SECOND PLACE
Gabriel tries to balance past and present while coming to an acceptance of where home is during his mother’s first visit to Brno.
It was late afternoon on a warm summer day, and as I sat down with a cool drink on Zelný trh – the “cabbage market” – I finally felt able to relax. I had spent weeks back in the U.S. visiting family and friends before returning with my mother and introducing her to Brno and other parts of the Czech Republic. It was her first time visiting, despite me having already lived here for many years. While I had been nervous when we had first arrived together, her time here had been enjoyable so far. She sat next to me with her own drink, attention drifting between me and the still foreign surroundings cast in the golden sunlight.
“I can see why you like it here,” she told me after some time, reclining back in her chair. “A view of the square, close to the cathedral, and we’ve got a nice spot in the shade.”
“My workplace isn’t too far from here,” I added leisurely, “maybe ten minutes on foot, so I come here with my colleagues every once in a while when the weather is nice and I don’t have to hurry home.”
“Does Katka ever come meet you here with the girls?”
“Not usually. It’s a bit far from our place and the girls can get tired quickly, especially Eva.”
“What if you had a car?”
While I had a Czech driver’s license, I had no interest in owning a car while I lived here, especially considering all the expenses involved. Besides not being ecological, it actually seemed inconvenient. Renting when necessary was easier.
“I doubt it would help,” I answered. “I don’t even have a clue where I’d park. And,” I added, raising a finger, “a yearly pass for the public transport costs something like…maybe two to three hundred dollars?”
This fact always impressed me but only got mild nods from my relatives. Owning a car was a matter of life back in the U.S., yet the thought was as foreign to me now as not owning a car was to them.
The conversation went no further, thankfully, because I was then pleasantly surprised by the sight of one of my local friends, who had spotted me. He approached, I lazily stood up from the chair, and we shook hands.
“Jirka! How are you?”
“I’m fine, Gabriel. How are you? How was your trip home?”
Was it home anymore?
Knowing my mother was sitting right there, I could not share all of my impressions.
“It was great. I was really happy to see everyone back there.” And also really happy to come back. “Jirka, let me introduce you to my mother,” I said, motioning to her. “She is visiting us for a couple weeks. No need to get up, Mom. I know those chairs are comfy. This is Jirka. We met in my previous job.”
After the pleasantries were over, Jirka ordered himself a drink and sat with us.
“How is your visit so far? Do you like it here?” he asked my mother eagerly with a smile. “We’re not as rich as America, but we’re rich in culture.”
“I’ve enjoyed it very much,” my mother replied, smiling. “I just regret not visiting sooner.”
Whether or not she meant it, this left me with a tinge of sadness. Half a world apart from family is difficult, but the gulf feels even wider when they’ve never seen or understood the place you’ve taken up as your new home.
“We’ve seen a few nice places,” she continued. “Prague was lovely. The Old Town and Charles Bridge have such wonderful sights.”
I could see a glint of mischief in Jirka’s eye as I glanced around carefully. He grew up in Moravia and was a true local.
“Prague is okay, but we don’t care for it so much here,” Jirka began with a smile. “We have better people and wine. What about Brno? Do you like it here?”
“It’s very nice here, too,” my mother answered politely, smiling at his jesting, though I wondered if she was surprised by his directness. “We’ve been here in the center at the cathedral and the castle, and we’ve spent a lot of time where Gabriel lives in…Bis-terts?”
“Yes, Bystrc,” I nodded.
She appeared satisfied with her improving pronunciation. “Bystrc. It’s gorgeous up there with all that green, and the area at the reservoir is nice, too.”
“Did you take her on one of the boats?” Jirka asked me.
“We’re going tomorrow with the rest of the family,” I told him. “We’ll go out to Veveří and then get off at one of the beachy areas on the way back and have a picnic.”
Jirka nodded his approval. “And the wine?”
“She likes the white wines,” I assured him with a smile.
My mother was more enthusiastic than I expected. “I love the Rieslings here! I’ll take a bottle or two back home when I go.”
“Good, good!” Jirka was clearly pleased. “You’ve done well, Gabriel.”
“He and Katka have been very good hosts,” my mother beamed, squeezing my hand lightly.
At that moment, I was very glad to have finally gotten my mother out for this visit. It had taken too long.
“And what was it like in the U.S.?” Jirka asked me. “Any interesting stories?”
“There is one I wanted to share,” I replied with a smile, glancing at my mother and wondering if she knew which story I would jump into.
Before I could, however, I was interrupted by someone approaching.
“Gabriel! Welcome back!”
It was one of my close colleagues, Aneta, heading over with a drink already in her hand. She was with a friend after work, and they had found chairs near ours.
My, oh, my. Brno is like a big village, and I love it that way.
More introductions ensued. It was a relief to feel the city welcoming me back in socially. I cherished the time with my family, but the distance between us, both physically and temporally, was significant, and at times I felt dizzied by the occasion of just being in the States. We didn’t know each other as well as before I had moved away. I really hoped that my mother’s visit would help ease this.
Once everyone was settled, I returned to Jirka’s request, which became their request. They wanted a story.
My flight from Europe to the U.S. was quite uneventful, but the second leg of the journey, a flight from New York City to Phoenix, produced a bit of reverse culture shock. Seated next to me was a woman – of the typical friendly sort you find in the States – and her daughter, who turned out to be seven. After we buckled in for the long, oh too long flight and departed, the woman decided to engage in small talk. Having been in the Czech Republic for so long (and not in the U.S. for years), this came as a minor shock, albeit pleasant. I enjoyed the freshness of open friendliness.
“Is Phoenix your final destination?” she asked politely.
“Yes,” I nodded. “Yours, as well?
“Yes,” she replied. “We just took a trip out to visit family in New York. We spent two weeks there. Where are you flying out of?”
“Prague, in the Czech Republic.”
I expected her to ask about the city or why I was there. Maybe there’d be surprise when I mentioned that I had been living in the country for many years, and that I had a multicultural family in a city she’d probably never heard of. However, the next question was related to none of those things.
“Do you know what she asked me?” I glanced at my mother and her knowing smile.
“Where’s the Czech Republic?” Aneta replied with a smirk.
I laughed and shook my head. “Even worse.”
“Oh! Is this your first time here?” She asked it in that friendly, “welcome to the U.S.!” sort of manner. Her impression was that I was a foreigner.
I am unsure how I looked, but I was certainly in shock. How could I be mistaken as a stranger to this land? Was I not replying to her in fluent English, with a similar style of communication? Did I look that different already? Was it the clothing?
“N-no,” I stuttered, trying to regain my composure. Imagine a block of ice falling on your head. That’s how I felt then. “Actually, I grew up in Phoenix. I’ve just been living in the Czech Republic for a while now.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize!” she replied enthusiastically, though half apologetically. “It’s just you have a sort of…European…accent.”
My friends laughed in surprise.
“You’re a true local, then,” Jirka said, clapping me on the shoulder.
“A local European?” Aneta asked.
“He does, though, doesn’t he?” my mother asked my friends, bemused.
“What does that even mean, though, a European accent?” I countered, bewildered.
My mother paused, considering the question.
“You certainly don’t have an American accent,” Aneta pointed out.
My mother nodded. “She’s right. You don’t sound like you did when you lived in Phoenix.”
“Maybe it’s the vowels?” I pondered. “Czech vowels can sound different.”
“That’s part of it,” my mother agreed. She apparently didn’t know how to continue because she didn’t.
I suddenly wondered. Was the woman on the plane actually right in an unintentional way? Was I a foreigner there?
Where was home, come to think of it? Did I belong anywhere now, if I didn’t in the place I grew up? Brno felt like home, in a way, but I wasn’t Czech and still wasn’t fluent with the language.
Aneta broke me from my pondering. “What did she say after that? The woman on the plane.”
I shook off my previous thoughts and returned to my audience, though the punch line of the story was already past.
“The rest isn’t as funny. She didn’t seem to be interested in the Czech Republic.”
“What took you over there?”
“Long story short, I was working there, fell in love, and ended up staying and starting a family.”
“Wow,” she replied, sounding both enthusiastic and uninterested, as if I was an oddity. I suppose I was. She wiggled uncomfortably in her seat for a moment before asking, “How long have you been living there?”
I hardly remember my age at this point, so counting off the number of years living abroad is tricky.
“About fifteen years, I think,” I replied distractedly, still trying to get the number right. “Maybe sixteen at this point?”
“Oh my gosh, that’s a long time! You must miss your family here!”
“Yes…but-”
“Have you ever considered moving back to the States?”
No. Never…
Swallowing an increasing frustration that I only realized later was related to this woman asking more than I cared to answer, I said, “Yes, but in the end we felt it was better to stay there.”
“Oh, I see…” The enthusiasm was gone. She fiddled with her seat belt and found something to help her daughter with. She turned one more time to ask a question I no longer remember.
I looked at my mother apologetically before turning to the others. “I’m not as chatty as some folks over there and I didn’t feel like the small talk, so I let the conversation die out.” I shrugged.
The Czechs laughed.
My mother smiled, leaned forward, and added knowingly, “You never were one for small talk. I don’t think that’s from here.”
“I know it’s not, but I think it came out more here.” I thought for a long moment. “At the same time, I think I appreciate meaningful conversation even more. Or maybe that’s just me growing older.”
Eventually, the sun slowly sank further and the conversation centering around my visit to the U.S. died down. It was time to leave. A short visit to the square for a pleasant drink had turned into a gathering with intense conversation. You never knew when you were going to see someone you knew as you passed through Brno.
On the long tram-ride back home, my mother asked more questions about my life here – something I had not experienced since my first years in the Czech Republic. A melancholic feeling settled over me as we watched the sun setting behind the hills of Obora Holedná. We had been apart for so many years that our conversations had begun to mostly run past each other. It was finally different now that she saw how I lived with my family here in Brno. Our conversation finally felt as if it rested in reality, not in a remembered past or an imagined future.
I pushed down some nerves and opened up. “Mom, I’m glad you came.”
She smiled tenderly, giving my hand a squeeze. “I am, too.”
The question I dreaded came, though. Despite all our discussions and time together. Despite us reconnecting in a way I had hoped would help her understand me better.
“I’m glad you have people – friends – who support you here. They seem like nice people.” She paused, then carefully continued. “We just wish back home that we had more time with you and your family… Have you ever considered coming back? We could help you get settled.”
Taken aback, yet not entirely surprised, I looked at my mother with her loving, hopeful gaze and then looked back out the tram window. The sun was no longer visible as we traveled past Komín and between hills, headed toward Bystrc. The trees on either side were solemn in the dusk. I forced my eyes back towards my mother’s.
“No.” The answer was soft, betraying a desire not to harm, but laced with certainty that had crystallized for years. “No, I’ve thought about it before, but we won’t move back while the girls are young. I believe this is a better place for them to grow up in. A safer place.
“Who knows once they’re grown up.” I shrugged. “Probably not. But definitely not now. This is their home. Our home.”
The pain of the decision – a decision already made unknowingly when my wife and I had first had children – was as fresh as ever. Sometimes, though, there is no better decision. No right or wrong decision. Maybe it is a decision that is less painful than the alternative, but it is a decision that has to be made and has to be lived with.
Would my mother finally see this after my many years away? Would she understand that this choice was not about her or any of my relatives? It was not even entirely about me.
She nodded, teary eyed, and gave my hand another squeeze.
“You have to do what’s best for your family.”
As the tram passed into Bystrc, we enjoyed another more open view of the colored sky. I realized uncomfortably that I had no idea what she was really thinking. I was at a loss for words, just like the woman on the plane.
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