by Ivan Klíma
Daniel did not have the feeling that Alois found this answer convincing. It had not convinced him either, although he would probably have given the same answer in Martin’s place. Over the centuries, we have come up with answers that seem to us acceptable even though we are unable to prove their truthfulness.
There were no further questions, so they sang another song, said a prayer and wound up the meeting.
At supper, Hana returned once more to the topic of the talk. Not long ago a young fellow had been admitted to their hospital with burns and wounds that had obviously been caused by flogging. He was said to be the victim of a satanic ritual. The lad was in such pain that they had been obliged to give him morphine, but when they asked him how he came by the injuries he either said nothing or claimed he couldn’t remember.
‘I expect he was doped when it happened,’ Alois suggested as an explanation.
‘Even if he was,’ Martin objected, ‘he is bound to have known where the black mass was held. Also he must have known that if he betrayed it, something even worse could happen to him. The sects don’t generally countenance deserters. That is true not only of religious sects but also of most closed societies, whether it be the secret services or revolutionaries.’
After supper, Marek and Alois wanted to show the guests their telescope through which, they said, Saturn’s rings were visible.
While Martin strove in vain to make out anything at all, Marek commented, ‘If you ask me, you people don’t: really give a toss about science.’
‘Who do you mean by “you people”?’ Daniel asked.
‘When you’re preaching,’ Marek explained. ‘The people that wrote the Bible saw the world differently than we do nowadays.’
‘They knew nothing about the galaxies, for instance?’
‘For instance. And they believed people could be raised from the dead. And that there were evil spirits inside people and you could see angels.’
‘Do you think those are the most important things in the Bible?’
‘If they were wrong about one thing they could be wrong about others.’
‘People have always been wrong about some things. But that doesn’t mean they have been wrong about everything.’
Martin called out, ‘I think I can see Saturn.’
‘They didn’t even know about telescopes in those days,’ Alois added.
‘Alois, a telescope won’t help you to see the truth or God, for that matter.’
‘That was below the belt, Dad,’ Marek said, coming to his friend’s defence.
‘I apologize to you both,’ Daniel said. ‘I simply wanted to suggest that occasionally one may glimpse the essential even without a telescope. Too much clutter can sometimes prevent us from seeing the whole.’
‘Galaxies are not clutter.’
‘Maybe people didn’t have an inkling about galaxies in the past, but it occurred to them nevertheless that man wasn’t necessarily the most important and perfect thing in the entire universe.’
They left the lads to their telescope. Martin said, ‘I know what they mean. We’re too intent on defending the supernatural and fail to realize that there is no acceptable defence as far as they are concerned.’
‘OK,’ Daniel acknowledged. ‘So away with Jesus’s divinity, the resurrection, the Holy Spirit. What’s left? God is supernatural too. Away with the Lord in whose name Jesus preached. But religion without a god is a nonsense. All you’re left with is some – ism. Jesusism, like Buddhism.’
‘The message of love is bound to remain. That’s understood by all. Or almost all.’
Daniel recalled the lady architect who wanted to talk to him about love and was surprised to find the thought of her made him uneasy. ‘Love is the essential thing in life, but there also has to be something above it. Even the Beatles had a message of love,’ he remarked.
‘The Beatles maybe; the church didn’t always have much time for it.’
8
Letters
Dear Reverend,
I have the feeling I didn’t thank you enough for those flowers. I have them on the table in front of me. As I look at them I think to myself what a special person you are. My husband asked who gave them to me. I said: Why you, of course, darling, you’re always bringing me them. It’s just that these days you’re a bit forgetful about what you do. I think that nettled him.
Thank you also for the patient way you listen to the stories from my life and my inane questions. After all, preachers are there to preach not to listen, but you know how to listen and you make an effort to understand the other person. Last time you told me you thought true love could last an entire lifetime. Do you really think so? Is it something you believe in, or something you know for sure? And if it’s something you know, then you’re bound to know what one should do to achieve it. The way I see it, great love can only happen to people who manage to preserve complete freedom. You wrote to me about inner freedom, but what I have in mind is the freedom that we grant each other. It’s not just preserving our own, it’s also not begrudging the other person’s. After all, it’s not possible for a slave and a slave-driver to live together in true love.
It was something I discovered at home when I was small. My mother could never rid herself of the feeling that she owed her life to my father. I’m sure I told you that otherwise the Germans would have packed her off to Auschwitz – and how many survived that? Father was her rescuer and he accepted that role and played it to his lamentable end. I could never stand my mother’s meek servility, I couldn’t even stand my father for that matter, but that servility seems to have wormed its way into me. I can feel how it stifles all the better feelings in my soul, but still I serve my husband exactly the way my mother did my father, and Sam certainly didn’t rescue me from anything, that’s for sure. It’s more likely me who rescues him – from his anxieties, before they totally unhinge him. But at least he’s not like my father in that respect. He’s reliable at his job and in his relations with me. I ought to value that, oughtn’t I? And I do. I used to admire my husband. I considered him to be a remarkable individual, and still do, but that doesn’t mean that I’m nothing, that I’m only here for him, simply a mirror for him to admire himself in.
Tell me, what must one do to preserve the most important things in one’s life? To build them up instead of destroying them? Tell me: Is it at all possible? Why is it that all men – pardon the generalization, but it’s not only my experience – why do they stamp around when they ought to go on tiptoe, strike when they ought to caress and cower when they ought to be offering support?
There, I’ve lumbered you with a pile of things again.
So don’t be cross with me and don’t forsake me.
Yours, Bára M.
Dear Daddy,
I arrived safely. Grandpa and Grandma were waiting at the station for me and as soon as she saw me Grandma cried out: ‘You’re the image of your mother.’ Everything here is as it always was, nothing has changed since I was last here a year ago, apart from me, I suppose, but I don’t see myself, except in that big mirror in the lobby, and luckily it’s too dark there.
On Saturday, I borrowed Grandma’s bike and cycled with Grandpa along the dike around Rožmberk. There are these enormous great oak trees there that must have been planted in the sixteenth century when Krin was Regent. We stopped for a while and sat down underneath one of the oaks and looked at the water. Above it the mayflies hovered and a carp leaped out of it every now and then. Grandpa told me about how they take care of the fish ponds and then about Mummy when she was a little girl. It always makes me happy to hear about Mummy and at the same time I want to cry. I say to myself the way you do: it was God’s will. But immediately it occurs to me: why? Why do some people die young and others are born deaf mute, blind or cruel? Why is there so little justice?
The other day I was walking past the church and I heard someone playing the organ inside. I went in. It was empty, but someone was playing Bach fugues on the organ – in a very special
and beautiful way. There’s no way of describing it because it’s impossible to talk about music. I sat down and listened and had the feeling that life was endless. That’s a silly way to put it. It just struck me that even though I was there on my own, God was with me because He is infinite and He is everywhere, that He finds it worth His while to be. I was curious to know who was playing so marvellously. So I got up and crept up to the organ loft, quietly so as not to be heard. Sitting at the organ was a tiny, grey-haired old lady and she was playing. She didn’t notice I was there at all.
It was lovely of you, Daddy, to take me on that trip before I left. It was really nice and I keep on thinking about it. You’re kind to me, you’re all kind to me and I don’t deserve it. I don’t live the way I ought and even though I got my Cert I know I’m no good at anything and don’t understand anything. How can I repay your kindness?
I always wanted to be like you, to be a bit remarkable in some way, to have faith, hope and love, to be kind to people, to know a little bit of what you know, to be good at something, maybe English, or sums like Marek, or putting together a telescope like Alois, or painting, or writing poems or songs. But I’m even hopeless at the harmonium – you must notice it most of all, except you pretend you don’t because you don’t want to hurt me, because you’ve always been sorry for me on account of Mummy. You always see her in me, but I’m not a bit like her. She was pure and good, I know that from you and from Grandma, whereas I’m …
Something else I want to say to you is that whenever I do something wrong now or in the future, it’s entirely my fault and nobody else’s, certainly not the fault of anyone at home at least, because you’ve always been much nicer to me than I have to you. Grandpa and Grandma send best wishes too.
Love, Eva
Dear Eva,
I’m pleased you’re having a good time at Grandma and Grandpa’s and having a little rest after your ‘hard’ studies. I understand what you meant about justice. Believe me, I’ve often had similar thoughts, even though I know that no one can understand divine dispensation. When your mummy died I was so full of bitterness that I even considered giving up preaching. (When people become bitter, they oughtn’t to preach.)
At that time, it was Emanuel Ràdl who helped me. In his Consolation of Philosophy he came to the realization that Christ brought direct guidance for mankind and that God acts the way that Christ did. He does not force anyone to do anything and so he is perfectly defenceless. He doesn’t do miracles, doesn’t send lightning or floods or plagues against people. He doesn’t punish people in this world, he doesn’t protect the wheat from the weeds that spread all over the field. In other words, to expect God to intervene directly in any matter whatsoever is to wait vainly for a miracle. But if God is a defenceless being, how does he operate in the world? He operates the way Jesus did. He loves people more than we can ever imagine and helps them the way a defenceless person does: by teaching, by guidance, by praise, by example, by rebuke and by admonition. I am not telling you this as a lesson, but to let you know I understand.
But your letter also embarrassed me and worried me in fact. It embarrassed me because you praise me excessively. What worried me was the way you speak about yourself as if you were someone guilty of some great wrong. Your unfinished sentence: ‘Whereas I’m …’ startled me. I don’t know of anything that you’re guilty of, not that that is relevant of course. You’re an adult now and have the right to your secrets. But if you have any, and they’re a burden to you, you might be advised to share them. You know we’d never judge you. We know that it is not the role of people to judge others (Our Lord will judge us one day), but we’d try to understand you or help you somehow, should you need it and want it.
You must believe in yourself more, Evika. After all, you’re only a beginner and no one expects anything from you but a willingness to live a decent life. And you have that. You’ve never done anything to harm any of us, leaving aside minor naughtiness or disobedience. And as far as faith is concerned, that’s a gift for which we must be always grateful, it is a grace that we must ask for again and again. And, as you know, while grace can be refused, it can also be granted at the very last moment of life. And the Lord is good and will never ignore a sincere petition.
I am thinking of you and will continue to, and I’m already missing you. Give my best wishes to Grandma and Grandpa,
Daddy
P.S. Apart from the odd mistake you play the harmonium perfectly, and you know that as well as I, of course. And at the Conservatoire they’ll give you the additional instruction to overcome what you perhaps regard at the moment as your lack of proficiency.
Dear Reverend,
I tried to call you before going off on holiday, but you weren’t at home. I have some interesting news for you. I have managed to discover who had your father ‘in his department’ during the years sixty-three to sixty-eight. It was a certain Captain Bubnik. After the Russian invasion, they kicked him out of the secret police. He earned his living for a while as a taxi driver and then worked as a warehouseman. That suggests to me that he was one of the more decent ones, and were you to approach him, he might tell you something about your father. Capt. Bubnik is now a pensioner but earns some money on the side as a night-watchman for the Gross construction company. I enclose a list of all the necessary addresses and telephone numbers.
I wish you tranquillity and peace of mind during the holidays.
Yours, Dr M. Wagner
Dear Mrs Bára Musilová,
You sent me a nice letter with a number of questions, which I doubt I’ll be able to answer as I don’t want to give a preacher’s answers and I’m not very good at any other kind. You ask not only about love and freedom, but also what we must do to build up our relationships instead of knocking them down.
I share your belief that love is the most important emotion in one’s life; where it is absent, people are in a bad way, while on the other hand, where it is to be found, as Scripture tells us, it covers all offences. But love not only gives, it also makes demands and takes away. If nothing else, it gives the intimacy of a loved one and always takes away some of our freedom. (That also applies to the love of Christ.) These days people mostly choose freely to live together while promising at the same time that they will not freely enter into an intimate relationship with anyone else. In the modern world, that commitment bothers many people and they are not even particularly remorseful when they breach it or betray each other. I’m sometimes amazed at what a high value we set on freedom and how little we value responsibility or our faithfulness to our own promises.
I don’t want you to think I don’t understand what you say about freedom. If one truly loves another then one must not begrudge them their freedom, including the freedom to leave – for good, even. If one knows one may leave, it is easier to remain with another person, because there is no sense of anxiety at having entered a space from which there is no escape, and there is no sense of being a prisoner.
You also want to know what one may do to prevent one’s emotions from dying. It’s hard to give an answer. One cannot see into another’s heart, possibly only He can do that. I think that if one wants things to last one must constantly strive for a place in the life of one’s companion and be for them the best of people. The only thing we have to bind another to us is love and understanding. All other bonds can be broken or feel like shackles.
And remember the words of Karl Barth that I quoted last time. There are boundaries that we will not cross on our own, while on the other hand there are chasms which lure us and can easily swallow us up. I don’t want you to think I’m preaching to you impersonally; I too am confronted by these boundaries and chasms.
Yours sincerely, Daniel V.
Dear Reverend,
Thank you for your beautiful, wise and human letter. I am thinking of you. I would very much like to talk to you. But one cannot have everything. That’s a precept I have to keep repeating over and over again, because I want to have almost everything. So f
ar, I have almost always managed to obtain it, but I realize that I have to pay for this covetousness, by my services, work and good deeds. Thus I take care of my husband and fulfil his every wish. I comfort him when he is anxious, praise him when he doubts himself for a moment, I attend on him, I put up with his groundless fits of jealousy. I act as his wife, his secretary, his skivvy, and his nurse. And for what? To earn the right to spend a little time with my kind of people. How ludicrously tiresome: always wanting to earn something. I’m tired of all this ‘earning’ and would like something for nothing too: for no good reason, just for the fun of it, just for being me. I’d like time – time that doesn’t rush madly away, the time and the freedom to make up to you for finding time for me, and to have the chance of taking up some more of your time maybe. Though I know that’s something I can’t expect, that I have no right to.
I don’t know what I’m to do, don’t know how to seek the truth, don’t know how to manage to do all the things I want to do and I’m scared of time that keeps giving me menacing reminders. And I don’t want to race through life, I want to live it: decently, properly, in love and kindness and hope. That’s why I came to hear you preach, to hear what you would say about it.
I’d like to write something personal, but I am shy to put it down on a piece of paper that will go through the post. So instead I heap all my pitiful little anxieties on to you. One of the reasons I do so is to let you know I’m not cold, that I feel things: both pain and kindness, that I’m capable of being grateful for every kind word. I also want you to know that I can be happy too. Nowadays, the only time I’m happy is when I realize that you are there and that I might get to see you from time to time. I think about you, about how you spend your days, what you may be doing, what you may be thinking about, what is going on in your soul, because you have a soul, a beautiful one. You also have a kind and good heart and try to give so much with all of it.
