Good view,” she says when she reaches my side.
A sharp wind rolls through the park and turns the air chilly.
“But I’m cold.”
Mimi doesn’t wait for me to offer. She snuggles up against me and jams her hands into my armpits. Her fingers are freezing, but I don’t object or pull away.
“How was the tour?”
“The world looks peaceful from here,” says Mimi.
“Most things look good from a distance.”
“Are you sorry you didn’t get that T-shirt?”
“A little.”
Mimi gives me a squeeze. “What about the watch?”
“Didn’t see one I liked.”
Mimi stays where she is. “Watches and refugees,” she says. “How is that possible?”
I hold Mimi and rub her back.
“And yet this is the world we’ve created.”
We stand there, the two of us. The evening shadows have softened the land and turned the river silver. Soon, it will be dark, and all we’ll be able to see are the lights of the city.
VIII
In the middle of the night, I go to the bathroom in the dark and feel my way to the front of the toilet. I’ve just begun my business when I’m startled by a moan.
Mimi is slumped next to the tub, clutching a towel.
“You okay?”
Another moan.
I feel her forehead. “You have a fever.”
If either of us was going to get sick on the trip, I would have expected it would be me.
“The toilet,” she says. “I think I’m going to throw up.”
There are a number of things that men do better than women. Peeing is not one of them. For some reason, we’re trained to do it standing up. Women sit, and there’s nothing to say that men couldn’t sit too.
“Don’t throw up just yet.”
I grab a washcloth and clean up the area around the toilet where being startled has left a bit of a mess. Which, technically, was not my fault.
“I’ll get you some water.”
I flush the toilet, rinse out the cloth, and let the tap run cold.
“Here,” I tell Mimi, “you should drink some water.”
Some people, when they get sick, are good patients, and some are not. But you can’t tell by looking at a person. To look at Mimi, you would guess that she would be an agreeable patient, someone who would value the effort others make, someone who would appreciate a kindness.
“I don’t want water.”
“How about a cold compress?” I say, before I remember that the only washcloth is now unavailable.
Mimi lurches to a sitting position and crawls to the toilet. I step back into the bedroom, so she doesn’t feel crowded while she retches.
I check the travel clock. Four thirty. Three hours before the breakfast room opens and I can get Mimi something to help settle her stomach.
I cast back over the evening meal. We had eaten at a restaurant where we sat at long tables with other people and shared plates of sausages and boiled cabbage. I want to blame the boiled cabbage, which came in large bowls and smelled like the boys’ locker room at a high school, but we had eaten the same thing and I’m not sick.
“Little help in here.”
I go as far as the doorway. “What do you need?”
“A pillow would be nice.”
More retching.
When I was a kid, whenever I got sick, my mother would give me a glass of ginger ale and dry toast. I can’t imagine that either had any medicinal properties.
Mimi is lying next to the toilet. I try not to look in the bowl.
“You can’t sleep on the floor.”
“Just get me a pillow.”
I get a pillow and a blanket, make Mimi as comfortable as possible.
“Go back to bed,” she tells me. “You can’t do anything.”
“I can be sympathetic.”
Mimi turns on her side and buries her face in the pillow. “Why does the floor smell like urine?”
I lie on the bed, drift off every so often, but I don’t go to sleep. I hear Mimi throw up a couple more times. I’m tempted to get out the guidebook to see if it lists the hospitals in the area.
But I don’t.
Kitty paces the room. You do not want to take her to a hospital in Prague.
Eugene sits in the chair with his legs stretched out and his hat pulled down over his eyes.
They make a mistake, says Kitty, and she could wind up in a coma.
Atta boy, says Eugene, just sit there and do nothing.
I go to the suitcases and sort through the medical supplies that Mimi always brings along on a trip.
“We have Imodium,” I call out.
I can hear Mimi change position on the bathroom floor. “That’s for diarrhea.”
“Acetaminophen?”
“For headaches.”
I find a box with long, blue tubes. “Vagifem 10?”
“Gravol,” says Mimi, her voice enhanced by the acoustics of the toilet bowl. “Find the Gravol.”
Around seven, Mimi stops throwing up and the fever breaks. I help her back into bed.
“I’m feeling better,” she says, but she doesn’t mean it.
“I’m going to have to eat,” I tell her. “How about I bring you back something?”
“Not hungry.”
“Sure,” I say. “Not now. But you will be.”
“Before you go,” says Mimi, “could you move the toilet closer to the bed?”
I’m early for breakfast. The room is closed, and there is no sign of activity. I’m debating waiting around or taking a quick constitutional on the Charles Bridge when Oz comes in the front door with a newspaper under his arm.
“There you are,” he says with great delight.
“Here I am.”
“And without your wife again.”
“She’s sick.”
“Sick?”
“Stomach flu or something,” I tell him. “She’s getting better.”
Oz nods. “Whenever I travel, I get sick. In Los Angeles I get sick. Also in Cape Town. And always in Mumbai.”
“But not in Prague.”
“Yes, of course in Prague, but not today.” Oz gives me a wink. “It is the airplane. The bad air. You must travel by train.”
“Or ship?”
“Yes,” he says. “Or horse. Indians and horses. You are friends. This is true?”
I have a flash of Yellowstone and the two-hour ride from hell.
“May I join you for breakfast?”
I start to tell him that the room is not open yet, when I turn and discover that it is.
“And I have news,” says Oz. “Not good. Not bad. There is a saying in English: ‘No news is good news.’ Is this a recommendation for ignorance?”
The breakfast room is empty. We’re the first ones in, so we have our pick of tables. Oz chooses the one in the back corner.
“The best table.” Oz sets the newspaper on the table. It’s the English edition of The New York Times. “From here you can see the world as it comes in.”
The headline is about the US president and the conviction of another of his top aides.
“For lying to Congress.” Oz smiles as he taps the paper. “As though this is a crime in politics.”
I look over at the buffet and try to imagine what a sick person would like to eat.
“So, the news,” says Oz. “I spoke with a friend who works at the National Museum. And yes, Wild West shows did come to Prague. There is a story, he says, of an Indian man who falls off a horse and is injured. My friend says that this Indian stays in Prague to recover from his injuries.”
I feel a small surge of excitement. “Leroy Bull Shield?”
“Why not.”
“But your friend doesn’t know. Was there any mention of a medicine bundle?”
“This can be added to the story,” says Oz.
“So, the man wasn’t Leroy Bull Shield.”
“Who can say,” says Oz. “This is how it is with stories. What we wish to be true can be made to be true.”
The items on the menu have changed, and I don’t know what to order for my hot entree.
“Imagine,” says Oz. “Uncle Leroy comes to Prague. And during the show, he is injured while attacking a wagon train.”
“Injured?”
“A fall,” says Oz. “He is placed in a hospital, where he recovers. Perhaps he is treated by a nurse, a beautiful Czech woman. They fall in love, marry, and move to Karlovy Vary, where is her family.”
“Karlovy Vary?”
“This is to the west. Karlovy Vary is famous for its hot springs. There, in Karlovy Vary, our Indian is a celebrity.”
The server comes by, and I let Oz order for the both of us. “They have three, no, four children and live happily ever after.”
“Which is why he never comes home.”
“Yes,” says Oz. “That part is sad, but unavoidable.”
“And the medicine bundle?”
“Ah,” says Oz. “It is still with the family. The children have it, and each time it is opened, they remember their father.”
“Grandfather.”
“Yes, of course. Grandfather.”
“Good story,” I say.
“This is how realities begin,” says Oz. “But first, we must tell a story again and again, until it can walk on its own.”
“Even if it’s not true.”
“Adam and Eve,” says Oz. “Supply-side economics. Weapons of mass destruction. Stories don’t have to be true in order to prosper. A great lie can be a great success.”
I get up and go to the buffet. Oz stays at the table and reads his paper. Making up a new medicine bundle to replace the old one is one thing. Making up a story about Uncle Leroy and his life after he left Canada is another.
The story Oz is suggesting is certainly plausible. Maybe Europe in the early 1900s wasn’t as racist as the Canadian frontier. Maybe Leroy had come to understand that working in a Wild West show was better than living under the tyranny of church and state. Maybe never seeing his family again or the land he was born to was the price of freedom.
It would have been a high price.
Oz is
waiting for me when I return. “Of course, there are other stories we could tell,” he says. “Stories not so pleasant. Your uncle Leroy is a drunk. He gets into trouble with the law, and because he is a coward, he steals the medicine bundle and joins a Wild West show. In Europe, he is forced to sell the bundle for cash to support his drinking. In the end, he dies face down in a gutter in Pilsen.”
“Pilsen?”
“It’s on the way to Nuremberg.” Oz wipes his fork on the napkin. “Which of these stories should we tell?”
“Maybe we don’t need to make up a story.”
“Ah,” says Oz. “A mystery.”
“Maybe there’s nothing wrong with not knowing.”
“The imagination always wants to know.” Oz leans back and smiles. “This is why we have stories.”
“And what’s your story?”
“My story?”
“For instance,” I say, “do you live here at the hotel?”
“No one lives at a hotel. One only rents a room.”
“Okay,” I say, pressing ahead, “then who are you?”
“Which story would you like?”
“How about the Bees and the Bears?”
“Ah,” says Oz. “The Bees and the Bears. The Bees make the honey. The Bears destroy the hives of the Bees in order to take the honey. The Bees try to drive the Bears away to save their homes and food. What can be done?”
“The Bees have to organize.”
“A union of Bees.”
“The Bears are vulnerable,” I point out. “Their noses are exposed. So are their eyes and ears.”
“And each Bee who stings a Bear dies.”
“Yes.”
“And there is your answer,” says Oz. “In order to bother the Bears, the Bees must be committed beyond expectations.”
“This doesn’t sound like much of a game.”
Oz stands and buttons his jacket. “Please,” he says, handing me the newspaper, “give this to your wife with my compliments. In it is a story about the refugees that she will enjoy.”
Oz is hardly out the door before Eugene helps himself to the vacant chair. I concentrate on my breakfast and try to ignore him.
He’s right, Birdman, says Eugene. If you’re a Bee, you better be committed.
The pastry is particularly good today. Cinnamon and apple.