The Curtain Never Falls

By Eliana Maisels

Florence

It started in a café in Prague.

Not the cool kind, like the ones with neon signs and oat milk lattes. This place had dusty chandeliers, cracked saucers, and one of those espresso machines that hissed like a dragon exhaling smoke. I only went there because my host mom was on a juice cleanse and her apartment smelled like celery and betrayal.

I was there, sipping bitter coffee and trying to understand Czech history for a paper I’d procrastinated on, when he sat down across from me.

He wore a dark green trench coat—not ironically—and round sunglasses indoors. It was mid-November.

“You're American,” he said, not as a question but like an accusation.

I nodded slowly. “You’re... very observant.”

He slid a sugar packet across the table. “They’re listening.”

I smiled nervously. “Who?”

He leaned in. “Everyone.”

That’s when I made my first mistake: I stayed. He looked like a cross between a washed-up magician and someone who once understudied a villain in a Cold War thriller. I was intrigued. Maybe bored. Maybe dumb.

His name was Leo Marlowe, and over the course of several coffees (and one very questionable pastry), I learned the following:

• He used to act. Not well, apparently. He said he had a “strong jaw but limited range.”

• He had one line in Mission: Impossible III. It was cut.

• He now worked in “information logistics,” which I took to mean... he was unemployed.

• He knew five languages, none fluently.

And then, in the most casual voice imaginable, he said, “I’m a spy.”

I laughed. A full belly laugh. He didn’t.

“I was recruited after an audition in Berlin,” he said. “They needed someone who could lie convincingly and disappear when the scene was over.”

“That’s... poetic,” I said.

He nodded solemnly. “It’s also on my business card.”

He handed me one. It was blank.

“I don’t usually reveal myself,” he said, “but I think they’re watching you.”

“Me?”

He gestured subtly toward a man reading a newspaper. “He’s been here three times this week. Always on your schedule.”

“That’s the barista’s dad,” I said. “He reads the paper while she closes.”

Leo blinked. “A perfect cover.”

I should’ve left then. Instead, I walked with him. He led me through cobblestone alleys, pointed out buildings “bugged by four governments,” and whispered into his coat sleeve like it was a mic. The absurdity was magnetic. I couldn’t tell if he was delusional, brilliant, or just performing for one final, unwritten role.

Eventually, we reached a bridge. He stopped.

“This is where we part,” he said, staring out at the Vltava. “They don’t like me having civilian attachments.”

I wanted to ask who they were but stopped myself. Instead, I offered him my leftover croissant. He declined.

“Too flakey,” he said. “Like MI6.”

He vanished after that. One minute he was there, trench coat and all, and the next—gone. I checked the shadows. Nothing.

I didn’t see him again. Not in that café, not in Prague. Not even online.

But last week, while visiting Budapest, I found a flyer for a small, dusty theatre hosting a one-man show called "The Curtain Never Falls". The face on the poster wore sunglasses. And a trench coat.

I bought a ticket.

Because sometimes, when you're studying abroad, the weirdest part isn’t that the museums are closed on Mondays or that the washing machines lock you in for 4 hours.

Sometimes, the weirdest part is realizing that the world is way more interesting than you thought—and maybe, just maybe, Leo Marlowe was telling the truth.

Or, at the very least, he gave the best performance I’d ever seen.