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pastry-and-sausage tradition. When I think of my childhood, I think of little cakes and sausages, because they were symbolic of the way we lived under communism. Before the Second World War, we were similar to the Germans and Austrians in that we had a town mentality. Local businesses survived because of neighborhood goodwill, and communities were tight-knit and civic-minded. When the Communists took over, they destroyed our town mentality by coercing neighbors, friends, and even families into denouncing each other for anti-Communist activities. In the early years, the punishments handed out were sufficiently harsh to destroy any kind of trust between neighbors, forcing communities to live in a constant state of fear. After a while, this fear was replaced by a numb compliance in which neighbors would greet each other as “comrade” and profess great admiration for the Socialist state. For forty years we did this, watching with weary resignation as our buildings fell to pieces and our roads went unrepaired. We talked the nonsense of the system, and the system rewarded us with cheap booze, public holidays, and little sausages and cakes. No afternoon tea at the local Politburo was complete without an array of little cakes wrapped in pastry-shop paper; no cigarette break at the local pub was truly satisfying unless there was a fat sausage in mustard to accompany the several pints of beer one knocked back in quick succession. For the majority of the Czech working class, a boring but easy state job and a barbecue every weekend was enough to keep them going through the hard times of communism. Which was something the people in power were counting on.
    Standing in front of the pastry counter, I could see over twenty different kinds of little cakes. My favorites were the marzipan fruit, the swan, and the little indian. All the cakes were homemade and they were very cheap. My mother had given Klara ten crowns to buy some bread rolls for the swans, but there was no question that she would buy us some little cakes as well.
    â€œWhich one would you like?” she asked me.
    â€œA marzipan apple and a swan?” I said hopefully.
    My sister nodded at the pastry-shop lady, who used a long spatula to scoop the cakes out of the display case.
    â€œAnything else?” the lady asked.
    â€œAnd a Little Indian! Because it’s Christmas! Please?”
    â€œOkay. Just this once,” my sister sighed.
    We bought our bag of bread for the swans, and then walked outside to find Barry surrounded by his usual crowd of admirers feeding him their Christmas groceries. He ate everything they gave him, without even bothering to look and see what it was. He just opened his mouth and rolled his eyes like he did in the movies, making everyone roar with laughter.
    â€œLet’s go, Barry!” I grabbed his collar to let everyone know that I was his friend. The crowd was very impressed. We untied Barry and led him down the street, past the Hotel Slanka and across the railway tracks to the Berounka River. There was a weir and a mill directly opposite the station, and a pedestrian bridge between the weeping willow trees. We crossed the bridge to the middle of the river, and Klara lifted me up onto the railing so that I could see the swans beneath us.
    â€œHello, swans!” I cried. “We’ve brought you some bread.”
    In the old days, the Berounka River was very clean and full of beavers. Now the beavers were gone and the water was brown, but it was still very picturesque. The water was frozen solid on the far side of the bridge, but the fifty-meter stretch between the bridge and the weir remained unfrozen and was a favorite nesting place for ducks and swans. There were at least a dozen swans and they were very elegant, vaulting their necks gracefully to catch each piece of bread we threw. The ducks were quick and rude and tried to steal the bread from the beaks of the swans. They beat their wings and ran on the water,