“So this is the life-changing thing? We’ll never look at salt the same way, will we? Is that what you’re saying?”
He nodded. He was having a good time, I could tell. He liked everything about this: the train ride, the potential absurdity of a tourist destination formed inside a salt mine, the inevitable quirkiness of the people who had one day decided that of all things a salt mine might be, it served it best to make it into a national treasure. He bent down and kissed me. He closed me inside his arms.
“People who visit salt mines together are bonded for life. Did you know that?”
“I didn’t know that,” I whispered into his shirt. “Are you certain of that?”
“Salt is the foundation of life. Salt and vodka, of course. If we go in the salt mine together, it is a declaration of eternal devotion.”
“The world isn’t make-believe, Jack. I hope you know that. I hope you remember that it isn’t for me.”
“Who says it isn’t?”
“No one says it. It’s just the way it is.”
“Right now, you’re in my arms in Poland. On the way to a fantastic salt mine experience. If someone had told you that was your future three months ago, you would have thought it was make-believe.”
I nodded. It was true.
We broke apart and paid our entrance fee and went inside.
I realized, quickly, that nothing in the buildup had prepared me for what was inside. Saying salt mines conjured up images of piles of white, snowy mineral compounds, a noble attempt by someone to turn a dead industry into something, anything, that might bring in a visitor’s euro. But what awaited us, what we saw nearly at once, was something entirely different. It was designated a World Heritage Site, for starters, and I saw Jack’s face turn to a slight smirk as it began to dawn on me what we had come to see. The brochure at the admissions desk informed us that salt mining had been going on at the site since the thirteenth century and that it had only closed for good in 2007. Meanwhile, the miners had begun carving four chapels from the rock salt, decorating them with statues of the saints, and boiling down salt to reconstitute it into crystals for the remarkable chandeliers that hung above. It was such an unusual combination of the everyday—what could be more common than salt?—and the sublime that I found myself moved beyond any expectation.
“Oh, Jack,” I whispered. “It’s beautiful.”
“Copernicus and Goethe visited these mines, and Alexander von Humboldt and Chopin—and even Bill Clinton.”
“I had no idea. Constance needs to see this.”
“I wanted to see it with you.”
“How did you know?”
But it didn’t matter how he knew it. On the way down the wooden stairs to the 210-foot level, he told me the story of the Hungarian princess Kinga who came to Kraków and asked the miners to dig down until they hit rock. She had been forced to leave her native land and in her last moment had thrown her engagement ring into a salt mine in Máramaros. When the miners struck stone deep in the Polish earth, they also found salt. They carried a lump of salt to Princess Kinga and cracked it open. They shouted with delight when they found her ring inside the lump of salt, and ever afterward, Princess Kinga was the patron saint of salt miners.
“What?” I laughed when he finished. “That doesn’t make any sense at all.”
“Of course it does.”
“She throws away her ring in Hungary and the miners find it in Poland?”
“You have no romance in your heart, Heather. That’s becoming clear the longer I hang out with you.”
“I need a little more story continuity, Jack.”
He turned around when we reached the bottom of the wooden staircase. Then he reached up and grabbed me by the hips and slowly, slowly lowered me into him. He could hold my entire weight above him as long as he liked. It was erotic and beautiful and quietly lovely all at the same time. His lips waited for mine, and when we kissed we stayed that way for a long time.
What was the use? I gave myself up to him.
I couldn’t resist him. I couldn’t imagine our lips ever coming apart. I felt my body drip into his and his chest and arms, strong and steady and firm, slowly molded me against him, fit me to him as a man might fit a life jacket against his chest. Our kiss went deeper. It went on until I thought that I might pass out in his arms. I felt as if I had entered on a pair of train tracks that traveled into his body and mind and I could not escape, could not veer for an instant, that wherever Jack went so would I.
Gently—and after long minutes—he placed me on the ground. His lips slowly left mine.
“We have a habit of kissing on platforms,” he said. “It’s a good habit.”
“It’s a wonderful habit.”
“Salt mines?”
“Anywhere, Jack.”
He nodded. He kept my hand under his arm as we continued toward the underground lake, which the brochure assured was a marvel not to be missed.
26
Constance climbed on a mechanical bull in Prague, Czech Republic. She was drunk. She was happy. She was in love.
But she shouldn’t have been on a bull, mechanical or otherwise.
“Ride ’em, cowgirl!” Raef shouted.
He was drunk, too.
We were all drunk, and it felt great. We had spent the afternoon in a tiny heuriger—a wine bar with cold cuts and accordion music—drinking the last of the spring vintage. Something about the constant travel, the difficult nights of sleep, had made us all slaphappy. We laughed a lot. We laughed in the way that old friends can laugh, with each of our personalities shining through the haze of alcohol and cheese wheels. We liked the Czech Republic even if none of us could spell Czechoslovakia. We liked the accordion music, too, and we talked a long time about why accordion music was not popular in the States or Australia, despite the fact—according to Raef—that it was the most versatile instrument ever devised by the hand of man. A debate about whether a squeeze-box and an accordion were the same thing occupied at least a pitcher or two of wine, and then we spilled out of the heuriger and poured ourselves into a westernized bar somewhere in the center of Prague near the Pra?sky orloj, or Astronomical Clock, and Constance climbed onto a bull.
“This could be a bad idea,” I said to no one, to everyone. “Or the best idea ever.”
Constance put her hand up above her head, cowgirl-style, and slowly began to spin with the bull undulating between her legs. It was sexual, of course, but beautiful, too, and I loved seeing Constance taking herself out of her usual prudence. She was the least overtly athletic person I had ever known, though she could be nimble and quick when she needed to be. She was always very balanced.
“She’ll be okay,” Jack said.
He had his arm around my waist.
Constance nodded every time she turned to see us. She had a gorgeous, funny expression. The expression said she had it, no problem, crank the bull, which was way more badass than anything Constance had ever done. The bull operator nodded at her, and she nodded back. They had an understanding of some sort.
Then she began to spin faster.