C14 Prague?

Yeo was in the town car stalled in Manhattan traffic on his way to the TransGlobal building when his cell phone rang. It was Ilna.

“Do you remember Prague?” she said.

That was all she said when he answered the phone.

He sat there in silence.

He could hear her breathing.

She was upset.

He was stunned.

“Prague?” he said.

She said nothing.

There was no need for her to say anything.

She understood the resonance of the question she posed.

Ostensibly, they had gone to Prague for work and adventure.

The Russians had left the Czech Republic. The business was open to the West.

Yeo saw the opportunities.

He swept up large operations for pennies.

The West had every intention of co-opting the Russians and folding Eastern Europe into the NATO fold.

More money meant more incentives.

More incentives meant more consumers.

More consumers meant more profits.

The Czechs were known for their strong backs.

They were the manufacturing center for the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

They worked the mines and farmed the land to feed the Germans and Russians and keep them warm.

And they made the best beer in the world.

“I’ve never forgotten Prague,” he said in the softest voice he could manage, without revealing the croak in his throat.

“We were happiest there,” she said.

She was twenty-four. He was thirty-four.

They stayed in a small hotel in the Old Quarter.

It was still spring.

They walked the cobbled streets in the rain that first night.

They ate at a restaurant by the river and watched the colorful party boats drift slowly toward the bridges ahead.

They walked by the river to the Charles Bridge.

“We were always happy, Ilna,” Yeo said.

He never felt that she loved him, but he always felt content.

Theirs was a love that allowed the loved one to be.

Each understood how necessary the distance between them was to the close affection between them.

Each felt that no one else could possibly understand how deep such need was.

Anything more demanding would lead to withdrawal.

“You proposed to me for the first time on the Charles Bridge,” she said.

It stuck like a knife in his heart.

She had never answered him.

She had gazed down at the shimmering surface of the Vltava River for the longest time.

Then she turned and walked toward Old Town Square, past St. Nicholas Church.

He caught up to her, hoping perhaps she needed more time to think.

He let himself think that way for several days.

But she never acknowledged his question.

Over the years, he proposed to her seven more times.

But she never acknowledged his question.

It was a carnal passion between them.

Carnal passion glued them together through everything.

“I want to lie with you again in Prague,” she said.

“I love you, Crow Maiden,” he heard himself say.

It was the name of the endearment he used in the throes of the flesh.

But the carnal passion had died when Roland died.

And now she wanted to revisit it all.

Before it was too late.

“I have work to do,” he said, “There’s much at stake.”

But his weakening tone was too tremulous to fool her.

“I want to meet you on the Charles Bridge,” she said.

“I haven’t told you everything.”

“You can tell me in Prague.”

How could she tear him apart like this? How could she offer him everything he desired when he was no longer able to accept it?

“When?” he asked.

“At midnight,” she said.

“Why?” he asked.

“I have an answer to your question,” she said.