Mimi soaks the shirt in the sink in cold water.

“You were at a protest for the Syrian refugees, and someone hit you?”

“It wasn’t just about the refugees. It was for a whole bunch of other stuff,” I tell her. “It was a multitasking protest.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there to protect you.”

“Oz bought me coffee.”

“Oz? Your breakfast buddy?”

“We ran into each other. He was supposed to go to Amsterdam,” I say, “but he stayed for the demonstration.”

“He hit you?”

I explain what happened. The protest. The guy who caught me with his elbow by mistake. The second-floor coffee shop. The chocolate cake.

“Prague is beginning to become problematic.” Mimi touches the side of my nose. “You get knocked down, and now you get knocked down again.”

“And we both get sick.”

“Don’t forget our two felons in the park,” says Mimi. “You see the dilemma.”

I don’t see the dilemma, and I don’t tell Mimi that I don’t.

“I mean we were right there with the refugees in Bupapest, and what did we do?”

I don’t think I need to tell Mimi what we didn’t do. So I don’t do that either.

“Nothing,” says Mimi. “We did nothing. Oh, we were sympathetic and we were outraged, but we didn’t do anything.”

“We thought about it.”

“And yet when we almost get robbed by a couple of juvenile delinquents, what’s our response?”

Mimi waits. No problem. I can wait as well.

“We give them money.” Mimi shakes her head. “Does that make any sense?”

I look out the window. There are clouds piled up on the horizon behind the bridge. Some of them are dark, and it appears as though a storm may be on its way.

“So, you sketched all day?” I say.

“Most of it,” says Mimi. “I had lunch in Old Town. Did you know the Sex Machines Museum is right around the corner from the clock?”

I go back to the bathroom to look at my nose.

“I have to say the museum was interesting,” she says. “You’ll never guess what I saw there.”

IN VENICE, MIMI HAD booked us a room at a small hotel tucked in behind Piazza San Marco. The Locanda Orseolo. Our room overlooked a narrow canal, and we could sit in chairs and watch small boats slide past our window, loaded with supplies that they dropped off at the hotels along the waterway.

The room was red brocade and gold trim with two high-back chairs that the owners might have borrowed from a museum.

“Well, one thing is for sure,” said Mimi as she wandered the sitting room and the bedroom. “It beats the Holiday Inn.”

“It’s really nice,” I agreed. “And we get a homemade breakfast.”