ADAM FELT CHILLED. He had already been checked out by the police and been asked to join the singing by a couple of kids who had made themselves at home beside him, one even handed him the guitar.
When they finally left, Adam stood up, a bottle of beer in each hand, intending to fetch a sweater from the car. Then he saw Michael in a car’s headlights, he was carrying a suitcase.
Adam ran toward him. “Well, finally!”
“Where are the other two?” Michael’s voice sounded dry, almost brittle.
“They’re asleep in my car.” Adam opened the second beer and handed it to him. “Was it nasty?”
“They stripped me down to my shorts.”
“The two cuties?”
“They even looked up my ass.”
“That’s standard procedure with traffickers. Prosit!”
“Why didn’t you wait?”
“I thought, better for one of us to get here instead of no one. So prosit again!” They clinked bottles. Adam thrust his chin toward his parking spot farther down the square—“Just a few steps.”
“But we’d agreed that you’d wait.”
“Then the two of them would still be sitting here, thinking you’d had an accident or been arrested because of the gym bag.”
“How’d you manage that?”
Michael set his suitcase down and took a gulp.
“Want me to carry it?” Adam asked.
Simone was scrunched up in the passenger seat. Evelyn had stretched out in the back, a forearm across her eyes, her legs pulled up, the open box with the turtle on her stomach.
Michael rapped on the hood. Simone banged the passenger door against the car beside them as she jumped out. Evelyn tugged her skirt down over her knees, the box with the turtle slid down against the back of the front seat. Michael held his arm out as if Adam was supposed to take his beer, bent his knees a bit, and pressed Simone to him.
“Everything okay?” she asked after a while.
“Everything okay,” Michael said.
Michael didn’t need to bend down to give Evelyn a hug. He gave her a little kiss at the side of her mouth.
“I’m so happy you’re here,” Evelyn said. “And you’re not mad at me?”
“For what?”
“For giving you the bag?”
Michael ran his hand through Evelyn’s hair. “They’d been tipped off, who knows who did it, at least they acted like it,” he said and set his beer on the curb. “They poked a light into the gas tank.”
“Wipe the grin off your face, Adam,” Simone shouted. “It’s revolting!”
“They unscrewed everything that could be unscrewed. A newspaper, an ancient newspaper from a couple of years ago, that was stuck in the spare tire—that’s all they took. And you guys?”
“Nothing but a lot of stupid questions,” Evelyn said.
“But they collared a family in the next compartment. They had to unpack everything, and I mean every stitch.”
“Somebody know a hotel around here?”
“Well then let’s go,” Michael said, picking up Evelyn’s suitcase. “Andiamo!”
Evelyn shook out the sweater she’d been using as a pillow, threw it over her shoulders, and knotted the sleeves at her neck.
“Elfriede’s out of water,” she said, tucking the tent under her arm and picking up the gym bag, which she now held up briefly. “Thanks for this,” she said, without looking at Adam.
“Glad to be of service, good night,” he replied, and gestured as if he wanted her to go first.
“Good night,” she said, “and have a safe trip home.”
Simone had been waiting with her rucksack on her back, and now grabbed one strap of the gym bag. They walked quickly to keep from falling too far behind Michael. The bag fishtailed and sashayed up and down between them.
Adam stowed the turtle back in its box and then began to slink along behind them.
The three of them suddenly disappeared into the entrance of the Jalta Hotel on Wenceslas Square. Adam hung around outside for a while. When he entered the lobby it was almost empty and still pleasantly warm. Several keys were hung behind the man at the reception desk, there were passports in a few cubbyholes.
“Dobrý večer,” Adam said. “How much for a single room?”
The man smiled. “Eight hundred koruny, sir.”
“For one night?”
The man nodded.
“Děkuji, thanks,” Adam said and left.
He walked to the top of Wenceslas Square and then turned left toward the train station. In the men’s restroom a stocky man was shaving at the washbasin and humming loudly; his black chest hair spilled out over his undershirt, his belt buckle was undone. Adam squatted on the toilet. He listened to catch the melody and then to the other sounds the man emitted as he washed his face. The faucet was turned off. The man called out something, repeated it as if waiting for an answer; then suddenly he began to sing—and left the restroom singing.
When Adam stepped up to the washbasin he found a little bar of soap lying on the rim, still in its wrapper, just for him.
Michael’s bottle of beer was still standing in front of the Wartburg. Adam held it up to check if it was empty, and poured what was left in the gutter.
Pulling his legs up, he lay down on the backseat and stared directly down at Evelyn’s straw hat, which lay on the floor behind the driver’s seat. Although he was tired, he couldn’t fall asleep. He was amazed at how loud it was. Faces were constantly appearing at the windows, peering inside, “curious about an old-timer,” as one of them said. And every time they jumped back, startled to see him in there.
The next morning he was awakened by a loud bang. He sat up. A street sweeper was making its way along, morning traffic was already picking up.
The hotel door was wide open. But instead of the man from last night, a young woman with wispy pale blond hair was at the reception desk. She glanced up briefly and did not return his greeting.
He sat down in one of the clunky chairs in the lobby. When the blond woman barked at him in Czech, he said, “I’m waiting for someone,” and crossed his legs. He raised his head only when the elevator doors opened or people came out of the breakfast room. There was the aroma of coffee. He watched the woman water the plants in the tubs next to the reception desk and snip off dead leaves with her long white fingernails.
Adam was awakened by a bony hand on his shoulder. “I’m waiting for my wife, Evelyn Schumann,” he said.
He heard the waiter pass on Evelyn’s name, but the pale blond behind the counter shook her head. Adam walked over to her and asked about Michael. “Michael, Michael,” he repeated. Finally the blond turned the big book on the counter around toward him and pointed to an entry where “1 + 2” had been crossed out with red diagonal lines.
“They’ve left,” the waiter said. “You’ll have to look elsewhere.”
Adam stared at him. The waiter said nothing and finally shrugged.
“Hm, yes, I guess I’ll have to look elsewhere then,” Adam said and took his departure with a firm handshake.