“Yes.”

“Maybe. One of these days.”

Mimi was in town for the week. We had lunch together. Then we had dinner. Then we had lunch and dinner. Somewhere in the middle, we began talking, and once we started, we didn’t stop.

WE LEAVE THE HOTEL and head out across the Charles Bridge. Mimi takes my arm and lets her body sway back and forth as we walk. “Would you like to flaner?”

“What?”

“It means to stroll or wander. If we walk slowly, as though we don’t give a damn, people may think that we’re French.”

Mimi runs her hand along the stone wall. “I met a woman at the beach. From Scotland. She just got in from Budapest.”

I’m still a little annoyed with Mimi for running off and leaving me. After all, it wasn’t my fault that the note got lost.

“It’s only six hours from here by train.”

I would have liked to have seen the beach, to have seen the swans, to have that experience in common with her, so that when she told the story, I could add some little detail to make the moment come alive.

“What do you think?”

“About?”

Up ahead, a large, blond woman in a blue cape is having her caricature done by a street artist. The woman sits on a stool with one hip cocked up and a shoulder thrown back, as though she is posing for a movie poster from the ’40s.

“Budapest. Just for the day,” says Mimi. “We could catch an early-morning train and then come back later that night.”

“You want to go to Budapest?”

The artist has accentuated the woman’s eyes and lips and chin, so it looks as though her face is going to explode. Her hip is the size of a truck tire.

“That Scottish woman I met? Carol? She said you can still see bullet holes in some of the buildings in Budapest from the 1956 invasion.”

“You want to go to Budapest to see bullet holes in buildings?”

“And there are cast-iron shoes along the Danube, a memorial to the Budapest Jews who were killed and thrown into the river.”

“Lovely.”

“The victims were ordered to take off their shoes before they were shot.”

“In Budapest.”

Over Mimi’s shoulder, I can see Kitty climb onto the stone wall and get ready to throw herself off.

“And, if we go to the university, there’s a memorial that’s not in the guidebooks.”

Eugene just stands there and watches as Kitty leans out over the water. The twins are yelling at her, but I can’t hear what they’re saying. Chip has his cellphone out and is taking pictures.

“Carol says that between the bricks on one of the buildings, there is a narrow copper strip with the names of the professors and students who were sent to concentration camps.”

“What happened to going to castles, churches, and museums?”