“Doesn’t that mean it has evaporated?”
“Yes, if it had been a liquid, I guess it would now be a gas. . . . I’m sorry to make light of our situation, Mlada . . . but the timing is all wrong.”
“Don’t apologize, Paul. You’ve only proved to me that you are the kind of man I have always wanted. You are maybe the only sane man I’ve ever known. Sarah is lucky, and so are you. I am the one who should apologize for being such a fool.”
“Hey, cut that out. Seeing you again has been great. The things you’ve told me today have freed me in a way from doubts I carried away from Prague.”
“Doubts?”
“About my relationship with you and with Mirko and with StB, and this reunion has been a good test of my resolve to stay faithful to Sarah. I must really love her if I can resist a woman as desirable as you . . .”
“Now you cut that out,” she says, slapping my wrist. “Maybe we should pay our bill and just say goodbye. I can go to a museum or walk along your Fifth Avenue until time to get a taxi for the airport.”
“Yes, let’s get out of here, but I know what we’ll do. Today is Thursday, and the Museum of Modern Art stays open this evening. I remember how much you liked that book on twentieth-century art you borrowed from me in Prague and how you noticed that so many of the reproductions were of works in MOMA, as we call it. Shall we go there so I can show you the Picassos and Cézannes and Matisses, the way you showed me the great things in your National Gallery?”
“Oh, Pavel, that would be great . . . if you really want to.”
“I wouldn’t suggest it if I didn’t want to . . . I’m always glad to visit MOMA. But we’ll have no Vltava to walk along afterward.”
“Thanks God, Paul. It is better that way. And besides, there would be nothing for me to ask you about.”
I smile at her and say, “No, I guess not . . . or for me to tell you.”
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