Necessary Errors: A Novel (83 page)

When
noticed the exercise wheel inside the glass cage, she covered her mouth in amusement. —That is excellent, she commented in Czech.

“Will Václav study with us today?” Lucie asked in English.

“He already knows English,” said Jacob. “He hears it a lot at home.” He ordered his usual soda water.

“Ah, the mouse is not there,” Lucie observed, as she looked at the cage more closely.

“
,”
said, with mild indignation. “Je
.”

“Omlouvám se,” said Lucie.

“English, English,” ordered Jacob.

“He is not mouse,”
repeated herself. “Is…”

“Hamster,” Jacob provided. “
A
hamster.”

“Is not
a
mouse,” said
. “Is
a
hamster.” In Czech she softly cursed the English language’s perverse encumberment with not only definite but also indefinite articles. “But Václav,” she continued, resuming her tentative English, “has he not…
a
home…already?”

“He lives in a pot right now,” Jacob confessed.

“A pot!”
exclaimed. —But you are horrible, she said, shaking her head. —Since April! It’ll be dark there.

Lucie shrugged and said, “He’s a mouse,” taking Jacob’s side.

—But he
isn’t
,
insisted again.

—I have bought him a home at the end of ends, Jacob said in his own defense. He switched back to English: “I had to buy him one, so I can give him away.”

“Mmm,”
began. She stared at Lucie blankly for a moment as if to draw from her the words she was looking for. “You don’t love Václav any more?”

“I have to go back to America.”

“That is sad,”
matter-of-factly said.

“When do you go?”

He named the date he had chosen.

“So, we have still several lessons,” Lucie said. “We must learn quickly.”

“We must,”
agreed.

“Do
you
want Váaclav?” Jacob asked
.