Trafika Europe 12 - French Bon-Bons

The Combinations

questions that hung about the rooms didn’t evoke in me any sense of Hájek’s former presence. Their mys- tery seemed merely that of rooms abandoned, mani- festly stripped of their identities, their habitude. They echoed with the unstilled anxiety of final departure. I thought about what La Severínová had said to me— in particular, I wondered what might’ve been penned in Hájek’s last will and testament, had it existed—and I suspected, Hájek being Hájek, that one, or possibly many, would have—supposing I ought (belatedness be damned) to make some inquiries after all. It seemed strange that a man like Hájek wouldn’t have appointed his own executor. Or perhaps he had, and the person had predeceased him? Such things happened, it was hardly as unusual as all that. Or perhaps he’d kept it a secret—testament and instructions for its execution recorded in code, hidden where only his nearest confi- dants would know to look—somewhere, perhaps, that couldn’t easily be stolen, misplaced, or burned? (But I’m getting ahead of myself.) I remembered our first meeting at the Klementinum and attempted to recall the face of Hájek’s opponent, but couldn’t. Perhaps, af- ter all, the man was no different to me, a stranger pass- ing the time, who’d simply sat down for an hour or so to play a game of chess. A mere chance encounter with no further consequences for the story at hand. I tried to enumerate all the people who, in the course of any given day, must’ve had some sort of transaction with

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