Judge On Trial

by Ivan Klíma

  ‘Yes and no. But there was no doubt of his guilt. Did you really have your doubts?’

  ‘I wasn’t given any opportunity to say what I thought. How did he take it?’

  ‘He put on a calm face, saying he had expected it. In fact he was shitting himself silly. Killers like him always shake when their necks are at stake.’

  ‘Everyone shakes when his neck’s at stake,’ he said. ‘I’d like to talk to him. Could you try and arrange it?’

  ‘Hardly.’ The Presiding Judge stared at him in consternation. ‘Whatever next!’

  ‘I know it’s impossible, but I also know that anything’s possible if they feel inclined.’

  ‘It’s against all the rules.’

  ‘The way you took the case off me was also against all the rules.’

  The Presiding Judge did not bat an eyelid. ‘Where you’re concerned we acted entirely according to regulations. From the moment you returned it, it was no longer your case. If you think otherwise, you’re welcome to file a complaint.’

  ‘I don’t want to file a complaint. On the contrary, I wish to inform you that I’m leaving for good. As fast as I possibly can. I would merely like a word with Kozlík.’

  ‘You know very well I can’t allow you to see him. I can let you send him a letter if there’s something you want to tell him.’

  ‘I don’t want to tell him anything. I want to speak to him.’

  ‘If there’s something you want to learn from him, he could write you a letter. That can be arranged too.’

  ‘This is absurd! Only last week I was supposed to be trying him.’

  ‘May I ask what is so important that you wanted of him?’

  ‘I didn’t want anything important of him. I didn’t want anything at all of him!’

  ‘As for your departure, I’m glad you’ve raised it yourself. After all the scandals that have surrounded you . . .’

  ‘I don’t know of any,’ he interrupted.

  ‘I have in mind your exotic friendships, relations with foreigners and your altercation with State Security,’ he explained. ‘It wouldn’t even be a good idea for you to continue in your current line of activity.’ He paused for a moment, as if giving him a chance to object, but Adam said nothing.

  ‘I don’t want to finish you in the law, naturally, nor lose you entirely. You are well aware that I valued many aspects of your work. You’d have no problem becoming a notary. It would only mean moving up a floor and it’s not such a bad number. That’s unless you’ve something better.’

  ‘I’ve not been looking for anything, as you’ll understand.’

  ‘So think about it. There’s no rush. You’re on holiday. You could even extend it if you liked. Take another month!’

  He was actually offering him paid leave. He was generous that way.

  ‘OK. I’ll think about it.’

  Alice was no longer in the office. He was at a loss what to do. Start packing his things? He had nothing to put them in. Anyway he was still on a holiday. He remembered he had an empty case in his car from the things he’d taken to the cottage.

  He came back with it shortly afterwards and started to fill it with the contents of his desk drawers. He ought to sort the papers out and throw away the ones that were of no more use – which was most of them. But he was unable to concentrate at that moment. Under his glass desk-top, Manda’s seven horses pranced – he had not had much time to enjoy them.

  Go up one floor? How long would he stay there? He would hardly have time to set his bits and pieces out in his new office before he would be moved up yet another floor. The next floor up was the loft, and above that were just the chimneys!

  The suitcase was so full he could hardly lift it. There was still his judge’s gown in the locker. He folded it as best he could and stuffed it in with the books and papers. It was unlikely he would ever wear it again. The grace that he had enjoyed conditionally so far had now been taken away. It was not long ago that the very thought of it would have terrified or even crushed him. Now he felt curiosity more than anything else: what was life like when one was bereft of the rulers’ grace?

  All those people he had sent to prison during his time as a judge. If only he had had some sort of belief in the regime in whose name he had delivered those verdicts. If only he had had some belief in his own authority. But with the passing years, his self-confidence had dissipated. A judge who lacked self-confidence had to quit sooner or later, and accept with relief the moment when he could hang up his gown. What at first sight looked like defeat could bring liberation. On the other hand, he could be entirely mistaken, regarding as liberation what was actually defeat. The border between the two was imperceptible. It would be up to him how he interpreted what had just happened to him.

  He sat down once more at his empty desk and again opened the drawers. In one of them, he found a long-lost photograph. It was of him and his wife. She was holding Martin in her arms and behind them towered some skyscrapers. The buildings were unfamiliar, though it must have been somewhere in America. He slipped the photo into his wallet and closed the drawer again.

  All that remained on the desk was the black telephone. He lifted the receiver and dialled: ‘Is that you, bro?’

  ‘Yep. I thought you were at the cottage. I was just getting ready to come out to you.’

  ‘That’s good. I see you’re not working yet.’

  ‘Next week, maybe, all being well.’

  ‘What would you say to a bike trip?’

  ‘Now? Isn’t it a bit too cold for that?’

  ‘It’s quite warm outside. For the time of year.’

  ‘And where do you fancy going?’

  ‘To look for work, of course. And you never know, it might even be for real.’

  ‘Could be. But I don’t think I’ve got a bike any more.’

  ‘You could borrow one. A friend of mine . . .’

  ‘If you get me a bike, you’re on!’

  ‘OK, I’ll call you back.’ He picked up the case and left the office.

  The route to Matěj’s took him past the Bránik brewery. He pulled up in the street called Za pivovarem. It contained just five old single-storey cottages. Several rusting cars were parked by the kerb and a stench of sewage, sauerkraut and brewer’s yeast hung in the air.

  He hesitated. He hated gestures, but he had to wind the case up for himself somehow.

  When he rang the doorbell he suddenly became aware of his unaccustomed status: he could now talk to anyone he liked, and say what he liked. He was no longer bound by any ties of responsibility or duty.

  She came to the door herself. She obviously did not recognise him at first, so he introduced himself.

  ‘Oh, yeah, I remember now,’ she said with reluctance. ‘What do you want me for?’

  Through the open door he could see into the kitchen. Nappies and brightly coloured underwear were drying on a line.

  She was not very welcoming, but then he had not been particularly welcoming the only other time they had met.

  ‘Were you at the trial?’

  ‘Only for a little while,’ she said. ‘I can’t leave him alone for long.’

  ‘Is it a little lad?’

  ‘He’s a boy. What was it you were wanting, comrade?’

  ‘Did you speak to your fiancé?’

  ‘He’s not my fiancé.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I only wanted to know if they had allowed you to visit him.’

  ‘No. I haven’t the time to go visiting.’

  ‘But you will go and see him, won’t you? You realise that no one else will.’

  ‘Do you think I ought to?’ She relented and he followed her inside. ‘They are advising me to hurry up and forget about him.’

  ‘Who is?’

  ‘The lot of them.’ She offered him a battered kitchen chair to sit on, after giving it a wipe with a rag. The child was sleeping in a wicker cradle in a corner of the kitchen. ‘He done the dirty on me; a rotten trick like that just before it was born.’ She stare
d at him for a moment. ‘I didn’t see you there neither. That wasn’t you in the robes, was it?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t me. I only wanted to ask you, Mrs Körnerová, irrespective of the court’s finding: do you still think that your fiancé – Mr Kozlík, I mean – was innocent? Don’t you think it might have all been just a mishap?’

  She gaped at him for a moment. ‘I ain’t going to tell you nothing. His lawyer told me not to either. He said I don’t have to say nothing, and that was what I was to tell anyone if they tried to drag anything out of me.’

  ‘I don’t work for the court any more, Mrs Körnerová.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘You have nothing to fear from me.’

  ‘You weren’t the one who tried him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And you won’t be the judge any more?’

  ‘No! But I’d like to find out if there might be something we could still do for him.’

  ‘There’s nothing can be done for him anyway. That’s what they all told me. His lawyer told me I shouldn’t build my hopes up.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have sentenced him to death. I’d have only sent him to prison.’

  ‘But you just said you weren’t going to be his judge.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So it’s easy for you to talk.’

  She was right: he was allowed to say what he liked, ask what he liked and even criticise authority. But the only reason he could was because he was powerless to do anything any more. So he just asked her: ‘Will you visit him?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve enough troubles of me own.’

  ‘You ought to go and see him. He is the father of your child.’

  That was probably the most he could still do in the case: persuade her to visit him.

  If he acknowledged the case for what it really was, a dispute over a human life and not merely a conflict over his own career, then he had to admit he had lost. He stood up.

  ‘Thank you for sparing me your time.’ She was going to see him out, but at that moment the baby started to cry and she went back. As he was closing the door he could see her leaning over the cradle. For the rest of his life, that child was going to have to write on official forms: father – deceased. And if the form required more specific information: reason for death – asphyxiation from hanging.

  His last case had closed. What remained for a judge when he was no longer allowed to deliver a verdict as he saw fit? What remained for people when they were not allowed to speak? Who in the world, what in the world, could they turn to?

  4

  Matěj lent Hanuš his elder son’s bicycle and joined them on his own machine. He even suggested a destination: a village with the church whose claim to fame was that his great-great-grandfather had built it almost two centuries earlier. And it was most likely the only church in the country to have been built from foundations to roof by one single man.

  They were lucky with the weather – the low sun actually gave out some heat. And even the wind was untypically warm for November.

  As they neared the foothills, the landscape became more undulating. He was not used to cycling any more and although they had been on the road for only two hours he could scarcely move his legs. His brother, on the other hand, looked cheerful and whistled now and then.

  The village lay on a gentle slope and the church could be seen from a distance. They rode up to it along a road strewn with yellow sand. He had been expecting a small church or even something more like a chapel, and was amazed to find just how massive a structure it was. The tower dwarfed the centuries-old lime trees that surrounded it. Its roof was topped with a weathercock which had doubtlessly turned before it rusted up. Six tall, narrow windows soared above them in the side wall. They leaned their bicycles against the trunks of the lime trees and Matěj went off in search of someone to let them in. The path around the church was covered in dead leaves which crunched underfoot.

  ‘Would you believe it,’ Hanuš said, ‘everyone stares at me as if I’ve gone off my rocker.’

  ‘Because you came back?’

  ‘Not just Father, either: at the institute, as well. They all want to know why. What shall I tell them?’

  ‘Do you need to tell them anything?’

  ‘Last month, a colleague of mine from Gloucester invited us to his home. He lives in an old brick town-house. He was born in it, in fact. And it struck me at the time that I too was born in an old house – an even older and finer one, but I would be unlikely to have the chance of showing it to him. Or even seeing it again. Is that a reason?’

  ‘It could have been for you.’

  ‘There was no reason. Alternatively, there could have been a hundred other reasons like it. And just as many reasons against too. After all, there’s nothing which you can state with certainty will be as important to you tomorrow as it is today. Unless you believe in God, that is. Or maybe you know of something?’

  ‘Hardly.’

  ‘I declared all false hopes taboo. Maybe it was also a case of being resigned to it. If Father were me he wouldn’t come back, because he knows he would have a better chance of working there and of achieving more. I could have achieved something there too, but in fact I couldn’t have cared less. But don’t tell Dad that, it would upset him: he set great store by me. Let him think I came back on account of them.’ He broke off. ‘After all, I don’t see why one should feel more responsibility to one’s work and career than to one’s parents.’

  Matěj returned alone, but was carrying a bunch of old-fashioned keys.

  It was cool inside the church and it smelt musty. The floor was covered with stone slabs, the ceiling was already cracking and immediately behind the pulpit there was a gaping hole in the plaster.

  ‘Is it really true that it was built by just one single man?’ he asked Matěj.

  ‘Yes. It took one man to build it, and now the whole village can’t keep it in repair.’

  They walked up a wooden staircase, passing the organ-loft, until they found themselves among the giant roof beams. Then they walked along the brick vaulting which looked unusual and skilfully constructed from there.

  ‘How long did he take to build it, that forefather of yours?’ Hanuš asked.

  ‘The parish records say that the first services were held after two and a half years.’

  ‘That’s not possible!’

  ‘Why not?’ Matěj said in surprise. ‘Even when he worked from morning to night?’

  ‘All on his own?’

  ‘Apparently his wife occasionally passed him bricks or carried sand for him.’

  ‘And nobody else?’

  ‘Nobody else is mentioned.’

  Hanuš became restive. He started to pace out the length of the building and then went over to one of the windows and examined the wall for a moment. He was clearly measuring its thickness. Then he sat down on a beam and took out his calculator. ‘Not on your nelly!’ he said finally.

  ‘Why don’t you think so?’

  ‘The walls alone come to over eight hundred cubic metres.’

  ‘Is that a lot?’

  ‘For one man? And who dug the foundations and put in the beams?’

  ‘He did, probably.’ Matěj went over to the bell. ‘It has a splendid sound. Whenever I hear it,’ he said, stroking its metal body, ‘I feel as if the old man is talking to me.’

  ‘What does he say?’

  ‘Go in peace! Go in peace! If I understand him rightly. A pity you can’t hear it.’

  Hanuš was still pressing the keys of the calculator.

  Meanwhile Adam climbed out on a beam and looked out of a small dormer window. He could see the roofs of the cottages and the tops of the bare trees above them, as well as ploughed fields, yellowing meadows and the glistening surface of the village pond which lay in a shallow depression.

  As he moved back slightly from the window, he became aware of the shaft of light that cut sharply through the gloom of the loft area.

  How long ago wa
s it that he had yearned to climb up such a shaft of light and escape his fate? He was overcome with a forgotten exaltation: he caught the sound of an organ from the depths below him – someone had started to play the same old melody. With amazement he realised the coincidence, even though he had discovered long ago that one could not escape one’s fate, that there was no way of climbing out of one’s own life. However much one tried to convince oneself of the contrary, it was impossible to start afresh, or return to the point where one went astray. The most one could hope for was to stand on the summit – if one managed to reach it – and view the landscape one had passed through on one’s travels and try to descry within it what had so far eluded one’s gaze; one could also raise one’s eyes to the heavens which one had forgotten. And steel oneself for the deed one had postponed for years, or which one never believed could be achieved.

  He also knew by now that one would never find freedom in this world – however perfect were the laws and however great one’s control over the world and people – unless one found it in oneself. And nobody could endow one with moral grandeur if it was not born in one’s soul, just as nobody could release one from one’s bonds if one did not cast off the shackles of one’s own making.

  Perhaps he had managed to do just that: to cast off the shackles which he had grown so used to over the years that by now he regarded them as a need, as part of his own nature. Now, whatever the future might bring, he felt a sense of relief: for the first time in his life he was not requiring something better or different from the world or other people, he was requiring it of himself.

  The sun went behind a cloud and the shaft of light disappeared. The organ fell silent too. The landscape outside sank into the shade and the forest on the horizon went dark.

  He was making his way through that forest, his pack on his back, striding between the trunks of century-old beeches, oaks and pines, alone in a strange wood, neither followed nor pursued by anyone, clambering over the gentle slopes of sand dunes.

  Night was falling, it was time to pitch a tent from his two blankets and cut himself a slice from his loaf of bread. He sat down under a tree and felt good. He was running away from no one, renouncing no one, not intending to abandon anyone or bind anyone to him, and least of all did he want to judge anyone.