“I ran into him recently. If you can believe it, he told me he made up the whole thing.”
“What whole thing?” Alice said.
“These stories he made me suffer through. He made them all up.”
“How come?” Alice asked.
“Now that’s a story,” Antonín said. “We ran into each other on Charles Square and stood there for about two hours while he explained. I’ve got an address for him somewhere. Anyway, if you can believe it, he was with his wife, the one who so mysteriously disappeared. She lived for years somewhere in Germany, or maybe Austria. Salzburg, I think.”
“Salzburg?” said Alice.
“I think that was it. I’m not positive. Anyway, right after the revolution, Christmas of eighty-nine, she came back to him.”
“Uh-huh,” said Alice, her thoughts now clearly elsewhere.
“Listen, as long as you’re here,” Antonín said, “you think that cousin of yours could translate something into English for me?”
“Sure,” said Alice. “Why not? He doesn’t know his way around here too well, but he likes meeting new people. He’d be glad to get to know you. I’ll set it up, don’t worry. What is it you need?”
“A colleague of mine from London is going to be coming here in about a month. Sort of half private, half for a little conference I’m putting together. Actually, I don’t even know how he found out. We weren’t expecting anyone nonlocal. In return, maybe I could take your cousin somewhere outside of Prague. Like Český Krumlov, say. Give the kid a little look around the country.”
“That’d be great, Uncle, that’d be nice. I’ll let him know,” Alice said.
19. WOLF THEOLOGY
The two men sat in the hotel room. It was raining outside. Jiří busied himself straightening something on the bed, every now and then glancing out the window.
“It’s not going to stop,” he said after a while.
“I guess not,” Antonín said.
“So the theater’s out then.”
“Looks that way.”
“We could go to Mass,” Jiří said, watching as his companion tapped the tip of a ballpoint pen on the nightstand next to the bed.
“I haven’t gone to church in years.”
“How come?” asked Jiří. Without waiting for an answer he added: “Supposedly this church, can’t remember what it’s called, but supposedly it’s originally from the thirteenth century.”
“I don’t believe in God,” Antonín said, “and I couldn’t care less what century the church is from.” There was a moment of silence. Jiří noticed that Antonín had stopped tapping the pen on the nightstand.
“But how come? How come you don’t believe? Does it have anything to do with your being a doctor?”
“No, why would it? Although actually … no. It’s got nothing to do with it.”
“I don’t know if it’s appropriate.” Jiří paused. “Appropriate to ask, I mean.” He turned around on the bed so he could look his companion in the face.
“Well, it’s not a particularly emotional matter for me. And besides, it’s been a long time since I stopped believing. Now I believe that I don’t believe.”
“I don’t mean to pry. I just wondered,” said Jiří.
“So should we go get some food?”
“All right,” said Jiří. “But actually I always thought faith could be a help to doctors.”
“What kind of opening gambit is that?” asked the doctor. “Is that supposed to help get us through the rain?”
“What’s a gambit?”
“Oh, nothing, you chess virgin, you,” Antonín said. He stepped up to the open window and closed it part of the way. He took a bottle of brandy from his briefcase, a glass from out of the case, and gestured to Jiří to help himself. “You’re right, faith does help. Assuming you have it, that is.”
“So does it help you, or has it ever?”
“Yes, of course, certainly. When I had it, it helped. I could really use a smoke.”
“Smoking isn’t allowed in here, but it doesn’t bother me,” said Jiří. “We can leave the window open when we go.”
“I was planning to have one on the way to the theater, and during it too. Since the theater’s outside, I’m sure you can smoke there. I’ve been looking forward to lighting up in the theater all day. I assume the local thespians won’t be too exciting.”
“Mmm,” said Jiří. “You can have a smoke at dinner. I don’t mind.”
“Shall we go then?”
“You know, I’m actually not that hungry yet. But we can go now, if you want to smoke on the way.”
“That’s all right, I can wait. If I can’t practice faith anymore, at least I can practice willpower.” Jiří didn’t respond, staring into the rainy street out the window.
“If you want to light up,” he said, “I can open the window a little more.”
“No, that’s fine,” said Antonín, slipping his pen into his shirt pocket.
“What is it like to lose faith?” asked Jiří. “Does it happen all at once, or is it …”
“A gradual process, is that what you mean?”
“I’m not quite sure how to put it,” said Jiří. “Do you know what I mean?”
“The year before I graduated, I was on an internship in Slovakia and I asked for a placement there. It wasn’t even that hard. Nobody was too eager to go there.”
“What’s a placement?” Jiří asked.
“In the old days, under communism, that was a decision by the authorities about where you would work. I also considered Ostrava, but I liked nature, so instead I went out to the tip of Slovakia. I knew the area a little, so I applied and I was accepted.”
“I guess we’re not going to that church then, are we?” Jiří said.
Antonín shook his head. “I always thought God was slightly benevolent.”
“What do you mean, slightly?”
“You know … our family was Catholic for many generations. And when you’re Catholic that long, you believe the same thing as your parents and grandparents. You believe that God is infinitely merciful, but only slightly benevolent.”
“I thought you said you didn’t believe anymore?”
“Let’s go have dinner,” Antonín said, putting on a cardigan vest.
“So what was it like out there?” asked Jiří.
“I still remember there was a little blackboard next to the gatehouse in front of the hospital entrance. You know, like at school — only it never had anything written on it. One day I asked the gatekeeper why it was there and he said in case of emergency. ‘What kind of emergency?’ I asked. ‘The kind that are unpredictable,’ he said. ‘The ones that no one expects.’ I don’t remember anyone ever writing anything on it. I would always stop when I came to it and light a cigarette, which lasted exactly as long as it took me to make my sleepy walk to the unit every morning.”
“It’s stopped raining. Shall we go?”
“Let’s.”
“So how did you lose your faith?” Jiří asked.
“I’m pretty long-winded, huh?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“It’s all right, I am long-winded … When you believe the way I did and you come from a family where it’s tradition and tradition is something you don’t really talk about, it’s easy to believe in a lukewarm way. At least it was for me. But I think it’s safe to say that it was the same for my parents. My mother was kind of a snob about it, unlike my father. I’d say his faith was more condescending.”
“So what happened?”
“What happened was I fell in love. I fell in love and didn’t even know it.”
“How can you fall in love and not know it?”
“When you start asking questions like that, you’re in serious danger of having the same thing happen to you. I would advise that … never mind, sorry. I would advise and I’m important are both clear signs of poorly managed old age.”