Frank Kilroy considered himself lucky to get the small studio on Zamecke. He’d first stayed there for a few nights during his reconnaissance visit in the heady days when scoring a room in Prague was harder than scoring smack in a convent. It was a modest flat, more of a glorified student room really, but that, apart from the location near the bottom of the castle steps, was a large part of its appeal. Despite being over forty years old, Frank had not given up his hope of living the carefree student life he’d never had as a student. Looking out his large window late that first night, he saw a white cat staring back at him from behind the window opposite his, just a few yards across Zamecke. Frank was sure he could hear it purring but wrote that off as the murmur of his own contented heart. To his left were the steps to the castle and to his right—romance and intrigue! His life was looking up at last. Maybe it had not been a waste after all.
Emerging from his building that first morning, Frank basked in the reflected light of the smiling windows. The sun, glistening off the glass, reminded him of a toothpaste commercial from his Eisenhower childhood. Even the white cat, still perched in the same window, seemed to be smiling. It was the beginning of a perfect day, no clouds to spoil the horizon. Setting off on the five minute walk to his office, Frank’s heart soared in toothy anticipation of the new life beckoning him forward, but just to be on the safe side, he bought a copy of the Prague Sex Guide at a kiosk along the way and hid it in his briefcase.
It did not take long for Frank’s optimism to stumble. Within a few days, he met a youngish and seemingly rather pleasant, though not especially attractive, American woman at an afternoon Embassy function. They left the function together, and against his better judgment, he invited her to dinner several days hence under the theory that everything had to start somewhere. When she responded, “I’ll think about it,” Frank said, “OK,” and abruptly walked away at the next corner, never to speak with her again. Numb with disappointment, he wandered the streets, laughing bitterly as he passed some graffiti which announced “I was here and you were not.”
At dusk he entered Zamecke, remarking how glum and painfully in need of a wash the windows looked in the setting sun. Even the white cat, sticking his head out the now opened window, seemed grayish and worn. Bucking up his spirits, Frank dismissed it as an optical illusion and pressed the security buzzer. The solenoid click of the draw bolt mixed with what sounded like a sharp burst of derisive laughter coming from across the street. Looking up he saw an old commie baba locking the cat’s window and closing the curtains. It must have been the sound of the window slamming shut, he thought. Pushing open the old wooden door, he climbed the short steps to his flat.
*
As his tram snaked northward, Frank watched nervously out the window for street signs. He knew the address, but he didn’t know exactly where to get off—and it was starting to get dark. Alighting at a promising looking stop, he headed eastward two blocks then north again, parallel to the tram line. It was a quiet residential area of nondescript three-story cement row houses punctuated only by the occasional barking dog. Frank’s fear that he might not be able to identify the correct house soon evaporated in wonderment when Club Lenka emerged into view on the right-hand side of the street. The building’s façade, illuminated by rotating multi-colored spotlights, proudly displayed the establishment’s name spelled out using six-foot-high plastic nude female figures in the shape of letters.
Frank hesitated at the gate, wondering where the crowds were. He’d half expected to see a long line of customers waiting outside. Perhaps it was too early? Maybe it was a clip joint? Concerned that the neighbors might think him an amateur, he hurriedly pressed the security intercom. A 20-something blonde mama-san wearing jeans and a dark blouse appeared in the half opened front door. After inspecting him briefly from a distance, she buzzed the gate open. Frank strode purposefully forward and entered Club Lenka.
The fuzzy yellow glow from an assortment of faux Tiffany lamps gave a vaguely authentic feel to the room’s otherwise wildly improbable Wild West Saloon motif, complete with velvet pillows, antimacassars, and reproduction Hollywood movie posters. Following the mama-san to the rear of the parlor to buy a coffee, Frank briefly noted the outlines of several girls sitting around tables. Returning to where the girls were sitting, now accustomed to the darkness, he saw four girls in fishnet stockings smoking cigarettes and sitting on a couch in front of a large coffee table. To their left a much more imposing blonde wearing a white dress sat in front of her own small round table. The Fishnet Four greeted him rather indifferently, perhaps self-conscious of their poor English, but the loner gave him a dazzling smile, and with a twinkle in her eye said,
“Hello, I am Dasha. Would you like to sit?”
“Why, yes I would,” he said.
At first they were both a bit tense, but Dasha’s rich buttermilk voice and welcoming attitude put Frank at ease. After exchanging a few pleasantries, she gently popped the question.
“Would you like to go upstairs?”
“Why, yes I would,” he said.
“Then go to the bar first. I’ll wait here.”
Frank returned to find Dasha standing tall, very tall, probably over 5’ 10” tall, though still only two inches taller than Frank. He was surprised but quite pleased, especially by the marvelously inviting cantilevered bulk of her upper torso, the proportions of which had previously been obscured. Lithe and athletic in the long white dress, she was the very definition of style and sophistication—and a far cry from the smirking Fishnet Four.
“Follow me, please” she said. Up they went, leaving the smirks behind them.
*
Some time later, exhaling in deep capitulatory repose, Frank luxuriated in the vision of what a sweet, demure young lady Dasha was, except perhaps for the small matter of the Harley logo and handlebars on her lower back, but that, she’d explained, was a painted decal, not a tattoo, and it would quickly fade unless reapplied.
“Why did you pick me?” she asked, suggesting her new hairdo as a possibility.
“Because you smiled and paid attention to me,” Frank answered.
Dasha seemed surprised and stared into the distance for a few moments before asking, “Will you come back?”
Frank almost blurted out “Sweet Baby Jesus of Prague, are you kidding?” Instead, he simply said, “Of course, I will.”
Dasha’s face lit up like a Christmas tree, and much to Frank’s delight, she gave him one for the road to seal the deal. A knock on the door told them their hour was up. They’d had one helluva time.
*
The goose hung high as Frank entered Zamecke that night, the echo of his footfall dancing gaily from pillar to post. That gave him an idea. In his best full-throated voice, he sang out “Hello” and waited. One clearly audible “Hello” bounced back. It was enough. Belting out “Hello” “Hello” “Hello” in rising tones he recreated the Three Stooges’ Hallowed Hello of Harmonic Conversion. Capping it off with commanding “HELLO!” he looked up to find the white cat smiling down on him. Even the old baba was smiling, a sight far stranger indeed than a smiling cat.
Frank trod the stairs to his room. It was late, but he hardly felt like sleeping. Through his window he saw the white cat wink at him and wave, just before the still smiling baba closed the curtains for the night. The windows smiled at him, tinkling like a wind chime as they curled upwards at each end. It was the perfect end to a perfect day. He had arrived.
*
That night Frank dreamt of Dasha gliding toward him unclothed through a swirl of whitish mist, holding before her a red velvet pillow graced by the sleeping white cat. She stopped abruptly, and the cat—now holding a lit cigar and wearing Groucho glasses—stood on his hind legs and sang Lydia the Tattooed Lady accompanied by an orchestra hidden deep within the mist. It was very convincing.
“She had eyes that folks adore so and a torso even more so!”
Dasha let go of the red velvet pillow, allowing it to float midair, and assumed the Vitruvian position inside a hoola hoop pulsating bright yellow and red.
“….she will show you the world….”
The hoola hoop began spinning furiously, forming a sphere displaying a sepia-toned penny arcade silent film of Frank’s first evening with Dasha.
“….and now the old boy’s in command of the fleet….”
The cat abruptly stopped singing. Using the cigar as a baton, he conducted the finale of the 1812 Overture. At the appropriate moment, the cigar turned into a cannon and shot buckets full of Quaker puffed wheat into the air. As the final explosion echoed into the distance, the cat leered at Frank and said, “Tell’em Groucho sent ya!”
With a melodramatic flourish, the cat threw aside the Groucho glasses and the cigar and fell asleep on the red velvet pillow. Except for the cat’s purring, all was silent again. Then the pillow began to revolve in a lunar orbit around Dasha’s world and they disappeared into the whitish mist.
Awakened by the warm sun gently caressing his body through the window, Frank stretched languidly and sang, “You can learn a lot from Lydia!”
*
For several months, every day that Dasha worked, Frank was sure to be there. Some days he stayed several hours, making up for the fruits of a misspent youth. Dasha’s wry sense of humor brought a refreshing levity to a situation which, for Frank, had always been a matter of life and death. Now he could laugh and enjoy himself, something he’d had never thought possible. Everyone at work remarked how much he had changed for the better. Even the fishnet girls had ceased smirking. For the first time in his life, Frank felt truly grateful to be alive. It was the golden dawn of a new era.
Then one day, Frank arrived to find the mama-san mumbling something about Dasha not being there. He thought this just meant Dasha was busy with another client. “No,” she explained, “Dasha no longer works here. She has gone forever.” He stared at her smirking face in stunned disbelief. Giggling with obvious delight, she said, “Do you want one of the other girls?”
Struggling to breathe, Frank stumbled back to the empty street in silence, the mama-san’s giggling burning a hole in his soul. The old anxiety buzz returned, gripping him by the throat and shooting to his forehead where it lodged just behind his eyes, causing them to bulge. He lurched through the streets on foot for many hours, hoping to catch a glimpse of Dasha, but she was nowhere to be found.
Finally he reached Zamecke—now pitch black and smelling like the inside of a mushroom’s coffin. As he entered the street, the buildings on both sides leaned towards each other to form a tunnel of darkness. A deep baritone voice repeatedly intoned “loser,” causing the ground to tremble underfoot as Frank plodded toward the old wooden door.
Upstairs, amazed by how quickly everything had unraveled, Frank sullenly contemplated life without Dasha. Unable to imagine finding another like her, he saw an endless string of disappointments stretching out into the distance as far as the mind’s eye could see, a bitter continuation of his desolate past. Even the flat, supposedly his little piece of heaven on earth, now looked more like what is really was—a dusty little student room with bad plumbing. It was not supposed to have been like this.
Opening the window, he spat an epithet into the gloom and watched it glide towards earth. It hit the cobble stones with a thunderclap. Every window on Zamecke flew open like a mother-in-law’s mouth, each one expectorating a prodigious stream of rejoinders, forming a foul slurry of ululating execrations, maledictions, and imprecations on the street below. It was no time for passersby to use a smile as their umbrella.
*
There was a loud knock at his door. Frank opened it to find Harpo Marx in a long white nightgown holding a sign identifying himself as Wee Willie Winkie.
“Honk! Honk!”
Wee Willie dragged Frank to the window. The white cat was back in his perch, waving furiously and gesturing towards the street. The cat disappeared. A few moments later, Dasha emerged from the entryway to the cat’s building. She headed for the castle steps, signaling for Frank to follow.
He raced down the stairs with Wee Willie honking him forward from behind. They reached the street and turned toward the castle. With the dazzling Dasha leading the way in her flowing white dress and Wee Willie honking up the rear, Frank easily mounted the short steep steps in light-hearted pursuit of his lady love. Higher and higher they went—they seemed to be floating on air.
At the Golden Lane, Frank stopped to stare at a large wooden war horse urinating prodigiously into the gutter, forming a mighty stream of sun-ripened effluent which roiled past Humpty Dumpty singing “I’ll cry a river over you.” Wee Willie found this very amusing and bent over in silent laughter, but by now they had lost track of Dasha, who waits for no man, so on they went to the Castle, searching for her high and low. “Honk! Honk!” “Honk! Honk!”
In a great hall with a wall of windows facing the city, the Three Stooges welcomed them… “Hello!” “Hello!” “Hello!” -- “HELLO!” …and pointed to a large black door slowly closing behind Dasha as she faded into a bright white light. The door clicked shut just as Frank reached it. On it were painted the words: “To The Egress.”
Frank flew at the door, pounding with all his might. His Herculean exertions finally bore fruit when a small crack appeared in the door. He tore furiously at the crack, eventually ripping the door asunder, and plunged through the opening screaming “Daaa-shaaaa!”
“Honk! Honk!”
*
A reedy tongue of bluish smoke squirreled upward through the chill on Zamecke, licking a naked bulb glaring down on the cigar’s owner, a man clad in a white trench coat and black felt fedora. As the examining coroner, Barkov knew the newspaper reports of Frank Kilroy’s death had been largely accurate, especially as he’d been the source for most of them.
Kilroy was dead before he hit the ground—heart failure brought about by an extreme surge of adrenalin. The latter had been necessary to produce the extraordinary strength Kilroy needed to smash through the windows with his bare hands. In what had certainly been the understatement of his thirty-year career, Barkov had described the deceased’s hands, or what was left of them, as “showing evidence of extreme trauma.” How Kilroy had gained entrance to the Prague Castle at 3AM remained a mystery, but that was a matter for the police, not Barkov.
The peculiar circumstances surrounding Kilroy’s death had drawn international attention, including the obligatory media witticisms, such as the story entitled “No Manure to Break His Fall—The Story of Prague’s First Self-Defenestration.” Unfortunately, it also propelled the embassy people out of their customary lethargy. Always on the lookout for ways to justify additional funding, officials in the American and Czech governments had been seriously disappointed to find no links to drugs, AIDS, terrorism, or human trafficking. In fact, Barkov had almost lost his job when he refused to manufacture evidence that would keep their hobby horses rocking.
The only interesting item found on Kilroy’s person was a discount coupon valid for 10% off at Club Lenka. Such things were commonplace in Prague, but its location—hidden under the sole of Kilroy’s right foot, inside his sock—was a bit odd. Barkov had palmed it during the autopsy and kept it out of the reports.
Barkov reached into the breast pocket of his jacket for a fresh cigar. No point in quitting now, he thought, and fired it up with the Club Lenka coupon.
“Honk! Honk!”
