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paper and stared at it. Then she looked up, held my eyes for a moment, nodded and handed the paper back to me. In a moment she had vanished and I was left standing in the doorway, my legs trembling. This was the real thing, and for sure I would make one mistake after another. But mistakes were a proof of reality, and nothing less than reality would now content me. Shamefully, I had put aside the thought of Mother, forgotten the need to let Ivana know what had happened, forgotten my work and my routine. Mother had retreated to the horizon of my world. As I took my steps down the hill, across the railway to the swollen Boti č , I thought only of the girl, and of all the things that I would say to her.
    She was standing among the maples, staring across the torn barbed-wire fence towards the railway. I was going recklessly forward, as oblivious of her safety as I had been of Mother’s. Still, a small voice of common sense told me to walk on past the chapel and to climb the steps before descending again to meet the girl. There was no one behind me, no one in view at all, save an old woman in a torn shawl, who carried a dog under one arm while pulling herself up the steps with the other. Her face had that stony grey color that was routine among old people then, and I felt a spasm of pity, wondering how she lived and whether the dog were her only companion. Next to the steps, standing among leafless trees, was an old log house, of the kind that the wealthier sort would build in the years of the National Revival, and I stood for a moment and stared at it. The windows were shuttered, the garden overgrown with weeds, and shingles were missing from the roof. But the idea entered my head to live in such a place, to build there a home for myself and the girl from Divoká Šárka, where we would spend our young days in studious isolation, laughing behind closed shutters at the world to which we did not belong. I was so lost in this thought that I did not notice that someone was standing beside me.
    â€œI don’t think you were followed,” she said in a voice that was soft and clear like a child’s. “I assume you are Paní Reichlová’s son.”
    â€œJan Reichl,” I said. It felt like a pseudonym. “And you?”
    â€œAlžb ě ta,” she replied. “Alžb ě ta Palková. But they call me Betka. Not B ě tka, but Betka. Someone passed one of your mother’s books to me, and I said I would return it.”
    She nodded as she spoke, as though seeking agreement. There was something eager in her manner that overcame my reticence. It did not occur to me to ask how she knew our address, or why she had come to our apartment at a time when neither I nor my mother should have been home. I wanted to share my trouble, and her steady eyes and unaffected gestures were like a door opened onto a sunlit garden. As I told her about Mother, she continued to nod, looking into my eyes as though the story were written there. I did not mention my part in Mother’s downfall, only the fact that the police had raided us and discovered her crime. And then Betka touched my arm and pointed to the chapel, indicating that we should stand behind it, where we would not be seen.
    She took a volume of samizdat from her bag. It was
Rumors
by Soudruh Androš. I stared at it in silence.
    â€œThe person who borrowed this was particularly insistent that I return it straightaway. To tell you the truth, I want to keep it. It is so close to my way of seeing things.”
    â€œYour way of seeing things?”
    â€œWell…” She stopped suddenly and looked at me. “What are we going to do about your mother?”
    I had been alone with my thoughts for so long that I could hardly grasp the meaning of her “we.” Was she including me in her life, or asking me to include her in mine? Only the candid look reminded me that it was not I but Mother who concerned her.
    â€œWhat do you