A few minutes later we arrived in Battersea. The Lodge house was a Victorian redbrick with a slate roof and largish garden. Very neat and nice, proper, appropriate for the neighborhood. The garden was colorful and well tended and showed that somebody had his priorities in order.

The whole family was waiting in the dining room, where the food was just being laid out. I was formally introduced to everyone, including a cat named Tigger, and I immediately felt pretty much at home, as well as missing my own family, feeling a sharp pang that stayed with me for a while.

Martin's wife, Klára, identified the food as it was laid out on the sideboard. "Alex, these are koláce, pastries with a cream cheese center. Rohlíky —rolls. Turka, which is Turkish-style coffee. Párek, two kinds of sausage, very good, a specialty of the house."

She looked at the eldest daughter, Hana, who was a neat blend of her mother and dad. Tall, slim, a pretty face but with Martin's hooked nose. "Hana?"

Hana grinned at me. "What kind of eggs would you like, sir? You can have vejce na mekko. Or míchaná vejce. Smazená vejce, if you like. Omeleta?"

I shrugged, then said, " Míchaná vejce."

"Excellent choice," said Klára. "Perfect pronunciation. Our guest is a born linguist."

"Good. Now what is it?" I asked. "The food I ordered?"

Hana giggled. "Just scrambled eggs. Perfect with the rohlíky and párek."

"Yes, the rolls and sausage," I said, and the girls clapped for my show-off performance.

It went that way for the next hour or so, most pleasantly, with Klára asking a lot of informal questions about my life in America while telling me about the American mystery novels she enjoyed, as well as the latest Booker Prize winner Vernon God Little, which she said "is very funny, and captures the craziness of your country much like Günter Grass did with Germany in The Tin Drum. You should read it, Alex."

"I live it," I told Klára.

It was only at the end of the meal that the kids admitted that the names for the breakfast foods were just about the only Czech words they knew. Then they began to clear away the food and started in on the dishes.

"Oh, and there's ty vejce jsou hnusný," said Jozef, or Joe, the eight-year-old.

"I'm almost afraid to ask—what does that mean?"

"Oh, that the eggs were gross," said Joe, who laughed with little-boy delight at his joke.

Chapter 68

There was nothing to do once I left Martin and Klára's, except obsess and worry about the Wolf and where he might strike, if he was going to retaliate. Back at the hotel, I caught a few more hours of sleep, then I decided to walk and I felt that this might be a long walk. I needed it.