9. I run my tours and wait for Saturday. Saturday, I will see Zuzka again and forget about your mom. Thursday, this old Chinese couple hold each other and I hurt for what I do not have. They smell the same, like they still take their showers together. Their two old bodies naked and wet. I do not know what to do.
How many countries have you been to, the woman asks eventually. I tell them to guess. For some reason, my passengers never guess so few.
Her husband kisses her cheek and I feel like they are stabbing me.
I am restless. I am leaving blank pages, story of my life. I am leaving a blank page here and moving on.
10. My grandfather said keep my eagle by my side always. He said she was finding my smell inside her heart. Eagles will never have more than one master, he said, eagles when they accept you will stay loyal. Later the eagle will hunt for you. It will bring you its food as its gift. Then you are an official eagle-hunter.
I spit on the eagle's food before I fed her—this was so she would know me. When I tried to pet her, though, she turned away. She bristled. She did not know me, not yet, my grandfather said. I wanted her to know me. My grandfather said we would feed her always the same time, every day. Then she would be used to those times. She would look forward to them. Eventually she would like the Steppes, desert everywhere, be thankful.
11. On the last tour on Friday, the day before I see Zuzka, I think about you again. A little Czech girl gets on the ferry with her mom, just the two of them and ten Chinese, and I wonder, are you a girl or a boy? The daughter speaks English and her mom looks off into Prague like I could never know the city as she does.
The daughter asks do I have a girlfriend, and then why am I doing tours, like she is wondering who am I really? Her questions interrupt my history. I look at her face and think of other possible faces. She says something in Czech, and her mom smiles. Boys will be secretly in love with her in five years. I hope she does not break their hearts, but I also hope she leaves them and not the other way around. I speak English for her, as I am writing now, for you.
If you are a girl after all, when you meet your first boy, please do not think he will be your last. He will not. You must be strong enough to stay and strong enough to leave.
12. Zuzka takes me to a bar near And'el, very expensive and Czech. I buy drinks that cost an hour tour. She wears billowing sleeves, has beautiful wrists beneath like the masts of flags. Her friends arrive like judges and I buy drinks again, and a third time. I look eye to eye, toasting nazdravi. I can learn this, I think. I can be a catch.
When her friends leave, I tell Zuzka I want to walk beside the river. Just her and me and the Vltava. She says I try too hard. Her body slopes down boobs to ass, and I wait for myself, for my sexual energy. Her eyes are this blue swirl. She is throwing this beauty in my face, her fingertips like smoke. It is true I try too hard. I am afraid of her. I tell her I do not want to take advantage of her drunk.
13. In my boyhood, I slept in my grandfather's bed while my grandfather slept on the floor. My eagle sat beside me, her metal helmet over her eyes. I liked to listen to her breathing. The music those great birds breathed was the same as the sound of wind. My grandfather said when my eagle had a nightmare, she swung her head. When I had a nightmare, I kicked. I hoped soon she would no longer need the helmet. She would stay next to me, looking out, or looking at me, and sleep.
14. All weekend, I get no text or phone call from Zuzka. I plan a trip. I do not want Daniel to see me here, in Prague, on my ferry. I decide to go to Krakow, farther east. I will travel alone again. But at the last minute, I do not think it is over with Zuzka. I buy two tickets. I decide to act like what I said when we were drunk was true.
I send an email to your mom. Heard from Daniel you are waddling. Maybe these days you are craving tomatoes. I am still in Prague. I am thinking about what you said to me: It was just one night, you said, but you knew I would keep you at a distance. Also, you had a husband. But one night was not enough to understand me—like you said—so different than yourself. I just was thinking, maybe you wanted to hear from me. Where you are is not without phone or internet. Who our baby is is not so different than me.
I have some advice for you, my daughter, my son, if you are so different. Stand in the middle of the desert for fifteen years, and you will know me.
15. I taught my eagle to hunt as a teammate. She should catch food, my grandfather said, and she should bring this food to me. For training, we used dried corn in rabbit skin. She was supposed to fly down and attack it, then leave it “dead,” then hop onto my glove. I was supposed to give her real food—this was her reward. Good for her was good for us both. My eagle, she did not do this. She grabbed the rabbit skin, then flew after me, angry it was a fake one. My grandfather had to help. One week passed before she trusted me to feed her.
16. Wednesday morning, Zuzka calls at last. She says she doesn't remember much, she was too drunk. I do not believe her. I think she is giving me this chance.
That night, we go to a club somewhere. She is dancing on the stage. I am below. Old songs are singing, like all of the past is in there. I reach out. I do not think of you. I ask her to go to Krakow with me.
She pulls me up to her. The lights are hot red, hot green, hot blue. Then what does she do, she cups my balls. In front of everyone. I look around, thinking: help.
Almost two o'clock, there is a fight, and I am in the middle. How, I do not know. People pushing, drinks falling over, people falling over too, like dominoes. Falling and falling. In this moment, I know where everyone is in the club. I know where I will go if I must run.
Zuzka gets us in a cab and then drops her head on my shoulder like a bomb. We are together, going to my apartment. I think, where is my sexual energy? Her hair scratches my neck. But then there we are, in bed, and I surprise myself. The sex is okay, I am an okay catch.
17. I trained my eagle to sit on my hand. I had the job to improve her balance. She sat blind on my grandfather's rolling pin. The rolling pin was covered with rope, so she could grip it in her talons. I rolled it back and forth. She tried to stay on. I was supposed to do this for four hours. After two hours training, I got so tired, the desert everywhere and hot and windy, I had to fall asleep. I was nine years old. When I awoke, my grandfather stood over me, sad-eyed, my eagle gone.
18. When you are older, I hope your mom tells you about me, but do not come to find me. I do not know where I will be. When my parents died, I looked for them, walking all over the Steppes, desert everywhere. I thought if I walked far enough I would reach the ocean, where my grandfather said they were resting. I saw the bones of an eagle, instead. Something, or people, had picked it clean.
I cannot promise what you will find, or where you will end up, if you look for me.
