It’s not your fault the Germans closed the universities. You can explain it in a letter. Benes taught in America.

Benes was president, Alena. Of course he found a job.

He believes he’s president still to listen to him on the wireless, even though he ran away.

You want us to run away. He could say that but he looked at her standing there in her white dress. Her teeth graying.

            So. Let’s say then that I could get a position, though I couldn’t. How are we to travel, even as far as England?

            She waved a hand. I’ve thought of that. We cross into Slovakia. They haven’t been independent long their borders won’t be fast. And besides, Slovaks are still our brothers. We can talk to the guard. Maybe bribe him. Then into Yugoslavia. From there we can take a train.

A train to where? Yugoslavia and Slovakia don’t have a common frontier, Alena. They don’t meet. And what about papers? The Gestapo won’t knock on our door with exit permits.

She concentrated her eyes on a fingernail, bit. She stared at the floor.

Well first to another country, then Yugoslavia. Hungary, or Rumania?

Hungary.

You know I don’t have a map in my head like you do. Like some bus driver. Hungary then, then Yugoslavia and a train through Italy to France. Won’t that do? From there a boat to England. Or America. It’s that simple.

He said, You know the Slovaks are evicting Czechs, but she clapped her hands, twirled toward the window so that the skirts flared. Her feet almost danced into the corner.

Look, Viktor, a beautiful spring. It’s only beginning and the sun’s already brilliant.

The same flare of skirt, the same smile beaming as she whirled to face him, leaned on the windowsill.

Yesterday was cold rain. He didn’t say that either, didn’t say that cold rain would settle here again before they had spring in earnest.

What will we do for money, Alena?

We have savings and can borrow the rest. I’ll earn some. Her fingertips played against the glass. Sewing, and cakes. She bit at the nail again. Everyone on the street loves my pastries.

The sugar you’ll buy on the black market, he said. And the flour.

I’ll set some aside from our ration every week.

How much sugar will you need to bake a bridge for us all to England?

She stared at the floor, looked up unsmiling. Trn spanned his brow with a hand.

Maybe the Overseas Service.

I’m sure the BBC have all the Czechs they need.

You won’t even write to England will you? Not even to save your own son.

I no longer know anyone there. And letters don’t go to England from here anymore.

Just behind the clenched eyes the skull. The temple bones grown close under the skin.