Sometimes it takes 20+ years to learn the lesson of one moment.
“Jste zdrava?!”
“Are you quite well?!” (Lost in translation.)
It was not a friendly inquiry. So naturally, I was immediately put off. My Czech was mediocre and I was confused, I took it more literally.
Am I healthy? Why on earth is she asking me that? Why is she shouting and waving her arm?
I understand now she meant that facetiously. Like an Old Southern Belle might drawl from her wraparound porch, “You from around here, Darlin’?” Right before she pulled a shotgun from behind her skirts.
Maybe I should consider myself lucky she couldn’t possibly have a shotgun when and where she was living in Prague.
Her home looked very much like an antebellum plantation home, not so different from the one above, but only a quarter of one, and with just two pillars. With a large front and back yard, and beautiful fruit trees full of plums, which stuck out even in this neighborhood of nicer homes compared to the typical panelock housing found just a block away.
That I’d be inclined to take a photo should be logical, at least that’s how it seemed to me at the time.
Should I have told her I was perfectly healthy, 25, in my prime, one might say.
“No taking pictures here!” More hollering and waving.
Now that time I did understand without any additional effort. I put down my camera, I apologized, and I moved on to the next house, where I took more pictures unencumbered by any screaming women.
Prague in 1999 was already transformed from that of 1992, at least I could see it clearly.
Of course it’s different if you live there, even rapid change can seem incremental when one is concerned with the quotidian. Foreigners have a different perspective.
I looked like a spy to her, I get that now. It’s not that I wasn’t used to paranoia, it was permeating the place, always.
It’s just I didn’t recognize what paranoia like that would feel like until decades later, in my own country.
Yes, the United States, where we are told we are free. Of course you can take a photo of my beautiful house, I take great pride in it!
Adjusting to insanity. That’s what that woman had done. The more one is required to adjust to insanity, the more paranoid one becomes.
She saw me as a spy, not as a clueless and curious American interested in architecture.
“Are you quite well?” Was most likely a candid and covert admission that she was in possession of illegally inherited property. Or if not illegally obtained, then certainly not conforming to the current and always shifting proper codes.
Under Soviet governance no one was allowed a large house without subdividing, everywhere, not just in the large cities. There was a housing crisis. Everywhere. Even country estates and cottages had to be confiscated. Collectivized, euphemistically speaking. Then, Privatized, once again. The hand that washes the back . . .
Repatriated? Potato-Potato. Musical chairs?
You really think it’s different here now? Don’t dig too deep.
In fact, you’re not allowed to be a curious American in America either. Little did I realize. Try talking about the weather. Ask a few questions. Don’t stop when you get the first rebuff of redirection and discomfort. Press on.
You want to see how much America TODAY is like the Soviet Union?
Why is it 99 degrees in mid October in East Texas? Why hasn’t it rained for 2 months?
Climate Change is a scam? I agree.
Why are there hurricanes in the mountains of Southern Appalachia? Climate change is a scam? I agree.
Why are there so-called Northern Lights in the south?
Climate change is a scam. I know.
Where do you think this is going? What do you think they are up to? Why don’t you ask some questions? What are you so afraid of?
Press on. I dare you. Do we own our air space? Who has taken over our atmosphere? Who is complicit?
No taking photos here curious American spies!
