Love and Freedom

by Rosemary Kavan

  3. Milan Jungmann (1773–1847) was a philologist whose work was vital for the development of the Czech language. His best-known work was a detailed Czech–German dictionary.

  4. Jaroslav Vrchlický (1853–1912) was a Czech poet and a translator of Shakespeare.

  5. Alois Jirásek (1851–1930) was a famous author of historical novels and the leader of the ‘national school’ of Czech literature.

  6. František Palacký (1798–1878) was an outstanding historian and the political leader of 18th-century Czech nationalism.

  7. Karel Hynek Mácha (1810–1836) was a well-known poet.

  8. Jan Neruda (1834–1891) was a Czech poet, novelist and journalist.

  9. Karel Čapek (1890–1938) was a leading inter-war Czech dramatist and novelist.

  Chapter 3

  Among the pupils I had acquired while waiting for Pavel’s posting was a Mr Filipovský. An ex-factory owner, he predicted the early collapse of nationalization and the return of his property. Our lessons allowed Mr Filipovský to polish up his English and me to sharpen my arguments in favour of Czechoslovakia’s political course. I felt a bit awkward taking his money. After all, Pavel represented ‘them’, that is the people who had confiscated Mr Filipovský’s factory. I consoled myself with the thought that I was relieving the class enemy of a few ill-gotten gains.

  Suddenly Mr Filipovský stopped coming. I thought nothing of it, until one evening when Pavel raised his head from the newspaper and asked in ominous tones if I hadn’t had a pupil called Egon Filipovský. I nodded dumbly.

  ‘His name is quoted here among a group of dangerous reactionaries arrested for sabotage,’ Pavel informed me accusingly. ‘Mrs Marešová must have noticed him coming here; she’s probably reported it.’ He rounded on me. ‘Don’t tell me you didn’t recognize his politics.’

  ‘Yes, I did, but awareness of a person’s political views doesn’t mean sharing them.’

  ‘People here don’t take that attitude. This isn’t England where no-one knows or cares about his neighbour’s associates. Here your politics is everyone’s business. And people would automatically assume that you sympathized with Filipovský, especially as you are from the West. I wouldn’t like to lose my job through your naïvety,’ he added. ‘In future I shall screen your pupils.’ There was a cold note in Pavel’s voice and a steely, almost hostile, look in his eyes which made me shiver. I wouldn’t want Pavel for an enemy, I thought.

  *

  In the meantime the Kavan brothers had their own problems. In our century of wheels and wings they yearned to be mechanized. But the motor industry was down to rock bottom and you had to be a miner or a minister to obtain a voucher for anything that could be defined as driven, apart from snow.

  ‘If we can’t buy a car, we’ll make one,’ they declared, and entrusted a large part of their army gratuities to one Olda, a friend of Karel’s reputed to be an expert at throwing cars together from scrap.

  Once launched on a course, Pavel was impervious to argument, the elements and ordinary human wants. When writing, studying or making plans, he would eat and sleep on the camel system: one huge meal and one long sleep and then nothing much of either for about a week. Every free Saturday afternoon and Sunday, he disappeared with Karel to the outskirts of Prague where parts of a wrecked jeep and a three-wheeled delivery van were being grafted into a mechanism that might in the misty future be pronounced roadworthy.

  At last the day came when Pavel, as excited as a young lover introducing the girl of his choice to his mother, took me to collect what, under the theory of relativity, might be termed the Kavans’ car.

  It was a livid red monstrosity (the market hadn’t run to overcoating) with a rectangular front that dwindled suddenly into an undersized tail sheltering one back wheel.

  ‘It’s a bit out of proportion, isn’t it?’ I observed.

  ‘The body may have some blemishes but the motor is perfect, ‘Pavel retorted.’ As with a woman, one does not look mainly for physical charms.’

  ‘But what about h.p. and durability? I shall call her Matilda,’ I added gravely.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, she may be good for a waltz but she doesn’t look reliable for a drive.’

  ‘Nonsense! Hop in, you’ll see. Oh, hang on to the door, the catch hasn’t been fixed yet; it may fall off.’

  ‘And I may fall out?’

  Pavel ignored this eventuality.

  ‘Sit well to the right,’ was his next instruction. I saw why. The lever positioned between the seats moved in jerky arcs that threatened the passenger with a broken rib every time the driver changed gears. Pavel applied his foot to the accelerator. Matilda muttered wrathfully and subsided. After several repeats Pavel kicked her with ungentlemanly force. She leapt into the air as though stung by a wasp and lumbered forward.

  ‘You see,’ Pavel beamed. ‘Everything’s working — except the horn.’

  Fortunately this was hardly necessary, for Matilda was producing a pandemonium — a cross between a tank and a tractor — that could be heard a mile away. Pedestrians froze into immobility and other road-users gave us a wide berth; under the circumstances a wise precaution, for the reversed positions of the accelerator and foot brake were creating havoc with Pavel’s driving.

  After a few hundred yards, a report like a pistol shot made me let go of the door. It flapped madly like a hen having its neck wrung. The roof had left its moorings and folded up over our heads, giving free passage to a good proportion of the highway dust.

  ‘Wonderful spring,’ Pavel crowed.

  ‘More efficient than the ones we’re sitting on,’ I ventured. After a while I remarked uneasily: ‘The seat is rather hot.’

  I glanced down and to my horror glimpsed flames in the gap between the seat and its back.

  ‘Pavel,’ I said, trying to keep my voice on a note of cocktail-party politeness,’ would you mind stopping; Matilda is on fire!’

  ‘Rubbish!’ replied the omniscient co-creator. ‘The cooling system’s faultless.’

  ‘This is no time for academic discussion: you can see for yourself if you’ll take the trouble.’

  The evidence of his own senses was the only argument that carried weight with Pavel. He coolly induced Matilda to a standstill, seized an army blanket that was keeping out the draught under the rear window, tipped up the seat that served as a lid to the engine and quickly extinguished the cosy little fire that was burning there.

  ‘No cause for panic! Must be a faulty connection in the wiring. Olda’ll soon fix that — no problem.’

  *

  One evening we were invited to a reception at Pavel’s Ministry. Pavel, with his customary disregard for the passage of time, started six jobs instead of getting ready and then announced: ‘We’re late; we’ll have to take Matilda.’

  ‘It will be quicker, safer and surer by tram,’ I pointed out. ‘By tram we shall be half-an-hour late; by Matilda anything up to a day late.’

  ‘Olda has overhauled her, she’s in perfect running order,’ Pavel retorted huffily.

  In the main street we were reduced to a snail’s pace behind a platoon of soldiers. They were made visibly uneasy by the commotion in their unprotected rear. Pedestrians cheered ironically as we brought up the end of the procession. When the army at last wheeled right, Matilda decided to prolong the attention she was enjoying. She stopped dead. Pavel, trying to appear nonchalant, sprang out in his evening suit and inserted a yard-long starting handle. He swung it. The engine failed to ignite and the handle dropped with a force that seriously damaged Pavel’s equilibrium. Straightening his trilby, he tried again. This went on for some time, with Pavel swinging on the end like an immaculate frog on a pendulum. The crowd roared its approval.

  ‘Press the clutch when I say “now”,’ Pavel shouted.

  After the third effort, Matilda pounced; Pavel sidestepped with agility, grabbed the handle and flung himself into the driver’s seat while I fielded his trilby. This trick evoked enthusiastic a
pplause from the spectators and they waved us out of sight.

  After the reception, Matilda let out her usual dead-raising whoops and again refused to budge. Pavel recited all the defects that might cause lesser automobiles, like Cadillacs and even Fords, to baulk, but firmly rejected them in the case of Matilda who was a hand-made model and could no more be compared to the mass-produced item than a Dior to something from Woolworths. Discovering a lever by my left foot, I shifted it experimentally. Matilda advanced.

  ‘There you are, nothing wrong with her at all. Perfect engine; it was cold, that’s all. There’s nothing to driving her.’

  ‘I’m sure there isn’t,’ I murmured innocently, ‘when you remember to take the handbrake off.’

  Matilda grudgingly conveyed us as far as the middle of Charles Bridge and there, in defiance of the highway code, came to a final halt. Pavel lifted off the seat and peered inside, trying to look like a professional mechanic, but instead giving the impression of an anxious surgeon who had lost a swab. He gingerly removed and replaced all the parts that by design or mismanagement had worked loose, but this time Matilda won on all points. There was nothing for it but to abandon her to a fine for obstruction and complete the journey on foot. For me, in high heels and long skirt, this was hardly a pleasure jaunt. When we finally reached our street, Pavel discovered that he had left the key to the outside passage in his office suit. He was prepared to wait in the street until the concierge got up at five a.m. Not I. I divested myself of my cumbersome coat and started to climb the iron gate.

  ‘Really, Rosemary, in evening dress,’ Pavel protested. ‘Don’t you English mind looking ridiculous?’

  ‘No,’ I assured him blandly. ‘We rather like it.’

  I squeezed through the gap at the top and once on the other side bade him goodnight. ‘See you in the morning,’ I teased.

  Pavel regarded this as a poor joke. When I returned with the key, he looked at me grimly through the bars. I shivered, as though premonition had laid cold fingers on my spine.

  Matilda continued to behave like an elderly, ailing relative; she was always in need of some operation but was never much the better for it afterwards. She leaked oil like a haemorrhage, and frequent tell-tale clangs denoted that further bits of her intestines had hit the road. Pavel displayed a tolerance for Matilda’s failings that was often lacking in his relations with people. The fault was in the stars, the quality of the spare parts or the petrol, but never in Matilda.

  Looking back, I see Matilda as a personification of the Kavans — undaunted by odds, unshaken by disaster — as well as of the national economy that ailed for decades in spite of a variety of ‘infallible’ remedies.

  Chapter 4

  I was busy, life was interesting, Prague was beautiful. The only fly in the ointment was Pavel whose zeal for the ‘tasks of reconstruction’ left no time for the construction of his marriage. In fact, his communist principles were abandoned at the doormat.

  In my position as helpmate the emphasis was on the help. The mate’s existence was recalled only when Pavel came to bed. (At three in the morning this fell short of conjugal bliss.) The help was expected to be permanently forthcoming. I had to rise at five to get him off to a pre-work meeting; to serve a belated supper at midnight; to rush off an article at a couple of hours’ notice; or to entertain a bunch of journalists with no notice at all. Before leaving each morning, Pavel would issue a list of orders, and would phone addenda at intervals during the day: Do this, Do that, Go here, Go there, Buy this, Collect such and such, Bring x, y or z to the office. How I missed the disarming English preface:’ Would you mind!’

  My regular duties included gathering up the newspaper cuttings that littered every surface, filing carbon copies of Pavel’s own articles and letters, removing dirty shoes from under the furniture and sundry articles from behind cushions, and replacing books on shelves.

  Living with Pavel was like living in a whirlwind. Constantly searching for mislaid items, he would scatter the contents of drawers, sweep piles of miscellanea off table tops and empty the waste paper basket on the carpet; then he’d dash out, half-an-hour behind schedule, leaving me to restore order.

  On one such occasion he was brought to combustion point by the disappearance of a report on British foreign policy. As it was impossible to concentrate when Pavel was on the rampage, I joined in the hunt, and located the report tucked between the pages of a discarded newspaper. Instead of a shower of thanks, this sparked off an explosion of wrath: ‘If you’d stop meddling with my things, I’d damn well be able to find them myself.’

  Stung by injustice, not to say inaccuracy, I left Pavel’s private devastation to its own devices and devoted an extra hour to the devastation of war. As soon as I returned home, agreeably exhausted, the phone rang. It was Pavel to announce that he was bringing a colleague home for coffee. Force majeure, I had to tidy and clean the flat at record, not to say, neck-breaking speed. With Pavel you couldn’t win.

  Well, I told myself, he has more important things on his mind: the Ministry, his studies, Party and trade union meetings. The war robbed him of six years of his life; he is anxious to make up for lost time.

  It wasn’t the neglect I resented, but the feudal assumptions. Every night my lord and master shed his clothes along a trail from desk to bed, expecting his handmaiden to retrieve them. Every evening he strewed the pages of a dozen newspapers around him, expecting his handmaiden to gather and fold them. When I protested mildly, he exclaimed ‘But you have nothing to do all day!’ And this was the man for whom I’d given up family and homeland, not to mention marmite and marmalade! Not that I demanded special treatment on that account; but even if I had been Czech, I would have appreciated a little appreciation.

  I re-read Pavel’s love letters from the front. I had to remind myself that the present preoccupied stranger was the romantic soldier and passionate scribe of the war years. I shook a little romanticism out of my system. You don’t marry a man in a vacuum. You marry his upbringing; you marry his doting mother and Slovak maid, and out-dated theories about male supremacy. Laws can be changed over night, but not attitudes. That will take a generation. You must have patience.

  All might have been well but for mariáš (pronounced as the French do marriage). Pavel devoted all of his limited leisure to this Czech version of poker. I sat through hours of it, a social smile pinned to my aching jaws while the other wives whispered in Czech, isolating me for much of the time. If I could have stayed at home with a book I wouldn’t have minded but Pavel protested that this would be anti-social (sic).

  But people, like Irish stew, boil over if left simmering too long. One evening, after an interminable card session, Pavel caught me sniffling into the pillow. It was just before Christmas, a treacherous time; Christmas undermines one’s defences.

  He was immediately concerned. ‘Darling, whatever is the matter?’

  ‘I’m bored, lonely and I miss my mother,’ I gulped.

  Against all my resolutions I poured out a childish torrent of sobs and reproaches. It produced a moment of silence. Various emotions skittered across Pavel’s face: surprise, bafflement, aggrieved innocence, injured pride. It was hard for a man who had acted from the noblest motivations, having the welfare of his family and country at heart, to be accused of ruthless egotism by an overwrought wife. He drew a deep breath to refute and contend, then paused. And in that pause his communist conscience prompted ‘self-criticism’.

  ‘H’mmm.’

  Again, the shifting phases flickered across his features: doubt, retrospective probing, a glimmer of admission. He promised to make amends. We declared an ecstatic détente and got into bed to cement it.

  For a week or two Pavel picked up his undies and dailies and prefaced his demands with ‘please’. Instead of marïáš, he spent the odd hour in conversation with his wife. He even took me to see Čapek’s Insect Play and Smetana’s Dalibor (which has remained my favourite opera). The improvement was short-lived. Pavel soon slipped bac
k into his old ways. However, he had ensured that our reconciliation would have one lasting consequence.

  *

  I had just returned from the doctor in a state of shock and was pulling myself round with some of the precious coffee my mother had enclosed in a letter (the overseas parcel service had not yet been restored), when Eva dropped in on her way home from work. She was putting in a twelve-hour day, and frequently a forty-eight-hour shift, at the National Bank, sorting out the country’s chaotic finances. Her little free time was devoted to her friends. She baby-sat, mended, advised and cheered. I was her most indulged beneficiary. This time she had brought some home-made biscuits. I scraped a little more coffee out of the envelope for her and we sipped in reverent silence.

  After a few mintues Eva asked: ‘What is the matter, Rosemary, my pet? You have a cloudy look today.’

  ‘Lots,’ I gulped. ‘I’m pregnant.’

  ‘How lovely.’

  Lovely? I was not so sure. The thought of giving birth in broken Czech appalled me. ‘I should have preferred waiting a while,’ I said guardedly. ‘Life is so difficult here. I can’t imagine coping with a baby on top of everything else.’ And I couldn’t imagine producing a healthy infant on a diet deficient in fresh fruit and vegetables, proteins and cod liver oil.

  Eva kissed me. ‘Birth is a beautiful thing. In a modern hospital with doctors and nurses there’s nothing to fear. In the camp it was worse, but even there it was an occasion for rejoicing.’ She looked at me through the shadows of memory; the past was always just below the surface of her mind. ‘Marie came to us in September 1944. She didn’t know she was pregnant — in the camp what with the hard work and poor food, the woman’s thing stopped. Even when her belly swelled, she thought nothing of it. We ate mostly soup and the liquid blew us out like melons. Then one night she woke me up. ‘Eva, there are stirrings of a child in my womb.’ ‘Rubbish,’ I replied. ‘It’s more likely to be hunger pangs.’ ‘No, no,’ she whispered. ‘It is movement. Feel!’ She laid my hands on her middle and I felt the kick of the tiny being. I put my arms round her, for she was trembling. I promised that we would conceal her from the guards as her condition became plainer.