Soaked, we fled the wet forest and found the road. We must have been a pitiable sight, for a farmer’s truck stopped, and the driver indicated with his meaty thumb that we could hitch a ride in the back. Tess shouted “Cheb?” to him through the rain, and when he nodded, we got in and rode atop a mountain of potatoes for a half-hour all the way to the quaint Czech village. I kept my eyes on the receding woods, the winding road, sure that we were being followed.
Like flowers in a spring garden, the houses and stores were painted in pale pastels, the old buildings in white and yellow, taupe and verdigris. While many parts of Cheb seemed ageless, the buildings and landmarks struck no chords in my memory. A black sedan with a red glass siren sat parked at a crazy angle before the town hall. To avoid the police, we walked in the opposite direction, hoping to find someone who could understand our fractured German. We shied away from the pink Hotel Hvezda, spooked by a severe policeman outside who stared at us for a full thirty seconds. Across the square, past the sculpture of the Savage Man, sat a ramshackle hotel near the Oh?e River. I had hoped and expected the landmarks to trigger memories of Gustav Ungerland, but nothing was familiar. My vaulted expectations, conjured along the journey, proved too high a hope. It was as if I had never been there before, or as if childhood in Bohemia had never existed.
Inside a dark and smoky bar, we bribed the manager with American dollars to let us dine on sausages and boiled potatoes, and a dank half-bottle of East German wine. After our meal, we were led up a crooked staircase to a tiny room with no more than a bed and a basin. I locked the door, and Tess and I lay on our backs in our jackets and boots on the threadbare covers, too tense, tired, and excited to move. Darkness slowly stole the light, and the silence was broken only by the sounds of our breathing and wild, racing hearts.
“What are we doing here?” she finally asked.
I sat up and began undressing. In my former life, I could have seen her in the dark as clearly as break of day, but now I relied on imagination. “Isn’t it a kick? This town was once part of Germany, and before that of Bohemia?”
She took off her boots, slipped out of her jacket. I slid under the woolen blankets and coarse sheets as she undressed. Shivering and naked, Tess moved in close, rubbing a cold foot against my leg. “I’m scared. Suppose the secret police come knocking on the door?”
“Don’t worry, baby,” I told her in my best James Bond. “I’ve got a license to kill.” I rolled over on top of her, and we did our best to live for the danger.
Waking late the next morning, we hurried over to the grand old Church of St. Nicholas, arriving late for a Mass in Czech and Latin. Nearest the altar sat a few elderly women, rosaries draped in their folded hands, and sprinkled here and there, small families sat in clumps, dazed and wary as sheep. At the entranceway, two men in dark suits may have been watching us. I tried to sing along with the hymns, but I could only fake the words. While I did not understand the service, its rites and rituals mirrored those long-ago Masses with my mother—icons above candles, rich vestments of the priests and pristine altar boys, the rhythm of standing, kneeling, sitting, a consecration heralded by the bells. Although I knew by then it was just a romantic folly, I could picture my former self done up in Sunday clothes beside her on the pew with my reluctant, sighing father and the twins squirming in their skirts. What struck me most of all was the organ music from the loft above, cascading like a river over rocks.
As the parishioners exited, they stopped to share a few words among themselves and to greet the wizened priest standing in the bright sunshine beyond the door. A blonde girl turned to her nearly identical sister and pointed to us, whispered in his ear, and then they ran hand in hand from the church. Tess and I lingered, taking in the elaborate statues of Mary and St. Nicholas flanking the entrance, and we were the final pair to leave the building. When Tess held out her hand to the priest, she found herself captured in his grasp and drawn closer.
“Thank you for coming,” he said, then turned to me, a strange look in his eyes, as if he knew my history. “And God bless you, my son.”
Tess broke into a beatific grin. “Your English is perfect. How did you know we are Americans?”
He held her hand the whole time. “I was five years in New Orleans at the St. Louis Cathedral back when I was first ordained. Father Karel Hlinka. You’re here for the festival?”
“What festival?” Tess brightened at the prospect.
“Pra?ské Jaro. The Prague Spring International Music Festival.”