My Crazy Century

by Ivan Klíma

  Suddenly I was seized with a feverish energy, which only concealed my feeling of helplessness.

  I ran out into the street in a vain attempt to escape reality. Behind the windshield wiper of my car I saw a note. To my amazement, it was from my colleague Igor Hájek, who worked at the foreign desk of our paper. He’d been in London several days, but had no idea where to find me until he saw my car. He was staying not far from here and included the address. He added: I’ve got a transistor radio and can get Prague. Come.

  I can still see the small room crammed with furniture. Everything was immaculate, and in the middle of the room a wire stretched from wall to wall, compensating for, or rather amplifying, the antenna. There we were, two men from a Prague newspaper that had once again been silenced. Against all odds we had met in this city of several million and were sitting by a small radio receiver that was, with variable signal strength and intermittent comprehensibility, informing us about what was happening in the streets of Prague: Tanks were headed toward the radio station, and there were the first dead.

  I asked him if we should go back right away, and he in turn asked if I was crazy.

  The next morning Olga carefully made herself up once again, and as she was preparing to go out the door told me not to worry about her. She would take care of herself. I set off for our embassy.

  For the time being they had no special instructions from Czechoslovakia and were just copying important documents. On the night of August 21, the president of the republic announced very briefly: Troops from the USSR, PRP, PRB, NDR, and HPR invaded the territory of our country. This occurred without the agreement of the institutional organs of our state which, however, must quickly resolve the situation and achieve the removal of foreign troops in accordance with its responsibility to the people of our nation. And he added that for us there is no way back. The next announcement was issued by the presidium of the Communist Party, which considered the act of military intervention to be not only inimical to all principles of the relationships among Socialist countries, but a repudiation of the fundamental standards of international law.

  The foreign minister, Jiří Hájek, flew back from Yugoslavia, where he’d been vacationing, and quickly went to the Security Council, where he apparently spoke with greater fervor and rejected the Soviet claim that the troops had invaded upon the invitation of our officials.

  No such request was ever issued. I speak with emotion, sadness, and sorrow of the tragic occupation of my country for which the governments of Socialist countries are responsible, who, without regard for fundamental mutual relationships, without regard to the contractually established bilateral and multilateral obligations, resorted to force and occupied militarily the territory of Czechoslovakia on the night of the 20th to the 21st of August. This is an act of force that cannot be justified in any way.

  This unexpectedly candid condemnation of aggression, by a minister who at other times and at similar meetings always obediently supported the Soviet position, had a galvanizing effect.

  I asked at the embassy if they had any new information. They didn’t. Our delegation was at a meeting in Moscow, which was most likely involuntary. The people were expressing their support of the government so spontaneously that the Soviets had obviously been caught off guard. I was told to come back tomorrow when they might have more information. (The Western powers behaved precisely the way my English colleague Neal had anticipated.)

  Back in my transient home, where I didn’t feel at home in the least, I once again tried to call my wife. Finally I heard her voice. She wanted to know what I was planning to do. Our daughter and parents were in Prague; we had to return. She said she was in charge of the whole group and was responsible for their care. Some were hesitating; others had already refused to go back. She would stay for a few days until things cleared up. Then she added, “The Israelis are surprised we didn’t fight back, but otherwise they’ve been wonderful. They offered everyone asylum and understood that no one felt like working on the kibbutz right now.” I asked what Michal was doing, and Helena said he was playing with the other children. I promised to call again, and when I hung up I realized we hadn’t shared any kind words between us, not even that we would stand by each other or that we loved one another.

  *

  All Czechs and Slovaks in England who hadn’t yet found work were entitled to collect unemployment compensation. Olga managed to find a job as a waitress in some sort of exclusive club. When I asked her how that was possible, since she didn’t know English, she said she already understood a little and was learning quickly. She also said the club was at the other end of the city and had offered her free lodging. If I didn’t mind, she’d move in right away.

  So the next morning we said goodbye. She gave me her new address, kissed me, and said, “I just hope you won’t leave me here when you go back.”

  Janet called and told me to stop by. We would go together to the appropriate offices so I could receive my unemployment benefits. I objected that I still had money left, and it was embarrassing to collect unemployment when I was able to work. Besides, I wanted to go home. But Janet took me anyway to some social office, where I filled out several forms and questionnaires, and to my amazement I was immediately given four hundred pounds and told to return in a week. This was very generous of the British government, but I still felt like a beggar rather than an exile, and I decided I wouldn’t collect more money. Since I was delayed here, I would have to earn it. But what did I know how to do except write or edit books and articles? And my English wasn’t good enough.

  It occurred to me to go to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, where my Castle was to have been produced, and ask if they could stage the play now, since it had acquired a new topicality. I was received by the theater’s director, an older gentleman who politely asked about my situation. In a sudden outburst of emotion, I tried to explain what had happened, why foreign troops had invaded our country. I also told him that my wife and son were at present in Israel, while my young daughter had remained in Prague. I couldn’t imagine what was going to happen next or if we’d ever see each other again. Because of the tension of the last few days, my nerves were shot; all at once I couldn’t go on and almost broke down in tears.

  The director nodded sympathetically and told me the theater schedule had been planned a year in advance. He could perhaps consider Castle, but he had something better in mind. What if I wrote a new play about what I was now going through? We could make a contract on the spot, and he’d write out a check right there as an advance. Then he wished me all the best for both myself and my family.

  I left with a check for fifty pounds and once again felt like a panhandler. (I never cashed the check and several weeks later, back in Prague, I put it into an envelope and returned it with many thanks and a feeling of relief.)

  *

  Neal called. He was going to Prague for a few days and wondered if I wanted him to bring anything or to pass on any messages—as if it were obvious I wouldn’t be back for a long time. I didn’t know what to say. I gave him the address of Helena’s parents and asked him to send them my love and find out how they were doing and what sort of danger they were expecting. An English rain was falling outside, and I realized I didn’t have an overcoat, and if I was going to defer my return for a while, it would be difficult to get one here. He assured me he would bring back my coat.

  A day or two later a man called, introducing himself as Karel Baum. He spoke perfect Czech and said he’d learned about me from Ruth Willard, my American translator, who was also his relative. He informed me that she was in negotiations with a theater in Ann Arbor to produce my Castle. But he was calling primarily to find out what my plans were for the immediate future.

  I explained that I wanted to go back home; I was just waiting for my wife to return from Israel.

  “That’s a praiseworthy resolution,” he said, “but you must realize that occupation is occupation, and the first people to be taken away would be the Jews and the intellig
entsia.” In the meantime, he suggested, I could live with them. As their guest, of course. He could imagine my situation. He’d experienced something similar when fleeing Hitler. He asked for my current address and was pleased to learn it was around the corner. Without even waiting for a response, he said he’d be over in half an hour to help me carry my things.

  So I moved into his home in Hampstead Heath. I was put in the guest room with a bookcase. I remember only one of the books, Mission to Moscow by Joseph E. Davies, the American ambassador to Moscow from 1936 to 1938. The book mentioned the political trials that took place during that time in Moscow, and although the ambassador had his doubts, it didn’t seem possible to him that it had all been staged. Not very encouraging reading for someone who was resolved to return to a country occupied by the Soviet army.

  When I called Helena again, I mentioned that I had moved and asked her what she thought we should do. She said that in situations like this it was up to the man to decide. She and several members of her group were staying in the kibbutz, but others had made up their minds not to go back. A notary had prepared for her free of charge all the papers necessary to get our daughter permission to leave Czechoslovakia. And a distant relative in Israel who was a pilot promised he would get Nanda out, legally or otherwise.

  I went to the embassy and learned they were organizing a meeting of Czechoslovak citizens, especially students, of whom there were several hundred in London. The participants were certainly going to ask what they should do—stay or go back. Did I want to say anything to them?

  The meeting took place the next day in a hall. More than two hundred people showed up. The speakers, even a handful who had experienced the occupation at home, took turns. According to some, nothing essentially had changed, and the reform policies would continue. The Soviet troops had withdrawn to some military areas and had obviously received orders not to interfere in anything. According to others, the occupiers were firing wildly into the crowds. They did not recommend going back.

  Then I was given an opportunity to speak. I, who could judge everything that had been happening only from afar. On the other hand, I belonged to the editorial board of a newspaper that embodied what the occupiers had come to suppress and silence for good. I said I could not give advice to anyone; each was responsible for his own decision, for his own life. At home we had begun a struggle to reinstate fundamental freedoms, and this struggle would continue even though an entire army had been dispatched to suppress it. And that in precisely this situation every decent person would be needed, everyone who wants, despite what has happened, to live in a free country. I ended by saying that I had friends at home fighting for this, and I thought it would be a betrayal if I did not return.

  I don’t know what effect my speech had. But years later in a tram, a young man approached me and said, “You don’t know me, but after your speech in London I decided to come back.” That’s all he said, and I didn’t ask if he was reproaching or thanking me.

  *

  Even though only fourteen days had passed since that night of August 21, I felt time was passing unbearably slowly. I sat in the Baums’ guest room and read the documents that the appallingly naive Mr. Davies had been sending to Washington. I also read the Daily Telegraph, which kept putting news from Czechoslovakia on the front page. But I could not rid myself of the feeling that I was living here like a sponger who only took and had nothing to offer.

  I at least bought a few sheets of paper and started to write. My host offered me the use of his typewriter (it was lacking diacritical marks, but had the é and á). I hoped to write the drama for which I’d received the generous advance, though in my state of mind, I couldn’t create more than an exceedingly transparent metaphor for what had happened at home.

  A Bridegroom for Marcela was an extended dark anecdote, just long enough for a one-act play. The hero, whom I named Kliment, is called to an office and informed by an official that he would be glad to approve his request to marry a certain Marcela. Kliment is amazed because he knows the girl only by sight. At first confidently but then more and more desperately, he tries to explain that there’s been some misunderstanding. The official stands his ground and tells Kliment that he is simply helping him achieve happiness. It turns out that the truth has no relation to the actual facts, but rather relates to what the official claims. While trying to convince Kliment, the official employs everything the hero objects to and provides false witnesses. Finally he alleges that the girl is expecting a child by Kliment. The play ends with brutal coercion, and the hero breaks down and dies.

  His two torturers lift up the corpse, and the official says, almost with sadness, You see, Mr. Kliment, you could have been happy if you’d only wanted to. . . . Sometimes I wonder if we’re doing all this in vain. People simply do not want to be happy. . . . But this does not relieve us of the responsibility to serve them.

  Before I had time to take the play to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Neal returned from Prague. He had brought me my green Hubertus overcoat and told me all of my friends and loved ones, including my daughter, were safe. He added that in his opinion there was no threat of danger in the near future. They were not locking anyone up, and the same politicians who had led the renewal process were still in charge of the country and the party. During the first days, the Soviets had shot a few dozen people, but it had apparently not been upon any order from higher up. Considering it had been a violent invasion by an army of a hundred thousand, the number of victims was insignificant. Some Prague citizens had shown Neal bullet holes in the walls of the National Museum and the radio station as well as many placards and inscriptions, which of course he didn’t understand. They were all apparently demanding that the Russians leave immediately, and often they invoked Lenin, which seemed to him somewhat illogical.

  When I asked him if he thought the Soviets would really withdraw, he smiled and said, Armies of superpowers obtain territory to stay there, not to abandon it again. You’ll have to reconcile yourself to this.

  I thanked him for everything and said I was going back.

  When I called Helena, she said we should have returned a long time ago. She suggested we meet in Vienna and gave me the name of a hotel where she hoped we could go over everything in peace.

  *

  As soon as I’d made the decision, I was relieved. I wouldn’t have to hand over my play, which I thought the director would find difficult to stage in the theater bearing the name of the great dramatist.

  I still had to say goodbye to Janet and my colleague Hájek, who was still refusing to return. I also had to go see Olga, since I’d promised not to abandon her.

  She was living in a tiny room at the bottom of a few steps, and if the window was open, anyone could crawl in from the street. We kissed, and she told me what it was like working as a waitress in a restaurant where only bankers smoked and drank whiskey and soda. They behaved quite genially, but they were more interested in the stock market reports than in her. Then she embraced me and said she’d missed me and hadn’t made love to anyone during these three whole weeks.

  In the middle of September we set off on our return trip.

  I was out of money, so we dozed for a while in the car. At daybreak we drove along a completely empty highway somewhere in eastern France. After a couple of weeks on an island, I was hurtling along on the left side of the road, and owing only to the presence of mind of an oncoming French driver we were not killed in a collision.

  I arrived in Vienna alone. Olga had gotten out in Nuremburg and taken the train home. I met my wife at the reception desk of the hotel. Michal was rejoicing over our reunion and was eager to see his sister, grandmother, grandfather, and classmates. Helena introduced me to a young man named Jirka who was also returning from Israel to his home in Brno. He was certain I remembered him. He was one of the student leaders who’d been thrown out of school for political activity a couple of years ago. We had written about him in our newspaper. But I didn’t remember him.

  Jirka
had an interesting face, very serious but at the same time kindly, with something obstinate in his expression. Of course, I offered to take him to Brno.

  Our hotel room was large. Besides an extra bed for our son, there was an enormous double bed. Helena and I lay beside each other almost as if in embarrassment. I embraced her and said I was exhausted. She said she was tired too and stretched out beside me, and we both fell fast asleep.

  The next morning we got into the car and set off for our homeland. Michal, usually not very talkative, saw that the adults for some reason didn’t feel like talking and started telling me about the kibbutz school, various farmwork he’d participated in, and how everyone was devastated on learning what the Russians had done.

  At the border we noticed many more cars leaving the republic than returning to it. The border guards were pleasant, almost friendly; they stamped our passports and wished us a pleasant journey.

  At home, it was as if the fatigue and tension fell away. I took my daughter into my arms, listened to how good she had been and how much she had missed us. She had even drawn a picture in which we were all there together and in color.

  No one was home at my parents’ house. My brother and his girlfriend were in Vienna and were hoping to get to England. Mother and Father had gone to Switzerland. They’d left me a message that Father had been offered a good position in a Swiss electrical engineering plant called Brown, Boveri—only for two months, but the contract would probably be extended.

  I called my friends, who promised to come by straightaway. Over the next few days I heard almost identical stories. The invaders had occupied the radio station, but the broadcasters started transmitting from hidden sites and from transmitters that had been prepared in case of war or other such crises. I learned how my colleagues had printed a special edition of our newspaper and distributed it right beneath the eyes of the Soviet soldiers, who understood nothing. Our editorial offices, where the occupiers had first burst in, were now vacant, and it was up to us to decide whether or not to renew publishing the newspaper our readers were so keenly awaiting.