Prague

by Arthur Phillips

  JUST OUT OF THE Hilton’s revolving doors, John was embraced by the July heat, particularly heavy after the air-conditioning of the lobby. Had it grown hotter since he had lunched on the patio a few minutes earlier? he wondered. Could climatic fronts be so specific as to start on opposite sides of a hotel? He tried to concentrate on the interview for which he was already half an hour late. He came to the end of little Táncsics Mihály utca without being aware of his surroundings, except for the way the cobblestones bent the thin soles of his shoes into concave embraces. Why Hungary what investment prospects do you have do you miss the rough-and-tumble of Washington how do you think the Hungarians see your work what bars and restaurants do you prefer is life here what you would have expected and in the future will all of this be noticed as an event why does what you do matter are you proud of yourself is that even the right standard these are ridiculous questions.

  He passed a lamppost, green and stuck with bits of poster for last year’s elections and something called THE NEW AMERICANS. And there was a small tanand-white hound with long, plush ears folded like velvet curtains, a hound that hopped on three legs in an effort to push his fourth leg ever higher, to keep his balance while he dishrag-twisted his torso to urinate higher and higher up the lamppost, arching in a vain effort to seem, retrospectively, a big dog to later sniffers.

  John came through the old fortification called the Vienna Gate, picking up his pace, and surprised a couple leaning against a tree, kissing. He lost his breath as he recognized the woman whose back was to him: Emily. He stopped, stared, couldn’t believe how quickly it had fallen apart. Her partner’s one visible eye opened, saw immobile John, and his tilted, half-hidden face changed, filled with menace and readiness. “Mi a faszt akarsz?” he hissed at the stranger.

  John fumbled for some Hungarian, decided instead on saying her name, maybe asking why, but she was already turning her head to see who had taken her lover’s attention and lips away, and she revealed herself to be a round-faced Hungarian girl with braces on her teeth and far-apart eyes. “Oh, elnézést kérek,” John managed with a gesture of peaceful misunderstanding, fell back into English. “I thought, wow, I’m sorry, I thought I knew her, but I didn’t, I mean . . .”

  The man slid from behind the girl, took a step toward John, revealed the oddity of his haircut, demonstrated the depth of his English. “You know her? Who the fuck you are?”

  “No, no, my mistake. I don’t know her. I just thought—”

  “You take a big look now, go ahead, now you are looking real careful at her, yeah? You know her?”

  “No, I sure don’t.” A ready smile, still, haha, these things do happen.

  The Hungarian seemed unable to understand John’s denials. He stayed beside his threatened property. “You don’t know her, you had your look, so fuck away now, man.”

  John resisted correcting the obscene grammar, laughed, and continued walking down sloping Várfok utca. Behind him, he heard the menacing bad English shift into Hungarian rumbling, interrupted occasionally by the complaining song of the unkissed female. Her voice predominated a second or two or three and then John felt a warm nausea in his head, followed by a sharp pain as his knee and left palm hit the ground. When he lifted his right hand, it returned from his scalp wet and red. Still on the ground, he turned—wincing, dizzy—to see the man biting his thumb at him, walking quickly backward toward the ancient fortified Vienna Gate, pushing his woman up the hill behind him, as if counterattacks might still be in the offing. The conquering rock was round enough, John noticed with an interest he knew was out of place, to keep rolling down the hill past where its latest victim still knelt.

  MARK’S SENSE OF STOLEN peace dispersed with the first jerk of his funicular car’s descent. He placed the corner of his ticket in his mouth, let two eyeteeth meet in the blue paper slip’s punched hole. The east appeared in the front window of the car, unrolling from the bottom up: nineteenth-century Pest, the gloriously antique Chain Bridge, and the slow-moving, brown Danube laid themselves out for him. The sun painted stripes of white and yellow on the river for him. He felt his heart rate slow, and sounds organized themselves for him: the whir of the funicular cables, the invisible bird whose song did not grow more distant as the car descended and so, Mark realized happily, must in fact be sitting on the roof to drink in the same flying joy as Mark himself. He could hover here happily forever, drift and sit in the sky like a child’s dream of flight. His morning and his lunch retrospectively swelled with comprehensible importance, he felt fond of John again, trusted and admired him, looked forward to seeing everyone at the Gerbeaud soon, looked forward to the warm bath of work that awaited him.

  When, however, the two funicular cars passed each other halfway, Mark felt a small sadness bite at his throat. He hurriedly reminded himself of the Parliament’s mass and height, its ridges and curves and spired helmet, the ring roads’ arching embrace of Pest’s grid, the clouds that trolled their shadows through the streets and dragged them soundlessly over buildings without snagging them on chimneys or antiquated antennae . . . but aching moments later, all of that was being snatched away from him. With shortening seconds, Pest’s riverfront buildings rose and blocked everything to their east, the Danube shimmered one last ripple, then evaporated like a summer highway mirage behind the Buda traffic at the bottom of the rail—silent, flattened toy cars just a few seconds earlier, but now inflated and sprung into speed and noise.

  At the bottom of the hill, he did manage to leave the station, proud of pulling himself together, ready for work. But then all the cars on the roundabout in front of the Chain Bridge stopped him and he looked back up at the cable car resting at the top of the hill. There was actually no decision to be made; it was simply a matter of answering an imperative need. And so he turned back to the funicular’s ticket booth.

  JOHN MADE THE LAST downhill block with only one or two stumbles, his cold hand glued to his hot, matted head. The shabby office building’s elderly concierge guided him to the wooden door with the typewritten paper affixed to it with three strips of transparent tape: HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT GROUP, INC. The young American man with the stubbly shaved head, illfitting khakis, and worn blue blazer who answered the door found the alarming sight of John Price’s bright red–smeared palm held up in mute explanation of why he could not shake hands quite yet. “Can I use your bathroom?”

  The basement washroom’s cold water burned a hole in John’s head and flung cherry swirls into the caramel-vanilla patterns of the ancient sink. He cautiously dabbed at his scalp with a paper towel and looked at the familiar figure floating over his shoulder’s reflection: “You’re the sax player from the club, right?” he managed to say before leaning back over to vomit, rattling the brain in his concussed skull. The voice behind him admitted it uneasily and asked John not to mention it “up there.” John rinsed his face and mouth. “You dress sharp when you play. What’s with this high school graduation outfit?” He leaned over and gagged again. The voice requested again, in a pathetic, pleading tone, not to mention his secret musical life “up there.”

  “Up there” was a single room with two tables, two chairs, two phones, several boxes of contradictory business cards, and little else. And then a too-loud voice—Harvey Lastnamelost—and hard hair split by a white straight-edge part, and a hand shaking John’s violently while John’s vision blurred and his head swelled. A proffered glass of tepid, salty club soda. Saxman sent out for coffee. A story about Harvey (check notebook for last name), heavy with post–Cold War symbolism, something about the Soviet ambassador, broad hint that the ambassador would take a job with Harvey, wolf out of a job, empire crumbling, rats, sinking ships, very droll to sit in the office of the Soviet ambassador sipping brandy, once the very control room of his empire’s outpost, the room from which this country used to be run, for God’s sake, and then to have him virtually begging me for a job, or at least a lead! Beautiful moment. What’s your story going to be about? I was profiled before, yo
u probably read in the FT and the Journal, both right behind us, smart journalism supports the cause. Exciting what we’re going to do here, brave new world, a chance for all of us to make money together, and that’s exactly what I tell the Hungarians: I want them to get rich, too, because I know I can get rich happier and faster if we all get rich together. All in the same boat. Western-style office buildings, I have a head start on approvals, option for building convention center, minister a close friend of mine, first-class fellow, I admire his poetry, published poet you know, these new artistic governments, so funny, they won’t last here or in Prague, of course, it’s nice after the Commies, but eventually they’ll get back to having businessmen and lawyers in charge and that’s how things get done, you can’t really have a cabinet full of sculptors, more of a tourist attraction for now. John, I tell you, between you and me, just us right here right now, all I can say is best time for a man of honor and faith to step up, never will there be an opportunity like this, not just for the money men but for this country, will they throw off their shackles, I want to see money make men free, John, I’m the luckiest man alive to be here now, we’re planning an opening fund $37 million, I want them to get rich right alongside me. That’s right, and it shows a respect, too, the little Hungarians are pleased with. We can’t just storm in and start buying up their country at fire-sale prices just ’cause they’re down and out, right? Actually, John, we can. No, I’m kidding. I suppose that some of the smarter ones will make money, can hardly help it if they’re not entirely as stupid as I sometimes suspect they are. It’s all about how you choose to live life, you see, John. A man grabs life by the ankles and shakes her, sees what comes out of her pockets. I like your style, John. You’re like me. How old are you? You ever want to get out of writing for the paper, you come talk to me. John, men like you and me deserve certain things, have to bite life on the neck and see if she screams, tickle her tits, you know? You want life? Well, she wants you to show her you can handle her, that you know how to get her wet. She wants to be mastered. The Hungarians used to know that, but they’ve forgotten how to do it, sad to say, and sad to see: a country of men so busy playing dumb under the Russians, they wake up one day and they can’t help it, they’re not playing, they’re just dumb. John, honestly, I would love to teach them how to do it again, but there’s no time for that. Opportunity’s now. It’s a matter of forward motion, you’re like me, can’t imagine why you don’t put down your pen, grab your cock, and come work for me. I recently met with, and I said, “Senator, when you’re ready to leave politics and return to the real world, there’s a corner office in Budapest with your name on the door, a bright brass nameplate.”

  THE FIRST RIDE BACK up the hill was almost entirely joyful: the view only improved, grew more panoramic by the second, each moment shaming the last, until suddenly, treacherously, the car jogged to a stop and the tin roof of the uphill station hung halfway over the front window and then the door clattered open and the whole thing felt like the ridiculous, panting, slightly nauseous anticlimax at the bottom of a roller coaster. A few minutes standing at the walkway at the top, leaning against the railing, enjoying the immobile view, sufficed to send him home to work again.

  But of course this next ride down could not possibly have the innocent enjoyment of the first. This second descent was stained with the knowledge of how the end would feel just a minute later, so the joy was both briefer and more precious. When the car stopped with a shudder at its noisy, smoky, crowded lower terminus, Mark—shuddering, too—had the sensation that forty seconds of peace on the first trip down had become, this trip, thirty seconds, but a much more intense thirty seconds. He left the station again, ready to go home, ready to laugh off the unnecessary round-trip, but then wondered if the pattern would continue on the next trip, if it would become twenty seconds of newfound profundity, and if such a pattern didn’t have some bearing, actually, on his research.

  JOHN COULD SCARCELY BELIEVE how weak he felt when he finally propped himself into a cab’s backseat. He grunted as his head scraped along the vinyl. In his pain and polygonal anger (the guy with the rock, Harvey the aesthetically offensive investor, Scott the inaccessible bastard who would never let John make things right), he was inspired: Grab life by the ankles. He decided to give the driver Emily’s address. He leaned from side to side as the cab’s bald tires slid with each turn into the hill. He would let her see him like this, would let her rescue and nurse him. A picture of sacrifice and love: a victim’s very last energy spent on a kiss. This is how it began. I should have gone to a doctor but I went to your mother. I kept hoping the Julies weren’t there. And they weren’t. Do you remember the first thing you said, Em, when I poured out of that cab? Tell them what you said. You said,

  “John Price? You are not healthful? Scott is being absent.” The accent was Hungarian. He looked around, hoped Emily might somehow still appear, though he was at his brother’s house and she was hills and hills away. Mária wore his brother’s college T-shirt.

  THE TRIPS UP, however, grew only finer and finer. By early in the evening, as the sun started to disappear behind the funicular and the view was lit by a fading, westering, indirect light that seemed to lend the buildings a more forceful third dimension, made them jut out from the silver-blue-green sky in shimmering bas relief, the rides became almost too beautiful to bear, and on several of the ascending journeys Mark felt his eyes wet with gratitude. The motion conjured the magic, the gradual change in the panorama over the ascending minute, watching this picture paint itself, flatten itself into two dimensions. Yes, it was pleasant to stare at the finished product from the walkway at the top, but it wasn’t as potent as the slow ride up to that same walkway.

  And as a scholar, he was interested to note that the window of pure peace did close slightly on each descending trip, but those shrinking, sinking moments grew geometrically sweeter and more trembling; the pleasure of the trips up increased only arithmetically. By sunset, with the couple standing next to him in the car kissing loudly and the girl’s braces reflecting the light in silver flashes between embraces, the moment lasted only five seconds, perhaps—three seconds before passing the ascending car and another two seconds after—but in those five seconds, there was an annunciation, the feeling of absolute comfort and of loss simultaneously, a flight into the permanence of an antique postcard (he had been in or just out of the frame of some hundred tourist photos in the course of his miles of vertical, back-and-forth travel that afternoon). Permanence and impermanence blended, became momentarily identical—the permanence of his rightful place, and the impermanent view, impermanent buildings, the fading light, fading years, styles shifting so fast, somehow the undeniable but elusive meaning of life. Five seconds is all, but that’s more than most people get in a lifetime, he thought, felt smug in that fifth of the five seconds, until the sixth, when it became clear that those cars were going to grow noisy and smelly and large again, and the river, growing black with sparkling stripes, was vanishing yet again, taking its promises and history and permanence with it.

  The hundred snapshots that featured Mark would come to life over the next weeks in photo shops all over the world, he realized. The back of his head in shadows or the corner of his face lit by a lowering sparkle of sun or one eye red from the flash or his whole face caught in a moment of perfect peace: He—they—would turn up all over the world, in a hundred bulging paper envelopes, on a hundred translucent negative strips, in a hundred slides bordered in thick white plastic-coated cardboard. Who would develop the picture, the one of perfect peace and happiness, the sight of him in his own skin in the right place on earth, at his perfect moment when the beauty of the past and the possibility of his own life were not in grim, relentless opposition? Stockholm, Sweden? A couple just returned from their honeymoon, which years later they would agree comprised the happiest six days of their lives. But now, still young, still looking forward with an infant’s faith that life would only grow richer and happier, they flip through the photos
that represent the high point of their love, and there in the corner of a shot from day six is the face of a stranger, a face at the precise moment of its deepest satisfaction with its life. Dubuque, Iowa? A group of high school students return from their summer educational trip and must prepare reports on what they learned. One student cannot find the words to explain the significance of the face in the corner of her picture of Pest taken from the moving funicular. She can only pay with her own pocket money (earned from babysitting and paper routes and a little soft-drug dealing) to have the photo blown up to poster size and then silently place it on an easel for the class to gaze upon until (take as long as necessary, ignore the ringing bell) they feel what Mark means to them in their malleable youth. Tyson’s Corner, Virginia? An elderly American man—recently widowed, a long-retired spy—returns home from a nostalgic trip to all the Cold War hot spots where his life’s meaning was written in invisible ink, and he meant to take a picture of the wooden bench inside the funicular where he once sat and received microfilm from the only woman he ever truly loved, a woman shot for her betrayal of her country, shot on his account, and he hoped for a picture of an empty bench, but who is that young red-haired man in his picture and why does he look so—so . . . What would possibly be the word that could explain the significance of his plump face?