Café Bajer emerges from the fog like a friendly stranger, the kind you might consider engaging in conversation. Ve devore the sign reads. Later I will learn this means of the courtyard and indeed there is one, marked by a trendy-looking mannequin wearing a jaunty hat and a blank stare. Further down I see a bird in a cage. Polly want a cappuccino?
I have found my Czech home.
How to describe the indescribable? Bajer feels like a weird treasure trove, an antique store on acid – an ancient cash register, a bust of – someone. A fish tank, even. I’m confused and captivated. It feels like such a difference between the resolutely buttoned-up countenances on the street and – this. Where Green Gate Tower didn’t capture my imagination for more than a minute, this is my kind of place. “Hullo!” a voice calls from the counter.
Americký, the act of being American. In these post-9/11 days, we seem to wring more empathy than enmity from others, Hard gazes soften; judgment finds itself suspended. Even the conductor who sneers at my passport on the train (“United States of Amereeeeeeca”) does it with something resembling a heart.
But there is no hiding who we are.
