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Except for, ‘Sorry ’

I take my violin case out ofin it A scroll of soes like a pirate’s treasure uess I stare at it a second too long, because Cinzia follows ht of the air

‘She had this!’ she declares, in a tone of triuive her coffee cup’

What? Zuzana? My brain turns slowly How could…so…end up in my violin case?

Hope is tentative The cat does not approach, but it’s possible that it’s regardinglike interest

It’s also possible it’s all just a , I knock her hand away – lightly – and when I look at her face, her nostrils are flared She’s givingher hand like I just took a haize, but lift the scroll out es flake under ertips

It doesn’t feel like a fuls of fresh air rushing in

‘What is it?’ Cinzia asks

I don’t knohat it is I very much want to know, but I do not want Cinzia to know, or Radan or George or Ludmy violin and boay I don’t set the scroll dohile I put onno doubt that Cinzia would snatch it and feel entitled to open it In which case maybe I would take a hammer to her hand I tuck the scroll into lare

‘See you toeneral announce to the party?’

‘No,’ I say, because whatever is or isn’t in the scroll, I a to block Cinzia fro this alternate reality where a porcelain doll with voodoo eyesdown the Vltava with a parasol open to keep off the snow

Or, you know, sohtly more likely than that

6

Carpe Noctem

I consider the bathroom for privacy to look at the scroll, but the door’s in view of the lounge and Cinzia is still watchingI pause on the steps to glance at the flyer that caught Zuzana’s eye earlier

It’s gone

It was a red page with a phone-nu in its place now is a sheet of white paper with one ragged in Torn fro is written in tiny letters right in the center I have to lean in close and squint to read it It says:

Watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you

because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the ic will never find it

--Roald Dahl

And I know, I know it’s for e But what a in bent-headed figures hurrying through the snow No one catches ap between two buildings, and the lights of the castle cast a glow on the underbelly of the crouching sky The falling snow is light powder spun by gusts, like a dance out of The Nutcracker If there’s anything specific I’m supposed to see, I don’t knohat it is, but I know that , but the world is

I take the page down, careful not to rip it as I unstick the tape and roll it up to join the scroll in my jacket, then rush across the street to a pub, where I don’t even order a drink or sit down at a table I hope I won’t be lingering I grab the scroll out of my jacket and slip the black satin ribbon off, and…I unroll it

And there she is

A beautiful drawing of a beautiful face Her big, dark eyes look wide and expectant She’s not s, either No voodoo blood-freeze There’s warht at , of course (if she did it, and I assu for me, and it seems to shoot a spark at me like real eye contact With eye contact, the intensity of spark is due to…I don’t know, che and tingle, depending on the eyes in question, and though these are just graphite renderings of eyes, there is zing There is tingle

At first the face is all I see, but then I realize what it is I’iven e is covered in a diagram: streets and land the scroll tied with ribbon, had been that it looked like a treasure map, and…it is

It’s a treasure e, the X-marks-the-spot

Zuzana is the treasure

I have a dark thought that it’s a joke, that one of my friends has done this, but I dismiss it None of my friends can draw Besides, none of them even knoant to know her I haven’t e hijinx, and I don’t think I stare at her (When anyone’s looking)

No It’s got to be real

So I do that aard thing you do when you get good news in the co like an idiot, and they look back, not grinning like idiots, and you almost have to tell them, to tell soirl I like just gave me a treasure map to herself’

But you don’t You just don’t