by Ivan Klíma
‘You see, Dad, we think – he thinks,’ she corrected herself, ‘that you’d most likely start to talk him out of it.’
‘I expect I would.’ It struck him that Petr’s experience of life had taught him how to speak in different situations in a way that gained him attention, recognition or even admiration.
‘But something has really happened to him, Daddy. If only you could hear the way he talks about the way he used to live and how he has changed. Everyone listened to him with excitement. And at the end they asked him to say a prayer for everyone. And the way he prayed gave us all the shivers.’
‘That’s fine. So long as he prays sincerely, it’s all right.’
‘How else would he pray?’
‘People can pray for all sorts of reasons, but I don’t want to suspect him of anything.’
‘He’s interested in everything he’s not experienced so far. He’d like to hear the Adventists and the Jehovah’s Witnesses’
‘And you’d go with him?’
She shrugged. ‘Surely there’s nothing wrong with us wanting to know what other people believe, is there?’
‘No, of course not.’ Then he asked: ‘Do you fancy Petr?’
She blushed and shook her head violently. ‘It’s not like that. I just find there’s something special about him. He’s completely different from the other boys.’
‘That’s for sure. Just think it over carefully, before falling in love with him.’
As if something like that could be thought over carefully.
6
Bára
Bára feels an unexpected flood of happiness. Samuel has gone off to Moravia for one of his business deals and is staying there overnight, so she has the whole evening free. She packed Samuel’s overnight case, forgetting nothing, not even a single jar of tablets, and then accompanied her husband to the car. She hugged and kissed him, Samuel started the car and she finally waved him goodbye before going to phone her old college friend Helena and arranging to see her that evening. She takes Aleš over to her mother’s, finishes a set design for a television adaptation of an Italian comedy – it’s interesting how easy she finds the work when there’s no one around clamouring for her attention.
Towards evening, she quickly gets dressed, putting on a white blouse and a long dark-green skirt – the colour goes well with her hair. She ties up her hair, which hangs halfway down her back, with a black ribbon, applies a bit of eye make-up, dons a straw hat, and sets off for town.
She is not due to meet Helena for another hour. She takes the bus to Dejvice and then the metro to the Small Quarter. She walks along Wallenstein Street and across Wallenstein Square. Everywhere teems with tourists, but she doesn’t notice them. She notes with satisfaction that several houses in Thomas Street have been recently done up: the city of her birth is donning new clothes.
Then she walks up Neruda Street and on up as far as the Castle, where she notices she is already out of breath – she ought to cut down on her smoking, it’s an awful habit. She then leans on the low stone wall that forms the eastern side of Hradany Square and gazes at the city below. She is overcome with a spirit of generosity: she forgives those who have disfigured the city with the prefabricated grey of human rabbit coops, she forgives her husband who contributed several degenerate architectural monstrosities towards the general devastation, and it occurs to her that the beauty of her city as it was built up layer by layer over the centuries cannot be banished; maybe only a nuclear catastrophe could destroy it.
When at last she turns away from this elevated spectacle, she notices to her surprise that the telephone booth on the square is empty. She is seized by a sudden longing for an amorous conversation. She has lived so long without real love and has really experienced so little of it in her life. She goes over to the phone booth. She remembers the number although she has only called it once – she was a long time making up her mind on that occasion.
The minister’s wife answers the phone, of course. Bára could hang up without saying anything or she could say that she wanted to speak to the minister, but instead she asks, ‘Is that the television centre?’
‘No, this is a Protestant manse.’
‘That’s silly. I need the television centre.’
‘I expect you dialled the wrong number.’
‘But this is the one they gave me!’ And she gives the number of the manse. She has to repeat it three times before the woman, whom she only knows from sight at the church, concludes, ‘They must have given you the wrong number.’
‘It’s so silly. I’m calling from a phone booth and there’s no telephone directory. You wouldn’t happen to know the number of the television centre, would you?’
That kind woman tells her to hold on a moment so that she can have a look in the directory, and Bára finally hangs up.
Half an hour later she is sitting with Helena at a small table in front of the Loreto and sipping something that purports to be vintage wine.
Helena is her age but looks older, having become stout and maternal although she only has one daughter. She has also held on to her first husband, some kind of civil engineer, who is in no way remarkable but earns good money at least.
For a while they chat about their husbands, trying to work out which of them is less self-reliant and more dependent on his wife and they come to the conclusion that those mummy’s boys would most likely perish if their wives abandoned them. Bára complains that her husband increasingly neglects her, substituting conversation for sex and severity for tenderness. She only needs to arrive home half an hour later than he expects and he is already threatening to divorce her. Her friend reassures her that it’s only talk. Bára is well aware of that, of course. Without her, Samuel would expire from one of his fifty ailments – his eternal migraines, the cramps in his intestines, his muscles, his gall bladder and his kidneys. His painful heart would have beaten its last long ago and he would most likely have taken an overdose or shot himself in one of his fits of total angst-ridden hopelessness. She is the one who keeps him alive, but why should she have to suffer for it beneath the lash of that slave-driver’s nagging tongue?
Leave him then?
She can’t leave him. She couldn’t do that to her little mummy’s boy. Nor could she deprive her real child of his home and his dad. She had done it once already and discovered that a new dad never becomes a real father. Poor Saša had already paid dearly for it.
When they have finished the bottle, they get up and set off in the direction of Střešovice. At Ořechovka, they come upon a little wine bar, where they order themselves a tasty snack and just a bottle of ordinary Frankovka this time.
Helena says that her silly ass of a husband doesn’t nag. Instead he snivels and is sorry for himself. Sometimes he clears out and tries to get drunk on Smĺchov light beer, but he never manages to. He just spends the night running out to piss and the next morning his poor old head aches.
Bára still feels happy. She has a whole free night ahead of her. As she puffs away, she tells her friend all about the pastor who doesn’t even know how attractive he looks as he declaims about love from the pulpit. He speaks about the love of Jesus, who wants to forgive and free people from the realm of death, while he obviously longs for ordinary human love. Those lofty phrases are just sublimated desire.
Helena wants to know if they have kissed yet. Bára says only once when they were saying goodbye, and gives the impression they have said goodbye more than once. ‘But he’s as shy as a little boy and has certain prejudices that such things are not done when the man and the woman are both married – that it is against God’s commandments. All the same I get the feeling he is a good lover.’
Bára has aroused her companion’s interest. ‘It’s his vocation that turns you on, isn’t it?’
Bára admits this. ‘And there’s something about him; something totally out of the ordinary.’
‘It always feels that way at the beginning.’
‘No, not always. Almost never. Mos
t of the time it’s obvious at the outset that it’ll be the same.’ Bára bursts out laughing and then gets up and goes out into the passage. There she notices a public telephone.
This time the pastor himself answers the phone. Maybe his wife is already asleep. ‘Daniel,’ Bára says in a disguised voice, ‘I love you.’
For a moment there is silence at the other end. Then the minister asks who is calling.
‘Me, of course, Daniel. Don’t you recognize me? That’s a pity. I’m really sorry you don’t recognize me.’ Then she hangs up. She regrets she can’t be with that man now, the one whose passion she senses, the one she suspects is a good lover.
When they leave the wine bar, they are both light-headed and jolly. They are not quite sure where they might go now and return to Pohořelec where, in front of the statue of Tycho de Brahe and Kepler, they catch sight of a large nocturnal gathering of tourists. The Germans are either drunk or lost or homesick. Bára cannot fathom how anyone could be homesick for Nuremberg or Hanover in the most beautiful city in the world and decides to raise their spirits a bit. She leans against the plinth of the statue and sings Rusalka’s aria to the moon. She sings faultlessly, and astonishingly enough, even out here in the open, her voice sounds loud. When she finishes she passes her straw hat to Helena who does the rounds of the enlivened tourists who richly reward this unexpected experience.
When they turn the corner the two of them laugh long and loud and determine to give the money collected to the Bosnian refugees.
Helena suggests that they might still go back to her flat, as she lives on a housing estate not far away. Bára wants to know what her husband would say, but Helena assures her that he will have fallen asleep long ago and nothing will wake him.
It is already well past midnight when the taxi drops them right in front of the tower block on the seventh floor of which Helena’s flat is located. The lift doesn’t work so they both walk up the staircase. Bára is quite out of breath but looks forward to the view from the top. From Helena’s room there is a good view of Prague, and a panorama of Hradany all lit up. Bára goes over to the window, draws aside the curtain and gazes at the city which flickers in the mistiness of the small hours. Helena fetches a bottle of Frankovka from the larder and is pouring some into glasses. But Bára doesn’t feel like drinking any more, besides which she is afraid of someone bursting into the room and spoiling the rest of the night. She would sooner look at the city, but feels that she is not high enough here, that the surrounding buildings block the view. What if they climbed up to the roof? If her memory serves her right, this type of building has a flat, tiled roof with access.
Helena agrees; there is a bench up there for them to sunbathe on. Marvellous – they’ll sunbathe then. So they run up the remaining five staircases, Helena unlocks the iron door and they climb out on the roof. The moon up above them is just one day off being full and the roof is bathed in pale moonlight.
Helena goes over to the bench, but it is still not high enough. The terrace is surrounded on all sides by a waist-high concrete wall in place of a balcony. It is wide enough to climb on to. Bára suggests to Helena that they do so, but her friend is afraid. Beyond the wall looms a chasm and the twelve-storey drop frightens her. Admittedly, Bára has no head for heights, but at this moment it does not deter her – she must climb higher and higher. The moment one stops one’s fall really begins.
She grips the wall and swings up on to it. She staggers momentarily but quickly regains her balance. ‘Look at the city, rocking like a ship, and those lights above the water. You can keep your Venice and your Amsterdam, this is the most beautiful port in the world.’
‘You’re like a statue,’ her friend comments admiringly. A pity I didn’t bring my camera. But if you wait there I’ll go and fetch it.’
‘I won’t!’ Bára decides to walk all the way round along the wall. She stretches her arms out to the side like a tightrope walker and balances forward.
‘Really like a ship, I can feel it rocking.’ Helena prefers to sit down on the bench. ‘I think I’m becoming sea-sick,’ she announces and laughs at the thought of getting sea-sickness up here. Then she glances at Bára slowly tottering forward and advises her, ‘Come down before you fall down.’ But Bára laughs. ‘But I have wings!’ And indeed she has, for she can feel love entering her and love will give her wings, won’t it? She reaches the end of the wall, and stops at the very edge, suddenly aware of the chasm before her and around her.
‘I can’t go on,’ she complains. ‘They’ve dug a hole in my way’.
‘Come back, then!’
‘How?’
‘Turn round!’
‘I can’t turn round, the hole is all around me’ Bára stands motionless above the abyss, her legs suddenly turn to jelly and she knows she won’t manage to turn round and therefore won’t be able to return. She will remain standing here until the moment when suddenly an enormous wave rolls in and sets the vessels rocking, and her jelly legs will give way and she will tumble into the depths. She senses the waves breaking on the side of the ship; in a few moments, maybe, it will happen. She feels the floor rocking, she won’t hold on much longer.
‘Hold on, I’ll go and fetch my civil engineer. He’ll get you down.’
‘Don’t go anywhere!’
‘Hold on, then, for heaven’s sake!’ Her friend calls to her from some distant shore and gets up from the bench on the dockside, but she is starting to stagger. ‘Here comes the sea-sickness now, at last,’ and instead of going to Bára, she heads for the harbour wall. She vomits.
Bára stands alone on the very edge. All of a sudden she feels like crying because she is standing here all alone, and nobody will come to help her. She would like to call out, Daddy! But her father is filling out his betting forms somewhere, or playing cards, or sitting at home with his feet up on the table staring at television. He doesn’t care that his younger daughter has cut her wrists on his account and is now once more standing above the abyss, he doesn’t care, because he skived off into the grave long ago, and even if he did manage to claw his way out of that grave he wouldn’t come, he never did come when she needed him. The only one who ever came was her mummy, but her mummy is seventy-seven and she can’t come, the lift’s not working and she’d never climb up those twelve floors. Samuel won’t come either; he’s working hard on his career somewhere far away. She would come, though, if it was him that was standing here, and she’d lift him down and bandage the cuts on his wrists and then comfort her poor little mummy’s boy.
‘You look like the statue of Aphrodite,’ Helena calls to her from afar, ‘just like a statue standing there. Now I know what’s missing here: statues of Aphrodite and Hephaestus.’ She vomits again.
And at that moment Bára remembers the pastor who looked at her in such a kind and shy way. He’d come, he’d be bound to come if she called him, because he already loves her, even though he hasn’t allowed the idea to enter his head yet. And Bára suddenly feels relieved and is able to move once more. She turns towards the terrace and jumps down on to the tiles.
Helena says: ‘You were beautiful. You looked just like the goddess of beauty.’
‘I know I’m more beautiful than any goddess,’ Bára says and bursts out laughing.
7
Daniel invited his friend Martin Hájek to speak to the young people of his congregation about sects. It was a topic that Martin had been studying for a long time. Why was it that people often found nonsensical ideas more attractive than the teachings of the church? Was it because the church was in a rut, that it wasn’t looking for new ways of speaking to people, or perhaps that it had nothing to say?
Martin spoke first about each of the different sects and then tried to identify what they had in common. Most people wanted to feel they shared in some sort of exclusive destiny, that their particular faith marked them out from other mortals. They wanted to believe that in addition to the Saviour, who was long dead, they had found a new saviour, one who was alive, powe
rful, charismatic, and that he would lead them to what they yearned for; he would negotiate their journey to the heavenly kingdom and guide them along the path that would ensure them salvation and eternal life. Often such people would fall for simple-minded tricks and be taken in by confidence tricksters; they would be willing to give up their property and even their own minds, to leave their nearest and dearest and entrust their lives to the one they venerated. All the same, it had to be said that their experience was often both genuine and mystical, and possibly more profound than the experience of most Christians. What was typical for sects, therefore, was that they had a prophet who was unique among all the exponents of Christian scripture or any other holy book, and that the sect’s members believed that the world would be transformed or end now, and not in some indefinite future. Some preached asceticism, others loose behaviour, some a life of love, others a life of hate. Some espoused exclusivity while others, on the contrary, believed they would become the one universal community. In none of the cases did they entertain any doubts about their path being the correct one.
Daniel regretted that Petr had not come. It was particularly on his account that he had invited Martin. On account of Petr and Eva. Admittedly, Eva was sitting here, but her thoughts seemed to be elsewhere. On the other hand, Marek and Alois, who had both come – as Marek had confided to him – because they found the topic ‘really interesting’, would whisper to each other every now and then during the talk.
When Martin finished and asked for questions, a customary silence ensued, and then Alois, who, if he attended such meetings was always silent, surprisingly raised his hand. Marek had probably egged him on.
What was the difference between the sects and the early church? In those days people had also believed in a miraculous Saviour. They also gave up their property and regarded their faith as the only right one, even though they were persecuted for it.
Martin conceded that every religion arose out of nothing, as it were, in that some chosen person heard God’s voice and answered his call. At first glance, the similarities were striking, particularly as regards those who received a call and whose longing for faith, change, comfort and hope often blinded them. But when all was said and done, with a bit of effort we were able to distinguish the voice of the truly chosen from the voice of the charlatan who arrogantly convinces himself and others that he is the one and only infallible exponent of Scripture, the point being that he always chooses just the part of the message that suits his ends.
