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night.”
    Jana had not come to criticize her friend. Sofia was having a hard enough time. “The words just came out. I apologize.” She reached over and took Sofia’s hand, squeezing it reassuringly. “I’m a fool. I was insensitive.”
    “No. I’m the insensitive one. I always have been.” Sofia squeezed Jana’s hand back. She was silent for a moment, then, as if explaining her actions to herself, said, “I couldn’t stay away from him. One step led to another, then another, then it was irrevocable, and I was locked in. And so, here we are.” She pulled a compact out of her handbag, using one of the napkins on the table to try to wipe off her smeared makeup. She was only somewhat successful. “Better to talk about pleasant times when we were innocent, when we were young. We dreamed, you and I.”
    “Everyone has hopes. Young, old, we all have them.”
    “Some are fantasies.” Sofia winced, then managed a slight smile. “Your father was a wise man. You remember him telling us to be careful what we wished for?”
    Jana remembered. “Be careful what you wish for. Castles in the sky can turn out to be dark dungeons.”
    “I’m living in one, Jana.”
    “We’ll get through it, Sofia.”
    Sofia’s cell phone rang. She reached into her purse and pulled it out, barking an impatient “Yes.” While Sofia talked on the phone, Jana glanced around the café, once more surveying the customers. A number were looking at Jana’s table, peering at Sofia. Their expressions, particularly the women’s, were not kind. Sofia was right: her fantasy had turned into a nightmare.
    Sofia finally terminated her phone call.
    “Politics,” she explained. “They never let you rest. A meeting has just been called. I must go.” She started to rise.
    Jana touched her arm, stopping her. “Sofia, you phoned and asked me to meet you here. There was urgency in your voice. You wanted something. What is it you need? Help of some kind?”
    Sofia stared at Jana as if about to speak, an anxious look on her face. Then she stifled the impulse, quickly standing to don her coat and scarf. She paused long enough to lean over and give Jana a quick peck on the cheek.
    “I just wanted to see you and talk.”
    Jana stood, gave her friend a hug, then held her at arm’s length, looking directly at her. “We have known each other forever. You know you can confide in me, right?”
    “Of course I know that.” Sofia pulled away. “We will always be friends.” She smiled, gave Jana another quick kiss on the cheek, and hurried out of the café.
    Jana looked after her. The smile and the kiss had been a politician’s smile and kiss, not a friend’s. Sofia had always confided in Jana when things were bad. If she didn’t feel comfortable enough to open up, then Sofia was in the worst kind of trouble. And Jana had no idea how to help her.
    Jana’s friend was truly living in a dark place.
    Perhaps even worse than the one she’d been in when they were young.

Chapter 5
    T he Bratislava of that long-past day had not been unkind to the young, just indifferent. Certainly the Slovaks had taken care of their children under communism, then under the new government after the communists fell. Things were harder, but parents managed to feed their children and keep them clothed, if not stylishly dressed; and if the clothes were second-hand, they were at least carefully patched. But there were no places for children to play among the gray soot-stained buildings of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; or to run free between the drab edifices built during the not-so-glorious reign of the Bolsheviks, structures which were decaying even faster than the older ones around them. So, like kids everywhere, they made do, carving playgrounds out of garbage-littered lots, dashing after a soccer ball through moldering back streets, making do amid the stoops of dreary, half-empty structures. Or they whiled away the afternoons when school was over by talking with a best