Otto’s World Atlas and pointed to where we’d go as soon as the insurance money became available, we spent whole evenings poring over a catalogue of international tours, made lists of trips to international capitals, sightseeing tours of the United States and Mexico, we imagined ourselves strolling in the glow of neon signs and the shadow of skyscrapers, discussed the pros and cons of a sightseeing tour through Turkey, with a stay by the sea, where Europe meets Asia under the star and crescent, we journeyed steadfastly from ancient Carthage to the Saharan oasis and wandered through the long white nights of Scandinavia, and all that time we firmly believed that since we had saved such a magnificent sum of money, we would surely be able to take all those trips, if that money was still worth as much as it was when we invested it. And so we traveled on, by finger, to Morocco, we read everything there was to read about that country, about the world of Islam, about that land of contrasts and scenic splendor, but in the end we were willing to compromise, Francin wrote letters asking that a portion of the half million be unblocked to pay for an ordinary tour of Austria, land of Mozart, Schubert and Strauss, or a little trip to South Italy with a brief stay by the sea, or perhaps just to the land of the thousand lakes, forests and the midnight sun, Finland, or a short stay on the Adriatic Coast with its romantic beauty and hot sun, where thirty years ago a thousand crowns would’ve bought you a bus trip for two, hotel included, but each time a letter came back saying that no funds could be released for trips of this nature. Finally Francin wrote that he very much wanted to use his hard-earned and carefully invested money to take me to Romania, for the sun, the beaches, a modern summer resort, or to Bulgaria, the Bulgarian coast, with its long, sunny summer days … But once again his request was flatly refused. And after we had sold our villa on the Elbe, Francin wondered if he should spend the money from the house on one of the beautiful journeys we had been looking forward to so eagerly all our lives, but then he said we’d paid for all those trips years ago, that we’d buy something more permanent with this money, and so we bought a place in the retirement home, a little room for two, I can still remember, Francin traveled around the world with his radio programs and news reports, he often consulted his Otto’s World Atlas to find out where a place was when they mentioned it on the news, but he soon discovered that the big world atlas was almost completely out of date, that borders had shifted, some had even disappeared, that the entire world had changed. But it wasn’t until I came here, to the retirement home, that I began to feel happy, every day I traveled around in the same place, asked the three witnesses questions about life in the little town a hundred years ago and more, I was fascinated by life in the old days and moved and delighted by events that had happened long before I lived there. And while Francin was traveling around the world several times a day with his news reports of events in one country or another, I marched steadily in place, I tread deeper and deeper, nearer and nearer to the dead people who had once lived here in the little town where time really had stood still. I was afraid I’d panic if we did suddenly get that insurance money, if I had to go out and travel all over regions where I’d never been and that I’d already fallen in love with, because I actually had been there, when Francin and I traveled along the maps with our fingers, like children, when we jotted down not only the departure dates but also the names of the hotels that čedok offered in its catalogue of international tours. But that was all because we were still living as if nothing had happened, but something had happened, and we were the only ones who hadn’t noticed, we had actually stopped living from the moment we left the brewery, we remained exactly the same, we were behind the times, like yesterday’s fashions, while all the rest … Francin ignored the fact that there were now other maps, other customs, other governments, he stuck to the old governments and regions as if they were unchangeable … We had grown old, yet we were still the same as we’d been when the war ended, I had moved even further back, to the last century, which had risen for me from the dead. This retirement home with its Baroque halls and garden, this castle in which I lived, suddenly meant more to me than that golden brewery of mine, where I had spent my younger years. Here in this castle I lived every day in the mystery, in the strata of human destinies of people who had long since been buried, but I brought them back to life, thanks to the memories of the old witnesses, Václav and Karel and Otokar, my three dear friends, who each day pointed their fingers to show me things in the little town, where what could no longer be seen was still very much alive to us … Before I went to sleep Mr. Otokar Rykr gave me his right hand, he raised his left hand to the ceiling and said … There are two images I still clearly remember from my churchgoing days. The first is two dragoons with helmets and drawn cutlasses who stood guard at the Holy Sepulchre at Easter time, like motionless statues, waiting for the Resurrection. Only their eyelids gave away the fact that they were alive. The other image, which I found particularly touching, was the extraordinarily pious tinker Matěj Sutera, better known as Matýsek, kneeling, his hands clasped in fervent prayer and his head bowed down to the ground, he sat that way for the entire service. Because he was such a humble, honest man, he was entrusted with the mending of broken crockery and wickerwork, no one could begrudge him those meager earnings. He was small in stature, with a shaggy beard, kindhearted and courteous, but his mind had never fully matured … around his neck he wore a rosary and a medal of the Virgin Mary on a chain. He had been born in eighteen-hundred-and-forty-seven, in Slovakia, although he claimed, when asked about his birthplace, that he’d never actually been born, but had been harvested, in a potato field … said Mr. Otokar Rykr, but then he grew thoughtful, why had he wanted to tell me all this? Confused, he waved his hands around, bowed to me and left quietly, he left the way you enter a theater when the performance has already begun, on tiptoe and with a sense of guilt … The night after all those visits, the corridors of the retirement home were bustling with activity. The nurses rushed about on their clicking heels, they hurried in and out of the rooms bearing trays of injections, pills, thermometers … Someone came toward me in his pajamas with one shoulder raised, he removed a thermometer from under his arm, peered at it over the top of his glasses and exclaimed angrily … Next time I’ll give them a piece of my mind! I’ve got ninety-nine-point-five, and you know why? Because my pretty little niece came today to tell me she’d gone into my flower bed and dug up all my best hyacinths and daffodils …