“Precisely.”
“You throw a cake to the pigs and then hope to fish it out of the trough again and eat it yourself?”
“This particular cake—out of this particular trough—yes.”
“Poor Joseph,” she said. “Poor Joseph....”
He squirmed. “You’ve got to have some confidence in me. Didn’t I always carry through what I said I would?”
Her eyes became small with contempt, her mouth thinned out, and her voice came high like an old woman’s. “The people to whom you abdicated your patrimony are not the kind of people who will give it up. They will fight. They are so many. They are everywhere. They are like locusts—horrible, horrible, horrible!”
“Don’t worry!” he said. “Lida, darling, don’t worry!”
But the dam was broken, and fear flooded him down to his toes.
He got up heavily. He had to catch the train back to Prague. He had to go on doing what he was doing. There was no backtracking—not for him, not for anybody.
CHAPTER NINE
Our age, with its highly developed means of mass communication, has substituted slogan for thought, shibboleth for emotion, propaganda for the exchange and discussion of ideas. How, then, can the average man, nourished on his carefully measured daily dose of pre-digested food for the mind, weigh independently the facts governing his own life and his neighbors’? How can he formulate conclusions, how act on them like a mature person who has achieved the full growth of citizenship?
From the very outset, his scale of values has been tampered with by those who control the media of communication. The individual does not choose; he is subtly, and sometimes not so subtly, pushed toward a certain choice. Since the people are only a conglomeration of individuals, and since democracy is based on the people’s preferences, we cannot but suspect the validity of democracy as we know it.
If 51 per cent of the people, stimulated by some headline, shout “Hosannah!” the other 49 must tolerate the nuisance; but let some high-powered source organize different headlines, which move 2 per cent of the people into the opposite column, and the cry of the majority becomes “Crucify!”
We are told of the unfailing instinct of the people and that, in the aggregate, the mass will recognize the truth and do the right thing. We Czechs only need look North and West to our German neighbors to see how tragically wrong the vast majority of a whole nation can be.
The instinct of the people may have been sufficient in times when the town crier was the source of news, when an occasional traveler came to the village to tell of some faraway war; though history records the numerous mass follies of those days. But for the present, the question asked by Thomas G. Masaryk in The Ideals of Humanity still remains to be answered: “If the individual is nothing, if his opinions and conscience are meaningless, how then can thousands of individuals be counted not only as significant but ultimately as the be-all?”
Masaryk stated this question polemically; he himself did not believe that the individual and his opinions and conscience are meaningless. The individual’s opinions and conscience, and democracy along with them, can have great validity—but only under conditions which do not exist now and which must be created. Without these conditions there can be no freedom; without them, the instinct of the people becomes a mockery.
What are these conditions? Obviously, they involve a change in the control of the means of mass communication. But this brings up a new and even more thorny problem: Who, then, is to control them? And isn’t such control, isn’t any control, the negation of the very freedom it is to achieve and guarantee?—From THOMAS BENDA: Essay on Freedom
KAREL paused more often than necessary as he walked up the winding road to the house on St. Nepomuk. He had been to see Mrs. Flicek, who lived at the foot of the hill; so he had taken along his brother’s manuscript on the chance that he might have the time to go up to Thomas’s. Mrs. Flicek, who was big with her third child, should have known better than to send her oldest running for the doctor. When he had rushed to her and examined her, the labor pains turned out to be false. It left him with plenty of time but with no excuse to postpone returning the “Essay on Freedom.”
Below him, in the valley, lay the wintry town, the rags of snow clinging to the green onion shape of the church’s belfry, the neat pattern of roads converging on the market square. If Mrs. Flicek’s unborn had not decided to spend a few more days in the comfortable warmth of the uterus, the afternoon would have meant launching the new Flicek into the world, instead of talking to Thomas, seeing Kitty, and learning about Vlasta’s effect on the two on St. Nepomuk.
He trudged on. When he reached Thomas’s house, the sky was darkening—the days were still short. Kitty’s face was indistinct in the hallway, no lights were on in the house; she must have been sitting in the twilight, doing nothing.
“You’ve come to see me—” Her voice hovered between joy and relief and embarrassment at his finding her as she was.
The hallway was a short, fairly narrow passage; he smelled the fragrance of her hair. “How are you, Kitty?” he asked.
“You should have called up before you came. No—I would have told you I was busy. And I’m not busy, not busy at all.”
“Where’s Thomas?”
She switched on the light. The shadows disappeared. “He’s not in,” she said. “He’s never in at this time of the day. Will you have a cup of tea? We’ve some cake left over from lunch....”
She stood there, pulling her sleeves over her wrists and smoothing her hair self-consciously. An old sweater covered her house dress, since the rooms were rather cold. There was a certain tawdriness about her, and Karel was shocked by it. She was no longer dressing for anyone, she wore no lipstick, and her face had the pallor of someone who stays indoors too much.
“Where is Thomas?” he asked again. “I came to return the copy of his essay. I’ve read it—”
“He’s at Joseph’s, teaching Petra. He goes there every afternoon.” She held out her arm for his coat and begged, “Stay, why don’t you? I’ve lost track of the months since you were here last.”
If Mrs. Flicek’s labor pains had been real, he thought, his hands might now be grasping the forceps, his eyes might be watching the misshapen, slime-covered little skull work its way out from between giant, twitching thighs—oh, Jesus, we’re all born in agony and live in it, and there’s no security except in that womb, and the unborn clinging to it was the wisest of us all.
He gave her his coat and waited till she had put it on a hanger and then followed her into the living room. “I’ll get the tea,” she said. For a while, she was puttering in the kitchen. He listened. His thoughts lined up against him. What had he done to her, blasting the feeble foundations of her existence by supporting Vlasta’s stay in Rodnik? Did she have to be dragged through this collapse of what little she had to hold on to? If he loved her, why hadn’t he spared her that? Or why didn’t he tell her to come with him now—take her away, persuade her or force her, but get her out of this mire of half-hopes and pretenses and indecisions?
She came back, served him and herself, and sat down expectantly. Her face was animated, now; she must have used the minutes while the water was heating to change her dress, comb her hair, and make up her lips; or else, the shaded lamp next to the settee was more flattering than the white light in the hallway.
He kept stirring the sugar in his cup and looking at her hands. They were red from housework, but their strong, tapered fingers were still beautiful.
“Tell me about the Essay!” she said. “What do you think of it? Do you feel it still has a chance?”
“It’s very much like Thomas. It’s provoking.” His smile was wry. “Sometimes I was furious at it, sometimes I loved it. Even when I wanted to shove it aside, I had to admire it. It’s courageous, and sincere—and no matter how it hits you, you have to respect the tremendous amount of work he put into it.”
“That’s really your opinion, Karel?”
The hell with
the Essay! he wanted to say; but, instead, he continued reviewing. “He has a wonderful knack for making you doubt all the comfortable, long-accepted commonplaces—and without preaching. The thing forces you to think for yourself. It’s disturbing and stimulating and annoying, and there is some arrogance in it, too—I often had the feeling that the Essay supports only one kind of freedom: complete and absolute freedom for Thomas Benda; only one kind of control: control exercised by himself. But that’s not so unusual. In fact, it’s very human.”
“You’re the only one who understands him,” she said softly.
“I wish I didn’t!” he broke out. “I wish I weren’t his brother; I wish I had no concern for him whatsoever!”
Her head came up. “Don’t, Karel.”
“Do you want me to go?”
It was as if she hadn’t heard him. “He stands so alone,” she said.
“He wants it that way. He keeps himself above the fight, above you, above everything. And it shows in his book. I’ll tell you what his book lacks—heart!”
“So it should have been turned down?” she said, dispirited.
“No! It deserves to be printed. I think I know a way of getting it printed, and that’s what I wanted to discuss with Thomas. He’s been with the wrong people, they used him, and now they are weaseling. But there are people who are not afraid of giving the minds of a few thousand men and women something to chew on.”
He sounded quite angry and determined, but the softening of the lines around his eyes and mouth spoke of something else that came from the depth of his heart and ran underneath the precision of his statement; and he knew that she was listening to this rather than to his opinions.
“Thomas will be back around six,” she said so factually that it became apparent to him that she, too, was voicing one thing and feeling another. Then she added, “Unless he stays to have dinner with Vlasta Rehan.”
He attempted to gauge the tone in which she mentioned the name. But the effort was swamped by his realization that Thomas wouldn’t be back until six, perhaps later.
“I can’t wait for him,” he said abruptly.
She nodded.
“It’s a shame I can’t wait,” he said. “I almost never come up here.”
She nodded again, as if she were saying: I know; I know why; you don’t have to explain.
“Tell him what I said. Tell him I’ll be going to Prague shortly; I’ll show the book to some friends of mine. Tell him to phone me if he doesn’t want me to.”
“He acts as if he doesn’t care much either way,” she said.
Her tea was untouched on the low table before her. She looked cold and small as she sat there, her arms close to her body, her hands on her knees. He went to the closet in the hall, and returned with a shawl. He placed it around her shoulders and kissed her hair.
She did not move.
He sat down again. He tried to recall Mrs. Flicek’s bloated belly and obese thighs. The image would not come.
“He’s too preoccupied,” she went on. “If only it made him happy! But it doesn’t. And I keep asking myself, is it my fault? I’ve been a good wife, I think I have. I loved him. I loved him from the moment I laid eyes on him, a frightened little boy running away. And I sit here, day after day, watching my love die off like a diseased plant, leaf after leaf.”
“Kitty,” he said hoarsely, “Kitty...”
“I think if the book gets printed, things may become better. As they are now—he must have something to prove to himself that he can be successful....”
“Don’t you ever think of yourself?”
“But I do! All the time....”
“I hope you’ll tell me when you reach a conclusion,” he said with some bitterness, and stood up.
“Are you going?”
“Yes.”
She rose, her face warped. “You must not punish me, too,” she said. “I’ve taken about all I can.”
Then she was clinging to him, her hands clutching his shoulders, her body fleeing to his. “Don’t punish me, don’t punish me!” she whispered. Her lips were on his, harsh, searing.
*****
Karel undertook his trip to Prague in a rush resembling flight, although he knew that escape was not possible. He could not avert what was bound to happen. The fire, smoldering for so long, had broken through. He felt it consume the inhibitions, the moral precepts, the family considerations, the regard for Thomas’s well-being. He rationalized that Kitty’s marriage was on the rocks and would have been on the rocks with or without him; he protested that it was better to operate than to let a cancer grow and destroy more and more of the healthy tissue; he argued that Thomas himself had brought the matter to a head by his infatuation with Vlasta; he insisted that the happiness of two persons outweighed charity for one; he generalized that at a time when so much of the old world was crumbling, the old codes were losing their meaning, too....He realized that he was trying to get Thomas’s essay printed not only for the possible value of the book, but also in order to have a crutch handy for Thomas, and an extenuating circumstance for himself.
His personal motive made his advocacy of the Essay subjective and weaker than it should have been; and Novak, having a drink with him and Professor Stanek at the former Nobles’ Club, noticed the lack of conviction in Karel’s words.
“I’d like to help you,” Novak said slowly. “But you must think of our position. Our Party owns or influences certain publishing houses. If they accept a book, we must back it, and it must be the kind of book which will create the maximum effect desired by us. But you, yourself, admit that in many aspects your brother’s essay is anything but Marxist.”
He turned questioningly to the Professor, who sat in a deep chair, sucking at a cigarette that had gone out. Stanek said nothing.
Uncomfortably, Karel viewed the Ministerial Councilor’s armless sleeve. Back in the days of Buchenwald, Novak had seemed a much more broadminded fellow with much less rigidity, although life then was certainly more precarious than now.
“You’re still sore about the election and that statement of Thomas’s,” said Karel. “Can’t you be big about it?”
“I wasn’t thinking of the use Dolezhal’s gang made of your brother’s blurb on freedom.” Novak frowned. “Though maybe I should; maybe we shouldn’t forget and forgive so easily what happened only in 1946. But let’s assume that Thomas Benda was not wholly responsible and to blame for that. The main fact still remains—”
“The main fact is,” Karel broke in angrily, “Barsiny of Humanita, and this means Dolezhal’s Party, turned the Essay down. Now why would they refuse to publish the book of a man they built up on the basis of his past reputation? Prominent author, Spokesman of Czechoslovakia—they used it all....So there is something in the book they don’t like, and I’ll tell you what it is. Thomas demolishes the intellectual trappings of their setup. He may not be on our side—granted. But he definitely is not on theirs!”
Stanek had finally disposed of his dead cigarette. Tugging at the black ribbon of his pince-nez, he said, “What do we want? We want people to think. Much of our literature is ineffectual because it supplies rules, formulas, programs—all correct, naturally; but it fails to provoke the reader into thinking for himself, into arriving by himself at the correct rules, formulas, programs. It’s pretty much like teaching: Don’t make your student learn by rote; get him to ask Why?—help him to find the answer, but don’t give it to him. If Thomas Benda’s essay will make people ask questions and think, I’m for it. Besides, I feel we are sufficiently sure of ourselves and grown-up enough to be more liberal than anyone else—don’t you think so?”
“I guess I’m around Dolezhal too much,” Novak said ruefully. “I can’t afford to be liberal with him, unless I want to cut my throat and the throat of a good many others.” He raised his arm and cordially laid his hand on Karel’s shoulder. “If you could spend one day in my shoes, you’d understand me better. Our life in concentration camp was relatively simple—we merely h
ad to survive. Forgive me if I seemed dogmatic.”
Karel wished he were able to be on the same level of honesty as these two men. “What will you do with the Essay?” he asked uncomfortably.
“Read it,” said Novak.
Stanek brushed some dandruff off his collar and said good-humoredly: “You know, I did discuss one or two of the problems of his book with Thomas, when he was writing it. I’m very eager to see how he handled them. I should have had more time for him....How’s his wife?”
“All right,” said Karel.
“There’s a fine woman!” Stanek said appreciatively. “Devoted, earthy, good to look at, not one of those spindly bluestockings. Did you ever notice, Novak, that writers almost invariably have attractive wives, while government officials get stuck with harpies?”
“I’m a bachelor,” mentioned Novak.
“And Joseph, your other brother?” Stanek went on. “I see him sometimes, on the floor of the Assembly or in the lobbies. A worried man he is, Karel, a sick fruit in a healthy shell....” He pointed his pince-nez at Karel’s chest. “I want to read the Essay, too. And then we’ll give it to Vaclav Villner—he’s the chief editor now at People’s Books, isn’t he, Novak?”
“Yes. I know him.”
“Well, would you talk to him about it?” said Stanek.
“If you want me to....” Novak made a wry face. But Villner is even more of a doctrinaire than I. Reliable, but rather one-sided.”
“That’s fine!” Stanek laughed reedily. “Then he’s in for a shock!”
He picked up the manuscript and scanned the first few pages. Karel watched Stanek’s expression as he read. Karel felt unhappy and out of his depth. Here, they talked in large terms, of the workings of government, of the minds of people, of power, and of what to do with it—but not of themselves. His relationship to the Essay was such an intimate one, and he couldn’t see how threads which began in Kitty’s clean little house on St. Nepomuk might reach into this maze of personalities and issues and movements, without getting lost and torn. And if he failed in what he had started, Thomas wouldn’t be the only one to be affected.
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