Milan was already there. He hurried eagerly towards me.
‘Have you been waiting long?’
‘No, only about five minutes, but it seemed an age. I was worried that you’d changed your mind.’
He had been worried! I began to feel a little less like an ancient, water-logged barge, abandoned to its fate. We sat down at a corner table for two. Milan took my hand.
‘I’m so thankful to see you again. I’ve been thinking about you all day.’
Again the vibrant sweetness of his voice plucked at strings I thought had long since snapped. We drank wine and talked, and I forgot the years that lay between us.
Milan called himself a religious man, but he was a philosopher rather than a practising Christian. Love, not politics, was his solution to the world’s heartache. He believed that humankind had a greater potentiality for good than evil. Left to ourselves we would live and let live, but extraneous factors goaded us to seek domination over others as a safeguard against subjugation.
‘Nevertheless, people are happiest when doing good. And leading simple lives,’ he added. ‘Exaggerated concentration of power or wealth is alien to the Czech nature. Since the time of Hus we’ve been seeking a better way of life.’
I reflected: whatever the starting point, any intellectual discussion with a Czech ends up with Hus.
All too soon it was nearly midnight and we ran for the tram before the hourly intervals set in. As I jumped aboard, Milan called ‘Phone you tomorrow, same time.’
*
Milan taught me to be, not only to do; to feel as well as think. And he loved me for what I was; not for what I accomplished. He knew the colour of my eyes; he noticed that I had tiny ears and dainty hands and feet. In fact, by highlighting the parts where Nature had dealt kindly with me and ignoring the deficiencies, he made me feel more confident.
I re-learned what I had long forgotten: to switch off activity without pangs of guilt; to live intensely when only sitting in the stillness of the pine woods. Life with Milan was a dream suspended in time and space, and contained by both. Yet, its very limitations made it eternal, and placed it beyond right and wrong. I lived on two planes of unreality: hell and heaven: a husband jailed in a twentieth-century witch-hunt; a perfect lover loaned on an indefinite contract. Hell was for twenty-five years; heaven was here and now.
Milan was heaven-sent in many practical ways too. He brought home hares and venison that he had shot. He mended gadgets that continually fell apart in my hands. He constructed kites and devised other entertainments for the boys on Sundays. He looked after them two evenings a week, which enabled me to resume my teaching at the Language Institute. Above all, his caring gave me the strength to survive. I was sure Pavel would not grudge me that. If I had been jailed for twenty-five years I would have expected Pavel neither to forget me nor to live alone.
*
Milan decided I needed a complete break, even from the boys. He suggested a canoeing holiday. I would take only one week off without the boys. Hanka offered to stay at our flat, then promptly caught an infectious disease. That left only Fate. Fate was a shapeless, universal aunt who manipulated the scales of fortune — occasionally in my favour — and always for a price. This time she exerted herself on my behalf. Our doctor at the children’s hospital prescribed a month at a rest home in the country for the boys who were still underweight after their winter pneumonia.
Milan proposed we ‘do’ the Lužnice, starting at Veselí. We pushed off in gentle country; the river meandered among lush meadows; willows inclined over us, dipping green finger tips into the water. We paddled for miles, taking a short rest at midday. After eleven hours in a C-shape, I would have disembarked at the first patch of moorable bank, but Milan had specific requirements: flatness of pitch, shelter from wind, accessibility of twigs, position for viewing the sunrise. By the time he had found a spot to his liking, it was dark. Before I had finished unloading the canoe, he had coaxed a few damp twigs into a blaze. He pitched the tent, then sat strumming lazily on his guitar while I cooked the meal in a blackened cauldron. Everything tasted of spice and smoke, but squatting on the ground with Milan, eating straight out of the pot, even paprikaed charcoal would have been a feast.
Sky and stars. What more did you need?
Milan stamped out the embers and we crawled into our tiny tent. We snuggled together. Love and warmth inside; cool silence outside. I dozed fitfully, my consciousness as a vertebrate heightened by unfamiliar contact with the ground.
‘How did you sleep?’ Milan asked, crouched over the breakfast fire.
I wavered between honesty and hardiness. In the end I admitted that I lacked both practice and natural upholstery for slumber with nothing but a piece of canvas between me and the earth’s crust.
‘We’ll make you a mattress. Bracken stuffed into a sack will serve well,’ said Milan instantly.
We had to ourselves the river, the scents — and the mosquitoes. I have never had illusions about my sex appeal, but I have an irresistible attraction for all airborne creatures that bite. Large, inflamed lumps do not add glamour to uneven sunburn. My knees, the back of my neck and the tip of my nose were a fiery red, the rest was pale pink. Add to this the unaesthetic symptoms of hay fever and you may easily have the end of a beautiful romance. The mornings were the worst. I emerged into warm sunshine and miles of pollen-bearing countryside. Reveille usually comprised ten or fifteen sneezes. Eyes puffed and streaming, voice muffled, nostrils red, I stumbled about getting breakfast with a huge handkerchief in constant use. A glance in the mirror annihilated the last shreds of my ego.
‘What do I look like?’ I groaned.
‘Marvellously funny,’ Milan grinned.
Milan named trees and bushes as we passed, and flowers and mosses when we stopped. He recognized birds by their call and animals by their spoor. He talked about the nurture of trees and the habits of woodland creatures, about soil composition and the nitrogen cycle. It was all about life. My thoughts had been for so long occupied with the denial of life, that I listened enthralled.
Just below Týn the Lužnice flowed into the Vltava. We entered a canyon.
‘When the Orlík dam is completed this section of the river will disappear. This is the last time we’ll be shooting these rapids. Keep a look out for boulders but leave the main steering to me,’ Milan called out.
We were soon hurtling along at exhilarating speed on what, I was relieved to find, were more or less beginners’ rapids.
‘Oh look, Milan, a carp!’ I pointed to the reeds on my right. Suddenly instead of racing past us, the world began to revolve around us. We were stuck on the top of a concealed boulder and the current was pulling us round in circles. The harder Milan tried to dislodge us the faster we were spinning. It looked as if we would be making the most of the rapids until the dam was completed and the rising waters floated us off. The resourceful Milan spotted a submerged rock nearby. ‘I think I can just about get both feet on it. I’m going to push the canoe clear from there. Now, be a good girl, wedge your paddle against the boulder and try to hold the canoe steady.’
He leapt out, balanced on the rock, heaved the canoe toward him, jumped in and gave a strong thrust against the side of the boulder. We rocked madly, the current seized us and swept us downstream.
‘That wasn’t a carp, you know,’ Milan observed good-humouredly. ‘Carp don’t live in fast-flowing water. And now would you mind watching out for rocks and not fish.’
The cliffs rose higher and closed in upon us. From the cool depths the sky looked far away. Gnarled roots and trees began to burst through the rocks, and soon the granite was covered with a wild tangle of growth. We were in Hell’s Gorge. Milan announced: ‘We can take the next weir.’
‘Take?’ Removal was clearly not what he had in mind. ‘You mean — shoot the sluice?’
‘Yes, it looks dicey but there’s nothing to it really. The essential thing is to keep the prow pointing straight ahead; if we hit the waves at an angle, i
t’s touch and go.’
‘We’ll capsize?’
‘We might. And that can be unpleasant. A battering against underwater rocks can break a leg. People have even been known to drown.’
I could well imagine that: I found swimming difficult enough with two sound legs. We paddled hard to keep the canoe straight against the currents that were pulling strongly towards the millstream on either side. As we approached the sluice, Milan called to me to lay my paddle in the canoe and sit perfectly still.
Over the top we went. I held my breath. We swept down the smooth tongue of water at lightning speed. At the bottom the waters, lashed in all directions, crashed together and spumed up fountains of spray. We hit the first wave fair and square. The prow and I rose out of the water at an angle of forty-five degrees, then headed downward in a nosedive calculated to take us straight through to the river bed. But no, the wave parted and we smacked on to the next crest and from there bounced from foaming crest to foaming crest, on and on downstream until the waves had spent their fury. Then we paddled to the bank and moored the canoe.
‘Jolly good for a first attempt,’ cried Milan, leaping ashore. ‘You were as cool as a cucumber — or an Englishwoman!’
As a precaution we had removed our belongings and left them on the bank. It was a long trek back to collect them. After that we ‘took’ several weirs successfully. It was an exciting sport, but Milan’s constant refrain: ‘We haven’t capsized yet. Amazing! Everyone capsizes at least once on their first trip,’ made me uneasy. Being religious, he was not superstitious. I was.
As I crawled into the stable comfort of my sleeping bag, he said: ‘Tomorrow is the last sluice. It’s a really tricky one. After that there are only locks with gates.’
I should have quit with my laurels dry. The day did not begin auspiciously. A chill, damp wind was blowing, the grey skies hung low over the treetops and the pit of my stomach was a long way down. The nearer we got to the sluice, the more nervous I became. We were in the grip of the current; it was dragging us to one side. We crossed the top almost diagonally. I thrust against the demonic rush of water with all my strength, then sat tight. Milan almost succeeded in straightening us but the sluice was too short and too steep. We reached the churning inferno at the bottom, aslant. A powerful wave struck the side of the canoe, tilting it high into the air. Instinctively, I ducked and the next second I was staring at the inside of the canoe as it reared above me. My last thought was: Who will look after the boys? I was sucked down and down; I fought to rise to the surface, but I was rolled over and over among the stones and mud at the bottom of the whirlpool. My lungs were being crushed, my head was bursting and there was a drumming in my ears. A strong arm caught hold of me. I surfaced and drew in a deep gulp of air. Milan supported me as we tossed like corks downstream. Eventually we kicked ourselves free of the current and swam to the bank.
‘Go back and change out of your wet clothes while I retrieve the canoe and paddles,’ Milan ordered me.
I walked back to where we had deposited our things. I transferred everything further downstream, lit a fire, rigged up a line and hung my wet clothes on it. Over an hour later Milan was in sight, clinging close to the bank where the current was weaker. We moored the boat and sat down on the grass, breathing heavily. I handed him his bag of dry clothes.
‘Whatever made you behave so illogically?’ he demanded. ‘If you had thrown your weight to the right instead of the left, you could have counterbalanced the force of the wave and I could have set the canoe on a straight course.’
For the first time there was a note of asperity in Milan’s voice. I had failed him. But I had been badly scared. I needed comforting not scolding. For five days we had been as close as two human beings can be; now we were separated by one false move and a line of wet clothes.
‘Are we to proceed?’ I asked distantly.
‘No, wait, I bought some rum in a pub. You must drink hot tea with it. Have you put any water on to boil?’
I had not. Wordlessly, Milan delved into the bag for the drinking water bottle, poured some into the cooking pot and added a sprinkling of tea leaves.
‘I don’t want any,’ I protested childishly, swallowing a hiccough. The coldness in my bones would not be dispelled by hot rum. I gazed over the now hostile Vltava and the dreary, sodden meadows; the forlorn scene was nothing to the desolation in my heart.
In a flash Milan was at my side. ‘What’s wrong?’
With a sob I flung myself into his arms.
He murmured endearments, rocking me like a child. ‘I spoke sharply. Forgive me. I thought I’d lost you.’
That night was the sweetest of all.
*
The morning sun on our last day was hot. The scenery was less wild and romantic; no more proud castles perched on stern promontories. The Vltava valley had widened. The slopes were gentler and covered with mixed forests. We had views of bays, tents, occasional chalets and tranquil reflections on smooth expanses. The even current bore us steadily toward Prague. We negotiated locks and the Slapy and Štěchovice dams the conventional way. Towards evening Milan moored the canoe at the foot of Vyšehrad and we completed the journey by tram. As we parted, I told him that it was the most wonderful holiday I had ever had.
‘Next year we’ll do the Váh or the Dunajec in Slovakia.’
I smiled acquiescence, but I knew there would be no next time.
Basking in the warmth of fresh memories, I reached home. There were three letters, one from each of the boys. They were all right. The food was good and the teacher-nurses were nice. That was a relief. The third letter was from Pavel.
‘… I am desperate. Again I have no letters. If you have found someone else, I do not wish to stand in your way. I have no right to ask you to wait indefinitely, but do not cut me out of your life. Give me at least news of my children. Whatever my failings as a husband I do not feel that I have failed as a father …’
I sat motionless. The joy, the physical well-being of the past week fell away like autumn leaves. Why had my letters been withheld again? ‘I do not wish to stand in your way.’ Dear Pavel, it was nobly expressed, but the very hopelessness of his position would always ‘stand in my way’. If he had been ‘outside’, free, on an equal footing, I could have given him up and married Milan. But his hands were tied and that bound mine.
Why had he mentioned ‘someone else’? Were political prisoners taunted by callous warders with their partner’s real or invented infidelity? Would it be kinder to tell Pavel or to leave him in ignorance? The truth might be less hurtful than tortured doubt. In the end I wrote that I had a dear friend of whom I was very fond. He was kind and helped me with the boys, wishing to lighten my burden for a while. There was no question of a permanent relationship. ‘He will fade out of my life long before you return. My affection for him has no bearing on my feelings for you or our future together.’
I loved Milan. I did not love Pavel. But I was bound by loyalty to Pavel. In jail, or released after many years’ deprivation, the time to leave him would never be right.
Chapter 14
Weeks and months merged painlessly. I could not help being happy with Milan. It was my nature to be happy; without happiness life was a waste. No particular event stands out, until Eva’s return to Prague. That was a reason for joy.
She phoned me immediately and I rushed round to see her. She hugged me, exclaiming: ‘I have such a lot to tell you! The water’s on and I’ve got plenty of coffee.’
I prepared for an all-night sitting.
From the notes in my diary I will reconstruct Eva’s story as she told it to me with her characteristic wry humour.
The personnel officer at the mine allotted Eva a room with a former prostitute. When she opened the door she was overwhelmed by the smell of stale cabbage, burnt milk, sweat and sex. Holding her handkerchief to her nose, she dived across the room. The window had obviously been shut for years. She attacked it with both hands. It gave and some of the unpleasant odour
sailed out.
She was unpacking her few clothes when an apparition walked in. It slammed the window shut, crying, ‘Are you crazy? Letting in all that coal dust! This is the only place you can breathe without choking.’
Because she had lived very fast while her meagre attractions lasted, and declined slowly ever since, Kristina’s age was difficult to assess but she certainly had more to look back on than forward to. The lined parchment of her face cracked into a smile. ‘You new? What’s yer name?’
‘Eva Steinerová.’
‘Eva, that’s nice and straightforward; not bloody snooty like mine. Kristina! I ask you! Some mothers should be drowned at birth. All mine ever did for me was to pick a ruddy refined name, pin it on me and leave me in a church pew. A child of God, the old geezer at the children’s home called me. Don’t reckon God had much of a hand in it. More like the dustman. Ever lived in a children’s home? Well, you ain’t missed much. Pious gibberings about being grateful to Almighty God for what you ‘ave received. That’s what we got in those days.’ She shrugged. ‘Today it’s Almighty Comrade Novotný.’
At fifteen Kristina had run away and teamed up with a man.
‘Me agent he used to call hisself, as though I’d feel the loss of me earnings less if we didn’t refer to him as a pimp. Then I struck out on me own. I’d heard about the exploitation of the toiling masses, see.’ She broke off. ‘Christ, what are all them books for? Ain’t you going to do any work?’
‘Yes, at the washery.’
‘A filthy job! What the blazes for? You don’t look like a tart. You’ve got edication.’
Eva stammered: ‘Our — our office was overloaded so I gave notice and signed on here.’
‘Yer off yer rocker! Blimey, I never thought I’d end up with a loony!’ Kristina observed tolerantly. ‘That’s a nice bit of stuff.’
Love and Freedom Page 19
