In 1994 we went to Telc for the first time; there's a beautiful castle there. This was before Western tourism had really hit the country and we pretty much had the run of the place (now it has the red ropes that all castles buy in bulk). We posed in embroidered chairs at the dining hall table, slid around on the ballroom's parquet floor in the ubiquitous Czech slippers, took flash photos of the sgraffito which was not a misspelling. There was, in one room, a puzzle box. According to the guide, the box had 20 hidden compartments, of which they had only found fifteen. We fiddled with it for a while before zooming off, high on kofola and drunk on antiquity.
In this room now you arrive. With your wide eyes you open one drawer, with your careful mouth you speak and open two more. Clever fingers open the velvet drawer where a woman could store her jewelry, find the hidden latch and the lid flies open, and music pours out of the puzzle box, all the secrets but one revealed now. It is part of your genius that in this moment you pass your hand gently across the lid and stand and walk away, leaving that one last mystery for later, or for someone else, and go on to join the others while the music plays on behind you.
Comments