Lovers for a Day

by Ivan Klíma

  ‘But some complications are needless. Or excessive.’

  ‘Do you think I’m an excessive complication?’

  ‘No, not you. You’re someone who’s very dear to me.’

  ‘So why don’t you want me to come?’

  ‘Hello, Bill, are you there? You keep fading away.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said you’re fading away.’

  ‘There you are. That’s something I know from the sea. First your country fades away and then everything else. Even the ones you love the most. Otherwise you’d go mad.’

  ‘What would make you go mad?’

  ‘Getting up every morning and knowing all you’ll see that day is the sea and none of your loved ones, the ones that make your life worth living. That’s why I want to come to you.’

  ‘Don’t come, Bill!’

  ‘You tell me not to come, even though I’m fading from your life?’

  ‘I was only talking about the phone. Otherwise you’re not. I mean, I’m not sure. Bill, to come all this way, when we’re not even sure we’ll be able to meet? The whole thing is madness. I realize I ought to have thought better of it before, but I fell in love with you. Now I’m frightened of the consequences. Not just for me, but for you too. I’m touched by what you want to do and I love you for it. But at the same time I’m afraid.’

  ‘One should only be afraid of dying.’

  ‘Don’t talk about dying.’

  ‘Living without you seems to me like dying.’

  ‘That’s blasphemy!’

  ‘A day without you is like the sea without dry land. There’s nowhere to come back to, nothing to look forward to.’

  ‘Bill, you’re a … a … I don’t know how to say it in English.’

  ‘Say it in Czech then.’

  ‘You’re a cvok!

  ‘What’s a cvok?’

  ‘That’s the problem! I don’t know how to explain it. It means you’re crazy in a nice sort of way.’

  ‘I’m not crazy. I just know what I want. And now finally tell me if I should come!’

  ‘I’m not sure, Bill. I’d love to see you, but at the same time I’m afraid of not finding a solution. Of assuming the responsibility. Wait a moment, someone’s opening the front door. My husband’s coming in. Quick, say something important. Just the most important thing.’

  ‘Okay. I’ve got to see you or I’ll die. I’ll arrive there next Wednesday via London. At one-thirty p.m. I’ve already bought my ticket. Do you love me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I love you – like a cvok. I can’t wait to see you.’

  ‘This is Wellington. Are you still speaking?’

  ‘No, not any more, thank you!’

  ‘God, I’m hungry. I’ve been on the go non-stop since this morning and didn’t find a moment for lunch. Have you got something for dinner?’

  ‘Yes, of course … I’ll fix you a sandwich in a moment.’

  ‘Is something up?’

  ‘No, why should there be?’

  ‘You were on the phone when I came in.’

  ‘It was nothing … nothing important.’

  ‘It’s okay, you look a bit worked up, that’s all.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You seem a bit jumpy’

  ‘No, I’m not. I was talking with my dressmaker, that’s all.’ ‘What did she want?’

  ‘She told me the outfit she’s making for me will be ready soon. I’m to pick it up on Wednesday at one-thirty.’

  ‘You’ve had another outfit made?’

  ‘Yes. I have to dress nicely. So you’ll find me attractive!’

  (1994)

  CONJUGAL CONVERSATIONS

  ‘I’d like to talk to you.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Now or very soon.’

  ‘You say it so seriously.’

  ‘I’m saying it quite normally.’

  ‘I was planning to do something.’

  ‘You are always planning to do something. Anything not to have to talk to me.’

  ‘I was planning to oil the door hinges. They creak horribly. And aren’t we always talking?’

  ‘That depends what you mean by talking.’

  ‘Talking means opening one’s mouth and saying words.’

  ‘Yes, that’s precisely what you do mean by talking.’

  ‘Do you have a better definition?’

  ‘I’m not interested in definitions, I’m interested in having a conversation.’

  ‘Okay: converse.’

  ‘I would like us both to converse.’

  ‘You start, then.’

  ‘How can I start when you won’t even sit down. You’re standing there in the doorway looking for an excuse to dash away.’

  ‘Sorry. I’m listening now.’

  ‘It’s ages since we spent a whole evening together.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I mean a proper family evening together, the two of us and the children.’

  ‘But we’re together every evening, aren’t we?’

  ‘Really? When was the last time?’

  ‘Yesterday, for instance.’

  ‘Yesterday evening you came home at nine-thirty. You’d had an important meeting. Or so you said.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean, “Or so you said”?’

  ‘It means that yesterday we weren’t together.’

  ‘Sorry, but yesterday I really did have a departmental meeting. And it was on a fairly important matter. Namely, funding for the whole year.’

  ‘And the day before was a club night.’

  ‘I only have one club night a month.’

  ‘Sunday evening you were playing tennis. On Saturday you watched television. And before that you came home a couple of times when the children were already asleep.’

  ‘Are you keeping tabs on my movements?’

  ‘No, I just remember because it upsets me, and the children too.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll give up tennis.’

  ‘I don’t want you to give up tennis. I want you to feel the need to be here with us sometimes.’

  ‘How can you tell me what needs I ought to be feeling?’

  ‘You don’t think I should want anything from you?’

  ‘You can want anything you like from me, but don’t tell me what my needs should be.’

  ‘Sorry. It’s just that it upsets me that you act as if you don’t need us.’

  ‘I do need you. After all, everything I do, I do for you.’

  ‘That’s only an excuse. Just to make you look magnanimous in your own eyes.’

  ‘I don’t need to look magnanimous in my own eyes. Or in anyone else’s, for that matter. But you can hardly deny that I look after you.’

  ‘That’s not the point.’

  ‘I’m not really sure what the point is.’

  ‘The point is that it’s ages since we spent a proper evening together.’

  ‘And don’t you think I might just like one too? It’s not my fault I have so little spare time.’

  ‘Whose fault is it, then?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s just the way things are. If you hesitate for a second, there’s someone stealing a march on you.’

  ‘At work, you mean?’

  ‘Yes, at work. In research.’

  ‘And elsewhere?’

  ‘What do you mean by elsewhere?’

  ‘At home, for instance.’

  ‘Here, do you mean?’

  ‘I wasn’t aware you had a home somewhere else.’

  ‘That’s an interesting thought.’

  ‘It’s never occurred to you before, then?’

  ‘That someone might steal a march on me here? Who, for instance?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be too hard to find someone.’

  ‘And you have someone in mind?’

  ‘No, I used to think I had you.’

  ‘And you don’t any more?’

  ‘I’m not sure now. I don’t know whether I’ve got y
ou. I’ve got the money you bring home and the dishes you make dirty, and the shirts that I wash for you.’

  ‘I thought the washing machine did that.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about shirts, I want to talk about us.’

  ‘You’re the one who mentioned the shirts.’

  ‘I was only asking what we get from you, the children and me.’

  ‘The children don’t wash shirts.’

  ‘The children don’t even get dirty shirts from you.’

  ‘You act as if I ignored the children.’

  ‘Would you mind telling me, then, when we last spent a family evening together?’

  ‘And what’s this “family evening” supposed to consist of, for heaven’s sake?’

  ‘Sitting around the table for a meal and chatting together.’

  ‘Chatting about what?’

  ‘What we’ve been doing during the day, for instance. Or what we’ve been reading.’

  ‘Economic analyses and statistics are what I read most of the time. I shouldn’t think they’d interest you.’

  ‘You could hear about what the children or I have been reading. If you’re at all interested.’

  ‘Your idea of a family evening sounds a bit like school. Questions about what you read for homework.’

  ‘We wouldn’t have to talk about books. You could explain to us what your work’s about. Or what you want from life. Or what we are doing here.’

  ‘You really think that would interest them? The boy’s into model-making and the girl’s into clothes and the absurd pop songs she stares at on television.’

  ‘You didn’t teach them anything better, did you?’

  ‘So I’m to blame for that too, am I?’

  ‘It’s not a question of blame.’

  ‘Why don’t you find them something better to do, then?’

  ‘Perhaps I’ve tried, but it’s been too much for me on my own.’

  ‘In other words, you’re all on your own.’

  ‘It feels like that sometimes. I’ve always been left to deal with things like that on my own. The most you were ever up to was helping the boy stick his models together.’

  ‘I’d sooner have him sticking models than trailing round the pubs in a gang.’

  ‘But one day they’ll want to start their own families and they’ll look back on their childhood.’

  ‘Do you think it’ll strike them as so awful? What have they lacked?’

  ‘Nothing apart from the fact they won’t be able to recall a single proper family evening.’

  ‘Not one? What about Christmas?’

  ‘Christmas in our home is an orgy of present-giving. You always try and make up for what we don’t get from you at other times.’

  ‘It never occurred to me that I should regard myself as the one who owed anything on that score. And I never got the impression things like that bothered you particularly. Think of all the time you spend at that dressmaker’s every month.’

  ‘I haven’t been to see my dressmaker for at least six months. But I’m not complaining about what I have to wear. We’re not talking about material things, are we? We’re talking about the time we spend together as a family?’

  ‘Why the “we”? I’m fairly happy with my evenings. And I think the children can look back on lots of nice evenings.’

  ‘Can you really recall a single one? When we were all here together? Just one?’

  ‘Stop interrogating me. You’re not in the classroom now. And stop looking as if you were on the verge of tears.’

  ‘How am I supposed to look when I am on the verge of tears?’

  ‘You’re the last person to have a reason to cry. Tell me what’s missing from your life.’

  ‘I’m sorry you can’t sense it.’

  ‘You’re right. I’m insensitive. It’s a pity you didn’t pick someone more sensitive. Someone who’d lay on nice evenings for you. Some poet or other who’d recite his work to you. Stop crying. For my part, I’m sorry you don’t realize that everything I do, I do so we can live half decently.’

  ‘But we’re not talking about that at all.’

  ‘No, we’re talking about nice evenings chatting together. Like now, for instance. This evening strikes me as going really well. We’ll look back on this as a really successful one.’

  ‘What’s up? Why don’t you come to bed?’

  ‘Wait a second. I’ll be right there. I have to wash, don’t I?’

  ‘You always take ages. Sometimes I think you deliberately drag it out because you know I’m tired. You hope I’ll fall asleep in the meantime.’

  ‘Don’t you think I’m tired as well? These few minutes in the bathroom is the only time I have to myself all day. And no sooner am I out than you pounce on me like a vulture.’

  ‘That’s not a very apt comparison.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because vultures pounce on corpses.’

  ‘Are you trying to say I’m like a corpse?’

  ‘It was your idea. The vulture.’

  ‘You’re disgusting.’

  ‘Don’t keep me waiting any more, then.’

  ‘After what you just called me? No one could blame me if I did act like a corpse.’

  ‘I know you’ve had a hard day of it.’

  ‘It’s not so much what I have to do during the day as the fact that you ignore me the whole day and then want me to make love to you.’

  ‘What do you mean I ignore you the whole day? I’m at the university the whole day.’

  ‘There was a time when you’d phone me, at least.’

  ‘You mean I don’t phone you now?’

  ‘Only when you need something.’

  ‘Fine. Tomorrow I’ll make a point of calling you. First thing. But at this moment I happen to be here.’

  ‘I couldn’t care less about the telephone. But at least if you’d hold me a bit first. Or say something loving to me.’

  ‘Don’t I ever say loving things to you?’

  ‘Most of the time you don’t say anything. When we were going out together – do you remember? In those days you used to say all sorts of nice things. You used to call me your little pussy cat.’

  ‘Yes, I liked the pussy cat one. I thought it had a nice ambiguity.’

  ‘That never occurred to me, I must say. And there was I thinking you meant I had claws.’

  ‘You never struck me as having claws.’

  ‘A woman is what a man makes her. Anyway you used to jump on me wherever we went. In the woods or the park. And once, out in the yard behind the bins, remember? I told you you were off your head, that someone would see us.’

  ‘But it was pitch dark.’

  ‘It may have been dark, but it stank of garbage. That didn’t worry you, though, your mind was on one thing.’

  ‘I wanted you. I was crazy about you.’

  ‘Yes. And each time you’d tell me you loved me over and over again. You never stopped saying it in those days, and now you grab me without a word. You act like an animal.’

  ‘I can hardly go on telling you I love you for fifteen years, can I?’

  ‘Why not, if you love me?’

  ‘I’d feel like a parrot. Or a robot. Repeating the same sentence over and over again.’

  ‘You don’t seem to mind acting like a robot and doing the same thing over and over again.’

  ‘What am I then – a robot or an animal?’

  ‘You act like a programmed animal.’

  ‘Thank you. That’s something you wouldn’t have said fifteen years ago.’

  ‘Because you used to act differently. Or you used to tell me you loved me in those days. And I hadn’t heard of programming then.’

  ‘Okay. So I’ll tell you I love you.’

  ‘I don’t want you to tell me, I want you to love me.’

  ‘But that’s hardly something you can ask of me, is it?’

  ‘Don’t you love me any more then?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  �
�But you don’t, do you? I’m only good for one thing.’

  ‘It seems you’re not even good for that, are you?’

  ‘You’re vile. You always were. And you only called me pussy because it sounded dirty. And it never even occurred to me at the time.’

  ‘There was nothing wrong with the fact that I wanted every part of you.’

  ‘Did you want me then?’

  ‘Of course, I still do.’

  ‘I don’t only mean just below the waist.’

  ‘I still want all of you.’

  ‘There was only one side of me you were ever really interested in. The rest you regarded as a sort of necessary evil.’

  ‘What do you mean by the rest?’

  ‘The fact I had a soul. Or feelings, seeing that you don’t believe in the soul.’

  ‘I’ve always tried to respect them.’

  ‘Not my feelings, you haven’t. You’ve only thought about yourself. You know that full well.’

  ‘What do I know full well?’

  ‘No one has ever hurt me the way you did.’

  ‘Me? When did I hurt you?’

  ‘The time you didn’t take precautions and you bullied me into having an abortion. Or have you forgotten?’

  ‘But you didn’t have it.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. Because I’d never do anything like that. But you wanted me to. You wanted to kill our little boy.’

  ‘Our little boy is now fifteen and he’s thriving.’

  ‘Agreed. But you wanted me to have him killed.’

  ‘I didn’t force you into anything, did I. I simply thought the time wasn’t yet right for children. Anyway, the boy’s alive, so what’s the point of talking about it?’

  ‘Only thanks to me. You would have had him murdered. And me along with him.’

  ‘If he hadn’t lived, another one would have.’

  ‘How dare you say that to me? Get out! Get out of my sight!’

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. Even at the time.’

  ‘You did. You disgusting creature.’

  ‘I see. So I’m a vulture, whereas you’re a …’

  ‘Yes, you are a vulture. And you’re doing your best to make a corpse of me.’

  ‘I notice you’re hardly in the door and you’re already singing to yourself.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I sing if I’m in a good mood?’

  ‘You’re in a good mood, then? I’m glad to hear it. What brought that on?’

  ‘Not you, that’s for sure!’