Younger left the woman's house with an address in Prague and with Luc clad in a dry and clean, if ancient, brown wool suit of boy's clothing. From the ticket agent, he had a good idea how to get to
Prague. 'You get some sleep in there,' he said to Luc as the latter climbed into the sidecar. 'We have a long road ahead.'
Luc fastened his eyes searchingly on Younger.
'All right, there's no mystery to it,' said Younger. 'Your sister is looking for a man she met during the war. They were supposed to be married. We're following her.'
Luc still looked at Younger.
'No, I don't know what I'm going to do if we find her,' said Younger. 'It's probably pointless anyway. By the time we get to Prague, they're likely to be in a church with the wedding bells already pealing. At which point I'll look pretty foolish.'
The boy tapped Younger's arm. He fished around inside the compartment for something to write on and found some of Oktavian's engraved cards. On the back of one, he wrote a message and handed it to Younger. The card said, 'My sister wants to marry you.'
'That is demonstrably false,' answered Younger, mounting the motorcycle and kick-starting it.
Luc tapped at his sleeve and handed him another card. This one said, 'I don't like my sister.'
'Yes, you do,' said Younger.
It was nine in the morning when, in a light rain, they rattled over the cobblestone streets of Prague's Novй Mesto, or New Town, where 'new' refers to the green days of the mid-fourteenth century. The jumbling of epochs throughout the great city was incongruous. Gothic churches jostled with ornate neoclassical domes; baroque palaces sported box-like towers from the Middle Ages; and the streets were studded with nineteenth-century statues of eighteenth-century generals rearing back on their steeds, swords in hand. In the drizzling rain, all was gray; even the gold spires on the churches and the salmon-pink houses seemed gray.
Younger's eyes were bloodshot. He had driven through the night. Next to him, slumped over in the sidecar, Luc lay sleeping.
On a wide avenue bordering the slow and turbid river Vltava, Younger pulled up outside a cafe showing signs of life. He got out, lit a cigarette, and crossed the avenue to a parapet where he could look out at the water. Downriver, boats passed into tunnel-like vaults below a medieval stone bridge. Yawning, Luc — awakened by the vehicle's halt — joined him. Across the river, the land sloped up to a considerable height, at the summit of which, reflecting the glinting rays of a morning sun, stood the sprawling Prazsky hrad, the castle of Prague.
'It's the largest castle in the world,' Younger said to Luc. 'Before the war, it was home to emperors and kings. It's empty now — being rebuilt, they say. Renovated for government use. Smell that? Something's baking in that cafe. Let's go have a look.'
It took them another hour to find the street that old Frau Gruber in Braunau had written down for Younger. The Czech language was incomprehensible to him; even when he found someone with whom he could get by in German, no one recognized the street name. This may have been because the street was located in the oldest quarter, which was a maze of labyrinthine alleys, or because Younger couldn't make its pronunciation intelligible.
At last they found the little street, near an ancient stone gunpowder tower. From surrounding rooftops, a tribunal of life-size saints, carved from centuries-darkened marble, gazed down on them in postures twisted in either bliss or agony. Two- and three-story houses, hundreds of years old, lined the narrow street, their opposing balconies so close that the occupants might almost have been able to shake hands across them.
Younger knocked at the house posted with the number he was looking for. He wasn't sure what he would do if someone answered, but no one did. He tried the door; it was locked. He also tried questioning passersby, asking for Hans Gruber. They had no idea what he was saying — or if they did, the name meant nothing to them.
'We'll just have to wait,' he said to Luc. A short way down the street, he parked the motorcycle in a space between two old buildings and lit a cigarette.
By early afternoon, Colette still had not appeared. Nor had anyone fitting the description of Hans Gruber. It occurred to Younger that old Frau Gruber might have lied to him about the address. He didn't think so. Another possibility was that she had made a mistake about the address, but if that were true, then Colette would make the same mistake and eventually turn up — assuming she hadn't beaten them there, which Younger considered very unlikely, given the propensity of the Austrian trains to break down and arrive at their destinations up to twenty-four hours late.
At a nearby store, Younger bought a loaf of bread and some thick slices of ham. When he returned with these goods, the boy handed him another message: 'Am I a coward?'
Younger fixed a sandwich for the boy and another for himself. 'I'm going to answer you with a bromide,' said Younger. 'In English, a bromide is a platitude, a commonplace — something everybody knows. Actually, it's also a bromine salt, but never mind that. Being afraid doesn't make you a coward. That's the bromide — but it happens to be true.'
Luc wrote on a new card: 'You're never afraid.'
'Oh, yes I am,' said Younger. 'I'll tell you a secret. Bravery consists of not letting anyone else know how scared you are. Sorry to have to tell you, but by the time they're your age, some boys have already proven they're heroes. You might as well know the truth. I knew a boy once — no older than you — who did about the bravest thing I've ever seen. This boy had been kidnapped. He was tied up. And he still had the presence of mind to point my attention to a test tube of uranium dioxide that happened to be rolling off a table at just that moment. Saved us from being killed by a rather ugly fellow. Actually a very ugly fellow. So ugly he looked better with his hair on fire.'
Night had fallen when Luc woke him up. The street was now full of light and noise from several boisterous taverns. The air was cold. Younger s mouth tasted stale; his whole body was stiff. Luc pointed eagerly: a slim female silhouette in a lightweight coat was approaching the house with determined steps. It was Colette. She knocked on the door. This time someone answered, and she disappeared up a flight of stairs. Younger waited, scanning the windows overhead for signs of life.
He was considering what to do next when Colette reappeared in the doorway and proceeded down the street, passing directly opposite Younger and Luc. A few steps on, she turned and vanished into a stone archway.
They followed, cautiously. The archway led to a surprisingly large, crowded, open-air beer hall in the courtyard of what might have been an abbey centuries before. A small orchestra played merrily. Lanterns hung from branches. Men sang, unpleasantly loud and off-key. Women were plentiful, but none was unaccompanied except Colette. There was dancing on a flagstone dance floor. Colette, it seemed, was looking for Gruber.
Younger was sorely tempted to show himself. But he suspected that if he presented himself straightaway, before she had even met her Heinrich, Colette would be furious and indisposed to listen to him. His interference might even, Younger reflected, make her more stubborn. It seemed better to let Gruber sink his own ship. If Frau Gruber was right, Heinrich would be a cad and a ladies' man — a type that might possibly have fooled Colette when he was sick and wounded, but that would surely repulse her now. And if Colette wasn't repulsed, there would be time for Younger to confront her later and to make a last appeal. In addition to which, Younger had to admit to a certain curiosity; he wanted to see how Colette and Gruber would behave when they saw each other.
So Younger installed himself with Luc in a dark corner of the crowded garden as far as possible from Colette. He pulled the oversized driver's cap low over the boy's head, although in the darkness and crush of bodies, there was little chance of Colette spying them. She seemed preoccupied, in any event, with her own business. Under one of the hanging lamps, conspicuous in her solitude, Colette took a seat on a bench at one end of a long wooden table. Almost ostentatiously, it seemed to Younger, she removed her coat and revealed a dress like none in which he had ever seen her before.