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comments from her colleagues, who accused her of pandering, of trivializing history, of sensationalism, and of—horror of horrors—bad taste. The kind of things that generally got said of any academic who achieved a modicum of fame, published something more than five people wanted to read, or wore lipstick.
    But really, the woman was impressive.
    And, Sarah had to admit, a good choice for Max, who was also sort of an odd duck. Perhaps the sudden rush of feelings for Max was just the result of having a near-death experience, Sarah thought, as she set herself firmly toward Josefov, where Pollina’s parents kept an apartment for their daughter. Her brain had been flooded with chemicals and she hadn’t been thinking clearly. Anyway, she would be leaving for Vienna in the afternoon. Better for everyone.
     • • • 
    “T hey tell us her immune system no good, and it worse if she has stress. So we try not to worry her. We act normal.”
    Pollina’s caretaker, Jose Nieto, was waiting for Sarah on a street of glassware shops, holding the leash of Pollina’s elderly mastiff, Boris. Jose told her that the girl did not know how sick she was, and they needed to keep it that way.
    “But she knows how she
feels
,” Sarah argued. She was skeptical, anyway, about the ability of anyone to hide things from Pols. The girl’s blindness—and possibly her genius—had rendered her exceptionally observant. A bus pulled up and discharged a single-file line of young Chinese women in pink velour tracksuits. Prague was beginning to feel like a Hogarth painting entitled
The Triumph of Capitalism
.
    “She say she feel fine, fine, fine. But when she think no one hear, she cough
bad
.” Jose had looked after Pollina since birth. Now he had dark circles under his eyes. “Her parents, they just leave,” he continued. “They go to Afghanistan for the archaeology. They nice people, but they don’t worry! Always I see rich people worry about stupid thing like if bread has gluten, but they just say, ‘Oh, darling, you must rest and not work so hard.’ They no understand her.”
    The first-floor apartment was large and luxurious, though Sarah had to assume that while the art had been chosen by Pollina’s parents, the decorative touches had been added by Jose, who had a flair for whimsy. A row of Egyptian statues sported tiny bandanas. Sunglasses and a pipe had been unceremoniously added to an African ceremony mask. The crucifixes, however, had been left in their original state.
    Pollina was seated at a grand piano. She was playing a little tune of just five notes over and over again, as if in a trance: E. B. C. A. G.
    Sarah, whose mind automatically sought to classify these things, didn’t recognize the strangely compelling little passage, and wasn’t even sure which key the girl was playing in. Pollina stopped abruptly.
    “Why did you break Max’s heart?” Pols demanded without preamble.
    “I brought doughnuts from Boston.” Sarah placed the carton of requested Dunkin’ Donuts on the coffee table for the expats. Sarah was all too familiar with Pols’s blunt opinions. The last time they had spoken, the target had been her career. Was Sarah
sure
that teaching was
really
what she wanted to do with her understanding of music? Pols had an unerring nose for weak spots.
    “I thought,” Pols continued now, coming forward and touching Sarah’s hand in greeting, “that people strove their whole lives to find love.”
    Sarah sighed. Pollina was a genius, but she sometimes got very romantic notions into her head and she
was
only thirteen. How to explain that love and life didn’t always go easily together? It wouldn’t be obvious to Pollina why it was so important that Sarah make her own career and place in the world before she attached herself to someone else, that she and Max were leading very different lives.
    Sarah kept her tone light. “Let’s face it, I’m no princess.”
    Pols absorbed this as she munched on a doughnut. The