by Graham Swift
I arrived in Prague with little more than a list of possibly useful names and telephone numbers. I had established from the PEN Committee in London that Wolf had indeed been released, in bad health, on 17 May 1989, but his whereabouts were unknown and information unforthcoming. I had recommendations and promises of help from various sources, and, via a BBC unit in Prague, the name of a man, Miloš, who might act, if needed, as interpreter and co-searcher. I had phoned him from London, along with a number of other people in Prague. Miloš knew nothing of Wolf, but, with only limited free time, was ready to help. Other responses, where there was not an immediate language problem, were cooperative, but no one, just as a year ago, seemed to have more than a dim notion of Wolf.
I had phoned Igor in Bratislava, who was prepared to meet me in Prague the following Saturday; also an editor in Prague, who again knew nothing of Wolf but promised to do what she could and in any case to arrange some meetings with other Czech writers. All these phone calls I prefaced with a wary ‘Please tell me if I should not discuss certain matters on the phone.’ This met with varying reactions, from ‘Say what you like,’ to ‘It’s probably bugged, but what the hell.’ It was hard to tell if this was bravado or if a real barrier of caution had been lifted.
I arrived on Wednesday, 6 December. The ‘gentle revolution’, if it was to be dated from the ungentle night of 17 November, when police brutality had ignited the will of the people, was barely two weeks old. The opposition group Civic Forum was locked in intense negotiation with a government that still held a firm communist majority. The last big demonstration had been on Monday the fourth. A general strike was threatened for the following Monday.
It has to be said that on the streets the general impression was of calm normality—if normality is not an ambiguous term for Czechoslovakia. The Czechoslovak flag was everywhere. Unostentatious red, white and blue tags adorned hats and lapels. In the central part of the city, posters and information sheets, many of them handwritten and seemingly modest, were thick on walls and shop fronts. On Staroměstské náměstí, Old Town Square, a huge Christmas tree vied with a vigil of striking students beneath the statue of Jan Hus.
‘Gentle revolution’ seemed appropriate. But the gentleness was deceptive as well as touching. Optimism was being undermined by jitteriness at the extreme fragility of the situation. This was a week when things might go either way. The ‘smiling’ revolution might lose its smile or show its teeth. People admitted to violent swings of mood from euphoria to depression. Little things told a lot: a confusion in the use of the pronouns ‘we’ and ‘they’; the tiredness in people’s eyes; the hoarseness in their voices. They had been doing a lot of shouting, a lot of talking, aware of never before having been able to talk so much. But old habits die hard: a sudden glance over the shoulder or to the side would be followed by a self-reproachful but still worried laugh.
I made a round of phone calls, including one to Miloš, and arranged to meet the editor, Alžběta, that evening. She had done a great deal of homework since my call from London and had fixed meetings for me with the writers Ludvík Vaculík and Ivan Klíma, with the possibility of meeting other writers and dissidents. She had found out nothing further about Wolf but she had made her own list of contacts to compare with mine. My priority was to find Wolf, but, viewing things pessimistically, I wanted to keep my options open. If there was no trail to follow, I didn’t want my time to be empty.
I confess to more complex motives. What drew me to Wolf was, in part, that he was unknown (in more ways than one, it seemed). He was a writer, but he appeared to have no standing in contemporary Czechoslovak literature. Quite possibly, he was not an exceptionally good writer, although very brave, and his literary career had simply been eclipsed by his activist and prison experience.
A certain myth of the ‘Czechoslovak writer’ seems to have arisen, at least in Western eyes: a figure automatically martyred and ennobled—banned, exiled—for the very act of writing. There may be both truth and justice in this sanctification: Václav Havel is a genuine intellectual hero who has won the spontaneous following of a people. But I suspected that the elevation of prominent writers into political symbols had obscured many ‘unknowns’—writers and non-writers—and that it was perhaps unfair to the individuality of the prominent figures themselves. I wanted to test the myth, to discover whether writers resented or accepted their politicization and how they viewed a future which might restore their freedom but also remove some of their politically conferred cachet. To all this, Wolf’s case would lend a rigorous perspective.
I met Alžběta at six. I gave her a copy I had of the PEN dossier on Wolf (unsure whether this was still a risky document to carry around), and we went to make inquiries at Civic Forum’s new headquarters, a short distance from Alžběta’s office. I anticipated the problem that, given the hectic pace of events, people who might otherwise be able to help would be too busy. I placed strong hopes on contacting members of the unofficial network VONS—the Committee for the Unjustly Prosecuted—which worked to monitor and publish details of such cases as Wolf ’s and itself included many ex-prisoners. The VONS network was inextricably connected with Charter 77, as both were now involved in the opposition movement. I did not expect to make much practical headway at Civic Forum.
I was surprised by the relaxed and low-key atmosphere of the Civic Forum office. I had imagined a throng of enquirers: there was a small knot of people. The staff all seemed to be of student age, smiling, casual, obliging; and if I was reminded of anything, it was of a university common room or a union office—an air of precarious organization. The word you were tempted to use—I thought of the handwritten posters and the single, small-screen televisions relaying information to potential crowds of hundreds—was ‘amateur’. You had to remind yourself that a month ago the machinery of opposition and free information simply hadn’t existed; and that, at a deeper level, all revolutions must appear to be started by amateurs.
Furthermore, if these were amateurs, who were the professionals? No doubt, when the communist leaders were first compelled to negotiate with Civic Forum, they must have stifled the thought (it was creepily instructive to have shared it) that the situation was preposterous—they were dealing with amateurs. But were they themselves professional in anything other than their official possession of power? Professional, in terms of expertise, responsibility, knowledge, education? The answer I got to this was to be repeatedly and vehemently ‘No’. The constant cry—with a gush of relief now that at last it could be uttered openly—was that in a totalitarian regime stupidity floats to the top. At every level, control had passed for years into the hands of people with no qualification other than their Party allegiance. What Czechoslovakia desperately needs now is intelligence.
Jiří Wolf ’s name struck no immediate chords at Civic Forum. We asked after several of the names we had, some of them VONS people. Yes, one or two had been there, but they had gone. There was a little further conferring among the reception staff. Then someone disappeared and came back with a piece of paper. On it was written Wolf’s name and a Prague telephone number. As simple as that.
It was well into the evening, but we went to Alžběta’s office and phoned the number. No answer. We tried several times. Meanwhile we talked and Alžběta studied the PEN dossier I had given her. It was clear that she had not fully appreciated how central to my visit was the search for Wolf, but she was becoming rapidly involved in it. We had a phone number, and it was perhaps now a straightforward matter. But there was a puzzlement which Alžběta shared. Why had she never heard of this man? And why had so many people, many of them on the circuits of information, at best only a vague knowledge of him?
As we left the office and walked to get a meal, I began to feel that Wolf was having a distinct psychological effect on Alžběta—on top of all the emotion that the present crisis had brought. Here was a man whose painful history had been unknown to her only days before, and here was the prospect that soon many other such secrets mu
st come to light. I did not imagine for one moment that Alžběta’s knowledge of what had been perpetrated in her country lagged behind my own. But the individual case was acting, rightly or wrongly, as a catalyst to the assimilation of events.
As we walked, she spoke of things which do not often get mentioned in the West. How Charter 77 was in certain ways, for all its courage and worthiness, an elitist and divisive body, exerting a tacit reproach against those who did not sign it, and throwing up within itself an inner circle of eminence at the expense of many an ‘ordinary’ signatory. It is generally true that in the West reference to Charter 77 evokes a handful of names. One forgets, firstly, that even by 1980 Charter 77 had more than a thousand signatories, and, secondly, that its total number of signatories was only ever a tiny proportion of the population. Alžběta was gently scornful of those now flocking to sign the Charter. She also spoke of the pressure that had surrounded the signing of other petitions, such as that for the release of Havel; of a contagious attitude of ‘if you are not for us, you are against us’, which she pointed out was exactly the stance of the Communist Party.
What Alžběta was revealing was perhaps the inevitable nervousness and complexity that follow the simple, inspiring and hardly believable fact of revolutionary action. You could see the mechanisms of suspicion and trust, immunity and risk, rivalry and resentment beginning to turn themselves inside out: how good a non-communist were you? Old, familiar emotions were starting to flow stickily in a new direction.
I phoned the Wolf number that night. No answer. The next morning I tried again: the same result. Alžběta had arranged a mid-morning meeting with Ludvík Vaculík; I was to go to her office first. I phoned Miloš to say we had Wolf’s number and would keep trying it. Miloš was tied up for the day anyway. I then phoned a contact at the British Embassy Cultural Section to ask if someone could keep phoning the Wolf number through the morning. I then went to Alzbeta’s office on Národní Street.
Alžběta had had no luck with the Wolf number either. We tried again from her office without success, then walked to the Café Slavia to meet Vaculík.
Vaculík is a short, rather leonine-featured man in his sixties, with a thick, grey moustache and long, thick, grey hair. He is perhaps best known abroad for his novel, The Guinea Pigs (Morčata), written after the Soviet invasion, but his best work is considered to be The Axe (Sekyra), published before 1968. For a long time his work has been largely confined to essays, necessarily published in foreign and émigré journals. He is currently busy with volumes of diaries and correspondence. He remains one of Czechoslovakia’s leading literary figures.
I had been warned that he was difficult, ‘morose’, that he might react contrarily to questions. In fact he was amiable, humorous, freely gave me his time and insisted on paying for the drinks. Vaculík rejected communism in the 1960s, but described himself as having had a ‘lasting battle’ with communism ever since he joined the Party. The Soviet invasion and subsequent crackdown meant the virtual loss of all previous freedoms. He spoke of his disbelief and despair at the time; a feeling—echoed by others I spoke to—that his life was lost, that the effects of the invasion would last and that he would not live (he gave a wry smile) to see them end.
He was forbidden to publish in Czechoslovakia and endured a kind of house arrest. His decision to publish regularly abroad was effectively a decision to be regularly interrogated, and, like so many Czechoslovaks, he was obliged to keep monthly appointments with the police. His refusal to do menial work led to the threat of criminal proceedings for ‘parasitism’, though the charge was never brought. He had lost his pension rights and he had no recourse to the assistance normally available for treatment following a gall-bladder operation. He was imprisoned once, for two days, for signing a petition to nominate Jaroslav Seifert for the Nobel Prize.
How did he view present developments?
He was a ‘sceptical optimist’.
Was he bitter, did he regard the past as an evil joke?
No, it had to be viewed as a great, if terrible, lesson for world history and it should not be vulgarized.
How did he see the future?
There were two futures: one before and one after elections. Elections in the spring of 1990 seemed to him a reasonable possibility, with time enough to form parties and find personalities to stand.
Would he wish to stand himself?
No, it was his ‘secret wish’ to have nothing to do with politics.
In this last, frank admission Vaculík belied the stereotype of the Czechoslovak writer and perhaps expressed the inner feeling of many of his fellow authors. He exuded the dignified desire to protect his own independence. Our discussion moved on to the Czech Writers’ Union, even then being denounced as a restrictive organ of the State. Vaculík, of course, was not a member, but nor did he wish to join the new free writers’ association that was being formed. The scepticism in his optimism was apparent and even extended to some reservations about Civic Forum.
Did he think the perpetrators of repression should be punished?
An emphatic yes. But the punishment should be by law, not in the spirit of revenge, and those accused should include not only those responsible for the persecutions and imprisonments, but those who had wreaked economic and environmental damage. One might need to accept that the punishment would not correspond to the guilt, since the degree of criminality might never be properly determined.
What of the punishment for those personally involved in his own suffering?
Here Vaculík’s individuality reasserted itself. He would like, he said, with a slyly wistful expression, to invite a certain police officer to his home, just as that police officer had issued many invitations to him. No one else, no publicity. A simple invitation to coffee.
Finally I asked Vaculík if he knew about Wolf. Once again there was the vague recognition of the name, but he could not help me further.
After lunch I called in at the Cultural Section of the British Embassy. Had they got an answer from the Wolf number? Yes. Would Saturday morning be all right for a meeting?
Mr Wolf couldn’t give a precise time as yet, but would call back. And he only spoke Czech.
I was amazed. My goal appeared to have been achieved in less than twenty-four hours. And with all my readiness to pursue numerous Czech contacts, it was a section of the British Embassy that had made the connection. I was still baffled. How had he sounded on the phone? Was he genuinely ready to meet or perhaps a little cautious?
Oh, perfectly ready, perfectly positive about it all. And he sounded fine.
As it happened, I was able to hear for myself. They had forgotten to give the number he should ring at the Section, so a further call was made to him, in Czech of course. The voice I overheard issuing from the receiver was businesslike and robust. One image I had of Jiří Wolf, as a man physically and mentally wrecked and beyond rehabilitation, faded.
Back at the hotel, I phoned Miloš to tell him the news. Would he be free to act as interpreter?
Only if the meeting was early. Could it be on Friday instead—he had the whole day free?
I said Wolf had to choose the time. I could probably find someone else for Saturday. It looked as if I might never get to meet Miloš.
This was late afternoon on Thursday the seventh. There had been stories during the day that Adamec, the Prime Minister, was threatening to resign. A stalemate seemed to have been reached between Civic Forum and the government. Civic Forum wanted a reformed government (with a non-communist majority) by Sunday, otherwise the general strike would go ahead. Adamec’s position was that he would reform the government but would not act under pressure and ultimatums. If they continued, he would resign. Since Adamec was, temporarily at least, a significant figure in negotiations for both sides, this was not a desirable outcome.
Alžběta had arranged a further meeting with another writer, Eda Kriseova, that evening between six and seven. Kriseova spoke English and would come to the hotel, but I was not to be
surprised if she did not show up. I fully expected her not to appear, since she was closely involved with Civic Forum and was currently privy to discussions with the government. But she was also a writer, and perhaps sometimes it is true that writers like to meet writers. At six o’clock she phoned from the lobby, and, though we could have talked in the hotel, we quickly crossed the street to a cafe.
Obviously in a hurry and excited, but smiling and genial, she was the first person I met who seemed truly charged with the electricity of events. She was also the first person to convey a real shiver of fear. She had been on a tram just now and people were saying that Adamec had resigned. If this had happened, then everything was thrown into flux. There would be a ‘constitutional crisis’. There might be a ‘putsch’. She used this word several times, as if she had not chosen it thoughtlessly.
This was unsettling, to say the least. I shared the generally accepted view that the way ahead for Civic Forum was not easy, but that the current of change was essentially irreversible. Correspondents in the Western press, at least, were ruling out intervention by the army. But Kriseova seemed convinced it was still possible. ‘I don’t see many uniforms about,’ I said, rather obtusely, remembering that a year ago it was hard to get away from them.
‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘Where are they all?’
It was hard to get the measure of Kriseova. She seemed both to have acquired a special grip on events (given her closeness to the centre of things, you could not deny her privileged viewpoint) and to have lost some normal hold on them. She herself seemed to acknowledge this. Her language had a heightened, even ecstatic quality. She spoke of the ‘existential’ nature of recent experience, of being ‘on a wave’ and having no choice, of something working ‘through her’, of events moving so fast that you were ‘racing after history’. She also admitted to an uncanny sense of being involved in the unreal, to having asked her old friend, Havel: ‘Václav, are we dreaming this? Are we acting this?’
