“When you get off the train, someone will be there waiting. Go with them.”
This was the advice given to my query, “Where should I stay in Prague?” Prague had opened up to the west following the Velvet Revolution just two years prior in 1989 but it had yet to offer even third rate quality accommodations. My friend told me to not even bother looking into the hotels or hostels as there wasn’t much of a difference between the two and there wasn’t going to be anything available anyway. He was right.
On the overnight train ride from Venice to Prague, my girl and I shared a coach room with a wannabe road weary traveler (whose Lonely Planet travel guide was barely creased.) He was backpacking through Europe, he said, and was already bored. I asked if he had a place to stay in Prague.
“Naw,” he groaned.
I shared the advice I’d been given.
“Are you nuts?” He asked. “Who knows what kind of wackos are out there? You’re just going to crawl into the back seat of some stranger’s car and get ripped off or raped or whatever else they do to you in these communist countries? No way, man. There’s got to be something in the city.”
I could have done without the rape comment. My girl is pretty open to new adventures, but for some reason rape makes her squeamish. She and I whispered in the darkness after our friend fell asleep (making sure to tuck his passport into his underwear). She was worried. I was too. We fell asleep and in the morning we pulled into the Prague station.
On the platform were men of various sizes and shades of Eastern European gray. Every one of them was smoking. Their eyes watched the windows, picking out their prey perhaps.
My girl and I packed assembled our backpacks, our fanny-packs. We retrieved our passports from our underwear – yes, he had gotten to us. We had decided to chance it in the city rather than go with the seedy-looking men. When we stepped off the train we expected to be descended upon, but it was not the case. The men seemed respectful, if unsure of whom they should choose – almost as if we were the ones who worried them. A few steps toward the main building and a small man approached us.
“Hallo,” he said. He was close to 5 feet tall, about 40 years old, thinning hair, round, gentle face. “You come with me?”
“With you?” I asked. My girl was behind me. If she wanted to take charge I would have let her. “Where?”
“To my home.”
I explained we wanted a hotel.
“No hotels. They are not good. Come with me. It’s ok.”
The man could not have been less menacing. I asked the price. Twenty dollars for both of us.
“Seriously?” My girl nudged me.
As we left the platform I saw our friend from the train. He looked at me as if we had made a horrific mistake following our little host. He shook his head. What were we doing exactly, I thought?
The car we were escorted to was small, compact. We stowed our belongings and climbed in. My girl gripped my hand.
“Your house isn’t in the city?” I asked.
He smiled into the rearview mirror. “Not far,” he said.
When you’re young you rarely question how life can kick you in the side of the head. It was only at this moment that I truly began to ponder all the ways two Americans might disappear in a foreign land. There was no way we could communicate. The Czech language sounded to me like a record played backward. We had no maps, no guides, no reference points. I knew I could beat this little man if he tried something. Only after we left the city and were traveling down back country roads did it dawn on me that he could have accomplices; that he might simply be the courier. I wondered about our train companion. I envisioned him in the confines of a drab, windowless hostel with six other occupants, crowded, but safe.
How relieved I was when the car pulled into the driveway of a cute little home. I was relieved further to find another guest there, a tousle-haired youth who loved old cameras and gossip even more. The little man’s wife greeted us at the door. She appeared a Czechoslovakian version of June Cleaver complete with quaint little apron.
“Come, come,” she beckoned.
The home smelled of freshly made apple strudel and I immediately thought of Christmas with my Swedish grandmother and her lemon squares and krumkakes. The couple had two young children who welcomed us with open arms. The little man then kissed his wife and children on the cheeks, bowed politely to us and excused himself as he left the home, driving away in his little car.
Later that afternoon, as we prepared our trip back to the city by tram, we were sitting in the kitchen as the mother prepared the dinner’s meal of roast pork and dumplings, the little man returned. He was as happy and energetic as he was when we first met him. Behind him was our friend from the train looking haggard.
“Hi,” we said. We were giddy from the strudel and the comfortable surroundings. Following the example of our hosts, we stood and met him at the door, shaking his hand, welcoming him.
“No luck with the hotels?” I asked.
“There wasn’t anything,” he grumbled. “Nothing. Not a damn thing.”
“This is better,” I said. “This is the safest place you could possibly be.”
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