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They come around the corner in a cluster, and the first thing I see is the Czech scarf. Tobík has it draped around his neck, red and blue and white, absurd in this heat. He’s not embarrassed about it. He came to a national-team match in his country’s colors in a city that is not his country’s, and he’s worn it like he meant it.
The man beside him is talking too loudly. Marchetti. I’ve seen enough of the team posts to know the cast. The taller one must be Thompson. The third is filming on his phone, which I would normally find rude and tonight do not.
A woman at the gate stops Tobík. She says something I can’t hear. His face opens. She takes a photo with him. He waves to someone behind her. Another woman is calling his name. Not Hájek. Tobías. A man in a food-service uniform recognizes him next and Tobík touches his arm the way Tobík touches everyone, which is without thinking, without calculation.
I have been watching a man walk a path in Atlanta for months from another continent. I have memorized his Beltline route from photographs. But the phone didn’t show me this part. The phone showed me a sketch of him. In person, he is someone in a Czech scarf, getting recognized by strangers in a stadium corridor in a city he has decided to call home, and I should be fine about it.
Tomáš starts walking toward them. I follow.
“Tobík.” Tomáš opens his arms and Tobík walks into them, and they hug the way brothers hug. Tomáš pulls back and holds him by the shoulders and says something fast in Czech I don’t quite catch.
“You were excellent.” Tobík’s English is careful, every word measured out. “The pass in the fifty-eighth was very good.”
“The pass was because Vež put it on my head.”
Tobík’s eyes find me.
I’m standing four feet away with the post-match flush still on my skin and his eyes land on me and I feel it in my whole body. Same as I did three years ago. Contact and direction. The way a ball arrives at the top of the jump and the body knows where it’s going before the mind catches up. Yes. Excellent comparison. Probably not the same thing.
“Damián.” He says it with the particular weight of a person who means the name.
“Tobík.” I keep my voice level. “Did you enjoy the match?”
“Very much. The stadium was incredible.”
“You brought your teammates.”
“Yes. They are learning about football. The progress is slow.” He gives me a small smile, then introduces me.
Marchetti steps forward and extends a hand. “Hey, man. Great game. That header thing you do is insane.”
“Thank you. Heading is the easy part. The positioning before the jump is the work.”
“See?” Tobík says to Marchetti. “This is what I was explaining. The jump is not the point.”
“Hájek. You’ve been explaining things to me all night. I need a break from being educated.”
“You need more education, not less.”
A woman walks past, recognizes Tobík, calls his name. He turns and waves. Marchetti throws his hands up.
“It’s STILL HAPPENING. Thompson, are you seeing this?”
“I’ve been seeing it all night.”
“Everyone in this city knows him.” Marchetti turns to me. “EVERYONE. We got stopped so many times between the parking lot and our seats.”
“How does this happen?” I ask. The question comes out as curiosity because I’ve shaped it to sound like curiosity. I could have answered it myself from a phone screen in Germany at one in the morning. Very normal behavior from a person with no particular interest.
“I walk the Beltline,” Tobík says. “I take photographs. People are friendly in Atlanta.”
“He’s being modest,” Thompson says. “He’s apparently famous. We’re just now finding this out.”
Tomáš shakes his head, half-amused. “I told you. The city loves him. Nine months and he’s built this whole life here.” He turns to Tobík and the next sentence comes out the way Tomáš says things he’s already decided. “You live here, Tobíku. Show Damián around. He’s been in the hotel and the training facility since we landed.”
“Of course,” Tobík says.
Tobík looks at me. The warmth in his smile arriving before his mouth decides what to do with it, and I feel it land behind my ribs the way it landed at a coffee shop days ago.
