Prague, August 6 or 7, 1968 (two weeks before the Russian tanks rolled in). Three o’clock or so, and I was in the gigantic central train station. The little tour with my erstwhile traveling companion was over (we’d finally found an official willing to extend our expired visas—mine to midnight only) and I needed a ticket, nothing more, to West Germany. Or, at least, close to West Germany. No trains, I knew, crossed that border. And no one at a ticket window seemed to speak any language I remotely found familiar. “Allemande?” Shaken heads. “Deutschland?” Same thing. Finally, someone sold me a ticket to somewhere, a track number and a train number on it.