by Ivan Klíma
He marvelled at how long this longing had been in him: to be alone, in a place he could rise out of by his own willpower, and escape heavenwards up the shafts of light. And now he was gazing high through the narrow dormer window at the distant heavens, which had not yet heard the groans of his friends, the kindly heavens which gave off a scent of lime blossom and rejoiced in the divine presence. It occurred to him that he knew, that he had some inkling what he would see there: he was looking forward to that familiar face.
His father came in and sent his mother off to make some tea. Then he started to ask him about the state of the world.
He answered his father and listened to gloomy predictions without abandoning his vaulted private space.
5
Alena sat by the open window, a writing-pad on her knee. In front of the house, her niece Lucinka was yelling something at her son, from the kitchen came the clamour of a transistor radio and the smell of mushrooms.
Dear Honza,
This is my third day here (the children are with me, along with my sister-in-law and her children, who share the cottage’s other room), but I slept the first two days, because I spent the whole night before we left packing.
At this point she ought to write: ‘I’m with you in spirit’, but the statement seemed indelicate to her, disloyal to Adam and even shameful. Compared with actions words have the disadvantage of carrying within themselves the seeds of judgements.
I live with the children in a room with a view over the brook. It’s a narrow brook and its water is too cold for bathing, but in the still of the night I listen to its murmur and remember a room with a view of the Danube.
And again she could see the river whose waves were about to close over her head, and as on many occasions since then could feel once more that dread of being unable to reach the bank and dying amid the torrent. That time, the night had made the bank seem even more distant, the current carried her with it and the waves were already washing over her head. She had probably shouted out, though sure she was completely alone and no one had followed her. At that moment he had appeared at her side. Nothing more. He hadn’t rescued her, it was unlikely he would have had the strength; he had just swum at her side, and this had calmed her enough to make the bank on her own. Then they had both lain down on the deserted beach. A cold breeze had been blowing but she hadn’t noticed it, and from the distance had come the hooting of a train or a river boat. It had taken her some time to realise she was shivering uncontrollably and he was kneeling over her, stroking her face and uttering soothing words. Then he had taken her hand and they had walked back along the river bank. She had felt weak and had had to stop from time to time. Once she had rested her head on his shoulder. He had stood motionless and even his breath had been inaudible. Back at the hotel, he had brought hot tea to her room and sat on a chair by her bed talking about himself while she had succumbed to the onslaught of sleep. She had woken up to find him still sitting by the bed looking at her and been dismayed to discover that someone so much younger could have fallen in love with her. Her first thought had been how incongruous it was, and that she ought to send him away and avoid him. She was a married woman, after all, and had children. But when all was said and done there was nothing wrong with his sitting there looking at her.
From that moment he had been constantly at her heels like a puppy. He would touch her hand in the dark and relate the events of his life, curled up at her feet.
She had been moved by what he told her, especially that he had grown up constantly yearning to be understood, in search of some divine or at least human authority, and had found nothing of the kind. And it occurred to her that that was why she attracted him. He had discovered in her both understanding and authority, and it would therefore be cruel and insensitive to rebuff him.
If he were to turn up here now (but what would she say the children – and Sylva?) they would sit together on the overgrown hillside opposite. And he would talk about himself. Nothing else. And it would be marvellous if nothing else needed to follow it.
Familiar steps could be heard in the passage. She thrust the letter under the blanket, gathered up the children’s dirty tights and opened the wardrobe.
Her son pushed open the door. ‘What are you doing there, Mummy?’
‘What do you think I’m doing? Clearing up after you.’
He was about to sit on the bed just where she had hidden the letter. She managed to stop him in time. ‘How many times have I told you not to sit on the bed in your outdoor clothes!’
‘Mummy, when will Daddy come?’
‘Is that why you have to come and bother me?’
‘I didn’t know it bothered you when you’re tidying up. Do you think he’ll come this evening?’
‘No, Daddy is very busy at work.’
‘Do you think he’ll buy me a bike if he comes?’
‘Martin, if you’ll go off and play now like a good boy I’ll take you both on a lovely walk afterwards.’
‘Why can’t you come now?’
‘I can’t just now. I’ve still got something to do.’
‘I’ll wait here with you, then.’
When she had finally succeeded in getting him to go outside and taken the letter out from under the blanket she found she hadn’t the strength to continue writing.
It’s all left me terribly tired. I feel I need a few moments’ peace, some moments to myself. To be entirely alone. Write soon, Honza, love.
She hid the envelope in her skirt pocket (it was an unsightly skirt that Adam had once brought her from somewhere; he always brought her back things that were totally unsuitable, a touching gesture rather than a pleasant surprise). The post office was down in the village, so at least her walk would be to some purpose.
They were walking along a forest path: Look, a frog. No, that’s not a cep. What d’you think that rock looks like? I think it looks like a bear stretching its paw out. Who wants a feather? No, it can’t fly right up to the sun, otherwise it’d burn up; a bird would burn up too. That’s lucerne. No, they don’t bake bread from it. How about if we had a look in the chapel? We’ve never been in it before!
It was an ordinary little chapel from the days when the Jesuits roved the countryside and when they also burned books. Nowadays books didn’t get burnt; banned books were withdrawn from circulation on the basis of secret lists and were either stored in special departments or carted off to be pulped and made into new paper. And it was her job, when she went into some library, to make sure that none of the banned ones had remained on the shelves by mistake.
The stations of the cross had most likely been painted by the local chaplain or parish priest, and the statue of the Virgin Mary resembled a target in a shooting gallery. The air inside was full of the scents of dried flowers, wax, incense and old wood. She sat down in one of the pews and motioned to the children to do likewise. She shut her eyes. The sunlight shone in through the window above the altar and she sensed it as a red warmth on her eyelids. She had not believed in God since He went and got lost during her childhood, when He abandoned His cloud. But suddenly – for the first time in how many years? – she felt herself part of an eternal order, as if she had been suffused by an awareness of the countless weddings, christenings and masses for the dead that had taken place here, as if she were cradled by a protracted litany of ever-repeated prayers, genuflections and exhortations; she was among the Sunday throng slowly dispersing in festive mood after standing a while to ask after someone’s health or express sympathy or condolences. She was overcome with a sense of belonging, belonging to something firm and unchanging there was no running away from or abandoning: the security she always reached after; real love. Love which had its own order and grandeur: qualities which exalted it above mere lovemaking.
That was why she had once been so taken by the idea of living on a kibbutz, believing she would find that kind of love and fellowship there. She abhorred the sort of life in which people were made to act like strangers; in which fear and denunc
iation ruled, people shunned each other, were frightened to talk to each other, exchange letters, confide in each other; in which people could be accused of having uttered some heretical thought years before; in which people were required to speak a strange official jargon that almost prevented communication.
Human life had to be superior to the life of the ants, and human speech something higher than the grunting of pigs. She believed that this was attainable in the home, if nowhere else, but Adam had no such aspirations. He had no desire to open up, just as he didn’t hanker after the fellowship or friendship of other people; it would only waste time better used for something more important to him, such as his work or his studies or his endless, absurd striving for success and recognition. He didn’t care whether people liked him or not, and even less whether people around him liked each other, or whether they suffered, or whether his insularity didn’t cause them suffering. His life lacked any order. Yes, that was his greatest deficiency. It had to be immediately apparent to anyone looking at him, from his appearance – his unkempt hair, his badly buttoned clothes – to his disordered and hasty utterances. Order was lacking in his everyday dealings. He was always starting things and not completing them. She remembered times he would be transcribing or translating several things at once. Now his work was no longer sought after, at least he had started reading a lot, though a month later, of course, he would be incapable of saying what the books had been about. And he had been building a fence at the cottage for the past two years already while in the meantime the roof was collapsing and the window-frames rotting. He never managed to do anything properly, he was never ready to devote himself one hundred per cent to one particular thing, or to commit himself to somebody, and he had the least time of all for her and the children – he devoted almost nothing of himself to them. And all the while he harboured the notion that everything he did simply anticipated some momentous future achievement which would justify the mayhem he caused all around him, and justify as well his arrogant conviction that he was better or anyway more important than the majority of people. As if activity was of some value for its own sake.
Maybe his hectic behaviour was a substitute for order and higher purpose in his life. With some people, drudgery was a sign that their lives lacked calm and harmony: they slogged away in order to drown out the emptiness within them. And at that moment it occurred to her that she too had offended against order – she had been unfaithful, something she had never bargained for, something she condemned and considered incompatible with a well-ordered life. She put her hand in her pocket and touched the envelope. And the very first thing she had rushed to do was to put her love down on paper, though she herself considered it untenable. She started to crumple the letter in her pocket; when she had crumpled it into a small ball and made it impossible to send, she felt a sense of relief, as if she had crumpled up those few days in Bratislava, her indiscretion, her lapse.
When she went to bed that evening she thought no more about the events of the previous week, as if she had completely distanced herself from those few days. She didn’t regret them; it was fine they had happened; she had long wished for something of the sort and Adam would be unlikely to hold it against her particularly; after all, he too had loved other women before he met her and would understand her desire to get to know someone else. She loved him for it, for that capacity to understand, that’s why I love him, I love him because he’s mine.
She was awakened by the sound of someone banging on the cottage door. Before she had a chance to get up, apparently it was opened and she heard the sound of muffled voices. ‘Ali!’ her sister-in-law called from outside her room. ‘You’ve got a visitor.’
‘A visitor?’
‘Some young fellow. Will you come and see him?’
‘Yes, I’m on my way.’ She dressed hurriedly. It was nearly midnight. She had no doubt who it was waiting for her and it seemed so unreal that her head swam.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I had to see you. I took three days’ leave and hitch-hiked here.’
‘This is silly of you. You can’t stay here, for heaven’s sake!’
‘I’ve brought a tent with me.’
‘You’re crazy!’
‘I’ve already put it up, over there across the stream, at the bottom of the cliff.’
‘But I’m here with the children!’
‘I’ll just watch you across the water.’
‘Adam’s coming in a couple of days!’
‘But meanwhile I’ll be able to see you. I’m so happy to see you. I love you, Alena!’
‘Honza, my love, you’re crazy. What if someone heard us? My sister-in-law is here with me too. And the children might wake up.’
‘I’m off. I’m so happy . . . Can I? It’s just I want to make sure it’s really you.’
‘Oh, Honza! Please . . . It isn’t on, really!’
‘I’m off then. Sister of my dreams.’
‘What did you say?’
‘Sister of my dreams. My honey pot. I’m going.’
‘Hold it. You can’t just go like that. Aren’t you hungry?’
‘No. I’m just so happy to be able to see you.’
‘I’ll walk with you a little way. Just as far as the bridge.’
‘You see I just couldn’t stand it any more. I borrowed a tent and came.’
‘Where have you got the tent?’
‘Over there. Just the other side of the water. I’ll show you if you like.’
‘But I can’t just go off and leave the children on their own.’
‘But they’re sleeping. And anyway you said you’ve got your sister-in-law here.’
‘Exactly. What would she think if I went off with you?’
‘We’d come straight back. Alena, I love you for coming with me. For the three whole days since I last saw you I’ve thought about you all the time and even thought up names for you: My amber. My homespun – I want to roll myself in you! My honeysuckle – I wish you’d twine around me!’
‘Hush! What was that?’
‘I didn’t hear anything.’
‘Someone called. Stand still and listen.’
‘I can’t hear anything.’
‘Maybe it was some bird or other, or the frogs. Haven’t we got to your tent yet, for goodness sake?’
‘Just a little way now. Alena, I’m so happy you’re going there with me. My golden-eyed beauty. I’ve never loved anyone like you. I love you so much, Alena.’
‘Those frogs are going to make a row all the time. You won’t get a wink of sleep.’
‘I don’t care, so long as I know you’re near.’
‘And won’t you be afraid, all alone here at night?’
‘No. I often used to go away alone like this. I always used to run away on my own so that Dad would worry about me. But he didn’t care, anyway.’
‘And won’t you be miserable here?’
‘No, not any more. Not now that you’ve come here with me. Will you have a look inside?’
‘It’s awfully dark here.’
‘Wait a sec, I’ll switch on the torch. Won’t you sit down for a moment?’
‘No, I really must go now. The children might wake up.’
‘They won’t. I never used to wake up when I was small.’
‘And it’s cold here. Aren’t you cold?’
‘I’m not, but if you are, I’ll light the cooker and some candles. I brought three candles with me.’
‘Now it smells all Christmassy here.’
‘Do you think it’ll warm you up?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘So wait a while and sit down. I’ll put a blanket round you.’
‘No, please don’t, Honza. No. I really have to go back.’
‘I love you so much. This moment will live for ever, I’ll never ever forget it, I can tell I’ll remember it always. Are you still cold?’
‘No, not any more.’
‘Shall I blow the candles out?’
‘No, leave them burning. It’s just like Christmas. I like it when I can see you. Your eyes, they’re so childlike.’
‘It’s because I’m not wearing my glasses. I’ll blow it out now, OK? Anyway, I can still see you in the dark.’
‘I can see you too. But don’t. You mustn’t.’
‘Alena, don’t you love me any more?’
‘I don’t know. Yes, but please be careful.’
Before we drink from the waters of Lethe
1
For four years I had imagined my homecoming. Home meant the Renaissance house on the square with its wooden staircase, the old crucifix in the alcove with its rusting Christ, my green couch and the ‘timetable’ of my day hanging above it (painted on Bristol board with the departure to Slumbertown marked in red), the china cabinet with the silver fruit-bowl and the cobalt-blue glass vase, the clattering tramcar under the window and my little grandfather with his nicotine-stained moustache alighting from the tram and bringing me razor-blade wrappers in his tiny scuffed briefcase or a packet of advertising comics drawn by Artuš Schneider. Home meant going back to the place where my childhood had been interrupted.
Now we were entering the building I had hungered for. The staircase seemed to my eyes shabby, different, smaller; the crucifix had been removed and when Father unlocked the flat (the locks were the only things left. The neighbours said: the tenant who came in after you took everything away and redecorated. Who was it came after us? Some bigwig in a uniform; a chauffeur in a Mercedes used to call for him every morning) I set eyes on a familiar space filled with unfamiliar furniture. Father approached the mammoth great cupboards and opened doors here and there. I waited in excitement to see what we’d discover. But the cupboards contained nothing: neither time-bombs nor treasures; only in the kitchen did there remain a few dozen wine goblets and glasses. Father took his red notebook out of his pocket and noted something in it. I watched his face, emaciated beyond recognition, and his shaven scalp. It looked almost horrifying silhouetted against the bright window. I glanced at my mother who was leaning tiredly against the wall by the door. (A few days earlier, after examining her thoroughly, the doctor had discovered she had a heart condition and told her with almost exaggerated directness that any exertion, or any illness, even the slightest, could kill her.) And suddenly the depressing realisation dawned on me that this would never be my old home again. I turned and ran out of that alien room. My father had possibly felt something similar. He came to me and told me that everything would be fine once more; we would furnish the flat again and it would be even better than before the war. Then he asked me where I would like to sleep. Nowhere, I replied, so they gave me a corner for myself in the kitchen: a new iron bedstead and a small table where I was supposed to study.
