In short, I was summoned to Prague.
And with Dr. Jiri Krupka-Weisz’s unwritten recommendation in all caps fluttering like a banner in my mind, I’m looking forward to meeting a man named — oh my God, what’s his name? I know Jiri told me. Of course he told me, and now I’ve forgotten it. I should have written it down. I think and strain but a bag of sand stands guard and blocks the rectangle in my mind’s eye where the man’s name is supposed to be.
I know he’s tall; I know he stands in back of the Altneushul near the far corner. I know weekday services begin at 7 a.m. He’s the key, Jiri said. I’ll recognize him even though I’ve never seen him. He has a big face, I remember. Also that he’s a family friend. I remember all that completely without having written it down. But his name, for the life of me, I have no clue to his name. It slipped away from me. In vain I go through all the letters of the alphabet. If only Jiri had given me his full name, first and last, I would have more readily remembered it. (Or maybe forgotten both, snickers a demon within me.)
But there is a way out. When I find him and introduce myself, in the European fashion he’ll obviously state his name, surely with a slight bow or inclined nod of his head, last name first, first name last, again in the central European manner, and that’s how I’ll get to recall the name of the man whose name I forgot.
Then I know what will happen next. The tall man with the big face, narrowing one eye suspiciously, will ask me a question. Maybe to test me. Test my authenticity. To see if I’m the man I claim to be. Now that I think of it, maybe it is better that I forgot his name, because if I went up to him and said, Hi, are you (for instance) Ricardo? anyone could easily say, Yes, I am, on the chance that I had something of value to give him. But this way, once he tells me his name, I’ll recall it, and I can be sure that he’s Jiri’s friend. Or maybe I should even quote “nepa tara glos” at him, to show him I’m a bona fide member of the club. And if he asks me about Jiri, what am I going to say? That I know little about him? In fact, next to nothing? That he showed me K’s first book, Meditation, with K’s signature in it? And if he asks me, What about a letter? Do you have a letter from Jiri? I’ll mumble, What? to stall for time. And he’ll repeat slowly, as if speaking to a golem: A letter. Then with exaggerated clarity he’ll enunciate, “Do…you…have…a… letter?”
Indeed, that’s what I should have gotten from Jiri. Plus that promised list of names and addresses. But he left us — and Betty, friend, wife, ad hoc housekeeper, keeper of secrets, whatever, vanished. Maybe still hidden on the plane; maybe somewhere in Prague. At least I’ll bring the man with the big face regards from Jiri. That’s all I can bring is regards. And if he asks a third time, “Do you have a letter?” I’ll point to the aleph on my forehead.
As I checked into the apartment hotel at 11:15 that pleasant, starfilled end of October night, I knew I wouldn’t be at the Altneushul the next morning at 7, even if it was only a short walk. At the same time, I wanted to be there. But my knowing was more powerful than my will. Even though on the plane, thinking of Jiri and his old friend, I had decided — never mind jet lag, which I don’t recognize, for I consider it a matter of willpower — to get up early and meet his friend at the Altneu.
The girl at the front desk, thin, slight, and with swarthy skin, perhaps part gypsy from Slovakia, mistaking me for a businessman, asked if I wished to be awakened at a certain hour.
“No, thanks,” I said. “I’ll get up on my own.”
As soon as my head sank into the soft pillow — so good to rest, that warm featherbed over me — I fell into a deep, anesthesized sleep. The last thought that flitted through me was, I know I won’t get up at six thirty. Not only wouldn’t I be able to, I had no desire to.
I woke late. I knew it was late but didn’t realize how late it was until I look at my little portable square clock, which I turned several ways to make sure I was reading the numbers correctly. It was eleven; I had even missed the buffet breakfast. I was so drugged with sleep and exhaustion, a potent chemical mix, that at first I didn’t know where I was and why I was wherever I was. Then, slowly, like mixed letters of words reassembling, ym eadh yslowl cleared. 11:05 a.m. I still couldn’t believe it. I usually get up at 6:30 every day. Well, I guess it wasn’t in the script that I be in the synagogue at seven my first morning in Prague.
A quick, cool shower woke me. I’ll go to the Altneushul tomorrow. First, a walk to the huge Old Town Square — the essence of Prague, like the Eiffel Tower to Paris or Piazza San Marco to Venice — which was just a few minutes away from the quiet, cobble-stoned street my hotel was on.
I took a deep breath, breathing in light and air. Finally, in Prague. The spacious square opened before me like a flower. At one side was the famous clock tower, and nearby — according to my map — in the same building where the K family had once lived at the end of the nineteenth century, the K Museum.
I looked around, at the throngs of people, at the buildings. Prague had its arms outspread. The communists gone. The city, one of the most beautiful — if not the most beautiful — in Europe was magically back to its former glory. Under the communists, as I told Jiri in New York, greyness covered the city like a mold. But now sunshine was everywhere. Lambent in the darkest corners. At night; in shadows; inside houses; within clouds. On people’s faces. Light.
Books always had Prague as a center of intrigue, filled with double and triple agents who had so many presumed loyalties that when they woke in the morning they didn’t know whose side they were on. I had my own intrigue. I was supposed to meet a man whose name I forgot, who would recommend me to other people whose names I didn’t know. All of a sudden, perhaps because of my febrile imagination and the sense of the fantastic inspired by the great writer of Prague, perhaps because of the pen that spoke in guillotined words, I thought of myself as an agent bringing secret messages, phrases in a language I didn’t know, an innocent pawn in a three-dimensional chessboard bringing word to the king in his castle.
I saw conspiracies, hidden messages, everywhere, as if all of Prague was a CIA outpost or a set for a spy movie, which was strange, for I didn’t watch spy movies. Jiri and Betty were part of this too, and the secret message I had intercepted was “nepa tara glos”—not too old. Intercepted, yes. Even deciphered. But to whom do I bring my prize? And what if “nepa tara glos” were not the secret password, but “nepa tara pilus”? For I remember Betty in the hospital room throwing me a significant glance when she said either “nepa tara glos” or “nepa tara pilus.” But which was the right phrase? Maybe both together were the magic combination.
On the square, I saw at least a score of college-age youngsters and a few older people walking around carrying placards on their chests and backs advertising the many concerts offered daily in Prague. They reminded me of the men who hang around New York’s Eighth Avenue and Fifth Avenue touting bargain leather jackets or bargain diamond rings.
One girl in particular attracted my attention. As I told Betty, I’m not looking, but I do keep my eyes open. When I saw that girl’s face my eyes were open. She had a classically oval face, dark eyes, impeccable skin, and black hair covered by a navy-blue beret worn at a fetching angle. I imagined her at the mirror, tilting the beret this way — no, that way — until she had the proper slant. That lovely blue beret, the crowning touch, set her apart, made her look like a cover girl. Does the hat make the face, or does the face add allure to the hat?