"That's very generous, and I would love to go to Prague—" Prague! Where whole editions of John Ashbery sold out in a single day! Where playwrights led revolutions! Where ideas rose up as if on their own, pure and untainted by market research! Where even popular culture was culture! "Especially now, my God! But don't you think my work is, well, in light of what has happened, almost trivial? Why would anyone in the middle of a real-life democratic revolution want to hear old plagiarized smut and watered-down empiricism?"
Jan wagged his finger at her. "But that's how revolutions are made!" he said. "And that's what real-life revolutions are for!"
Margaret laughed, flattered. "Thank you," she said. "Thank you for thinking of me. Prague! Do you have any idea when? Is there a date yet?"
"It's rather short notice. Impromptu, you might say. This is a revolution, after all! Next month? To return there, after so many years in New York—for me it was a miracle, my dear young lady. A miracle."
Margaret listened to the old man, who now fell into a comfortable monologue, obviously his favorite monologue. Teachers are wonderful, Margaret thought. They take full conversational responsibility. She leaned against the bookcase, half closed her eyes, and basked in someone else's knowledge and confidence in sharing it.
"It is fashionable now to say that truth is just a convention," he said. He took out a cigarette, lit it, and continued, waving his hand as he spoke, leaving a soft, silver trail. "But in Prague, where people have had to live a lie for so long, truth is no convention. It is a moral reality."
Comenius believed in educational reform, he explained, and smoke wafted from his mouth and nostrils. Margaret watched it evaporate, politely nodded her head, and waited in a pleasant state of excited passivity for him to continue. Everyone knew that. Everyone in Czechoslovakia, anyway. He touched her arm every now and then, a gentle emphasis. She smiled and listened and watched as he spoke. But more important, he continued, reaching with both hands for both her arms now, his cigarette dangling from his lips, more important, there was a direct philosophical line from Comenius to Václav Havel, one that bypassed completely the Cartesian thinking that dominated Western thought. As Margaret listened, she thought, Only Eastern Europeans and teenagers can smoke without shame anymore.
"I love to speak," he said, interrupting himself apologetically.
"I love to listen," she said. Then she added, "To you." And his words and pale cigarette smoke surrounded her again: For Descartes, truth and beauty were not a part of objective reality but were subjective, lesser, opposed. But in central Europe, Comenius understood that reality was meaningful in itself, that truth and beauty were intrinsic values, the very structure of reality. For Havel, for Czechoslovakia, truth had a moral urgency; truth had the force of reality.
"But I am so sorry, Miss Nathan," he said suddenly. "I am warm on this subject and really have been lecturing you, shamelessly lecturing you. Let us talk about beer. In Prague, the beer has the force of reality, too, you might say. It is worth the trip, my dear, for the magnificent beer alone."
Margaret moved through the rooms of the shaggy old apartment, looking for Edward. She wanted to tell him that she had been invited to speak in Prague. They could drink beer there, together. They could encounter truth, beauty, and witness a revolution all at the same time. Why, they could go to the Czech Philharmonic after all.
And she imagined walking with Edward through a city she had never seen. Had she even seen a picture of Prague until the newspapers began running photographs of students huddled around candles at the foot of the statue of King Wenceslaus on his horse? She imagined walking beneath King Wenceslaus, gently stepping over flickering tapers and brave students wrapped in knitted scarves.
Next month. That was soon. She would have to start preparing something to say immediately. Next month. Well, if it was next month, she realized, she would have to meet truth and beauty and the transcendent pilsner on her own. For that was the beginning of the new term, and Edward, the Virgil to her wandering Dante (and to everyone else's), would have to stay home and teach, teach other people, teach students. That was a pity. Edward was always good to have around. In case she forgot something. Like her name. Well, she could always make one up. She hadn't traveled alone in years. And after her trips with Edward, orgies of food, sex, and culture, it didn't seem quite possible to travel alone. What would she talk about? And with whom? And Margaret hated to give lectures, suffering from stage fright, losing her place in her notes, forgetting the subject of the talk in mid-sentence. But still—Prague! Kafka's city! Havel's city! And Comenius's city, too, of course.
"Oh, you wrote that book," a young man said to her.
Margaret reddened but stood her ground. She nodded bravely.
"Oh." He smiled and walked away.