by Ivan Klíma
And what if you have already fathered children? They look up to you and regard you as a source of strength, wisdom and life, while in fact you are living by grace, and all you have to offer them is your weakness, your confusion, your caution and your anxiety.
Now I’ve walked down as far as the Botanical Gardens. They say they’re to be transferred somewhere else. For the time being, they announce on their gate an exhibition of exotic birds. Now I recall that just after the war you begged our parents to buy a pet. A kitten or at least a canary. But in the end Father bought a projector, a screen and two films: one was a cartoon about a fox and the other was a natural history film about the Danubian salmon. He must have thought that films were more permanent than live animals and didn’t require so much attention. But they were confiscated along with the projector when the police searched the flat – Father was wrong about that too.
It sometimes strikes me how often he was mistaken, for all that he was strong-willed, precise and down-to-earth and in spite of all he had experienced and endured. After all, he had lain on a blanket in that coastal forest, conscious that he was holding on to life with the last of his strength and already thinking about how we would get by in life without him. But even at that moment he was unable to abandon, even for one second, his fond illusion that the world would be a completely different place once his party came to power. Or was it in fact that moment which confirmed him in that illusion and banished the good sense he showed elsewhere and at other times? Is there any moment in our lives when we are permitted at least to glimpse the outline of the real world? I have a feeling that no person or thing will give you such a moment, you have to fight for it yourself, you have to resist everything that would tempt you into a fool’s paradise and hide from you the truth about your situation. You have to set out on your own for that coastal forest, and stay there not because you’ve been brought there by armed guards, not in hope of being liberated and led out of it, but stay there in the knowledge that if you fail to liberate yourself you’ll come to a miserable end: as a convicted person who has sentenced himself – together with his nearest and dearest – to perpetual exile.
I’d hate to confuse you with that word, but now it has come to my mind, it occurs to me that there are two kinds of exile. One kind is when you are banished from your home and have no chance of returning. The other is when you abandon yourself and are unable to return. Perhaps the only piece of advice I can give you is: don’t confuse the two!
Perhaps you’d still like to know how I’ve decided? Whether I’ll leave my family because I’ve fallen in love with another woman and don’t want to hide the truth, or I’ll leave my mistress and stay with my children and wife because my infatuation will pass anyway, and it wasn’t even real love, just one of many possible forms of escape?
First I thought I had to decide between just two options. Like a cybernetic mouse in a maze, like a computer that knows only two answers: yes or no. Then, when I glimpsed the light in that house near here, I realised that I had been intending to choose between two escape routes, two kinds of deception and self-deception, contrasting two possibilities of exile, seeking whom to join, whom to follow, where to have my home: in other words, a bed, at the side of a woman, somewhere for a desk, and breakfast in the morning, instead of looking for a place where I’d no longer be a fugitive; I would be there solely because I wanted to be – even if it meant being homeless.
Now you want to know where that place is, not for me, but for yourself. You already have an inkling what my reply is going to be. The moment is coming when you must not abandon yourself. If you do, you could pronounce a sentence on yourself that no one will overturn, and which qualifies for no amnesty, since the decision will have been yours alone.
Here’s my tram coming. But just so you don’t run away with the idea, dear bro, that I’m somehow talking to you from heights I might be expected to have reached as an elder brother, I will admit to you that all this time I have been gazing at that fateful house on whose top floor I spent several weeks as a happy guest. What if the other one, my other woman, had suddenly come out into the street and was on her own? I would have run after her and by the time I reached the staircase – that is if she would have invited me up – I would have forgotten all my solemn resolutions.
She didn’t appear, of course, and as a result I am perhaps wisely setting off to find a place where I will no longer be an exile.
4
He was making love to Alexandra in his own flat. It was night-time and a purplish light was shining in through the sharply pointed window. He was lying on the bed, she was kneeling in front of the bed grasping his thighs and kissing him between them. Just as his body began to quiver in ecstasy the doorbell rang.
She stood up, put his shirt on over her naked body and walked to the door. He also tried to get up, but was unable to find the strength to raise his enfeebled body. Not even to reach out for his trousers and put them on.
He heard from somewhere nearby the sound of men’s voices, and among them he could recognise Oldřich’s.
She glanced in at the door, the shirt scarcely reached her waist. ‘Ruml is here with some friends of yours.’
He sat up. He pulled Alena’s pyjama top out from under the pillow and quickly slipped it on. But it was so tight it pushed his arms forward. He looked like a dachshund begging for a titbit.
All the intruders were wearing dark formal suits with old-fashioned bowler hats on their heads.
Oldřich was carrying some file or other. Immediately behind him came his brother Hanuš (he might have known he’d get invited). The last to come in was a fellow with the face of an ageing boxer. He was carrying a stick: a conductor’s baton or a truncheon. He recognised that one straight away.
They all sat down round the table and covered it with sheets of paper. Alexandra – still half-naked – brought them glasses on a tray. He tried to indicate to her that she should get dressed, but he suddenly realised his own nakedness and tried to cover it with a corner of the bedsheet.
‘So where do you have the suitcase?’ Plach asked.
‘What suitcase?’
‘That takes the biscuit!’ Plach exclaimed, turning to the others. ‘He just goes on denying it. We’ll have to fetch his wife!’
‘My wife?’ He tried to laugh. After all, he didn’t have a wife any more – not even a mistress. He now looked round for her in vain. He really was left with just the suitcase, and it didn’t even belong to him.
It wasn’t yet five o’clock and everyone else was still asleep. He got up quietly, got dressed, and went into the kitchen where he drank some cold tea and spread himself some bread.
Once he had the suitcase in the car he felt relieved. It was most likely an unwarranted precaution, but it would be more unwarranted to leave it in the flat.
The dream was still fresh in his mind and also filled him with nostalgia. What would happen if he drove to the corner of the street where she lived and waited for her to come out on her way to work? Maybe she would get in with him. Where would they drive to?
He parked on the Old Town Square. The street lamps were still on, but the sky above the Powder Tower was already growing light. People were thronging along the street in the direction of the tram.
He pulled the suitcase out and entered the house. It was still early. He should have telephoned first. His mother would be bound to have a fright if she was already up. He dragged the case right up to the flat door and let himself in as quietly as he could.
His mother was peeping out of her bedroom before he’d even taken his shoes off. ‘Has something happened, Adam?’
‘No, nothing at all.’
‘What’s that suitcase you’ve got with you?’
‘Just a suitcase.’
‘Where are you going with it at this time of the morning?’
‘I’ve got some papers in it.’
‘You’re taking them to court?’
‘No. I thought I might leave them here.’
&
nbsp; ‘Why should you leave a case here? Haven’t you enough space at home?’
At last his father appeared. ‘Come in, for goodness sake!’
‘He’s arrived with thai: thing,’ his mother called out, ‘and he wants to lumber us with it.’ She came over to the suitcase and took hold of the handle as if intending to try its weight. ‘God knows what he’s got in it.’
‘Books,’ he replied. ‘Just books.’
‘Nice books they must be.’ His mother lowered her voice. ‘Very dubious ones, if you’re offering them. I can’t recall the last time you brought us a book. A decent book, I mean.’
‘Shove it in the lumber-room,’ his father decided, ‘there’s room for it there.’
‘I don’t want it in the lumber-room!’ His mother ran her finger fastidiously along its worn edge. ‘God knows where the thing has been.’
‘All right, I’ll take it away again.’
His mother stopped him in the doorway. ‘Have you had any breakfast?’
‘Never mind.’
‘You’ve been very odd just lately. You’ve not shown yourself at all.’
‘I think it’s just as well if I don’t show myself. You never know, I might be after something else. Or I might dirty your lumber-room.’ He opened the door and pushed the suitcase out.
His father caught up with him on the stairs. ‘What’s come over you?’ He looked round in case anyone was listening. ‘You know what Mum is like. Why didn’t you ring me first?’ He slipped the cellar key into his hand and quickly went back upstairs.
In the cellar he dirtied his hands and most probably his face too. If only he had been hiding a time-bomb, a case of gold bars or at least some leaflets calling for rebellion. But the contents were so innocuous and the action he’d been driven to so pathetic that he felt humiliated.
In a proper battle, one worthy of the name, one in which well-matched forces and determination were pitched against each other, a life-or-death conflict, one could be destroyed, but could also achieve greatness. In the case of a squabble, a dispute devoid of all dignity when it was unclear what the dimensions and significance of the quarrel were and who were the protagonists, the only great thing was the pettiness.
At least there was still his own dispute, his own cause, and hopefully it was free of pettiness, though at this particular moment he was not so sure whether he wasn’t effectively just dragging another suitcase full of musty books and old letters.
He arrived at his office even earlier than he was expected to. He had a wash and then dialled the number of Matěj’s flat. Matěj’s voice took him by surprise.
‘You’re out already?’
‘To hear you, you’d think I’d raped a schoolgirl in the park.’
‘Was it very nasty?’
‘What if you were to drop by instead?’
‘All right, I’ll come this evening.’
‘How about your murderer? When’s the trial?’
It surprised him that Matěj should remember the case at this particular moment. ‘Next week.’
‘A pity. I shall be out at the caravan. Would you believe it, I’m just beginning to see the connection. It came to me when I was in that hole. If they don’t hang murderers, it’s unlikely they’ll hang those who type out poems or even write their own.’
He was sure the connection was not quite so immediate, but he said: ‘Thanks for the encouragement.’ He realised that the files on the case were still in the boss’s office, so he asked for a meeting.
‘I was just about to call you, Adam.’ His face looked even puffier than usual. There were dark shadows under his eyes. ‘Have you notified the witnesses?’
‘I was going to send out the letters today.’
‘Wait a bit. I’ve been thinking about it – I can understand your misgivings. Doesn’t it strike you there are a lot of things that still need clarifying?’
Adam stared at him in amazement. He didn’t know what else he could clarify in this case, and had not even given it any thought. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a case returned for further investigation.
‘For one thing,’ his boss went on, ‘I’d like to know what he was really doing that night. Or whether he really had any idea about the little girl’s presence.’
Could he really have misjudged him? He would like the fellow to hang, but he’d also like to be sure about his guilt? No, it was wrong to delude himself. Most likely he had just received new instructions. But even that was a good sign. ‘Do you think we ought to return it?’
‘If you provide good grounds.’
‘The prosecutor’s office will file a complaint.’
‘Leave that up to me. You wanted to take some leave: if it’s not too late, take it now.’ There was a note of cunning in the voice. But then it always sounded shifty – to Adam’s ears at least.
‘All right, I’ll put in for it.’
As he walked back through the long corridor he became aware of a painful feeling of strain in his back. As if he were still carrying that suitcase.
5
She asked for permission to finish work at mid-day on Friday.
Her mother promised to pick the children up straight from school. Adam was taking some leave and told her he was going off somewhere. He said he would be going alone; he needed some rest. She needed some rest too, but no one ever asked her what she needed.
She was not sure whether she wanted him to go or not. But she would probably be too afraid to stay alone in the flat. She had heard of women who had bled to death after such an operation.
She felt dizzy from weakness. Even though she already had her coat on she sat down again. It was still possible for her not to go. She feared the pain but most of all it appalled her that she was letting them tear that life out of her, that she was consenting to the murder of a human being which had already been conceived.
When she had first decided to get rid of the child, she had done so mostly on account of Adam. She had still believed in a speedy reconciliation and thought that the fruit of her infidelity would hardly help matters.
Since then, it had become increasingly apparent to her that Adam was going to leave her anyway, that they would separate and she would have destroyed a life for nothing. But she felt so exhausted from everything that had happened to her that she could not find within herself the strength to give life to another child, or to love and rear it.
But wouldn’t her despair become even deeper now? Over the past weeks she had found someone who possibly understood her and he had helped her discover a fellowship which came near to the ideal she had long held of a good human community, all of whose members were close to each other and strove for even closer mutual understanding. Perhaps the fellowship really did enjoy the grace of some higher, celestial power, and she earnestly prayed that they would accept her and help her to share in that grace one day. What if her coming act were to cut her off from them?
The previous Sunday, the minister had preached on the text: Suffer little children to come unto Me, and spoken about the world of children which was pure and how Jesus had been the first to understand this. At that moment she had decided to keep the child, even though the other one was the father, and she had actually felt gratitude for being a woman and having the possibility of becoming a mother. But afterwards, when she had left the chapel, it occurred to her that every child must one day grow up and leave its own world for one in which people deceive, cheat and betray, where they live in bondage and only strive in vain to find at least something, however small, of the world that remained in their memory.
