It was about three months after returning to Chicago that I tried calling Vera on the phone. It must’ve been her mom who answered, and she sputtered something in Czech before turning over the phone to Vera’s father. He was the one who told me Vera had died. It had happened only the week before. I apologized and tried to convey my condolences, but the language barrier made it difficult, and I sensed that Mr. Svoboda didn’t particularly want to speak with me. I thought I detected an edge of hostility in his voice, but the man was clearly still in mourning and probably didn’t much feel like talking on the phone.
The news hit me harder than I’d imagined it would. I suddenly wanted to get out of the house, just hop in the car and drive. So that’s what I did. Just got in my Dad’s old car and drove around thinking about Vera. About Paul. Little Tomáš. I’d been meandering aimlessly around the city for about two hours when it started raining, light at first, then heavier. Sometime around midnight I saw the flashing red and blue lights in my rearview mirror and pulled over.
The policeman told me I’d been driving a little erratically but that’s not why he stopped me. Apparently one of the brake lights on my dad’s car was out. I’d forgotten, I explained, and had been meaning to get it fixed, both of which were true. The cop asked for my license and registration, and as I reached over to pop open the glove box, I noticed a bunch of envelopes that must have fallen from the passenger seat and onto the floor. Stuff my dad had meant to mail and never got around to before the heart attack.
While the policeman did his thing back in the squad car, I sorted through the letters. Bill payments mostly, stuff I’m sure the executor had already taken care of by now, along with a Netflix movie to return and a mail-in rebate form for a drill he’d recently bought. What caught my eye, though, was an envelope addressed to Vera, care of the Black Rabbit Tavern.
When the policeman knocked on my window I nearly jumped.
“You’re good to go,” he said as I rolled down the window. “Just make sure to get that brake light checked out, you wascally wabbit.”
“Huh?”
The policeman smiled and pointed at my forearm. “Your tattoo. Elmer Fudd, right?”
I rolled up the window and drove away. I didn’t get far though. I was too curious about the letter. After a couple turns to make sure the policeman was no longer following me, I pulled over and ripped open the envelope, rain pelting the windows and throwing watery shadows over the pages as I read.
Dear Vera,
Thank you for your letter. I regret that I won’t be able to take you up on your offer to come to Prague to meet you. It’s an offer I’ve weighed seriously, even going so far as to book a flight there, but after a great deal of deliberation, I just don’t think it’s a good idea. At least not until I know more—and, more importantly, until you know more. With no address to go on, I’m not sure this letter will even reach you, but if you go to the Black Rabbit every day as you indicated, I figure sending it there is my best shot.
I’m not sure how to go about telling you this, so I will just put it bluntly. The person who made himself known to you as “Paul” is really my son, Lee. He’s a good man but he’s had some difficulties in his life and has waged a long battle against some pretty severe mental health challenges. The problems started after his mother died—an event he has to this day refused to acknowledge or confront. He stopped taking his meds. Soon thereafter came his first major psychotic break. This happened roughly six years ago.
It was around then that he assumed the identity of Paul. Experts tell me this imaginary brother of his had likely been kicking around his head for some time, but Lee had never actually “become” Paul prior to this occasion. As Paul, his behavior became increasingly erratic, threatening, and sometimes violent. I told him if he continued refusing his meds then I would have no choice but to see that he entered a full-time care facility.
This, I now know, was a mistake. After I issued this ultimatum, Lee disappeared. For over a year, I had no contact with him. I knew that he’d flown to the Czech Republic because he’d stolen my credit card to pay for the flight. Occasionally he would send postcards as Paul addressed to his brother, Lee. I have no idea what led him to choose your country.
Shortly after the flood, I received a call from the American consulate. Lee had been found just outside the city on the banks of the river. He had been discovered shirtless, his body covered in bruises, his ribs and nose broken, his right arm nearly severed at the wrist. The consulate told me he’d identified himself as Lee Holloway but had no memory of what had happened. He had no memory of the flood. He had no memory of how he got to the Czech Republic or what he had been doing there for the last year.
Since coming home, Paul has spent a number of years receiving full-time care at Grimley & Dunballer Recovery Solutions, one of the Midwest’s best mental health facilities. Recent budget cuts have restricted the number of patients they can house and so he’s been living on his own under the supervision of a health care worker who checks on him a twice a week. They assure me that he’s made a lot of progress and that—barring some unforeseen trauma—as long as he keeps taking his meds he’s on the path to a healthy and productive life.
I’m sure this news is all quite shocking. And I’m sorry my son Lee deceived you, though surely you are not alone. He has always been clever and resourceful, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he was able to procure the kinds of documents needed to give this “Paul” some sort of official, bureaucratic existence. Lee can’t really take responsibility for his actions, but as my own failures contributed to bringing this Paul person into your life, I can only offer my heartfelt apologies.
Part of me yearns to know what happened to my son over there during his “lost” year, but please also understand that this was a very dark, very painful period of my life as a father, and not one I think it would be healthy to revisit. You wrote that I’d be interested in knowing “an important part of Paul’s life” unknown to me, but I’m afraid all of Paul’s “‘life” is unknown to me. Paul is a stranger to me, and I’d like it to remain that way. Maybe that’s selfish, but we all have to adapt our own strategies for getting on with life. We’re none of us really ever out of the woods.
But I hope this letter is in some capacity helpful. Maybe it will bring you a measure of solace to learn the person you were close to didn’t drown in the flood five years ago. That he survived, that he’s alive and getting a little better every day. I hope the passage of time will bestow these same gifts upon you.
Wishing you all the best,
Lee Holloway, Sr.
Back at home I sat down at my father’s desk, rereading the letter from beginning to end, from end to beginning. My father had never been a communicative man, especially when it came to difficult emotional territory, and I knew it must have been a struggle for him to produce a letter like this. I tried to imagine what he could have been thinking while he wrote it, but I was never good at deciphering other people’s thought processes. I was never, as my dad had been, what you would call a people person. Vera, Paul, my father—they were all at their core unfathomable, as maybe we all are. Inside of us so often lies a hidden mechanism running counter to the face we show the world. My father was no exception. Five years after being floored by the disappearance of his favored son, the memory was still so painful that he’d chosen to concoct some outlandish scenario involving split personalities rather than face the fact that Paul was gone. I didn’t mind that he’d lied about me, devised for me some vague, almost laughable history of mental illness. I understood and forgave him. Like he said, we all have to adapt our own strategies for getting on with life.
But I was glad that Vera never saw the letter. It would have brought her only unnecessary pain and further confusion in those final months of her life when she already had so much to contend with. And I was thankful her parents and Tomáš would never have to wrestle with such sad nonsense amidst their devastation. They deserved better, and I still felt there was a chance, afte
r some time had passed and grief’s deep wounds began to heal, to get to know them. Maybe one day I’d return to Prague, to that little mother and her claws. I still had my guidebook after all—Prague Unbound—which I’d retrieved from Stromovka Park hours before I left the city, finding it lying dry, unharmed, and waiting for me at the edge of the pond. Yes, I’d go when Tomáš was older, better able to understand the things I had to say. We’d walk those ancient streets and stroll by that slow-moving river, and I would tell him stories about his father. The funny ones, the good ones. There were a lot of those, and even as I sat there listening to the rain, I could feel them taking shape in my mind, waiting for their chance to be told.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many books were consumed and regurgitated in the making of this one, but I must make special mention of Angelo Maria Ripellino’s fantastic Magic Prague, which I picked up on my honeymoon years ago and haven’t truly put down since.
Thanks to my early readers, a hearty and insightful crew that included my parents (Dave and Cynda), my wife (Chee-Soo), along with Jim Nietz, Andy Laing, Natasha Laing, Serapio Baca, and Ashley and Carolyn Grayson. Thanks especially to Margaret Norwood for gently reminding me that sometimes less is more.
I also owe a huge debt of gratitude to filmmaker Arash Ayrom—sorry for making you hike up steep hills and through thorny brambles. Thanks also to Damian Odess-Gillett (the fastest-walking magician in Prague) for not only lending his acting talents, but also for being our location scout and an all-around good sport. I’m also very grateful to the incredible Flanna Sheridan for all her fine work and hospitality—next time, we’ll get you good and bloody, I promise. Special thanks also to actors John Branch and Bria Lynn Massie, whose talents made me think I was really standing in an old Czech secret police interrogation room instead of a freezing Portland garage.
Huge kudos go to my extraordinary editor, Dan Smetanka, who saw something in my misshapen manuscript no one else did and vastly improved the novel with six brilliant words. Working with you could not have been a better, more enjoyable experience. I’m also grateful for Charlie Winton, Laura Mazer, Liz Parker, Julia Kent, Kelly Winton, and everyone at Counterpoint and Soft Skull who helped along the way.
And finally, thanks to my agent Jason Allen Ashlock—without your belief, persistence, and vision, this book would never have seen the light of day.
1
In keeping with the original StB documents, Zrcadlové Bludiště refers to the mirrored labyrinth housed atop Petřín Hill in the Malá Strana district of Prague.
2
The Office for the Documentation and Investigation of the Crimes of Communism (ÚDV) is unable to determine the identity of Agent #3553 at present. For further information, see ÚDV document 12B#141.
3
Renamed after the November Events of 1989 to Háje Station.
4
As questions pertaining to the identity of the person referred to herein as Vokov are germane to the ÚDV investigation into the case of Zrcadlové Bludiště, it has been determined by the Czech Office for Personal Data Protection that they should appear in the text as relayed by Reznícková to the interviewer.
5
The existence of this underground newspaper remains unverified. Nowhere is it referred to in other materials obtained by the ÚDZ, and a search of the non-profit Society of Libri Prohibiti’s exhaustive archive of samizdat and exile literature circulated between 1948-1989 yielded no results.
6
Parallel Polis, Revolver Revue, and Vokno were some of the more widely circulated dissident publications as verified by Society of Libri Prohibiti. However, it’s unclear whether all were active at the time this interview took place.
7
“Weasel” was a term commonly used at the time to describe a police informant.
8
The Thirty Cases of Major Zeman was a popular, heavily propagandized TV police drama that ran on state television beginning in 1975.
9
Given the state of forensic science at this time, the scarcity of top-flight labo-ratorial resources available to the StB, and the lack of corroborating evidence in the surviving files related to this incident, the UDZ believes it’s highly unlikely AGENT #3553’s assessment was an accurate representation of the state of the investigation. More likely he was exaggerating if not lying outright in order to manipulate the suspect.
10
This report was not among materials recovered by ÚDZ. Whether or not it ever existed is unclear, as the name formatting cited by Agent #3553 (712a) is inconsistent with other documents recovered from the StB archives.
Complication copyright © Isaac Adamson 2012
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
eISBN : 978-1-593-76479-1
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