My Crazy Century

by Ivan Klíma

  For a moment I succumbed to misplaced hopes. At once I was ashamed that I had hesitated for almost a month before coming back, while my friends had been resisting the occupiers as much as they could.

  *

  A few days after our return, after the children had gone to bed, Helena said she had something to tell me. It had been such a difficult time, I was so far away, and when she called me it seemed I was even farther away. She needed someone to come to her aid, someone to lean on, someone to draw comfort and strength from. And Jirka, the student we took to Brno, had tried to help her as much as he could. Now that we were back together, she didn’t know what to do—at least she was telling me about it. One has to live in truth no matter how painful it might be.

  I too confessed with whom I’d been in London.

  We offered each other no reproaches. We both started to perceive that a time was drawing near when the only certainty (if there was such a thing in life) would be our loved ones. We put aside our infidelities, at least from our conversations. Despite all the dejection we were experiencing, we were both glad to be home.

  Life, which I had been watching from afar, quickly pulled us back into its quotidian embrace.

  The Writers’ Union had decided to reestablish the weekly under the new name Listy. I returned to my office and for the first issue wrote a prefatory column, which I named after Viktor Dyk’s famous poem, “If You Leave Me.”

  I wrote about my feelings over the course of those emotion-filled postoccupation days while I was abroad. I wrote about what the word “homeland” meant to me.

  To hear! Unable to give ear to my native language, to words that opened the world from the depths of the first darkness?

  . . . Of course you can speak any language, you can order dinner and debate politics or the overcrowding of cities in English or Spanish, but can you express your love, can you do this in a language that is not your own?

  And I said to myself: My lover, my little duckling, my little doe, my little fawn, my sweetheart, snowdrop of spring daybreak, little skirt full of tenderness, princess of my wakefulness, my petite starry-eyed dove, my graceful goddess, my love, is it possible you are no longer mine? Is it possible that I will abandon you, that I will renounce you, the only one who can thrill me with tenderness? . . . Then I realized: What a terrible world it is in which you can choose between a homeland that promises suffering and the suffering that afflicts those who choose to renounce their homeland. And I said to myself: The only human prerogative is the right to choose, even if it is between two sorrows. I do not know which is greater, but I know that in the first case I will not remain alone, I will remain in it and with you, my friends.

  The column was overwrought, even sentimental, but it was understandable given a time of such intensified feelings. Perhaps this was the reason that, of all my articles, this one had the greatest response among readers. I received letters from people telling me that they had clipped out the column and sent it to loved ones abroad who were hesitating to return. Perhaps I convinced a few to come back. Later I felt this as a commitment, a choice I had to validate through my own behavior.

  Many of my friends, however, opted for emigration. Six from our offices left immediately after the occupation. Igor Hájek, with whom I had listened to Prague radio in London, remained in Britain as well.

  Although most of the politicians who had garnered popularity and trust retained their positions and enjoyed the support of the citizens, I noticed the atmosphere in the country changing day by day, and I had no illusions that anything would halt this progression. An army of a hundred thousand soldiers from a totalitarian power did not invade our country in order to help build a democratic regime. We also had no doubts that those who had until recently held power and then lost it in the spring must come back to life after the occupation; it was only a question of how soon.

  My friends and I discussed what could still be preserved. On the last day of October we met at the Writers’ Club, and beneath the banner “Prague Writers,” we adopted a resolution. We announced support of the politics of the Prague Spring, which had chosen a trajectory on the basis of socialism and protested the fact that this period was beginning to be referred to as the advent of counterrevolution. The resolution warned against a politics of compromise: The real tragedy of Czechoslovakia would come to pass if compromises overwhelmed the genuine import of our battle and only the name of the democratic process remained. The text pointed out that censorship was already being reinstated; people who had earned the trust of the citizens were leaving government and were being replaced by those who have squandered their moral credit. The prepared economic reforms were not being instituted. It is unacceptable to reconcile oneself with the idea that the presence of foreign troops on our territory has been legalized with no time limitation.

  The resolution ended with an impassioned appeal to Jan Hus. We recall that if anyone, after many years, had preserved the character and resolve of the Czech nation and saved it from ruin, it was the man who said: I do not recant.

  We printed the text in the first issue of Listy; in the same issue was a less eloquent but bitingly ironic poem by Václav Havel:

  WE DO NOT DECLARE!

  WE DEMAND!

  WE STAND!

  WE WILL NOT RELENT!

  WE CHALLENGE!

  WE PROMISE!

  WE DO NOT BETRAY!

  WE REFUSE!

  WE WILL NOT PERMIT!

  WE DENY!

  WE CONDEMN!

  WE WILL ENDURE!

  WE WILL NOT DISAPPOINT!

  WE WILL NOT RELENT!

  WE WILL NOT ACCEPT!

  Hm . . .

  *

  At the beginning of November 1968, I received a registered letter from the Mendelssohn Theatre in Ann Arbor. The director would be staging my play The Castle on December 3 and would be very pleased if I could take part in the premiere; my travel and accommodations, of course, would be reimbursed.

  The prospect of spending several days in America and escaping the depressing environment of an occupied country thrilled me. Surprisingly, it was easier to get an exit permit from the Czech offices at that time than to obtain an American visa. The Americans, more or less since the period of McCarthyism, were displaying (and justifiably so) a significant amount of distrust toward anyone who had been in the Communist Party. Nevertheless, I managed to secure a visa without great difficulty. The relevant offices apparently did not suspect me of working as an agent of the Czech Secret Service.

  On the last day of November, I boarded a plane with a feeling of wonder at what fate had prepared for me and set out on my overseas journey.

  At the New York City airport, my translator, Mrs. Ruthka, a kindly and demure woman, was waiting for me. She drove me to her large home in Roslyn Heights, where she and her family lived: her diminutive husband, a somewhat eccentric son—a mathematical genius—a quiet daughter, and a lazy, shaggy mongrel with the philosophical name Plato.

  Mrs. Ruthka confided to me that my Castle was her first attempt at translation. She had never presumed to undertake anything like this, and then she started asking me about various linguistic subtleties that she’d discovered in my play. I was taken aback by her questions because the premiere was in three days, and I assumed it was too late for textual alterations. The next day we walked around New York, a city that seemed to have been relocated here from some utopian vision. Then we both got on a plane to Detroit.

  At the airport I was welcomed like a genuine author (till then I was astonished that anyone would take me seriously as a writer). Waiting for me were the head of the theater and the director, a small, slightly rotund Jewish woman, Mrs. Marcella Cisney, who hailed from one of the Baltic countries, which at the time enjoyed the inauspicious privilege of belonging to the Soviet Union.

  I learned that the university theater in Ann Arbor was one of the few American theaters that had a permanent ensemble. The company considered The Castle a remarkable comedy (they spoke about my play w
ith polite exaggeration), and they were delighted that they would be the first to produce it in America. Nevertheless, the director wanted to go over a few passages where she had some recommendations to pare down the dialogue.

  We checked in at the hotel, and the translator and I set off for the theater, which surprised me with its conservative stateliness. And while the actors were getting ready to rehearse, the director brought the script to go over her proposed deletions.

  It slowly dawned on us what had happened. My pleasant and inexperienced translator had thought that in several places the allusions would be incomprehensible to an American audience and had added explanatory lines, which threw off the tempo of the play as well as the style and speech of the characters.

  When we came to the fifth such interpolation, the director could hold back no longer and started screaming at poor Mrs. Ruthka until she burst out crying, and I tried to calm down both of them. They would simply leave out these insertions; the actors could certainly manage that by the premiere.

  None of us suspected what still awaited The Castle.

  The actor, with the beautifully literary name Henderson Forsythe, who was supposed to play the scientist Emil was struck with a heart attack on the very day of the opening. None of the available actors dared try to learn the role in the few remaining hours, and so it was played by the stage manager, who walked about the stage with the director’s script and simply read the lines. I sat in the audience, sweating in terror. I thought the play was ruined and wanted to flee the theater.

  The audience, however, considered this stage improvisation an unusual variation and gave the young unknown writer from a country just occupied by the Soviet Union lengthy applause, whether out of commiseration or politeness.

  After the play there was a small reception. The actors praised the director and the play, while I praised the actors and the director, and then we all sent a telegram to Mr. Forsythe at the hospital. The director had already forgiven my translator for her additions; she even praised Mrs. Ruthka and said that otherwise the translation read well. She also praised the university, claiming it was one of the best public universities in the country, especially the law and medical schools, which were world famous. Then the chair of the Slavic department congratulated me and asked, as if in passing, if I’d be interested in teaching Czech language and literature next year. I was so taken aback by his offer that I didn’t know what to say. I’d never taught Czech language and literature in my life, but he must have assumed, or most likely he had no idea, that I’d studied these two areas. He noticed my perplexity and said of course I didn’t have to answer right away; I could let him know my decision before I left.

  A little while later, Professor Ladislav Matějka, who had fled Prague twenty years earlier and was now teaching in the Slavic department, stopped by. I told him about the offer I’d been given, and he asked, “Did you discuss the salary? My friend,” he instructed me, “you cannot reply if you don’t know the salary.” Then he added that the department must offer me at least twelve hundred dollars a month. He also told me that now, because of everything that was happening, students were expressing extraordinary interest in Czech. I would definitely have plenty of grateful students. As far as teaching the language was concerned, I wouldn’t have to bother myself too much; it would just be some language exercises, since Czech was an elective course.

  Then a man appeared who informed me that Henry Ford had also been at the performance, but unfortunately he couldn’t attend the reception. He would consider it an honor, however, if the three ladies and I (the third lady was my aunt Ilonka, who had come from Toronto) could join him for lunch tomorrow at his Detroit office.

  The next day an extremely well-dressed secretary, or perhaps a bodyguard, led us to a door with a glass panel bearing the inscription HENRY FORD III.

  Mr. Henry Ford the Third took us out onto a small terrace with a beautiful view of the ugly city. He spoke politely about my play, asked about conditions in our country, and then said what a shame it was that our market had been closed for so many years. Of course, this had little effect on him because our market wasn’t very significant; instead we were harming ourselves because without competition the production of any sort of artifact of human labor starts to lag behind significantly. When we’d finished eating and were drinking coffee, Mr. Ford asked if we’d be interested in visiting his manufacturing plant. Then he called the man who had escorted us here and bade us farewell.

  The most captivating thing for me about our meeting was that for the first time in my life I had met a genuine big-time capitalist. The director, the translator, and my aunt were thrilled. They felt we had been shown a great honor: This rich and powerful man had devoted so much of his precious time to us.

  The next day I went to see the departmental chair.

  He greeted me and said I must be curious about the conditions of the position. It was proposed that I teach a literary seminar four hours a week along with the same number of language-teaching hours. My pay would be twelve hundred dollars a month. Would this be acceptable?

  I said it would be and thanked him.

  We shook hands, and he asked if I would be coming with my family. I said I would have to consult with them, but they would almost certainly be coming along.

  Back home, when I announced I had accepted an offer to teach at the University of Michigan and that, of course, we would all be going, Michal expressed the greatest interest. He asked if there were Indians living in Michigan, and when I admitted I hadn’t seen any, he looked disappointed. I quickly added that there were still many Indian tribes in such a large country, and perhaps we’d go see them. They would have school vacations there as well, which we would take advantage of to travel around America. My son wanted to know if that meant he would have to attend school, and when I said of course he would, he asked if they taught in Czech.

  I explained that he would be going to a local American school.

  The idea that he would have to attend a school where he wouldn’t understand a word almost made him cry. Hana, on the other hand, was most excited about flying in a plane and seeing the ocean. My wife didn’t say anything. At night when the children were asleep, she asked if I had thought this through. If we really did leave, weren’t we betraying our friends? I objected that many of our friends had left with the apparent intention of not returning, and no one had considered it betrayal. We were just going there for two semesters. It was an extraordinary opportunity to get to know another way of life, for me an opportunity to do something completely different, and for the children an opportunity to learn English.

  She asked what opportunity awaited her.

  No obvious answer came to mind except the fact that she would have the chance to live in a free country and, at least for a little while, escape an environment that was becoming more and more oppressive.

  “And what if everything changes here, and we won’t be able to come back?”

  “If it gets that bad, we’ll be glad we were gone.”

  “You think I’d leave my mother and father here?”

  “Then we’ll come back,” I said angrily (and presciently); “they’ll always let us in, just not out.”

  *

  There was more and more work at the editorial offices, and because so many experienced editors had emigrated, it seemed silly, or even indecent, to leave. Also, I was frightened by the idea that over the course of the next six months I would have to prepare, as responsibly as possible, at least forty two-hour lectures in English on a subject I had indeed studied, but for twelve years—with the exception of several months spent writing my monograph on Karel Čapek—had had nothing to do with.

  On January 16 I took an unpaid vacation and promised that if the editors considered it necessary, I would be glad to write an article.

  It only gradually dawned on me what sort of task I had taken on in Ann Arbor.

  I studied at a time when all science and scholarship, including literary history and criticism,
had become tarnished by Marxist exegetes. Instead of literary values, they appreciated revolution and class origin. They didn’t even mention our greatest Czech authors, or, if they did, it was only in order to censure them.

  I also realized that many of the authors who were promoted held only local significance at best. During the period when Lope de Vega, Shakespeare, and Molière were writing, theater was practically nonexistent in the Czech lands. Only two centuries later did Václav Klicpera and Josef Tyl undertake their naive comedies, primarily for a rural audience who understood only Czech. It was the same in both poetry and prose. I decided to devote myself to a handful of figures in my lectures, for example, Jan Hus, Jan Amos Komenský, and, in the modern period, Karel Hynek Mácha, Božena Němcová, Karel Havlíček Borovský, Karel Jaromír Erben, and Jan Neruda.

  From the interwar period, when Czech literature finally started to approach the level of other European literatures, I included Jaroslav Hašek, Karel Čapek, and Vladislav Vančura, as well as Franz Kafka. Although Kafka wrote in German, he was famously associated with Prague (about which he said, “This little mother has claws” because one cannot tear oneself away). Also, Kafka was the most famous of all the authors who had written in the Czech lands. There were several generations of extraordinary poets (more good poets, in fact, than prose writers), but poetry from a different country is always difficult. The translator’s abilities are much more crucial to reception.

  I also planned to discuss the literature I thought would most interest my students—that is, the work of my contemporaries.

  I prepared my lectures while corruption, which for the time being seemed far away, was slowly creeping into the country.

  Allegedly, “healthy forces” (in Communist newspeak, those who welcomed the occupation) quickly came to power. The Communist Party chose Gustáv Husák as its head. Several years earlier he had belonged to a group of prisoners sentenced to life and had escaped the gallows only because he had refused to admit to fabricated crimes under torture (he was not prosecuted for his real crimes). Thus, some believed he would resist the pressure of the occupiers (as if allowing something like this were possible).