After the flood, he would wish she’d simply shown him the cut. Maybe she didn’t because she was afraid he would want to protect, or avenge, her. Or she thought showing him the cut meant letting Pavel into the room with them, her leg as clear a warning as a third eye. Maybe she wanted to avoid Pavel and Rockefeller as badly as he did.
He never understood why she didn’t say the one thing that would have made him focus and say, yes, they should leave, of course, his past had to wait.
As he watched her, his breaths matched rhythm with hers, and the rise and fall of her breasts mirrored something within him. Outside, he heard an explosion, but the danger was far off. Even the ghost was gone.
VII
Somehow, somehow, she’d fallen asleep. The flood covered the streets now, rubble washing into Old Town. She sat up and stared across the room at Pavel’s Golem. She’d bought it as a joke and he’d kept it as a good luck charm. She looked for his latest painting, but then her leg throbbed and she remembered where she was. Rain tapped at the window. Tee sprawled across the sheets, snoring lightly, a cute, predictable snore. Her toes were wet. It was the first time in a dozen years that she hadn’t slept beside Pavel. Where had Tee got the Golem?
She stepped slowly toward the bathroom. Out the window, Prague was a layer of water. Inside, the room was as small as her leg. Her calf stung. She wriggled her toes, and she wanted to get rid of the remaining rainwater from the walk over. She felt dirty, a part of the flood. On the couch, Tee’s phone rang. She picked up quickly, not wanting to wake him, and it was his father.
“Are you my son’s girlfriend?” his father said, his tone patronizing. She realized he must think she was a twenty-two-year-old girl. “Put him on.”
“Do you think you have got the right to ask me that?”
“Excuse me? Tee called me earlier.”
“You need to be a better father to him,” she said, and hung up. From the whine in his voice when he said Tee had called him earlier, she knew that his father would not call again. She felt sorry for Tee, but no matter what he said about accepting the past, she wanted him to think about her when he looked at her. America was too much on his mind. Maybe that was what Pavel had meant about Tee holding the door for himself, not even long enough to let himself through. Or maybe it was just about how Tee looked Korean but was American.
She turned the phone to vibrate. Tee had two messages. One was from a woman, Ynez. The other was from Paveclass="underline" You be sorry. In the bathroom, Katka ran the faucet over a facecloth, then wiped down her body. She was naked except for the boots.
The name Ynez was familiar, but she couldn’t think why. She sat on the edge of the tub and pictured a girl in a hotel. She wondered what Pavel had meant by You be sorry—you will be sorry, or you are sorry? It seemed a crucial difference. She eased off the boots, the right first, over her uninjured leg. When her right foot came out dry, her mind emptied of any other question. Not water inside. She didn’t want to see what was there, yet she wanted it away from her. She got the left boot off in the tub and a palmful of blood spilled out. The blood stained the porcelain red. She didn’t want to look, but she wiped the tub clean with the facecloth and rinsed the cloth in the sink. She opened the medicine cabinet. Empty. How young and unprepared Tee was. She wrapped some toilet paper around her calf and slipped the boot back on.
The leather rubbed the wound, and she bit down the pain. She hobbled back to the bedroom. Outside, a family at the end of the street stepped into a plastic raft, father lifting daughter. It was late afternoon now; the sky was already dark. She and Tee had slept through the entire day as the river rose toward them — she should never have fallen asleep. She should have convinced him to leave immediately. They should have gone to a hotel near the Castle, on high ground.
She shook Tee awake. “Potopa,” she said, gathering her clothes. She dressed, not wanting him to see her in only her boots, wanting to get out quickly. She would deal with the cut later. “Potopa.”
“What?” he asked. “Where are you going?” His voice strained.
She slipped her blouse over her head.
“Please,” he said. “Come back to bed.”
“We must leave.” She pointed out the window, at the water instead of the street. The family pushed down into Old Town in their raft. “We cannot get stuck here.”
“You’re panicking,” he said. He got off the bed and picked up her jean skirt. He held it away from her.
Then she realized. “You want to get stuck.”
He tossed the skirt on the bed and put his arms around her. She wanted badly for those arms to make her forget the rest of the city — but she refused to regret that forgetting later. She pushed him away.
“It’s true,” he said, his black eyes shining. “I want to be stuck here.”
She darted forward, twisting her leg. She got hold of the skirt and pulled it on, then rested her hand on her chest, breathing deeply. She brushed off her skin as if a bug had landed on her.
“Would it be so bad?” Tee said, frowning. “Just to stay here with me? Until the flood has passed?”
She turned and walked into the hall. “I am afraid of drowning,” she said, not wanting to fight. He followed.
“There’s no way you’re going to drown. We’re on the second floor.” He grabbed her wrist. “Please.”
“How can you be so sure it will never reach us?”
He leaned in, and kissed her neck, and she tried not to feel angry, like she’d only fallen asleep because of him. She reached for the chicken-pox scars on his chest, but then she dropped her hand to her side.
“The water’s not that high,” he said.
She opened the door, blinking, and stepped down the first few stairs. If it was not that high, they could still walk out. The throbbing was bearable.
“Stop,” he said. Below, the light in the hall reflected back at her.
He stomped down behind her and she imagined the splashes he would kick up as they left. Her eyes adjusted to the dark stairwell. Then she saw what made the reflection. Water. Already up to her knees, at least. Almost to her waist.
No, she thought. She kept descending.
“Whenever my dad left the house,” Tee said, “someone got hurt.”
She lowered her boot into the flood, testing its depth. But after weeks of climbing up to his door, she knew these stairs. His footsteps stopped just behind her. The water rose to her ankle, her shin, a couple centimeters from the lip of her boot, and he coughed behind her until he was choking. Like longing had caught in his throat. Or he had realized at last that they were not safe.
If she wanted out now, he would have to carry her. She knew enough not to let the water in her cut.
“Let’s go up to the roof,” he said. He stepped into the water, barefoot, and put a hand on her shoulder. “The flood will never reach us.”
“You promise,” she said.
“I promise.”
If it was between protection or rescue, she would rather be protected. She was tired of running into danger, climbing up trees with no way down. “Okay,” she said. “The roof.”
He turned and went up. Of course the roof would never flood. She couldn’t let him carry her. She took the steps gingerly. Tee’s black hair dissolved into the stairwell shadows. He was in boxers, as if stepping out to swim. She allowed herself a little hope. He could do that for her. When she was with him, even the history films she liked seemed still undecided.
“Slow down,” she said. Then she thought of something else. “Can we even get up there?”
“I am going slow,” he said.