Legends

“There’s something in what you say.”

“I lied to you the last time we spoke. I said if I joined you in Europe there wouldn’t be strings attached. If you let me come, there will be. Strings attached.”

Martin didn’t know what to say. He stifled the uh-huh and let the silence stand.

“You don’t know what to say,” Stella guessed.

“Strings are attached to puppets,” Martin finally said. “It’s not an image of you that I put much store in.”

“The strings wouldn’t be attached to me or you, they’d be attached to my coming over. Remember when we were going into Israel and I told that policeman you were my lover?”

Martin smiled to himself. “And I told him you had a tattoo of a Siberian night moth under your right breast.”

“Got one,” Stella announced.

He didn’t understand. “Got what?”

“Tattoo of a Siberian night moth under my right breast. A Jamaican tattoo artist on Empire Boulevard did it. That’s the string that’s attached when we next meet. I’m going to have to show it to you to prove it’s there, since it’s not your style to take my word for something as important as that. Then we’ll see if one thing leads to another.”

Martin thought of the whore Dante had come across in Beirut. “I heard of a girl who actually had a moth tattooed under her breast. Her name was Djamillah. Did you really get one?”

He could hear the laughter in her voice. “Uh-huh.”

“Stealing my uh-huhs,” Martin said.

“Plan to steal more than that,” she shot back.

He changed the subject. “I was scared today.”

“Of what?”

“Where I’m at I’ve never been to before. That frightens me.”

“Okay, here’s the deal. You better get used to being where you’ve never been to before. I’ll hold your hand. Okay?”

“I suppose so.”

“If this is you enthusiastic, I’d hate to see you reluctant.”

“Fact is, I’m not sure.”

“Ever hear the story of the Russian peasant who was asked if he knew how to play the violin? I’m not sure, he replied. Never tried.” She snickered at her own joke. “You need to try, Martin, to know if you can or you can’t.”

“I can see you’re right. I just don’t feel you’re right.”

She digested that. “Why did you call me?”

“Wanted to hear your voice. Wanted to make sure you’re still you.”

“Well, you’ve heard it and I’ve heard yours. Where does that leave us, Martin?”

“I’m not sure.” They both laughed at the I’m not sure. “I mean, I still have to find the person who went AWOL from his marriage.”

“Let it go. Forget Samat. Come home, Martin.”

“If I let it go, the person who came home wouldn’t be me. Aside from that, lot of questions are out trawling for answers.”

“When the answers are elusive you have to learn to live with the questions.”

“I need to go. Stella?”

“Okay, okay, go. I’ll replay the conversation in my head after you hang up. I’ll sift through it looking for meanings I missed.”

“Don’t worry, be happy.”

“Don’t worry, be happy? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s a song from the top ten in the late eighties. Thought of it today—they were playing it over and over on a jukebox in Paraguay when a guy I know was there.”

“Was the they a girl?”

“A bunch of girls. Prostitutes working a bar who bought lottery tickets from an old Polish gentleman.”

“You depress me, Martin. There’s so much about you I don’t know.”

“I depress me, too. For the same reason.”

The plat du jour at the mom and pop’s turned out to be spicy Yugoslav meatballs served in soup dishes with vegetables that had been overcooked and were difficult to identify. Martin exchanged his meatballs for Radek’s vegetables and helped himself to half the boiled potatoes. The wine was a kissing cousin to Greek ouzo, flavored with anise and easy to drink once the first few mouthfuls numbed your throat. Radek sat across the small table from Martin, mopping up the sauces in his soup dish with pieces of stale bread and washing them down with gulps of wine. “My dream is to go to U.S. the beautiful before Alzheimer’s sets in,” he confided, sucking on a tooth to free the food caught in his gums. “Is it so that they pave the streets with Sony Walkmans when the cobblestones wear out?”

Martin leaned back and treated himself to an after-dinner Beedie. “Where did you pick up that juicy detail?”

“It was written in a university satirical magazine.”

“Don’t believe everything you read in university satirical magazines. Can you ask for the bill.”

Radek studied the bill when it came, then got into an argument with the owner, who wound up crossing out two items and reducing the price of the wine. “I saved you sixty crowns, which is two lousy U.S. dollars,” Radek noted. “That adds up to two hours of my honorarium, Mister. So where to now?”

“A trolley to Svobodova Street.”

“How is it a rich U.S. like you does not hire taxi cabs?”

“I have a theory that you don’t really know a city until you’ve ridden its public transportation.”

Radek rolled his head from side to side in dismay. “Here all the people who take public transportation dream to take private transportation. You want to go to the Vyshrad Station?”