A Tense Mid-Afternoon In The Beer Gardens of Karlovy Vary

One of the stops we made on the trip through Central Europe that I described in my last post, was in a Czech city named Karlovy Vary. Julia had made arrangements for us to crash with a Czech guy she had known in her summer internship, and his girlfriend. I had asked if they had been aware of her dalliance with the Serbian guy which had led to our break-up. It was one thing to be cheated on, it was another to be consigned to a three week trip with the ex who had cheated on you, but it was still a third thing to have to sit across from people who knew the first two things and were looking on you with pity, or worse, the morbid curiosity of a car wreck rubbernecker. Julia swore that David and Tereza knew nothing about the Serb.

Julia was a terrible liar. She lacked all confidence in her lies and her voice would trail off with an upward tilt. It was like she was trying to rush past the lie but knew that there was nowhere to go once she stopped talking, so she would drag it out into an uncertain question mark. But for as bad as she was at lying, I was excellent at self-deception and, really, isn’t a relationship all about the ways that you compliment one another’s strengths and weaknesses? She was also one of those people about whom cops on procedurals always say, “it was like she wanted to get caught.” She was always putting herself and us into situations where her lie would fall apart. Like staying with her summer friends in this isolated Czech town.

The minute David opened the door and stuck out his hand, the pity was all over his face. There was not that avid curiosity though. I discovered that there was something even worse. There was the muted irritation of someone who did not want your mess dragged to his doorstep but was too polite and generous a person to say so. And both he and Tereza were generous. Not just in opening their home and making up a bed, or taking us around town, showing us the sites, making dinner. The real generosity came from doing all of that while also trying as best they could to avoid any conversation about the human rights organization they had worked at with Julia, or any of the other people who worked there, so they wouldn’t accidentally tell some story where the Serb would play a role that couldn’t be omitted. This was quite the trick, because the summer working for the NGO was really the only experiences they had in common with Julia.

Karlovy Vary is truly one of the most beautiful towns I have ever been to. It’s every fairy tale come to life and then woven through the hillside of a lush dark forest. You wind your way through medieval streets and every turn brings you up to a building more beautiful and ornate than the last. After a while, it feels like you are on a treasure hunt and the prizes you are trying to collect are the short intakes of air every time you are surprised by some perfectly preserved bit of Baroque wonderment. It is also one of the centers of Czech brewing and I needed a fucking drink the entire time we were there, even when I already had one in my hand.

Again, they were being very kind and very patient, giving their time and their home to this psychodrama roadshow we were dragging around the former Soviet satellites. The problem was, their polite avoidance of anything that had happened that summer meant that there wasn’t a lot to talk about, except current events. Current events were not something an American really wanted to discuss in 2003. But what was there to do but drag out all the crimes of the Bush administration’s Iraq policy. I hadn’t voted for George W. Bush, and I didn’t support the war. From the moment it was announced, I could see what a colossal disaster it was destined to be. This isn’t to claim any special prescience on my part. Lots of people at that time could see that Bush was not only blowing right past Colin Powell’s Pottery Barn rule, but outright crashing his pickup into the Pottery Barn with enough force to also end up buying the Bed Bath and Beyond next door. But as the subject came up for the third time that day, at the third beer garden we visited, I couldn’t seem to get David to take this into consideration. He kept questioning me about the Administration’s foreign policy, demanding to know what the possible justifications for war could be, questioning me on whether or not I could defend the justification the Bush people had already put out, wanting me to answer for how the American congress had rolled over on the total lack of evidence of WMDs. I had answers for none of these things. And what’s more, I would never have defended them even if I did. But the questions kept coming anyway.

Finally, in a moment of feeling sad and embarrassed on a personal level, hounded on a national and political level, and fuzzy headed from five Czech beers before the sun had even gone down, I lost it. I slammed my beer down on the table, catching the attention of everyone else in the outdoor seating, and said more than a bit too loudly, “Look, man, if I was someone that George fucking Bush called for advice on the use of military fucking force in foreign fucking countries, I don’t think I’d be staying in your spare fucking bedroom.”

Everyone was quiet. Julia and Tereza looked at the tabletop. Everyone in the garden was trying to stare without staring. It was a beautiful space, with a trellis overgrown with the leaves of hops plants that wrapped all the way around the cobblestoned patio, and I had just made it really uncomfortable. Finally, David put his hands up in surrender and we all went about finishing our beers in silence.

With current affairs off the table, dinner was a very quiet affair.

Later that night, as we went to bed, Julia made a passing attempt at making me feel guilty for embarrassing her in front of her friends. And I did feel bad, but for being a bad guest, not for embarrassing her. I didn’t say that. But apparently the look I gave her said everything that needed to be said, because she quickly shut up. We went to bed facing away from one another and, the next morning, headed back south.