He opened the door to four grumpy, rain-soaked men, who babbled at him in Czech until he got the message they wanted him to move the hell out of the way. He stepped aside, and the men grunted and heaved a long wooden crate into the middle of the apartment. They shoved a clipboard into Allen’s hands and mimed for him to sign it, which he did right before they left, muttering and frowning.
The wooden crate was nearly seven feet long and came almost up to his belt. He’d been told to wait for some things Dr. Evergreen was having shipped, but Allen had figured it was just miscellaneous luggage and books. An overwhelming curiosity seized him, a strong desire to crowbar the thing open and take a look.
He ran his hands across the rough wood, knocked. Thick planks, something heavy inside. He tried to push the crate off to the side but couldn’t budge it alone. He sat on the crate, let his legs dangle. The rain continued its hypnotic splat against the windows. After signing for Evergreen’s package, Allen was supposed to see to his own accommodations, but he was loath to trek through the downpour.
A whiff of something wet and pungent caught his attention. Allen leaned over, put his nose close to the surface of the crate, and sniffed an earthy smell, like freshly tilled soil, moist and rich.
Allen stretched out on top of the crate, yawned. He was jet-lagged. His eyelids grew heavy, and in seconds he was drawn into deep, dark slumber.
Night had fallen. Allen rose from the crate, the full moon casting a pale blue light through the open balcony door. He shivered, a cold wind flowing around him. He saw his own breath fogging between his lips.
It’s summer. I didn’t pack anything warm. He hugged himself.
A creak of floorboards. Allen jerked his head around, looked at the front door, saw nothing. The room seemed to groan under its own weight, and Allen suddenly felt the immensity of the apartment building, an eerie self-awareness of himself as an insignificant part of a greater whole, sleeping minds in other apartments, people eating, screwing, watching television.
A gust of cold wind on his neck and he turned back to the balcony. Allen gasped at the figure standing there.
Her skin glowed white, the frigid wind lifting the midnight hair off her shoulders, her eyes blazing with cold fire. Cassandra. It was Evergreen’s wife, wearing some shimmering, silky gown, her figure clear beneath the sheer material, soft white breasts threatening to overflow the gown’s plunging V-neck. She stretched her hands out to him, the red of her glossy fingernails like radioactive raspberry fire. The color matched her lips, the contrast of the bright red against her white skin doing strange, animal things to him.
Allen. Her lips didn’t move; the voice echoed in his head.
She drifted closer to him, her feet seeming not to touch the ground, the gown billowing around her. The wind howled now, washing the apartment intensely cold. The drapes flapping violently, bits of paper and debris flying around the room.
Allen was unable to move his body or rip his eyes away from Cassandra’s gaze.
She moved close to him, rested her hands on his thighs. An electric shock went to his groin, his sudden anticipation growing. He trembled as her face inched toward his, felt her breath on his mouth. She sank into him, breasts pushing against his chest.
Allen trembled, his erection straining painfully against his jeans. Her lips pressed frozen against him, a violent mix of cold fire, pain, and ecstasy. He tried to push away, but Cassandra’s tongue pushed its way into his mouth, invading him.
He wrenched himself away and scooted back on the crate. He opened his mouth to scream but couldn’t draw breath. He worked his mouth, tried to get air. Allen. Her voice filled his mind.
Allen’s eyes popped open. He sucked breath and screamed, rolled off the crate, and landed with a thud on the hard wooden floor.
He raised his head slowly, looked around. It was still day. The rain had eased but still fell in a drizzle. He was alone. His fingers went briefly to his lips, the dream images lingering and disturbing. Arousal and dread hung on him in equal portions.
He backed away from the crate, gathering his luggage as he went. He left the apartment, flew down the stairs two at a time, and sprinted from the building, out into the drizzle.
Prague lay before him like a mysterious stranger in an old hat.
An exotic woman waiting for him in poor light.
Like an inviting gypsy with a brand-new iPod.
Anyway, it was Prague.
EIGHT
Allen overpaid a cab driver to take him to Charles University.
The housing administrator spoke good English and sent Allen to a crusty brick building, down a narrow dim hall, to a ten-by-ten-foot room with a barren desk and a set of cold war bunk beds. It resembled a prison cell more than a dorm room, the walls an industrial sort of faded green, the tile floor gray and cold. The view from the window was the brick wall of another building five feet away.
The university had been founded in the 1300s. The dorms didn’t seem much more modern. Naked pipes ran up the walls and across the ceiling. They clanked periodically.
Allen unpacked a length of thin line and stretched it across the room, draped his wet clothes over it. He changed again, this time into khaki shorts, white ankle socks and Sketchers, and a dark green Gothic State T-shirt. He’d been told there were laundry machines in the basement of the dorm. If he kept getting soaked, he would probably have to visit it sooner than planned. He put the rest of his things into the tiny closet.
Jet lag pulled at him, but the haunting nightmare of Evergreen’s wife still fogged his brain. He would not be able to sleep. Not yet. Maybe a jolt of caffeine would help. Allen consulted The Rogue’s Guide for a nearby coffee shop.
• The Globe Café & Bookstore: Convenient to the National Theater and a number of tram and metro stops, the Globe is a favorite of expatriates tired of struggling with their Czech language books. Patrons enjoy a cold pilsner or a strong cup of coffee all while luxuriating in the English language. Tired of chicks rebuffing you in some foreign tongue? Come get shot down in English. It’s all so comfortably familiar. Hey, you might even get lucky with some coed from Long Island, away on her first trip, putting the whole thing on Daddy’s American Express card, and man, there you are buying her all the absinthe she can handle until BAM she wakes up in Wenceslas Park without her panties. What’s really cool is that most of the American chicks won’t know where you’re from, so quick thinking and a passable fake British accent will smooth the way. I mean, what’s with these chicks and British accents? Maybe they like to pretend you’re James Bond. Who knows? What happens in Prague stays in Prague. A selection of English language books and email terminals available.
A chalkboard sign outside the Globe advertised a poetry reading that night, reminding Allen that soon the summer-program fiction and poetry students would descend upon the city. Penny would arrive in a few days, and Allen brightened at the thought. It would be nice to have somebody with whom he could pal around the city. He absentmindedly touched the crucifix under his T-shirt. Somewhere back in America, Penny wore hers. He’d kept his promise; he put the thing on every day when getting dressed. He was even starting to like it.
Inside, Allen purchased a strong cup of black coffee and rented one of the computers for twenty minutes to check email. The first message from Dr. Evergreen reminded Allen (for the fiftieth time) how important it was for him to make sure his crate was delivered safely. Allen replied, assuring the professor all was well.
The next message, from Penny, asked if he’d arrived safely. He wrote back that he had but was exhausted. He sipped the coffee, which burned down his throat like acid. It would either wake him up or kill him.
Another email from Evergreen-a perplexing list of research tasks that seemed to have nothing whatsoever to do with Kafka. Allen put them off for later.
He deleted a dozen spam emails before arriving at the final message:
You don’t know what you’re getting into. Be alert. Be cautious. We shall be in contact soon. Trust no one!
The Three
The email address was
[email protected].
Allen raised an eyebrow, hesitated, then replied,
Who are you and what the hell are you talking about?
Allen glanced over his shoulder. Nobody was taking any particular notice of him. Indeed, the idea that there was anyone within a thousand miles who even knew his name was utterly ridiculous.
Allen finished his coffee, walked out the front door, and ran smack into a priest.
“Allen!” Father Paul greeted him enthusiastically. “Imagine running into you here.”
NINE
Come back inside,” Father Paul insisted. “I’ll buy you a drink.”
Allen checked his wristwatch. “Already?”
“It’s nearly dinnertime,” Father Paul said.
Allen’s body was all screwed up. He couldn’t tell if it was morning or evening. While he was contemplating his jet lag, he found that Father Paul had him by the elbow and was gently guiding him back into the café.
Beyond the computer terminals, the café opened up to tables and a long bar. Artwork of various types hung on the stucco-brick walls, little price tags in the corner of each frame. Father Paul selected a table under a large painting of a block-headed three-breasted woman, the artwork a seeming cross between Picasso and Jack Kirby.
“Those pilsners look good. Hang on.” Father Paul went to the bar and came back with two beers. He set one in front of Allen. “These are brewed in the town of Plzen. Czech brewers have been perfecting their art for centuries, and Czech beer is counted as some of the best in the world.”