Lovers for a Day

by Ivan Klíma

  ‘That’s obvious, seeing you’ve spent the day God knows where.’

  ‘Yes, God knows, and you don’t. That’s what bugs you, doesn’t it? Had supper already?’

  ‘I had a slice of bread.’

  ‘Did you butter it at least?’

  ‘I didn’t eat it dry.’

  ‘How about the children?’

  ‘I gave them some bread too. Buttered.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘You’re very curious all of a sudden. Why didn’t you come and see to it yourself?’

  ‘I’m glad you gave them their supper.’

  ‘For the fourth time this week.’

  ‘Is that a fact? But you told me to have the week off. It was your idea.’

  ‘The reason I suggested it was because I couldn’t stand to hear you moaning about how you sacrifice yourself for us any longer.’

  ‘It was a nice gesture.’

  ‘Have a good time today?’

  ‘Splendid, thank you.’

  ‘May I ask with whom?’

  ‘You may. But I don’t have to reply, do I?’

  ‘It is the polite thing to reply when someone asks a question.’

  ‘And you’re someone, all of a sudden?’

  ‘Who am I then?’

  ‘You’re my darling heart.’

  ‘You can’t mean me.’

  ‘There’s no one else here, is there?’

  ‘I can’t see anyone, but maybe in your mind’s eye you can see someone else in my place.’

  ‘I see you. You smile at me nicely, you’ve given the children their supper and you’re even interested in who I spent the afternoon with.’

  ‘And the evening.’

  ‘The evening’s now, with you.’

  ‘The evening began a good while ago.’

  ‘Could you tell me when exactly? I have to admit I’m never really sure when the evening actually begins.’

  ‘Six o’clock, say.’

  ‘Even now in the summer?’

  ‘Six o’clock is the time for the family to come together.’

  ‘So that’s why you are always home on the stroke of six.’

  ‘Whenever I’m able, I’m here. And you’ve not answered my question.’

  ‘Did you ask me something?’

  ‘You know very well what I asked you.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’ve forgotten.’

  ‘I see you don’t intend to answer. That’s an answer too. Aren’t you even going to kiss me?’

  ‘Of course I am, my darling.’

  ‘Have you been drinking?’

  ‘No. I had a glass of wine with Olga.’

  ‘Olga who?’

  ‘I thought you asked me who I spent the afternoon with.’

  ‘And the evening.’

  ‘Now I’m with you. And you know who Olga is, don’t you? I must have mentioned her at least a hundred times. But then my girlfriends never did interest you, did they?’

  ‘It’s you I’m interested in, not your girlfriends.’

  ‘You ought to know that girlfriends are part of every woman’s life.’

  ‘Wherever did you come across that bit of wisdom? You really have been drinking!’

  ‘I’ve had a glass of wine.’

  ‘Or two.’

  ‘Or two.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘I don’t keep count of things like you do, my darling.’

  ‘You’re telling me. But I suppose you noticed how much you had to pay at the end. Or didn’t you pay the bill?’

  ‘Of course I paid for myself. I’d hardly let Olga pay for me.’

  ‘That’s assuming there was only Olga.’

  ‘Do you think I’m lying to you?’

  ‘I’m not saying you’re lying to me. You told me you were with Olga, but that doesn’t mean you two were alone, does it?’

  ‘Oh, you’re such a precise and logical thinker.’

  ‘Would you mind answering then?’

  ‘Did you ask me something?’

  ‘I asked you if there was someone else there apart from Olga.’

  ‘So that was a question, was it? Do men interest you, or only women?’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Whether you’re interested in men as well as women?’

  ‘What interests me is who you’ve been spending all afternoon and evening with while your family have been waiting at home for you.’

  ‘There were about twenty people in the place. But we had a table to ourselves. There was one rather nice-looking, dark-haired man who came and asked if he could join us, but we refused him politely’

  ‘Who refused him?’

  ‘I don’t recall. Me, or Olga.’

  ‘While we’re on the subject of dark-haired men – this is a little embarrassing – but today my assistant told me that he saw you on Monday with a dark-haired chap.’

  ‘According to you your assistant’s a fool.’

  ‘He may be a fool, but he’s not blind.’

  ‘I didn’t say he was. Where and when did he see me?

  ‘On Monday, at the bottom of Wenceslas Square.’

  ‘Monday’s a long day.’

  ‘Monday’s as long a day as any other and I assume you don’t spend the whole day in Wenceslas Square.’

  ‘Ah, now I remember. It was Vašek. We just happened to bump into each other.’

  ‘Who’s Vašek?’

  ‘A college friend.’

  ‘What would a college friend of yours be doing at the bottom of Wenceslas Square?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t he be there? Do you think my college pals are banned from the bottom of Wenceslas Square on Mondays or something?’

  ‘I was always under the impression you went to college in Kolín.’

  ‘But darling, most of my fellow students moved to Prague ages ago.’

  ‘What does he do, this Vašek?’

  ‘You’re jealous, my darling.’

  ‘I’m not, and stop calling me darling, when you’d sooner bite me.’

  ‘Darling, you may not even be aware of it, but you really are jealous!’

  ‘I’m not. I just don’t intend to be made a total fool of.’

  ‘No, your assistant’s the fool.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me about this Vašek?’

  ‘You didn’t ask.’

  ‘How could I ask when you didn’t tell me you just happened to bump into him?’

  ‘Why the stress on the words “bump into”?’

  ‘It’s just that it really does strike me as an extraordinary coincidence that you should bump into a college friend from Kolín at the bottom of Wenceslas Square at half past ten on a Monday morning.’

  ‘Your assistant may be a fool, but he has a good idea of the time.’

  ‘My assistant isn’t such a fool. Maybe I’m a bigger one. How come you were at the bottom of Wenceslas Square at that time?’

  ‘On Mondays I have a free period from ten to twelve. I thought you knew my timetable.’

  ‘You’ve never felt the need to communicate it to me.’

  ‘I don’t expect you were interested. Besides, it’s always changing.’

  ‘Besides which it suits you that I don’t know your free periods. But you haven’t told me yet why you never mentioned him to me.’

  ‘I suppose that evening as usual you didn’t have time to talk. And anyway it never occurred to me you’d be interested in any of my old college friends.’

  ‘What interests me is who you spend your time with. That’s quite normal, I would have thought.’

  ‘You mustn’t be jealous, darling. You know you’re the only one I have. Because I for one know I’d never find another man like you in the whole wide world.’

  ‘You’re drunk.’

  ‘After three glasses of wine? You underestimate me!’

  ‘The only thing I underestimate is your ability to count how many glasses of wine you have actually drunk. Are you going to tell me something about t
his college chum of yours?’

  ‘We met. He asked me how I was.’

  ‘You didn’t ask him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So what’s he doing?’

  ‘What do you mean, what’s he doing? He’s got a wife and two children. And he works in television. If that’s what you mean.’

  ‘Did you go and find somewhere to sit?’

  ‘You didn’t expect us to stand on the corner in that heat, did you?’

  ‘And he wasn’t with you today?’

  ‘Today I was with Olga.’

  ‘So you say.’

  ‘Are you saying I’m lying?’

  ‘I didn’t say anything of the sort.’

  ‘No, you only hinted at it. You just don’t believe me. You should give your assistant a good ticking-off for failing to follow me closely enough. Or maybe hire an agency. It’s possible these days. You pay them and they can snoop out who I was sitting in the wine bar with. You’re disgusting!’

  ‘So I’m disgusting, am I? You come home at night drunk and I’m the disgusting one.’

  ‘I didn’t come home at night and I’m more sober after a bottle of wine than you are after two glasses of lemonade.’

  ‘Who’s the dark-haired guy? Surely you can say a couple of normal sentences to me?’

  ‘He’s a fellow student from Kolín. We bumped into each other at the bottom of Wenceslas Square. I had an hour free and we went and sat somewhere. What interests you is if we made a date. No, we didn’t. But he gave me his telephone number. Do you want it?’

  ‘No, but I’m getting tired of your evasions.’

  ‘I’m the one doing the evading? I toil for hours at school and then rush home here in a sweat in order to look after you lot. Then, out of the kindness of your heart, you offer me a week off and after five days you interrogate me as if I was your slave.’

  ‘You’re far from being a slave, very far. But you still haven’t answered me.’

  ‘And I don’t intend to, because I find both your tone and this whole interrogation insulting.’

  ‘Okay. Well, I find the situation you’re placing me in degrading.’

  ‘I’m placing you in some kind of situation?’

  ‘Yes. Even my assistant has already …’

  ‘God in heaven, why do I have to keep hearing about that fool?’

  ‘It’s me who’s the fool, not him, for putting up with this.’

  ‘So don’t put up with it then. Just leave me alone.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean, “don’t put up with it”?’

  ‘Seeing as I don’t know what you actually object to, I can’t tell what it implies. What I do know is that you’ve spoiled my mood, and that I don’t want to listen to you any more.’

  ‘Now or ever again?’

  ‘Now and preferably never again.’

  ‘Fine. We can get a divorce.’

  ‘Okay, then.’

  ‘You can say it just like that?’

  ‘It was you who said it, not me.’

  ‘I said it because I know that’s all you’re waiting for.’

  ‘Maybe it is, but it’s you who said it. And besides, you’ll never divorce me because you know full well you’d never find anyone else to put up with you, not even if you sent all your assistants out scouting.’

  (1994)

  About Love and Death

  URANUS IN THE HOUSE OF DEATH

  Only very rarely is someone from Prague invited to Australia with their fare and expenses paid. Director Michal Vrba received an invitation to a theatre festival due to take place in the city of Adelaide during March. The festival was linked to all sorts of exhibitions, conferences and debates. To judge from the programme enclosed with the invitation, the distant seaport with the sweet maidenly name would be sagging under the weight of cultural events during the festival.

  Michal tended to be a doer who regarded talk about theatre as a waste of time, since everything that could be said about theatre had already been written long ago. None the less the invitation pleased him - thrilled him in fact. He replied immediately, saying that he accepted the invitation to speak about Czech theatre and was looking forward to visiting the antipodes.

  Regarding himself as a free agent (he had been divorced several years earlier) he could see nothing to prevent him taking the trip.

  When he arrived that evening at Leona’s (Leona’s real name was Alena, but from the moment she became his lover he had called her Leona; it sounded more arty) he told her about his trip with almost excessive enthusiasm. He exaggerated because he was unsure how she would react to the news and he wanted to make it clear that he was going whether she liked it or not.

  ‘And they didn’t invite me?’ she wanted to know.

  ‘I don’t think they even invited wives.’

  Leona acted in the small theatre where he was the sole director, as well as administrator, manager, and, most of the time, author of the plays (or rather poetical compilations.) He had trained as an economist, however, and defected to the theatre because economics bored him. But his knowledge came in handy as he had some inkling at least about market forces. He found Leona attractive – she was tall and slender with small breasts and a soft voice – and she was alluringly eccentric. Whenever she got drunk, which was quite often, she wanted to make love to him, no matter where they happened to be. Then she would demand, ‘What have you done to me?’ And she would expect him to reply in the most direct terms. Apart from that she was interested in all sorts of magic. She made regular visits to an astrologer and consulted fortune-tellers and homoeopaths. Michal didn’t believe in any of that stuff, but so long as she brought him indisputable predictions about the good prospects of their relationship, or possible dangers for their theatre, or potential economic opportunities, he accepted it as part of their amatory conversations. He had therefore already provided her with the precise details about the moment when he left his mother’s womb, and from time to time even allowed her to tell his fortune from the cards, which almost always foretold love and stressed with surprising frequency his artistic proclivities.

  ‘Last time my tarot-reader talked about a long journey’ she now recalled. ‘I thought she was talking about me, but now I see she meant both of us.’

  She obviously regarded the fact that the journey was foretold as a good omen, or, more accurately, it meant that she could not receive the news other than as confirmation of what was intended to happen. That eased his mind and he started to wonder whether, since he had the rare chance of travelling such a long way, he shouldn’t stay there for at least a month. That idea didn’t appeal to Leona. What was she supposed to do here while he was off globe-trotting?

  ‘When I come back we’ll take a lovely holiday together,’ he promised.

  ‘Yes, we’ll take a bus ride into the country. That’ll be a great holiday. But go where you like, I’m sure I’ll find something to do here while you’re away’ It sounded like a threat, but he pretended not to have heard, as he disliked quarrels.

  Then he returned to his usual routine: rehearsals, performances and scrounging for money, but in addition he had to spend the evenings writing his paper for the conference. He decided to write about small theatres, not simply because they were the ones he was most familiar with, but also because he was convinced that they were the only thing it was possible to say anything interesting about, since only they, if the theatre was going to survive, had any future. The theatre, he maintained, was one of the last places where the spectator could still personally witness the act of creation. However, the big theatres so alienated the audience from the actor, that instead of witnessing the act of creation they could only witness its effect. For a public brought up on television, the theatrical stage was no more than a big TV screen, the only thing special about it being its three-dimensionality, and technical advances were bound to rob it of that remaining uniqueness before long. By contrast, small theatres facilitated mutual contact. The act of creation had far-reaching implic
ations in today’s hypertech world. It had become the only way for the human spirit to escape both the stultifying stereotype of the mundane and the depths towards which it is drawn by the dark forces of that banality that encourages and accumulates within it.

  He visited Leona almost every day. During supper about a week before his departure, when he was in the grip of pre-travel nerves, Leona suddenly said to him:

  ‘You mustn’t fly there.’

  ‘Fly where?’ he gasped.

  ‘You mustn’t fly anywhere. You should be extremely cautious about what you do because you have Uranus in your eighth house.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘It’s the house of death!’

  ‘How did you figure that out?’

  ‘I went to see my astrologer. After all, I have to consult him when you’re planning a journey like that!’

  ‘You know I don’t believe in it.’ Astrology happened to be one of the dark forces that enticed people into the depths.

  ‘It’s immaterial whether you believe it or not. What must happen will happen.’

  ‘And what must happen?’

  ‘Michal,’ she said, ‘this journey of yours won’t turn out well. Apart from that, your Saturn is in opposition to Uranus. My astrologer told me he’d never seen such a depressing constellation.’

  ‘Are you trying to tell me my plane is going to crash?’

  ‘I’ve no idea what will happen. All I know is that your journey can’t turn out well for you.’

  ‘Who has worked this out, you or your ridiculous astrologer?’

  ‘He’s not ridiculous. He’s one of the best astrologers there is. Everyone says so.’

  ‘Everyone who believes that nonsense.’

  ‘I believe him. Everything he foresaw for me came true.’

  ‘For instance.’

  ‘He foresaw you.’

  ‘He foresaw me?’

  ‘Yes, he told me I’d meet you.’

  ‘That you’d meet me and not just some guy?’

  ‘That I’d meet you.’

  ‘Did he tell you my name?’

  She hesitated. ‘He said I’d meet a Virgo with strong artistic leanings, and that it would turn out well for me.’

  Admittedly the ‘strong artistic leanings’ flattered him but he had no intention of changing his views about superstitions. ‘I don’t believe in it. It’s quite simple, you do and I don’t!’