My Crazy Century

by Ivan Klíma

  He added that he could not conceive of the present, or even the future, without socialism. Then he spoke with incomprehensible enthusiasm about some kind of Slavic standard-bearer and then about soccer.

  To endorse policies that suppressed every attempt at free creation was depressing as well as indecent. But I told myself that if by this embarrassing and blatant act of sycophancy, Hrabal was redeemed and allowed to publish—and this was the only conceivable reason for him to have done something like this—the newspaper article would be forgotten while his work would persist. Not everyone, however, was willing to accept such a justification for Hrabal’s actions. A group of admirers of the underground, under the direction of Ivan Martin Jirous, known as Madman among his friends, burned several of Hrabal’s books on Kampa Island. (This was an ostentatiously stupid act. The public burning of books, even fiction, is an expression of villainy worthy only of Nazis, Communists, Muslim fanatics, and other such bearers of barbarism.)

  Hrabal explained to his friends that they’d come to him from Tvorba themselves with the text already prepared. He tried to keep them at bay, but they harangued him and said that readers were awaiting his works, and they only wanted him to espouse his support for socialism. This couldn’t go against his own views, could it? He said he’d argued over every sentence, but they finally got the better of him and stuck in that bit about the Communist Party congress and their damn union.

  I could imagine how it had all played out. The Prince of Czech Letters was happy to believe that the nation was awaiting his books—he was also a generation older than we were, and not so long ago he had experienced the plight of the outcast. He probably didn’t think he had much time left to speak to his readers. Self-justification is not difficult. During a period when most citizens had given in, why should a writer have to play the hero?

  In one thing, however, he was mistaken. It was less significant that they had elicited from him a statement than that he had let himself be dragged into a trap which, like most traps offering a tiny morsel, deprived him of his freedom. In return for once again becoming an “approved” writer, he was forced to heed the orders of various censors, along with their superiors and subordinates, who arrogated to themselves the right to tell him what and how to write. It soon became clear what they were requesting of Hrabal, or, more precisely, what he had to accede to for his writings to reach his readers in printed form. One can find many examples in his now “official” work, but I will present one that illustrates how far the author was compelled to withdraw from his original aim.

  In one of his best prose works, The Little Town Where Time Stood Still, Hrabal has a brief scene in which his father, who was at the time a brewery owner, had to move out of his office during the Communist takeover. In the original typewritten manuscript, that is, the uncensored version, the scene reads:

  When Father had carted off the last box of pens and tiny calendars and notebooks, he opened the cupboard and took out the two round lamps, the light of which he had used to write by all those years ago, and which were ready and waiting, in case the electricity went out, the lamps with green shades, and as he was carrying them off, the workers’ director remarked, “But those lamps are listed in the brewery inventory . . . ,” and he took them out of Father’s hands. “Then I’ll buy them,” said Father softly. But the workers’ director shook his head and said in an alien voice, “You’ve raked up enough as it is, and you’ve built yourself a villa.” And when Father left the office, this was what the workers’ director had been waiting for. He took both lamps with their green shades and threw them out the window onto a pile of lumber and scrap, and the green shades and cylinders smashed to pieces and Father clutched his head and there was a crumpling sound inside, as if his brain had been smashed. “The new era’s beginning here too,” said the workers’ director and walked into his office.

  I think that in our prose, no one else had captured in such an image, so forcefully, simply, and precisely, the perverse, arrogant, and arbitrary nature of the administrators of the February Communist takeover and, in a single sentence, all the portentousness and inhumanity of that “new era.”

  In the official version, Harlequin’s Millions, Hrabal inflated this scene with a lot of words and, at the censor’s request, changed its meaning into its opposite:

  And when he came back for the rest of his things, he took from the wardrobe two old oil lamps with rounded wicks, the lamps that hummed when they were lit and gave such warmth to the writer’s hands, so the workers’ director said, “But those lamps aren’t yours, they’re in the brewery inventory that we’ve just taken over.” Francin felt a prick in his heart, turned red, and said, “Then I’ll buy them, these lamps are witness of my good old times when I was happy.” But the director insisted. “These lamps aren’t yours. You’ve raked up enough as it is, and you’ve built yourself a villa while we had to live by begging. Just remember the servants’ room in the brewery where your own brother, Mr. Pepin, had a bunk next to the maltster Mára, just think about our children living in hovels where in winter the water froze in the pots on the stove, just remember how you took such care not to make anyone on the board angry. But in the end, what do you think, comrades? We’ll be generous and let you have the lamps as memorials to your good old times.” Francin carried out his last things, but the director called after him when he was in the courtyard, “Because those good old times of yours will never return.”

  History provides countless examples of people recanting their beliefs before an inquisition and later privately adding, “And yet it moves!” In place of such a postscript, Hrabal would sometimes send his uncensored versions again to samizdat.

  Essay: Self-Criticism, p. 517

  18

  As the pages of my novel accumulated, my original joke about a thousand-page book stopped being a joke; at the same time I began to fear that the marauding search team might invade again and this time confiscate my manuscript and thereby lay waste to the result of almost two years of work. I was tempted to type up the unfinished manuscript in several copies, which I would then hide with various friends. But as soon as I finished the manuscript (if I ever finished it), I would start making the final corrections, rendering the typed copy pointless. Finally, I took everything I had written to my father-in-law, who was happy to hide it among a pile of old magazines.

  My manuscript worries were not the only thing troubling me. My writer’s insurance had been canceled, and from that moment I was considered a parasite according to Socialist laws, especially since I could not demonstrate a legal income. It was just another way to make the lives of my wife, my children, and myself more unpleasant. Nanda had already finished elementary school, and my “parasitism” and “antisocialist” stance might jeopardize her further studies. She was an excellent artist, and we’d heard that the graphic arts school in Žížkov was very good. It was not out of the question that she would be accepted if she aced the entrance exam. Two of our acquaintances taught at the school, and one of them promised to give Nanda drawing lessons to prepare her for the test.

  But our daughter started complaining that she had to keep drawing chairs, boxes, wrinkled rags, and her relatives’ faces over and over. Her drawings, we were assured, were getting better and better and something truly unforeseen would have to happen for her not to be accepted.

  Around that time, Zdeněk Miler stopped by. He was the kind, good-natured author of the popular animated cartoon Krtek. We had been neighbors and friends for quite some time, and our families had gone camping together in the Tatra Mountains.

  Zdeněk came with an offer of work. German television had ordered several five-minute films featuring Krtek. I could write a couple of screenplays, he would conceal my name under his, and I’d earn a few crowns.

  His offer appealed to me. It wasn’t only the money; I needed to publish something legitimately without undergoing some sort of self-criticism. It would help Nanda get into the school, and I could try to renew my writer’s insurance. I ex
plained this to Zdeněk and admitted that it would be difficult to get my name past the overseers. I’d be very obliged, however, if he would try.

  Zdeněk didn’t hesitate for a moment and said he would give it his best shot.

  I wrote seven brief screenplays, and Zdeněk took them to the studios. To my amazement, they were accepted, and I was to stop by to sign a contract.

  Even today I’m not sure how this happened. The regime was thorough in this area. Anyone who appeared on a secret list of prohibited writers could not publish a single word. How was I suddenly and undeservedly an exception? One explanation is that I have an ordinary name, and those who had approved the screenplays (if they’d even ever heard of me) must have assumed it belonged to one of my namesakes. Another explanation, however, was more likely. After the Soviet occupation, a man with a very dark past—and apparently with the rank of colonel—took over as the studio’s director. It was difficult to tell, but perhaps he’d had an attack of conscience or perhaps he was trying to demonstrate his own independence and disdain for the official obstinacy with regard to artists. He provided many prohibited or persecuted artists either full-time employment or other work opportunities.

  Then I was called before the doctors’ commission so my recommendation for a partial invalid stipend could be evaluated. The members did indeed treat me considerately and inquired about my stay in Terezín. When they learned I had spent three and a half years there, they admitted that my state of health could be attributed to that.

  My partial disability pension was approved. It came to 630 crowns, which wasn’t something I could live on for more than a few days, but it was a legal income, which shielded me from charges of parasitism. I think the doctors knew what they were doing but pretended they had no idea who I was.

  *

  I soon finished the manuscript of my novel, or at least I thought so. I had never undertaken such an extensive work. I combined a great number of experiences I had lived through or heard secondhand or invented out of whole cloth.

  However, I was still uncertain whether I was leading my characters to despair. What could they actually discover in a world that was still running wild and in which people were looking for a way to fill the void, a way to escape the hopelessness of their own destinies? On the final pages, I tried to show what my hero had discovered as an answer—an answer for both of us.

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

  I recognized that this was not particularly original; I was doubtless influenced by Karel Čapek (who had been influenced by Masaryk), who repeatedly tried to point out that if a person doesn’t know what to do with himself, he will long to change the world. But this had been my experience in life as well: In the name of magnificent ideals, a person will lose himself, his conscience, and his freedom. If he pulls himself together and realizes this, he will never again dare to return to self-deception, no matter how merciful it pretends to be. If a person wants somehow to participate in the fate of the world, of society, of other people, he must first of all take responsibility for himself and his own actions.

  I began to type up my handwritten novel, and when I was nearing page 950, I started to sense a childlike excitement. I drew out the last pages a little by adding a few nonessential sentences, and when I reached the final page, it was with a feeling of exhilaration that I wrote the number 1,000. I had fulfilled my promise and written a thousand pages. I had proved to myself that I was a “professional.” At the journal, when I was supposed to write an article of sixty lines, I wrote exactly sixty. This time I had promised a thousand pages and had written precisely a thousand. But I wasn’t able to think of a title. Finally, I chose a not very cheerful line from a song: There Stands a Gallows.

  With both eagerness and impatience, I lent my copies to friends.

  Apparently my manuscript preoccupied them a little too much, and they started discussing it, because once again, I received a summons for an interrogation at the dimly lit offices of State Security on Bartolomějská Street.

  The interrogation began with the usual query: Did I know why I was here? Because my examiner already knew the answer, he immediately asked what I had recently published in samizdat.

  I said I had no idea what he was talking about.

  He meant the series we referred to as Padlock.

  I said I knew of no such series, and unfortunately I was prohibited from publishing. My last novel had been a love story, which I’d proposed to several different publishers who had all replied in the same way: It didn’t fit into their publishing plans.

  “On the other hand, it fit extraordinarily well into the plans of Mr. Braunschweiger abroad, isn’t that right?”

  When I gave no answer, he posed another question. “What else are you planning to publish?”

  I was now a little more experienced so I said I was not going to answer, since I did not consider him a representative of an enterprise that published imaginative literature.

  Then he went straight to the point. “We have learned that you’ve composed a long novel possessing the character of antisocialist agitation. What do you have to say to that?”

  I said I had nothing. Or rather: I have never occupied myself with agitation because I find it repellent.

  He asked if that was true. I said it was.

  “Fine, if that’s what you think. But you must admit that a reader might perceive your novel as an attack against our system!”

  I said that I was not responsible for the perception of every reader, and novels were not written to attack anything. A novel is not propaganda, ideology, or agitation. A novel is an artistic work that can be good or bad. I had nothing more to say about it.

  To my surprise, he recited the following monologue: “We are not here to judge the caliber of your work. It is apparently well written and of high quality. But its contents are antisocialist, and we are here to prevent the dissemination of such works. I am warning you that if you publicize this work of yours called There Stands a Gallows, either abroad or in so-called samizdat, you will be in contravention of our laws and must be prepared to accept the consequences that such an action would bring.”

  Then he had me sign a document containing nothing more than this exhortation.

  I said I would sign only with the addendum that I did not agree with such an evaluation of my novel. “Fine,” he said, “but I would like to point out that this addendum of yours will not help you in the least when it comes to considering your responsibility in this matter.”

  After this warning, I decided to send the manuscript abroad as soon as I could and make as many copies as possible. My decision to secure copies, however, was somewhat hampered by the manuscript’s extensive size. I sent the manuscript to Jürgen through a Swedish diplomat who was generously assisting us smuggle out our manuscripts and in return bringing back freshly printed books. So that I not become too conceited, an urgent request arrived a few weeks later from Jürgen that should I shorten the novel by at least a third, or a half, at best. He wrote that readers wanted novels but not thick epics like mine. Furthermore, he thought the title was bad if only because no one abroad knew the song from which it had been taken. He suggested the title Judge on Trial.

  *

  A person enters adulthood with many resolutions, expectations, scruples, and prejudices. During the time I am recalling, almost everything in which one could place one’s expectations either had been made difficult or was forbidden. All higher goals had been degraded and disgraced. Surprisingly, it seemed that immorality, or at least insincerity within personal relationships, was acceptable to the reigning immoral authorities. So it was easy to persuade oneself that, at least in this area of life, on
e was not restricted any more than anywhere else in the world, perhaps even less. At least in one area of our lives we were free: Men and women took lovers. The government tolerated it just as it tolerated the battering of its citizens. The gremlins in the cadre offices cared more about relationships within the collective than their relationships to their own partners or children. Infidelity, therefore, was often limited only by material circumstances: a dearth of apartments or money.

  I loved my wife and children, but I fell in love again—this time with Helena’s colleague. She came to visit me and said she wanted to talk about my novel. She’d even copied out several quotes on index cards. Of course I was flattered; I was still too young to realize the futility of vanity.

  We met several times before we started something. She was nine years younger, slender, with auburn hair; she had two little girls and was interested in Indian philosophy. She believed our fates were determined by the alignment of the planets on the day of our birth. She quickly created my horoscope, from which she determined I was a man of love but also scruples. She was interested in everything esoteric: She interpreted cards, poured lead at Christmas, read coffee grounds, and collected herbs. Whenever I suffered from some bodily ailment, she had a remedy. She was a prophetess peering down at me from another time or at least from other parts of the world.