The View from Stalin's Head, page 2
I swallow and search his eyes, afraid he might hit me. “I guess, girls and boys.”
He nods.
“Do you like girls and boys?” I study the checkerboard.
“Only girls,” he says. I should have figured.
When we finish our game, we turn over the board and play backgammon.
Every month I breathe in this pollution is probably costing me a year of my life.
—
THE YELLOW-AND-RED TRAMS thread their way slowly through this city, a slow network of lifelines connecting to subways that shoot like torpedoes under our feet. Early in the morning, men and women in suits and schoolkids with pink backpacks jam into the aisles. Sometimes I look over their shoulders as they memorize the names and dates of Czech kings and Austrian emperors. During the day, pensioners hobble up and down the steep tram steps with canes and shopping carts, unmoved by the drivers’ dirty looks. Late at night, drunk teenagers sit on each other’s laps at the back of the cars.
Because of my irregular hours as a teacher, I have experienced each of these crowds and claim none of them as my own. I show my season pass to the undercover ticket inspectors, and they wave me along. I am rarely in a hurry to get anywhere. My students often come late, and no one else would have checked on me.
The trams give you the feeling of constant movement until you realize you are simply going around in a circle. The moving itself has become stable.
—
JIRKA AND I ride the subway from Haje back to the neighborhood where we live, or rather where I once lived and he still lives.
I close my eyes and press myself against the seat. I want to become invisible.
“Haje is very stupid place for living,” Jirka says. “But I like for drinking. Is no so expensive like the downtown. What are you thinking on?”
He leans over my face as if he is going to kiss me. I want to tell him either kiss me or go to Haje. “One day I buy flat. I want yellow kravat and yellow slip and yellow car.”
“In America, yellow is the color for taxis and not private cars.”
“Really!” His eyes widen. “Is cool color for myself, I think. I like it. When I am graphic designer I will design only yellow things.”
My chest feels tight from trying so hard to breathe in this underground train.
“Why do you work in construction if you want to work in graphic design?”
“Just now I am not work in constructions. I have work as waiter in Planet Hollywood restaurant in town center.”
“Fine. But why don’t you find work in graphic design if that’s your goal?”
He looks up at the ceiling of the train as if to look for the answer there. “Because I have no so much education for graphic design just now. I read all magazines, all books, but just now I think school for graphic design is a little expensive for myself.”
“What is your degree in? I mean, what did you study in school?”
“Electrical technician.” Jirka pulls out a dirty yellow handkerchief and sneezes.
I smile. “That’s a little different from graphic design.”
“Why?” he says angrily and wipes his nose. “When you are fourteen and your father say on you, you must choose career for life, how is possible to know what you like? Just now I know but I am twenty-four years old. I have no more money, no more time to do other things. Why you say you like girls and boys? You like only boys, I think.”
“Because.” I can’t say I’ve been afraid to tell him because he is a man of the country. “I thought I liked girls and boys but now I know I just like boys.”
Jirka makes me get out at Wenceslas Square and look at his favorite boutique, across from DKNY. It’s a holdover from Communist times named Dum Mody, or “House of Style,” with an unattractive display of old-fashioned ladies’ hats in the window.
The lights from a disco on the second floor blink across his rapt face. They’re playing the Macarena. Two teenage girls next to us stare up at the glittering windows and slap their hips in time to the music. Jirka asks me, “Which you like? I think this one is good design. Yeah.” I’m not sure which one he’s referring to. He’s gawking at all of those ugly hats with regret.
—
MY MOTHER WROTE me a letter from home about love in response to my lament that I would be alone forever. “You’ll find real love. Just make sure whoever it is listens to you and respects your opinions.” My mother across the ocean. End of story.
—
“WHY YOU CAME here?” Jirka asks as we stare at the ugly hats.
“I don’t know.”
“Why? You must choose to come here, no? Is no accident.”
“I don’t know.”
My parents asked the same thing when I told them the good news.
“Lots of people go,” I said. “There’s lots of jobs and it’s cheap, you know.”
“No, we don’t know,” my father said. “Are you sure?”
“He says he’s sure,” my mother tried to say. “Maybe he did some research . . .”
“I’m asking him, not you.”
“Oh.” She put her hand over her embarrassed smile.
“Of course I’m sure,” I said.
My mother drove me to the airport, where we shared a sickeningly sweet “Cinnabon” in the O’Hare food court before I left, first for Newark, then Europe. “Have fun. Take care,” she said. As we ate, I wanted to cry and she looked like she did too. We stuffed our mouths with sugar and dough, and I didn’t know who loved the other more or when we’d see each other again.
Now I know: tomorrow.
—
JIRKA LIVES IN a new apartment now, on the top floor of a private house. He shares with a woman who often travels to Denmark on business. The oven is silver and made in France. The furniture is from Ikea and the faucets have gold handles. He turns them all on for me, then shows me to the toilet. For a few seconds, he stands in front of it and strokes his chin as if he’s trying to remember something. Finally he asks, “You need to take a bathroom?”
I’m tired from our beers, the smoke, the smell of oil frying. There are two mattresses next to each other on the floor of his bedroom, one for each of us. The pillow feels cool when I lay my head down.
Once upon a time I imagined I could move somewhere and dissolve like an old newspaper in a stiff rain. But I’m horribly lonely now, not just for love, but for people to tell everything that’s bubbling inside me in full-blown, gorgeously complicated language, with the generosity of a big portion. I’m more than an asexual sidekick or polite, helpful English teacher. If I don’t know yet exactly what I can do or who I am, at least I can settle for eliminating the things I am not.
“Hey,” Jirka whispers from his mattress. I don’t answer, but then I feel a rough pat on my shoulder. “Hey, you want be make sex with me?”
I roll over and open my eyes. “What? Are you serious?”
“What does it mean, serious?”
“Is this a joke? Je to vtip?”
“Neni vtip.” And to prove he isn’t joking, he lifts his down comforter. His “slip” has disappeared. He’s not erect. “I want try it.”
As if I’m a new American breakfast cereal.
I should roll over and close my eyes, but I crawl across the carpet to his mattress anyway. He pulls me into bed with him and undresses me like a doll, peeling off my shirt, then stretching out my boxers.
“Your penis is missing something!” he exclaims.
“It’s because I am Jewish,” I say. He nods as if he’s just remembered. For a second we lie there and inspect each other and I’ve almost forgotten how to have sex, but then I think to kiss his thick neck. His mouth gapes open as if I’m hurting him. He shuts his eyes and shivers as I rub my erection against his (which isn’t as big as you’d expect from a giant). I suck his nipples, pull his hair, blow into his ears.
Then Jirka pushes me over so I’m on my back. He inches his way down to my waist and sucks on my hard-on like a professional, without scraping his teeth. I have to wonder if this is really his first time.
“I’m going to come,” I gasp.
He takes my penis out of his mouth. “What does it mean, come?”
“Never mind. I won’t now.”
Jirka shrugs, then lies back so I can blow him, but I go back to grinding against his prostrate body until I come all over his chest. He pushes me aside and goes to the bathroom to wipe himself off. I wait, wet and naked, wondering if I’ve dreamed this up. When Jirka comes back, he puts on a pair of bikini briefs printed with Hawaiian masks.
“You didn’t have an orgasm,” I say.
“I don’t want.”
His body is warm. I nestle into his stinky armpit, and my skin sticks to his fur on his chest and arm. I know I should go to America and wait tables, but why? Just because it’s my country? Maybe I haven’t tried hard enough to make a life here. I could move in with Jirka, in the apartment with gold faucets. We could pretend to the world that we’re just friends and make love at night with our eyes closed like we’re sleepwalking.
Then Jirka says, “Can you sleep alone, in your bed?”
“Sure.” I crawl across the floor again, skinning my elbows. Jirka falls asleep in seconds, but I’m wide awake. It was stupid of me to think I could have been happy here. In order to be happy you have to find someone to care about and a career and a family, all the stuff to help you steer your life. A dick is not a compass.
—
IN THE MORNING, I say I want to take a bath.
“I think is good idea for you,” he says. What’s that supposed to mean?
I come out of the bathroom, dry and dressed.
“What you think of our sex?” he asks, still wearing the bikini underwear with the Hawaiian masks. “I think is no so good idea.”
I grin as if I agree; it’s easier than trying to explain. I’m ready to go home now.
Jirka puts on a yellow T-shirt and red shorts, slings a camera around his neck, and walks me down the hill to the tram I’ll take to the Ruzyne Airport. He even carries my bag—a real romantic. The tram stop is on a small rise and you can see all the way to the new twenty-four-hour Esso station with an inflated tiger on its roof. They have good ice cream.
“I want take photo,” he says, “of your nose.”
“No. I want to take your photo.” So he submits, standing in the road with his Mona Lisa–constipated half-smile as if he’s the lord of all he surveys.
The tram pulls up. There’s no time left for him to take my picture. I offer him my hand, but he takes me into his arms. “I think we will see each other again,” he whispers.
JERUSALEM
RACHEL GOODSTEIN LEARNED about the Israeli folk-dancing class from an article clipped out of the Cleveland Jewish News. Her mother had scribbled in black marker above the headline: “Worth a try!!!”
At first Rachel called her mother and said she wasn’t going, that she’d moved to Prague for adventures, not boyfriends. But somehow that Thursday evening, she found herself leaning against the empty stage in the ballroom of the Old Jewish Town Hall and muttering to herself, “This is so stupid.” There were plenty of empty chairs but Rachel preferred to stand. “Standing burns more calories than sitting,” her mother always said.
After several outfit changes, Rachel had settled on her reliable black cardigan with the matching knit skirt and a white collared blouse. I look like a librarian at a funeral, she thought. Still, at least she looked professional, a member of something. She certainly looked good enough for the handful of men who ignored her as they milled around the room. Bucktoothed, bald, pimply, and, worst of all, American, they cowered behind pillars and immediately looked away if she happened to catch their eye—as if she were still pathetic enough to hope one of those losers might ask her for a dance!
When Rachel first came to Prague, she’d had trouble fitting into her jeans and breathing at the same time. And then for a variety of reasons, she got smaller. First, she disliked Czech cuisine. Second, she didn’t know where to get pot, which she gave up as well as the snacking it caused her to crave. Third, the ticket machines in the metro intimidated her, so she got into the habit of walking everywhere she could, up and down steps to castles, museums, and opera houses. Finally, her anxiety about sampling non-FDA-approved meat products inspired her to experiment with vegetables.
Tired of waiting for a boy to ask for her name, Rachel had begun studying the refreshments (orange soda and Danish coated in a gluey glaze) when she noticed a man staring at her. He was tall, with puffy cheeks and wavy brown hair dense and tangled like a nest. She quickly pulled out her sweater and stood up straight, but the man looked away. No big loss, she thought, grabbing a couple of Danish—they were small. She didn’t really enjoy dances anyway. They were too completely seventh grade.
Recorded klezmer music blared over the speakers as a man in a gold tie called everyone up onto the stage in English: “Join our circle! You don’t need a partner!”
The tall stranger with puffy cheeks seemed to be ambling in her direction. He hesitated at the refreshment table, tapping the corner twice as if to test its strength, and then sidled up beside her. He’s probably hungry, she thought. You’re in his way.
But then the man stuttered, “I-I-I am Lubos.” He squeezed her hand roughly and affected a slight bow. “Please pardon my boldness. You would like a dance?”
He wore a blue-and-white knit yarmulke and a thin gray sweater powdered with crumbs from the free pastries. His narrow body thickened ever so slightly at the middle.
Rachel, who couldn’t seem to find her voice, had to nod her assent.
“May I inquire personal question?” Lubos asked as he led her by the trembling hand to the circle of dancers onstage. “Are you actually Jewish?”
She cleared her throat. “Of course. Aren’t you?”
“No, no,” he said and almost tripped over the American who took his other hand. “I study in Charles University in”—he paused to place his tongue between his teeth—“theology department, in new specialty of Hebrew Studies. Unfortunately, many students laugh about the impracticality of such a study.”
Rachel shook her hair out of her face. Her roommate Eve claimed she had pretty eyes; to accentuate them, Rachel had begun brushing her bangs into brown wings that constantly fell into her view. “Your English is amazing!” she gushed. Calm down, she told herself. She had a tendency to gush.
“Oh, no, not well. Very few of Jewish books are translated into Czech, in which case I must learn to speak English, or more correctly to read English.”
This struck her as a new idea, that something as natural as being Jewish could be an object of study, even envy.
“And you?” he said. “May I ask what brings you to my homeland?”
“I teach English at a high school, to bored kids who don’t pay attention.”
“How brave you are!”
“Not at all,” said Rachel. “Everything was arranged before I came by one of my professors at NYU. That’s where I got my master’s. All I had to do was show up.”
Not entirely true. She’d also had to endure months of advice from her mother, who reconciled herself to the job by referring to it as a “fellowship.”
“Still,” Lubos said, “you were brave enough that you actually showed up.”
They stopped talking to focus on the man in the gold tie, who was drilling them on a move he called “Mayim mayim v’sason.” (“Remember, these are more than dance steps. These are the dance steps of your forefathers.”)
“Isn’t this fun?” Rachel exclaimed, trying not to make too many mistakes, but Lubos seemed confused enough for both of them. He clapped to his left and not his right. He stepped with the wrong foot or a few seconds too late and then landed on someone else’s foot. “Oh,” he’d say, shaking his head as he tried to correct himself. Rachel managed a fair imitation of proficiency until the last few bars of the song when she collided into Lubos. He fell on one knee.
“Please accept my apology for clumsiness,” he said as he stood up again.
“It’s my fault,” she said sadly. “I’m too heavy to make a sudden move like that.” Her cheeks flaming, Rachel hopped down from the stage and sank into a folding chair.
“No, it is my fault,” he called after her. “I cannot really dance in highly skilled way.” Just then a rail-thin girl came over to Lubos and jabbered in Czech.
“She is tired,” he explained a few minutes later as he sat in a chair next to Rachel’s. “We live in close proximity so I must escort her homeward.”
“Don’t worry about me,” she sang. “I go everywhere alone. I went all the way to Karlstejn Castle and back by myself.” He sounded like one of her students giving a long excuse for not turning in his homework. She wasn’t stupid. She could take a hint.
“Perhaps we meet again. Do you attend regularly Jewish functions?”
“Only if my mom guilt-trips me into it.”
He shook his head. “Guilt-trips? Er, I’m sorry, what it means?”
“My mom gives me guilt until I go,” she said, enunciating slowly.
Lubos blushed. “I am sorry. My English is in very poor fitness tonight. But perhaps your mom would guilt-trip you soon and you would go to some other services. I know interesting old synagogue called Jerusalem which not many tourists visit.”
Unsure of how to reply, Rachel shook his hand. “Well, I enjoyed meeting you.”
He rubbed his forehead. “Er, yes,” he said and then took off, which didn’t surprise her because she was a realist. At least she could take comfort in that.
She was considering the Danish again when suddenly Lubos ran back in and tapped her arm. “You gave me a heart attack!” she said, dropping a paper plate on the floor.
“Lubos is stupid tonight,” he replied. “He forgets to ask for telephone number. And here I will write for you mine. My maminka speaks no English but if she says, ’Neni doma,’ it means I am not home but she will tell me some americanka has called.”
—
ALONE IN HER apartment, Rachel treated herself to a plump little orange she’d managed to score at the fresh market in Hradcanska and had been saving for a special occasion. She let the juice dribble down her chin and fingers so they smelled tropical. Her roommate Eve, recently engaged to a tourist from Hamburg, had disappeared in a whirl of German classes and spontaneous visits to the Fatherland. Rachel’s only other friends in Prague were the two middle-aged women from school who shared her office, which they called a “cabinet.”
