Laughable Loves

by Milan Kundera

Suddenly there was a pounding on the door.

  There was nothing alarming in this. I didn't have a bell, so anyone who came had to knock. Klara wasn't going to let herself be disturbed by the noise and didn't stop examining the ceiling. But the pounding didn't cease; on the contrary it went on with imperturbable persistence. Klara was getting nervous. She began to imagine a man standing behind the door, a man who slowly and significantly turns up the lapels of his jacket, and who will later pounce on her demanding why she hadn't opened the door, what she was concealing, and whether she was registered at this address. A feeling of guilt seized her; she lowered her eyes from the ceiling and tried to think where she had left her dress. But the pounding continued so stubbornly that in the confusion she found nothing but my raincoat hanging in the hall. She put it on and opened the door.

  Instead of an evil, querying face, she saw only a little man, who bowed. "Is the lecturer at home?"

  "No, he isn't." "That's a pity," said the little man, and he apologized for having disturbed her. "The thing is that the lecturer has to write a review about me. He promised me, and it's very urgent. If you would permit it, I could at least leave him a message."

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  Klara gave him paper and pencil, and in the evening I read that the fate of the article about Mikolas Ales was in my hands alone, and that Mr. Zaturecky was waiting most respectfully for my review and would try to look me up again at the university.

  6

  The next day Marie told me how Mr. Zaturecky had threatened her, and how he had gone to complain about her; her voice trembled, and she was on the verge of tears; I flew into a rage. I realized that the secretary, who until now had been laughing at my game of hide-and-seek (though I would have bet anydiing that she did what she did out of kindness toward me, rather than simply from a sense of fun), was now feeling hurt and conceivably saw me as the cause of her troubles. When I also included the exposure of my attic, the ten-minute pounding on the door, and Klara's fright�my anger grew to a frenzy.

  As I was walking back and forth in Marie's office, biting my lips, boiling with rage, and thinking about revenge, the door opened and Mr. Zaturecky appeared.

  When he saw me a glimmer of happiness flashed over his face. He bowed and greeted me.

  He had come a little prematurely, before I had managed to consider my revenge.

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  He asked if I had received his message yesterday.

  I was silent.

  He repeated his question.

  "I received it," I replied.

  "And will you please write the review?"

  I saw him in front of me: sickly, obstinate, beseeching; I saw the vertical wrinkle etched on his forehead, the line of a single passion; I examined this line and grasped that it was a straight line determined by two points: his article and my review; that beyond the vice of this maniacal straight line nothing existed in his life but saintly asceticism. And then a spiteful trick occurred to me.

  "I hope you understand that after yesterday I can't speak to you," I said.

  "I don't understand you."

  "Don't pretend; she told me everything. You don't have to deny it."

  "I don't understand you," repeated the little man, this time more decidedly.

  I assumed a genial, almost friendly tone. "Look here, Mr. Zaturecky, I don't blame you. I am also a womanizer, and I understand you. In your position I would have tried to seduce a beautiful girl like that, if I'd found myself alone in an apartment with her and she'd been naked beneath a man's raincoat."

  "This is an outrage!" The little man turned pale.

  "No, it's the truth, Mr. Zaturecky."

  "Did the lady tell you this?"

  "She has no secrets from me."

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  "Comrade Lecturer, this is an outrage! I'm a married man. I have a wife! I have children!" The little man took a step forward so that I had to step back.

  "So much the worse for you, Mr. Zaturecky."

  "What do you mean, so much the worse?"

  "I think being married is an aggravating circumstance for a womanizer."

  "Take that back!" said Mr. Zaturecky menacingly.

  "Well, all right," I conceded. "The matrimonial state need not always be an aggravating circumstance. Sometimes it can, on the contrary, excuse a womanizer. But it makes no difference. I've already told you that I'm not angry with you, and I understand you quite well. There's only one thing I don't understand. How can you still want a review from a man whose woman you've been trying to make?"

  "Comrade Lecturer! Dr. Kalousek, the editor of the Academy of Sciences journal Visual Arts is asking you for this review. And you must write it!"

  "The review or the woman. You can't ask for both."

  "What kind of behavior is this, comrade?!" screamed Mr. Zaturecky in desperate anger.

  The odd thing is that I suddenly felt that Mr. Zaturecky had really wanted to seduce Klara. Seething with rage, I shouted: "You have the audacity to tell me off ? You, who should humbly apologize to me in front of my secretary."

  I turned my back on Mr. Zaturecky, and, confused, he staggered out.

  "Well, then," I sighed with relief, like a general after

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  the victorious conclusion of a hard campaign, and I said to Marie: "Perhaps he won't want a review by me anymore."

  Marie smiled and after a moment timidly asked: "Just why is it that you don't want to write this review:

  "Because, Marie, my dear, what he's written is the most awful crap."

  "Then why don't you write in your review that it's crap r

  "Why should I write that? Why do I have to antagonize people?"

  Marie was looking at me with an indulgent smile; then the door opened, and there stood Mr. Zaturecky with his arm raised. "It's not me! You're the one who will have to apologize," he shouted in a trembling voice and disappeared again.

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  I don't remember exactly when, perhaps that same day or perhaps a few days later, we found an envelope without an address in my mailbox. Inside was a letter in a clumsy, almost primitive handwriting: "Dear Madame: Present yourself at my house on Sunday regarding the insult to my husband. I shall be at home all day. If you don't present yourself, I shall be forced to take measures. Anna Zaturecky, 14 Dalimilova Street, Prague 3."

  Klara was scared and started to say something about my guilt. I waved my hand, declaring that the purpose of life is to give amusement, and if life is too lazy for this, there is nothing left but to help it along a little. Man must constantly saddle events, those swift mares without which he would be dragging his feet in the dust like a weary footslogger. When Klara said that she didn't want to saddle any events, I assured her that she would never meet Mr. or Mrs. Zaturecky, and that I'd take care of the event into whose saddle I had jumped, with one hand tied behind my back.

  In the morning, when we were leaving the house, the porter stopped us. The porter wasn't an enemy. Prudently I had once bribed him with a fifty-crown bill, and I had lived until this time in the agreeable conviction that he'd learned not to know anything about me, and didn't add fuel to the fire that my enemies in the house kept blazing.

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  "Some couple was here looking for you yesterday," he said.

  "What sort of couple?"

  "A little guy with a woman."

  "What did the woman look like?"

  "Two heads taller than him. Terribly energetic. A stern woman. She was asking about all sorts of things." He turned to Klara. "Mainly about you. Who you are and what your name is."

  "Good heavens, what did you say to her?" exclaimed Klara.

  "What could I say? How do I know who comes to see the lecturer? I told her that a different woman comes every evening."

  "Great!" I laughed and drew a ten-crown
note from my pocket. "Just go on talking like that."

  "Don't be afraid," I then said to Klara. "You won't go anywhere on Sunday, and nobody will find you."

  And Sunday came, and after Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday; nothing happened. "You see," I said to Klara.

  But then came Thursday. I was telling my students at my customary secret lecture about how feverishly and in what an atmosphere of unselfish camaraderie the young fauvists had liberated color from its former impressionistic character, when Marie opened the door and whispered to me, "The wife of that Zaturecky is here." "But I'm not here," I said. "Just show her the schedule!" But Marie shook her head. "I showed her, but she peeped into your office and saw your raincoat

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  on the stand. So now she's sitting in the corridor waiting."

  A blind alley is the place for my best inspirations. I said to my favorite student: "Be so kind as to do me a small favor. Run to my office, put on my raincoat, and go out of the building in it. Some woman will try to prove that you are me, and your task will be not to admit it at any price."

  The student went off and returned in about a quarter of an hour. He told me that the mission had been accomplished, the coast was clear, and the woman was out of the building.

  This time then I had won.

  But then came Friday, and in the afternoon Klara returned from work trembling almost like a leaf.

  The polite gentleman who received customers in the tidy office of the dressmaking establishment had suddenly opened the door leading to the workshop, where Klara and fifteen other seamstresses were sitting over their sewing machines, and cried: "Does any one of you live at 5 Zamecka Street?"

  Klara knew that it concerned her, because 5 Zamecka Street was my address. However, well-advised caution kept her quiet, for she knew that her living with me was a secret and that nobody knew anything about it.

  "You see, that's what I've been telling her," said the polished gentleman when none of the seamstresses spoke up, and he went out again. Klara learned later that a strict female voice on the telephone had made him search through the directory of employees, and had talked for a quarter of an hour trying to convince

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  him that one of the women must live at 5 Zamecka Street.

  The shadow of Mrs. Zaturecky was cast over our idyllic room.

  "But how could she have found out where you work? After all, here in the house nobody knows about you!" I yelled.

  Yes, I was really convinced that nobody knew about us. I lived like an eccentric who thinks that he lives unobserved behind a high wall, while all the time one detail escapes him: The wall is made of transparent glass.

  I had bribed the porter not to reveal that Klara lived with me; I had forced Klara into the most troublesome inconspicuousness and concealment and, meanwhile, the whole house knew about her. It was enough that once she had entered into an imprudent conversation with a woman on the second floor�and they got to know where Klara worked.

  Without suspecting it we had been living exposed for quite some time. What remained concealed from our persecutors was merely Klara's name. This was the final and only secret behind which, for the time being, we eluded Mrs. Zaturecky, who launched her attack so consistently and methodically that I was horror-struck.

  I understood that it was going to be tough. The horse of my story was damnably saddled.

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  8

 

  This was on Friday. And when Klara came back from work on Saturday, she was trembling again. Here is what had happened:

  Mrs. Zaturecky had set out with her husband for the dressmaking establishment. She had called beforehand and asked the manager to allow her and her husband to visit the workshop, to look at the faces of the seamstresses. It's true that this request astonished the Comrade Manager, but Mrs. Zaturecky put on such an air that it was impossible to refuse. She said something vague about an insult, about a ruined existence, and about court. Mr. Zaturecky stood beside her, frowned, and was silent.

  They were shown into the workshop. The seamstresses raised their heads indifferently, and Klara recognized the little man; she turned pale and with conspicuous inconspicuousness quickly went on with her sewing.

  "Here you are," exclaimed the manager with ironic politeness to the stiff-looking pair. Mrs. Zaturecky realized that she must take the initiative and she urged her husband: "Well, look!" Mr. Zaturecky assumed a scowl and looked around. "Is it one of them?" whispered Mrs. Zaturecky.

  Even with his glasses Mr. Zaturecky couldn't see clearly enough to examine the large room, which in any case wasn't easy to survey, filled as it was with piled-up

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  junk, dresses hanging from long horizontal bars, and fidgety seamstresses, who didn't sit neatly with their faces toward the door, but in various positions; they were turning around, getting up and sitting down, and involuntarily averting their faces. Therefore, Mr. Zaturecky had to step forward and try not to skip anyone.

  When the women understood that they were being examined by someone, and in addition by someone so unsightly and unattractive, they felt vaguely insulted, and sneers and grumbling began to be heard. One of them, a robust young girl, impertinently burst out: "He's searching all over Prague for the shrew who made him pregnant!"

  The noisy, ribald mockery of the women overwhelmed the couple, who stood there timidly with a strange, obstinate dignity.

  "Mama," the impertinent girl yelled again at Mrs. Zaturecky, "you don't know how to take care of your little boy! I'd never let such a pretty kid out of the house!"

  "Look some more," she whispered to her husband, and sullenly and timidly he went forward step by step as if he were running a gauntlet, but firmly all the same�and he didn't miss a face.

  All the time the manager was smiling noncommit-tally; he knew his women and he knew that you couldn't do anything with them; and so he pretended not to hear their clamor, and he asked Mr. Zaturecky: "Now please tell me what did this woman look like?"

  Mr. Zaturecky turned to the manager and spoke

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  slowly and seriously: "She was beautiful. . . . She was very beautiful."

  Meanwhile Klara crouched in a corner, setting herself off from all the playful women by her agitation, her bent head, and her dogged activity. Oh, how badly she feigned her inconspicuousness and insignificance! And Mr. Zaturecky was now close to her; in a moment he would be looking right at her!

  "That isn't much, remembering only that she was beautiful," said the polite manager to Mr. Zaturecky. "There are many beautiful women. Was she short or tall?"

  "Tall," said Mr. Zaturecky.

  "Was she brunette or blonde?" Mr. Zaturecky thought a moment and said: "She was blonde."

  This part of the story could serve as a parable on the power of beauty. When Mr. Zaturecky had seen Klara for the first time at my place, he was so dazzled that he actually hadn't seen her. Beauty created an opaque screen before her. A screen of light, behind which she was hidden as if behind a veil.

  For Klara is neither tall nor blonde. Only the inner greatness of beauty lent her in Mr. Zaturecky's eyes a semblance of great physical size. And the glow that emanates from beauty lent her hair the appearance of gold.

  And so when the little man finally approached the corner where Klara, in a brown work smock, was huddled over a shirt, he didn't recognize her, because he had never seen her.

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  9

  When Klara had finished an incoherent and barely intelligible account of this event I said, "You see, we're lucky."

  But amid sobs Klara said to me: "What kind of luck? If they didn't find me today, they'll find me tomorrow."

  "I'd like to know how."

  "They'll come here for me, to your place."

  "I won't let anyone in."


  "And what if they send the police?"

  "Come on, I'll make a joke of it. After all, it was just a joke and fun."

  "These days there's no time for jokes; these days everything is serious. They'll say I wanted to blacken his reputation. When they take a look at him, how could they ever believe that he's capable of trying to seduce a woman?"

  "You're right, Klara," I said. "They'll probably lock you up."

  "Stop teasing," said Klara. "You know it looks bad for me. I'll have to go before the disciplinary committee and I'll have it on my record and I'll never get out of the workshop; anyway, Id like to know what's happening about the modeling job you promised me; I can't sleep at your place anymore; I'll always be afraid they're coming for me; today I'm going back to Celakovice."

  This was the first conversation of the day.

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  And that afternoon after a departmental meeting I had a second.

  The chairman of the department, a gray-haired art historian and a wise man, invited me into his office.

  "I hope you know that you haven't helped yourself with that study essay you've just published,'' he said to me.

  "'Yes, I know,'' I replied.

  "Many of our professors think it applies to them, and the dean thinks it was an attack on his views."

  "What can be done about it?" I said.

  "Nothing," replied the professor, "but your three-year period as a lecturer has expired, and candidates will compete to fill the position. It's customary for the committee to give the position to someone who has already taught in the faculty, but are you so sure that this custom will be upheld in your case? But that isn't what I wanted to talk about. So far it has been in your favor that you lecture regularly, that you're popular with the students, and that you've taught them some-thing. But now you can no longer rely on this. The dean has informed me that for the last three months you haven't lectured at all. And without any excuse. Well, that in itself would be enough for immediate dismissal."

  I explained to the professor that I hadn't missed a single lecture, that it had all been a joke, and I told him the whole story about Mr. Zaturecky and Klara.

  "Fine, I believe you," said the professor, "but what does it matter if I believe you? Everyone in the entire fac-

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  ulty says that you don't lecture and don't do anything. It's already been discussed at the union meeting, and yesterday they took the matter to the local committee.''

  "But why didn't they speak to me about it first?"

  "What should they speak to you about? Everything is clear to them. Now they're looking back over your whole past behavior, trying to find connections between your past and your present attitude."

  "What can they find bad in my past? You know yourself how much I like my work. I've never shirked. My conscience is clear."

  "Every human life has many aspects," said the professor. "The past of each one of us can be just as easily arranged into the biography of a beloved statesman as into that of a criminal. Only look thoroughly at yourself. Nobody is denying that yoti like your work. But what if it served you above all as an opportunity for escape? You weren't often seen at meetings, and when you did come, for the most part, you were silent. Nobody really knew what you thought. I myself remember that several times when a serious matter was being discussed you suddenly made a joke, which caused embarrassment. This embarrassment was of course immediately forgotten, but now, when it is retrieved from the past, it acquires a particular significance. Or remember how various women came looking for you at the university and how you refused to see them. Or else your most recent essay, which anyone who wishes can allege was written from suspicious