4: Marry My Dog
—Old Town, Prague, August 2016—
“Fucking asshole,” Mike muttered around the straw in his Kofola. He loved the communist copycat of the American coke which somehow survived 1989 and attracted its own retro cult. Marta found the mix of chemicals appalling. She believed Mike had learned to like it just so he could blend in better. Because his broken, hopeless Czech would never allow him to be a genuine part of the nation. Why he wanted to, that was another mystery. He was Australian. He never encountered the kind of prejudice people from Eastern Europe or Asia had to deal with. The kind of prejudice which made the Roma wish to be white while at the same time hating the whites with the passion of ten oppressed generations. The kind of prejudice that made people want to shrink in on themselves, to melt into the crowd, while at the same time they strove to wildly exaggerate their alien qualities as they clung to their dissolving identities.
Mike was welcome here. People thought he was cool at first sight, like an exotic animal, with his accent, his tan, his straw-blond hair and lanky limbs, his leather bracelets, good-natured, self-ironic jokes and animated hand gestures, appearing just a little effeminate. He didn’t have to fight to be accepted. Even his mild flamboyance was met with far more understanding just because he was the right kind of foreigner.
Right now, though, Mike was pissed.
“The guy completely hijacked the discussion. Everybody else just shut up after that.” He made a slurping sound with the straw at the bottom of his glass and wiped his forehead in the stifling afternoon heat. They had a forty-minute long break and, since the classrooms were situated in one of the office buildings in the lower part of Wenceslas Square, they only rounded a corner and were sitting at a crowded café on Příkopy street.
The intensive summer courses were in full swing. Mike was a senior lecturer, teaching intermediate and advanced business English plus conversational skills. He got all the corporate clients, mostly middle-aged men and women playing catch-up with the world. They were taught Russian and German in schools, growing up in the seventies and eighties. Their English was poor at best, their self-importance astounding, and their frustration of failing in anything made them aggressive. Marta rarely had to deal with them, though. In her beginners’ grammar classes, people were humbler, and she avoided individual male clients. She didn’t deal with the sexism well.
Mike always felt the need to fight to change the world. Using his advanced conversation classes for his own agenda, he made the suits read articles on corporate social responsibility, business ethics, feminism, immigration, minorities… Marta admired him for his Don Quixote persona. He never gave up. He voiced his frustrations and moved on. He said if he managed to slightly widen the views of one person in the class of twelve, it was worth it. He was probably right and undeniably brave.
“What did he say?” she asked in relation to the student Mike was complaining about.
“That soon people will be able to ‘marry with their dogs.’ I was barely able to correct his use of the preposition before he went into full-on raging-bigot mode. How can you atheists argue with so-called Christian values without swallowing your own tongues?”
Marta winced. “I’m sorry, Mike.” True to his relentless spirit, Mike introduced his class to the topic of Proposition 8. He’d prepared for the class for a week, brushing up his mild suggestions, hints and reasonable arguments. Wisely, he kept quiet the fact he and his boyfriend were registering for partnership in just a few days’ time. He showed the students parts of the play 8, because George Clooney always helped, and picked two New York Times articles for them to read and talk about. Apparently, it didn’t go well.
“And the lawyer, Anna What’s-her-name, said the Czech Republic was not ready for same-sex marriage. It’s different here, she said. I mean, she’s nice and all, but I wanted to take off my shoe and beat her bloody with it.”
“Did you manage to wrap it up?”
“Kind of. I gave them the old women’s rights analogy. Interracial marriage in the sixties, majority cannot decide on the rights of a minority, human rights shouldn’t be a subject of a public vote, yada yada. They were clearly uncomfortable.”
“That’s good, though, isn’t it? Force them out of their comfort zone?”
“I guess.”
“Mike…” She put her hand over his on the table.
“Don’t worry,” he said in a low voice. He shifted in his chair, visibly pepping himself up. He slapped his thighs with his hands and looked around with a broad smile. “I love Prague in the summer. It’s like a continuous festival. And when it’s this hot, the city feels just a bit queerer.” He hummed in pretend thoughtfulness, blatantly checking out a passing stranger in flip-flops and too-tight shorts. His tanned legs were extremely hairy. Mike cocked his head, wrinkled his nose in mock disgust, and his quick eyes narrowed with cheeky humor. Marta chuckled. He looked back at her, serious for a second again. “It’s always worth it, you know. All of it,” he said.
It was Marta who had introduced her Australian colleague to Simon’s group of friends the previous year. And to Lukas. Mike hadn’t planned to linger in Prague for long. It was just a stop on his restless journey through the world after finishing university in Melbourne. But when he and Lukas fell into a relationship smoothly and seamlessly, Mike decided to stay indefinitely. As an English teacher, a native speaker with a degree in education, he’d always find work. With his easy-going nature, he’d build a home anywhere he chose—a home made of a cluttered sublet studio apartment, a favorite coffee shop, a Romanian beggar in front of the grocery store whom he always slipped a fiver, and a casual jazz ensemble which he called “my band” with some exaggeration. Most importantly, Lukas was Mike’s home now.
Marta admired Mike’s ability to stand his ground with Lukas, treating his partner like an equal regardless the decade-wide age gap. As a most natural result, he was being treated as an equal right back. It was what she fought for with Simon on a daily basis. She knew she couldn’t really compare her relationship with Simon to Mike and Lukas. Mike was never dependent on Lukas. They were partners, not guardian and protégé. But still, there were instances when they were all together as a group, and Lukas would do or say something which made her wish Simon would take a hint.
“Mike, we have only fifteen minutes left, so it’s probably not a good time to open this up. But I need your help.” Marta spoke quickly, afraid if she waited any longer, she’d back off like the last time. And the time before that.
Mike sat up straight, his attention fully on her. “What is it?”
“I want to find him,” she blurted.
Mike blinked. It took a few seconds, but understanding dawned on his face, his eyes widening slightly. “Matěj?” he asked, mispronouncing the name.
Marta nodded. “Can you not tell Lukas yet?”
Mike frowned and leaned back. He thought about it, and Marta took it as a good sign. Mike wouldn’t give her an empty promise. “Yeah. I think so. Why?”
“Simon will flip out. And Lukas knows it. He’ll try to take over, make me wait, or make me tell Simon.”
Mike laughed humorlessly. “Yes, I agree on all points.”
“I want to see my brother again. As soon as possible. And I’ll tell Simon myself when the time feels right.”
Her friend scratched his barely there stubble. “I will help you, of course. But why now?”
“It’s not a sudden decision. I’ve thought about it many times. Simon blames Matěj for a lot things. At first, it was difficult for me to see past that. We became close after Matěj left. I trusted Simon implicitly—I couldn’t see him being wrong in anything. But we had all made mistakes, you know? Me most of all.”
Mike cringed. “You don’t blame yourself for Matěj leaving, do you? Because Lukas said—”
“Mikey, Lukas wasn’t there. I was.”
“Okay,” Mike said hesitantly, a question in his tone.
Marta looked away and took a deep breath. “I said some horrible things to my brother. Deeply hurtful things Simon doesn’t know about. It took me a long time to see it clearly, but I think I understand now why he might not…” She sighed deeply, searching for words. “It has to be me. Making the first step. It wasn’t my fault, not entirely. However, I could have gone after him years ago.”
“Lukas told me the story. Matěj was…unstable.” Mike said the word carefully, apparently fearing its consequences as soon as it left his mouth.
Marta winced. She had nothing to say to that. Mike had never met Matěj. He’d only witnessed some of the aftermath.
“I think he kept things from us—how bad it was. I think he tried to protect me from the worst of it. I should have noticed. Jesus, no one wears scarves in May!”
“You mean, your dad—”
Marta nodded jerkily, fisting her hand on the table. “I still held on to the old version of Dad—I didn’t want to see how much he hurt Matěj. Dad was never like that to me.” Marta’s voice broke. She took a few fortifying breaths. “Matěj took the worst of it, protecting me, and I let it happen.”
Mike was chewing on his thumbnail, his eyes fixed on Marta, waiting. “You were just a teenager,” he said quietly, but Marta didn’t acknowledge the notion. It was beside the point.
“Will you help me? Even if you don’t agree?” she asked.
Mike nodded immediately. Marta could see the hints of enthusiasm she’d hoped for. He would think of it as a mission—a project. Mike loved his projects.
“I’ll help you. It’s a good thing you want to find him,” he said, a faint smile on his lips. “Simon will kill me.”
Marta laughed despite herself. “So, it’s revenge on your part, huh?”
“Nuh-uh,” Mike said and stood, his grin wide and happy. “C’mon. We’re going to be late.”