Free Wonderland by Stacey D'Erasmo Page A

sky. Tom drank many beers. A Muslim family at the boat’s stern were the only other passengers; like us, they took pictures of the swans with their cell phones. One of the little boys stared quizzically at Boone the entire time. The motion of the boat was slow, oddly restful, like being rocked. I slept for twelve hours last night, woke up unsure for a minute where I was, which city, which year of my life. I looked at my cell phone for the time and remembered:
Czechoslovakia.
It seemed so improbable that I laughed out loud, alone in the vast hotel bed.
    Zach says, “I promised my dad I’d go to the Jewish cemetery. Supposedly I’ve got a great buried there somewhere.”
    Alicia looks impressed.
    “You go ahead,” I tell them. “I’ll meet up with you in the lobby for dinner.” They head off, her face uplifted to his as he gestures, talks, walking in his slightly duck-toed way. I go back to the hotel, where I read the
International Herald Tribune
and then fall asleep again. My dreams are syrupy, heavy afternoon dreams filled with people, with colors. I wake up wanting to call Jim, but manage (just) not to do that. He’d asked me, specifically and respectfully, not to, the one exception being an emergency, like if the plane I was on was plunging out of the sky. I’d said, “I guess I should put you on speed dial, then ,” but he didn’t laugh.
    I try to write down the syrupy dreams in
Wonderland,
maybe there’s a song there somehow, but the syrup only runs, granulates. I see a text from Boone, sent half an hour ago.
Come on down, we’re all going to dinner. Hry.
I put on my shoes, smooth my hair, and rush down to the lobby. Zach, Alicia, Tom, Boone, and a tall black man with short, blond dreads are waiting.
    Tom introduces us. “This is my friend Anton. He lives here.”
    “And what do you do?” I ask Anton as he leads us to dinner, a place he knows where we can sit outside.
    “I’m a writer,” says Anton, looking down at me.
    “What do you write?”
    “Novels, mostly. I translate a little.”
    “You’re Czech?”
    “My mother was Czech.” He smiles. “My father was from Oakland.”
    We arrive at a restaurant in a square with many tables outside. Set up in the square is a jumbotron on which soccer players, their heads soaked with sweat, mill around tensely. The screen is so big that even at the back of the seating area—the tables in front are full—I can see the hair on the players’ legs, the mud on their shoes. Their faces are surreally close. Everyone in the square is watching intently, hushed.
    “Who’s playing?” I ask Anton.
    “Spain versus Germany. Spain is red, Germany is white.”
    “Like wine.”
    A player in white on the side of the field picks up the ball to throw it inbounds and the crowd in the square boos and hisses loudly. A few people bang on the wooden tables.
    “We’re for Spain?”
    Anton smiles. “Oh, yes. We’re for Spain.”
    A player in red steals the ball with one quick foot and the crowd cheers. A table nearby waves at us to sit down, get out of the way, so we do.
    At another table, two women are smoking, speaking English with British accents. They appear to be the only people here not riveted by the game. “To play that card then,” says one of them, in a businesslike blazer and skirt. “To play that.” The other, younger, wearing a necklace of large black beads, nods sympathetically.
    Anton, in consultation with Tom, does the ordering, which makes me fear what might arrive, but I’m never that hungry before a show anyway. “How do you guys know each other?” I ask.
    “From college,” says Anton. “We actually—we had a band.”
    “It was great,” says Tom, Purelling his hands, then carefully arranging his napkin in his collar.
    “It sucked,” says Anton. “But Tom was already really good. We knew he could make it.”
    Tom shrugs. “Just got lucky.”
    “Man, when was the last time I saw you?”
    Tom pulls at his chin. “I don’t know. Was I