Love and Freedom

by Rosemary Kavan

  He squeezed my hand gratefully. ‘I haven’t been much good to you, but I have always loved you.’

  ‘I know,’ I gulped, a lump in my throat. Pavel might be exasperating, but he was also brave, indomitable and loyal. A very special person.

  Pavel surprised everyone: he recovered quickly and, what’s more, found an employer.

  ‘Not a political job this time,’ I hoped.

  ‘But of course, what else could I do?’

  ‘Anything else. A nice quiet job where you have no say and can’t be accused of getting out of line.’

  But Pavel would rather drown in the treacherous eddies of the political current than look on in safety from the bank.

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s not a front-line post this time. My title is Political Head of the Recreational Club for Employees of the Ministry of Fuel and Power. The club has not been very active up to now. It needs injecting with new ideas.’

  The old glint was in his eye. Nothing would really change Pavel. He would no doubt find a way of working himself to death even in a recreation club. The recreation club’s thousands of users welcomed the new activities he introduced. But the Old men at the top’ were less enthusiastic. They mistrusted change. They sought ulterior motives for excessive zeal. No one but a lunatic or an enemy agent would do more than his work contract stipulated.

  Pavel raged: ‘It’s not only the country’s leadership that needs changing, but the managers and functionaries all the way down. I’ll give you one small example. I discovered a workshop of poster painters a few streets from us. I wanted the club to take them over. They could have earned us 100,000 crowns a year, and the club isn’t paying its way. But the management dithered. They haven’t had to take a decision for so long they can’t give a prompt answer to the simplest question. It was a two-headed coin: nothing to lose. But they brooded so long that the Municipal Enterprises got wind of the nest egg and snapped it up. Now the chick has hatched and it’s a gold mine.’

  *

  Pavel and Hronek collaborated on one more disastrous venture. Pavel was asked to arrange a programme of entertainment for construction workers at a power station. Hronek wrote a satirical revue that took the mickey out of everyone on the site from the director down to the workers. Pavel thought it wildly funny and the two friends enjoyed rehearsing the performers. But the local Party bosses were not amused. The authors were reprimanded for their ‘lack of understanding of the working class’. Again, Pavel had been over-optimistic in reading the signs. The current liberalization of the arts did not extend to satire served neat to the workers.

  For Pavel this was the final disillusionment. Change would come too slowly: he would not live to see it. He succumbed to black pessimism, trapping us all in a thick layer of gloom.

  The boys complained: ‘Tati’s always grumpy, and now you’re sad.’

  I rallied because the family atmosphere depended on me, the mother.

  Pavel was rapidly becoming isolated. His friends avoided him because of his unpredictable behaviour. He had quarrelled even with Karel and Eva.

  *

  I do not remember whether any particular event or outburst brought on Pavel’s next attack. I do remember my sense of hopelessness when I visited him in hospital, grey and drawn, an old man. I left the hospital choked with pity, for Pavel, lonely and friendless for myself, exhausted and bewildered by his reproaches and reminders. He had forgotten that I now had a full-time teaching job, as well as part-time translations.

  When Pavel was discharged from the hospital he was put on a full invalid pension. At the age of forty-five he had been thrown on the scrap heap. The terrible indictment ‘unfit for work’ eroded his being. I was witnessing the slow disintegration of a dynamic personality. It was worse than his prison sentence: that had contained an element of hope, because the verdict had been phoney. This sentence led to a slow but inescapable death.

  After four months, Pavel announced his intention of going back to work at his own risk. ‘The doctors on the commission are a bunch of old women. They don’t see that nothing will kill me as surely as doing nothing.’

  It was foolhardy. His doctors had told me: ‘With his constitution, he may live for another five years, or he may go suddenly.’

  I tried to deter Pavel but he was resolved. Daily I expected a fateful call from his office. I rushed home after my evening lessons sick with dread. I sank into a chair, weak with relief, each day that he cheated the grave. I was beginning to feel the strain; I began to suffer attacks of migraine and complaints from my gall-bladder. I slept badly and woke up several times a night bathed in sweat.

  Fear and frustration drove Pavel to a state bordering on hysteria. The very sight of Jan, who was going through the awkward adolescent period of breaking and bumping into things, infuriated him. Zdeněk was the only one who could manage him. His calm, steadfast gaze quelled Pavel’s rages. He would hand Tati his tablets, sit by him and talk quietly, wise beyond his years. Pavel recognized in his younger son an equal in stubbornness. There had been many scenes between the two since Pavel had returned from prison. One thing Pavel would not tolerate — especially after years of nauseating scraps — was fussiness over food. He made an issue of every leftover. On one occasion Zdeněk went without food for forty-eight hours rather than give in over a cup of cold tea. They were the best of friends immediately after the crisis was over, their mutual respect strengthened by their battle of wills.

  I was finding it more and more difficult to get through to him. He had become pathologically suspicious, interrogating my movements if I arrived half-an-hour late, insinuating that I had a lover. He accused me of spending money for bills which he, himself, had forgotten to pay, of hiding books and papers which he had mislaid, of setting his friends against him. Old resentments welled up; he seemed to hate me.

  When pain seized him, he cried: ‘It’s all your doing! Can’t you see your very presence aggravates me? Do you think I don’t know that you’re waiting for me to die so you can marry again? Get out and leave me in peace.’

  ‘You mean you want a divorce?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course. What else?’

  After repeated assertions that he could not bear the sight of me, I began to believe him. If we parted, it might prolong his life. I had heard that one of the nurses at the hospital was fond of him. Were he to marry someone trained in handling heart cases, he might enjoy his remaining years in serenity. After Pavel’s next outburst, I observed quietly: ‘You don’t have to put up with me if you’d really rather not. I’ve seen a lawyer who tells me that we can be divorced without any fuss within a few weeks.’

  Pavel nodded.

  Before the first hearing, he announced: ‘I can’t go through with it. It would be the death of me!’

  Again there was accusation in his eyes. What was I to do?

  I told him: ‘We’ll call it off. I thought you said you wanted …’

  I stumbled out of the room. I sat down at my desk. What did Pavel want? If we stayed together I might involuntarily provoke an attack, if we separated it might hasten his end. I was caught in a terrifying trap. Whatever I did would be wrong. There was no way out. My head was about to burst. Instinctively, I put up my hands to prevent it from flying apart. I craved a break from responsibility, complete unconsciousness. But I had work to do. The letters danced before my eyes as I struggled to finish a short translation. I strove to rally my failing senses. I had never let anything beat me before. Common words eluded me; the dictionary was too heavy to lift. I had yet to prepare my lessons for the next day. I reached for the Daily Worker to select a passage for discussion. I read words that conveyed no meaning. I would not be able to face my class. I had not the will to go on. I admitted defeat. I fetched a glass of water and lay down with a bottle of sleeping pills.

  I had not provided myself with enough liquid. I swallowed only ten. That would not suffice to keep me asleep for ever. My legs were leaden. I could not drag them to the kitchen for more water. I would have to wai
t until tomorrow night.

  I awoke midway through the afternoon, sick and dizzy. I had no wish to return to reality. Towards evening Margot, an English friend several years my senior, called. She took one look at me and said strangely: ‘I know what you have in mind. You’re coming with me. You need looking after.’

  I had no will to resist. I submitted to her instructions, relieved of the burden of my identity.

  Margot put me into a large bed with cool, sweet-smelling sheets in a cool orderly room. My mind slipped from my grasp and floated away on the lavender air. A doctor came. I could not focus. He was a blur with a pleasant voice. Name, date of birth? Date? I never could remember dates. Never mind, later will do. He left, and I drifted back into timelessness. Margot was a calm, gentle presence that came and went noiselessly, dosed me and let me lie down again. She kept the curtains drawn: day and night merged. Occasionally a faint buzz penetrated the haze that enveloped me. The phone. Margot spoke in low tones; the words hovered beyond the radius of my hearing.

  Then one day everything that had floated away began flowing back; senses, memory, appetite. I sat up. My head felt steady. I was no longer afraid it would explode or roll off. Apart from a not unpleasant physical languour and an inability to concentrate, I was on the road to recovery.

  Margot announced: ‘The doctor has asked me to bring you to his surgery this afternoon, if you are fit enough.’

  Outside the clinic, Margot stopped her car and laid a hand on my arm. ‘Rosemary, I have bad news for you. It’s Pavel.’

  ‘Not another attack?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Please take me to him — now.’

  ‘He’s gone.’

  Gone, gone where? Oh, not that! The whispered telephone calls. He had been dying and I had not been told!

  ‘He’s dead?’

  ‘Yes. It happened on Thursday, in the hospital.’

  ‘Oh, poor Pavel! I wasn’t there when he most needed me! I failed him!’

  I burst into uncontrollable weeping. Pavel had died alone. After all that I had suffered with him and because of him, I, his wife, had not been there to share his last moments, to sweeten them with the reminder that he lived on in his sons.

  Before my nervous collapse I had been too exhausted to think logically, to realize that Pavel, cheated of his life, had needed a target for his bitterness. He could not have denied his faith and blamed the Party. That left only me. But his accusations had been merely a safety-valve. Why had I given in? I should have hung on just a little longer. I could have been there at his deathbed to make our final peace. I buried my face in my hands. I would be haunted by guilt for ever.

  A psychologist friend assured me: ‘We cannot change people or hold ourselves responsible for their lives. A misplaced belief in our power to influence another, or inability to come to terms with our failure, is a kind of arrogance, or at least a lack of humility. To survive, we must accept our limitations. This Pavel was unable to do. He destroyed himself.’

  Now, when it is all so far away, I see that we were both guilty of concealment; we were not open and honest with each other. Our misunderstandings went deeper than differences in nationality, race, temperament and upbringing. It was only too simple to blame such things. But the fault lay in ourselves. We shared aims, ideals and disasters. We did not share confidences; we were incapable of baring our true feelings to each other; we never had a serious discussion about marriage, our relationship or the complexity of our feelings for each other.

  Why didn’t I reveal my true needs to Pavel? Why did I never demand my own space in our marriage? Because I was afraid of him? Afraid of his ridicule? Because I was so concerned with keeping up a brave front, getting on with the job, living down my middle-class background, not complaining, not being thought trivial and weak-minded? Why did Pavel never disclose to me his needs and the real reasons and motives for his behaviour? It’s easy to say that he wasn’t given to introspection; he was a man of action. But why did I never probe to the roots? Why was I satisfied with conjecture?

  Why does it take a lifetime to learn that you have to understand yourself before you can understand another; that to succeed a relationship must constantly be brought out into the open and overhauled, and that this requires mutual trust, courage and honesty?

  Margot soothed me: ‘It was very sudden. There was nothing you could have done, especially in your weak state. I consulted your doctor. He thought the shock would be dangerous until you had recovered a little. Pavel has gone; we have to think of you now. You will need all your strength to carry on alone.’

  Margot led me, still weeping, into the surgery. The doctor gave me a tranquillizing injection. Back at her flat I tried to pull myself together. I asked who was looking after the boys.

  ‘Your brother-in-law and his wife have moved into your flat. They’ll stay until you’re better. The boys are coming to see you today.’

  They looked pale and lost. Life had dealt them its most tragic blow. Though grieving deeply, they maintained an outward composure.

  A colleague of Pavel’s dropped in and told me: ‘Pavel was at work before his attack. We told him to go home as we were moving offices. He insisted on staying, and pushed tables about and carried chairs. He swore he felt fine. Heart cases are often like that before the end. Exuberant, they feel like flying.’

  I recalled something Ostrovsky had written: ‘Man’s dearest possession is life. And since it is given him to live but once, he must live so as not to be seared by the shame of a cowardly and trivial life; live so that dying, he may say: All my life and strength were given to the finest cause in the world — the liberation of mankind.’

  That might have been an epitaph to Pavel — a tragic and heroic man.

  1. Pavel Auersperg was the head of the ideological department of the CC CPCz in the ‘60s, and in charge of the working group which drew up the reformist Action Programme for the Party in early 1968. However, later that year he openly welcomed the Soviet invasion.

  Chapter 18

  Pavel’s story did not end with his death. His fate moulded his sons’ lives: Jan became an activist and reformer; Zdeněk withdrew into the protective shell of a thinker and observer.

  I am often asked why I didn’t return to England when Pavel died. There were many reasons. The boys did not want to move. They spoke little English and they had been taught to regard England as a bastion of imperialism — the enemy. Czechoslovakia was their home. Though I longed for the freedom, courtesy and orderliness of England, the practical realities dismayed me. Rents were high; we’d have to live with my parents. This would create problems. My father was obsessed with tidiness and discipline, whereas Jan was untidy. The boys quarrelled incessantly and both argued with me. In any conflict, my mother would undoubtedly take my part against my father. Our presence would cause a rift in their peaceful marriage.

  In Prague I was my own boss, I had a centrally-heated flat and social security. Now that I was getting well-paid literary translations and a small widow’s pension in addition to my salary, I would be able to get the boys through university unaided. And there were other reasons for staying. Pavel had been the prime force in my life. He would continue to be so even after his death. My loyalty to him and the ideals we had shared made me want to carry on the struggle. Yet I still had to come to terms with our relationship. Pavel had swamped me: I needed to rediscover my identity in the milieu where I had almost lost it. I had made friends who were too precious to give up (Heda, Yvonne, Hanka and many others). Furthermore, I was committed to the Czechs and curious about the next chapter of their story. Lastly, there were the mystical bonds that linked me with Prague.

  I did not regret my decision. The following years, especially from 1963 onward, were a fascinating period of hope and frustration. Economic, political and cultural pressures toward reform were building up under the surface. A modicum of liberalization would be achieved and hopes would rise. Then the leadership would get cold feet, or at a tap on the shoulder from M
oscow, the initiators would be punished and the liberal trend suppressed. Hopes would sink. After a hiatus, the process would be repeated, the progressive gaining a little ground each time.

  I became closely associated with two forward-pushing streams: the student movement, and writers and journalists, which made this a hazardous but optimistic stage of my life. It climaxed in 1968, which brought to fruition Pavel’s ideas and those of other reform communists.

  The boys had buried the shock of their father’s death deep inside them and refused to talk about it. Months later fourteen-year-old Jan burst out: ‘It was the trial that killed him: the execution was only delayed. And we still don’t know the names of his murderers.’

  There and then Jan vowed that he would unravel the truth, even if it took a lifetime.

  I told him that his father had been a victim of the abuse of power. ‘Tyranny is imposed from above, but fear is generated from below. If the man on the lowest rung refuses to be intimidated by the man above him, it is impossible to build up a pyramid of terror. Your generation is not bound by false loyalties as ours was. You will be less blind and more outspoken than we were. You will combat wrongs as you encounter them. That will prevent distortions of socialism in the future.’

  An open invitation to trouble that proved to be!

  *

  Zdeněk was the first to suffer. His class were asked to write an honest assessment of the ČSM, a Czechoslovak Youth Union modelled on the Soviet Komsomol movement, under direct control of the Communist party. As a result of his essay Zdeněk was threatened with expulsion. I asked him why. He told me that he had written that the ČSM served no useful purpose; it solved no problems and the only thing it provided were well-paid jobs for its functionaries. Young people joined it only as a passport to university and jobs.

  ‘The Head told me that if I was against the ČSM, I was against socialism and for capitalism, and did not deserve a place in a socialist secondary school. I said that that was sophistry, and that it was dishonest to ask for an honest opinion and then use it against me. Most of the class felt as I did but had not risked putting their views on paper. He said he’d give me another chance. If I recanted, he’d forget all about it. I said I’d rather sweep roads; what I’d written didn’t become less true because he was threatening me. That shook him. He mumbled something about looking into the ČSM and dismissed me.’