Went for the usual 11 o’clock meeting with Milena. Then with the others – Misty, Colin, Ezra, Tim – to a horrible toiletless bar for coffee. Back to Milena, bearing my lunch, two pork-burgers, for further discussion of my first lesson.
Went to the English Library section of the National Library. Second Kafkaesque file-filled floor of a hard-to-find building. It is a good library but I needed to join and to join I needed my passport. I had given my passport to Kimberley so she could get my visa extended up until September. It was raining.
I arrived at Namestí Miru1 one hour early. Took shelter in a Hotel bar opposite the school. Drank coffee and read the book of Britské Poezie [British Poetry] that I’d bought for Barbora. Very well produced but I’m not sure about the conservative selection of poets. (I suggested Medbh McGuckian to her later.)
The first day’s lessons went, or seemed to go, very well. The classes, as I had expected, improved as the day went on — although there was little to choose between B and C. One plus is Jarmila Smid. She arrived, worried, for the third lesson. Worried as she usually takes the fourth lesson. Would it be all right? Of course.
When I got home I found a drunk Barbora. I gave her the poetry, she gave me a yellow vest. Then she told me she had fallen in love with Ezra. What about Ivo? I said. Pfah, she said.
Talked with Ivo2 and Jitka, who’d obviously had a shit of a day, until eleven, and went to bed. Didn’t get to sleep until 2 or 3 in the morning. Too many teaching thoughts, too much teaching adrenalin.
Peace Square. The Russian space station, launched in 1986, is called ‘Mir’ — meaning Peace or World. Though young-Toby doesn’t know that until he reaches Praha and starts learning to speak Czech.
It says Ivo, although surely Jan (Jitka’s husband) is more likely. If not, young-Toby — like a character in a novel — goes straight from being told Ivo is about to be dumped to sitting companionably with Ivo and someone else who also probably knows Ivo is soon for the bin.
Ivo is a very tired-looking man. One of the most tired-looking men I have ever seen. He sits hunched. He looks like a pale, frazzled, thin-haired Peter Lorre. He has bags under the bags under his eyes. Most people young-Toby meets seem energized by the new post-revolutionary political situation, but it is draining something vital from Ivo. He was not a dissident, prior to November. He existed in the so-called grey area. But perhaps that was what kept him going, gave him his coordinates, his buzz.
Barbora, by obvious contrast, is perpetually electrified. Young-Toby finds her enthusiasm and engagement (telling him to wear a yellow vest, because it will make him attractive to women) a little terrifying. He has not necessarily been house trained.
One day, not long after he arrives, Barbora comes and stands in the door of his bedroom. She is holding the toilet brush. Tobi, she says, you know what is it? Young-Tobi says he does. Then must to use it, Barbora says, and turns away. Young-Tobi, properly shamed, uses it.