Paul paddling a canoe through the submerged streets of Malá Strana, maneuvering onto the Äertovka canal. Breaking the third-story window of the building housing the gallery, hoisting himself inside. Finding the Rudolf Complication right where Vera said it would be. Slipping it inside a plastic bag, lowering himself out the window, back into his canoe.
And then, just as his feet hit the canoe, the boat moving beneath him, shifting and rocking unbalanced upon the water. Paul widening his stance to stop the boat swaying, his hands shooting out to restore his equilibrium. Paul losing his concentration, loosening his grip for just a split second. The bag sailing from his hand. The Rudolf Complication hitting the water and sinking almost without a sound, gone before he even realizes he's no longer holding it. Maybe he even flashes back to that fish he'd dropped on our trip to Wisconsin all those years ago, the summer mom left.
An instant later, boat no longer in danger of toppling, he realizes what has happened. He doesn't need to think about the implications. Maybe he dives after it, groping through the inky blackness just as I'd done while trying to find the curator. Just as I still did in my dreams. Or maybe he just slumps down and sits in the canoe and as it undulates upon the water. He tries to keep the panic at bay. He chews his fist and wonders what to do next.
And instead of deciding to hide out, or trying to flee the city, alone or with Vera, he decides he's just going to have to meet up
with Martinko KlingÃ¡Ä that night as planned. Rendezvous somewhere on the riverbank. He decides there is nothing to do but man up, face the music. But of course KlingÃ¡Ä doesn't believe his storyâwho would? Maybe KlingÃ¡Ä had planned to kill him all along once he delivered the piece. This just makes it easier.
Except now KlingÃ¡Ä can't kill him straightaway. Not until he finds out who helped Paul steal the piece, fed him information about the gallery, worked the supposed double-cross. But Paul isn't talking. Maybe KlingÃ¡Ä has accomplices, goons who tie Paul up, toss him in the trunk of a car, are forced by all the washed-out roads to take a winding route to a safe house in KarlÃn. Once there, in an otherwise evacuated house on KÅižÃkova, still tied up, Paul is beaten. He is tortured. But still he won't talk except to repeat that he screwed up, that he accidentally dropped the watch in the canal, that it was a mishap no amount of violence would undo. He sticks to his story even as KlingÃ¡Ä breaks Paul's ribs and breaks his nose and threatens to cut off his right hand. And when KlingÃ¡Ä starts to make good on this threat in a scene my imagination shirks from detailing, KlingÃ¡Ä knows it's a lost cause. He leaves the hand intact. Paul is dragged onto the balcony overlooking a courtyard. Floodwaters have turned it into a wide pool some four to six feet deep.
Paul is barely conscious as they heave him over the edge. He splashes down into the water below, the sensation bringing him part way to his senses. For awhile he struggles to stay afloat, thinking there must still be a way out. But his ribs are broken, blood is pulsing out his mouth and the large gash in his wrist. His eyes are swollen shut, his nose broken. He can barely breathe. There is no way out. Paul understands this, accepts it. They didn't get Vera's name. They didn't get anything. Vera is smart, and if she is careful, she'll be safe. He stops struggling and takes one last breath and then slowly expels the air from his lungs, his body
stretching limp across the water. Paul washes out of the courtyard, joining the swelling river, and then all that's left is the wavering reflection of the moon.
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G
rimley & Dunballer Recovery Solutions had no choice but to let me go. First a week, then ten days, then two weeks passed without me bothering to respond to the increasingly concerned messages they'd left on my voicemail. It was inconsiderate, even cowardly of me not to let them know what was going on, but my reason for leaving wasn't something I could easily explain, nothing that would have its own little checkbox on an exit interview form. My dad had left me a little money, enough to live on for a couple years if I was careful. I moved into his house with the idea of staying there until I knew what to do next with my life. It was like graduating college, minus any sense of ambition or optimism.
I spent lots of time looking through that box of old photos I'd found, all the ones my father had kept of him and Paul. And after awhile I started wearing the Tag Heuer watch my dad had left behind, the same kind Steve McQueen used to wear. At night when I couldn't sleep, I sometimes found myself searching Czech news sites. I discovered a short article written in Czech about the Galleria Äertovka that I cut-and-pasted into an online translator to render into English. The resulting text was choppy, but the gist was there had been an assault at an art gallery in Malá Strana in which the gallery owner had been pushed out a third-story window. He'd managed to “shun his attacker” by hiding himself under a wheelbarrow propped at the back of the house. Meaning he'd been cowering unseen just a few feet away while I threw myself into the canal. He'd broken his arm and had received numerous stitches in his head, but had otherwise suffered only a
concussion and was discharged from the hospital after one day's observation. “The police have suspected this is not the time,” concluded the article, which after much puzzling I took to mean the police had no suspects at present. Detective Soros had either been lying about Gustav being in coma in order to scare me into talking, or it was a simple misinterpretation of the word “concussion.” I chose to believe the latter.
There were a fair number of posts related to the detective, though it took lots of clicking through “see related” links to piece it all together. First a decapitated body found in an apartment near Charles Square. Then the body identified as former homicide detective Zdenek Soros, who'd retired from the department in 2002 after suffering a debilitating leg wound in the line of duty. Nothing about him being former StB, nothing about him being a hired thug for some shadowy Eastern European gangster. But then, I reminded myself, all the scary bad stuff I'd heard about Soros had come from a single sourceâBob Hannah, the man who killed him. From all other accounts, Zdenek Soros appeared to be exactly who he'd said he was. One story quoted his estranged wife, a woman named Dominika, who said he had battled alcoholism since leaving the police. She begged anyone with information about his murder to come forward. The story ended, as all stories related to Soros did, with a reassurance that police were investigating all possible leads. I didn't need a computerized translator to know that the statement meant they didn't have any.
It was about three months after returning to Chicago that I tried calling Vera on the phone. It must've been her mom who answered, and she sputtered something in Czech before turning over the phone to Vera's father. He was the one who told me Vera had died. It had happened only the week before. I apologized and tried to convey my condolences, but the language barrier made it
difficult, and I sensed that Mr. Svoboda didn't particularly want to speak with me. I thought I detected an edge of hostility in his voice, but the man was clearly still in mourning and probably didn't much feel like talking on the phone.
The news hit me harder than I'd imagined it would. I suddenly wanted to get out of the house, just hop in the car and drive. So that's what I did. Just got in my Dad's old car and drove around thinking about Vera. About Paul. Little Tomáš. I'd been meandering aimlessly around the city for about two hours when it started raining, light at first, then heavier. Sometime around midnight I saw the flashing red and blue lights in my rearview mirror and pulled over.
The policeman told me I'd been driving a little erratically but that's not why he stopped me. Apparently one of the brake lights on my dad's car was out. I'd forgotten, I explained, and had been meaning to get it fixed, both of which were true. The cop asked for my license and registration, and as I reached over to pop open the glove box, I noticed a bunch of envelopes that must have fallen from the passenger seat and onto the floor. Stuff my dad had meant to mail and never got around to before the heart attack.
While the policeman did his thing back in the squad car, I sorted through the letters. Bill payments mostly, stuff I'm sure the executor had already taken care of by now, along with a Netflix movie to return and a mail-in rebate form for a drill he'd recently bought. What caught my eye, though, was an envelope addressed to Vera, care of the Black Rabbit Tavern.
When the policeman knocked on my window I nearly jumped.
“You're good to go,” he said as I rolled down the window. “Just make sure to get that brake light checked out, you wascally wabbit.”
“Huh?”
The policeman smiled and pointed at my forearm. “Your tattoo. Elmer Fudd, right?”
I rolled up the window and drove away. I didn't get far though. I was too curious about the letter. After a couple turns to make sure the policeman was no longer following me, I pulled over and ripped open the envelope, rain pelting the windows and throwing watery shadows over the pages as I read.
Dear Vera,
Thank you for your letter. I regret that I won't be able to take you up on your offer to come to Prague to meet you. It's an offer I've weighed seriously, even going so far as to book a flight there, but after a great deal of deliberation, I just don't think it's a good idea. At least not until I know moreâand, more importantly, until you know more. With no address to go on, I'm not sure this letter will even reach you, but if you go to the Black Rabbit every day as you indicated, I figure sending it there is my best shot.
I'm not sure how to go about telling you this, so I will just put it bluntly. The person who made himself known to you as “Paul” is really my son, Lee. He's a good man but he's had some difficulties in his life and has waged a long battle against some pretty severe mental health challenges. The problems started after his mother diedâan event he has to this day refused to acknowledge or confront. He stopped taking his meds. Soon thereafter came his first major psychotic break. This happened roughly six years ago.
It was around then that he assumed the identity of Paul. Experts tell me this imaginary brother of his had likely been kicking around his head for some time, but Lee had never actually “become” Paul prior to this occasion. As Paul, his behavior
became increasingly erratic, threatening, and sometimes violent. I told him if he continued refusing his meds then I would have no choice but to see that he entered a full-time care facility.
This, I now know, was a mistake. After I issued this ultimatum, Lee disappeared. For over a year, I had no contact with him. I knew that he'd flown to the Czech Republic because he'd stolen my credit card to pay for the flight. Occasionally he would send postcards as Paul addressed to his brother, Lee. I have no idea what led him to choose your country.
Shortly after the flood, I received a call from the American consulate. Lee had been found just outside the city on the banks of the river. He had been discovered shirtless, his body covered in bruises, his ribs and nose broken, his right arm nearly severed at the wrist. The consulate told me he'd identified himself as Lee Holloway but had no memory of what had happened. He had no memory of the flood. He had no memory of how he got to the Czech Republic or what he had been doing there for the last year.
Since coming home, Paul has spent a number of years receiving full-time care at Grimley & Dunballer Recovery Solutions, one of the Midwest's best mental health facilities. Recent budget cuts have restricted the number of patients they can house and so he's been living on his own under the supervision of a health care worker who checks on him a twice a week. They assure me that he's made a lot of progress and thatâbarring some unforeseen traumaâas long as he keeps taking his meds he's on the path to a healthy and productive life.
I'm sure this news is all quite shocking. And I'm sorry my son Lee deceived you, though surely you are not alone. He has always been clever and resourceful, and it wouldn't surprise me if he was able to procure the kinds of documents needed to give this “Paul” some sort of official, bureaucratic existence. Lee can't really take
responsibility for his actions, but as my own failures contributed to bringing this Paul person into your life, I can only offer my heartfelt apologies.
Part of me yearns to know what happened to my son over there during his “lost” year, but please also understand that this was a very dark, very painful period of my life as a father, and not one I think it would be healthy to revisit. You wrote that I'd be interested in knowing “an important part of Paul's life” unknown to me, but I'm afraid all of Paul's “âlife” is unknown to me. Paul is a stranger to me, and I'd like it to remain that way. Maybe that's selfish, but we all have to adapt our own strategies for getting on with life. We're none of us really ever out of the woods.
But I hope this letter is in some capacity helpful. Maybe it will bring you a measure of solace to learn the person you were close to didn't drown in the flood five years ago. That he survived, that he's alive and getting a little better every day. I hope the passage of time will bestow these same gifts upon you.
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Wishing you all the best,
Lee Holloway, Sr.
B
ack at home I sat down at my father's desk, rereading the letter from beginning to end, from end to beginning. My father had never been a communicative man, especially when it came to difficult emotional territory, and I knew it must have been a struggle for him to produce a letter like this. I tried to imagine what he could have been thinking while he wrote it, but I was never good at deciphering other people's thought processes. I was never, as my dad had been, what you would call a people person. Vera, Paul, my fatherâthey were all at their core unfathomable, as maybe we all
are. Inside of us so often lies a hidden mechanism running counter to the face we show the world. My father was no exception. Five years after being floored by the disappearance of his favored son, the memory was still so painful that he'd chosen to concoct some outlandish scenario involving split personalities rather than face the fact that Paul was gone. I didn't mind that he'd lied about me, devised for me some vague, almost laughable history of mental illness. I understood and forgave him. Like he said, we all have to adapt our own strategies for getting on with life.