The Verdigris Stories

The Undercurrent................................................................ 7

Voyagers..............................................................................23

Verdigris...............................................................................45

Little Flea..............................................................................69

Carol's Mole......................................................................... 93

Tangled Up in Prague................................................... 103

The James Letters........................................................... 125

In Between......................................................................... 147

Inanimate Life................................................................... 157

Valuable Commodity..................................................... 171

The Tabby of Azahar.................................................... 195

The James Letters.

April 25, 2004

James,

You wouldn't believe this place. Imagine floating on a magic carpet-a vestige of the Ottoman Empire-through this honey-hued dream of a city in spring. Or, as I would prefer you would, the two of us in a dreamscape conjured by Chagall's "Over the Town."

The scope of the city is so gulp-taking from every angle that 20-minute walks turn into two hours and then into all-day escapades where you've sliced your way through the city and before you know it, you're one blissed-out flâneur gravitating towards the weeping willows by the water line with their bony fingertips bowing to the water nymphs.

Everywhere you turn there's a bookstore, record store, café-be it decadent, labyrinthine, a cratered hole-in-the wall, or Communist-era cafeteria. Just yesterday I was in one of these cafeterias, waiting out my plate's turn on the conveyor belt to get slopped with potatoes and mystery meat doused with brown sauce. I had no appetite but the hawkish face of the server, all snarls and huffs, filled me with admiration for this refreshing gruffness devoid of all pretense and cloying smiles for tips.

In the afternoon you traipse along serpentine alleys, cross those magnificent bridges-three, no less!- glimpsing the past like a dreamcatcher of history. At some point you crawl into a taverna for some svícková with knedlíky (that's sirloin with cream sauce, whipped cream, and cranberries). Yes, yes, I can hear you sniggering at the mention of sirloin. Fine. I am no longer a vegetarian but really, it's more due to lack of options. You can only stuff yourself with bread, potatoes, rice and cabbage for so long. Oh, the beer. It's a staple, liquid bread, you can't avoid it, there's no use trying (plus it goes with the sirloin). Later in the day, you sneak in a kino playing art-house fare at the last minute, and you don't even care to check the language of the film-be it Swedish, Vietnamese, or Bulgarian-shown with Czech subtitles. (You would love Svetozor with its changing display of avant-garde film posters.) You just sit back and soak in the visuals, shaking off the imposed meaning of words, words, words.

By the time you go home to your apartment with its vaulted ceilings, you feel you are finally living the life! (I have moved from the hostel and am now sharing this flat with two students-one English and the other Spanish.

-Me