The Woman From Prague

by Rob Hart

  Two is that the current drags you away from the person who wants to kill you.

  The positive aspects end right there.

  This is cold like I’ve never known cold. Cold down to the marrow of my bones. I may be awake, but within seconds I’m sluggish, my muscles freezing. I kick to the surface and when I get above water, even breathing is hard. My lungs are developing a layer of frost, like they’ve been sitting in the freezer too long.

  The water tastes filthy in my mouth and I can’t see anything and I’ve got a general fear of water. I’m dangling a foot over the precipice of panic. Need to focus on something else.

  I wonder how clean the Vltava is, and how bad it is to be in here with so many open wounds. That doesn’t help.

  My vision clears enough to make out the bridge against the night sky, which I’m moving away from, quickly. I concentrate on not sinking with the combined weight of my boots and jacket, kick in the direction of the current because I would like to be further away from the lunatic with the shovel.

  North. I think I’m going north. I look for Prague Castle to orient myself and confirm my direction. Keep my head above water. I’m closer to the east bank so I push for that. My arms feel like dead things tied to my body.

  If I can make the bank, there are plenty of staircases and pathways around the water. I’ll find something. Anything.

  Maybe I’ll live through this.

  If not, hopefully the cold knocks me out before I realize I’m drowning.

  I cough and my head dips below the black water. My body is growing harder, metallic and brittle, like if I push too hard, pieces are going to snap off.

  I kick, concentrate on reaching the wall.

  Even my thoughts are slowing down.

  From the cold.

  A low deck comes up. I grab that. Think I missed it. Realize my hand is hooked into a rope. I can’t feel that I’m holding it. The current is dragging me and I reach out my other hand, pull, muscles screaming, scramble onto the deck.

  Once I’m out of the water, on my back and staring into the sky, I feel very, very sleepy.

  If I sleep, I’ll die.

  Have to keep telling myself that.

  Because I’d really like to sleep.

  A lot.

  Climbing to my feet takes a couple of tries because my muscles feel like fully-frozen hamburger meat. Once I’m up, I can see where I am: a barge restaurant. Smoking deck or something. There’s a set of glass doors leading inside to a darkened dining room. I pray that it’s unlocked, find that it is. No one’s trying to sneak in from the river. Either that or someone fucked up. Doesn’t matter. This is good. My hand slips on the handle so I try to blow on my fingers. I’m shaking so hard I can’t keep my hand in front of my mouth.

  The dining room is quiet, the tables pushed off to one side and not set, the chairs askew. The walls are wood and there’s an intricate, dormant chandelier hanging from the ceiling. I move for the kitchen, on the other side of the dining room. Practically fall into the stove and try to turn it on. Fire means heat. It doesn’t work. Fucking fuck. Might be closed for the season.

  I need to get out of these clothes. They’re heavy and keeping the cold flush against my skin. I search the kitchen and find some chefs coats, but nothing else.

  Better than nothing. I peel off my jacket and shirt, drop them to the floor, put on a few of the chefs coats, piling them up until they’re thick. The dry clothing feels wonderful against my skin, but it’s not doing much for the cold. The boots and pants cancel that out.

  I carry my coat, head up the stairs that lead to the entrance. This door is locked so I take a fire extinguisher off the wall, hoist it over my head, and bring it down hard on the handle. It breaks off. Once I’m outside, the air cuts at me like razor blades.

  I don’t know what to do.

  Calling the police might not be the best way to handle this.

  Neither is going to a hospital. I can imagine Roman becoming very upset to find out I did those things. I don’t even know where the hospital is. I don’t have any paperwork on me, or my phone. Not even my passport. I am soaked and probably close to succumbing to hypothermia.

  I think about my mom. Wishing she was here.

  That’s how deep this goes.

  Big, blooming fear, like a child waking from a nightmare, alone in the dark.

  Warm clothes. I need heat and warm clothes. The apartment I left my stuff at is too far from here, but there’s one closer, and all the apartments have first-aid kits. I can blast the heat and run a warm bath. Once I get warmed up, I can get in contact with Kaz.

  The street outside the restaurant is empty so I walk until I reach Křižovnická, a wide block with a tram line running down the middle. There are a few cars coasting down the street and one of them is a cab. I wave it down and the guy doesn’t seem to notice that my pants are drenched and that I’m shaking. The apartment I’m aiming for is only a few blocks away, but I don’t know that I’d make it on foot.

  It takes me a second to get the door open because my fingers don’t want to cooperate.

  After I climb in, I give him the address and he looks back. I have no idea what I look like but I’m sure it’s not good. He’s hesitant, so I take out all the cash on me and hold it up, again with a great deal of effort and not much help from my hands. The sight of the cash is good enough for him because he drives.

  “Can you turn up the heat?” I ask. “Teplo. Teplo.”

  He fiddles with something on the console and there’s a roar from the front. I feel nothing.

  The drive is quick but it leaves me with time to wonder what the fuck is going on.

  That wasn’t a handoff. That was someone trying to kill Samantha Sobolik, and had I not showed up when I did, that’s probably what would have happened.

  Frankly, I’m not even sure how I’m alive.

  Luck?

  Also, why the shovel?

  The cab coasts to the curb in front of the building and I climb out, tossing the money through the glass partition and onto the passenger seat. He picks it up and starts yelling something at me in Czech but I ignore it, half-walk half-stumble to the doorway, work around in my pocket for the key fob, which miraculously didn’t fall out of my pocket in the river.

  The door clicks open.

  All I have to do is make it to the fourth floor.

  By the second, I’m huffing and puffing so hard I don’t think I’m going to make it.

  By the third, I’m pretty sure I am nearly dead.

  The building is quiet and empty so I strip off my pants and socks. By the time I get to the fourth floor, I’m down to my boxers, and I figure on taking a nap inside a warm shower.

  I throw myself at the door, use the fob to open it. It clicks open and I fall inside.

  The lights are on.

  And there’s a group of people here, like I walked into a dinner party.

  Most of them are dressed, except for the naked couple having vigorous sex on the kitchen counter.

  Oh right, this is the apartment I told Kaz he could use tonight.

  A fact that is confirmed for me when Kaz steps out from behind a group of people holding cameras and lighting equipment.

  “Ash?” he asks.

  The girl twists around and looks at me, blue and shivering in my boxers. My face undoubtedly a mangled mess.

  “Is he in the scene?” she asks in a heavy Eastern European accent. “I did not agree to that. It is going to cost extra.”

  “Could use some coffee…” I start.

  And then I collapse.

  I wake up to a bright light and a massive headache, like an elephant is standing on my forehead. There’s a pile of heavy blankets thrown over me.

  The rest comes to me in stages.

  I’m dry.

  I’m also naked.

  The room is completely blank. A bed low to the floor, no closet. A small dresser in the corner. A lamp in the other corner. Daytime. Harsh morning light pushing through the blinds.


  There’s someone moving next to me.

  It takes me a minute to recognize her. The girl from the kitchen. I think she’s naked, too, curled up besides me, but then I feel the rasp of clothing against my skin.

  I’m not numb anymore. I’m still cold but I’ve advanced from subzero death freeze to sort of chilly. It’s an improvement, for sure.

  I try to speak but have a hard time forming words.

  She looks up at me. She has big brown eyes, her hair falling over them. Her skin so soft against mine, and after the events of last night, if I could put the headache aside, I would want to stay right here forever.

  “You were incredible,” she says.

  “What?”

  She sticks her fist out from under the blanket and bops it off my shoulder. “Kidding. You were very cold. The doctor said you need body heat. Body heat costs extra.”

  “What…”

  “I will go get them,” she says.

  She slides out from under the covers and stands. She’s wearing a tiny bra and tinier panties. She fixes her hair, pulling it back into a ponytail, which she secures with a band from around her wrist. She stands there for a moment, letting me get a good look, lingering like she’s teasing me. I want to say something witty about whether the view costs extra, but I can’t move the words from my brain to my mouth.

  As she steps into the kitchen she says, “He is awake now.”

  After a moment, a man comes in. Black guy, skinny, with a shaved head and a heavy beard. He has a grave expression on his face, which is not encouraging. He takes out a small flashlight and shines it across my face. The light feels like the sun exploding in my eyeballs. I clamp my eyes shut, open them, then blink away the ghosts they left behind. When I can focus again, I see Kaz is standing over his shoulder.

  “He has a concussion,” the man says in a French accent, more to Kaz than me. “Ribs are badly bruised but I do not believe they are broken. There does not appear to be any internal bleeding. The hypothermia should be under control now, but I would leave him under the blankets for a little while longer.”

  I want to ask pointed questions about my current state of health but my synapses are firing too slowly.

  “What about his nose?” Kaz asks. “His nose looks pretty fucked up.”

  “Yes, because it was broken,” the French man says. “I set it on my initial examination.”

  Well, that explains the pain radiating from my face.

  “Sir,” the man says. “Can you tell me your name?”

  “Ashley McKenna.”

  “And where are you?”

  “Prague.”

  “What is the Czech name for Prague?”

  “Praha.”

  “You are American, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you explain to me the exchange rate between the crown and the dollar?”

  “Something like five cents on the dollar?”

  The man nods and stands up, seemingly satisfied with my answer, even though that last one was a bit of a guess.

  “Do I need to keep him awake?” Kaz asks the doctor.

  “He should be fine,” the man says. “The concussion is minor. Let him rest. If his speech becomes slurred or he complains of the pain growing worse, please call me immediately.”

  I attempt to slide myself into a sitting position and my entire torso hollers in protest, so I stay where I am. The man nods toward the floor next to the bed, where I find a blue plate with two white pills and a plastic yellow cup of water.

  “Please take that in a little while,” he says. “Tylenol. I can’t give you anything stronger, I’m afraid. Please stick with acetaminophen. Ibuprofen and aspirin are dangerous to use when you have a concussion. Do you understand?”

  “Can someone please tell me what the fuck is going on?”

  Instead of answering me, the French man looks at Kaz. “He should rest. A few days in bed and no strenuous activity.”

  “Understood, Étienne,” Kaz says, handing the man a tightly-packed roll of money. “Thank you, my friend.”

  “Happy to help,” Étienne says before turning to me. “You are lucky to be alive. Another blow to the head before you are healed could prove to be fatal. You might want to think about the things you do in your spare time. This violence…” He surveys my face. “This is the kind of violence people go looking for.”

  “Fixing me up doesn’t give you the right to be a judgmental asshole.”

  He does not smile at this, but Kaz does. Étienne leaves and Kaz crosses the room to me and sits cross-legged on the floor next to the bed, which brings him to eye level.

  “My friend,” he says. “What happened?”

  “It’s a long story,” I tell him, leaning back into the pillow. “To be perfectly honest, given the implications, I don’t know if it’s safe to clue you in.”

  “Pozhaluysta,” he says. “Please. Tell me.”

  “Before I do that, why were there people fucking in here?”

  Kaz smiles. “You did not know I was a porn producer?”

  “You never told me.”

  “You never asked.”

  “Fair.”

  “It is very popular genre here,” he says, swelling with pride. “Pick-up porn. A man finds a girl on the street and offers successive amounts of money for her to do things until they are having sex. It is all scripted, of course, but to the viewer it is made to think the world is full of possibility.”

  “Sounds delightful.”

  “You have never seen them?”

  I shake my head.

  “I will send you links.”

  “Do you appear in any of them?”

  “Not for a long time,” he says. “Porn is a young man’s game.”

  “Don’t send me any of those.”

  He laughs. “Maybe I will put one in there, as a surprise. You will be amazed at my prowess. Now, tell me. How did you end up here freezing, naked, and like you have been beaten by an army of men?”

  “You sure you want to know?”

  He holds his hands up and waves them at me, like someone trying to get a dog to come closer. “I can handle it.”

  I walk him through what happened—the bridge, Samantha, the nut job with the shovel, the swim to shore. At the end I ask, “What do you think?”

  He sits for a long time, staring at the wall, processing it. Finally, he says, “I think you are in a lot of trouble.”

  “Thanks. Who was the doctor?”

  “He is a friend,” Kaz says. “He owed me a favor. I tell you this.” He pats his chest. “I know people.”

  “Well, good. I think it might be best to stay out of a hospital right now.”

  “That is correct.” Kaz stands and looks around the room. “We have cleaned up everything from the shoot.”

  “Sorry to fuck that up. I kind of forgot you guys were here.”

  “Is no problem. A little creative editing. They got right back to it after you passed out.”

  “That’s weird.”

  “Is fine. I will show you final cut when it’s done. Now, I am tired, so I will go to sleep on the couch.”

  “You don’t need to stay,” I tell him.

  “Yes, I do,” he says. “You are a fucking mess and someone should be here in case anything happens. Get some sleep, my friend. I will check on you in a little while, to make sure you are still alive.”

  That hits me square in the feelings. My throat gets a little thick. He has no reason to stay or to help me. And being this far away from home, it feels so much better to know there’s someone in the other room.

  “Thank you,” I tell him. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that.”

  “No worries, my friend. Your stuff is on the floor next to you.”

  I roll over as much as I can manage, see my backpack lying against the wall.

  “How…”

  “You asked for it,” Kaz says. “I sent someone to the other apartment to retrieve it.”

  “I don’t e
ven remember doing that. You’re pretty good to me.”

  “Because you have been good to me. It was no trouble. Now rest.”

  Kaz disappears and I lie there looking up at the ceiling. Roll over and take the aspirin, get most of the water down before I start coughing, hard enough that maybe I finally did crack a rib.

  I have no idea what time it is, but the sun is coming in strong, so it’s got to be, what, 7:30 in the morning? Eight?

  Was it really four hours ago that I was on the bridge?

  It doesn’t feel like it. It feels like a month.

  I roll over to my bag, pull it closer, find my phone sticking out of the front pocket. The battery is low. It’s actually 9 a.m. Three missed calls from a number I don’t recognize. I’m about to call it back when the phone vibrates in my hand.

  I answer it, expecting to hear Roman on the other end, because at this point I have to suspect he knows the job went sour. But it’s Stanislav, probably calling from one of the phones in the office rather than his cell.

  “Mister Ashley!” he says in his big, booming, cartoon bear voice. “How are you?”

  “Not great,” I tell him. “Tripped and fell down some stairs.”

  “Ashley,” he says, his voice taking on a tinge of concern. “Did you have too much to drink?”

  “Actually no,” I tell him. “I slipped on a patch of ice.”

  “These sons of bitches, not clearing their walkways,” he says. “I was calling to tell you that we have had some cancellations, so the next couple of days are light. Feel free to take a few days. Though I guess the timing was good, no? Now you can rest a little?”

  “That’s some perfect timing right there,” I tell him. “Thank you, Stanislav.”

  “It is okay. You are good worker and I am happy to reward good worker. You do know you can continue to be good worker? I handle all the paperwork. All of it. Maybe even give you a permanent apartment.”

  “I think it’s time to move on.”

  “Will you go home? If so, I hope you give my love to Lunette. Tell her that her cousins miss her, and she should come visit us sometime.”

  “Not sure where I’m headed, but I’ll let you know soon.”

  “Okay, Mister Ashley,” he says. “You get some rest. And you think about it anyway. In case you change your mind.”