Time's Magpie - Myla Goldberg [13]
The historical record does not explain why, toward the end of the century, a single cannon shot from the opposite side of the river was appended to noon’s arrival, though logic suggests the city limits had expanded beyond the ability of Prague’s more distant bell-ringers to view the tower’s flag. No matter what the cannon’s actual purpose it was likely resented by Jii’s son, who would have felt upstaged by the addition of artillery, recalling the affront his father had suffered two decades before. A cannon shot was imprecise. As it could be signaled only by the tower’s flag, its retort would mark a lesser, retroactive noon, one that necessarily arrived on true noon’s heels. Jii Jr. would have balked at being party to such a distortion: he was a second-generation noon signalman with a reputation to uphold. The temptation to resign would have been great, but practicality would have trumped pride. Jii Jr. was still young, with a family to feed; there was no guarantee a replacement would wave the flag with the crisp precision Jii Jr. had learned from his father. To spare noon further degradation—and himself his family’s dismay— Jii Jr. would have remained.
The existence of such a son seems the easiest way to explain what happened next. In 1891 the time zone—a concept that originated in England—crossed the Channel. Across Europe, time became a gentleman’s agreement: it was decided the continent would be divided into four regions, each with its own noon, Prague’s coinciding with Vienna’s and Berlin’s. For obvious reasons, such a prospect would have deeply disturbed poor Jii Jr. He, like his father, had pledged fealty to the Jesuits’ string. His signalman’s heart knew noon was non-negotiable. And so, when the observatory director issued the new decree, Jii Jr. would have acquiesced without complaint. He would have agreed to follow the new procedure. And then he would have done what he had to do.
The modest printed page affixed to the observatory’s interior states simply and without fanfare that for twenty years, Prague’s noon trailed Vienna’s and Berlin’s by 140 seconds, remaining true to the moment the sun reached its zenith over the city. This sentence, hidden within an otherwise dry timeline, invites the reader to overlook its significance: for two decades a temporal insurrection was waged. There is no mention of the author of this revolution, no description of the daily battles that were fought. For twenty years Prague defied the rest of Europe and then—for reasons the thin chronicle fails to mention— it stopped. In 1912, Prague’s noon joined Central Europe’s. The insurrection ceased.
Here is how it must have happened: for twenty years Jii’s son feigned loyalty to Greenwich but remained true to Prague’s meridian. For twenty years he watched the string. It was a weighty secret to carry, the secret of a city’s noon, but it would have been an easy one to keep. Time is too ubiquitous not to be taken for granted: to question it is like questioning the sun. When the signal flag waved, no one would have had any reason to suspect that their noon was late.
He died in 1912, when the stairs finally became too much. He died on the tower after the sun had reached its zenith, with the signal flag clutched in his hand.
Welcome to New Karlín!
THE VLTAVA RIVER WINDS THROUGH PRAGUE like a giant question mark, dividing the city into two halves joined by several bridges of which the Charles Bridge is the oldest, having spanned the river for over six hundred years. In August of 2002, the Vltava rose twenty-two feet over its banks, within forty-eight hours swelling to four times its normal size, birthing the worst flood the city had endured in over two centuries. River water poured through the streets of Prague, flooding medieval cellars and subway tunnels and submerging the ground