“I bet my health would improve if we lived on the coast.”

“Didn’t we decide that the geographical solution never works?”

“Why don’t we try? You like the coast.”

“For a vacation, sure. But I like sunshine.”

“Sunshine is overrated,” I tell Mimi every time we have this discussion. “If you die before me, I’ll move to the coast.”

“We could compromise and move to Alberta. Mom would like me to come home. And we could ride horses. Remember how much fun that was.”

I tried to imagine myself on the prairies.

“Sure,” I would say every time the discussion got to this point. “Hot summers. High winds. Rampant racism. Religious intolerance. Right-wing politics.”

“I need sun, Bird. I don’t like being cold.”

I don’t know for sure if living on the coast would improve my outlook on life, but I’m convinced that it’s worth a try.

“If we moved to the coast, I’d leave Eugene and the Other Demons in Ontario.”

Mimi is skeptical about this. “That a promise?”

“Absolutely,” I tell her. “I’d be happy on the coast. Happy, happy, happy.”

SO WE’RE IN PRAGUE, walking around the grounds of an old castle, looking at old buildings, when Mimi stops me.

“Bird, did you know you’re sweating?”

“It’s hot.”

“It’s not that hot,” says Mimi. “Are you okay?”

I always like it when Mimi is concerned about me.

“Is it your blood sugars?”

Eugene is standing in the doorway of St. George’s Convent. He has his camera out. Smile, he shouts. For the obituary.

“I’m fine,” I tell Mimi. “Nothing a house on the coast wouldn’t cure.”

“Jesus, Bird,” says Mimi. “I did tell you to wear a hat.”

Golden Lane is at the far end of the castle complex. The statue of the naked boy that Oz had told me about is in a small square just before the entrance to the lane. There are a number of tourists standing around the statue, taking pictures.

Mimi squints into the sun. Then she walks over to the crowd. Then she walks back.

“The tourists,” she says, “you want to guess what they’re doing?”

I don’t know what I had expected, but Golden Lane isn’t it. The lane is a long, narrow street of brightly painted cottages all stuck together, the kind of long, narrow street you can see in almost every city in Europe. Not to mention North America. Petit Champlain in Quebec City, Maiden Lane in San Francisco, Government Street in Victoria, Acorn Street in Boston.

We stroll along with the rest of the tourists while Mimi gives me all the details.

“The houses were originally built to quarter the castle guards.”

“Why are there only houses on this side of the street?”

“The other side was torn down in the nineteenth century.”

“Why?”