Farewell Waltz

by Milan Kundera

  more than the friendly understanding of another man.

  He returned to the theater and stopped at the doorkeeper's cubicle. He picked up the phone and asked for long distance. Soon he heard Ruzena's voice. He told her he would be coming to see her tomorrow. He made no reference to the news she had announced some hours before. He spoke to her as if they were carefree lovers.

  In passing he asked: "Is the American still there?"

  "Yes!" said Ruzena.

  Feeling relieved, he repeated with somewhat more ease than before that he was greatly looking forward to seeing her. "What are you wearing?" he asked then.

  "Why?"

  This was a trick he had used successfully for years in telephone banter: "I want to know how you're dressed right now. I want to be able to imagine you."

  "I'm wearing a red dress."

  "Red must suit you very well."

  "Could be," she said.

  "And under your dress?"

  She laughed.

  Yes, they all laughed when they were asked this.

  "What color are your underpants?"

  "Also red."

  "I'm looking forward to seeing you in them," he said, hanging up. He thought he had used the right tone. For a moment he felt better. But only for a moment. He quickly realized that he was actually incapable of thinking about anything but Ruzena, and that he would have to keep conversation with his wife this

  evening to the barest minimum. He stopped at the box office of a movie theater showing an American Western and bought two tickets.

  8

  Although she was much more beautiful than she was unhealthy, Kamila Klima was nonetheless unhealthy. Because of her fragile health she had been forced, some years before, to give up the singing career that had led her into the arms of the man who was now her husband.

  The beautiful young woman who had been accustomed to admiration suddenly had a head filled with the smell of hospital disinfectant. It seemed to her that between her husbands world and her own a mountain range had sprung up.

  At that time, when Klima saw her sad face, he felt his heart break and (across that imaginary mountain range) he held loving hands out to her. Kamila realized that in her sadness there was a hitherto unsuspected force that attracted Klima, softened him, brought tears to his eyes. It was no surprise that she began to make use (perhaps unconsciously, but all the more often) of this unexpectedly discovered tool. For it was only when he was gazing at her sorrowful face that she could be

  more or less certain no other woman was competing with her in Klima's mind.

  This very beautiful woman was actually afraid of women and saw them everywhere. Nowhere could they escape her. She knew how to find them in Klima's intonation when he greeted her upon arriving home. She knew how to detect them from the smell of his clothes. Recently she had found a scrap of newspaper; a date was written on it in Klima's handwriting. Of course it could have referred to any one of a variety of events- a concert rehearsal, a meeting with an impresario-but for a whole month she did nothing but wonder which woman Klima was going to meet that day, and for a whole month she slept badly.

  If the treacherous world of women frightened her so, could she not find solace in the world of men?

  Hardly. Jealousy has the amazing power to illuminate a single person in an intense beam of light, keeping the multitude of others in total darkness. Mrs. Klima's thoughts could go only in the direction of that painful beam, and her husband became the only man in the world.

  Now she heard the key in the lock, and then she saw the trumpeter with a bouquet of roses.

  At first she felt pleased, but doubts immediately arose: Why was he bringing her flowers this evening, when her birthday was not until tomorrow? What could this mean?

  And she greeted him by saying: "Won't you be here tomorrow?"

  9

  Bringing her roses this evening did not necessarily imply he was going to be away tomorrow. But her distrustful antennae, eternally vigilant, eternally jealous, could pick up her husband's slightest secret intention well in advance. Whenever Klima noticed those terrible antennae spying on him, unmasking him, stripping him naked, he was overcome by a hopeless sensation of fatigue. He hated those antennae, and he was sure that if his marriage was under threat, it was from them. He had always been convinced (and on this point with a belligerently clear conscience) that he deceived his wife only because he wanted to spare her, to shelter her from any anxiety, and that her own suspicions were what made her suffer.

  He gazed at her face, reading on it suspicion, sadness, and a bad mood. He felt like throwing the bouquet of roses on the floor, but he controlled himself. He knew that in the next few days he would have to con-trol himself in much more difficult situations.

  "Does it bother you that I brought you flowers this evening?" he said. Sensing the irritation in his voice, his wife thanked him and went to fill a vase with water.

  "That damned socialism!" Klima said next.

  "What now?"

  "Listen! They're always making us play for nothing. One time it's for the struggle against imperialism, another time it's to commemorate the revolution, still

  another time it's for some big shot's birthday, and if I want to keep the band going, I have to agree to everything. You can't imagine how they got to me today."

  "What was it?" she asked indifferently.

  "The president of the Municipal Council turned up at rehearsal and she started telling us what we should play and what we shouldn't play and finally forced us to schedule a free concert for the Youth League. But the worst part is I'll have to spend all day tomorrow at a ridiculous conference where they're going to talk to us about the role of music in building socialism. One more day wasted, totally wasted! And right on your birthday!"

  "They won't really keep you there all evening!"

  "Probably not. But you can see what a state I'll be in when I come home! So I thought we could spend some quiet time together this evening," he said, taking hold of his wife's hands.

  "That's nice of you," said Mrs. Klima, and Klima realized from her tone of voice that she didn't believe a word of what he had said about tomorrow's conference. Of course she didn't dare show him she didn't believe him. She knew her distrust would infuriate him. But Klima had long ago stopped believing in his wife's credulity. Whether he told the truth or lied, he always suspected her of suspecting him. Yet the die was cast; he had to keep on pretending to believe she believed him, and she (with a sad, strange face) asked questions about tomorrow's conference to show him she had no doubt of its reality.

  Then she went to the kitchen to prepare dinner. She used too much salt. She liked to cook and was very good at it (life had not spoiled her, she had not lost the habit of housekeeping), and Klima knew that the cause of the evenings unsuccessful meal could only have been her distress. He saw her in his mind's eye making the pained, violent movement of pouring an excessive amount of salt into the food, and it wrung his heart. It seemed to him that with every oversalted mouthful he was tasting Kamila's tears, and it was his own guilt that he was swallowing. He knew Kamila was tormented by jealousy, he knew she would spend still another sleepless night, and he wanted to caress her, embrace her, soothe her, but he instantly realized it would be useless, because in this tenderness his wife's antennae would only pick up proof of his bad conscience.

  Finally they went to the movie theater. Klima drew some comfort from the sight of the hero on the screen escaping treacherous dangers with infectious self-assurance. He imagined himself in the hero's shoes and now and then felt that persuading Ruzena to have an abortion would be a trifle that could be accomplished in a flash, thanks to his charm and his lucky star.

  Later they lay side by side in the big bed. He looked at her. She was on her back, her head sunk into the pillow, her chin slightly raised, her eyes fixed on the ceiling, and in her body's extreme tension (it had always made him think of a violin, and he would tell her she had "the soul of a taut string") he suddenly experien
ced, in a single instant, her entire essence. Yes, it sometimes hap-

  pened (these were miraculous moments) that he could suddenly grasp, in a single one of her gestures or movements, the entire history of her body and soul. These were moments of absolute clairvoyance but also of absolute emotion; for the woman who had loved him when he was still a nobody, who had been ready to sacrifice everything for him, who so understood his thoughts that he could talk to her about Armstrong or Stravinsky, about trivial and serious things, she was closer to him than any other human being… Then he imagined that this lovely body, this lovely face, was dead, and he felt he would be unable to survive her by a single day. He knew that he was capable of protecting her to his last breath, that he was capable of giving his life for her.

  But this stifling sensation of love was merely a feeble fleeting glimmer, because his mind was wholly preoccupied by anxiety and fear. He lay beside Kamila, he knew he loved her boundlessly, but he was absent mentally. He caressed her face as if he were caressing it from an immeasurable distance some hundreds of kilometers away.

  Second Day

  1

  It was about nine in the morning in the spa town when an elegant white sedan pulled up in the parking lot at the edge of the spa proper (automobiles were not permitted any farther) and Klima stepped out of it.

  Running through the spa was a long, narrow park with scattered clusters of trees, sand paths, and colorful benches on the lawn. Along both sides of the park stood the thermal center's buildings, among them Karl Marx House, where the trumpeter had spent a couple of fateful hours one night in Nurse Ruzena's little room. Facing Karl Marx House on the other side of the park was the spa's most handsome structure, a building in the turn-of-the-century art nouveau style covered with stucco embellishments and with broad steps leading up to the entrance and a mosaic over it. It alone had been accorded the privilege of keeping its original name: Hotel Richmond.

  "Is Mister Rertlef still staying here?" Klima asked at the desk, and, receiving an affirmative reply, he ran up the red-carpeted stairs to the second floor and knocked at a door.

  Upon entering he saw Bertlef, who came to meet him in his pajamas. Embarrassed, Klima started to apolo-

  gize for his unexpected visit, but Bertlef interrupted: "My friend! Don't apologize! You are giving me the greatest pleasure I have ever had here so early in the day."

  He gripped Klima's hand and went on: "In this country people don't respect the morning. An alarm clock violently wakes them up, shatters their sleep like the blow of an ax, and they immediately surrender themselves to deadly haste. Can you tell me what kind of day can follow a beginning of such violence? What happens to people whose alarm clock daily gives them a small electric shock? Each day they become more used to violence and less used to pleasure. Believe me, it is the mornings that determine a man's character."

  Bertlef took Klima gently by the shoulder, steered him to an armchair, and went on: "And to think that I so love those morning hours of idleness when, as if over a bridge lined with statues, I slowly go across from night to day, from sleep to awakened life. This is the time of day when I would be so very grateful for a small miracle, for an unexpected encounter that would convince me that my nocturnal dreams are continuing, that no chasm separates the adventures of sleep from the adventures of the day."

  As the trumpeter watched Bertlef pacing up and down the room in his pajamas and smoothing his graying hair with his hand, he heard in the sonorous voice an ineradicable American accent and something charmingly outdated about his vocabulary, which was easily explained by Bertlef's never having lived here in

  his family's country of origin and having learned its language only from his parents.

  "And no one, my friend," he now explained, leaning over Klima with a confiding smile, "no one in this entire spa understands me. Even the nurses, who are otherwise quite obliging, look indignant when I invite them to share a bit of pleasant time with me during breakfast, so I must postpone such appointments until the evening, when I am really a little tired."

  Then he went over to a small telephone table and asked: "When did you arrive?"

  "This morning," said Klima. "I drove."

  "You are surely hungry," said Bertlef, and he picked up the receiver. He ordered two breakfasts: "Four poached eggs, cheese, butter, rolls, milk, ham, and tea."

  Meanwhile Klima scrutinized the room. A large round table, chairs, an armchair, a mirror, two couches, and doors leading to the bathroom and, he remembered, to Bertlef's small bedroom. Here in this luxurious suite was where it had all started. Here had sat the tipsy musicians of his band, for whose pleasure the rich American had invited some nurses.

  "Yes," said Bertlef, "the picture you are looking at was not here before."

  It was only then that the trumpeter noticed a canvas showing a bearded man with a strange, pale-blue disk behind his head and holding a paintbrush and a palette. The picture seemed ineptly done, but the trumpeter knew that many seemingly inept pictures were famous works of art.

  "Who painted that?"

  "I did," replied Bertlef.

  "I didn't know you painted."

  "I love to paint."

  "And who is this?" the trumpeter was emboldened to ask.

  "Saint Lazarus."

  "What do you mean? Was Lazarus a painter?"

  "This is not the Lazarus in the Bible, but Saint Lazarus, a monk who lived in the ninth century in Constantinople. He is my patron saint."

  "Really!" said the trumpeter.

  "He was a very odd saint. He was not martyred by pagans because he believed in Christ, but by wicked Christians because he loved painting too much. As you may know, in the eighth and ninth centuries the Greek Orthodox Church fell prey to a rigorous asceticism intolerant of all worldly joys. Even paintings and statues were considered objects of impious pleasure. The emperor Theophilus ordered thousands of beautiful paintings destroyed and prohibited my cherished Lazarus from painting. But Lazarus knew that his paintings glorified God, and he refused to yield. Theophilus threw him into prison, had him tortured, demanded that Lazarus give up painting, but God was merciful and gave him the strength to bear cruel ordeals."

  "That's a beautiful story," said the trumpeter politely.

  "A magnificent one. But surely it was not to look at

  my paintings that you came here to see me."

  Just then there was a knock at the door, and a waiter came in with a large tray. He set it on the table and laid out breakfast for the two men.

  Bertlef asked the trumpeter to sit down at the table and said: "This breakfast is not remarkable enough to keep us from continuing our conversation. Tell me, what is on your mind?"

  And so, as he chewed, the trumpeter told of his misfortune, prompting Bertlef at various points of the story to come up with penetrating questions.

  2

  He wanted above all to know why Klima had not answered the nurse's two postcards, why he had not taken her telephone calls, and why he had never made a single friendly gesture that might have prolonged their night of love with a quiet, calming echo.

  Klima acknowledged that his behavior had been neither gracious nor sensible. But, so he said, it was all too much for him. He had a horror of any further contact with the young woman.

  "Any fool can seduce a woman," Bertlef said with annoyance. "But one must also know how to break it off; that is the sign of a mature man."

  "I know," the trumpeter admitted sadly, "but my loathing, my absolute distaste, is stronger than all my good intentions."

  "Tell me," Bertlef said with surprise, "are you a misogynist?"

  "That's what they say about me."

  "But how is that possible? You don't seem to be impotent or homosexual."

  "That's right, I'm neither. It's something much worse," the trumpeter admitted melancholically. "I love my wife. That's my erotic secret, which most people find totally incomprehensible."

  This confession was so moving that both men kept silent for a while.
Then the trumpeter went on: "Nobody understands this, my wife least of all. She thinks that a great love keeps us from having affairs. But that's a mistake. Something's always pushing me toward some other woman, and yet once I've had her I'm torn away by a powerful spring that catapults me back to Kamila. I sometimes feel that I look for other women only because of that spring, that momentum, that marvelous flight-filled with tenderness, desire, humility-bringing me back to my wife, whom I love even more with every new infidelity."

  "So for you Nurse Ruzena is only a way of confirming your monogamous love."

  "Yes," said the trumpeter. "And it's an extremely pleasant confirmation. Ruzena has great charm at first sight, and also it's an advantage that her charm totally fades away in two hours, which means that there's

  nothing urging you to go on with it, and that spring launches you into a marvelous return flight."

  "Dear friend, excessive love is guilty love, and you are certainly the best proof of it."

  "I thought my love for my wife was the only good thing about me."

  "And you were wrong. The excessive love you bear your wife is not the opposite pole to your insensitivity, it is its source. Because your wife means everything to you, all other women mean nothing to you; in other words, for you they are whores. But this is great blasphemy, great contempt for creatures made by God. My dear friend, that kind of love is heresy."

  3

  Bertlef pushed aside his empty cup, got up from the table, and retired to the bathroom, from which Klima first heard the sound of running water and then, after a moment, Bertlef's voice: "Do you think one has the right to put to death a child that has not yet seen the light of day?"