THE WALLS OF PRAGUE
Published: thewriteplaceatthewritetime.com
http://www.thewriteplaceatthewritetime.org/images/Summer_2008-Fiction.pdf

Naomi spent most of the day in the Kafka Gallery studying the mournful loneliness of the dark charcoal drawings of tilting buildings. When she went outside into the overcast afternoon, she considered going upstairs to the Café Milena to find an American, someone from Columbus, Ohio or San Antonio, Texas who would ask, “How’re you doing?” in English.

Instead, she began walking across Staromestske Namesti, the huge, open square in Old Town, past the vendors selling stacking dolls, puppets, little crystal animals for the tourists. The square always entertained her with its magical qualities, the enormous church spires, one of them housing a clock that commemorated the hour with a parade of life-size figures circling out in front of it, another that looked like a castle at Disneyland. She caressed puppets and crystal as she passed the vendor stalls and on the far side of the square turned down Parizka Uliza toward the Jewish Quarter.

As she passed a long, parchment-colored apartment building – its pillars carved in the shape of strong, naked men, their heads bent forward to hold the weight of a small balcony on the backs of their necks – she remembered being mesmerized by Hrabel’s baritone voice as he explained every detail of how the building was constructed and what suffering had gone into it.

She leaned her back against the wall, absorbing it for a moment, before moving on to stand across the street from Hotel Rott. It was once the house of an iron worker and the exterior was decorated by the 19 C. painter, Mikulas Ales.

Hrabal had said, “How can artist expect to make living in Prague, when whole city is littered with beauty?”

Hrabel’s gray eyes.

 

She lived in Old Town in a pension that had once been headquarters for KGB interrogation. Her room was in the basement, and the door was thick, solid iron. There wasn’t enough light from the small barred window in the far wall for her to paint and no room to move around at all. So each day after a double latté, she took the tram across the river to Smichov. And to Hrabal. He lived in the same building the Einstein’s had once lived in, and for luck, she always rubbed the head of the Einstein bust on the front wall of the building as she entered.

Today she was alone with a decision.

 

She turned around and went inside the Old New Synagogue. It was just one small room lined all the way around with wooden chairs. Hrabal had brought her to the synagogue and touched her arm as he told her the story of Rabbi Loew and the golem. She touched her arm in the spot where he had put his hand lightly. He knew everything about his beloved Prague, and he was the reason she had come there. The reason she had studied painting there for over a year, learning his language literally and figuratively. He touched her arm there.

An artist in New York introduced her to Hrabal’s artwork, so beautiful it made you cry. As a teacher he was extraordinary. Working with him, her work had improved. Her ability to feel a painting long before she prepared a canvas. Her composition, style, use of color, all were vastly richer. She had confidence and enough work completed to have her own show.

“Just say the word,” Jeremy e-mailed her. Just say the word and she’d have her own show at the Aardvark Gallery in Tribeca.

She sat down on the velvet upholstered seat of one of the chairs in the synagogue, and closing her eyes, ran her right hand over the rough plastered surface of the synagogue wall. Maybe she should go back to New York. She could take Manion Edelstein’s class in sculpting. Voices interrupted her meditation on choices, and she opened her eyes as some Asian tourists entered the building.

She went outside, and when she passed a window in the wall surrounding the cemetery behind the synagogue, she stopped to look through it. This Jewish cemetery troubled her. The tombstones were jammed together so tightly, wedged on top of each other, and no room for walking or placing flowers or burying anyone else. Someone nearby her took a picture through a different window in the wall.

She moved on feeling anxious.

 

Even on Monday afternoon, the city was quiet. There was never much traffic in Prague at any hour, at least not compared with New York. And, with the exception of tourists in certain areas, people were never loud on the street. There was no noise of televisions or radios, no stores blaring out the newest CD. Sometimes it was disturbing, such quiet.

She turned onto Karlov Most, the Charles Bridge, stopping near a beggar with one leg. He was dirty, his gray hair matted, and at his foot there was a small box with a few coins in it. In Czech, he was telling a fable about the castle. She smiled, thinking that tourists probably thought he was crazy and mumbling to himself.

The late afternoon sky was a sulfurous yellow and the river a gloomy gray color. She leaned her chest against the concrete roughness of the bridge, and watched a duck paddling slowly down stream. Looking at the river, she thought of jumping in it. Her desire wasn’t to drown herself, but to float away with the duck, downstream to someplace without decisions.

Down the river on the left was Hradcany, the compound of castles and churches that once housed the Holy Roman Empire. She was with Hrabal there last night in the fog. He held her hand, which surprised her and didn't surprise her. His massive hand held her smaller hand.

When he stopped walking, he said in English, “There is castle legend about beautiful girl name Aneska and Emperor Rudolph. She was daughter of one his finance peoples which was how he discover her. Rudolph is impotent already, so he cannot have her, but he is collector of exotic and bizarre. He has nails from Ark of Covenant, finger bone from Saint Nicholas, and from Emperor Charles he inherit one breast of Mary Magdalene.”

“Stop it,” Naomi said, thinking he was mocking her with a lie.

“No. Is true. Is serious. We have strong religion history in Prague,” he said and continued. “This girl is camerknechte, property of the emperor, so Rudolph own her entirely without asking. And his invitation for her visit him in castle is actually demand. She not like way that he smell and no sits near him. This stimulate him in perverse way and girl knows.”

Naomi took a deep breath of Hrabal’s smell of body odor and turpentine.

“Aneska tell Rudolph that she love, David, goldsmith’s apprentice. This is large mistake. To convince the emperor that David deserve her love, she tell Rudolph that David know alchemy, secret for turning lead into gold. Rudolph has look for this secret, everyone knows, and he insist that Aneska bring David to castle following afternoon, and she does. When David cannot make lead into gold after many tryings, Rudolph order that David be sealed up alive in the castle walls. This is usual punishment for alchemist who fail. Aneska is forced to watch David put into a small alcove that is close up with bricks. The emperor goes to bed, leaves Aneska with her body press against the wall and calling David’s name. She stays by wall without eating and died shortly. Her ghost haunts castle.”

“What did her father do?” Naomi asked him.

“He stop making loans to the Emperor, which I think was seed for expulsion.”

 

He was happy last night. In general, he didn’t make a point of being the tortured artist, he was too gregarious and passionate for that, but his woman of five years had left him a few months ago. Two weeks afterward, she had married his best friend. That source of anger was aroused at any mention or reminder of that pathetic sculptor and his new model.

When Hrabal finished his story, he turned to look at her very directly. She was caught by the expression on his face. She was about to say something when he quickly took her long hair in his fist and tilted her head back. He kissed her neck and then her mouth. If he had let go of her, she would have fallen over. It was quick and unexpected and changed everything between them.

Now she was full of questions. What was she to do? What happens to a woman who becomes the lover of her painting teacher in a foreign country, his country, she wondered. How long did she want to live in Prague? What effect would a love affair have on her artwork? Would he teach more or less? Would she learn more or less?

What is love?

She watched the duck swimming down the river. So far away. So tiny. Yet leaving such a long, gentle wake.

Next to her, the old beggar man bent forward to count his money. He was wearing a pointed woolen cap and someone walked past him and brushed it off his head. Still bent over, the old man turned to watch the offender walk away. It was a sad moment, and she stepped over, took hold of the hat, and offered it to him. He looked at her.

He smiled with yellow teeth and said in Czech, “Thank you”.

They looked at each other for a few seconds. Feeling human together. In those seconds, life was the way it was supposed to be.

“I have many stories,” the old man said to her in Czech.

She nodded.

“But it is better to live a story than to tell one,” he said quietly.

“Yes,” she said.