IRISH LOVESTORY - I Am From Prague

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 I Am From Prague

One morning, a curious spectacle unfolded, entirely of Jack’s own making. In one of his whimsical moods, he had bought a Škoda Elegance on installments. Sleek, polished, impossible to ignore—a car that demanded attention, yet, of course, he did not have the funds to sustain it. He parked it a few blocks away, in a quiet row of townhouses, probably hoping the dealership wouldn’t notice, or perhaps simply to keep it from prying eyes.

That morning, he shook me awake.

“Go check the parking lot,” he said, eyes bright with something between excitement and doubt. “Make sure I’m not hallucinating.”

I frowned, half-asleep, bewildered by his need for verification. Still, I followed his instructions. And sure enough—the car was gone.

“Are you certain it’s not there?” he asked, suspicion flickering in his gaze. He hadn’t seen it himself; he needed a witness, someone sober, to confirm the truth. I nodded. The car had been towed. Later, I discovered he hadn’t even paid past the first installment.

One evening, Barry called me at home, his voice tight with irritation but tempered by concern. The topic: Grace. She had a habit of handing out free smoothie vouchers, flooding O’Briens with customers, overwhelming the staff. But this—this was graver.

“Do you know anything about the missing money?” he asked.

“I… what money? How much are we talking about?” I stammered.

“I saw the footage. Grace stole about fifty euros,” he said, disbelief lining his voice.

I blinked. “Seriously?”

Barry sighed and thanked me for confirming that I knew nothing during our phone conversation. I could sense him already planning decisive measures. The next day at O’Briens, Grace was fired in dramatic fashion, her mother in tow, shrieking obscenities. Barry didn’t flinch; he guided them out with calm, unshakable authority. Watching it unfold, a quiet thrill ran through me—sometimes karma arrives without warning, and its satisfaction, when seen firsthand, is undeniable.

Meanwhile, life in The Elms brought small victories. I picked up occasional work through a Dublin agency seeking Czech interpreters. My first assignment: Social Services, interpreting for a worker interviewing a Czech couple hoping to adopt a boy. The questions focused solely on whether abuse had occurred, probing delicately but firmly. I translated silently, observing, absorbing, my own life momentarily set aside.

The second assignment was in court, in Carlow. The agency neglected to give me the details. Five minutes before the hearing, I met the defendant—a Slovak man in his thirties, whose car had been borrowed by a drunken friend and wrecked. The tension in the courtroom was palpable, the air thick with muted anxiety. The judge’s eyes fell on me.

“Hello, you back there. Where are you from?” she demanded.

“I’m from Prague,” I said, bewildered.

“I don’t mean your hometown—who sent you?”

Ah. Of course. I felt my knees weaken. “A translation agency in Dublin. I’m here to interpret,” I managed.

“Step forward!” she barked. I walked toward the bench, feeling as though I were entering a lion’s den.

At the Bible, I took an oath, my voice trembling slightly. The judge questioned the young man’s liability. I had to translate several exchanges between his lawyer and the state attorney, sharp words flying across the room. When I explained, as clearly as possible, that in our country a license applies to the driver, not the owner, the tension spiked—arguments flared, voices rose, and for a moment, I felt the weight of every word pressing down on me.

After what seemed like an eternity, the judge gave a speech. The verdict favored the young Slovak man, and I could sense his relief radiating from him. He hugged me, gratitude clear in his eyes. Relief and excitement surged between us—I had helped him win a case that had dragged on for so long, and for a brief moment, it felt like a small triumph shared. As we walked toward town, he casually suggested grabbing a coffee—and then, while laughing, admitted he had knowingly lent his car to his drunk friend. The revelation hit me all at once: the trust, the effort, even my quiet pride in helping him—it was all manipulated. I politely declined, masking the disgust churning inside me. Some people lie so effortlessly, it becomes their only reality. As a result, I finished working for the agency, unwilling to face more liars, which went against everything I believed in.

Jack and his family, meanwhile, were a study in contradictions. Though ashamed at times, they swooped in to patch up the chaos he created. Court hearings, debts, failures—they cleaned up the mess, always. His younger brother, a steady, reasonable man, once spent hours trying to reason with him, even going so far as to lend Jack money to keep him afloat, fully aware it would likely never be repaid. Despite his patience and generosity, every attempt at helping was absorbed into Jack’s recklessness, reinforcing his sense that consequences never truly applied to him. Rather than repairing the damage, their interventions allowed his chaos to continue unchecked. Families like his, I realized, often perpetuate the very havoc they claim to prevent.

Jack’s compulsive lying became a performance, almost comical to observe. Once he claimed to be shopping on Tullow Street; I followed discreetly and caught him dashing into a pub. Another time, he said he was at a shopping center; the echo on the phone betrayed him in a bathroom. He lied not out of necessity, but as an art, a signature of his chaos.

And yet, the universe occasionally had its own way of correcting him. I once refused him twenty euros for cigarettes; in a flare of frustration, he kicked a table with all the force of his fury—likely breaking a bone in his foot. For weeks, he hobbled around like Quasimodo, a living testament to the consequences of his own temper. I watched quietly, a small, private satisfaction blooming in me: sometimes chaos begets its own reckoning, and karma, however delayed, always finds a way.