Now she was on the street, steering him arm in arm toward her studio, four blocks away. It was another in a string of bright, hot days. There were moments when the sky was so achingly clear and outlined the rooftops so distinctly that the buildings seemed positively radiant, as if the skyline had been etched with a chisel and thrown into relief by this shimmering blue backdrop. Beneath this sky, the private parks and pocket-size plots burst with flowers that had been gorging themselves on sunshine and heat. Whatever miseries the people on the street nursed in their hearts, they had the consolation of being in a living city, a city that was racing forward. This vitality, which Lilly had so loved, now only reminded her of what she was leaving, and where she was returning to.
Lilly hadn’t walked so close against the body of another, her feet falling into rhythm with his, since her last night in Prague. Her friends had thrown her a bon voyage party, where they had made toasts and said sweet and funny things about her, but really she would have preferred to skip it all and spend the night packing and repacking her suitcases and the large trunk that contained her equipment—everything she would need to create a replica of her home studio. The best part of the night was the walk with Josef, after the last toasts and the kisses and the hugs, each with its wet smell of the damp end-of-February air. They wandered away from the restaurant, tracing a languid path toward Lilly’s flat. Arms linked, her head against his shoulder, they circled Wenceslas Square, passing the café where they had first met, then strolled to the middle of the Charles Bridge, watched over by bronze saints who raised their hands in greeting, or warning. The night was quiet and the lights glittered on the river. Everything around them was so serene that it was easy to believe the city was sleeping, rather than brooding, and that in that dreamy space they could walk unobserved—feet ticking on the cobblestones, the city theirs alone—to a room with an empty closet and trunks labeled for transit lying at the foot of a soft bed. Her train left the next morning. A week later the Wehrmacht would enter Prague unopposed.
A BLOCK FROM Lilly’s studio they passed an empty lot like a missing tooth in a row of dingy tenements. The buildings were bandoliered by fire escapes that sagged into the street, and at the back of the lot, laundry hung in lines above piles of trash. Boys filled the space, yelling and hooting—a baseball game was in its fourth inning and the Giants were staging a rally. Some of the boys were stripped to their undershirts. Others wore knickers and had their sleeves rolled above their elbows. The ground was pounded smooth, and the improvised bases marked a rough-cut diamond: a cigar box for first, a lid from a bakery tin for second, a square of folded and stained canvas at third, and for home plate, a hardback book spread facedown, half its pages torn out and gold letters still visible across its cracked spine.
The pitcher, a gangly kid, went into his windup and fired the ball fast and straight. The batter should have mashed it into the pile of broken furniture and old tires out among the pennants of Tuesday’s wash. But he was late with his swing and he popped the ball foul. It went up and up and drifted like a lost balloon toward the street. Michael and Lilly had paused to watch the game and both followed the lazy arc of the ball against the charred brick and scuffed brownstone. One of the boys darted toward the sidewalk, his hand outstretched, as the others cheered or booed him. Michael had never so much as seen a baseball game before, had never caught a ball like this in his life, but he reached out a hand and waited for it, thinking it would settle inevitably into his palm. The boy’s world in that moment was the ball and only the ball, and as he neared Michael he lunged and grasped the ball in his open hand, crashing into Michael and sending him sprawling into a pile of bricks and broken timbers.
Michael opened his eyes to shattered brick and splintered wood, and that’s when the shock hit him. Déjà vu more intense than any he’d ever felt. Something about these objects, the angle of his view. He saw it all happening again—the bright flash, him reeling, the pieces of what was once a building flying all around him. Was this a memory? A premonition? He tried to hang on to it, to pick it clean of details, but it receded as quickly as it had come. He shook himself and attempted to sit up. The blow had knocked the wind out of him and his arm tingled as though crawling with a thousand ants. He would need to ask Yeats about this. Yeats knew something about visions.
The woman stood over him now, concern written across her face. She shouted and pointed and swatted two of the boys on the head, then pulled them back when they tried to retreat. The boys hauled Michael to his feet and he found that he could stand unaided. He made a show of dusting off his sleeves and adjusting his tie. I’m fine, I’m fine. He straightened his trousers and presented himself for inspection. The woman’s face softened and with her thumb she dabbed at a spot on his cheek. The boys returned to their game. Michael crooked his arm and Lilly slid her hand around his elbow. From across the street, you would have thought they were sweethearts.
Lilly stopped at a four-story building that ran half the length of the block. A spandrel of soot-blackened terra-cotta crowned the entrance: TAPSCOTT NEEDLE CO. The letters were curvaceous, their serifs blooming into leaves and flowering buds. Flanking each side of the name was a bobbin of thread with a single strand that looped through a needle’s eye, the only ornamentation on a building that was otherwise grimy brick and smudged glass. The first three floors were still occupied by the needle trades, though none operated under the Tapscott name. That business had gone bust in 1930. The current tenants made ladies’ undergarments on the first floor, men’s hosiery on the second, and canvas belts and straps on the third.
On the fourth floor was Lilly’s studio, a vast space interrupted only by columns that ran in two rows from one end to the other. The rest was brick walls, wide-planked floors, high ceilings, and a broad bank of windows facing the street. Lilly had done her best to clean the windows with newspaper and white vinegar, but there was so much grit on the outside that she could not scour away. She had planned to use the studio only for her work, but the water closet that she intended for a darkroom included a toilet and a sink large enough to be a tub. She could wash her clothes here, could provide for her hygiene. She had a daybed in the corner farthest from the nighttime lights that bled in from the street and the sun that poured through the windows in the morning. Perhaps it wasn’t a respectable neighborhood, but to Lilly, the studio felt airy and full of possibility.
“HAVE YOU CONSIDERED that she may be a harlot?” Yeats said. He was leaning against one of the columns and polishing an apple on his sleeve.
Michael gaped. “She doesn’t seem the type—does she?”
Yeats reviewed the facts: Michael had been taken by a woman he did not know to a room in a neighborhood that could be charitably described as seedy. No words had been exchanged, but it was likely that the woman sensed from Michael a certain willingness to be led.
“Janey Mack.” Michael’s voice was a hot whisper. “A harlot.”
“I take it this is to be your first experience of sexual congress?” Yeats took a loud, crunching bite of the apple.
Michael gave him a puzzled look. “My—well—wait a minute: Why are you eating?”