by Ivan Klíma
Daniel recalls Soukup from the time he was still a member of the youth section. They met at summer camp. A fervent and even fanatical exponent of scripture, he once argued that people who did not obey the Ten Commandments could not be Christians. Martin Hájek had disputed this, saying that if that were so there would not be a single Christian left on earth. How many years ago was that? At least fifteen. People even forget what happened a week ago. Having a good memory tends to be a disadvantage.
It occurs to him that this man might actually commit murder one day. The worst thing would be that he would then demand that others should understand him. All he was doing was removing an obstacle in the way of his life.
Someone knocks and the woman architect enters. On this hot day she has decided to wear a short-sleeved blouse and a skirt that almost reaches down to her ankles. She is wearing slightly scuffed and down-at-heel canvas shoes. The skirt is black, the blouse white. She has a black fabric handbag slung across her shoulder.
She sits down in the armchair at the coffee table. ‘So, here I am,’ she announces. ‘In a moment you’ll be sorry you didn’t say you weren’t available’
‘It’s not my habit to say I’m not available.’
‘No, I suppose you can’t really. You’re not allowed to lie, are you. But you could have said you didn’t have the time. Or told me that there was nothing for me to come here for. So I really am grateful.’
‘Would you expect me to say: There’s nothing for you to come here for?’
‘No, I wouldn’t.’
‘So don’t thank me. There’s nothing to thank me for.’
‘There is. Your own flock is big enough and you’re bound to be tired of all the complaints they heap on you.’ She takes a small white handkerchief out of her handbag and fiddles with it in her fingers. All the while she stares fixedly at him. She has large eyes the colour of dark honey; he would even call them Semitic. Her gaze unnerves him.
‘There are more tiresome occupations. And I am doing this job of my own free will.’
‘But it was not at all my intention to complain. I have an interesting occupation, a faithful husband, splendid children, fantastic friends and a dear old mother. I wanted to be an actress, but then I decided to practise architecture, which I now do, a bit, at least. I’m a “happy woman”, in fact.’
‘There aren’t many happy people.’
‘Aren’t you happy?’
‘I can’t complain.’
‘Sorry, it was a stupid question. All I meant to say was that a lot of people would be happy in my situation, and I realize that fate has mostly been good to me. I ought to say the Good Lord, as I’m sitting in the manse. Is that a picture of Comenius over there?’
‘It is.’ He also has two of his old wood carvings on the shelf. He is relieved that she seems not to have noticed them.
‘Was he a member of your church?’
‘No, but that’s not really important, is it? I don’t classify people according to the church they belong to.’
‘So how do you classify them?’
‘I endeavour not to classify them at all.’
She takes a packet of cigarettes out of her handbag. ‘Would you like a cigarette?’
‘I haven’t smoked in a long time.’
‘I thought not. Will it bother you if I smoke?’
‘Not if it doesn’t bother you.’
She lights a cigarette but exhales the smoke to one side. ‘I’ll ask you the question, then. When you wrote to me about love, what did you understand by the word?’
‘There is no precise answer to that question. Everyone understands something different by the word.’
‘But what do you understand by it?’
‘Maybe the ability to sacrifice yourself for others. Or service. Or the ability to be with others when they need you’
‘That is also a service. But that kind of love is one-sided, isn’t it? If everyone wanted to be self-sacrificing and serve, there ’d be no one to sacrifice oneself for and no one to serve.’
‘It’s also a way to overcome anxiety.’
‘Anxiety about what?’
‘Loneliness. Death.’
‘But you love God first and foremost. Christ. Or am I wrong?’
‘It’s rather that He loves us. And as regards our love, I give priority to love for people. I believe that Jesus did and does likewise.’
‘What form does Jesus’s love for us take?’
‘Jesus sacrificed his life for people’s salvation.’
‘Lots of people sacrifice their lives. But that happened a long time ago. What form has it taken since then?’
‘That sacrifice still applies and prevails as it did then.’
‘How can you tell? After all, how many dreadful things have happened since then?’
‘You’re right. Some of them were so terrible they are beyond my imagination. I believe that love endures none the less.’
‘And normal human love can endure an entire lifetime?’
‘I believe it can.’
‘And you also maintain that love manifests itself when we’re with someone who needs us. I’d like to meet someone who is able to love that way.’
‘You haven’t met anyone like that yet?’
‘No, I certainly haven’t. Except my mother maybe. But I didn’t meet her. Without her I wouldn’t be here at all.’
‘Are you glad you are?’
‘Here and now, you mean?’
‘I mean, in the world.’
‘I’m glad I am here now – apart from that, I can’t say. Or rather, sometimes yes, sometimes no. And there was one occasion when I decided to stop existing altogether. Am I keeping you?’
‘No, I was expecting you, after all.’
She lights another cigarette. She has slender fingers: in that respect also she resembles his first wife.
‘When I was seventeen I used to sing in a band. That’s a long time ago. But I ought to start with something even longer ago than that. When I was a very little girl, we used to spend the summer in a little village just outside Sedlèany, if you know that part of the world. It’s not really important where it was. There was this hunchback living there, a dirty, crazy fellow who used to wear terribly muddy wellies and had black hairy arms like a gorilla. He used to kill small birds. Tiny redstarts, blackbirds, chaffinches and the like. Whenever he saw a nest in a tree he would climb up it, pull out the nestlings, wring their necks and throw them under the tree. I was terrified of him. Whenever I met him I would start to cry and my mother had to pick me up – at the age of five.’
‘And the people there let him carry on?’
‘It’s conceivable that they forbade him to do it, but they couldn’t lock him up for it, there was no law against it at the time. And maybe there isn’t one even now, although there ought to be. But I don’t expect he’s doing it any more. He’s probably dead. So when I was singing in that band – I don’t want to take up too much of your time – one lad that used to play with us on the banjo travelled as far as Mexico and brought home with him some weird horrible thing – a mushroom. It was dried, and you could eat it or smoke it, or you could make it into a tea. It tasted bitter, not at all mushroom-like. We all took some of that mushroom and afterwards everyone had beautiful, colourful visions and the urge to make love – all except me. Instead I had the most horrible dream. I wasn’t a human any more, but a nestling, and I saw that disgusting fellow climbing up towards me through the branches. And I began to be really terrified.’
Fear suddenly appears in her eyes. As she speaks she leans so near to him that he can smell her scent. Then abruptly she seizes him by the hand and squeezes it firmly, almost too tightly. Apparently I started to scream and there was no calming me down. That’s how I spoiled their mushroom party. Why did I start telling you about it? Oh, yes. It was about me never finding it easy to be in the world. Well, it isn’t, I tell you. That hunchback will suddenly jump up on to my breast and strangle me. I don’t even have to eat
any sort of mushroom any more. I simply have to wake up in the dead of night and I know that it’ll happen one day. Death will come and wring my neck and no one, but no one will save me. Am I delaying you?’
Even now, it strikes Daniel, she might be under the influence of some drug. Maybe that is why she is squeezing his hand. People flee from death. He does too, except that he has chosen a different escape route.
‘You’re not delaying me. Is that why you came? On account of that anxiety?’
‘Among other reasons. Don’t be cross with me. My husband calls me hysterical. I am a bit. But only on the odd occasion. Tell me, what sense does it all make?’ She finally releases his hand.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean life. The fact that we’re here. No, don’t tell me it’s God’s will. That that was the reason my father created me. And why do all those billions and billions of men father more and more children? That can’t be God’s will, can it? A God like that would have to have a computer in place of a head, except that a computer is incapable of love, so what use would such a God be?’
‘Don’t bother your head with questions like that. God is beyond our imagination, and so is his will.’
‘And you know he exists, even though you can’t imagine him, and even though you can’t produce convincing proof of his existence?’
‘There is so much in the world and the universe that is beyond our imagination, and yet we believe it exists. God is no more understandable than the universe, for instance, and the universe is no more understandable than God.’
‘And do you think that’s a good thing?’
‘No, I wouldn’t say so, but that’s the way it is.’
‘I’ll give it some thought. I mustn’t bother you with any more questions.’
‘It’s no bother. People are mostly afraid to ask frank questions.’
She gets up. ‘You’re not cross with me for taking up your time?’
‘I’ve no reason to be.’
‘Don’t be so polite.’ She shakes his hand.
‘Did you come by car?’
‘No, the car’s my husband’s. It was only when he took the firm’s car on that trip that I had the use of the little Japanese one. I mostly travel by bus and tram.’
‘If you’ll permit me I’ll drop you home. I owe you a long drive, don’t forget.’
‘You don’t owe me a thing,’ she says. ‘On the contrary. You had the patience to listen to my hysterical questions.’
There is a flower stall at the tram stop. He pulls up and without even switching off the engine he goes and chooses three dark-red roses and returns to the car. ‘Where do you live in Hanspaulka?’
‘You still remember? At Baba, of course. But you only need to drop me at the bus stop. It will be better that way.’ In the car she asks, ‘Do you think I might be allowed to come and bother you again some time?’
He replies that if she finds it of some benefit, then of course she may.
‘Thank you. And tell me also when it would be the least bother to you.’
‘Come some day. Whenever it suits you.’
‘Some time means never.’
‘Monday week?.’
‘Yes, Monday’s a good day. My husband usually has a meeting in the afternoon. At what time?’
‘Whatever suits you.’
‘Two o’clock, say,’ she suggests. ‘I oughtn’t to accept them from you,’ she says as he hands her the roses.
‘I don’t mean anything by it. It was just that – I had a kind of feeling of empathy when you were talking about your anxiety.’
‘It’s a long time since anyone gave me roses.’ She leans towards him and gives him a quick kiss. ‘Thank you. And don’t forsake me!’
2
Diary excerpts
Petr brought the sister of one of his former gypsy fellow prisoners to the youth meeting. Her name is Marika and she must be about sixteen, although she looks at least twenty. She said almost nothing at the first meeting and she looked more at the floor than at the others. But when we started tô sing she quickly caught the melody and sang without a single mistake, even though her voice sounded – Im not sure how to put it – perhaps ‘wild’ might be the most accurate way to describe it.
I was apprehensive about how the others would take to her, but they treated her with consideration and praised her singing. When we were saying goodbye, young Kodet told her we looked forward to her coming again. I asked her how she felt about being with us and she said: fine.
Something has happened that I find impossible to comprehend or rather to accept. The moment Mrs Musilová walked in the door I became aware of an odd sense of anticipation that had nothing at all to do with the service or my vocation. I watched her sit down and my agitation grew. I said to myself: a black and white butterfly or moth. A death’s head hawk moth. I bought her roses. Out of sympathy or in an effort to attract her attention? Or did I merely want to prove to myself that I could now scatter flowers all around me?
I have never been unfaithful, not in the real physical sense, at least. But unfaithful in spirit? I’ve tried to avoid that too, although I can’t deny there have occasionally been other women I have found attractive. And seductive. There’s Mrs Ivana Pokorná who has been attending our church for more than ten years now. I remember when she first entered the church I was bowled over by her appearance: there was something pure, spiritual and open about her, and the first time I spoke with her I was captivated by her voice.
I never touched her, but for several months I had the impression I was writing my sermon especially for her, and while I was preaching, I kept looking at the place where she was sitting. Worst of all, I had the feeling she found me attractive too, that she spoke differently to me than to other people. It’s possible that someone else in my position would not have resisted. Was it my faith that prevented me? Or my position? Or quite simply the conviction that it would be unfair and mean to deceive Hana? I didn’t try to embrace her, although I did several times in my dreams. I even dreamed of going to bed with her. When I awoke I felt ashamed, as if I had been in control of my own dreams. But then, what do dreams depict, apart from our hidden desires or anxieties?
And then there are day-dreams and the subconscious. A few days ago, when I started to carve the face of a new figure, I was surprised at the form it took. A narrow oblong face with sensuous lips, eyes set far apart, a high, backward-sloping forehead, a nose whose ridge was so straight it reminded me of the Cnidian Aphrodite. (In his Dialogues, Lucian calls this statue, which I only know from reproductions, ‘the expression of perfect beauty.) I was amazed to discover that the face did not resemble the faces of my previous figures; the features were those of the woman architect who had come to seek advice about love and when she left had made such an unusual request: Don’t forsake me!
Eva is oddly dreamy. During our evening singing, she either remains silent or joins in as if her mind was elsewhere. She says she has to study for the leaving exam and indeed every evening when I enter her room she has a textbook open in front of her. But today I noticed that she was on the same page as yesterday.
She wore the sweater I gave her for several days and then stopped wearing it. It occurred to me to ask why. She blushed and said she’d lost it.
Where?
At school. In the gym.
I felt she was concealing something, but then I was ashamed of myself. She wouldn’t do anything like that, would she? And since then we’ve not mentioned it.
Twelve billion light years, Marek said the other day. Does it ever occur to him how unimaginable that expanse of time is compared with the fraction of time we are on this earth? And two thousand years ago, a wonder happened: God sent his only son, part of himself. He delivered himself up to people. So long ago, so recently. A miracle on the scale of the universe or only here on a human scale? But in what proportion to eternity is our dimension? Are we dreaming a dream about God, who is eternal, or are we, on the contrary, his dream and therefore do
not exist at all?
Marek wants to get to the bottom of time. Not through meditation or contemplation, but by means of observation. He and Alois have completed their telescope. It looks like a little anti-tank weapon or bazooka, but the boys are thrilled. Alois just loves model-making. He has several model planes on top of his wardrobe already, along with a model of the Apollo spacecraft. He impresses Marek. Both of them are more interested in things that are connected with matter than with the spirit. It is probably something to do with their age, although I recall that when I was fourteen I was buried in books. I even regarded mountain climbing as something that took one’s mind off material considerations.
I cannot deny Marek’s meditative spirit but at the same time he has a tendency to make snap judgements and he also displays excessive self-confidence. Once when he was barely eight years old I came upon him in the bathroom with a look of concentration on his face holding a watch in his hand. I asked him what he was doing.
He explained to me that he had filled the hand basin with hot water and submerged a glass of cold water in it. Now he was measuring how long it would take for the water in the glass to warm up.
I praised his inquisitiveness and he informed me that as soon as he had calculated it, he would send his results to the newspaper. Why to the newspaper, I was curious to know.
So that everyone should know about it.
I told him that his experiment was admittedly interesting but that the newspapers only wrote about big and important experiments.
But this is a big experiment, he objected. Not everyone’s going to think of it.
More recently he has wavered between astronomy and ecology. He wants to know what I think about nuclear power stations, the hole in the ozone layer and the greenhouse effect. He is of the view that we oughtn’t to buy anything in plastic packaging and that there is no need to have lights on in church. He protested when I told him of my intention to buy a new car.
