by Ivan Klíma
5
There was still half an hour before her finishing time. She had found it difficult to concentrate on her work in recent days. She would read but the link between her eyes and her brain was broken. And from time to time the hiss of escaping gas would fill her ears. She felt wretched and everything made her cry. Before changing his shoes, Martin had managed to leave piles of mud all over the front hall, Manda was refusing to eat vegetables, and she herself had managed to break the handle off one of the cups she had received as an heirloom. Tears would stream from her eyes without her sobbing. And that morning, from the moment she opened her eyes and saw outside the first, rather premature snowflakes, the tears had started to flow.
She did not cry in front of Adam. Whenever he arrived home, she seemed to go tense all over, either from expectation or anxiety, though she was unable to distinguish between her emotions. Maybe he would say something at last and undo the spell he had cast on her with his infidelity and betrayal, or at least tell her the name of the other woman and reduce somewhat her demonic immunity, her vampiric powers. But he had done nothing of the sort and instead moved about the flat like a shadow detached from an absent body; he would enter the kitchen when she wasn’t there, evidently to eat something, but without leaving any of the usual traces behind him. The cup would be washed and the crumbs swept up.
He would sleep in his own room on the small couch, although it was narrow and uncomfortable. He would get up before her in the morning and prepare the children’s breakfast. He would chat to the children, particularly Manda. He had always been more attached to his daughter than to his son, and more than to her.
He had also returned her the letters which that bizarre clergyman had sent him a while ago. Maybe he realised that he ought to make some comment; he suddenly started to talk to her about the case which he was due to hear in a few days. He explained that they were putting pressure on him to pass the death sentence, but that he would never do so, even if it cost him his job.
That was him all over. He wanted to save a murderer he didn’t know, while he would calmly let her die, or drive her to her death, because he didn’t have to take a decision, because he didn’t have to formulate his sentence on her or deliver it in triplicate. Why hadn’t he phoned her even once today?
Anguish welled up in her. She was so lonely.
Even Honza hadn’t called her today.
Yesterday, when she came back to work again, he had come running after her: thin, tall, gaunt and rather pale. She did not take in anything of what he tried to tell her, but merely told him repeatedly to go away. Then he tried telephoning her; how many times she couldn’t say because she didn’t pick up the phone, and when she did, she had immediately put it down on recognising his voice.
She took the envelope with the letters out of her bag. She could go and see that minister; that way, at least she wouldn’t have to go home directly.
She dialled the number and while she waited for the connection she read the first page of the criminal’s letter.
Then a familiar voice answered: soft and kindly. He immediately recognised her and thanked her for being ready to take the trouble to visit him.
In the first letter, Karel Kozlík had written:
Dear Friend,
I haven’t been in touch for a long time. The thing is I’ve been very busy, but even so I read Dr Schweitzer’s book straight off non-stop over two evenings. I also set myself lofty goals after my last release from prison namely to continue educating myself and be useful to the people I meet. In fact it was just last week that I asked for a recommendation from the hospital here so that I could register for night school. They were very surprised and wanted to know what I needed to study for, wasn’t I happy with my job in the boilerhouse, and if I was losing my taste for work they wouldn’t hang on to me, but I wasn’t to think I could waste their time with provocative activities. I had another go at trying to explain, but I could see they weren’t listening. It’s always been like that, I never in my whole life found anyone ready to listen to me apart from you. When I finished the book I imagined to myself I was living in another country, such as England. They allowed me to study for a regular profession. I’d like to be a priest like you or a doctor like he was. Also I imagined going away to some backward country. I think I would manage to cope with all those hardships seeing that I managed to put up with months on end in the slammer. You know that when I tried I was able to fulfil the prison norm and then spend several hours learning English and listening to your commentaries on philosophy and theology. How ennobling it was to put one’s efforts into something that would be meaningful and give a sense of usefulness. I imagined the sick people coming to my hut, showing me their ulcers and festering wounds and me helping them. If something like that could happen I would be happy. I wouldn’t even ask for reward, it would be enough to know I was rendering a service to others.
The tears were running down her cheeks again. It touched her that a person who was being held in gaol for murdering someone could yearn to be good, and that his yearning was clearly stronger than that of many other people, stronger, perhaps, than of the people who would judge him. At any rate she could not imagine Adam ever wanting to go off to the jungle and cure people there. What did Adam yearn for?
For her, most likely, at this moment! To go away somewhere with his tart. Adam never yearned for anything really noble or romantic. The need to serve others was alien to him. Abstract ideals were the most he could work up enthusiasm for.
The gatekeeper let her in when she explained whom she was going to see, and did not even ask to see her identity. The site only consisted of a few wooden huts surrounded by a dilapidated fence. A railway embankment towered above the last of the huts. The last building was the one to which the door-keeper had directed her. She went up to the door and knocked: no one seemed to have heard. So she carefully opened the door a fraction and peeped inside. She saw nothing, however, apart from rows of shelves filled from floor to ceiling with tins of every colour.
At last, her acquaintance appeared in a black cotton overall. ‘You’re very welcome, Dr Kindlová!’
‘I’ve brought you the letters.’
He took the envelope from her.
‘My husband has read them. Or rather, I think he’s read them,’ she corrected herself. ‘He made no comment on them. But he doesn’t comment on anything in my presence.’
She wanted to talk to him, but she didn’t know how to start. She felt the tears coming to her eyes. It was out of the question for her to cry here.
He offered her the only chair in the place, while he sat down on an upturned box. ‘I think about it every day,’ he said. ‘I’d really like to identify that split second when evil triumphed in his soul. I pray that that victory should not be final. And for mercy on him. And, of course, for mercy on those he killed.’
As if mercy could exist for those who were already dead. ‘Do you believe in prayer?’ she asked.
‘How could I not?’ he exclaimed in surprise. ‘Prayer is the only opportunity we have to talk to our Lord. If I lost that opportunity, I’d fall dumb, or, as Scripture puts it, I’d fall prey to unclean spirits.’
The light dwindled in the room. The lighted windows of railway carriages passed by on the embankment behind the hut. If one believed in the power of prayer, one had to believe that God was listening. It meant assuming not only that there was a God, but also that He was capable of hearing and distinguishing between human tongues. ‘There was a time when I used to pray too,’ she said. ‘But not any more. Not for a long time.’
‘Do you feel that you have lost your belief?’
‘I don’t know if I ever believed. I didn’t feel there was anyone I could speak to.’
‘It must have been hard for you.’
She didn’t reply.
‘Whether prayer is heard or not is not the essential thing. The important thing is my right, my freedom to pray, to turn to God. There are moments when it is the only right and the only
freedom we have – without them our soul would hardly endure.’ Then he said that people estranged themselves unnecessarily from the message of Scripture by wanting to take those words, which announced something so inexpressible and indefinable as the existence of God, as if they were words in a text-book. They treated them as if they were a scientific statement. After all, a discourse on physics and a poem could not be read the same way. People nowadays read Scripture as if they were reading a report of some historical congress and were scandalised to find references to the immaculate conception, miraculous cures of the blind, the lame and the leprous, and to read about the fires of hell, the resurrection of the dead, Satan and angels. It never crossed their minds that virginity symbolised purity, that the blind and leprous were images for the spiritually blind and the small-minded. It was certain that much of what had been accepted for centuries as a literal message was no more than an image intended to express the insights of the prophets. It was obvious that none of them was capable of defining eternity or redemption, Heaven, Hell or even God. After all, the controversy about the meaning of those insights had been going on amongst God’s people from the very beginning of their history. Even today there were few people capable of understanding the true meaning of poetry, the truth of a painting or the message of a piece of music. Very often, with the best of intentions, people turned the message on its head and gave it their own interpretation and squeezed it into the framework of their own souls. People were like that now and people had been like it centuries ago, and it was undoubtedly through their uncomprehending mouths that the Good News about the Redeemer was communicated to others.
‘Not long after I was convicted, Dr Kindlová, I shared a cell for some time with a well-known poet. He enjoyed telling me that human history was an eternal clash between poets and policemen and that clash had never been resolved. And was unlikely to be.’
He gazed at her anxiously and it seemed to her that he knew everything about her, or at least that she was in distress and was in need of comfort. That was why he had invited her to stay a while, why he had talked about prayer, why he had tried to restore her hope and belief in God. He was someone who was receptive to others and she could therefore confide in him.
She was determined to talk about Adam dispassionately, or even to speak in his favour, because she didn’t like the idea of complaining about someone with whom she lived. She spoke about his childhood as she knew it from his telling, explaining how that experience had cruelly marked him, taking away his trust in people and his belief in friendship and even in goodness. All he retained was a fanatical belief in some unreal, just world that would one day be created by means of reason. She told him that he was capable of being kind and loyal to his convictions and his work. He usually managed to control himself, but on the other hand he had never allowed her to enjoy the feeling of real intimacy and mutual devotion. This was possibly something that troubled him also, and why he had now found another woman. She said all this with her eyes fixed on the black, greasy floor.
‘And will you tell me something about yourself?’ he asked, when she started to falter over the other woman, that female stranger.
So she started to relate her childhood, even more incoherently. How her parents had sent her to stay in the country when she was six, how she had actually been happy there and also learnt to pray, but how she had suffered from anxiety about her nearest and dearest and used to have dreams about her mother being killed. She spoke about her family, which was always a haven of love and understanding and where they were always ready to help each other. Thanks to that, she had come to know the meaning of a good home and all her life she had wanted her own children to have a home like that. She also mentioned her friend Tonka, for whom she had never been able to find a substitute, and Menachem, who had offered her a wider family in a foreign land. And again she returned to Adam, for whom home had been at most a place where he could get on with his work in peace and where he slept. Then at last she started to tell him about the third person involved, how they had become acquainted and how all she had wanted was to help him, because she realised he was abandoned and disillusioned, but everything had turned out differently from what she expected and she had therefore decided that the relationship must be ended. She had only wanted to belong to her family even though her family did not fully satisfy her, and she had done it even though he had knelt down in front of her, clasping her round the legs and begging her to stay. Now she had no strength left and was unable to control herself. She sobbed out loud.
He waited patiently for her to calm down. He even smiled at her and she attempted a smile too. A pathetic attempt, no doubt.
‘Now you want to know what to do next?’
She nodded.
‘Do you want to save your family?’
She nodded again. ‘Only I don’t know whether I’ll be able to forget what he did to me. How he abandoned me when I needed him most.’
‘Maybe you also abandoned him when he needed you most.’
‘But I never abandoned him!’
He threw her a look of amazement. ‘But you’ve just been telling me about it.’
‘That was something else. I didn’t want to hurt him! I didn’t want to abandon him.’
‘Our actions always appear differently to ourselves than they do to other people.’
‘No, I didn’t want to hurt him,’ she repeated. ‘After all, it wasn’t supposed to have anything to do with him.’ She hoped he would see what she meant. She took a handkerchief out of her handbag and hid her face in it.
‘Most of the time, we all act with the best of intentions,’ he said. ‘Which of us has sufficient humility to look upon himself or herself as no more than a sinner among sinners?’
‘Do you think I have enough humility?’ she asked into the handkerchief.
He leaned over and stroked her hair.
No, of course she didn’t have enough humility. But he didn’t condemn her for it; he had understanding. She was aware of the consoling touch of his fingers. At last, after so many days, she felt a sense of relief.
Before we drink from the waters of Lethe
1
The train was late as usual. My parents had evidently been waiting at the station the whole time. I caught sight of them the moment I got off the train. Mother was waving at me and Father was running alongside the train towards me. I was lugging two enormous cases, the language of The Hole still surrounded me in the form of other travellers, although it was being diluted so rapidly as to seem foreign once more. I could see the familiar figures rushing away up the platform, leaving behind them the faint familiar stench of those far-off inns and courthouse corridors: sweat, dirt and alcohol. I realised it was for the last time and felt a blissful sense of relief.
Father would not allow me to call a porter and toiled along with one of my cases. He had not changed, whereas Mother had aged. She scurried along at my side talking away: I would have my bedroom back again, all to myself in fact, as Hanuš was doing his military service. Poor Hanuš was in despair over the time he was wasting on it and was constantly hoping I might be able to do something to get him out. Father broke in to ask whether I knew he had been nominated for a state prize. I told him that he himself had written to me about it. I suddenly realised that it wasn’t the reply he had been hoping for and quickly added that it was a magnificent tribute to his life’s work.
Standing in front of the station was Father’s quarter-century-old Tatra (newly resprayed dark blue, so that I almost failed to recognise it). Father attached the cases to the roof, the engine – which was only slightly younger than me – roared into life and I was on my way home.
My room was tidy, with the books dusted and not a speck of dust on the rug. I could hear my mother in the kitchen clattering the crockery. It was ten in the morning and I was bracing myself for a village loudspeaker to burst into life. Then came the unnerving realisation that I wasn’t in court. What was the matter with me; surely I couldn’t be ill?
&n
bsp; And then it sunk in: never again that courthouse, never again that corridor full of people, that square beneath its cloud of hot dust; never again, either, Tibor Hruškovič, Hungarian goulash, my seedy inn room or the sound of horse carts and beery singing as I tried to get to sleep. Everything was drifting away and disappearing, as if I were waking from a dream, and I suddenly realised with dismay that she too was part of that dream. But unlike the others, Magdalena could follow me; at any moment she could be ringing the doorbell, crossing the threshold and entering the room she had never seen. Was it something I wanted – or feared?
Mother called me to the lunch table. She was smiling, happy that I had returned to the family circle.
Potato dumplings, roast pork and stewed kohlrabi. Even before the train arrived I knew what to expect for lunch. And the wine glasses, from which no one in our household drank wine, were filled with an egg-yolk dessert topped with strawberry mousse. What about my young lady, Mother asked, wouldn’t she be following me? I didn’t want to talk about it? That was all right, I was old enough, just so long as I didn’t hurt the girl. Anyway, as my mother, she was sorry I hadn’t once brought my young lady to see her.
And towards evening, the doorbell really did ring. Where would I put her up? What would Mother say to her, what would she say to Mother? Where would we live?
But it was only Uncle Gustav with Aunt Simona. They had come to see me. Aunt Simona had recently undergone an operation and she gazed at me with tears in her eyes and remembered those beautiful post-war days when I was still a little boy. Uncle Karel also arrived – in an official limousine. (He now occupied an important post of some kind and was also a member of the assembly, though I didn’t know for which constituency.) He greeted me and told me he was pleased to see me home again. (It had probably been thanks to him that I was able to return, thanks to him I had successfully applied for the job; it sufficed that he was, that he existed and could be listed in my application forms.)
