“This is where you want to eat?”

“The guidebook says ‘Baretta,’” says Mimi, “so I’m guessing that those things that look like s’s are probably the way the Czechs make their t’s.”

“There’s a headdress in the window.”

“Just like home.”

“Your mother doesn’t have a headdress in her window.”

“And while we eat, we can talk.”

I step into the shade of the building and wait.

“Eugene,” says Mimi. “I want to talk about Eugene and the Other Demons.”

“Mimi . . .”

“You can thank me later.”

I open the door and stand to one side. Mimi walks in. And because I can’t think of anything else to do, I follow.

III

Eugene and the Other Demons.

Lots of people have demons. I know I do. And my approach to dealing with them is to pretend that they don’t exist, to leave them tucked away in the darkness.

Mimi doesn’t subscribe to my method, and early on, she decided that we should name them, to call them out as it were, to shine a light into the shadows where they hide.

“Eugene,” Mimi began. “Eugene’s the main man. Self-loathing.”

“Eugene?”

“And you like to catastrophize. That’s Cat. Or Kitty.”

“This is crazy.”

“And then we have the twins, Didi and Desi. Depression and Despair.”

I don’t mind talking about my medical issues. But personal struggles should always be private. That’s what private is all about.

“As well as Chip. For that big you-know-what on your shoulder.”

I was not pleased that Mimi had given my demons names, and I was more than put out when she shared them with her mother.

“Eugene?”

“Self-loathing,” Mimi told her mother.

“Your daughter is just being silly.”

“Seems to me,” said Bernie, “every Native person in North America has a Eugene.”

“And Bird likes to catastrophize. That’s Kitty.”

“He’s also kinda touchy,” said Bernie.

“Chip,” said Mimi. “And we don’t want to forget the twins.”

After that, each time we went to visit, the two of them would have a good time at my expense.

“You still hanging out with that Eugene?” Bernie would ask.

“The two of them,” Mimi would tell her mother, crossing one finger over the other, “are like that.”

SO WE’RE IN PRAGUE, and Mimi has walked us halfway across the city to an Indian-themed pizza parlour.

“Totem pole.” Mimi gestures towards the front counter. “Over there is a quiver for your arrows.”

The inside of the café is dark, on the edge of gloomy, but the place looks friendly enough.

“World is crazy about Indians,” says Mimi. “Remember that big festival we went to in Germany?”

“The Karl May festival in Bad Segeberg.”

“And the powwow in Denmark?”

“Aarhus.”

“And Cafés Indien in old-town Nice?”