Prague: A Novel Read online

  And now, eight days later, left to his own devices for yet another afternoon, John stood on top of his brother’s hill and watched the haze distort Pest, then returned to lie on the floor of yet another of Scott’s nondescript, barely furnished apartments. He considered retreating home to beg for his old job; still eighteen years until those Olympics. But he also thought of Emily Oliver’s laugh, and though he knew he hardly knew her, he admired how (unlike his dismal brother) she hid nothing, faced everything, and approached the world as a place roiling with possibility, as he himself did. She was reason enough to be here. And then Scott’s mail slithered through the door and slapped onto the floor. John opened his own letter from L.A., read his good intentions and embarrassing, delicately couched hopes. He stuffed it in his luggage.

  The phone rang and the voice asked for John, then introduced itself as Zsolt, “of Scott class.”

  “That’s an ambiguous claim.”

  “Excuse me what?”

  Zsolt had news, reported with the sporadic accompaniment of a riffling dictionary: His mother’s boyfriend’s friend knew an old man with a room down in Pest, on Andrássy út. John hastily consulted his plastic-coated map and traced his finger along one of the broad boulevards through the center of the city. “Scott ask us of his class to keep our ear open for you, because he wants you have a place alone very soon as possible, he say many times, ‘Find my brother a home! In Pest!’ he say, so I am happy to finded you this flat. The man is an old and is wanting to be with his son and his law-daughter on the countryside.” He gave John a phone number and spelled, twice and haltingly, the name Szabó Dezső, explaining for the foreigner that Hungarian family names come first, trivia irrelevant to the goulash of dissonant consonants splashing across John’s notebook. “But you must not tell to the city council what he does this, else they will take the place out from him.”

  “He’s subletting a rent-control deal or something?”

  “Excuse me what?”

  John called Charles Gábor at his office for help, and early that evening—having followed his map to Andrássy, formerly Népköztársaság, formerly Sztálin, formerly Andrássy—the two of them sat on the pullout sofa bed in a very old man’s room, sipping pear brandy from paper cups. John complained that Charles’s suit would inflate the old man’s asking price. Charles, whose venture-capital firm had bought him a lush bungalow in the Buda hills, told him to stop whining.

  Dezső Szabó wore a sleeveless T-shirt, baggy checked pants, and plastic flip-flops stamped liberally with the logo of a German sporting goods company. He was extraordinarily thin; his parts fell together and splayed apart like the last few straws in the jar on a hot dog stand. His gray hair stood up, then fell to each side, a field of wheat parting for inspection. He knew two words of English (New, York) and a smattering of German.

  The three men sat, silent as rain filled the air with a staticky buzz. Through the French windows opening onto a balcony, John could see dark branches waving over the wash of Andrássy’s white streetlights. The yellow chair under Szabó, a wooden wardrobe, an alcove kitchen, a bedside table with a small green lamp, and a cheap metal cart straining under a new and enormous television with a complex cable hookup completed the furnishings.

  Licking brandy from his papery lips, Szabó emitted a few words in the deep monotone of the Hungarian male. Much closed-mouth lip motion ensued, an adjustment of dentures or a savoring of pear brandy that John found unpleasant to watch and hear. Charles responded concisely in the same low voice. The Hungarian continued, brief outbursts on each side. John expected a translation, but none came. His eyes lagged behind the words, back and forth between the two incomprehensible men: Gábor still stiffly creased and pleated and gelled, Szabó a loose and spindly sack of wrinkled flesh, his stiff fingers pinching and scraping at a dry and hairy nose.

  “Igen . . . igen . . . igen . . . jó.” Charles was nodding, rhythmically repeating “yes” and “good” as Szabó took monologous command. “Igen. Igen. Jó. Jó. Igen.” Charles kept his eyes on Szabó but leaned toward John, as if preparing at any moment to interpret. He raised a finger to Szabó, nodding quickly, asking for a pause, but the old man would not or could not (at any rate did not) stop speaking. “Igen.” Charles kept trying. “He says he’s lived here for thirty-eight years . . . igen . . . jó. He says . . . igen . . . nem . . . igen.” And finally Charles sat up straight again and the old man rumbled on without a break.

  After some time, John decided that whatever was being discussed must not pertain to him. The noise droned on behind him, and he opened the French windows to the balcony, three stories above Andrássy út. The rain drowned out the one-sided conversation.

  The balcony was a stone square large enough to hold two or three standing people, and even in the rain it provided a wondrous view: Andrássy stretched itself from Deák Square, on the left, toward Heroes’ Square, invisible in the distance to the right. The balcony’s floor was cracked in a map of meandering rivers, demarcating flakes, and slabs of concrete loose enough to lift. It seemed evident that eventually the balcony would collapse under its own, or someone else’s, weight. The building’s exterior walls bore decades-old scars and bullet holes. On the building across the street, the new andrássy út plaque shone silvery-white above the faded, dust- and rain-streaked népköztársaság út plaque, still legible despite the bright red X of paint that covered it from corner to corner.

  John imagined himself leaning back on a chair on this balcony, his legs crossed and propped up on the rusty curves of its iron rail, the setting sun gilding the city’s most cosmopolitan boulevard. He saw a glorious life beginning on this balcony. He saw himself savoring harsh local cigarettes, his first nibbling notion that he was going to take up smoking. He was engaged in some professional exploit—the nature of which was hazy—that would win him tastefully lavish renown. In his new home, the center of concentric, electric social circles, he would wittily, intriguingly host artists, society figures, spies, stage actors, statesmen, the dissipated scions of ancient or fraudulent noble families, and Emily Oliver. She would stay after the other guests had left. “Come out to the balcony,” he would say. “Come in from the balcony,” she would say.

  “He wants to know if you’ll pay in dollars or pengő.” Charles leaned against the wall just inside the French doors.

  “Pengő?” John stepped inside. “Which are . . . ?”

  “Hungarian currency before the forint, until about 1945, I think.” Charles smiled as if at a common question, a natural topic of apartment rental negotiations.

  “And I would have pengő why?”

  “Excellent point. You seem to have a real head for business.” Charles raised his flowered paper cup at the old man, then generously refilled all three drinks. He returned to John. “Okay, first the bad news. Mr. Szabó is looking forward to returning to the countryside with me. He’s missed me. Doesn’t have many people to talk to anymore. Also, he’s very glad you and the army have finally arrived. He always knew the Americans would come to kill the Russians and he thanks you. This puts us in about 1956, I’d say, when the Americans most definitely did not turn up. Let’s see, what else . . .” Charles straightened his shirt cuffs. “Oh yes, he was a Communist Party member, but he wants you to know that everyone was, and now that the fighting is over, he’s looking forward to the Americans installing a democratic government. And he wants to cooperate as much as possible. As you’ll be influential in this.”

  “From this studio apartment.”

  “Right. The good news is the TV has cable, though mostly German channels and two versions of CNN. He also says the apartment’s plumbing is very good and that the sofa bed is pretty new.”

  Szabó interrupted with another croaking soliloquy. Charles translated: “And some more good news. He has no problem at all with Jews living here.”

  “That’s a great relief,” John said. “Can you just get him to think about rent in a current currency?”

  After just one more minute
of foreign dialogue, Szabó rose, shook John’s hand, and embraced Charles warmly, kissing both cheeks several times. “Very good news, John. Your landlord has offered marvelous terms and you’ve just accepted after haggling only briefly.” He named a figure in forints.

  “Per week?”

  “Of course not. Per month.”

  “That’s ridiculous. That’s nothing. Offer him more.”

  Szabó was refilling the paper cups to seal the contract, but Charles’s expression was dissolving quickly toward disgust. “Offer him more? Oh, Christ. Please don’t be silly. That’s twice what he’s paying the city to live here. He’s obviously happy with the deal. Don’t be condescend—”

  “Happy with the deal? He thinks I’m Eisenhower’s aide-de-camp.”

  “That’s your competitive advantage,” Charles explained with a grueling effort to be patient. “That’s not something you just throw away.”

  “I don’t think it’s condes—”

  The old man spoke, his expression troubled. He looked at Charles but pointed at John.

  “Nem, nem. Nagyon jól van. Nagyon,” Charles reassured him. “Look happy, John. He’s worried he’s offended you.”

  John smiled reflexively, not wishing to be rude. They touched cups and drank.

  Szabó collected the empty paper cups and put them in the sink, ran some water over them for his new tenant, and replaced the brandy under the TV cart. He rubbed his hands together and began to recite in a businesslike tone. Charles’s simultaneous translation was much improved: John was free to move in the following day, this was how the heat worked, this was how you paid your gas bill, and would the U.S. Army be shooting people against walls? They agreed to a two-year lease, the rent payable every three months to a friend of Szabó’s who lived two apartments over, this was how you worked the TV, this was how the bath/shower unit heated up, and if there was any information about Russian or Hungarian prisoners that Szabó could provide, he’d be happy to help. He had never been interested in the Communist Party, but as a worker, he had truly had no choice. This was a good apartment, and he was lucky to have gotten it. It was thanks to the Party that he and his wife had been brought into the city from the countryside, had gotten a factory job and this flat, had been able to raise their son here. He lives near Pécs now with his wife and daughter. It has been a good life in Pest. Andrássy is a good street, this is a good district. This is how to light the stove. The Party seems to be doing a good job. It’s hard not to think things are better now that they’re in charge. Szabó and his wife moved in just last year, and they hope to have a child soon; Szabó wants a girl, but Magda wants a boy. The Party has been a great help in getting them started. This is the key to the building’s front door, this is the key to the apartment door, this is how to get an outside line on the telephone, this is a picture of my wife, Magda, she died in 1988. Here is my son’s telephone number in the country. Good luck with everything. Thank you for coming. See you tomorrow at three.

  “Viszontlátásra,” said the old man.

  “Viszontlátásra,” said Charles.

  John nodded, smiled his mute good wishes, and the Americans left to find dinner.

  V.

  The next day at three, Charles was at work, so moving in was a matter primarily of sign language. John felt no trepidation, however, at being alone with the old man, who proudly welcomed Jews: Gábor had admitted the previous evening that he had invented that comment because the negotiations had grown boring. Szabó had in fact been marveling at the opportunities in America, considering that a man of John’s age had risen to such power.

  John found the old man’s son, nearly fifty, helping pack for the move to the countryside. He spoke a few words of English and, to John’s relief, seemed pleased at the bargain his mentally incapacitated father had struck. “Good business okay” was his repeated validation of the contract. “Good business okay.” He added, “Dezső the name me.”

  “John. Juan. Jan. Johann. Jean.” John produced his name, accelerating, in as many languages as he could muster.

  “János.” Dezső the younger provided the Hungarian. “János the name you,” he said, and tapped John twice on the sternum.

  “Exactly. Thank you. János the name me.”

  John’s luggage (college graduation) was quickly installed. He mimed an offer to come back later, after they had corralled the old man’s proliferating, scattering belongings, but the son refused. “House yours,” he said. He took John’s arm and walked him to the yellow chair. “House yours. Rest.” For twenty-five minutes John straddled the chair’s obtrusive springs, watched the son pack suitcases and cardboard boxes and then haul them down to a waiting car, each time refusing John’s wordless offers of help.

  And at last the apartment was objectless and lifeless, merely furnished. When the son was downstairs on his final trip, the father stood in front of his starkly empty armoire and simply stared at it. His head rolled slowly to his shoulder, then he lowered himself slowly onto the floor, ending up cross-legged. John too felt the undeniable force of the gaping, emptied closet, its doors flung open in melodramatic pleading. Its emptiness gave the room a different light, even a different smell. Szabó, his back to John, stared up at the open wardrobe, the crack in its wood lightning-bolting down its back panel, the hanger-bar sagging under the mere memory of shirts, coats, dresses.

  The old man rose and turned. Hair grew from his ears, and he hadn’t shaved that day; whiskers lodged in deep diagonal furrows. He nodded and moved his lips in the way that had seemed so unpleasant the night before but was now somehow different; the action no longer disgusted John. It now seemed to reflect something other than a need to adjust dentures or savor brandy. John imagined words caught behind the lips; he felt certain Szabó was trying or hoping to say something. He stared with an expression John took to be one of longing, but after a moment the old man just went to the sofa and lay down on his stomach, his head tucked under his arm, turned away from the room.

  The son found the new subtenant on the balcony, leaning against the rail, facing into the apartment, watching the old man apparently asleep. “Okay, János! Good,” the younger Dezső pronounced. He shook John’s hand, then re-entered to poke his father in the ribs. The old man mumbled in Hungarian and sat up sluggishly but did not stand. The son spoke briskly, gestured to John and the door, obviously time to go. The father responded angrily: He stared at the floor but now shouted his responses. The tone changed rapidly to an argument, which swelled and darkened into a storm front with a speed that surprised John. He remained leaning backward out over traffic, as far as he could be from the squall without leaving the apartment. He did consider leaving, but that would have required passing right by the raging Magyars on the way to the door, making a show of his departure while they argued, which they might read as an effort to make them feel bad for impinging on the “wealthy” American’s time, so he stayed where he was, leaned against the balustrade, stared at the men in uncomprehending embarrassment.

  The son raised his arms in exasperation and made the sound of air being let out of a tire. He half turned toward the balcony and yelled, “Okay. ‘Bye-bye, János. Phone if needs,” and tossed John the keys: a small apartment key and a two-and-a-half-pound skeleton key for the building’s converted carriage door. The old man did not move as his son left. John heard the enormous front door of the building open beneath him. Over his railing he saw the man stride to his green Trabant, lean against its hood, and light a cigarette.

  Behind John, the old man was up and off the sofa, pulling something off the wardrobe’s top shelf. He yelled, “Amerikai, für Sie,” and then some Hungarian. John stood on the threshold of the French doors, shrugging the apologetic shrug he had mastered whenever someone insisted on speaking to him in Hungarian. The old man held two framed pictures. After a deliberation, he placed one on top of the cable box and the other on the bedside table next to the lamp. He stretched his arms out to the two pictures, his fingers spread wide and his palms f
acing the frames, clearly to say: Leave them like that. “Igen? Igen? Ja? Ja?”

  “Ja. Igen.”

  He shook John’s hand without looking at him and left. John retreated from the closing door back to the railing, even more uncomfortable in the empty apartment than during the packing or the fighting. The echo of the front door rose again from the street. The old man shuffled down the sidewalk and folded himself into his son’s passenger seat. The Trabant burped and choked, slowly joined the boulevard’s traffic. Cartoon clouds of black smoke marked its path from curbside to disappearance.

  John examined the decorations he had agreed to maintain. On the cable box, a black-and-white photograph in a size format he had never seen before: a baby, no more than two or three weeks old, in a bundle of blankets, photographed from above, crying, its eyes shut tight, tiny fists flailing. Next to the sofa, again in an odd size and in black and white, a gold-painted wooden frame embracing a young woman in a white dress. No great beauty, no aura of magic or romance. Just a woman standing in front of a tree, her hands behind her back, her dress probably not fashionable at any period or in any country.

  VI.

  The party had started at the Gerbeaud and then rolled into a restaurant, the Hungarian name of which was slippery now, burrowing slickly under the surface of John’s memory as he lay on the still-folded sofa bed.

  Emily had sat squeezed between two of Scott’s students, at the far splinters of the long wooden table. Hungarian folk musicians careened in and away, so John could rarely hear her, but a visionary director had framed her with Hungarian diners and wandering waiters and posters of caped horsemen and garlands of smoke and the noise of foreign talk and foreign music, and every time he raised his eyes, she had just discovered some never-before-seen and heartbreakingly charming gesture or facial expression. She leaned back laughing, caught him watching her, and waved, the first of many times.