e Prague Diary 3

Prague Diary 3

Glass.

Another pool playing night was with the students from the university
where I taught. Every week I would go with three of my class to a smoky
hall in the belly of Strahov Stadium. This was a favourite haunt of
ours.

After one evening Petr, a ringlet-haired lad who wore tight jeans,
said he was going home for the weekend and would I like to come with
him. I was reluctant because I fancied him and I could see trouble
ahead. But I thought in for a penny in for a pound and so I said
yes.

Petr lived in a town called Novi Bor. This is in the north of the
Czech Republic near the German border. It is famous for glass and in
the time after Petr's invitation and before the actual trip to everyone
who I mentioned my journey they said the single word, 'Glass'. Just
that. My fantasies were elsewhere.

*

Petr's father had died when he was young and he lived with his mother
and sister. Petr was eighteen and the man of the family. He did the
gardening and chopped wood in the back yard with an axe and things like
that.

"It's important that I pass university," he said shortly after we
arrived. "They depend on me."

"Oh, you'll pass," I said.

"That's what you say, Drew, but in the last exam you failed half of
us."

"I?"

"This is your room," said Petr, "you'll be sleeping in here." He
opened a door and ushered me in. On the bedside table were a number of
editions of Playboy, fanned out like they should have been in a waiting
room somewhere.

"And what about you?" I said, half hopefully.

"I'll be sleeping with my mother," said Petr. "In the
living-room."

*

After a meal in which food kept appearing and appearing and I had to
smile and say how wonderful it all was which it was but weird because I
had never had a meal with my family I was taken out for a walk by the
sister. We went up the side of this hill and then looked out across the
view. It was trees and valleys and rivers and all that kind of thing.
All wild and lonely.

The sister was wearing a trilby hat on a cock and a long black duster
coat. In the eighties the look would have been described as New
Romantic. Now, I couldn't put my finger on it.

The sister didn't speak good English but after a few stilted sentences
on the side of that hill I knew that her intention was that I would
kiss her, she would kiss me back and I would take her away from all
this back to England where she would live in my big mansion.

After what seemed like a respectful interval I said, "Shall we go
home? Petr will be wondering where we are."

*

More food was had and then Petr said he was going to take me to see one
of his neighbours.

"He's very famous," said Petr. "He's the second most famous glass
artist in the world."

I wanted to ask who was the most famous but I didn't. We walked
through the village past these other houses that were like Petr's -
detached duplex bungalows until we came to this other house.

The door was answered by a woman in a long robe. The robe was half
open and you could half see the woman's breasts. She had a long
cigarette poking out of the corner of her mouth.

Petr spoke some Czech and the woman spoke right back then Petr turned
to me and said that I could wait in the studio round the back. He
disappeared into the house with the woman. Men are good at things like
that and had been doing that kind of thing for most of my life. I was
twenty-three.

The studio was a long wide open room about so big. Everywhere on
tarpaulin sheets were enormous solid blocks of glass. They were
different colours, the colours trapped inside each one like frozen
water, and different shapes; triangles, rectangles and so on. I walked
around looking at them in wonder.

"I can use this," I thought. I kept a diary at the time with the idea
that one day it would be useful.

Then the artist appeared. He was unassuming in appearance with short
hair. He wore jeans and an old sweatshirt.

"I work with traditional means," he said. "It is difficult to do. To
let the glass cool without air bubbles forming inside the glass. And
then I must polish the sides so that the pieces fit perfectly together.
Look, if you touch this." He pointed at the side of one of the blocks
of glass. "Then you will destroy it."

I inwardly gulped and was pleased that I hadn't gone around touching
everything. It looked solid and yet it was apparently fragile. What
would have happened if I had destroyed years of work?

"I am meeting tomorrow Vaclav Haval. He is commissioning a piece to go
outside Prague Castle. It will be the biggest single block of glass in
the world."

"Well done," I said.

"Later you will join me for dinner?" said the artist.

I nodded my head. I wanted to ask if Havel would be there but I
didn't.

*

On the way to dinner that evening in Petr's mother's car Petr told me
the story of the artist.

The artist was one of the few people that had been let in and out of
the country during the communist regime. He had had spectacular shows
in America and other countries like that his works of glass being
considered non political.

"This means that he is very rich," said Petr. "After the end of
communism there were a huge numbers of properties up for sale, the old
regime thrown out. Foreigners were not allowed to buy property in our
country so it was only rich Czechs who were able to purchase?"

The car stopped here and we pulled up in front of a massive mansion
house converted into a restaurnat. It was both huge and awesome and
brightly lit.

"He owns this?" I said.

Petr nodded his head.

"Come, we will have dinner."

*

Dinner was superb, fish and potatoes in butter and pickled vegetables,
and afterwards we repaired to a pub with the artist.

The pub was dark and smoky and had a pool table. Clustered around the
pool table was a group of dirty faced men with only a few teeth between
them. Upon seeing the artist they let up a cheer of friendship and a
lot of hand shaking went on.

"They are miners," said Petr. "You want to challenge them?"

"To what?" I said.

"To pool," said Petr.

"Go for it," I said.

This was one of best nights of my life. I was playing pool with a
bunch of miners just having had dinner with a famous artist. It wasn't
a situation that I could imagine getting myself into in England and I
guessed was probably a specific result of communism. It wasn't all bad
whatever people say.

*

That night when we got home I was very drunk and high on the thrill of
it all and I said to Petr that I would masturbate in his bed. He
laughed and translated what I said to his sister's fianc? (the same
sister who had almost proposed to me on the hill). Then we all laughed.
I was a card. Then I got into bed alone. I didn't masturbate and I
didn't even thumb the Playboys and the next thing I knew it was the
next day and Petr was shaking me awake and he was saying he was taking
me to a sauna.

"Nice," I said.

We cycled across town on two old bikes and stopped outside this other
house. We went in without knocking and found the friend lying on his
bed on one elbow looking at a chessboard.

The friend had medium length curly hair, like hair you might see on a
particularly shaggy dog, and big blue eyes.

"This is Honza," said Petr.

"Hi, Honza," I said and then we all went to catch the train.

Honza had recently come back from a trip to India.

"I wanted to go to England," he said. "But that was too expensive.
India was the next best thing."

Next best thing, I thought, that's good English.

"My father sells antiques," said Honza. "Sometimes I have to deal with
English sellers. It's good for me."

We talked some more on the train and it quickly became obvious that
was something about Honza's father that wasn't being talked about. I
wasn't sure what and then the train was pulling into the station and we
were getting off and some more of Petr's friends were waiting for us
there.

It turned out that it wasn't just a sauna. There was a swimming pool
and Jacuzzi and all sorts.

"You see that woman," said Honza to me pulling me to one side.
He was pointing to a woman in the pool. She was about 40, well
maintained.

"Petr is fucking her. She is married to the chief of police. If he
finds out he will beat Petr up. You want to go in the sauna?"

"Sure," I said. I was disappointed that Petr was fucking
someone.

The sauna was a room like a box. It was tiny, hot. Honza sat next to
me and pressed his leg against mine. Was this a signal or was it just a
leg pressed against mine? I've never been a good judge of this. In
fact, my whole time in Prague was sexless.

"Come on," said Honza, "let's go to the cold pool."

We plunged in together and gasped.

*

We made our way back together to the station, the chief of policeman's
wife with us. At one point Petr disappeared into an alley with her.
They were gone for a good ten minutes. I remembered about Petr being
the man of the family. He was.

All the way home on the train Honza pressed his leg against mine. As
we said goodbye he said I should come over to his and play chess.

I never took him up on the offer. Looking back I wish I had. I should
have played a lot more chess all round.

*

On my last day in Novi Bor Petr said he would take me to where his
sister worked. This was a glass factory.

As it was a Sunday it was all closed up.

"Are you sure we're ok to be in here?" I said as Petr's sister
inserted a large key in the door.

"Oh, sure, sure," said Petr.

There was me and Petr. Petr's sister and her fianc?.

Inside the factory were these long work benches with machines hooked
on them. The machines had tubes coming in and out of them and there
were cables everywhere.

We went past all the benches to where there was a door on the far
wall. Petr's sister sorted through her key chain and opened this door.
We went down some stairs to a small and dusty workroom. Taking up most
of the space was a large grey safe.

We had all stopped talking. I knew we were up to something but I
wasn't sure what. Petr looked across at his sister's fianc? and
smiled.

"The Pope is coming to the Czech Republic next month," said Petr. "For
a gift we are giving him a vase."

His sister was working on the safe door.

"The vase is being designed here."

The safe door was open now and there it was; about three feet high,
covered in a myriad of swirling lines and patterns.

I laughed. "That's really for the Pope."

We were all grinning like idiots.

"Really," said Petr. "You want to write on it?"

"What?" I said.

"Go on," said Petr.

Very carefully his sister lifted the vase out of the safe, the fianc?
fetched a bottle of ink and Petr passed my a steel-nibbed pen.

"You're serious, aren't you?" I said.

"Yes," said Petr. "But be careful."

Trying to keep my hand steady I dipped the pen in the ink and then
moved the pen towards the vase.

"What shall I write?" I said.

"Anything you like," said Petr.

So I did. I wrote. In tiny tiny letters. A message to the Pope. Just
between me and him.