She heard the Professor lecture, “There will be a State in which we will be both the objects of decision and the men who decide, both ruled and rulers, both servants and masters, because we will be masters of ourselves.”
“Casuistry!” said Thomas.
“No, it is the natural status of things, it is life itself! Everything moves, changes constantly, goes on simultaneously on several levels. We are givers and takers, providers and provided, lovers and beloved. And freedom lies in being a member of the whole, under its discipline, and yet determining its course.”
Stanek had spoken with a sincerity which was beyond questioning. He was not even trying to argue; he was giving a credo.
To Thomas, this synthesis of contrasts was too new, too surprising, too incredible. He was accustomed to seeing both sides of an issue, and often enough, the two-sidedness had been destructive to him; but that these two sides, on some plane or at some time, could and should become one—“Either you’re free or you’re not, but you can’t have your cake and eat it, too, as the Americans say. In any case, all this goes far beyond what you said in your speech and what I was prepared to discuss.”
Stanek studied him long and hard, his eyes bright. Stanek felt that he had been right—Thomas was not merely a mouthpiece, and was worth talking to.
“I know,” he said, “what I told you tonight is more than a résumé of my speech; but it grows out of it. Don’t you agree?”
He was in no mood to let Thomas off before having forced him down to the bottom of the problem; he was fresh and stimulated; he liked the atmosphere in the house on St. Nepomuk, he liked Thomas and Thomas’s young wife, her wholesomeness, her attendance on her husband and himself; cooped up in his bachelor quarters, in his school, in his political activities, he missed these little luxuries.
“I want to get back to the speech,” insisted Thomas, “because in it you posed one question that interested me: Freedom for whom? I, too, have been concerned about that—for egotistical reasons, among others. Will I belong to those who are permitted freedom?”
Stanek laughed. “How can I answer that? I don’t know what you will turn out to be, in the end. But this I do know: That in order to attain the freedom I talked about—that greater freedom!—we shall probably have to curb the freedom of those who would use it to maintain their own power and to keep us in shackles to the end of our days.”
“That greater freedom!” cried Thomas. “That music of the future—”
“Have you ever heard the story of Jan Zizka and the citizens of Prachatice?” Stanek broke in.
Thomas was not interested in old stories, and showed it.
But Stanek was undeterred. “What did the Hussites fight for? The right to speak the truth as they saw it, and freedom from their feudal lords and the Catholic Church—isn’t that so? And then the Hussite armies under Zizka came to the city of Prachatice, and the citizens didn’t want to co-operate. So Zizka sent them a letter, and I want to quote it, Thomas, because there’s a point in it for you. You will accept these truths as we do and you will assist us against all hypocrites and faithless Christians who oppose these holy truths....You note that for Zizka, in the struggle for freedom, there is only one side—the others are hypocrites and faithless Christians. Then he goes on to say: If you do not, we shall assume that you choose to be an enemy of God and of all the Tabor Brethren. In other words, though he fights for freedom, he does not grant it to the enemies of his God while the fight lasts. And Zizka’s fight has never ceased.”
Kitty sat up. There it was, now she remembered it, that unmitigated Either-Or which Karel had posed. What had become of Zizka? They had spanned his skin over the frame of a drum....
“That greater freedom!” Thomas repeated sadly. “And meanwhile you go about planning to curb the little freedom we have. Are you to determine who shall or shall not have freedom? What qualifies you? We’ve had some experience with dictators since Zizka’s day. Who guarantees that you’ll be a whit different from them?”
“You can guarantee it,” said Stanek. “You, your wife Kitty, everyone. You’re not outside this nation, you are part of it. You can distinguish good from evil, you can judge for yourself and you are judge over yourself. That, by the way, is not a new idea. It is democracy; the real democracy.”
Thomas was silent. He was both attracted and repelled by Stanek’s vision. He wanted this kind of democracy and yet was afraid of it. He wanted it, because men were created equal; he was afraid of it, because the creation had gone wrong and had filled the world with mediocrities. And now, Stanek wanted these mediocrities to become judges over themselves and over him, Thomas Benda! No, that was not the freedom he wanted. He wanted freedom for himself to be himself, with all his foibles and weaknesses and all his talent.
But this he could not tell Stanek, because Stanek would have understood too well and, perhaps, thought less of him.
No one was at home when Elinor arrived at Joseph’s house. The maid gave her a letter which read:
DEAR ELINOR:—
I apologize for not being able to welcome you. You know these election campaigns—busy, busy, busy. Tonight it’s a meeting in the district town of Limberk, the last shindig of the campaign, and I’m having the family along for effect. The maid will show you to your room. Make yourself at home; the whole house is at your disposal; you remember from last time where Lida keeps the liquor, the key is inside the empty inkwell on her desk. See you around midnight.
Ever,
JOSEPH
Elinor chuckled to herself. It was Joseph all over—kind, gracious, thoughtful, and not above having her raid Lida’s precious bottles. It was a good idea at that; the ride to Rodnik had been dismal, and she could picture a quiet evening in an easy chair, Scotch and ice handy.
She had the maid carry her baggage upstairs, and debated the question with herself. It was a nice picture, but she knew what would happen. After ten or fifteen minutes of restful silence and dreams, her haunches would begin to itch, she would struggle out of the chair, walk up and down, try to find a book, maybe read a few pages, put it aside. In America, or in Paris, she would have gone to the nearest bar and talked to people; but here, this damned language blocked her.
Besides, she had come back to Rodnik for more than professional reasons. She wanted to say good-by to Thomas. That’s why she had accepted so eagerly when the chief of the Paris bureau of her syndicate had made the pointed suggestion that he might like to have a feature writer in Czechoslovakia for the elections, in addition to the regular staff which covered them.
Say good-by—she ought to have sense enough to leave him alone, now. She had safely launched him on his new project; she had tacked him to the side to which he belonged; she had given him enough to chew on for a while; and when the book came out and stirred a tempest in the Czechoslovak teacup, she would sit back home at her desk and read about it and enjoy the thought of it.
And yet, she could not get rid of the memory of his face. Even in Paris, where things had been vastly more exciting and amusing than in Prague, it had stuck with her. Who knows what goes on in the layers of one’s brain that lie below the level of reason? Perhaps the affair on the sleeper from St. Louis to Kansas City had left traces so fine and so insidious that she was aware of them only at hours like this one—alone, with an empty evening on her hands.
She succeeded in making the maid understand that she wanted a taxi. Then she went upstairs, unpacked her toilet kit, and freshened up. She was down again before the taxi arrived. She found Lida’s desk and the inkwell with the key in it; she took a bottle of whisky out of the right-hand side of Lida’s credenza.
Outside, the taxi honked.
She hastily swallowed a drink and left the bottle on the table for the maid to nip from.
“Good evening, Kitty!”
“Why—Elinor—”
“Aren’t you going to ask me in? I’m not that much of a surprise! What’s going on here? Do you have guests?”
“Come in,�
�� said Kitty, opening the door wide, “I didn’t know you were back.”
“Thomas is home, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
Elinor looked down at her. “Will you tell Thomas that I’m here—”
It wasn’t necessary. Thomas was coming out of his study; he saw Elinor; annoyance flared up in him and quickly gave way to a mischievous anticipation of what was going to happen to her in a moment.
“Elinor, my dear—you should have written! I would have met you at the station!”
“I did write,” she protested. “Didn’t Joseph tell you?”
“Joseph? Joseph makes speeches and runs two factories as well as Vesely’s and is busy being a big man.”
He took her arm and led her into the study. The old man got up from the couch and came forward.
“Elinor!” said Thomas, “my high school teacher, Professor Stanek. Professor Stanek—this is Elinor Simpson, the great American journalist to whom I owe my life. What will you have to drink, Elinor?”
“Stanek?” she wondered out loud. “Stanek—the name is familiar....” She snapped her fingers. “Isn’t it too stupid—no, don’t tell me, don’t tell me! It happens to you, too, doesn’t it? There’s a definite association in your mind, but it doesn’t quite click....Anyhow, Thomas, how’s the book? Are you working on it? Joseph mailed your statement to me in Paris, plus a translation. I think it’s great stuff—don’t you, Professor? You see, I’m a kind of godmother to Thomas’s new book on Freedom—”
The mischievous glint vanished from Thomas’s eyes. He reddened with embarrassment over her claim to his book and his ideas. He could not bring himself to face Stanek.
“Stanek...” she said. “Stanek—why, of course! You’re the candidate here of the Communist Party!”
“Yes, madame.”
“We’ve been drinking native wine,” said Kitty, “but you don’t like it, I know. Would you want some whisky?”
Elinor paid no attention to her. “Very interesting, psychologically,” she went on. “It simply did not occur to me who you were, Professor Stanek, because I never expected to see you here.”
Kitty froze up.
“Now, now, Elinor!” Thomas interjected, “isn’t it possible for cultivated people to meet, whatever opinions they may have? Isn’t it possible to discuss an issue objectively?”
Stanek said, “If you will forgive me—it is late, and tomorrow will be a busy day for me.”
“Please don’t go,” begged Kitty.
“No, it is not possible!” said Elinor. “Not with these people. To them nothing is objective, and if nobody watches out for you, Thomas, you’ll only become their cat’s-paw.”
Thomas’s voice lost all timbre in his anger. “I don’t need anyone to watch over me. And I will have no one dictate to me about my friends, or my discussions, or my books.”
“Good night, Thomas Benda,” said Stanek. “I hope I’ve been of some help to you.”
“You have, you have,” Thomas replied brusquely.
“Don’t bother to take me to the door. You still have a guest. Good night, Miss Simpson. It was a pleasure to meet you.” Stanek shoved his pince-nez into his breast pocket and shuffled out, Kitty behind him.
Thomas and Elinor faced one another in a silence that seemed to crackle. Suddenly, she sat down. A great and genuine sadness spread over her face.
“Oh, Thomas, Thomas,” she said, “you’ve hurt me. And Joseph! I wouldn’t dream of telling him about this—conniving behind his back, with his enemy....When an ordinary person does it, your brother Karel, for instance, it means little more than a sting you can forget. But a betrayal by you—you have a responsibility, you are the Spokesman!”
He laughed. Even she could not believe that kind of corn! And yet it wasn’t pretense—she meant every word. Perhaps seeing Stanek tonight had been tactless; perhaps he should have waited until the elections were over.
“You’re blowing this thing up bigger than it is,” he said, wishing that Kitty would return and save him from a mutual unburdening of hearts.
“I hope I am,” she said, “I hope to God I am. I’m leaving for the States, next week, and I’d hate to go feeling that all I did for you was spoiled by one of your whims.”
He could hear faint kitchen noises. He had trained Kitty to be discreet and to let him alone in his work and in his talks with people his size. Now he wished she were not that obedient.
“I won’t see you for a long time,” said Elinor.
“I’ve outlined the book, and I know pretty much where I’m heading.”
Don’t you want to talk about it?” she coaxed.
“No.”
She was angry with herself. She was practically begging him, who should come begging to her, and he sat there, self-sufficient, self-assured, and puffed up by ideas he thought he had discovered. A fine Golem she had created!
“Well, forget it,” she said lightly. “This isn’t what I came back here for, all the way from Paris.”
She got up and came over to his chair.
“I like you very much, Thomas,” she said. “More than I knew. But I’m much too old and much too sensible to do anything about it. I just wanted you to know it. Don’t ever again do anything to hurt me. I’ve made you a great man; now I’ll tell you a secret.”
He was only half-listening.
“Back in Hollywood, we have something called type-casting. Do you know what that is?”
He did not answer.
“We take an actor and give him a role and make him popular, and from that time on he can only play the same kind of role; the public won’t accept him in any other. I’ve cast you in a role, and you cannot get out of it. It would kill you to try.”
He smiled at her.
“Now let me give you a secret in return for yours,” he said comfortably. “In the office of my publishers, I allowed you to force me into a statement which was a lie, because it was a half-truth. Now I’m going to write a book, and this book will not be what you think it’s going to be and what you want. It will be something new. It will be my declaration of independence from you and from anyone else who imagined he was running my life. And there isn’t a damned thing you can do about it!”
It was as if she had received a physical blow and were rocking on her feet.
“Kitty!” he called.
Kitty came quickly.
“I thought we were giving Elinor some Scotch. We still have half a bottle, don’t we?”
“Thank you,” said Elinor. “I’ve done too much drinking today. Just get me a taxi.”
“A taxi for Elinor—will you phone and come back, please, Kitty?”
Until the cab arrived, they talked of inconsequential things—whether Elinor would fly across the ocean, and how it felt up in the air with nothing but rippled water underneath; of the Paris black market; and how difficult it was to get decent clothes in Prague. Kitty was the mainstay of this conversation. She saw that Elinor was severely shaken, and though she did not know what had happened and what had passed between the two, she had a sense of triumph—but it was somehow impersonal.
She went with Thomas when he took Elinor to the cab. Together, they re-entered the house. In the hallway, he took her into his arms. She felt his relief and his joy and she was glad for him. He is changing, she thought; and then she thought, If I had a child, I’d have something to love. The child wouldn’t have to be like a stranger in the house at all.
He kissed her, hard.
Her body rose to his and became soft and giving. She hadn’t felt that close to him since—oh, why check back? “I want a child, Thomas!” she said.
He was looking over her head. “I banished a ghost, there,” he chuckled “Perfect job, too.”
Her arms fell. Her heart shriveled. Her voice was dead as she said, “I’m sure you did the banishing beautifully.”
He turned her playfully around and led her upstairs, to the bedroom. On the landing, he stopped. “A child, Kitty? You’ve changed your min
d again?”
She had no answer.
“When I’ve finished my book,” he said, and smiled to himself.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
PETRA knocked at the door to the guest room. There was no “Come in!” so she knocked again. She opened the door a slit, and ally tiptoed into the room, and stopped in her tracks.
What she saw was frightening. The gray mane sprawled over the pillow like a tangled mop. Eye shades made distorted sockets in a shapeless, pasty-white face; it was, in fact, no face at all, just the rough of one. Petra inched forward; with the tip of her finger softly, softly—and shuddering at the same time—she touched the face and felt it crumble.
Elinor sat up with a start, tore off her eye shades, and blinked.
“Oh it’s you!” she said, moved her chin several times and stretched her lips. Disgusting stuff...It dries on you overnight, and cakes.”
“Seven—o’clock,” stammered Petra.
“I must look a fright.” Elinor yawned. “But don’t let it scare you. I daresay there will be a time in your life when you’ll use all this—” she waved at the array of bottles and tubes on her night table. “It’s all good stuff! Just got it in Paris. Come here! Want to try some?”
She pulled Petra close, reached for a bottle with an atomizer, and sprayed. “Smells good, doesn’t it?”
Petra was losing her fear. Her mother had bottles, too, and pastes—not many; Petra didn’t think her mother slept with white plaster on her face. Her father would certainly not stand for that. And yet, if it made you beautiful...?
Elinor was cold-creaming her mask and wiping it off with tissues.
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