Dušana was in a parallel class. We really got to know each other on a ski trip in tenth grade, when Vašek and I ended up with two girls — the other one interested in Vašek, and Dušana interested in me. The four of us joked around together the whole trip.

I was not especially taken with her romantically. She was well endowed, and I was certainly aware of that, and she was fun to talk to besides, with a good sense of humor that made the time pass easily. That was about the size of it.

After the trip she wrote me a letter — a nice one, well written and funny — asking me to take her to the movies. My father somehow got hold of the letter and read it. I expected trouble over that, but instead he liked it, and he gave me ten crowns to take her out.

We went to a theater somewhere near Prašná brána — I do not remember which one, or what we saw. We kissed there, and afterward I walked her home.

After that, Dušana kept asking me to the Sunday dances. I wanted to go, and I said yes, but afterward it would occur to me that I did not have a proper jacket or good shoes, and that I would stand out for it. I was too embarrassed to explain that to her, and in the end I just did not show up.

The dances were held at several places around Prague — I remember Kavárna Vltava and Mánes specifically, though there were others I could not name now. There was usually a big band, Vlach’s orchestra among them, playing foxtrots and valčíky and that kind of thing.

At first Dušana called me herself, even after I had stood her up. Later, Pepa and I started calling her together from a phone booth near his place, since he had no telephone at home. And more than once — this went on over several calls, not just as some one-time joke — Pepa took over the conversation and simply pretended to be me. He was good at that sort of thing, keeping her entertained and the conversation pleasant while steering clear of actually setting up another date. As far as I know, Dušana never caught on.

After high school Dušana went to work at the telephone exchange, the same place as Jirka Jupa. Vašek told me more than once that something was going on between the two of them, and I think Jirka himself may have hinted at it, though I could not tell you exactly what he said. I never saw any of it myself, so I cannot call it a fact — only that the rumor stuck around.

A few months before I left Czechoslovakia, there was a party at Jirka’s — Vašek and Bohouš were there too — and Dušana stopped by briefly with her new husband; they had only recently married. It was the first time I had seen her in years. The husband did not stay with me as a memory at all; I could not tell you a thing about him. Dušana, though, looked better to me than she had in school, and I had the impression — just an impression — that she still liked me. She still had the same sense of humor, the same Dušana I remembered.

Some time later I called Jirka at work about something, and Dušana happened to answer instead. I do not remember anymore whether I suggested we meet or she did. Either way, we arranged to see each other and met at a restaurant. At some point I mentioned Kudibal’s studio, and we took a tram over there together. I do not remember any actual conversation about what was going to happen next — my sense now is that it was simply understood between us without either of us saying so, though I cannot be sure that is not just how it looks from here. Whatever the case, we ended up having sex there. It was about two weeks after she had gotten married, as best I can figure it. At the time, I knew I was leaving the country soon, and she was married, and I was not looking for anything ongoing with her.

During my last couple of weeks in the country there were parties at my apartment nearly every night, and one morning, after one of those parties, Dušana came by. Everyone else had already left except for one girl asleep in my parents’ bedroom. Dušana knew she was there — I think Dušana had called either the night before or that same morning to say she was coming, though I do not remember which. She and I had sex on the sofa in the living room.

I was not in love with Dušana, not then and not looking back on it. That experience stayed with me for a long time. It left me distrustful of Czech women, and what happened later with Alena Pelcová in Austria only reinforced it.

In 1991, on my first trip back to Prague, I called Jirka and met him in front of our old high school. He tracked down Dušana and she joined us; Vašek came later, at a restaurant. When Dušana first saw me, she did not seem to recognize me right away. I do not remember exactly what she said, though I think she may have said something about my hair. What I do remember is that I could tell from her reaction that she did not like how I looked. I had changed a good deal since school, including going partly bald.

We sat in a restaurant not far from where Jirka lived, and at no point that whole evening did Dušana and I say a word to each other about the old days, or about 1965. At one point Jirka’s wife called, and he went home for a short time before coming back later. While he was gone, Vašek told me that Jirka’s wife did not like Jirka spending time around Dušana, because something had apparently happened between the two of them at some point. I do not know whether Dušana heard any of this — she might have been in the bathroom just then. It fit the old rumors, but it still was not anything I had actually witnessed myself.

At the end of the night Dušana and I shared a taxi, since her home was along the route to my hotel. She got out near her place, and I continued on to the hotel. We said our goodbyes without bringing up the past at all.

One or two months after I got back to the United States, Dušana telephoned me. She said that she had not even kissed me when we said goodbye in Prague. I think it was right after that comment, though I could not swear to the exact order of the conversation, that I asked her whether she remembered our affair.

She was shocked. She accused me of lying. She insisted nothing had ever happened between us, and said the man she had actually been in love with was Kundera. I knew immediately who she meant — I remembered him from school, someone about my own size. I reminded her, briefly, about Kudibal’s apartment and about the morning she had come by mine. She did not want to hear any of it. She told me flatly that unless I took back what I had said, she would never speak to me again.

I would not take it back. I could not question my own memory just because she wanted me to; to me, it was simply a fact. She never called me again.

About a year after that, an official announcement came in the mail: Dušana was marrying someone else. No note, nothing personal, just the announcement. That was the last I ever heard from her.

Sometime after that I was looking through old class photographs and noticed Kundera again — a thin, undernourished-looking boy, about my size back then. It made me wonder, in an idle way, whether Dušana had somehow gotten the two of us confused in her own memory over the years, though that is only a guess, not an explanation. I never doubted my own memory of what happened. What has stayed with me most is simple disbelief — that she could say the affair never happened at all, when it occurred about two weeks after she was married. I still do not know why she denied it.