ONE
It had been a fickle winter in Prague. Yet another mild spell had been cut
short by a plunge back into snow and ice. When David Umber had agreed to
stand in as a Jolly Brolly tour guide for the following Friday, he had not
reckoned on wind chill of well below zero, slippery pavements and slushfilled gutters. But those were the conditions. And Jolly Brolly never
cancelled.
Umber's exit from the apartment block on Sokolovska that morning was
accordingly far from eager. A lean, melancholy man in his late forties, his
dark hair shot with grey, his eyes downcast, his brow furrowed with
unconsoling thoughts, he turned up the collar of his coat and headed for the
tram stop, glancing along the street to see if he needed to hurry.
He did not. There was no tram in sight, giving him a chance to examine the
letter he had found in his mailbox on the way out. Deducing from the
typeface visible through the envelope-window that it was in fact a bank
statement, he thrust it back into his pocket unopened and pressed on to the
tram stop.
God, it was cold. Not for the first time when such weather prevailed, he
silently asked himself, 'What am I doing here?'
The answer, he knew, was best not dwelt upon. He had stayed on after the
end of his teaching contract last summer because of Milena. But Milena had
gone. And so had the temporary post he had found for the autumn term. He
had a small circle of friends and acquaintances in Prague, happily including
Ivana, Jolly Brolly coordinator and entrepreneuse manquee. But he also had
plenty of evidence to strengthen his sense of drift and purposelessness.
He stood at the stop, shifting from foot to foot in an effort to keep warm, or
at least to avoid getting any colder. The heating in his apartment block was
in dire need of an overhaul. That could in fact be said of pretty much
everything in the block. He had moved there as a stopgap measure when his
much more salubrious and ironically cheaper flat near Grand Priory Square
had vanished under the waters of the Vltava during the cataclysmic flood of
August 2002. He had been in England at the time, but virtually all his
possessions had been in the flat. The flood had claimed those tangible
reminders of his past, leaving a void in his sense of himself that the sixteen
months since had failed to fill.
The red and white nose of a tram appeared through the murk. Those waiting
at the stop shuffled forward, some of them taking last drags on their
cigarettes before flicking the butts into the slush. Umber squinted towards
the tram, struggling to read its route number. It was a 24. Well, that was
something. If it had been an 8, he would have had to stand there for another
bone-chilling few minutes.
The number 24 pulled up and the passengers piled aboard, Umber hopping
onto the second car, where there were more vacant seats. He slumped down
in one and closed his eyes for a restful few moments as the tram started
away. As a result, he did not notice the short, barrel-chested man muffled up
in parka, gloves, scarf and woolly-hat who jumped on just as the doors were
closing. He had no cause to be on his guard, after all. A Prague tram at the
back end of winter was hardly where he would have expected the past to
creep up on him. He was not thinking about any of that.
But then he did not need to. David Umber's past was of an order that did not
allow for genuine forgetting. It was not necessary to apply his mind to it
consciously. It was simply there, always, pulling him back, dragging him
down. It would never leave him. All he could do was refine his tactics of
evasion. And this, he knew but did not care to admit, was why he had stayed
on in Prague. It was a refuge, a hiding-place. It was far from anywhere
tainted by all that he did not wish to recall. But it was not, he was to discover
before the day was out, far enough.
* * *
The tram trundled on through the streets, picking up more passengers than it
shed, so that by the time it reached Wenceslas Square it was crammed.
Umber got off with a mob of others and headed for the Wenceslas
Monument in front of the National Museum. That was the appointed
meeting-place for those hapless tourists who had decided to spend a
thousand koruna on a six-hour walking tour of the city's principal attractions,
with lunch thrown in, in the care of an old Prague hand replete with local
lore. Golly Brolly never knowingly undersold itself.)
About a dozen tourists were waiting by the statue of Bohemia's patron saint.
The cold weather had taken its toll on numbers, for which Umber was
grateful. He would not have to shout to make himself heard by such a small
group. They were the usual mix of ages and nationalities, clutching their
polyglot of guidebooks. Ivana was in the process of unburdening them of
their cash. She acknowledged Umber's arrival with a relieved smile.
'You're late,' she whispered as she handed him his staff of office — a
rainbow-patterned umbrella.
'Je mi lito,' he replied, apologizing being one of the few aspects of Czech he
had mastered. 'I overslept.'
Ivana's smile stiffened only slightly as she set about introducing him to his
charges. A doctor of history, she called him, in order to forestall any
complaints about his clearly not having been born and bred in Prague. It was
not a technically valid description. Umber had never finished his doctorate.
But, in another sense, which afforded him some wry amusement, it was true.
There would be a little doctoring of history before the tour was over. He
could guarantee that.
There was one latecomer who settled up with Ivana after she had said her
preliminary piece. Having failed to register the man's presence on the tram.
Umber naturally made nothing of his last-minute arrival. Ivana wished them
a good day and bustled off to the bank with the takings. She would soon be
back in the warmth and relative comfort of the Jolly Brolly office. A phone
call to Janousek, proprietor of U Modre Merunky, where they were
scheduled to stop for a 'typical delicious Czech lunch', and her duties would
be concluded.
Lucky her, thought Umber, as he took a deep breath of cold Czech air and
launched his commentary with some loosely framed thoughts on the Prague
Spring of 1968 and the Velvet Revolution of 1989. It was a well-worn
theme. He was a historian, after all, albeit not as well qualified as Ivana had
implied. He was on autopilot before they had even reached the Monument to
the Victims of Communism.
* * *
And on autopilot he remained as the tour proceeded. They reached Old
Town Square in good time to see the Astronomical Clock's march-past of
apostles when it struck the hour, crossed Charles Bridge, popped into and
out of the Church of St Nicholas, then took the funicular railway (fare
included in the price) up to Petrin Park. The snow was ankle-deep in the
park, which slowed their progress, those inadequately clad and shod only
now realizing what they had signed up for. Umber had allowed for this,
however. Some deft abridgements during their visits to the Strahov
Monastery and the Loreto had them at U Modre Merunky, halfway back
down the hill to Prague Castle, more or less when Janousek was expecting
them.
The exact nature of the deal between Ivana and this less than glorious
example of Czech innkeeping had never been disclosed to Umber. It was
certainly not predicated on the quality of the food. The roast pork was
gristly, the red cabbage vinegary and the dumplings unyielding. But no-one
complained. Those at Umber's table even praised the food. Perhaps they did
not wish to hurt their host's feelings. Umber could have told them, but did
not, that Janousek did not actually have any feelings on the subject that
could be hurt.
The latecomer to the tour, Umber's fellow-passenger from the number 24
tram, sat at a different table and said little to his companions. Removal of his
woolly-hat revealed a bald head with a dusting of shaven white hair above
his deeply lined brow, piercing blue eyes and hollow cheeks. He was a short,
broad, bony man of sixty or seventy, whom nobody seemed eager to engage
in small talk and who looked as if that suited him fine: he was nobody's fool,
his bearing proclaimed, and nobody's favourite uncle either. His gaze
appeared to be fixed throughout the meal on the back of David Umber's
head. But of that David Umber was unaware.
* * *
Lunch over, but already repeating on some of them, the group slithered
down to the Castle in time for the two o'clock Changing of the Guard. This
was followed by a circuit of St Vitus's Cathedral before they made their way
to the Royal Palace for Umber's account of the famous Defenestration of
1618 that sparked off the Thirty Years War. He was mildly worried at this
stage by the chance that someone might ask him to explain the whys and
wherefores of that long-ago conflict. But the moment passed with
questionless ease. They made a gingerly descent of Old Castle Steps, crossed
back over the river and entered the Jewish Quarter.
Three synagogues and one cemetery later, they returned to Old Town
Square, where the tour ended at the birthplace of Franz Kafka. Umber
cracked his customary joke about hoping nobody had found the day too
much of a trial. There were more smiles than laughs and a few expressions
of thanks, extending in one case to a (very) modest tip. Then the group
dispersed.
* * *
It was late afternoon now and growing colder. Umber hurried round to the
Jolly Brolly nerve centre, two second-floor rooms about halfway between
Old Town Square and the Prague branch of Tesco, where he planned to buy
his dinner.
There was no sign of Ivana in the office. She had left it in the languid care of
Marek, her youthful and, in Umber's view, useless assistant. Marek was
sitting with his feet on the desk, smoking a Camel cigarette and texting a
friend when Umber walked in. Marek nodded a greeting and slid a small,
square manilla envelope across the desk. Umber pocketed the envelope,
returned his umbrella to the stack in the corner and made to leave.
At which point he noticed that morning's edition of Annonce — the
classifieds paper with the most comprehensive accommodation listings in
Prague — lying discarded in the waste bin. He fished it out and glanced
enquiringly at Marek.
'Prosim,' said Marek, with a sarcastic smirk.
Umber exited, checking the contents of the envelope as he descended the
rickety stairs. All the money was there. But all, in this case, was not a lot.
Back on the street, solvent if scarcely flush, Umber decided that Tesco could
wait. Jolly Brolly HQ's proximity to U Zlateho Tygra, the Old Town's most
famous drinking establishment, verged on the unreasonable. At this hour he
could be sure of a seat, which, after foot-slogging round the city all day, he
needed almost as much as a beer.
* * *
U Zlateho Tygra — the Golden Tiger — was its normal soothing, smoky
self. Umber settled himself at the table screened by the pub's trophy cabinet,
next to the window on which the eponymous tiger frolicked in stained-glass
abandon. Half a litre of cellar-cooled Pilsner was swiftly delivered to him
and his tab initiated with a slash of the server's pen. Umber took a deep gulp
of beer, then unfolded Annonce and commenced a less than hopeful search
for attractive and affordable alternatives to his present abode.
But his search never even reached the apartments to rent page. A bulky
figure rounded the trophy cabinet at that moment and assumed a looming
stance above him. Umber looked up and, to his surprise, recognized the
newcomer, or at any rate recognized his outfit of maroon parka and
matching woolly-hat. He was one of the tour party.
'Hello,' said Umber. 'What brings you here?'
'You do.' The man pulled off his hat and unwound his scarf, fixing Umber
with a steely blue gaze.
It might have been the quality of the gaze that clinched it. Or it might have
been the flat, faintly menacing tone of voice. Either way, recognition — true
recognition — dawned now on Umber.
'I don't believe it,' he murmured. Which was true. He did not believe it.
'You'll have to,' the other man said. Which was also true. It was not a matter
of choice. It never had been.
* * *
It had begun at Avebury. But it had not ended there.