by Thomas King
“Look, Bird,” she says, “they have Canadian lobster.”
I order the pork chop on mint lentils, with carrot purée and apple glaze.
“When we get home, remind me to call my mother.”
I take the envelope out of my jacket. “You could give her this.”
Mimi looks at the envelope and then she looks at me.
“It’s the story that Oz made up about Uncle Leroy and the Crow bundle.”
“The one where he stays in the Czech Republic? Gets married? Has a family and a bunch of kids? So forth and so on?”
“I’m sorry you never met him.”
Mimi leaves the envelope where it is. “Did you think about what I asked you?”
“Sure.”
“About believing in something?”
“Good food.” I tap the menu. “I believe in good food.”
“What about that three-part article you started and didn’t finish,” says Mimi. “Lois Paul. Maybe you could start there.”
I shake my head. “I’ll never finish that story.”
Mimi cocks her head at me. “The problem with human beings,” she says, “is that we can describe what we do. We just can’t explain why.”
The soup is excellent, and the pork chop is not overcooked. Mimi offers me some of her risotto to taste, but I’m not a fan of beets.
“Think of it as pieces of red potato, Bird.”
For dessert, we share a pecan cake with bourbon, caramel cream, pineapple chutney, and sour-cream ice cream. I would have preferred plum cake or a fruit pie of some sort, but neither is on the menu.
The bill comes to 2,320 Czech crowns, which, with tip, is around $150.
“It wasn’t all that expensive,” says Mimi as we walk down the hill to our hotel.
“We only had one appetizer,” I say. “And no wine.”
Mimi takes my arm. “Maybe, in the end,” she says, “there are no happy endings.”
VENICE, THAT FIRST DAY, reminded me of Tofino and the coast of British Columbia.
“This is your kind of weather, Bird,” Mimi told me. “Grey, damp, miserable.”
“It is.”
“I couldn’t live in this.”
“Maybe you could try.”
“We’ve already had this conversation.”
We didn’t stay in the room. I hadn’t even begun to unpack before Mimi had her guidebook out and at the ready.
“I thought you said we were supposed to get lost in Venice.”
“There’s lost,” said Mimi, unfolding her map, “and then there’s lost.”
That first day in Venice, we wandered. Venice is not a large city and it was surprisingly busy. Evidently, even in winter, tourists came to slosh their way through Piazza San Marco and weave their way through the hawkers selling selfie sticks, corn for the pigeons, roses.
Disposable plastic-wrap boots.
“Where do you want to start?”
“Coffee.”
“I said start, not stop.”
“I’ve been injured,” I said. “Coffee will energize me.”
Mimi consulted her book. “We could go to Caffè Florian.”
“Does it have good coffee?”
“It’s a neo-baroque coffee house that dates back to the early eighteenth century.”
“And the coffee.”
“Very expensive,” said Mimi. “An espresso is over six euros.”
We walked by Caffè Florian, and it did look elegant. The walls were covered with murals. All the furnishings looked old, as though the tables and chairs might be original and generally uncomfortable.
“A little circle of quiche lorraine is sixteen euros.”
We stood outside and looked in the windows of the café at the people sitting at the tables in the soft light.
“It’s nice,” said Mimi, “but everyone in there looks like us.”
SO WE’RE IN PRAGUE, and when we come out of the restaurant, the moon is waiting for us. Full and bright. In the distance, we can see the bridge and the river. I can’t breathe out of one nostril. My left leg feels as though it’s about to cramp up. Halfway down the hill, I remember that I left my diabetes kit in the room.
“Muffy will be happy to see you,” says Mimi. “And I think you’ll be happy to see her.”
The night air is warm, and all things considered, it’s a better-than-average evening. Even Eugene and the Other Demons would be hard-pressed to complain. Tomorrow, we’ll be back in Guelph, in our own house, in our own bed. Muffy will be delighted to see me, and I’ll be happy to see her.
But for now, we’re in Prague.
About the Author
THOMAS KING is an award-winning novelist, short story writer, scriptwriter, and photographer. His critically acclaimed, bestselling books include Medicine River; Green Grass, Running Water; One Good Story, That One; Truth and Bright Water; A Short History of Indians in Canada; The Back of the Turtle (winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction); The Inconvenient Indian (winner of the RBC Taylor Prize); the DreadfulWater mystery series, most recently Obsidian; and the poetry collection 77 Fragments of a Familiar Ruin. A Member of the Order of Canada and the recipient of a National Aboriginal Achievement Award, Thomas King lives in Guelph, Ontario.
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Also by Thomas King
Fiction
Medicine River
Green Grass, Running Water
One Good Story, That One
Truth and Bright Water
A Short History of Indians in Canada
The Back of the Turtle
DreadfulWater Mysteries
DreadfulWater
The Red Power Murders
Cold Skies
A Matter of Malice
Obsidian
Non-fiction
The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative
The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of
Native People in North America
Children’s Illustrated Books
A Coyote Columbus Story, illustrated by William Kent Monkman
Coyote Sings to the Moon, illustrated by Johnny Wales
Coyote’s New Suit, illustrated by Johnny Wales
A Coyote Solstice Tale, illustrated by Gary Clement
Coyote Tales, illustrated by Byron Eggenschwiler
Poetry
77 Fragments of a Familiar Ruin
Copyright
Indians on Vacation
Copyright © 2020 by Dead Dog Café Productions Inc.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
FIRST EDITION
Cover art by Dwayne Wilcox
EPub Edition AUGUST 2020 EPub ISBN: 978-1-4434-6056-9
Version 05122020
Print ISBN: 978-1-4434-6054-5
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Indians on vacation : a novel / Thomas King.
Names: King, Thomas, 1943- author.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200199471 | Canadiana (ebook) 2020019948x
ISBN 9781443460545 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781443460569 (ebook)
Classification: LCC PS8571.I5298 I53 2020 | DDC C813/.54—dc23
LSC/H 9
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