STEPPING FROM the subway car, Evelyn let the others overtake her. For a moment she stood there alone on the platform. It belonged to her now, to her route back from the university. It was still unspoiled by worries, untouched by bad memories. And she herself was not the person she knew, but the someone she had always pictured when she thought of the future.
Startled by Adam at the top of the subway stairs, she stopped for a moment. Although she was happy to see him waiting for her.
“Where have you been?” he cried once only a few steps separated them. He looked at his watch and waved Katja and Marek over.
“Am I too late?”
“Actually we were on our way to a pastry shop, so we wouldn’t arrive empty handed.”
“I thought Gabriela and Michaela were going to bake something for us?”
“Who?”
“Our new apartment mates.”
“For the pupil’s first day of school—well, belatedly,” Marek said and handed her a small traditional cardboard cone full of goodies.
“Congratulations,” Katja said and gave her a hug.
“Thanks,” Evelyn said. “But all I have for you is this.” She extracted the half-full mustard jar from her pocket.
“That’s hardly all,” Katja said, holding up her hand with its ruby red ring. “Besides, there’s only one of these!” She snapped the glass with her finger, eliciting a bright, echoless tone.
Evelyn hooked her arm under Adam’s. They crossed the street and walked along beneath the chestnut trees.
“Michaela and Gabriela,” Adam said.
“Nice monikers,” Marek said.
“And from excellent family,” Katja said.
“What do you mean, ‘from excellent family’? What are you talking about?” Adam said.
“But it’s true, you’re now members of a very upscale shared-apartment community. Also known as a SAC.”
“We used to call them a kommunalka.”
“Right!” Marek exclaimed. “The old kommunalka.”
“I’d rather have something of our own, doesn’t have to be so special, but with our own bathroom and toilet, if only because of the baby.”
“In this neighborhood you won’t find anything like that.”
“Or a cellar,” Marek said. “I once lived in a cellar apartment.”
“Would be my choice.”
“But not with a pregnant wife, Adam. You can ask them both to be godparents.”
“And there really is a garden?”
“You look out onto a garden, but it’s only for the people on the ground floor, who also own the place. They’ll definitely have no problem if you want to set the buggy out on the lawn, or let Elfi scramble around a bit.”
“And the security deposit? Can you cover it?” Adam asked. “We’ll spoon-feed you that as quickly as we can—”
“Spoon-feed?” Marek asked and smiled.
“Pay me back bit by bit, in installments. No problem, really it isn’t,” Katja said and thrust her arm under Evelyn’s, so that the four of them now took up the width of the sidewalk.
Evelyn was moving as if in a dream. She heard the voices of the others, but wasn’t about to let anything disrupt this new life of hers. With each step that brought her closer to her own room with its hardwood floors and a ceiling of fine plasterwork and that huge kitchen, the more certain of herself she felt.
“And why is this palace so cheap?” Adam asked.
“Actually not that cheap. We have their parents to thank. They want reliable people living with their daughters,” Katja said.
“And we’re reliable people?”
“Why sure, no drugs, no counterculture, refugees from Communism, studying to better yourselves, hard workers, and good looking to boot—those are the folks that need to be helped. Besides, Evi will be teaching them Russian.”
“You?” Adam stopped in his tracks.
Evelyn shrugged and pulled him along.
“You’re lucky,” Marek said. “You’ve all had great luck, nothing but a clear road ahead.”
“How old are they?”
“Around twenty-two, twenty-three, but still studying. Michaela knows a lot about music and Gabriela all there is to know about politics. Two brains. Gabriela’s already working on her dissertation, something to do with the Near East. She wants to become an ambassador, and I’ll bet anything she makes it. I won my first bet with you, too.” She leaned forward to cast Adam a glance.
“Can you study politics?” Adam asked.
“Sure, you can study anything here,” Marek said. “But they look like they’re barely out of high school. But then I never can tell a woman’s age here.”
They stopped at the pastry shop. The line was out the door.
“You can get your rolls here every morning, or apple strudel with vanilla sauce,” Katja said.
“Fresh manna daily,” Adam said.
“They promised they would bake something,” Evelyn said. She didn’t want to wait in line. She felt sure of herself only when they were walking.
“I haven’t even told you that Frau Angyal called,” Katja said.
“Frau Angyal?” Adam exclaimed. “Where did she get your number?”
“Probably from Michael.”
“Isn’t that grand! Hasn’t he paid his bill yet?”
“She just wanted to know how we are all doing.”
“And what did she have to say?”
“Nothing much—other than that you should get in touch sometime.”
Adam had to make way for two women exiting and carrying a large package of pastries.
“Let’s go, this is going to take forever,” Evelyn said.
“But then we won’t have anything to bring,” Katja said.
“So what? We’ll be punctual at least.” Evelyn tugged Adam on ahead. The other two followed.
“And what if all of a sudden you decide to come back to your villa?” Adam asked and waited until Katja had linked arms with Evelyn again.
“But I won’t want to,” she said and gave Marek a kiss.
“Well then, come on everybody,” Evelyn said.
“Once Adam has really made a start of things,” Katja said, “and once you make a start of things too, you’ll be able to live anywhere, or almost anywhere.”
“What are you talking about? How am I supposed to make a start of things? It works differently here, very differently. Until a few days ago I still thought we had the choice—but that’s over. Don’t you understand?”
“No, why’s that?” Katja asked.
“Adam’s caught on,” Marek said. “He knows it’s all going to be ‘the same old same old’ everywhere—that’s the phrase, isn’t it?”
“Yep, ‘the same old same old,’ ” Adam said.
“It wouldn’t help Adam if he took off to Poland now,” Marek said. “But a bowl of the same old still tastes better here.”
“That’s if there’s something in the bowl,” Adam said.
“Now that’s enough,” Katja said. “Sounds like somebody’s funeral. Do you guys believe in any of it?”
“You mean, does the number thirteen bother us, our new address?” Adam asked.
“No, I mean whether you believe—in God or whatever?”
“Where did that come from?”
“I’m just asking.”
“What about you?”
Katja shook her head. “I’ve been asked a couple of times here if I’m Catholic or Protestant. At least I’ve got me a Catholic now.”
“Oh no, no, I’m not one anymore, please, no way,” Marek said and raised his free arm as if in self-defense.
“Hopefully my Persian won’t ask me,” Adam said.
“Oh, no problem.”
“Evi was baptized, to make her elegant grandma happy. Right?”
“Yes,” Evelyn said, “but that was the end of that.”
“Looks like I need to play catch-up—anyway, they’re gonna hold a mass baptism here shortly,” Adam said.
“Oh, I should never have brought it up.”
“Look at the mess they’ve made for the last two thousand years. And then they get upset over our lunkheads because they believe the means of production should no longer be in private hands—”
“Please don’t,” Katja suddenly said in full earnest. “If there’s something I never want to hear again, then it’s that.”
“But that’s not my point—I can still follow that argument somehow. But I just don’t get this other stuff, how a grown adult can actually believe in eternity, sin, hell, and the whole whoop-de-do.”
“If they drum it into you from early on, you end up believing it.”
“But that’s no excuse,” Marek said.
“Listen to the man. My uncle, my mother’s brother, was in the Party too and believed it all. But after sixty-eight he had had it—after Dubček that was it, for good and all,” Adam said.
Evelyn could see the house by now. There was light in most of the windows, it looked downright festive.
“That’s no comparison,” Katja said. “There’s something religious stuck inside every human being, you can’t make any headway against that.”
“Is what I’m saying wrong? Tell me, is it wrong?”
“Dammit, Adam, don’t get so upset,” Katja said. “What people here believe shouldn’t matter to you. It’s all baloney.”
“Baloney,” Marek repeated. “Baloney!”
“Those two windows on the second floor, those are yours.”
“Are those Christmas decorations?” Adam asked.
“Next week is the first Sunday in Advent. You’ll be having a birthday here soon, are there to be some invitations?”
“If our two angels haven’t tossed me out by then … or if Evi hasn’t.”
“And then we’ll dine on baloney,” Marek said.
“You do it,” Katja said, handing her bundle of keys to Evelyn. “The big jaggedy one.”
What were words, any words, compared with this key? Evelyn thought.
The gate opened with a soft click.