“See that woman with the red-lollipop sign?” says Mimi. “She’s a guide. The people around her are part of a tour.”

I look up and down the bridge. There are at least a dozen women with lollipop signs, all different colours. Mimi walks over to the red-lollipop tour, and then she walks back.

“I think it’s in German,” she says. “Let’s see if we can find an English-speaking one.”

“You want to pay for a tour?”

“No,” says Mimi, “but we could stand close enough to hear what’s being said.”

I lean against the stone wall while Mimi goes off to find her tour, and for the first time, I notice the men lying prostrate on the bridge. Most are on their knees, hunched over with their faces on the ground, their hands cupped in front of their heads.

As though they’re praying.

I wonder if they’re monks of some sort, but then I see that they’re really begging. They’re not bothering anyone. In fact, they don’t even look up or say anything as the people pass by.

A silent vigil for alms.

If this were Toronto, they would be on their feet, moving back and forth through the pedestrians, stopping people to ask for money. Some would have signs. Others would be making noise on an instrument. The bravest would be working the traffic at the stoplights with a rag and a bottle of water.

The beggars on the Charles Bridge look as though they have come here to die.

In the distance, I can see Mimi. She’s found her tour. She has her back to the group and is pretending to admire the sky. Each time the group moves, Mimi moves with them, as though she’s dancing with Fred Astaire.

I have a momentary impulse to join the beggars, put my face to the ground with my arms stretched out in front of me. It’s a strong urge that I have to work to resist.

I know if I were to lie down, I might not want to get up.

WHEN BERNIE TELLS the story of Uncle Leroy, she closes her eyes so she can see the story, whole and complete. “I told you it wasn’t much of a house, didn’t I?”

“You did.”

“And that all the paint had been stripped off by the weather?”

“You told us that too.”

“And that Leroy had had a little too much to drink?”

Bernie would always pause at this point to let the tension build.

“So, Leroy’s big idea,” she’d begin again, after the proper amount of time had passed, “was that he would paint the Indian agent’s house. But he didn’t have any paint. And nobody else on the reserve had any paint, either. I’m guessing you can see the problem.”

“No paint.”

“So Leroy had to improvise.”