The Second Passenger
The holy cards had continued, roughly once a fortnight, through June and July. Saint Christopher for a single traveller. Saint Anne, whom she and Father Vojtěch had agreed on between them, for two. Once, Saint Cecilia — a musician — which had meant a violinist she had seen play at the Rudolfinum before the war, carrying an instrument case that was too light for the instrument.
The system, such as it was, had held. She had become practised. She had started humming again at the oar — old songs from her childhood — and the humming was not a cover but a genuine return of a habit she had not known she had lost.
Then, on a Tuesday in the third week of August, Jiří the sacristan came down to the landing with a card she had not expected.
It was a card of Saint Mary Magdalene. She stared at it.
"Father Vojtěch says tonight at eleven," Jiří said quietly, his eyes on the water. "He says you will know what it means."
She did know. They had not agreed on Saint Mary Magdalene between them, specifically because she was a saint associated with women of a particular kind, and Father Vojtěch had thought, with the prudish old-fashioned tact that was sometimes still in him, that it would not be a suitable shorthand. He had said so to her in June. She had smiled at him and had not argued.
Which meant that he was sending her a card whose meaning they had never fixed. Which meant that the