Holy Fire

“You can run along and have some fun in Praha while I’m out of town,” Therese said to Maya. “You’d better take Klaudia with you. I never knew Eugene to ask any girl for a date before. Taking Klaudia will widen your options.”

“Eugene wasn’t making a date with me, and I don’t even like Eugene. Much. Besides, why should I go to Praha? There are plenty of vivid cafes here in Munchen.”

“Don’t be a mule, darling. Praha is a big fashion town. The Tete du Noye is a scene. You’re a model in the rag trade, so it’s important for you to make scenes.”

“That kind of fun sounds like a lot of work.”

“Well, at least it’s work of a different kind. Klaudia deserves time off from the store, and so do you. Anyway, if Klaudia runs off to party without you to look after her, she’ll only get into trouble. Klaudia always does.”

“That’s all very clever and convenient, Therese. You’re always so full of wiles and angles.”

“I have to make arrangements. I can’t do business from an empty shop, you know that as well as I do. Get Klaudia off my hands for a little while—and take your camera, too. There are big armies of vivid women in Praha.” Therese narrowed her eyes. “Those Praha vivid girls … They have an iron grip on the fragile exotic look.”

There was no resisting a determined Therese. Maya and Klaudia loaded their backpacks and their hangered garment bags, and caught the Praha train late Tuesday morning. Klaudia paid. Klaudia almost always paid; she had a little salary, plus a tidy allowance from her wealthy and influential Munchener parents.

They fell headlong into their beanbags. Maya felt cranky and exhausted. Klaudia was twenty-two; the previous day of excitement and frenzied labor had only improved her mood. Klaudia was ready for anything. “[You’d better eat something, Maya,]” she said in Deutsch. “[You never eat anything.]”

“I’m never hungry.”

Klaudia adjusted her own earpiece translator. Despite weary years of the finest state-assisted classroom training, Klaudia’s English was highly unstable. “[Well, you’ll eat something today, or I’ll sit on you. You look so pale. Look at that wig. Can’t you even try?]” Klaudia deftly adjusted Maya’s secondhand mop of blond curls. “[You have the strangest hair, girl, you know that? Your natural hair feels more like a wig than this wig does.]”

“That’s from my shampoo.”

“[What shampoo? Are you trying to kid me? You never shampoo. You should let me spritz you a nice protein strengthened I know you’re trying to grow your hair out, but you should let me trim it a little. Without that wig, you look like a big ragazzina.]”

“Ja, Klaudia, ich bin die grosse Ragazzina.”

Klaudia gave her the look that locals always gave her when she tried her broken Deutsch—a look as if her intelligence had suddenly plummeted.

The train pulled out of the station with the ease and silence of a skate skimming ice. The car was three- quarters full. Klaudia examined every one of the passengers in their car with her forthright Deutschlander stare. She elbowed Maya suddenly. “Na, Maya!”

“What?”

“[See that old lady sitting back there with the police dog and the little kid? That’s the president of the Magyar Koztarsasag.]”

“The president of what?”

“Hungary.”

“Oh.” Maya shook her head. “I know we’re all supposed to call people by their own proper names nowadays, but speaking Hungarian, that’s pushing it.”

“[She’s an important polity figure. You should go ask for the log-on address to her publicity palace.]”

“Me? I feel so sleepy,” Maya said. “[She’s a big politician. She’ll speak English to you. What a shame she’s so badly dressed. I wish I could remember her name. You could take my picture with her.]”

“If she’s really a politician, she’ll appreciate it if we respect her privacy.”

“[What?]” Klaudia demanded, skeptically. “[States-people hate privacy. Government people don’t do that privacy nonsense.]”

Maya yawned. “I don’t know what it is, but I feel so worn out today. I’m having a sinking spell. I think maybe a little nap …”

“[I’ll get you something,]” volunteered Klaudia, squirming onto her high heels, eyes gleaming. “[A tincture. How about caffeine?]”

“Caffeine? That’s addictive. And isn’t it awfully strong?”

“[It’s our day off! Let’s be daring! Let’s drink caffeine and get really sternhagelvoll! We’ll run around Praha all day! Praha, the Golden City!]”

“Okay,” Maya said, sinking into her pastel blue beanbag and fluttering one hand at the wrist. “Go, go. Bring me something.… ”

Maya slumped bonelessly into the luscious depths of her beanbag and gazed up at the roof of the train car. A blank expanse of gleaming metal. This railcar was a real antique. It had been designed for advertisements, before advertising had been outlawed worldwide. Light flashed by through the bare limbs of the trackside arbors against the gleaming expanse of the roof. Flash, flash, flash.

She emerged from her daze with a piercing ache behind both eyes. Something was really hurting her ear. She pulled it off. An earcuff. The skin of her ear was all pinched beneath it, as if she’d been wearing it for weeks. She plucked the little device off her head, held it in her hand, gazed at it blankly, then let it drop on the floor.… What was she wearing?

She was wearing a red jacket over a long-sleeved low-cut shirtdress, a slinky number that looked and clung like lace and snakeskin. The dress ended at midthigh. She wore spangled metallic hose and high-heeled ankle boots.

Mia got onto her feet, wobbling. She began walking unsteadily down the aisle of the train car, wobbling in the absurd boots. Her toes were pinched and her ankles ached. She felt very strange and weak—starved, headachy, shaky, really bad.

She was alone inside a train with twenty or thirty foreigners. An alien landscape was rushing at terrific speed by the window.

She had a very bad moment then, an all-over shudder of identity crisis and culture shock, so that she swayed where she stood and felt sweat break out all down her back. Then the nausea passed and she came out of it, and she felt extremely different.

She was Mia Ziemann. She was Mia Ziemann and she was having a very strange reaction to the treatment.

A dog was staring at her. It was the police dog belonging to the Magyar president. The dog was crouching on his beanbag at the edge of the aisle, looking very efficient in his strapped and buttoned police-dog uniform. His ears were cocked alertly and his eyes were fixed on Mia.

The president of Hungary sat next to the dog, together with a ten-year-old boy. She was showing the boy the screen of her notebook, pointing into its depths with a virtuality wand, a slim and elegant access device like an ivory chopstick. The boy was gazing into the woman’s screen in primal trust and fascination, and the president was teaching him something, speaking gently in Magyar.

The old woman had the most astonishing hands. Hands that were wrinkled and deft and strong. A face supernaturally full of character, a postmortal face. The face you had when you were a very strong-willed, very healthy, very intelligent woman a hundred and twenty years old, and you had seen many sorrows and had made many painful decisions, and you had lost all illusion, but had never lost your self-respect, or your desire to help.

Of course this lady would speak English. She was a European intellectual, she would speak English, along with her consummate mastery of five or six other languages. She had authority—no, she was authority. So Mia would totter over to this saintly woman, and beg her help, and say, I’m sick, I’m hungry, I’m weak, I’ve lost my way, I’ve run away, I’ve broken my faith and abandoned all my duties and my obligations, I’ve done something bad, and I’m sorry. I’m very sorry, please help me.

And the president would look at her and she would master the situation in an instant. She would not be embarrassed or upset, she would be very wise, and she would know just what to do. The president would say, My dear, be calm, sit down, rest a moment, of course we can help you. There would be networking, and explanations, and advice and guidance and food, and a warm safe place to sleep. And the blasted tatters of her life would be