I lie on the bed, drift off every so often, but I don’t go to sleep. I hear Mimi throw up a couple more times. I’m tempted to get out the guidebook to see if it lists the hospitals in the area.

But I don’t.

Kitty paces the room. You do not want to take her to a hospital in Prague.

Eugene sits in the chair with his legs stretched out and his hat pulled down over his eyes.

They make a mistake, says Kitty, and she could wind up in a coma.

Atta boy, says Eugene, just sit there and do nothing.

I go to the suitcases and sort through the medical supplies that Mimi always brings along on a trip.

“We have Imodium,” I call out.

I can hear Mimi change position on the bathroom floor. “That’s for diarrhea.”

“Acetaminophen?”

“For headaches.”

I find a box with long, blue tubes. “Vagifem 10?”

“Gravol,” says Mimi, her voice enhanced by the acoustics of the toilet bowl. “Find the Gravol.”

Around seven, Mimi stops throwing up and the fever breaks. I help her back into bed.

“I’m feeling better,” she says, but she doesn’t mean it.

“I’m going to have to eat,” I tell her. “How about I bring you back something?”

“Not hungry.”

“Sure,” I say. “Not now. But you will be.”

“Before you go,” says Mimi, “could you move the toilet closer to the bed?”

I’m early for breakfast. The room is closed, and there is no sign of activity. I’m debating waiting around or taking a quick constitutional on the Charles Bridge when Oz comes in the front door with a newspaper under his arm.

“There you are,” he says with great delight.

“Here I am.”

“And without your wife again.”

“She’s sick.”

“Sick?”

“Stomach flu or something,” I tell him. “She’s getting better.”

Oz nods. “Whenever I travel, I get sick. In Los Angeles I get sick. Also in Cape Town. And always in Mumbai.”

“But not in Prague.”

“Yes, of course in Prague, but not today.” Oz gives me a wink. “It is the airplane. The bad air. You must travel by train.”

“Or ship?”

“Yes,” he says. “Or horse. Indians and horses. You are friends. This is true?”

I have a flash of Yellowstone and the two-hour ride from hell.

“May I join you for breakfast?”

I start to tell him that the room is not open yet, when I turn and discover that it is.

“And I have news,” says Oz. “Not good. Not bad. There is a saying in English: ‘No news is good news.’ Is this a recommendation for ignorance?”

The breakfast room is empty. We’re the first ones in, so we have our pick of tables. Oz chooses the one in the back corner.