It's a small world

Like many expatriates, I face people nagging me with the question: "Where is your home?"  Is it the Czech Republic, the United States, Prague, New York or elsewhere? I usually break into song in reply, humming the first lines of the Czech national anthem: "Kde je domov muj," which translates literally as "Where is my home?"

People usually mean "Where do you prefer to live?" when they ask the question. Many Czechs would like to hear how great it is to live in their country and how much better it is than living in the United States or Canada or any other place their rich cousin emigrated to. If an American tells them he came to Prague in December 1989, immediately after the revolution, and has stayed ever since, they think it is wonderfully charming. This only proves how biased they are: Russians also came for 20 years, in 1968, but no Czech thinks that was charming at all.

Some Czechs ask "Don't you miss home?" "Do you miss your friends and family?" "Are you not nostalgic for the places you grew up in, where you belong?" What they usually mean is "Why don't you get the hell out of here and go back to wherever you came from?" My usual approach to such questions is panarchic. 

"Panarchy" is a political philosophy that wishes to dissolve the relation between states and territories. States should become as nonterritorial as credit card or insurance companies. Then we could immigrate to a different state without having to move our abode, or move around the globe without having to bother with changing political sovereignties. 

I've lived and worked in five countries, three of which (the United States, the Czech Republic and Australia) I liked enough to call home. Countries are like children more than spouses: It is possible to have more than one without having to divorce the others.

Yet, as Adam Mickiewicz put it in the national poem of Poland, Pan Tadeusz: "Oh, Lithuania, like good health, one misses you only when you are gone." 

It is sometimes possible to miss a home in one country while in another country only when the first home is lost. The obvious reaction then is to sit and write a poem extolling the virtues and greatness of a third nation. During my last trip to the United States, I found myself in such a "Mickiewiczian" state of mind. I missed Prague when it was lost. Though I have still not written the great Czech poem that would begin with the immortal words "Oh, Slovakia?"

It started months ago when I was invited to fly from Prague to speak in Birmingham, Alabama, and spend a long weekend there. In the Deep South, as I observed the moon over Alabama, the sky darkened and threatened to fall. News reports about the Icelandic volcano and its effects on air traffic in Europe reminded me that the end of the world would be accompanied by apocalyptic events. We had been through an economic recession, earthquakes and floods.  Exploding volcanoes were only to be expected. 

My hosts in Birmingham assured me that if I needed to stay longer, it would not be a problem.  The Brazilian-style hotel was very pleasant, and the cuisine of fish from the Gulf of Mexico, still free of "British" petroleum at the time, was delicious.

I could make a home in the South. Still, a visit to the Southern United States can involve some intercultural snags: Once I was stuck for an extra day in Raleigh, North Carolina. The receptionist told me the hotel was three miles from the city center. 

"We are in walking distance then?" I asked the receptionist.

"Excuse me, sir, are you Russian?" came the answer.

"No, why?"

"About six months ago, we had a Russian group staying with us. They also wanted to walk."

But back to the trip in question. After traveling from Birmingham to Atlanta, my flight to Paris was officially canceled. I called Delta Air Lines and asked to fly to New York in the meanwhile to stay with friends. The helpful call center employee asked me how was my personal hygiene? Was I clean? I assured her that I was. She then agreed that I could stay with my friends in New York.

My first lodging in New York was the residence of the Czech ambassador to the United Nations. Pavla, the spouse of the ambassador, is truly one of the saints and would never turn away a homeless in need. Consequently, the townhouse next to Central Park was full of lost and forlorn Czechs similarly stranded from the ash cloud and in search of home. Most slept on mattresses on the floor. Martin, the ambassador, jogging back from Central Park, inspected his house and concluded, "We have a situation here. We definitely have a situation here."

The stranded homeless Czechs and amateur Czechs (like me) exchanged escape stories. One Czech had reportedly reached Prague victoriously by flying first from New York to Tel Aviv and then invaded Europe through its soft ash-cloud-free southern underbelly. Others planned to follow the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and fly to Madrid before proceeding on land. Before any of these plans came to fruition, our hosts announced that two Czech bishops and a dozen priests who were on a pilgrimage to Philadelphia would be coming. 

Rather than test the new ecumenical sleeping arrangements, I moved across Central Park to stay with friends on the Upper West Side. At that stage, it had already been the longest period I had been away from Sophia, my year and a half old daughter. I wondered if she missed me. My wife told me that during the first days of my absence she was going to my desk looking for me. Then, she stopped. 

But in the miraculous age of Skype, virtual visions can transcend distance. We were able to watch and even wave at each other. My wife said that Sophia started walking past the computer, pointing at it, and saying "ta-ta."

Since I had previously lived in New York for a long time, I kind of temporarily moved back home. I went to a couple of parties, spent time with old friends, frequented public lectures at Columbia and the City University of New York, read the Sunday New York Times on Saturday night, browsed at Barnes & Noble on Broadway, sat on benches in Central Park and went to a few museums and the Met. Then, there were the old tastes that are unobtainable in Prague: chopped liver on a bagel at the Stage Deli, General Tso chicken at Ollie's (known colloquially as Oily's), and green tea soya ice cream at Fairways. 

For some unclear reason, a view emerged in Prague, among people close to me, that I actually chose to hang around New York and sleep on other people's futons rather than come back home to take care of the toddler.

Eventually, Delta put me in the next available seat to Prague, which happened to be in business class. As I settled into the comfortable chair and stretched my legs, my neighbor introduced himself and, business-class style, asked me what I do. I could not decide between philosopher, political scientist or writer, so I said "consultant" and volunteered a few insights into the Czech Republic's post-communist economy.   

I managed to keep up appearances for awhile, but not through a five-course meal and two wines. Eventually, my true economy-class home was exposed. During the smoked salmon and roasted artichoke course, the flight attendants were passing in the cabin with baskets of rolls. I was distracted by a movie on my personal screen. When the basket reached my vicinity, I reached for a roll. The attendant recoiled in horror. I looked around in bewilderment, watching helplessly as my neighbor pointed to a chosen roll. Then it dawned on me: In business class, you don't grab rolls, you point at them, and the flight attendant uses metal tongs to hand them over. I was exposed, burnt, finished, and did not exchange another word with my neighbor for the rest of the flight.

I arrived back home in Prague refreshed. No limo awaited me, so I took the No. 119 bus. It took Odysseus 20 years to return home. It took me 20 days. Initially, my daughter seemed not to recognize me, so I gave her a piece of chocolate. Then she remembered.

In 20 months of life, little Sophia has already been to Paris, London, Berlin, Dublin and Prague. In each city, we took photos of her with local landmarks. If we ever make our home in Kansas or Iowa and she complains about a lack of excitement, we will show her proof that she has already made the planet her home.

- The writer is the author of The Philosophy and Politics of Czech Dissidence: From Patočka to Havel and is completing a book titled The Legacies of Totalitarianism: A Political Theory of Post-Totalitarianism. He formerly taught at Palacký University in Olomouc and has held research fellowships at Central European University, Columbia University, New York University and Australian National University.

Aviezer Tucker can be reached at
features@praguepost.com