To the Man at the Urinal in Prague

You must have heard the click of my boots on the stone path as I approached, or felt the swoosh of cold air as the metal door slammed with a crack when I accidentally blew inside the men’s washroom that morning in 1990.  

But your head stayed goosenecked forward, shoulders curved like an egg. Your figure was in profile, so I noticed the deflated wrinkle of your trousers, and the slight round of your belly indicating a healthy intake of pilsner. Your eyes focused on your hands, which bunched at the level of your fly. I blinked, froze. I swear, that’s all I saw in that passing second.   

At 9:00 a.m., my boss, Barbara Walters, would conduct the first on-camera interview with Václav Havel, who had been president of Czechoslovakia for all of three weeks. We were ten minutes away from rolling tape upstairs, and all morning our crew had been cursing the Soviet-era wiring inside Prague Castle. 

I’m sure you recall those heady times. Only two months earlier, the Velvet Revolution had deposed the communist regime without a single window being broken. A beloved playwright, dissident, and national hero was the new head of state. The previous day, we had begun the absurd logistical horror show of loading cameras and lighting gear into the new president’s office in the castle. We had slept only a few hours when we headed back in the morning, crossing the Vltava River and climbing up to Hradčany Hill.  

The staffers in the office on hand to help were, for the first time, free. Some, I had heard, had just gotten out of jail. As we set up our massive control room to accommodate our four-camera setup, it was clear they had not anticipated such a grand production. But it was a joyful frenzy. We all understood that we were participating in something momentous. Each of us collaborating that morning—Barbara’s crew, our Czech counterparts, and Havel’s new team—sensed the weight of what would soon be recorded in this room.  

After several blown fuses, we scrambled to access the electrical switchers for the lighting setup. I needed to revise Barbara’s questions on the large note cards she liked, and there was no typewriter to be found in the building. The windows rattled. There were no pens. There was nothing to sit on. The communists had left only a couple of desks, which we moved to the edge of the worn brown carpet. At last, chairs were located for Havel, his translator, and Barbara, who was getting her touch-ups. The set was ready, and in almost ten minutes, it would be showtime.  

Adrenaline made my nerves zing and fizz, and though I loathed this sensation, I had grown to crave it, too. I worked in broadcast news. I was wired for this. Buoyed by purpose while wringing my hands with panic, electrified by excitement and anticipating doom: that just about sizes up the woman you encountered that morning in the men’s room. A young associate producer in black high-heeled pumps and a smart plaid blazer, dashing out to find the damska toaleta in the Prague Castle. 

Just as I began to turn toward the door to slip out unnoticed, you looked up.  

Your eyes were a vivid blue, and you disarmed me with a look of utter calm, as if we were not in a stinking restroom, as if my face were not pink with embarrassment, as if you were not just straightening your navy wool sweater over your trousers. As if you were not about to be interviewed by the world’s leading television journalist. As if you had not been jailed as a political prisoner four times, most recently just last year. As if your story were not by far the most astounding to emerge in the few months since the Berlin Wall was sledgehammered into oblivion.  

“Mr. Havel,” I stammered. “Mr. President. I’m so sorry.”  

“Everyone gets lost,” you said, with the vaguest curve of a smile, patting the longish curl at the back of your neck as you exited.  

Ten minutes later, standing well out of frame but very much in the room, I closed my eyes for a moment as Barbara Walters leaned in toward you and asked her first question:  

 “In your wildest dreams, did you ever think this could happen?”  

Marcia DeSanctis spent two decades as a news producer for ABC, NBC, 60 Minutes, and the Barbara Walters Specials. Today, she is a contributing writer to Travel and Leisure and Air Mail, and has written for many other publications, including Vogue, Town and Country, BBC, Roads and Kingdoms, the New York Times, Tin House, and Orion. She has won six Lowell Thomas Awards for excellence in travel journalism, including one for Travel Journalist of the Year. Her memoir-in-essays, A Hard Place to Leave: Stories from a Restless Life, came out in 2022. Visit her on Instagram at @marciadesanctis1.  

This essay first appeared in Off Assignment's "Letter to a Stranger" column (Jan 27, 2021).